give me a man (with a little fight in him) pvk ; day 6

[calla]

So here's the thing. Bellamy can’t break her heart because technically she’s not supposed to have one. Perry's a goddamned career, alright? Doesn't matter that she's from the shit district now. People don't get to just forget how great Two was. Sure they didn't win all that often, but like, hello? They were pumping out PK's for a reason. Don't look at the Aubergine kid; Perry's the real wonderboy here. She's got grit and determination and she's a nasty fighter, she's got a temper to rival Strauss's and it's her own stupid fault that she got soft enough to forget that.

She likes to press on the bruise, just to see how it feels. Perry's her own sadist. She came here to kill kids and show off. She volunteered because someone broke up with her. Who knows what she'll do now.

No more pretty words. No more slack in the leash because someone gave her bedroom eyes and she was weak for that. She'll crack open the chest of the next person that does it, reach right in and pull out their heart and eat it whole and laugh at the look on their face.

Oh, you thought she was in love?

She loves like she burns. She loves the taste of blood and the warmth of it down her throat, the way it settles and sets her nerves better than any shot. She loves the way a rabbit panics just before it dies, loves the sound it squeaks out when it realizes it's been shacked up with a predator all along. She loves the snap of a ribcage; the criminal pattern of brain matter; the sharp tang of fear in the air.

She's not nice - don't forget that. She played whack-a-mole with a trainer and tried to smash his cerebral cortex in. She never claimed to be anything but awful.

So yeah. Perry's a goddamned career - same as Larissa; stony eyed and strong-willed and prone to slitting the throats of anyone that gets too close.

Funny then, how Bellamy and Larissa are both out there kickin' it still.

She swears she never fell asleep last night, she wanted to stay up to see what would happen, if they'd get up and leave her again and if she'd have to kill them for it, but sometime between one blink and the next the air had changed and Perry was on her feet with no memory of ever standing. Her foot was in the oil slick again, her one good shoe lost in the muck, her back aching, and she just stood there and screamed loud enough to shake the trees.

Let whoever hears it come. Let whatever hears it come. There's blood under her tongue and bits of gore stuck between her teeth. Her eyes are pitch dark. The shadows cling to her like cobwebs, spider silk stained; she stands as the dead bride, smashing up her own altar, and she resents the world for it.

Come sweep her away, see what happens.

Fuck that Ulysses kid by the way. Perry's mastered the hobble-spear-jump manoeuvre she has to do now that she's one foot down and tries to do it gracefully. Or at least not stupidly. The pain of the thing's long dulled by now, it's more annoying than anything. She has no idea how losers like Teddy Ursa managed to do this day after day, missing a whole leg.

Perry's pretty sure she'd be able to pull that off but still, doesn't mean she wants to. She festers in one place, gnashing her teeth and slowly getting acclimated to the newer, darker waves of rage that brush over her. The feeling's almost gentle - tickle of Larissa's hair, warmth of Bellamy's palm. The human spirit is a remarkable thing. She's never felt like this before - she's got this vast chasm of wrongness that scooped all her insides out and burrowed itself deep. She's not supposed to be like this. She's wrong now.

Perry digs her spear into the ground and grinds her jaw so hard that her back molars shatter. She spits out blood and glass and her eyes gleam the way a shark's do - terribly.

She's going hunting.

The pixies are no help. Perry spots them and immediately starts swatting at them viciously, stomping her way along in whatever direction she feels like. There's a little bitch from Eleven that's aching for a blade through the skull. Not even a grave can stop her now. Caspian's dead, Jayson's dead; there's no one left to protect the runts.

Perry crashes her way through the woods like a storm. The trees tremble. The sweat on the back of her neck feels like blood. She's running so hot that she might as well be on fire.

That'll be the fever.

Treat your severed limbs properly, kids.

And it must be some kind of fever dream that shows her the same bodies that they'd found here last time; half-decomposed and rotting, black blood oozing. They're not real, Perry tells herself. It doesn't matter that they're walking and talking this time, flickering with her gaze - it's just a trick again. It's a silly little Halloween act that the Gamemakers think they're very clever for.

Nevermind it. Don't look. Focus. She's found a pair of warm bodies. Not the ones she was looking for, but still. Maybe good enough. Maybe.

