time is a weird soup [day 6, m v l v x]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a g i

Father Time
Are you there?
Maybe tomorrow you'll have
Time to spare
And so I pray
For another day

"… I think pizza might be my favorite, though. Because nothing beats cheese, bread, and a little bit of tomato. You just can’t…”

Magi had discarded silence in favor of speaking to the world around him. Magic as it were, his voice carried up over the walls of the cornucopia and into the woods, down through the cenote and back to the blighted path in front of him.

He’d spent a day alone and found silence tasted much like the rotted stench that now surrounded him. Losing Lara had pushed him into the shadows, once again out at the margins. Not flashy like the careers, or heart wrenching like some others whose stories surely tugged at heartstrings, Magi had steadily walked on.

Over hill and dale, he’d kept his head on his shoulders – unlike the boy whose head he’d removed – and in staring at the sunset, made some determinations.

First, he’d been proud to have survived twelve canons.

He’d been almost assured that he’d perish early. If only for his lack of fighting prowess and allies, Magi had thought his time would be cut short by a stray arrow or falling tree. Surviving yet another brush with his fellow tributes, Magi couldn’t be afraid anymore (well, he could be less afraid) to face them.

Had he not proven enough of himself that abject terror seemed silly?

Second, he no longer wished to remain silent.

He’d spared few words with Lara, and now he’d wished they had spent more time breathless, fighting to get in a word edgewise.

These could be the last few hours, minutes, or seconds of his life.

He wasn’t going to be another note at the margins.

They could see who he was, and would always be. In his own words.

“Dad, you remember the time you took me to see a baseball game when I was ten?” Magi stepped across another rotting log and pushed away from brush. “That was one of the best things we ever did. You remember how we screamed when they hit that homer right over us? Man. That was the best.”

He could smell the old wooden seats and the popcorn. They’d bought a hot dog to share, though his dad had let him eat most of it. He’d marveled at the hand stitched jerseys and the way everyone got up to do the wave. The rotting wood in front of him disappeared in favor of a baseball diamond. The trees scaling up at his back were the edges of seats in the stadium.

Magi cut back a few more branches as he edged along.

“You go see another game for me, ok?” Magi threw a glance back over his shoulder at a crack in the distance. “You’re gonna catch something this time, I bet.”

He’d have to forgive himself for talking as though he wasn’t going to be in those stands, but then, Magi had never been good at making promises he didn’t think he could keep.

“Mom, you should keep playing that guitar.” Magi rubbed away the sweat forming at his brow. “You were always good at it. You used to play it for me when I was little and then you just sort of stopped. I don’t think I ever asked you to keep playing and I’m really sorry about that.”

He had a lot to apologize for, and if he stayed alive long enough, he might’ve been able to get to at least half of it.

“Don’t go getting all sad.” Magi waved with his free hand, the other gripping tight at his sword. “You’ve probably been sad for at least a few weeks.”

He slowed and stared up at the gnarled branches overhead.

“I’m never going to be what you pictured,” Magi took courage in honesty, his heart beating heavy in his ears, “But maybe it’s better we let that part of me go, huh?”

He could never be the boy they’d pictured – an engineer, top of his class, a statesman or orator – but maybe they could see who he really was through all of this.

“I’m just doing my best,” Magi whispered, “And that’s something I’ve gotten better at. Maybe that’s what’s kept me alive, too. Heh. I never thought much of what I could do. If I was better than anyone, because – well, I never thought I was.”

He leaned back against a tree and managed a smile.

“But I don’t feel sorry for myself. Just – I think I’m a whole lot of things that aren’t perfect, but I’m still here. For now.” He cleared his throat. “So, maybe take another look and see what you might’ve missed. I made it this far Mom and Dad.”

There was that familiar crack again, and the hairs on the back of Magi’s neck stood on end. The heat rose into his cheeks, and Magi steadied with his blade out in front of him.

As he peered out through the branches, he caught sight of the same girls he’d seen the other day.

Neither of them were ones to be trifled with. And yet.

“You might want to go the other way,” Magi called out from the edge of one tree to Larissa, before ducking against it to hide. He sat there for a second with a bit of a smile. He launched himself forward and raced behind a bush with a laugh.

Was this stupid attempting to taunt from afar? Definitely stupid.

“Hey, hey, did you know there’s someone over on the other side? You might’ve missed him. Or her. Heh.” He called out to Xaa with another laugh.

Whatever stupid courage had worked up into his chest, Magi did his best to channel it into his blade.

He needed to strike or be struck, now that he’d done his best to play a trickster like the fae.

Three. Two.

“ONE!” He called out, bursting forth from the trees full tilt.

That same courage wavered at the sight of the other nine people in the arena with him at their backs and around them. Skin oozing, scars bleeding black, and voices calling out.

