Eat Your Own // [Faemous vs. Mutts, Day 2]

[d10f ekta ram // [earthling]]

LEUCROCOTTAE

When Maddox beckoned them, they came.

Some, who perhaps preferred their stag appearance, called them a herd. It was an easy mistake to make. They often moved as one, motivated by the promise of herd protection. Together they put their cloven hooves to earth and ascended into the sickly purple arena. While many of their brethren keened and cried and chortled, the Leucrocottae remained silent.

They had no need to speak to the other deformed.

The portal opened and they stepped through, one after the other. The tallest of the trio slunk into the forest first, eyes alert, mane ruffled. The middle gnashed her bony ridges to create a sort of rhythm as they navigatged the sickly purple flora. The last trailed behind, stubbing his hooves on roots, keening when he thought he heard something else, something threatening.

And so it was he, hoof tied, that first alerted the Leucrocottae to the presence of tributes.

But it was the tallest, the first, that spoke. Here? it sounded like. And then, with more force, them.

[Leucrocottae attack Peregrine; knife]

J|GveE0Fatknife

[Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage]

[Leucrocottae attack Larissa; spiked blunt]

spiked blunt

[DEEP GASH ON BACK -- 8.5 damage]

[Leucrocottae attack Bellamy; knife]

knife

[Deep Gash on Right Calf -- 8.0 damage]

knife·spiked blunt·knife

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

^{B E L L A M Y .}

Waking in this arena feels like stepping out of one dream and into another.

Bellamy lies there for a long while, honey brown eyes blinking in the rising sun, the glow on his cheeks illuminated as if drawing in the solar energy. If he could live in glory and sunlight forever, he would do so willingly. In the span of a single day, he had been spurned by a gryphon and serenaded by mushrooms that claimed to know how he would die. He had even danced with weeping willows, and accepted a hit of a suspicious pipe from a friendly enough seeming caterpillar sitting on the branch of a tree. Safe to say...

He doesn't really recall too much of the specifics that went on deep into the night, but the warmth in his chest and the smile on his face feels somehow innate, like a trace effect of the smoke that had been pulled into his lungs. With each exhale and inhale, a constant rush of sweetness fizzles over his tastebud, and he can taste the traces of honeysuckle still staining the inside of his mouth. It makes him eager to start the day.

Perhaps he is not the first to wake, but he is the first to quickly gather up supplies into his basket and equip his armor for the day ahead. He can't help glancing at Larissa, her bandages still taut around her wounds, but to his surprise she already seems to be regaining her footing. If someone asked him if it appeared as if she had nearly been murdered less than twelve hours ago, he certainly wouldn't have clocked it. He smiles at her when she notices him looking, not shy about hiding this fact. But when he glances to a still drowsy Peregrine, his lips quirk into a small frown to see that she hasn't begun her morning routine yet.

"Perry, I'm just being hypothetical here, but what if a horde of muttations was about to ambush us and you're still under the blanke— FUCK!" In the wild, madness can descend upon the unassuming quite quickly. Like a boy speaking omens into existence, he is powerless to do anything as bursting out of the underbrush, massive antlers swatting aside the hanging branches of the taller trees, three lion-stag hybrid things are quick to begin their prophesied ambush. Bellamy barely has the time to register his allies being tossed about when he feels the air knocked out of him, a whoosh of honeysuckle escaping past his gritted teeth, a sharp hiss of pain following an antler spike tearing open his skin.

He lands on his back with a thud, having to catch his breath before rolling on his side with a groan, reaching behind himself to check that his bow hasn't snapped. Sighing in relief to find it intact, he knows that now is not the time to lick his wounds and sit in shock, especially not as his allies are still at the mercy of the same creature that has just taken a chunk out of him. He slides the bow off his shoulder gracefully, removing an arrow from the quiver and reminding himself of Larissa's teachings, forcing himself to cut off the searing pain and focus on his aim.

