Round One: Luja vs Kaiden (D7)

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

The tribute stands with bare feet in loose dirt and mud below the dark, damp arena. If they look up, they see light and dust pouring in from the cracks in the wooden flooring. And already, they can hear the cheers, the calls for death. A man-sized bird cage comes to a stop at the ground in front of them and if they aren't wise enough to step in on their own, the peacekeepers will shove them inside. Once the gates are locked behind them, they'll know for sure though: this is officially it. No amount of hope will save them now. Only sharpened steel.

As they rise into the arena, the crowd's applause grows overwhelming in its noise, bleeding into a force of sound like a wall, pushing the tributes further into their cages.

"What an exciting show we have planned for you all today!" A voice the tributes may or may not recognize as belonging to Harlan Godfrey booms over any other voice to be heard.

The tributes will notice that they are standing in a courtyard, with a lush green carpet of grass, and they're surrounded on all sides by a gigantic hedge maze. If the tribute bothers counting, they'll also notice 12 different gates encircling the area, each with a bulky padlock the tributes will be able to make out with ease. As if calling to them, the key ring at their hips grows heavy.

They also notice another cage like their own on the other side of the courtyard, occupied with their own district partner. At the same time, both cages will open. As both tributes climb out of their cages and into the arena, they'll both notice a table nearby, full of rather basic-looking swords of all sorts of different shapes and sizes, though some are obviously missing. They'll also notice a few of those swords have been left lying in random places on the grass, undeniably covered in blood.

"Up next to fight, our District Seven tributes: Luja Mahdavi versus Kaiden Mahdavi!"

---

Weapon: Sword

Luja Initiative - 57.14
Kaiden Initiative - 46.20

Retro Engine Link: Here

Reminder that tributes have not been granted any stations for this games including weapon modifiers, accuracy, first aid, or even stealth. As a result, both tributes will need to make non-attack intro posts before they begin attacking. If tributes refuse to fight each other, please let me (Dars) know asap so that I can schedule mutts for your fight. As always, 24 hour posting rules are in effect and will be enforced.

This fight will conclude once either tribute has died, and you both have until Friday, 28th of April at 6 pm pst to finish them yourselves, or mutts will be deployed to finish the job.

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

I looked down to my already black feet as I shuffled through the dirt out of boredom. Funny thing to be bored when you are about to be sent to your death. It was kind of a strange thing to be dressed up like a goddess but to be walking around like a slave. All of it was just a bit peculiar.

A bird cage was lowered down in front of me, with its door wide open just beckoning for my tired and hungry body to get into it. I lost count of how many days it has been since the day of the reaping and the day before of my last meal. It has felt like eternity and also just like yesterday. Time ceased to exist the second I stepped up onto the steps of the justice building. The train ride, my fight with Kaiden, could have been the last time we have ever spoken to each other. I wanted to strangle him myself and also scream I’m sorry. The fear, the hunger, the anger it was all getting to my head. I could not place my thoughts or control anything anymore, I was left at a primal state of an animal that just wanted to survive.

I stepped into the birdcage of my own free will. No snarky remarks, no sly smile, I felt as if I had lost my sense of self. All the little things that kept me going all this time were a shy memory.

”Get it together, Lu”, I whisper to myself. Now was not the time to give up. It was just the beginning of a long journey I had no other option than to survive. I will survive. I am a fighter, and I will not go down this easily. The capitol, everyone watching, everyone hoping for my death can all go get fucked. Luja Mahdavi is getting out of here alive, then I could finally get some food for Christ’s sake. If not for anything else, do it for the taste of food.
That last thought made me laugh as I waved to everyone down below. My cage was pulled up, ascending to the arena to await whoever I would have to face.

”Let the games begin, baby!” I shouted. There she was, there was the Luja that people expected. I would not go in there as that wreck, I was only moments ago.
The keys attached to my hips made sense as I spotted the gates locked up. Something inside of me told me that I would not be able to open them just about yet. My eyes shifted across the arena scanning the hedges and the grass to see another birdcage identical to mine containing my brother. That was it, just the two of us in this arena. I bit my lip trying not to laugh. What a silly little slap in the face from fate this was.

”Up next to fight, our District Seven tributes: Luja Mahdavi versus Kaiden Mahdavi!” A voice boomed over our heads. This was all too good to be true. What a joke, I burst out laughing as I exited my cage. I twirled around in the sun and felt the grass poke my feet. Poor mom and dad, having to watch their darlings fight it out in the games instead of them fighting it out as parents should. We were about to fight their battle for them.