She’s just north of unwell, made up of false bravado and a heaping pile of real anger; one part girl, three parts animal. She's missing a foot and a good chunk of her common sense and there's something evil sitting on her shoulders - she's got a handful of those pesky pixies shish-kabobbed on her spear (only ended up making the rest of them angrier but, whatever, c'est la fuckin' vie, she'll use them later for advanced target practice).

Now, to make one thing clear -

"Damn," She calls out, something wild edging up against her tone, "Y’know the invite never said anything about a sausage party!"

- all boys must die.

perry attacks vallen ; festerwood spear
CsFpiesdOospear
[8.5 + 1.0]

perry attacks krueger ; festerwood spear
spear
[4.0]

spear·spear

[knuckles]

Being alone, it's hard despite it being something Vallen is used to. Every night he would lock himself away in his bedroom refusing to talk to anyone, and now that he's alone, it's one of the worst feelings in the world. Maybe it's because it's hard to see, it's hard to focus on anything and everything when the world is dark and blurry. It's terrifying, and for the first time in his life, he wants to run away from all his problems. Death sounds amazing to him at the moment, but having this hope that his family will want to see him again one day gives him the courage to face everything head on.

Backing down is for the weak, and I want to prove that I am not weak.

So many things have gone wrong in his life leading up to this point, and being so close to surviving, to seeing district three again gives him courage. None of this is easy, and Vallen understands that the grim reaper could snatch his soul at any given moment, and maybe that's what is so freeing.

It's hard to fall asleep, though, and right now, he would do almost anything to find Lillybird again. Hopefully she's okay, but if she died, Vallen wouldn't feel too bad since he wouldn't have to kill her. It would still hurt, though, but friendships do not exist in a place like this.

Does she miss me too? Does she even care? Did she ever care?

Somehow, he manages to close his eyes as he leans against a tree, and it doesn't take long for sleep to overtake him. Sometimes it's needed, but other times, it slows the world down. All living things need to rest at some point, and maybe that's a weakness. But he doesn't get the chance to sleep long because before he knows it, the sun is rising high into the arena, and these little pixies swarm him.

His first instinct is to jump up and scream, but for the moment, he manages to hold every ounce of fear inside even as they tug at his matted hair and claw at his skin.

"Okay, okay!"

None of that works, and they don't go away. Instead, they drag him along with their sharp claws pulling his hair from his head, and each tug brings tears to his eyes, but he doesn't fight them. Clearly, they have a plan, but sometimes it's hard to know what this plan is.

His hands never leave his glaive, and he listens carefully trying to figure out where he's going and trying to figure out if anyone is following him. Adjusting is hard. Relying on others is even more difficult, and right now, Vallen has a second chance to prove he's learning to live with what has happened instead of running away from it. Problems only grow bigger, and maybe that's their intentions, but right now, the only thing that matters is staying alive to see one more sunrise.

And right as a voice echoes through his ear, Vallen turns trying to figure out where it's coming from, and then he sees something almost right in front of his face. The bodies, the people, they all look so strange, so weird, so unable to care for themselves -

Who are they? What do they want?

Not that it matters because as soon as they appear, another voice, one that seems real echoes through the air.

"Damn. Y’know the invite never said anything about a sausage party!"

Looking around, he tries to make sense of everything, and as the tip of the spear slices into his skin, he realizes everything is real and fake all at the same time.

And at the moment, his voice fails him, and words refuse to form.

Doing the only thing he can think of doing, he turns one way and then turns the other. Hopefully this goes his way, but fighting a fight against two others seems unproductive. Running away is best, and Vallen knows this, but proving himself is more important. Only cowards flee.

And I am not a coward.

"You could at least say hi before attacking." Vallen finally finds something to say, "At least be polite and introduce yourself."

Formalities are important, but he knows that soon one of them will simply become another face in the sky.

[kaitlin]

Vallen attacks Perry | Glaive
tajzeCwIYJglaive
13029 -- 3.5 damage

Vallen attacks Krueger | Glaive
glaive
13028 -- 4.0 damageglaive·glaive

[pogue]

G   A   M   B   L   E

Hush and him exist as ghosts once they finally settle down from their fights, collapsing into the dust and the dirt and patching up what they can of their wounds, picking at the scabs left over from the others.

