dropping like flies {bards day 3}

[k!ah]

The sky had been empty of faces last night, a grim threat of the bloodshed still to come. It had made me nervous to see not one face, because even though I was one day closer to the end, there was still too many bodies blocking my exit.

Cachi, surprisingly, had been rather quiet last night. Keeping to himself as I stitched up my face, trying to push down my vanity at the brutishness of the scar I was undoubtedly creating. I had never been much of a sewer, hell I never even took textile in school because what was the point? I was the model not the designer.

The night had been cold, making sleep next to impossible, so when Cachi broke out into song and dance as the sun began its climb into the morning sky, it fuelled my sour mood. "Oi shut the fuck up! You're going to wake the whole arena!" I hissed, squatting down I scoop up a couple small stones, tossing one at his head, "your going to give away our location and get us all killed!"

He ignores me, of course.

"And she’s got a face to kill

And a voice that’s so shrill

That she makes my ears bleed

Oh!" 

He sings, poking the bear.

"Cachi! I swear to ripred I will rip your tongue from your-"

"She’ll cut you in half

If you dare to even laugh

Because she has no fun

Yeah, yeah, Cordeeeeeelia"

I throw my remaining stone at him, looking to alpha for help. "You grab him, I'll gag him-"

Cachi skips out of reach, strumming his lute, but a sound to my right draws my attention, my hand clutching the hilt of my sword that was tucked into the waitband of my belt. "Did you hear-"

"THANK YOU HUNGER GAMES ARENA, YOU’VE BEEN GREAT!” Cachi howls and a muscle in my jaw twitches, my gaze focused on the gap in the tree's a little further up, but my anger focused on the baboon behind me.

"There's something out there," I mutter to alpha a moment before two figures appear. Cachi wastes no time, pushing past me strumming a few more notes on his lute, grinning like we were a bunch of old friends meeting to have a picnic, not a few strangers about to decide whether or not to try and kill each other now, or maybe later.

Cachi asks if they wanted an encore, and I roll my eyes as I pull my sword from its sheath. A moment later Cachi does the same, finally putting away his stupid lute (I was ready to break it over his head) and arming himself with his blade. “All right ladies, I know you want me to defend you so it’s only the gentlemanly thing to do,” my eyes rolling again, but I don't stop him as he sizes up his targets. But yet he doesn't strike, his mouth flapping once again.

"Just hit one of them already," I groan, cleaning some dirt from the edge of my blade. I was no stranger to being told I never knew when to shut up, but Cachi was on a whole new level. Yap yap yap yap yap, it was like he didn't have an off button. Well, he did, it would be a blue through the heart. But now wasn't the right time. I still needed my noisey guard dog.

Finally he moves, his blade striking the boy from Six, I think, hard. Finally. I move to follow him, but suddenly the scrawny kid moves, I had expected his spear to be aimed at Cachi, and move to block him, but he aims for Alpha, his spear piercing her neck. He had been to close, his movements to fast, and Alpha's reflex's too slow. "No!" I whisper, watching as he rips the spear from her throat, blood dribbling down her chin as she chokes on her own blood, her body collapsing in on itself. "No!"

Fuck!

I hesitate for a moment, quickly trying to play out the variety of different ways this situation could end. Finally I decide on backing away, sheathing my sword and grabbing Cachi by the arm. "I'm sorry," I mutter to Alpha, the sounds of her choking breathes becoming quiet. "I'm sorry, but we have to go." I whisper once again, her canon echoing through the tree tops. "We're leaving," I say louder, as I studied the two tributes with a steady gaze.

"Let's go," I say to Cachi, my eyes lingering on Alpha's still body for another moment before half dragging him away from the tributes and Alpha's body.

It seems that they were stuck with each other.

For now, anyways.

Search mechanic roll:
bWK5BLyG7U1-6

1-6

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

*

I couldn’t hear over the thumping of my heart in my eyes. Cor trailed ahead of me, her leading away from Alpha’s corpse and whatever the two boys had planned. Though from the looks of things, six hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place. Cor had probably been right, though. No use sticking around to see them pick up Alpha’s body. They wanted us to act as though they wouldn’t drop the forcefield and carry her body to some morgue to freeze until all this was over. That’d take away from all the glamor of the games to think about us all in little freezes in the basement somewhere.

At least we hadn’t spilled our guts out to one another. Okay – so, maybe it was my fault that they had found us from all my singing. And maybe I had not been paying attention to Tex getting ready to hop, skip, and leap his way to Alpha, which gave him the opening to stab her right in the neck.