”Hey Kaiden!” I shout over to my brother with a delirious smile plastered to my face. My brown eyes glistened with madness that came with the lack of food and sleep. ”Isn’t it just funny, they want us to kill each other. I bet you can’t wait to prove that you were the man of the house all along. ” I skipped around the field taking in the whole situation. What a cruel and horrible joke this was. Just my style.

[jackson thomas [d6m] arc]

My body felt as empty as when Lu's name got called out. Hollow. That pit in the bottom of my stomach that nothing would be the same from this moment on. It hasn't. From the train ride as we chipped away at red and white bottles of secrets to the interview where I spewed my disinterest in partnering up with her, we would never be the same pair of siblings our parents once loved. We haven't been for the past four years anyway, so this should be easy for them. We were never meant to be together again. It only made sense what our eventual demise in this place would be.

The hollow feeling in my stomach was not aided by the fact we weren't offered any food. We're just left to starve, our bodies hungry to live, but to live, we must survive. By placing our very basic needs of human survival on edge, we're more inclined to strike. They dress us up in white and red sashes, a woven crown of leaves placed upon our heads. And then a cage opens up. Like we're birds or animals. Throwing a single slice of bread in the coliseum's middle might make us fight. Raising the hungry wolves into an arena guarded by cages and giving them the one thing everyone needs to survive. Food. That's what I expected, with the hole in my stomach somehow feeling larger than my desire never to see my sister again. My legs shake, the key attached to my hip jingling, providing a sound that wasn't the cheers, whoops, and hollers of people who haven't lost anyone to this shit.

I wondered if Dad was watching and if our mom forced him to get out of bed and into the living room. I hope she's following the schedule despite the Games, though. I can't imagine the stress is any good for his health.

It takes a moment after closing the cage for it to rise. The applause of the surrounding audience gets louder and bolder. The world is trying to suffocate me, and I want to hide. Curl up and enjoy my body and my mind as I know it because I don't expect to see it the same again. How can you when your body is already dressed like a toy doll? They're going to use it like one forever and always, now. You've been chosen from the toy box of seven, and they'll decide when they're done with you. Somewhere in the distance, a laugh that's more familiar than the birthmark on my thigh starts getting louder. And louder. And closer. It echoes off of walls, bouncing back and forth as it climbs the hollow interiors and is spit into the direction of my own rising cage.

Some would say this laughter comes from your nightmares, but I can't call it a nightmare if I've always been awake for its chaotic embrace. She would be the first to make a poisoned apple if witches existed. And she'd probably feed me it too. The rattling chains stop as we've reached our battleground, and walls taller than the trees of Seven surround us. Green walls and floors, the grass oddly soft to our barren feet. On the ground lay swords with blood caked onto their blades. A table is in the center with clean swords. We get to choose between creating new scars or building onto existing ones.

”Let the games begin, baby!” The voice on the other end shouts, and there's no doubt we'll build onto existing ones. I see her, wearing the same shit as me, and it's like the Capitol thinks they're funny. Putting a set of twins that hate each other in the same damn garment. Like we're taking family photos at seven years old again.

We're not seven, and we're hardly a family anymore. Another voice, not my opponent's, raises out. ”Up next to fight, our District Seven tributes: Luja Mahdavi versus Kaiden Mahdavi!” Our lives have culminated to this moment, and I'm sure Luja's mother is happy to know that the bitch she's raised to steal is now fighting against the boy her husband raised to protect. What a match-up.

I hope my Dad dies the moment I do. Save him from the heart attack of his wife and her daughter returning to whatever stupid thievery they do. She twirls like she's some princess, and I couldn't expect any less from the girl who claims more than she could ever give. She skips, like a deer, frolicking through the field like this is some game to play. Like we're in the schoolyard. ”Hey Kaiden! Her face is wide, plastered, and almost as delirious as an old woman. ”Isn’t it just funny, they want us to kill each other. I bet you can’t wait to prove that you were the man of the house all along. ”

She says "the house" like it was ever shared. Like it was something I ever felt I belonged to live in. By this point of my life, the home is more of a workplace and I'm the caretaker. She wouldn't know that though - she's too concerned about pleasing her mother half of the time.

"You must be excited to keep up the attitude of being a total bitch."