Words are heard, said, whispered in the soft glow of the moonlight as they share stories that could be their last. He tells Willow about the pixies he'd killed and laughs when she tells him he's gotta start counting them as points, leaves out the way the look in Leo's eyes is engrained into his memory and won't leave no matter what, rolls over so his back is facing her and stares at the rotten earth until sleep begins to take him.

Gamble hears the pixies before they actually get there, mistaking it at first for some half-hearted zone between sleep and alertness. He'd tossed and turned the world over in his mind the night prior, able to make just enough sense of it yet at the same time understanding exactly nothing. He'd grown used to the unknown and the damned, watching the sky part and looking at the unfortunate victims of the day and knowing sooner or later he'd be next.

Like flipping a coin but never seeing where it lands, not knowing up or down or good from bad or life from death.

The tricks the arena plays gnaw at him, first in his dreams and then in his nightmares and then in reality, bloodshot eyes cracked open and catching the sun beginning to stretch itself up into the sky. They start as a buzz then turn whisper, gnashing fangs and flickering limbs and Krueger groans as he sees the shadows of the flitting fuckers begin to materialize in the tree line. He palms the dying earth with his hands, dust pluming up between his fingertips and into the crevices as he rubs 'em together before grabbing his spear from on top of his bag, shifting his weight and feeling his body ripple as he helps himself up.

There's a fresh batch of eyes on his forearm and his chest that dart their gaze wildly at the new world around them as he rises, newfound muscles tensing and contracting underneath his skin as the eyes seem to protest the sudden movement. "Yeah, yeah-" Krueger mutters sarcastically to them all, like he's carrying a child against his chest and not twenty new reminders of a wound that would never fully heal.

He makes an example outta one of them, digs his fingers into the socket and yanks it from the wound and feels the tendrils of muscle and veins snap and wither and the blood- his blood slather itself over his fingers as he holds the eyeball up to the light and watches the life fade quick from the iris. Brown, just like his.

The first pixie that breaks through the rotting brush is met with a comet of an eyeball whipped at it, slamming against its chest and sending it flying back into the soft bark of a long since dead tree. Ten fucking points, he guesses, jutting out a middle finger but pulling it back before one of the pixies can snap at it. Hush is still near him when he slings the bag over his shoulder and looks over towards her sleeping form, the pixies going for him first as if they had any right for a vengeance (they do- he'd killed at least five of their own just the day prior. Guess the Queen didn't like the down payment). "Hey, Hush-" He calls out, not even knowing if she'd heard his voice or if she'd just ignored him. "Stay alive out there."

More of a statement to himself than her, a cracked mirror with his own reflection carved into the broken glass. The pixies don't afford him any time for sentimentality though, one dive bombs his face as he looks to the Sun one last time. He pays 'em back with a curse word and the slam of his palms around its head and a popping sound echoing softly in the wind, yellow blood and guts staining his skin and a scowl staining his face.

He's got about forty five points racked up by the time the world dims and the bodies appear, the blood of four pixies coating his hands and the fifth coating the underside of his shoe, an unlucky flight path and a lucky step forward and only counting it worth five. There are ghosts that cling to his shoulders and whisper in his ears as he moves, Olete and Leo and every troupe member that he'd watched fade into oblivion, gloss eyes looking up to the night sky as if waiting, hoping for it to part.

All of it pales in comparison to the bodies that exist just outside of his path, rotted and mangled and bearing faces that are oh so familiar. Krueger gulps, swallows, feels the dryness of his throat and the ragged breaths that catch in it, clawing their way out and into the stifling dead air. Something in his stomach churns and twirls, maybe guilt or maybe regret or maybe something more sinister- probably the latter, he realizes. Knuckles wrapped around spears and a hundred eyes darting from life to death, surveying the ghosts that lurk in the shadows around him, a consequence of blight.

Or a trick of the light, or something human or something monstrous. All he knows is they make it far too easy to see who the Gamemakers want him fighting, thrashing bodies and weapons swung and red against his skin. The woods part and he's met with the weapons of tributes who'd seen him before he'd seen them, irony coating the fact that he had a thousand eyes to see and yet hadn't noticed 'em.