But wasn’t she a career? Wasn’t she supposed to have been taught how to be on guard since the time she was out of diapers? How the hell did she get speared in the neck and I got to walk around for a third day?

The betting markets were going to crash tomorrow, weren’t they?

Worst of all, that meant I was stuck with probably the one person who hated me more than anyone else in this arena. And truth be told I wasn’t keen on her either.

If I left her now, maybe I could go it alone. I did have a little picnic that I could eat, and a little sip of water, too. I’d proven I didn’t miss so much with my sword. Hell, I bet I had at least a couple more days on my own if I really put my mind to it.

Yet looking at her big fat head and the way she stomped her stupid feet, somehow, ol’ Cordelia pulled me back in again.

That’s not fucking true, and I hope you know it. I just didn’t want to die alone, even if it meant getting dragged along by the ice princess herself.

“Cor,” My voice soft, I made sure that I wasn’t giving away our spot, “It’s really important. I have something I wanted to ask you.”

I stopped, hands at my sides. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.

“What did the man say after getting decapitated?” I grinned. “So… no head then?”

Come on!!! Like this whole place didn’t need someone to lighten the fucking mood.

“Didja hear me? I said, ‘so no head then?’” I leaned forward, the grin spreading tighter across my face.

[k!ah]

I don't wait to see if Cachi follows as I turn to leave, the last remnants of Alpha's cannon echoing out of existence. I was eager to put as much distance between myself and Alpha's body. Except for watching Carly shove her blade through that crazy bitches heart, this was the first death I had really witnessed. The first body I have really ever seen- except if you count some of my dead relatives. But I don't know if they really count because they were filthy rich, and their coffins were bedazzled with jewels and silver and gold and they looked somewhat peaceful tucked safely in their eternal bed of silk.

There was brutality in Alpha's death, the awkward position of her body, her wide lifeless eyes and the blood! There was so much blood. Each time I blinked I saw her face, her disfigured throat, her wide accusatory eyes. In the academy the term death is thrown around so quickly, so often that I thought that if I was ever to become a tribute I would be somewhat desensitised to it. Like it wouldn't effect me, like I was prepared... Like I would be able to shrug it off like a hideous cardigan and forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it didn't seem to matter how much distance I put between me and Alpha's body, I just couldn't shake her.

“Cor." Cachi's voice pulls me from my thoughts. I had almost forgotten that he was there. Almost. He speaks softly, with an urgency that has me stopping, hand resting on the hilt of my sword, my whole body alert and on edge. “It’s really important. I have something I wanted to ask you.” It was the first time I had seen him look serious, like the events from early, the reality of our situations, may have finally set in.

But then he grins.

And I glare.

“What did the man say after getting decapitated?”

He can't be fucking serious.

He was.

"So… no head then?”

Rage and frustration and annoyance at him and myself and fucking Alpha, for leaving me with him, surges within me. I was furious with him for giving us away early today, for singing at the top of his lungs and strumming away at that stupid lute. I was frustrated with myself because I allowed him to get under my skin, so fucking easily. I was annoyed because he made me feel like I was an ice cold, boring, serious, raging bitch. And I was not boring. I knew how to have a good time.

But there was a time and a place.

And this was not the place to get complacent, to not take life too seriously, because that got you killed. Just ask Alpha.

“Didja hear me? I said, ‘so no head then?’”

Taking another deep breath I give a small dark laugh, flicking my hair over my shoulder. "Wow, Cachi, you are just so damn hilarious. I think that maybe I should be more like you, right? Thats what you're thinking. Let my hair down. Have a laugh, make jokes about my penis and fucking." I step closer, "is that what you want from me?"

Another canon booms across the arena, but my eyes don't leave Cachi's. He didn't have to put up with me. "If you can't handle it- me- then leave," but as soon as the words are out of my lips I regret them. Because if he left I would be alone. And I as much as he annoyed me, he was a distraction. A distraction I needed because I was not sure how I would handling doing this alone. And even though I would never admit it to him in so many words, I needed him. I needed his stupid jokes. I needed his stupids songs. I just needed him to stay more than I wanted him to leave.

The emotions that stormed within me begin to taper, my face softening slightly. "I didn't mean that," I sigh, in an effort to not push him further away. "I want you to stay," I whisper so quietly that I wasn't sure he was able to hear me, this time unable to hold his gaze. Maybe it couldn't hurt for me to be a little kinder. To break down the wall that I had built between us from the moment I had meet him, after all in this arena, he was all I had left.