Good thing he'd been on his own for days now, or he might've been worried about them.

“HRRRRRRNG!

ELEGANT

[Magi attacks Larissa with gloomblade (sword)]
iO53caF9XQsword
[result:+3.5]

[Magi attacks Xaa with gloomblade (sword)]
sword
[result:+8 + 1 blades]sword·sword

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Tommy and I laid there amongst the plants staring at the night sky as the anthem appeared. The world seemed to spin, and my vision was blurry – still Luna’s face appeared clear as day up in the pitch-black sky. With her image I finally accepted her death and her life for all that it was.

The comforting thought that I did not have to kill one of my ally’s carried me into a deep slumber fueled by the pink shit numbing my mind and body. My arms finding space on Tommy’s chest almost felt like home. We did not have much in here; we were losing ourselves and those we cared for with each day, but at least we had each other.

***

”Get the fuck off me.”

Tommy’s voice pounded against my already throbbing head. The foul taste of alcohol from the night before haunted my mouth, what I wouldn’t give for a toothbrush in this moment. My arms slightly loosen their grip around the boy from twelve as I made a feeble attempt to recall all the events of the night before. We talked; we talked a lot. I was known for running my mouth sober but when drunk there was no telling what I would say. Broken fragments of our conversations about home, who we were and what we were becoming played in my mind like a bad film. I anxiously awaited the post alcohol regret, but it never came. I trusted Tommy, more than my family. I was not obliged by blood to trust him, but I wanted to. For the first time in my life, I understood the principle of friendship.

"I’m hungover don’t yell at me. " I complained in a groggy voice. Just like my mother would have when I was too much of a mess from the previous night, he instructed me to get up. However, I believed all he wanted was for me to let him go. He woke me up, it was only fair that I got to have a little fun before releasing him from my grasps for the day.

I wrapped my arms and legs around him tightly, like a python about to strangle her prey. I pull him in close and just like at our first encounter I hiss into his ear with my honey-dew voice filled with venom."But you’re so cute, I couldn’t help myself. " I also could not take myself seriously in the moment. I broke away from him laughing as he freed himself from my grasps and grumbled something about a snake.

My fit of laughter was soon interrupted by pinching sensation on my back, one turned to many and the next thing I knew I was being dragged off by the same little creatures that took my hand the previous day. This time, they pulled at my hair and at my skin as they dragged me through the mud, I caught sight of Tommy suffering the same fate before I was pulled into a lonely isolation. My arms flailed and my legs kicked as I tried to free myself from their grasp. A quick look over my shoulder saw the creatures almost forming a wing like structure on my back as their teeth and nails pierced my skin to keep their grip. "Get! The! Fuck! Off! Of! Me! You! Little! Pests! " I screamed angrily in fragmented words much like the ones Tommy rudely awakened me with.

When the swarm disappeared, leaving me covered in dirt and dust from head to toe, I knew where I was instantly. The smell of the blighted woods instantaneously made me vomit up the pink shit from last night. The capitol really could have not made the effort to supply us with some decent booze? Sure, the sweet cheap stuff gets you drunk quickly, but the consequences the next day are almost not worth it. This truly was an awful start to my day. I pouted my lips and almost sat myself down to sulk in the misery of it all, but a movement of blonde hair caught my eye. The creatures once again dragged me to my district partner. Did she catch my little display of pink misery? God I hope not, it could have been an even bigger disaster if I puked on her feet.

"Good morning, Larissa darling. Y’know Luna told me something about my birthright a few days ago. I really had no idea what she could have possibly meant by that. " I puzzled as I made an attempt to compose myself. Time for feelings and friendship were over. "Oh wait, I think she meant I am supposed to kill my district partner! " I exclaimed in glee. Did I really believe any of that? No. I was here to make my own way in the games and not piggyback off of the events from decades ago. However, it made for good theatrics, and there is nothing I love more than a brilliant show.

Before I could bring my club crashing down against her skull, I felt a blade slice open my arm. Why was it always my freaking arms? They were already covered in patch jobs from the medic, and it seemed like another scar was going to be added. I scoured the area for who left the wound on my arm and my eyes fell on Magi. A boy who did not even have the decency to introduce himself before attacking, I certainly was not in the mood for his little spiel.

He wanted to have a hand in the game, fine let him have it and all the consequences of gambling with the devil.