He stumbles backwards at first, grinds his teeth into each other and feels pain and fire shoot out from the source under his skin. The first attack leaves his makeshift armor in pieces, palming the wood and ripping the remaining pieces that had been clinging to his tattered uniform. The second comes from behind him, "Y'know the invite never said anything about a sausage party!". Krueger swipes back just to cover himself as he puts distance between himself and the other two, eyes resting on the only two living things in his vicinity. There's a career in front of him, he'd seen her only in passing at the Training Center and had noted to avoid the thrust of her spear, had clearly failed that task now that he stands in front of her. But sausage party be damned, Krueger lets a grin slip onto his face and holds up a palm covered in blood not his own, a sickening display of rainbow hues. "Pixies were after 'ya too, huh?" He curls his fingers into his palm before pointing one out towards the corpses that are speared on her weapon. "Thirty points. Nice." 

"You could at least say hi before attacking." And Krueger furrows his brows, shifting his gaze from the career over to Vallen. "At least be polite and introduce yourself." 

He cocks his head, raises his spear and points it towards the boy. "Y'know-" He starts, pondering the words in his mind, "Weird request to make right before a fight to the death." Because it is, he knows that, but Krueger punctuates it with a shrug before wrapping his other hand around the weapon, pixie blood staining the wood. "But manners are manners." His gaze goes from Vallen to the career, then back again. 

"Krueger." He starts, a half-hearted introduction. "But call me Gamble if you want. I'm not picky."

[Attacks Vallen ; spear]

uR2Bcld|Upspear

[8.5]


[Attacks Perry ; spear]

spear

[4.0]

spear·spear

[calla]

She gets that little taste of blood she's looking for. Proud spine; her lungs burn. There's a spattering on her cheek. She sees the red red red of it all and it takes her a laboured breath to realize that she's smiling.

Turns out that Big Guy likes her collection. Perry shrugs in faux-sheepishness, all that nasty pride settling along her shoulders, but that's something she's incapable of apologizing for. She shakes her pixie-laden spear and says so, so lightly, "I thought about making a necklace outta them."

And wouldn't the creatures around here just love that. She can see herself stomping around with a cord of wings around her throat, little finger bones jabbed through her skin as earrings, the entire spectrum of their guts shimmering and glinting off of her teeth. That'd suit her better than any crown ever would.

Little Guy pipes up then. And Perry can't even help it - she straight up laughs at him.

Imagine being polite in a place like this. Imagine retaining any sort of manners. She's working purely on hindbrain - animal instincts. The blood in the grass turns her shark-like, she can feel the crunch of the blades under her barefoot, it doesn't even matter. She puts her weight of her spear and darts out of the way of his weapon, only getting the glance of it and the feel of the scrape makes her giddy.

"You could at least say hi." He says. Whines.

Oh, this sweet thing.

She's going to eat him alive.

"Gamble." Perry repeats after the other one, incredulous, immediately distracted by the absurdity of it, "What, you lose a bet or something?"

And then she laughs again at her joke. The sound bounces off the trees around them, getting caught in the muck and the sludge, dancing along her skin until it's her own stupid laughter that's making her laugh.

Imagine that!

She's got tears in her eyes by the time she calms down. She's very unwell. One moment she swears she hears Larissa's voice, then it fades into the murmur of the Reaping crowd in Two. Gamble the Gambler drags his spear across that poor little thing's back and Perry can't help but crack that familiar grin.

She can be nice! She can be polite. Just watch.

"Aright," She says, firm with the grip on herself, controlling her giggles like she's trying to hold a piece of soap, slipping, "Alright, alright, my turn."

She clears her throat and puffs her chest out, like she's the damned President of Panem and this is her inaugural speech.

"Hi everyone." She starts mockingly, "I'm Perry. I'm eighteen. I'm a leo."

She gets sickly sweet with it, eyes wide, teeth bared, sugar spinning under her tongue - "And I'm the one who's about to rip your throat out."

perry attacks vallen ; festerwood spear
|5NhOpz0DDspear
[3.5]

perry attacks krueger ; festerwood spear
spear
[3.5]

spear·spear

[knuckles]

What's the point of even trying?