"Catch your breath, girls, and get up. I'll be covering you."

Always.

bellamy attacks the leucrocottae trio ; bow and arrow
nhATohgiUubow
miss

accuracy | day two

bow
3.5

bow·bow

[calla]

^{P E R R Y .}

"Mh-yeah five more minutes."

Whoever said to live in the moment was right, y'know. So what if a puddle of actual tar tries to eat your shoe. So what if your hair gets a little frizzy in the afternoon warmth and makes you look like an uncivilized wench. So what if you stumble across an exact copy of yourself except she's dead and decomposing and the only thing that runs through your mind is that you wish you had a camera to take a picture with it because - come on.

There's some freak out there who'd eat it right up.

So yeah, live in the moment. She's living by that. Snug as a bug in a rug and doing her best to ignore the way one of her allies is trying their best to snore the whole forest down (not naming names).

And by the way, check with the front desk if you have to - she certainly didn't order a wake up call.

Bellamy starts tromping around and making noise and Perry reaches over to throw a shoe at him without looking. She hears it thump on the ground.

Damn.

Missed him.

”Oh my god," She complains, talking over his babbling, "Shut up shut up shut up-"

And then he does!

It's a millisecond of bliss before his shout rattles her and she fully sits up, dizzy from the suddenness, hair a mess oh god don't look, turn the cameras away-

There's three things in their clearing. Perry gapes at them. Two of them crash right into Bellamy and Larissa while the third makes a beeline for her and it's fucking talking. It's talking it's saying words, but maybe Perry's just lost her mind. It nicks her leg as she scrambles, gets caught in the blanket, staring into the face of something she's not even sure has a face. She can't even figure out what it is. Antlers? The mouth? Hello??

"Why’d you have to say that?” She whines, voice high with the panic, wanting to glare at Bellamy but not wanting to take her eyes off the creature, "Why'd you jinx it?

She turns to Larissa briefly instead, wild-eyed, hissing, “He’s cursed.”

Of course he is.

She's gonna let Myrtle eat him this time, she swears. As soon as the little traitor comes back from wherever she flew off to.

"I haven't even done my morning routine yet." She spits at the thing that cocks it's head at her, ”PISS OFF!!”

perry attacks the leucrocottae ; festerwood spear
4MNMuXF5Lispear
4.0

spear

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

^{L A R I S S A .}

If you were wondering how easy it might be to sleep on your first night in a Hunger Games arena after trudging through a rotten forest full of the darkest creatures you've ever seen, trees that literally wouldn't stop gossiping to you every time you walked too close to one, and then when the sun began to set you started glowing- not, like, lightly shimmering, but literally illuminating the fucking night like a well-tended campfire, the answer is quite simple: you don't sleep at all. Not if you were Larissa Le Roux, so exhausted mentally that the physical soreness kept seeming like an afterthought. None of this made sense. She enjoyed having all her affairs in order at all times, never one to be caught with her pants down. Lawful, some called it, which she was sure there was some level of irony to, given how much she loathed both the Capitol and its white-wearing enforcers.

But her lawfulness was in her nature: her love of routine, and of order, and of rules and lines that should not be crossed, because without those limits, everything was too random and unpredictable. A world without order was... well, it'd be a lot like this place: complete and utter chaos.

She recalled her au pair reading her a story once when she was only four or five at most, about a girl not much older than she was at the time falling into a magical realm full of bizarre creatures and strange people. She remembered her sister twirling across the den, the hem of her skirt fluffed enough to show her silly childish plastic heels. Larissa had only stared, perplexed. Intrigued, perhaps, but mostly getting less and less so as the story went on and things seemed to become less sensical. By the end, Larissa had ceased even paying enough attention to remember what the last of the story even was. Something about a dragon and a bitter lady and a 'jabber-baby-wocky,' she recalled, but as soon as the book was closed, Larissa had sighed and stood, facing away from the au pair.