I step out as my eyes flicker between the swords lying on the grass. I feel danger, because she's never been the predictable one. She's been able to explore the world. This is the first time I've ever had to fight for myself more than my father in many years. "Not that it'd be hard. You take after our mother."

And I take after our father, but I guess that means I should be dead, which sounds better than giving my sister the pleasure of making sure I am herself.

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Why did Kaiden always have to take things so seriously. One of us was going to die by the hand of the others for Christ’s sake, he could at least help lighten the mood. Make his final lasts moments with his sister bearable. We could pretend this was a game of marbles but with sharp pointy objects. We were in a courtyard with grass and hedges. At least it was not the bland Colosseum of the years before us. Our games had style.

At this point my entire body was shaking and my head was throbbing. Adrenaline rushed through my body keeping it going despite every warning signal going off that I was about to completely shut down. I kept on skipping around the arena in trance like state to keep myself going. If I did not stop moving then I would not be able to break down. It was all a game of keeping myself going. Fighting for survival, Kaiden would have to go if I were to carry on. The harsh reality was that the world was no longer big enough for the both of us.

”You must be excited to keep up the attitude of being a total bitch.”
I stop dead in my tracks and turn around to face my brother with raised eyebrows. He does have a little fight to him. For the first time in his life he is pushing back. It almost warms my heart knowing that there was hope for him after all. I wanted him to put up a fight, I wanted him to prove me right that all along he never was much different to mom and I. I wanted him to eat up his good Samaritan act and face the fact that we are cut from the same skin. Ironically I don’t think I would ever be happier than if he killed me just so that I could prove my point that he was not daddy’s little angle.

”Not that it would be hard, you take after our mother.”, well at least I accepted the fact. It was high time he finally ate every single word he ever said about mom and me.
Without ever breaking eye contact with him I made my way to where the swords laid peacefully in the grass. The shinned in the sun reflecting the sky above us. These moments were so intimate you could almost forget the eyes of the spectators heavily placed upon us the way we were looking at each other. I grab one of the swords and throw it toss it towards the ground in front of my brother and pick the other one up. Once again not saying anything with my mouth but my eyes spoke a million different words. I knew he would understand me. We could fight all we want, we could hate each other all we wanted but he was my twin and that connection could never be severed.

The sword laid heavy in my hands, as it if it could tell that it was about to spill blood that should not have to be spilled. A smile stretching from ear to ear never left my face. There was nothing he could say that I did not already know about myself. I enjoyed being a bitch, I thrived off of it. He knew I liked who I was. There was never really any hiding it.

”At least I know who I am.” an eerie sense of calm took over my voice. I broke eye contact to look at the sword as I gave it a twirl. ”You’re cut from the same cloth I was, brother dearest. You get up on your high and mighty pedestal and look down on me and mom because we know what it takes to survive in this world. We are willing to do what it takes to survive in this world. I think it is about damn fucking time you learn that you are no better than us!” anger builds up with every word that leaves my mouth. The resentment builds up in my chest pounding like it was going to burst through my body in a bomb like manner.

I look to the sky and yell ”Daddy looks away, you should not have to see any of this. Sorry for what your little girl is going to do. Mama, I hope you’re watching. Kaiden might just finally become the son you always wanted him to be. ” with those last words I lock eyes with brother and swing my sword. All my anger and resentment releases through my body.

[Luja attacks Kaiden; Sword]

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[jackson thomas [d6m] arc]

Her eyes connect with mine following my claim. Am I wrong for calling her a bitch? She knows it, so I might as well give her the satisfaction of the title. She takes a sword, and tosses another one in my direction. It lands at my feet and I take a moment to kick it away. I don't need her help. The only help she could provide is checking herself into the damn psych ward a week or two earlier. Another one lay near me, and I bend my body to the side to pick it up as my eyes follow my sister. She's never been afraid to fight. But that makes all of this easier for her. Luja's eyes, like beads, hold a ward within them that deflects any sense of "working it out," if the possibility were to every arise.

Luja continues to hold a wicked smile, one that only our mother could have inflicted on her. She speaks with a calm. ”At least I know who I am.” But that's because you've been made. Your mother just made a copy of herself. How sad is it to be a copy of a woman with a dying husband?

Must make up for a bad future for you then, huh Luja?

She twirls with the sword, and then speaks once more. It's like she's in some stupid fucking ballad, the way she keeps spinning around and around and giggling and laughing. ”You’re cut from the same cloth I was, brother dearest. You get up on your high and mighty pedestal and look down on me and mom because we know what it takes to survive in this world. We are willing to do what it takes to survive in this world. I think it is about damn fucking time you learn that you are no better than us!” It takes her mothers arrogance possessing her to believe I'm the one with my nose too far up the world's ass. When the hell did I ever say it was bad?

