last night; when we were young [dctd/tocco/cfc; day 3]

[Cait]

“Do you want to die?”

It was the question that kept me awake last night. That, and the threat of another attack from the shadows, of course. But it was also Fenrir’s fury, aimed sharply at me, that made me hastily accept the majority of the night watch shift. The worst part was trying to ignore Fenrir’s intermittent staring, making sure I didn’t do anything reckless to get us killed during the night.

Do I want to die? No, I don’t think so, but I probably will, ‘cause I don’t know how to live properly. The way I’m supposed to. There’s always something to fuck up, and all of my actions have consequences – this I know. But in here, they affect more than just myself. When Fenrir jumped into the lake after me, I immediately tasted his blood in the water, the fresh clots washed away as his wounds reopened in the biting cold. His iron tasted like guilt – sobering and sour, curdling in my stomach swiftly.

Safe to say, we didn’t stay in the lake for long after that.

After Fenrir had wrangled me out of the water and shaken himself dry as best as he could, we sat down near Nicoli on opposite sides of the bank and listened to his prayers. The ritual of protection, as he called it. Not that I think it makes any difference to our fates. Repeated chants and placing faith in a higher being are not things I’m familiar with. Fate comes for us, cruel and unforgiving, no matter who we decide to pray to, how we fill our days.

But who knows. Maybe that’s the type of thinking that will get me killed sooner rather than later. Maybe Nicoli knows something I don’t.

Or maybe we’re all just doomed no matter what.

But I didn’t voice my thoughts – managed to bite my tongue for once – because Nicoli had looked too peaceful, caught up in the words spilling from his lips. Even Fenrir’s face softened slightly as I watched him be transported to another place – somewhere familiar, somewhere safer. I was envious of their peace, at their ability to find a way to bring some piece of home with them.

Do I want to die? No, not in here. Not on unfamiliar plains surrounded by people I’ll never relate to. The hope of surviving long enough to die somewhere dignified is what keeps me moving this morning, despite the aching all throughout my body and the insatiable, inhumane hunger gnawing at my stomach. It’s clear that we have become monsters – or at least, what the Capitol’s ideas of monsters are. Vampires and werewolves alike, we make a strange group as we approach a vacant cave, Nicoli at the head of our pack. But relief quickly turns to dread as my new, heightened senses taste the air.

Everything smells of stale blood.

Something feels wrong.

Do I want to die? No, but this place makes me think that bleeding horizon is closer than we know.

“I know it sounds stupid, but I think we should find somewhere else to rest.” Call it a sixth sense, call it unnecessary worry, call it whatever you want. But I know my instincts. I know the feeling of burning adrenaline pushing you to make a spontaneous call based purely on a feeling. I’ve lived with a fucked up frontal lobe long enough to survive this far. Why stop listening to it now?

I’m turning to face Nicoli and pull him back out of the cave when the light at the entrance disappears, and the air becomes fiercely cold.

Company.

Shit.

Fenrir notices the newcomers a split second before I do, and my eyes widen in horror at the lazy smile creeping across his face. It’s the same expression he wore when the red shadow eyes approached yesterday and, well… look how well that went for us.

“We should go…”

But that’s not really an option, is it? Not when Fenrir is already moving towards the other tributes hungrily – the spitting image of a nightmare. Nicoli hangs back, probably wondering what went wrong in his prayers to bring us to this very moment and wishing he had a back-up candle to light. I take a shaky breath – notice the way my chest feels lighter, despite the impossibility of that – and place a hand on Nicoli’s shoulder to steady myself.

“Are we really doing this?”

Yeah. I guess we are. Because no, I don’t want to die, Fenrir. Not at all.

ace attacks cantara – glaive

cT0MCX|PUfglaive

deep gash on right thigh – 8.0

glaive

[pogue]

C   A   S   H

A pack of three turns to a pack of two when nightfall finally takes hold, the Sun slipping into the darkness and their eyes trained on the sinister glow of the Moon above. They both attach themselves to the night sky in different ways, serums laced into their veins and hearts yearning uncontrollably for something they will never have. He catches Cantara staring at it this most, gaze unwavering and claws curled into her palms, only outstretching every once in a while as if she wants to reach out towards the sky above. His own do the same, curling and outstretching but it is to mark his spot in the gray soil where he sits, tracing his own heartbeats into the dust just to remind himself that he is still here, watching them fade and scatter under the moonlight in the soft breeze of the arena.