"That was silly."

That's how she felt now, like she'd stumbled into a hole without realizing it and now everything was ridiculous and outrageous and, well- silly. She probably drifted off to sleep an hour or so before sunrise, and was then jolted back awake by the sound of gigantic flapping wings somewhere far above them. She shivered.

"I hate it here," she grumbled to That Girl, who was slack-jawed and drooling next to her. She sighed. That's okay, I know you hate it too. Eventually, she sat up and readied her things, trying to ignore the pain in the back of her shoulder every time she moved her right arm. What's His Name did a decent enough job bandaging it, but she could still feel it slipping back open every once in a while even with the compression. She'd need to be sewn up to heal properly, otherwise that would turn into a nasty scar. Adonya Kraun would kill her for marking up the canvas she'd done so well to keep spotless before coming here.

Sometimes, out of context, it was hard for Larissa to think her life had ever had even an ounce of structure strangely enough.

The hours passed, Larissa refused to rise out of spite for her new glowing form. It wasn't even normal that she glowed, though What's His Name's eyes kept changing with his feelings which made it impossible for him to lie, and That Girl's teeth were... different. More fragile-looking for sure. She supposed that she glowed in the dark wasn't the worst thing that could've happened, but understand that when all of her glowed: all of her glowed. Including her eye lids. Could anyone sleep soundly with the equivalent of a flashlight shining directly into their eyes? No. But as the sun came back up, the glow died back down and by the time What's His Name decided it was time to get a move on, she only glowed faintly like the light of a candle again.

"Perry, I'm just being hypothetical here," What's His Name started in a lighthearted, teasing tone, (oh, right, her name was Perry. And his was-) "but what if a horde of muttations was about to ambush us and you're still under the blanke— FUCK!" A horde of mutts was the last thing Larissa wanted to think about, but sure enough it was as if he'd summoned them with his words. There were at least three of them, deer with thick manes and lumbering right toward them with obvious aggressive intent.

They attacked as a unit, one of them literally running Larissa over with its front and back legs, trampling her. She screamed as one of its back legs punctured skin somewhere in her abdomen and the other scraped all the way down the length of her thigh.

"What the actual fuck, guys?!" It wasn't their fault. Well, it was someone's fault because she was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be her watch.

Them, one of the creatures seemed to say.

She was so tired of everything in this arena talking to her.

"He’s cursed," Perry called. Larissa wasn't sure if she meant the creatures or What's His Name. Either way, she was inclined to agree. Or, now that she thought of it-

"I think I might be the cursed one, actually."

[larissa attacks mutts, shadow sword]
H6PmpG4Od1sword
[3.5]

sword

[d10f ekta ram // [earthling]]

LEUCROCOTTAE

Their opponent spoke and it sounded like silk in the wind. For a moment, the tallest muttation was taken aback -- just long enough for Bellamy to notch and renotch an arrow. Their mane ruffled in the damp breeze. This time, instead of inclining their head and ramming with their horns, they reared and kicked out at Bellamy.

The middle leucrocotta, the Gnasher, bared her teeth plates at the Perry the Screamer. She couldn't understand the girl, not quite, but it was enough to know she was annoyed by more than just their meeting. It was as though Gnasher had done something personally to the tribute and she hadn't! Not really. But she could, she realized, and tilted her head down with her next attack so that her horns met Perry first.

The last was not as eager as his brethren. They shifted their attacks with ease, meeting the tributes weapons seemingly without fear. He huffed. He danced on his cloven hooves. And when Larissa came for him with a blade made of shadows, he very nearly dodged it. As they passed one another, he tried to ram her with his thick skull.