I only hated it because I was never given the chance. It wasn't my choice to become the caretaker of our father. But according to Luja I'm too high up on the pedestal of a clipboard and scrubbing our fathers' back to ever see it otherwise. That she's some lowlife pest. She very well may be. A fire builds in her as she caresses her pride.

Luja screams to the sky. As if it can help her anymore. ”Daddy looks away, you should not have to see any of this. Sorry for what your little girl is going to do. Mama, I hope you’re watching. Kaiden might just finally become the son you always wanted him to be. ”

With that, her sword raises and tears into my chest, opening the first external wound, but allowing the blood of all of my internal ones to begin their escape. It's been too many years coming for this blood to be anything short of thick. She must be happy. SHe must love being able to continue fighting, continue putting her brother further into the corner of his fathers coffin. Hell, she wants me to be the first one to be lowered in it.

"I don't know where you got the idea that I ever thought I was better than you." I stumble back, trying to find the right way to grip onto the sword in this quickly engaged battle. "You," I gasp and heave for a second as the opened cavern in my chest begins to send those pings of pain to my mind. "You know how to do this. You know what it's like to fight and all that fucking bullshit. You've got a life outside of the home." My spit lands in front of her, as I look her in the eyes. "Mom gave you a chance to be something better." It takes a lot of effort to hold my sword correctly as I swing at my sister.

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"She never let me get that chance." These words fumble out, attempting to give her the last memories of one of our lives with my perspective. My story. The one of the boy who never got the chance to live on his own. "But, sure, I'll stand on whatever fucking pedestal you think I own. The only one I can speak before is the one at our dad's funeral." The only place I belonged in the world was my fathers side, yet, she thinks that's a good thing when he's dying.

"He can remember me as the one who stepped up for him when he's fucking dying.." The end of my words spit out, my voice wavering when I say fucking. She never cared about dad dying. She only wanted to please her mother, a woman who hardly fulfilled that role in my life anymore. It goes to show how much this means to her.

Absolutely fucking nothing. Just like the men in her family always have meant.

sword

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

My brother’s blade ripped past the left side of my head slicing off my ear on it’s journey. I stood there stunned for a second. Everything just stopped as I took in the fact that Kaiden actually just cut my fucking ear off. Good for him, shit for me. I wasn’t exactly sure if I had expected him to swing back either with his sword or his words. I wasn’t sure if I was proud, going to pull an “I told you so” or just outright pissed off that my ear was missing and now my face was asymmetrical.

Mother would not like that, asymmetrical faces are not pretty.

I could not get her damn voice out of my head. She lived rent free in my mind even in this place where she could not control or help me anymore.

The pain started to kick in as I felt the blood trickling down my face. Good, this was going to keep me alive. Nothing like the high of adrenaline to make sure you stand your ground. I wipe the blood down from my ear across my face like it was my war paint, licking the bits that ended up around my lips. ”Yummy” . I wanted Kaiden to see the blood he was causing to drip. I wanted him to see the product of his work. He wants to be something more and something better. Fine. Here he can have it. Let him face the direct consequences of the life he wanted so badly.

Kaiden’s word hit me almost harder than the physical blow to my ear. They were sharp and blunt all at the same time. A side to a story that I never considered but it was too late for any of that now. Blood was drawn and we both were not in a position to back down. He claimed to have wanted everything I had, that mom gave me something more. I rolled my eyes so far back into my head as he went on and on about being there for our dying father when I was not. How could he not see that I was there in the only way I knew how to be.

I was there in the only way I was allowed to be.

I am growing so sick and tired of Kaiden’s whiny “you had it better bullshit”. He acts like if I was granted a life of frolicking around the woods and playing with magical creatures. Some princesses bullshit. Heads up dickhead, this was the only fucking frolicking I have ever done, and it felt fucking fantastic.

”Boo hoo, poor baby Kaiden all stuck at home with a parent that loves him. How life must have been so hard for you” . I pouted my lips and brough my hands up to my eyes to mimic a baby crying. ”Are you honestly that fucking stupid?! No wonder mom would not let you handle anything that required any brains. Mom might have a funny way of showing it but she loves you. Has it ever even occurred to you that you remind her of dad. The only good thing to have ever happened to her. Now why the fuck would she ruin you the way she ruined me. ” I hissed at him like a serpent.