Nothing good comes from being polite, and he quickly realizes and understands that things are far beyond his control. Every second of every day is nothing more than a struggle, a fight to figure out where life is going, but nothing ever makes sense. His eyes lock on the ground. Nobody will ever care, nobody will ever understand, yet Vallen is trying to find any sort of reason to keep going. It's hard being so lonely, being so locked away from the rest of the world. Developing key social cues is important in life, and in this moment, it dawns on him just how incompetent and socially unaware he truly is.

In school and robotics competitions, people always talked down to him, and nobody understood the pain it caused him. Even his own family. While they spent much of their time trying to convince him to socialize with others, Vallen took it further away. It was a personal knock, something that pulled the rug out from underneath him, but why? Why does any of that even matter?

It shouldn't.

Being in a fight for life and death should push every painful memory away, but all that's happening is realizing everything his family ever said is right. Making friends is important, yet he doesn't know how. Learning those skills never happened, and now, now that he's teetering on the fence of being alive and dying, Vallen understands his parents only wanted what's best for him, and they pushed away their own desires just to make things right, to help him live the life he wanted.

I wish I could tell them this. I wish I could let them know I'm sorry.

Failing is something he's never been good at, and losing competitions only make things more complicated. Tears used to run down his cheeks every time a gold medal was given to someone else.

Mine was always better.

But that wasn't the case, and it isn't the case right now. These two, they're stronger than him, and what can he do? Vallen is just a kid from district three who's entire life was devoted to something that doesn't even matter. The robot collection hiding in his room is going to become scrap metal and rust away as his life comes crashing down.

Kreuger and Perry.

Not that it matters.

It seems like neither of them actually care.

Why should they?

"Vallen."

It's all he can say because even his name seems so far away, but now they can know. Now they can know when his face lights up in the sky, and maybe they'll care enough to mourn him for just a moment -

Nobody will care though.

Home is so far away, and he was foolish to believe he stood a chance of seeing his family again, but right now, it isn't over. As long as his heart is pumping blood throughout his body, Vallen believes he can somehow find a way.

It's just a matter of how.

He turns trying to figure out exactly what his next game plan is. Maybe that's all he needs, a way to get out of this mess like he's done so many times before.

Everyone is fighting for something, but what am I fighting for?

Hopefully someday he can grow old and relive this moment for all eternity, or maybe, just maybe, these two can finally set him free.

[kaitlin]

Vallen attacks Perry | Glaive
Mg1HqpnrmYglaive
13128 -- 4.0 damage

Vallen attacks Krueger | Glaive
glaive
13039 -- 4.5 damageglaive·glaive

[pogue]

G   A   M   B   L   E

His spear drags itself across Vallen's form, droplets of red and black spraying across his face as he pulls backwards and lashes out against the Career's chest. He can tell he doesn't hit skin, much less break it, the tip of his spear bouncing against the armor that she wears. They exist in unison and separately all at once, swinging wildly and dancing in a sea of rotting flesh and broken bones, and it takes all his might not to stumble backwards onto his ass when he puts distance between himself and the others, shaking legs and aching wounds. "I thought about making a necklace outta them." And Krueger laughs, heaving lungs and hollow chest and the muscles of newfound eyes rippling under his skin with the movement. "If I provide the materials-" Pixie corpses, bloody and mangled litter the ground around them like makeshift trophies, he'd stomp them all into dust if he could. "- you wanna make me one, too?" 

There's an awkwardness that permeates the air between the three of them in between attacks, a somber reminder that they're children with weapons and blood on their hands and their flesh and everywhere else. He wrestles with that thought, only for a split second, the flashing of Olete's floating body and Leo's life fading and Will's sleeping form cutting into his mind. "Gamble." Brows furrow, attention drawn, Krueger looks back to the Career.

"What, you lose a bet or something?" 

And it's a real knee-slapper for the cause. Krueger watches as she gets a kick out of her own joke, then a stomp, doubled over in her own hysterics and he can't help but crack a grin that's just as confused as it is sincere. He glances to Vallen and catches him bleeding, wounds new and old littering his form before he rests his spear on his shoulder and remarks the landscape they stood in. "Guess so-" He mutters, but notes what they're doing and what they'll have to do in between the lines. "Guess we all lost a bet to end up here, huh?"

"Vallen." There's a name that's uttered from across the battlefield, whispered into the wind like its foreign even to its owner and Krueger notices it as he turns, familiarity twisting the knot up in the bottom of his stomach.