[Leucrocottae attacks Perry; spiked blunt]

JaFvSjdN_zspiked blunt

[ BROKEN JAW -- 7.0 damage]

[Gnasher Leucrocottae attacks Larissa; knife]

knife

[ Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

[Leucrocottae attacks Bellamy; spiked blunt]

spiked blunt

[ BROKEN LEFT KNEE -- 7.0 damage]

spiked blunt·knife·spiked blunt

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

^{B E L L A M Y .}

Chaos takes root in a matter of moments, a forest within a forest. A labyrinth of trees and woes.

Bellamy's eyes flash sunset orange as panic grips him for a brief pause, heart beating fast within his chest, watching as the lion-stags wreak havoc upon their camp. Larissa looks to have been cut as deeply as he had been by the antlers, a fresh stream of blood now flowing down her exposed skin and staining all the fabric in its path. Perry holds her own, managing to reduce the brunt of the initial attack against her, but the trio of creatures are quick to prepare their next assault.

And to his disappointment, he realizes that luck is on none of their sides today, arrows and blades alike barely grazing the skin. He blames this on the fact that they were caught off-guard, securing his grip around the curve of his bow and willing his determination to burn like embers coming to life from deep, dark ash. That round didn't count, but this one will change the game. His captain mentality pushes to the forefront of his mind, not breaking his gaze away from the beasts as they circle their intended prey.

"You can burn me at the stake after we deal with the issue at hand," he scolds in a calm, but clipped tone. Maybe Perry is right that he's cursed, or maybe Larissa is the one telling the truth. Maybe, just maybe, none of the people in this alliance are meant to be trusted. "But if I can really speak things into existence, then how about this: we get rid of these mutts quickly."

One enemy for each of them, he knows he is leaving himself prone as the lion-stag charges him at full speed, steadying his breath and closing one eye and manifesting a critical hit. He lets the arrow fly, watching it soar and waiting to hear a squelch; but in a fraction of moments, the beast comes tumbling forward, massive antlers aimed straight at his leg. The crack of a bone is just barely audible over his strangled, agonized cry.

"Girls," he winces, crawling away from the stomping hooves of the muttation and propping himself up on the palm of his hands to stare at his allies. His eyes glow scarlet as his nails dig into the dirt, rage and hurt burrowing into his heart, making their home there until a new emotion comes to stake its claim. "Rip them apart."

bellamy attacks the leucrocottae trio ; bow and arrow 2/6
ydGJZ8Ot_Mbow
7.0 + 1 poison (blight arrow), + 1 mutt-tamer {9}

bow

[calla]

^{P E R R Y .}

"Witch.” She giggles hysterically over, swaying in time with the beast, “Yeah, maybe!”

She fantasizes about it; roasting Bellamy over a spit, dancing with Larissa as the moon spins around and around and around. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad way to spend a night. They could get some wine sponsored, maybe convince those trees to play a song again - ok, yeah, she can definitely see this happening.

Then, perhaps in some universal display of karma, the mutt lurches forward whilst Perry's distracted. She takes a head-butt right to the jaw and hears something crack. It makes her see stars, her head snapping backwards and her chin flying up. The whole thing rocks her and she groans, doing her best to scramble backwards in the daze, her glare blearily on the creature that doubles itself and swims in front of her.

Larissa joins in on the pandemonium and Perry deliriously slurs a "Welcome to the party."

She leans over to spit out the blood gathered in her mouth and the light catches on shimmering shards of glass mixed in, sitting there like rubies in the grass.

That doesn’t seem right.

She can feel the pain throb in time with her heartbeat, a steady echo chasing itself under the skin. She cradles her face and feels the heat of the injury. Even her neck hurts. God, and she's probably blotchy now. The bruising's going to be awful. Shit, what if her jaw's broken? Is the arena going to be accommodating for a liquid diet? She needs pain pills and a green shake, stat. Sponsors - get on it.

"Do you have any idea," She grounds out to the creature, blood running down her chin, down her neck, staining lace, "How hard I have worked on this jawline?"