Slowly I started to walk around him like an animal cornering her prey. That was all that was left of me. The sweet little girl who loved to play with her brother was gone. The human being that I once was, gone. Mom took that from me, she never gave me a chance to be a caring person. Not once would she have let me become anything than herself. My last string of humanity was my brother the way dad was hers. These games were going to be the end of all of us.

”Fuck you Kaiden, honest to god, fuck you. That is your pedestal, you want to know how you are all high and mighty. The way you act as if I don’t care, as if I don’t love you, as if I don’t give to flying fucks about dad dying. Your self-pity is your pedestal, at least you can afford to have some. If I ever felt sorry for myself then we wouldn’t be able to eat, and you would have been speaking at dad’s funeral years ago!”

My sword feels heavier this time when I go to raise it. The weight of our family feud making it harder to raise. Doesn’t matter, it was too late to turn back now.


”By the way, could you speak up a bit. I have a bad ear” , I bat my eyes and give him a little shrug.

[Luja attacks Kaiden; Sword]

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[jackson thomas [d6m] arc]

I take her ear. A part of me hoped that the moment my sword met her body I’d feel like I’d had enough. That this fighting isn’t worth it anymore. But my body is only ignited by the sight of her cartilage on the ground.

I tried telling her, yelling at her that she has it so much better than me. She has a life, a name, a group of people where she’s fucking worth something. Back at home, Luja has credit to her name. All I have is the dried-up vomit I could never get cleaned out of my shirts.

But apparently she’s got it worse Life sucks when you have a purpose outside of being a bedside nurse at sixteen years old.

She’ll just never fucking get it, huh?

”Boo hoo, poor baby Kaiden all stuck at home with a parent that loves him. How life must have been so hard for you.” She feigns crying with her hands, pouting her lips and rubbing her eyes like a crying child. Remove the crying and she has the damn part. Luja will never understand what it’s like for the only parent that loves you to be the one who is literally bound to die in any week. She’s always had our mother, who as far as I know, is still in great health. ”Are you honestly that fucking stupid?! No wonder mom would not let you handle anything that required any brains. Mom might have a funny way of showing it but she loves you. Has it ever even occurred to you that you remind her of dad. The only good thing to have ever happened to her. Now why the fuck would she ruin you the way she ruined me.”

What the actual hell is she going on about? You’re admitting yourself that mom thinks I don’t have any brains! The anger has boiled to my face, and despite the fact that I’ve already taken her damn ear, I wish she’d take mine. She hisses like a snake, and begins to circle me like she’s some sort of cat. I’m left to cower for a second, keeping my eye on her as I’m hunched over to keep my body as pointed away as it can be. Luja has always been able to fight in these positions. She’s always been known. Her mother had never been home long enough to ask me how I’m doing. It was always

”How’s your dad?”

”What’s he ate today?”

”Have you cleaned the sheets lately?

For Dad, the answer was always yes, he’s good. Yes, he’s eaten. Yes, the sheets were washed yesterday. He has a fresh pair of clothes on. For me, she never considered a

”How are you?”

”Have you eaten yet?”

”Have you showered yet this week?”

I was always expected to eat the leftovers of the porridge I made Dad. Which isn’t that great, given that we hardly have enough food for seasoning anymore. I always had to accept what I was given, not fight for it, as Luja has. She has an edge to her brain that I’ve never been sharpened for. The snake that’s always been the poison to my life opens her mouth yet again.

”Fuck you Kaiden, honest to god, fuck you. That is your pedestal, you want to know how you are all high and mighty. The way you act as if I don’t care, as if I don’t love you, as if I don’t give to flying fucks about dad dying. Your self-pity is your pedestal; at least you can afford to have some. If I ever felt sorry for myself then we wouldn’t be able to eat, and you would have been speaking at dad’s funeral years ago!”

I might as well give my fucking speech to him now, then. It all doesn’t matter anymore. All I can afford is self pity. I can’t buy myself strength with this sword, nor courage, nor the balls to go out and do something myself. I’ve always been so scared of abandoning the one person who never left me. Without dad who the fuck am I? Her sword digs into my leg, and I know that the inner tiger that she’s always held within is purring at the sight of my blood. She wants to feast on my sorrow just as bad as I want to feast on hers.

