flavours of the night [the descendants] day 2

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

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Ace is the one to shine the brightest light in the shadow. Their glaive finally ends this torment and now we are freed for just a moment. I can still hear the fading whispers in my ears, it sends shivers across every hair follicle on my body, what a devilish creature it was. Forged by the hands of demons also known as gamemakers…

”That was not pleasant at all.” I say while inspecting the newly grown claws on each of my fingers. Is this another trick of the arena? The crossbow strapped to my back seems redundant now that I have claimed my very own collection of blades. This is definitely not how I would like to finally greet Ripred with my own hand, hopefully this is not a permanent side effect, I just need to sleep it off.

Except the arena is already ready to deliver gifts, a prize for surviving the first battle. The parachute’s package is marked with a number eight, and it drops perfectly at my feet. I drop my buttocks to the moist earth, slashing at the brown paper packaging.

You will not complain about the smell of these Nicoli! Enjoy the multipack of scented candles sponsored by Wanda Welling’s Wax Melts Company. Inside the tin is a collection of small candles, all ten of them are a different colour to the next. ”What use is this to my survival? Look at this you two, they have sent me candles of all things!”

Each candle is marked with a different name, likely describing the scent. I pick up each one, taking in the scent. There is another card with text at the bottom of the tin…

”There are so many, a Cinnamon Stick one…now this is strong!

Vanilla Cupcake, oh this is nice and sweet…Black Cherry, I can taste the smell at the back of my throat!

This one smells like a laundry room…Clean Linen! Lemon Lavender, oh that is a pretty sour smell!

Fresh Cut Roses! I have smelt this before in my time. Coal…that is a bit dull. Pumpkin Spice now that is nice.

Ooh lovely Oranges and the Tropical Fruits of the Forest to finish it off.” I flip the card around, there are a lot of words that I am definitely not going to read out. ”Have I just read aloud an advertisement? I am not free marketing!”

The other two have clearly lost interest in my gifts and ad placement, they are both stood by the edge of the lake and there are murmurs of dipping a toe in. ”I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” I shout across to them as I place each individual candle on the ground around me. At least this apparatus will make for good prayer equipment.

With the flint that came with the package, I light each candle while observing my delinquent allies from afar. It seems the pair of them will be the subject of my prayers today…

[Cait]

My blade finally makes solid contact, ending the torment of the night, but I don’t feel relief. My nerve endings are lit with a fuse, perpetually on edge and not quite believing that the danger has fully passed. None of this feels real.

My bones ache and my teeth hurt and there’s a new, permanent ringing in my left ear. My hand touches the lobe, only to come away sticky with blood. I want to find a quiet corner and sob for a while, cursing the injustice of the world as a form of catharsis, just to rid myself of the blackness slowly settling in my veins.

Fenrir is as beaten down as me, blood dripping from a wound on his throat. Somehow, frustratingly, he doesn’t look quite so shaken up, and that feels like I’m letting the team down. Some Career I make.

It’s decided: I won’t be the first one of us to cry.

I distract myself instead, slashing at the water with my scythe as the mist dissipates. The lake is sluggish in its motions, taunting in its easy-going manner. Barely phased by the war we’ve just endured, and that makes me angrier than ever.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a small parachute drifting towards Nicoli. Intrigued and hopeful, I approach him as he unwraps the box, only to be met with his disapproval as the contents come into view.

“Look at this you two, they have sent me candles of all things!”

In spite of myself I still manage to laugh, but it sounds like a strangled cry. Dread clutches at my heart in the moment my brain registers the distorted sound my own body makes. The whole world sounds muted, dulled. The way it would sound if you were screaming underwater.

Would screaming underwater still sound the same now?

The lake looks as inviting as ever, all of a sudden. I approach the edge of the bank, tiptoeing the fine line between earth and water, wet and dry. Wondering which will make my body feel whole again.

“What happened?!”

Fenrir’s voice is barely a whisper next to my left ear, and I start shaking at that, because I know he all but screamed the words at me. I feel the urgency in the way he clutches my face and pulls me towards him to inspect the wound.

I told myself already I wouldn’t cry, but it’s really fucking hard not to right now. I pull my face away from Fenrir’s grip, shake my head at the ground and try not to be too fucking sad about it.