He's seen the look of someone who only knew better far too late, has seen the life flash in someone's eyes and watched it fade just as quickly. Krueger pulls himself back and clashes against Perry's antics with a frown, lets the tip of his spear rest softly in the grass only when he feels he's a safe enough distance away from the two of them to be able to get his weapon back up should he need to. 

He almost lets himself feel something other than emptiness, lets it root up from the pit of his stomach and carve into his veins. Almost.

Because there is a spear in his hand and blood splatters across his cheeks, wounds shallow and wounds deep covered in eyes that want nothing more than to watch him die. If he allowed himself to feel it would be the death of him, drowning in his own sorrows and feeling the ghosts pull him down. Instead Krueger offers something of a claim, a piece of advice, or maybe just an acknowledgement that the boy whose flesh he just opened up is a human and not just a number.

"A name is a powerful thing," He starts, pondering the words for a bit too long before it hits him that he sounds like one of the troupe elders, old folks with leathery skin and more cigarette smoke than lungs, always talking about life and death and something in between. Always yours to keep, he almost begins to say, but there's a little bit more to life than Vallen had shown them, weapon drawn and charging towards him and drops of red staining the grass as he runs.

Krueger reacts slow to the draw but quick on his feet, the steel of the blade swinging out towards his face. He could fall backwards, could use the end of his spear to hopefully block the blood-coated weapon, could hope for a better outcome than what he knows the short distance between them now will allow.

Instead, he takes the Bowie approach.

Hard-headed, as if he had the brain cells to lose he slams the makeshift helmet around his head against the blade and feels it crack and shatter, impact and momentum knocking it loose and the blade only grazing his cheek and causing a sliver of red to open up at the skin.

"Alright then," Krueger starts, and there's a spear pointed towards Vallen, then Perry, then back. "Guess 'ya got more fight in you than I knew." 

Good. It makes what's coming next a bit easier.

[Attacks Vallen ; spear]

xUuyAQBxehspear

[Block]


[Attacks Perry ; spear]

spear

[4]


[Accuracy - Krueger attacks Vallen ; spear]

spear

[4.5]

spear·spear·spear

[calla]

"Guess we all lost a bet to end up here, huh?"

"I didn't lose anything." Perry declares haughtily - a lovely little lie which she delivers with the cheery grace of a bright ingénue, "Figured this would be like a vacation. Go camping, kill off a few of those lower district losers, make sure the camera gets my good side. The standard resort package."

And maybe she missed out on the cucumber slices and the massage, but at least she's gotten a little hell raising out of it. Never say she doesn't make her own fun.

Itty Bitty swings, aims for her fucking neck and Perry swerves back, the image of Caspian's head rolling along in the grass coming sudden and unbidden. Yeah, no thank you. Not today. She glares at the kid for that one, hand against her throat to press at the thin line of red there. The colour comes away on her fingertips and gleams in the sun, sticky in a way fresh blood usually isn't.

"See, now that's not a very good example of being polite." Perry says flatly to the kid, to Vallen, mustering up all the bitter disappointment she can, "Don't tell me you've been a nasty little hypocrite this whole time."

Not that she'd blame him for it. In fact, that might make her respect him a little more. At least it'd give him a little flavour. We need something interesting! The demonic little ankle-biter's a good archetype to wedge in, surely. Get those views up - you're welcome, Panem.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

It's a rhetorical question. Perry steamrolls through any attempt at response.

"That's okay." She coos, patronizing, "It's fine to be nervous."

She tries to rile him up, but Vallen seems to take the go ahead to aim for Krueger instead, right for the head - damn maybe this kid does have a problem. Perry can feel a sympathy migraine coming on, the stress settling in the back of her neck and battering against her jugular.

But at least Vallen's little party trick does lead to one interesting thing. There's a delightful little crunching sound, and then Krueger's helmet falls to the ground in pieces, and Perry finally gets a good look at him.

She hums to herself in appreciation, giggles once or twice, makes the look-over obvious. She's spoiled, alright? She's had Larissa at her side to gaze at for the past week. This isn't too bad, all things considered. Krueger's forehead blinks at her, which would perhaps be off-putting to any sane person, but it also might just be a consequence of the fever.