It’s hard to imagine the little boy and girl playing marbles on the street, wearing matching greens in family photos, and chasing each other around with worms and bugs would be the same little boy and girl that kill each other. We chase each other with swords and broken hearts. There’s no time to try and tape them back together like that one flower pot we broke years ago. There’s no glue that can haphazardly holding us together.

We’re hardly siblings anymore, but I think that our mother is to blame for that. You can’t blame a dead man.

”Good thing we’re fucking fighting in here then, huh?” I spit, trying to land some blood on her foot as our bodies stay within range of each other. Not that she needs the extra DNA. We share enough of that shit, unfortunately. ”Only two plates are gonna be at that table, three if one of us makes it out.” The idea of our preassigned seats belonging to a ghost is a trembling imagination. ”I get to go home, I get to live a life that I never had the chance to own.” I begin to pace as I try to find my grip on this damn sword. I point at her, and continue the spewed monologue. ”You get home, you get to stop living the life you were forced to have.”

She’ll never be able to stop though. She’s always been a fucking lunatic.

”All for the price of the other, isn’t it fucking grand?”

I’m sure she’s happy about it.

[attacks luja, sword]
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[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Lucky strike, that was what Kaiden’s first blow to my ear was. He just got a bit too lucky. What a shame, for a second I really thought we had a special little sibling fight going on. Just two kids sharing the thing their mother cursed upon them. Would have been nice.

Sucks really, we never could have nice things.

His blade this time slices across my cheek, just about to be able to draw blood. Not enough to leave a scar, thankfully. He really knew where to hit me to hurt me the most. I loved my face, the expressor of my sarcasm, the beauty behind the wild beast. My face is what made people still trust me. Mama taught me that early on. People like a pretty girl, pretty girls are more likely to be trusted, people are more likely to do what a pretty girl says. She said I was blessed with pretty privilege and I could hold any weapon I’d like but my face would be my most deadliest. Kaiden was destroying all of that. The worst part is that dumbass didn’t even know what he was doing.

”Good thing we are fighting in here then, huh?”, I wouldn’t call it a good thing. More like a convenient circumstance. Not sure who for though. We can let all our anger out, but the capitol is the real one getting their moneys worth out of our family brawl. They must be eating this shit up right now. Even though I wish I could redirect my anger at them, I couldn’t. We were in to deep and the audience around us only surfaces from the background for a millisecond till my focus shifts back to my pathetic twin brother and his “I’m the real victim” mentality. Grow the Fuck up. You don’t have much time left to do so.

”Only two plates are going to be at that table, three if one of us makes it out. I get to go home, I get to live I never had the chance to own. You get home, you get to stop living the life you were forced to have.” My brother goes on about these things we want, what we could do. I scream internally, he still is not getting it. He still does not understand. How has it not hit him yet. There never is any turning back from any of this. I have yet to kill a person in my run of the job, but I already know that once you star there is no going back.

I’m starting to believe he must think that I have always been this way, that my mind was gone since we were baby’s. That all those time we would accidently break something, that must have been the budding psychopath in me. I became a raging lunatic to deal with what was going on. It is the only way to stay sort of sane in my line of work. Of course there were some elements to it that I could not deny were just a part of me. The adrenaline junkie, the control freak, the sarcastic bitch. She was all there before but I injected steroids into my personality to cope. With time it no longer was a coping strategy, and it was just me. That is Kaiden’s future if he makes it out of here, he’ll either snap or become the thing he hates the most, his sister. Good fucking luck.

”All for the price of the other, isn’t it fucking grand”, he was already starting to sound like me. I chuckle at the thought that those words just as well could have come out of my mouth. A big round of applause for Kaiden finally understanding what was going on. While still holding onto my handle, I clap. Three times, real slow, make sure between each clap there is enough pause for dramatic effect. Make it like a story, the villain clapping because the hero was able to figure out their plan. We are dancing in our own tango of death now.

”Congrat-fuckin-lations! Now you are getting it. Wanna place a bet? If you make it out and I don’t, how long before you become everything you despise? Or do you think you will be more of the mental hospital case? I say you’ll be blood thirsty before you even leave. Oh, Kaiden it really warms my heart to see embrace the family insanity.” I taunt him with his future, I hope it hurts knowing that he’ll never have the perfect life out in the wild that he so longs for.

Now things are really getting interesting.