"M'gonna break your face in half you tacky piece of- ohmygod shut UP Bellamy, you're ruining my one-liner!"

perry attacks the leucrocottae ; festerwood spear
4beklz9VhKspear
3.5

spear

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

^{L A R I S S A .}

The moment she dared to think her life was at rock bottom, there was a budge and then she was free falling further and further down into the deep dark abyss of tomfoolery that was unfolding around her. The creatures were absolute units. Larissa watched in a strange mixture of horror and disgust as one of them slammed its head into Perry's mouth and she started spitting blood in the moments following the loud crack that sounded from the impact. One of the others kicked Bellamy in the knee hard enough that there was a similar, maybe slightly more hollow cracking sound from it. The third, the one that'd trampled over Larissa before, turned slowly and with more reluctance than the others toward her.

Nope.

It charged out at her with its head bowed and its horns glistening in the early morning light. Larissa rolled to the side at the last minute, still getting clipped by the creature's shoulder hard enough to be knocked off balance and sent spiraling off to the side, but at least she'd done it without attaining any new piercings.

The shadow sword hissed longingly, as if it craved blood. She swore the powdery blue stain on her hand began to glow ever so slightly as well, but that would've been par for the fucking course at this point even if she was certain it had happened, and she wasn't. It'd happened so quickly that by the time she had a moment to glance down at it, it looked normal again. Weird. But not pressing enough to warrant current concern when-

"-shut UP Bellamy-"

Right, Bellamy. Perry and Bellamy.

Wait, why was she reminding herself of their names? She knew their names! She knew all their names before she even arrived in the Capitol- what kind of fake career would she have been if she hadn't sat through the entire presentation her mentors had prepared for her and her district partner?

She used the momentum of the creature knocking her down to spin around in a circle and brought her sword up from the ground with full intention of gutting this thing where it stood.

"Just shut up and kill them!"

[larissa attacks mutts, shadow sword]
6GpgYD_f9Msword
[1064 -- Stabbed in Stomach -- 9.5 damage +2 pts crown perk, +1 blades, +1 mutt tamer total: 13.5]

sword

[d10f ekta ram // [earthling]]

LEUCROCOTTAE

Rip them apart, the leader commands.

And the tributes very nearly do.

The arrow and spear threaten. The tallest muttation stumbles. But then they find strength in each other, just as Bellamy, Perry and Larissa do. Strong enough to twist on cloven hooves. Strong enough to turn back, thundering, and strike again.

It's the slowest of the three who, in trying to keep up with his brethren, finds a sword plunged deep in his belly. The sound of pain he makes is otherworldly; it haunts and echos and keens.

[Leucrocottae attack Peregrine; knife]

Q9d_ehKU92knife

[ Miss -- 0.0 damage]

[Leucrocottae attack Larissa; spiked blunt]

spiked blunt

[ DEEP GASH ON RIGHT BICEP -- 8.0 damage]

[Leucrocottae attack Bellamy; knife]

knife

[ Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage]

knife·spiked blunt·knife

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

^{B E L L A M Y .}

He regains his footing, ignoring the sharp pain racing up and down his leg, marrow splintering with his every movement. His eyes are still a bright, piercing scarlet shade, but he manages a manic kind of smile when he sees his arrow stuck cleanly through the russet pelt of the beast. Its wound oozes a deep purple liquid mixed with dark crimson blood, and he hopes that it fucking burns.

His ears are ringing now as the adrenaline dies down, the thump of his frantic heartbeat inside his ear canals being traded for the heavy thunder of hoofbeats, watching as the three massive creatures still race around Bellamy and his alliance. Their antlers glint in the dim sunlight filtering through the trees.

He notches another arrow in the curve of his bow, having to shake his head and blink a little bit to gather his thoughts, reminding himself that his allies had been speaking to him. Yelling, even. "How about we ALL shut up and just—" he readies his weapon to fire, channeling all of his luck into guiding the pointed edge straight through the mutt's eye.