"I haven't any sign of her." 
The words replay in his mind over and over as if laced into a negative feedback loop, carving themselves into the forefront of his memories. The ice, the suspicion.

He misses their allies.

Not in a state of yearning or heartfelt emotion, heartstrings wrapped around bloody, rusted claws and poisoning his veins. No, he's reserved those emotions for the memories of home or at least what is left of it now, of his Mother and Father and Sister and the way things felt so simple, lively, hollow in the best of ways. He misses their allies because he is now stuck with nothing but their ghosts sitting in the dead space between him and Cantara, marking their own graves and counting their steps until they are six feet under.

He doesn't sleep, the ghosts won't let him.

Instead they rise at the early call of the Sun, pack what is left of their belongings and look ahead towards their own bleak future. To survive is to move, to move is to grasp your weapons tighter in grasp, to survive is to kill.

It's why he smells death in the air when they finally arrive at the Den, tainted blood and the smell of wet fur and carved fangs. Some part of it reminds him of home, the way the ranch would smell in the early morning hours, sun cresting on the horizon. Back then it smelt like comfort, familiarity, home. Now, it just smells treacherous. "You should wait out here." Cantara says, his gaze drifting to his ally. She didn't have to tell him twice, Cash had observed her before claws and fangs wracked their systems and the urge to kill flooded their veins. She wanted to be in charge, command, alpha, to suffer the consequences of such a thing. He would let her.

The wolves have raw strength, fury, but he has senses that react in the snap of a finger or the slice of a blade. It's why he is already half a step back when the glaive swipes out of the darkness and carves deep into Cantara's arm, a gasp and a yelp and a ragged breath caught in his throat as the smell of iron and sinister intentions meets his nose.

He smells scarlet, lusts for it, can practically taste it on his lips as it spills from the newfound wound in Cantara's form. Claws curl into palms and muscles shake, eyes darting between their opponents and the offer of hydration in red. Fangs dig into his gums below, a consequence of the awkward new development and the serum itself as he makes his decision.

He bites it back, chokes down the urge to feed and instead snaps his attention towards their enemies, their necks, blood to be spilled. In one fluid movement he jumps up and off of the rocks of the cave walls, launching himself into the air before launching his own claws downwards at one of their opponents.

[cash attacks nicoli ; knife]

ureosiHQEnknife

[8.0]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

"I figured she'd be back here with you,"

She'd sucked in a deep breath.

Smelled something foul. "I haven't any sign of her."

Was it the edge of death? The sweet distracting enticing cancerous smell that coated him head to toe? Or was it something more concrete? Was it the end of a life -- say, that of Carsyn Bowers? Or was it merely the knowledge, the guilt, that she had left them without saying goodbye, and what did that really say about Cash Humboldt or Cantara Kanansis?

Was he trying to show her mercy?

Suspicion.

Neither of them slept.

They didn't need to. Not with the serum coursing through their veins. She accepted it without deeper analysis. Some things, even things that seemed new, just had to accepted. In order to get to the conclusion, sometimes you had to challenge the assumptions. That everything had to make logical sense? That was an antiquated way of thinking. Sometimes things just were.

Sometimes, some -- time -- she was simply a werewolf.

And so were many others. They hadn't meant to stray from the Falls. But she couldn't stay there, snout to the breeze, seeking Carsyn. She knew it. Cash knew it, better than her. So, they wandered.

Right into a Den.

She didn't have to howl now. There were so many others of her pack. She almost greeted them bodily, heart thrumming for theirs. Almost. "Not like being from Five makes us the most desired companions."

At the cave's entrace she overturned a rabbit's skeleton. "You should wait out here," she breathed. She didn't know why, truly. Why try to save Cash when he smell of rot and sugar and haunting? She ought to leave him and bend the knee to the alpha of the pack within the Den. She arched her back. Looked to him.

But if she did that, she would never be Alpha in her own right.

She snarled, came to all fours, and loped into the cave. It did not take her long to ferret out their opponents. “Are we really doing this?” In her mind the call she produced sounded like a song: one of honesty, depravity, offering. She could only accept mutually assured destruction, the same that Cash had shown her, all along. Someone would have to win. The pack would disentigrate. Could they live with that?

Suspicion.

Instead, her newly annointed voice caught somewhere between a pleading whine and a growl.