[Luja attacks Kaiden; Sword]
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[jackson thomas [d6m] arc]

I only graze her body with my sword this time, and my weakness is only beginning to show. She claps at my statement. Three times, specifically, to try and mock my claim. It’s easy for her to step into the role of a villain. She’s been one her entire life. But I’m no hero to deflect the world from her, no, I don’t even have a damn cape. All I have is a desire to get this villain out of my damn life. Luja speaks, I guess inspired by my claim that this entire shitshow we’ve been placed in being a great time.

”Congrat-fuckin-lations! Now you are getting it. Wanna place a bet? If you make it out and I don’t, how long before you become everything you despise? Or do you think you will be more of the mental hospital case? I say you’ll be blood thirsty before you even leave. Oh, Kaiden it really warms my heart to see embrace the family insanity.”

She raises her sword and it meets my arm, and I hardly feel the pain anymore, the pain’s been brought to my head and chest, and heart. It’s been brought to the places I’ve kept locked away for so damn long under my dad’s care. But even if I do kill Luja and she lives, neither of the keys attached to our hip could ever unlock the trauma that is held away. It’d take my mothers key to do such a thing.

Luja wants to place bets now. But I don’t know if I ever want to bet with her. A snake is never the first person you gamble with. Our father used to talk about a gambling addiction back in the day. When he was a teenager and his money meant as much as the grass beneath his feet.

”What, so I become a version of you?” I look up and down at her, observing the body that I once called my sister. ”A depressed bitch that claims that they have no worth?” Funny how we are so alike in our totally different worlds. ”I think we both know what my worth is.” Absolutely nothing, really.

”Everything I despise, a mental hospital, bloodthirsty-” it all sounds so familiar, but that’s because I’m looking at the very description. ”I think I’ll just have to take a few tips from you. That’ll do the job.” I raise my sword in her direction, pointing, and not wanting to give my sister the satisfaction of a dead body.

[attacks luja, sword]
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[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

The idea that my brother could ever become a version of me is amusing. I often pondered the idea that what if there was an alternate universe out there where our roles were reverse. Would I still be the same person? Would Kaiden? Would it prove that I was indeed made and not born.

The age-old question of nature versus nurture. Maybe that is exactly what Kaiden and I represented. His good-hearted nature and my ill-fated nurtured self.
All the things we could represented, everything about the two us could be a giant cautionary tale in the future. I would not mind going down in history as the villain, people know the names of the ones they fear. Not their victims.

Every millisecond of this fight causes me to reflect on every millisecond of our past. The broken ties of two twins once so tightly knitted together. Everything was already falling apart but every sword strike loosened the bond that held us together. Whatever was left of it would be soon gone. What people saw at the reaping was a mere reflections of what we could have been if we were torn by our parents mental and physical illness.

All of this was just so ironic.

Physical pain never really fazed me, being called a depressed bitch hurt worse. Bitch, I’ll take it, I probably deserve it. Depressed, not at all. If I were depressed would be able to find the joy in the attempted murder of my brother? No worth was another cut to deep. Worth was so dependent on the meaning. Standing here alone I had worth, I was worth so much to our family. My time, my brain, my body all had value. I was far from worthless.

Before I could think the words spilled out of my mouth in a tsunami of rage “Do not, EVER, call me worthless.” I snapped like a viper attacking its prey. “You would not know worth if it looked you in the face. Probably because you spend your days caring for our sick father. Why doesn’t anyone wakeup and see that he is going to die anyway. You think there is any worth in his life?! What is your worth Kaiden? Once dad is gone, do you really think there will be any worth to your life?” I am not sure if I meant it. Dad was not worthless but I knew if I were in his place, that is when I would become a depressed bitch with no worth.

I take my shot.

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I spit on the ground in front of me making sure we stayed in close range.
My anger seemed to come and go in bursts with pulses of a calm serenity in between. I do not know which was more dangerous. I inch closer and closer to my brother to make sure he can hear my step-by-step instruction on becoming Luja Mahdavi.

“Tip one, Kaiden, stop crying about life and start to enjoy it in all its misery. Take it in, feel it, become it. Tip two, stop caring about what others are doing with their lives. Stop worrying about me and the big big world. Make your own world and make it your bitch. Lastly, learn to take a fucking joke you miserable shit. Us Mahdavi’s are prettier when we smile.” I ever so slightly grin letting the insomnia, hunger and over all crazy run loose in my eyes. “Here take my hand, let’s dance as we bleed out.” I held out my hand for him to take, almost certain he would just swat it away.