“I’m no worse off than you,” I reply, eyeing the cut on his neck which is definitely the more pressing of our two injuries. Severed nerve endings don’t seem as much of a priority as a literal slit throat.

My toes creep further forward, pulled towards the placid water, Nicoli’s rambling becoming softer and softer all the while.

“Do you think the lake has healing powers too?”

I don’t even wait for Fenrir’s response – can barely hear what he yells out after me – before plunging myself into the icy water, submerging myself fully in its depths. The coolness caresses my body, almost lovingly, and I feel nothing at all for the first time since entering the Arena. The lake sighs in response, relieved, telling me I’m right where I’m supposed to be: yes, this is where you belong.

table by dars!

actions:
-swim in lake / collect water and drink / heal / smell the candles

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

The lake sinks into you.

It's very cold. It feels like a ripple across still water. Memories come in waves. You see the sparrow on your balcony, the elm tree and the carrion birds. You see the wanderer in the tall grass and Hela's feathered arrow in her back.

And it goes deeper still, the body of the shadow dripping into the depths of your mind, soft and slow and steady.

Carefully, it cradles a memory from years ago, lays it gently before you.

You don't want to remember this.

"Get out," you can barely speak.

There is nothing holding you down. There's not the coolness of water. It's an absence of anything, wrapped around your neck. It feels so old. It feels endless, like a hand from before the time of Ymir.

This is what Ginnungagap is, you think,

empty.

Your vision flickers briefly.

A sharp cry ruptures through the hum of the lake. The sound slices through the a hundred voice that holds your memory, the mouth that squeezes your neck.

The air hits your lungs with such sudden force, you double over, coughing, limbs twitching. Your body remembers how to breathe. Your mouth tastes of blood. The cut on your neck weeps, soaking your collar as you gasp for air, dripping to the ground below you. A dull pain radiates from your chest.

The mist dissipates back into the lake. Nicoli reaches for a parachute floating lazily down from the sky, spoils for the victors, and Ace –

You turn to them. They stand at the edge of the water, wearing gore, wearing the same look you remember from the night on the roof, perched on the beam as if a bird before flight. The wind blows through their hair.

The earth moves, pulls you to them. You have their face in your hands, turning their chin to see the wound. Blood is caked to the side of their face, a butchered hole where an ear should be, the skin raw and mangled. Your chest clenches with a sharp inhale. It's an injury that should have killed.

"What happened?" It's painful. Your neck feels burned, crushed, a pain that makes you clench your jaw.

Their eyes are wide. You can feel them trembling underneath your touch. There's a breaking and a rebuilding, a breaking and rebuilding beneath, somewhere buried under the bones. You know it well. Your hands soften slightly.

With the easing of your grip, they tear away from you, shrugging you off. "I'm no worse off than you." You touch the the deep cut on your neck. There's the skin, the chasm, and skin again. The feeling of death does not leave you. The cold feeling lives in your throat.

You look away.

"It's nothing."

Nicoli lights the candles on the pebbled bank of the lake. There's the smell of something sweet and lemony, something earthy and decaying in the undertones. It's like home. It's the smell of the altar, the fruits, the flesh, the smoke. You watch him kneel before the circle of fire. It's a ritual.

For you, there is no such thing as prayer without sacrifice. You have never asked the Gods to hear you without offering. Blood is the tether, and all else is empty.

You turn to the still lake again, smooth like a pane of glass, a beast slumbering. You have a hand pressed against the wound dripping from your abdomen, seeping between your fingers.

How can you make a lake bleed?

"Do you think the lake has healing powers too?"

Ace is three steps ahead, and they're at the edge, and then they're wading in, falling, disappearing beneath the surface.

You learn that Ace is more than just reckless. They're a loose cannon, somehow determined to do anything that spits in the face of survival. You almost want to laugh with disbelief, the surprise turning into a jolt of realization, and then into vicious rage.

You drop your axe, drop into the lake after them.

The water is so cold, it's numbing. You plunge underneath the surface, reach for Ace, drag them up by the arm. The wound on your neck reopens with a fresh flood, blood and water dripping from your skin. The harshness of he cold air hardens you, lips pulled back into a snarl.

"Do you want to die?"

table by pogue

acts in maint