The moment the note hit the air she knew it was wrong. Too raw. Too honest. One meaty gold-tipped clawed propelled Cash behind her. With the other, she struck, snarling, "believe me, whatever you're suffering, I've suffered worse. I'm still with him, remember?"

[Cantara attacks Nicoli, teeth (knife)]

IJruwFDrPAknife

[Shallow Cut on Left Hip -- 3.5 damage]

knife

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

Once again, I slept alone.

The moonlight hovered over my head, using the silhouette of my oddly shaped body to emphasize it. Not that I recognize my body, anyway. My shoulders have risen, and my back has formed a curve at the top. One that only Pa’ on his walker could match. With how my figure silhouetted itself in the shadow of the moon, I was not Damion. It looked… animalistic, and the scents that filled my nostrils didn’t do much to help. Blood, dirt, and the scent of air was even more potent. Maybe my body was desperate. Searching for an explanation as to what was happening - why my legs were hairier than the wall of fallen-out-hair that Delilah would stick to the wall. God, I hated when she did that. But now I get it, scratching away at the patch on my leg. Shit falls out without calling. You could find a better spot than the damn wall for your haircasso piece. Though, if it meant seeing her again, I wouldn’t mind it.

I couldn’t sleep like I used to. It hurt the peak of my back where my neck and spine met to lay on the ground like that. That night, I slept on my side. The first instinct was to curl into the fetal position, but my joints ached so damn much that I could not hold the pose. All I could do was lay with them sticking out, stiff. It looked weird to the cameras, most likely, but I didn’t care. It was confusing having so many changes with my body that felt so foreign, things that science does not align with. There’s nothing I can do. So I watch the shifting figure of my shadow, where soon, the night overtakes me.

Waking up, the day felt the same, my mouth felt dry. Hungry. It wanted something to kill and feast on. I would never submit to those desires, though. At home, I would just pull out a pint and start eating. Probably a salted caramel. I love that damn flavor. Or strawberry, because growing up it became a favoring of mine. The red of the ice cream made me think of being a redhead, and I guess little 8-year-old Damion thought it was cool.

Something inside of me still craved that thrill of the hunt. Yesterday was a spider. Admittedly something that got batted away from my body with the single swipe of my paw. A rumbling, growling desire to kill came in me. Flushed, wrapping tighter and tighter as if the corset we started the Games with needed a replacement. Words can’t describe the heightened desire that I feel for this. It was like Dustin did somethin’ stupid and I wanted to kill him for it. But like, ten times more extreme.

Following the desires I have hidden inside, the scent of new bodies started to waft. I don’t know who, or what, but my body knew that it was something that was alive. It wanted something dead. A low rumble burrowed in my chest, releasing itself from my throat and through my mouth in the form of a low growl. The animal was hungry. I was scared of what the animal would do. I tried to get up, my natural stance coming to a hunched over display of the area. My tall figure creating a lump at the top of my back that looked for the doctors of Six to recover. Following the scent, I came to a group of people - maybe dogs, maybe… something else, as the one pale, hairless boy highlights. What the hell was he supposed to be, if he wasn’t a werewolf?

I see one, two, three of the tributes jump into action, and the adrenaline rush that I earned from it quickly turned into bloodlust. I wanted to be a part of that packfight.

“Are we really doing this?” A girl asked.

I try to respond, but the only thing that comes out is a sharp bark. A collection of them, ringing out like an alert, or something. Yes, we are. You’re the one starting this. The wolf who cried to the battle is the one who started it.

I don’t know anyone in these packs, and quite frankly, I don’t care. I see a group of two move and attack a group of three, and it only makes sense to help the group of two. I may be a hunter, but the rules of the hunted are mine to make.

[/font]

[attacks fenrir, knife]
A3xyp14ug0knife
[block]

accuracy reroll
knifeknife·knife

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

Sometimes a plea to Ripred on someone else’s behalf is all that can be done. There will be times where one cannot turn off the overboiling kettle in time or one is too late to catch the falling child. A thief may be too sharp to stop before they have taken the goods and the bullet might well already be on track for its desired victim. There are the times when only a god can decide what the outcome is.

My whispers fade with the burning candles, I blow out the last one before the cocktail of scents becomes too intense on my newly heightened senses. These prayers are not just a daily item that I am forced to check off. They give a gram of relief as if I have done my very best for the beings that I mention in them.