Let this be the price for its crime. He will accept nothing but the full payment.

"—end this."

Red-eyed and furious, even the summer prince requires his pound of flesh. He will skin these monstrosities and offer their organs to the earth, if that is what it takes to feel safe. Place a mountain in his path, and Bellamy will find a way to uproot it. He can feel the goodness in him, the light glowing beneath his skin, and it starts to flicker. It deepens. He leaps to the side as the lion-stag charges in his direction, just barely being grazed by the sweeping of its horns, and he sets his arrow free with the intention of doing a terrible thing.

Let the whole world feel this same crimson hurt.

bellamy attacks the leucrocottae trio ; bow and arrow 3/6
eh|w5ZqFfUbow
6.0 + 1 poison (blight arrow), + 1 mutt tamer {8}

bow

[calla]

^{P E R R Y .}

Everyone agrees to shut up and Perry throws her arms up in relief, except it ends up more of a flail, the pain in her jaw trumping every other bodily function at the moment.

"Finally!"

Although -

"Larsie, you can keep talking if you want." She bats her eyes even though she knows she's not looking anywhere near Larissa's direction, it's the thought that counts, "It's not grating, unlike someone."

Perry swings around a little triumphantly to see if the barb is appreciated and only catches the tail end of Larissa literally gutting one of the mutts with her creepy inky sword.

Her heart actually skips a few beats.

The pain, remember? It's the pain! Dear god, the pain!

She glances over at Bellamy too, who's decided he's finally done crawling around. Good decision, probably. Good man. Although she's pretty sure his knee isn't supposed to look like that. The mutt thunders towards him and his eyes flash, the oddest shade of red to them, dark, something deep there and oh.

Uh. Haha. Uh oh!

The pain! Focus on the pain! Perry's in pain!

She nearly considers slapping herself. The creature that'd been focused on her rushes by her in a gust of wind, nearly setting her off balance and causing a topple, not that she was distracted or anything - "Whoa!"

It turns where it stops, makes like it's about to charge again.

Perry physically shakes herself, winces, doesn't think about her allies, doesn't even look at them, nope!

"'Kay, let's go, I'm sick of this now."

perry attacks the leucrocottae ; festerwood spear
cdCuOfjQ5Vspear
8.0 + 1.0 strength + 1.0 mutt tamer

spear

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

^{L A R I S S A .}

The sounds that came from the creature were not ones she was proud to have been the reason for. It howled hoarsely, its vocal chords straining to their limit to express jut how brutal its final moments were. Her blade had entered low, below the stomach, and she'd managed to slice her way all the way up to the place where its ribs met below the massive mane. A brief and unsightly flash of viscera was quickly covered by the creature's collapsing body, complete lifeless.

She wasn't saying it was her own call to action that'd finally gotten things moving, but what she was saying is that as soon as she made her move, Bellamy and Perry made theirs and now in a matter of seconds they'd gained the advantage.

"Larsie, you can keep talking if you want. It's not grating, unlike someone."

She raised a perplexed eyebrow but kept her gaze trained forward on the remaining two beasts. No one called her Larsie. People tended not to call her anything other than Larissa, in fact. Lars sometimes from laziness, Miss Le Roux by the staff. She was glad that her skin was already in a constant state of glowing, because she was certain it would've otherwise revealed her blushing cheeks more easily.

Bellamy rushed one, Perry the other, and it was done. It was really all that simple. It'd taken her a moment to get her bearings at first, which was something she made a mental note to chastise herself for later, but she'd eventually gotten the job done and after looking at the others, no one seemed too badly injured. She was counting this one as a win.

She walked over to one of the huge trees and sliced off two vines before wrapping them around the back legs of the beast she killed and pulling it up into the air over a tree branch so that it was hanging. She dug a hole beneath its head to collect what would bleed out of it until its meat was tender enough to eat. And then she sighed.

"I'm thirsty."

[ larissa flees ]