He immediately lashes back out at the kid and Perry's amusement is audible, sly, "Down boy." She calls from her easy stance.

The philosophers spiel that comes out of his mouth is a bit of a turn-off. But she's been dealing with Bellamy. She knows how to handle the dramatic one-liners and the boringly poetic monologues.

"Give the poor kid a chance." She pouts. She doesn't even try to hide how fake it is now. "You're gonna poke someone's eye out with that thing."

Didn't anyone ever teach him to play with his food?

perry attacks vallen ; festerwood spear
mXRmqa4YQdspear
[0.0]

perry attacks krueger ; festerwood spear
spear
[8.0 + 1.0]

(accuracy day 6) perry attacks vallen ; festerwood spear
spear
[9.5 + 1.0]

spear·spear·spear

[knuckles]

Nothing ever goes my way.

It's something he's learned to accept, something that weighs him down, and all he ever wanted was a chance to prove there's more to him than meets the eye. People come and go, people challenge him, they try to bring him up, to give him the courage that's needed to complete even the simplest of tasks. It's why he went to robotics, it's why he tried to find something he's good at, and even that means nothing now.

Life means nothing, it's just a reality of a world that will vanish before anyone can stop it, yet he's here. He's fighting, and Vallen doesn't exactly understand why. The purpose of life is to return to the earth and become dirt again, but even that doesn't bring forth any sort of revelation that's needed. It only brings on sorrow, sadness, something that stops him from doing the best he can in life.

Growing up, his parents always compared him to everyone else, and that's why he spent so many years trying to please them. It didn't work, nothing ever works, nothing ever goes his way, and yet right now, he feels as though everyone he's ever cared for has been let down. As his life teeters across the fence, Vallen realizes that the sweet release of falling asleep for all eternity is something that he sort of yearns for.

Killing people isn't what he desires, and while Vallen wants to go home, he realizes the only way to do anything is to fight back, to stand up for himself, to finally set aside everything that's holding him back to give himself a chance at life. But why? Would it change anything? Would it make things any different?

Why would anyone care?

And as the world is slowly fading away, he's drawn back to the reality at hand. Nothing ever works in his favor; nothing ever turns light into darkness and darkness into light except flipping on a switch and lighting up the world around, but would it do any good here? Darkness is already controlling him; it's tearing at his soul and turning him into something he isn't.

Would anyone even care?

The reality is hard to know, and they're mocking him, bringing him down in the weakest moment of his entire life.

Nobody cares.

Nobody ever cared, and he was foolish to believe this would change things. He was foolish to believe that people would actually see him as more than a piece of meat. Being treated like a human is important, and it's in this moment, Vallen understands that he never had to respond to anyone. He never had to show reactions.

And all it takes is one simple moment to put everything into perspective.

Life is hard, and those who are worthy of living often don't get the chance. It's a shame, really, but what can he do? What can anyone do?

Sorry won't cut anything, and these people, they're trying to kill him, and Vallen isn't sure he has the courage to fight back, to kill one of them, but he has to try. Right now, it's the only thing that matters because death is coming for him, and he's afraid to run into the open arms of the grim reaper.

I don't want to die.

Laying down his weapon won't give him the strength that's needed, but he faces death in the eyes, he looks at the grim reaper, and for the first time a smile spreads across his face.

But at least I'll have my answers, and at least I'll be free from this horrible world we're all cursed to live in.

"I'm not nervous. I'm not afraid. I just want to be me, and I want to be free."

Whatever free means.

[kaitlin]

Vallen attacks Perry | Glaive
|ztCWrzzbUglaive
13096 -- 3.5 damage

Vallen attacks Krueger | Glaive
glaive
block

Accuract reroll on Krueger
glaive
13152 -- 8.5 damage + 1 blades glaive·glaive·glaive

[pogue]

G   A   M   B   L   E

"Guess you found what you were lookin' for." Krueger steps back from the two of them and lets the spear rest gently in his grasp, heaving breaths and shaking lungs and little eyes beginning to dot the edges of his wounds. Perry monologues in her own way, circles herself at center stage and pulls the spotlight onto her flesh just to watch it glisten. He's seen people like her before, wrestled with communicating with 'em and watched them chew at the thought of being noticed, seen, to be dangerous. 

It's working. Krueger stands in Vallen's footsteps, seeping just a little bit less crimson than the kid to his right.