I am glad the others don’t question it, while they are sitting far from me on the lake’s bank. There is a desire to protect them both, some kind of fatherly feeling but there is no strong connection. They both seem well acquainted, as if already good friends. But what exactly do I have in common with my allies than just being here in this moment with them? If not for being forced to be here, would we be friends on a normal day? I have been with them nearly forty-eight hours, I guess it takes a little longer to build true relationships…

Sleep is disturbed by thoughts, my eyelids rest but my mind signs up for a marathon. Morning finally breaks and so does my candle circle as I pack it into the brown satchel. Yesterday the bag felt heavy, today it seems like I am hauling feathers. My throat feels obscure, an indescribable feeling…My attempted good morning o/ to Fenrir and Ace confirms my vocals have been altered overnight. My voice is a little deeper, gravelly and there is an urge to let out the loudest and longest good morning…a howl!?!?!?

I run my tongue along my teeth, my canines now match my newly appointed claws and there are a few more milliliters of sticky saliva in my mouth. Inside my abdomen, my stomach reminds me about the lack of any feast and my only craving is a nice big slab of steak. To live through the eyes on a canine, this is a strange path that Ripred is taking me down….do they want me to adopt a lost critter when I return home?

We reached a cave after trudging on foot away from the lake. The candles’ aroma is swallowed up by the familiar metallic smell of blood, except there is a different tinge in the air. A few different scents…

Ace is quick to question our location, pushing us to leave immediately.

“We should go…”

We should run but keep running where? Run the length of the arena in hopes that everyone else will fall around us? Here we face the reality of surviving, but I wait. Even with this new drive inside me that is crawling and striking at my skin to erupt. This new drive to tear apart the tributes that have sprung out in front of us in the cave. I am no senseless murderer, but I will protect myself and them.

Our opponents do not go and much to Ace’s dismay, neither do we. Ace strikes first but the retaliation is on me. I am the bodyguard after all.

The burning sensation and the strong inhalation of my own blood that pours from my leg causes my claws to extend longer than they did when I faced yesterday’s creature. Today’s opponents speak but unlike Ripred, I doubt my pleas will be listened too. ”Ace, Fenrir! Stay close to me. We can get out of this.”

My senses have been enlightened. A gift from Ripred but do I know how to use them?

Sometimes a plea to Ripred on someone else’s behalf is all that can be done. There will be times where one does not notice the third opponent who is quick with his blade. There is a time one can only keep an eye on Ace while Fenrir is slayed.

The howl finally escapes. The dreaded howl that masks the weak human cries of my failure.

”Ripred, I said not today!”

I grab hold of Ace’s wrist, but I do not make them run away. We cannot leave Fenrir here. ”You have had your taste of blood, all of you leave or you can join him!” I snarl and growl with my threats, my free hand raising the claws above my head.

Sometimes a plea to Ripred on someone else’s behalf is not enough.

Flees but actually stays with Fenrir and Ace.

[Cait]

It happens in slow motion, but too fast for me to stop time.

A boy of a pastel past slashes at the space near Fenrir’s face, and I start to laugh as the air is marked. Do better, the sentiment of mother echoes in my bones.

But it’s not the air he strikes.

Impossibly, the hit lands.

Cruelly, Fenrir falls.

Naively, I thought we would all be okay.

My voice screams – I feel the burn, but I don’t hear anything. The deafness of my ear is a blessing today.

Nicoli reaches for me, reassuring, heartbroken, more certain than I will ever be. Commanding me to stay, to protect our brother in arms.

“You have had your taste of blood, all of you leave or you can join him!”

But the scythe in my hands yearns for revenge. I know the feeling well – step forwards to embrace it like a long-lost friend.

Until Fenrir takes his turn to reach for me, somehow, impossibly. A pillar of strength and certainty and rationality that neither of us possesses. Do not retaliate.

I falter.

Long enough for the intruders to assess the brevity of the situation. Long enough for them to measure the rage in my eyes, the bloodlust in my veins.

The scythe falls out of my grip, sinking to the ground and carrying with it all of the heaviness of a stolen life.

I scan the ground for something to throw instead.

Find a pile of rocks. Reach for it. Throw it at the ice cream man.

“Get. Away. Now.”

The world implodes, and I don’t hear a damn thing.

ace flees, but stays with fenrir and nicoli in the den.