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[jackson thomas [d6m] arc]

Luja’s a goddamn psych ward case. My sword grazes her calf, and spending much time paying attention to anything else is hard. I just want this fight to be done - I’m tired of this endless cycle that we’ve been put in of blaming each other. We’re never going to understand how each other feels. Yet we keep yelling at each other like our words will do justice for the childhoods we lived.

She says I can’t call her worthless. She says that I don’t have any worth to my name because all I do at home is care for dad. That once he dies I’m nothing, which I’m not disagreeing. But she also says that I had it easy, which makes this all the more confusing. I no longer know what this girl wants from me. Luja just wants to say she’s had it rough, that our mom sucks but our dad is a dead man, so she’s working for nothing. But at least she has that to claim. When Dad’s dead all I can claim is a clipboard with his daily routine.

She attempts to swing at my body and she misses, causing my body to relax for a moment knowing that she’s not all the fight she’s given so far. My sister says to enjoy life in it’s misery. But my misery isn’t valid to her, so how can I enjoy my own life if my misery isn’t good enough to her? I’ll never be good enough. Not for her, not for mom. And that’s a kind of shitty thing to realize as you’re trying to stay alive. Enjoy misery, take a joke, stop caring, but my entire adolescence has been about caring. How am I supposed to just stop?

All of her suggestions of how to live life come mute to me, because this all just doesn’t make sense anymore. I’m getting tired of fighting with her, running around in psychological circles as we pick and prod at each other until one of us just falls. It’s sick. She reaches her hand out to me, offering to dance, after we’ve been fighting for god knows how long. It’s like she wants things to go back to how we used to be as children. Brother and sister who loved each other. But that love is long gone.

I don’t want to rebuild it in the remaining minutes of my life.

"No." My sword raises, and I look at her. I take a few moments, studying the face of a girl that I once cared so much to know about. But it's taken too long for me to realize that she's never cared about anyone but herself. I guess that's how "us Mahdavi's" work. I've never felt like much of a Mahdavi anyway.

"I just want to get this over with. I'm tired of running in circles with you, fighting for the 'whose had it worse' story. You'll never understand me and I'll never understand you."

I once wanted to, but I don't give a damn about understanding her anymore.

"I'm tired of trying to."

GA7QQz6amjsword

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[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

I knew it. Kaiden would not take my hand, he would not play my games. He would never see the world the way I did. He would never be able to learn to love the mess that we all were. He would never understand the fun we could have had. It was all too late, and I was all too lost in a world that he could not begin to fathom.

Our realities no longer lined up, I could not make him understand everything he had but how it was nothing at the same time. Funnily enough, that is what we both had. I had the worldwide open to me but was not sound of mine to actually do any good. Kaiden was all the good, but would never have to guts to do anything about it. He always had to put someone else first and I never had to put anyone but myself first.

He was right, it was all pointless.

I had no idea how I missed a swing. How could I have? Fighting is what I’m good at, but somewhere there was a part of me that was slowly giving up on it all. The mental game that this was, was not my forte. I knew pure aggression, I knew fear, I knew anger, I knew misery, but anything else was foreign ground to me. Was he maybe getting to my head?

If I were to make it out of here alive, I needed to block him out. Shut him out. Turn him into a number. He would be number one, my first kill. That is what mama told me. The people we went after were not people, there were a number. Whether that number was the sum of money they owed or a number on a hit list to make sure we managed a reign of terror. People became numbers and that is what had to happen to my brother.

A stab in the back.

Literally.

I think Kaiden understood me more than he let on, was he also turning me into a number?

Numb the pain, play the game. Shake it off, it is all in your head.

If this was how it was going to go, fine. Let’s end things, we could have made it fun. We could have enjoyed the last moments together even if it was bloody murder. Nothing like taking a life to connect two people. I was almost sad that this was the way things were going to play out. I thrived off going in circles, the yelling, the accusing. It was the closest we have ever been.

”Fucking kill me already then!” I screamed in a high pitch cry of frustration. ”If you are so goddamn tired of this, then end it right here right now. Put yourself out of your misery. Take my life. I may sure as hell never understand you, but the second you kill me you are going to understand me. I promise that I will live rent free in your nightmares till the day you die. ” Kaiden might be over all of this, but I was not. This was still entertaining, the idea that he might actually kill me was amusing, thrilling. I almost wanted to die just to so I could haunt him and see the monster he surly would become.

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”C’mon Kaiden, I’m waiting…” I sing taunting him to take that final blow. Arms open wide as I wait for the embrace of his blade.

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