His reflexes are dimming, little black dots dancing at the edge of his vision and he blinks them back and away, swaying slightly and instinctively driving the tip of his spear into the dirt as a makeshift steadying point. Double-edged sword, because as soon as he does so there's steel that glides heavy down his side, flesh and muscle and sinew desperately clinging together before pulling apart in little red strands. Krueger gasps and stumbles away, desperately, from the source of the newfound wound, feels the eyes across his chest flutter and blink like it's going to help.

Vision dim, blinking back the exhaustion, adrenaline gnaws at the thought of collapsing into the dust and the dirt and keeps him standing by some miracle, or curse, of nature. His own swing back is something pathetic, gliding against armor and hardly leaving a sliver of red.

"Give the poor kid a chance." Perry coos from her safe point and Krueger's eyes don't waver from Vallen. He does, however feel a bundle of eyes shoot towards the girl in what he can only assume is a glare, muscles pulling underneath flesh. "You're gonna poke someone's eye out with that thing." 

Krueger laughs, but it cuts itself into ribbons and ends up more of a bloody cough. Voice ragged, tired, "I volunteer-" He shoots back, "Ripred knows I've got too many eyes to go around." If they both lived he'd toss an eye or two to Perry, a nice decoration for her pixie corpse necklace.

"I'm not nervous. I'm not afraid." 

And Krueger turns to meet a boy who is three feet under and begging for more, wants to tell him you should be but bites his tongue just enough to feel it bleed. "I just want to be me, and I want to be free."

So rock it, Krueger's inner voice shoots back, eyes examining the bleeding form of Vallen. "So go ahead-" He says back quickly, readying his spear.

Then, a lit bit more forceful, toxic, angrier. "Be free."

[Attacks Vallen ; spear]

0cRXP978BSspear

[Result]


[Attacks Perry ; spear]

spear

[Result]

spear·spear

[calla]

Career level confidence - Perry's cocky as all hell, to the point where it’s almost hard to look at. To the point where if you were watching on a television screen, you'd be waiting, sitting in anticipation for it all to blow back into her face right about now. Her pride barrels through her like a terrible car crash. She’s a remarkable force of nature like this. Can't look away.

So the eyes aren’t an infection based hallucination.

Huh.

Perry watches them a little warily. She’s used to seeing a lot of weird shit in the arena by now, because hello - Larissa literally glowed, but it'd be a lot easier if it was just something in her head. She could play that off - yeah I'm a little out of it right now, so what.

But they're real, the blinking is real, and it's doing an exceptional job of giving her the creeps.

She wonders if they’d pop under her heel.

Vallen starts to smile then, and it would probably be weirder if they hadn’t all already taken turns of bursting into hysterical laughter. Call it the stress getting to them, the heaviness of the moment, the sheer insane notion of being in the Games.

”I want to be free.” He says.

Perry’s pretty sure the blood loss is getting to his head now.

”Okay, weirdo.”

Acting like he’s a horse or something - what are they supposed to do, open up the pen and let him run out? Is that supposed to be a metaphor? Stallion stud; she doesn't want to follow that thread of thought.

So when Vallen defends himself, valiantly in fact, Perry crows, ”See that’s more like it!”

She likes the little struggle. It's too boring when the prey just gives up like that, it's too easy. She wants to wrap him up and tell him it's all going to be okay, and right when he realizes that her hands are around his throat and starts to squirm, that's when she wants to break his neck. She wants him sick and bedridden so she can handfeed him soup, just to tell him it's poisoned after the last swallow and watch the way he panics.

She's unwell. We've been over this already.

"Itty bitty horsey." She sing-songs to herself nonsensically, "You can't lie to me. No-one really wants to die, silly. Everybody's scared."

Everyone's afraid. That's kind of humanity's thing.

That's why she latched on Caspian, right? It called out to her - this sad little thing that brought out her cuteness aggression and then amplified it exponentially. She wanted to yank his heart out, just to feel the jackrabbit beat of it.

"Lucky for you, that's kinda my thing."

perry attacks vallen ; festerwood spear
TMXFY0Z1onspear
[8.0 + 1.0]

perry attacks krueger ; festerwood spear
spear
[9.5 + 1.0]

spear·spear