[pogue]

C   A   S   H

A All at once their fight is over.

It happens in his blindspot, directly after his claws rake through a boy's arms and peel back flesh and muscle alike. He grins at the sight of red, at the feel of blood as it courses between his fingers all at once in a wave of scarlet. But it's wiped from his face as soon as it comes, as soon as he hears the cannon and smells something heavier, stronger.

A waterfall of red greets his nose, then his eyes. A boy stumbles and falls, he licks his lips.

Shock settles in the wake of a newfound ill, the echo of a cannon bouncing against the walls and amplified by his own senses. Again he stands at a bloody crossroads, wants to run his fingers through the wave of red that blankets the floor and place all of it on his tongue, wants to drink until there is nothing left. To drink or to die, fight or flee- survive. "We need to go, now."

His hand rips from the boys arm and instead extends out towards Cantara, grip wrapping around her forearm and, admittedly, purposely over the gash in her form. It's sadistic, the way his heart flutters at the feeling of blood running underneath his palm, laced around his fingertips.

Poisoned heart and bloodied claws, he leaves his ghosts observing the funeral of a boy he will never know, fleeing out the entrance of the den and back into the overcast sunlight.

[Flees]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

The giant in the cave looms. It seems to Cantara that he fills the small space. When he barks, loud and sharp, she knows to duck.

It doesn't surprise her that he fells another in one strike. What does surprise her is that his victim is another wolf. Her nose twitches. She snorted, trying to expel the scent of canine death.

"You have had your taste of blood, all of you leave or you can join him!” Another snarls.

Cantara hisses, lifting her chin. There's something stuck in her throat, something desperate for release. A howl. An honouring. But eyeing the fallen wolf's allies, she can't quite let it go. She doesn't want to call to them, even though she feels compelled to honor the soul lost.

Cash licks his lips.

Her dark lips curl back.

"We need to go, now." He staunches the wound she'd forgotten about. His hand is cold, colder than the wind that greets them at the Den's entrance, colder than the blood red falls. It is a balm, even if being so close to him makes her stomach churn.

[Cantara flees.]

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

THAT FELT GOOD.

The swipe of my hand, the feeling of my newly grown claw embedding itself inside of their skull. Into their eye, into the thing that let them see life as it was. It’s now the thing that separates her from the pack. From life. Watching their body crumble to the ground, a lifeless body, a body that I just separated from the connection to this world. I am now the hunter.

Damion Rothbauer. A son, a brother, a worker, the ice cream man or the dairy boy. A dog. A wolf.

A killer.

I want to scream, to panic, say I’m sorry. I am so sorry, I didn’t want to kill someone - not yet. Not like this. One never knows their power to do destruction until the destruction is dealt. A bubble forms in my throat, I try to release an apology, but I can’t. A long, waving, mourned howl escapes instead. The walls of the cave mimic my cry. I don’t blame them. The world should hear my mourning - my apology - because I can’t tell them. Not the person I just killed or the family they have at home. The people that they fought with, their pack, remain by. ”You have had your taste of blood, all of you leave or you can join him!” Telling the others to flee, get out. They need privacy in a time like this. I am so sorry.

But no pack of dogs mourns the sheep they kill, or the sheep they must kill for their own survival. They do it to survive. As have I. Dustin, oh, shit Dustin. I hope that Delilah knows where he is. I hope that Delilah steps up and pulls him into her lap. I know he’s crying. I know he’s scared. His older brother is a dog and a killer - not the ice cream boy that he could steal pints from. Dustin did not deserve to see me like that, Delilah either, or Mom, or Dad. Part of me worries for him.

DO IT AGAIN.

An internal thought rushes from my paw to my head, from my brain to my paw. The sense of bloodlust that drew me into this fight wants me to keep fighting, but my sense of reality knows I shouldn’t. I don’t want to. The dog inside me wants to - that furry, frizzy, smelly coat that has adorned my shoulders wants to drive me to continue this cycle. NOT TODAY.

The primal voice in my head bows to my wishes. The human brain of shock takes hold of the reigns this time instead of the dog brain of bloodlust.

A rock misses my ear, and I take it as my cue to leave. My feet and legs make their movements to leave the open space we fought in, and my face makes one last glance at their body. I AM SORRY. Words can’t be given. None can be, anyway. No phrase, word, or howl I give in their honor means anything anymore.

I wish it could, though.

[/font]

[flees]