Table by Dars

[Xaa attacks Magi; spiked blunt]
5XKybPRIScspiked blunt
14118 -- BROKEN RIGHT SHIN -- 7.0 damage
(Spiked Blunt)

[Xaa attacks Larissa; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
14062 -- BROKEN JAW -- 7.0 damage
(Spiked Blunt) +1 rivalryspiked blunt·spiked blunt

[dars]

The truth? At the end of it all, she loved them too late. And the sickest part was that she knew every alliance was headed toward the same eventual reality, and she knew that in order for her to live, Perry and Bellamy would have to die. She knew that in order for either of them to survive, she herself would have to be slain. Yet sitting up, unzipping herself from the sleeping-bag cocoon she made for herself to minimize the glowing, there was a profound sadness in the silence that surrounded her. Bellamy's clear path of footprints leading him away from the fire, no sign of Perry or Myrtle or anyone's stuff except Larissa's own. Icarus watched from where he waited at the edge of the meadow for her, a hesitant hoof scratching at the damp earth and big glowing yellow eyes locked onto Larissa's own.

"At least I still have you," she whispered.

With how difficult this arena was to traverse, Larissa quickly became at odds with herself. If she stayed where she was, there was a large possibility the arena would just circle Perry and Bellamy back to her, and she couldn't decide whether or not that was something she wanted anymore. It was funny, the exact moment she began wondering about them was the same moment they chose to drop the other shoe and run off together: how sweet Bellamy's lips tasted despite the lies that poured from them, or how soft Perry's hands were despite being trained to kill with them. Maybe Larissa had spent too long wondering about those things while they were already busy showing them off to each other. Maybe that's why they left her.

Maybe, even here, Larissa wasn't good enough to be what she wanted of herself.

Though, packing her stuff and stomping out the fire a bit more fervently than normal, she tried to imagine a person who was good enough for all of this: what they looked like, how they moved, what they said, what they wanted. The end result looked something like Aunt Eury, only fifteen or twenty years younger, and in a world where power wasn't a distraction from doing the right thing for everyone who ever managed to actually gain power.

She was feeling pretty sorry for herself and then she climbed onto Icarus's back and had the realization that she was essentially describing herself. By the time she was above the treetops, her self-pitying session had already come to a conclusion.

Fine, if they wanted to leave now, Larissa would let them. It just made it that much easier to see their pictures in the sky when it inevitably happened. But she was going to make sure she wasn't anyway near it when it happened, because as empowered and pissed the fuck off as she might have been, she didn't trust herself not to run in and help if she heard something going wrong. They chose not to be on her side, it was her only option to let them.

She touched down in a place where the ground was soft and mushy and wet and awful. Just as soon as she slid off Icarus's back, he launched himself back up into the air, kicking his feet clean and flying off to some place a bit more dry. In the moments after he broke from eyesight, the dead forest came back to life. The rotted trees began to whisper to her again, the dry grass pleaded with her not to step on and shatter it. A carpet of moss told her she was hiding her sadness well and something that must've once been an oak tree told her that her sword had selfish desires. She covered her ears as she walked, though at this point as casually as swiping a strand of hair from a face during the middle of conversation.

Get out of my head, she thought. Even through her flattened palms, she could hear a giddy voice coming from a hanging vine which wiggled around like the tail of a snake, "We aren't in your head, Silly." If they weren't in her head, they wouldn't have known she thought that. Nature was omnipresent there- she wondered if rather than some sort of caste system with the queens at the top, if this forest, this place was actually just one giant living, breathing organism, and rather than being connected on some poetic metaphorical level, maybe it was all literally directly connected. Maybe the queens weren't in charge, so much as the willing hands operated by the greater arena itself?

"You might want to go the other way."

That voice was a bit-

Her head snapped up and caught sight of the boy from District 3 she'd seen chop off someone's head. Okay, not a tree. She supposed that was a step in the right direction. She was wondering if he'd seen her walking with her hands covering her ears, if he knew what she was even doing. If he had the same problem with the voices being too loud for her to think sometimes. But then his attention snapped to elsewhere and he began speaking again-

"Hey, hey, did you know there’s someone over on the other side? You might’ve missed him. Or her. Heh."

Xaahira stepped out into the opening, looking like a voodoo doll someone dipped in a mud puddle and then hit with their car. Something out of a nightmare she was sure she'd had as a child. This arena! Larissa looked up at the sky and sighed.

"Again?" A-fucking-gain?!

She didn't think she'd seen a new face in this arena since running away from the bloodbath.

"Good morning, Larissa darling."

Larissa drew her sword. Xaahira might've been unhinged, but she was making her intentions pretty obvious. Larissa wasn't going to die of doubt. Besides, she was tired of avoiding the bitch just because she always seemed like she was one step away from howling like a dog to prove her point. If Larissa wanted to live, everyone had to die. If that list had to include people like Perry and Bellamy, she had no problem adding Xaahira and Magi to it.

"Y’know Luna told me something about my birthright a few days ago. I really had no idea what she could have possibly meant by that."

She considered what it would've been like to live a life not knowing. Her origin was exactly the same as the other girl's: both descendants of some of the first tributes, neither really what they said they were. Yet Xaahira hadn't had any idea. Larissa couldn't imagine that- it was too much a part of who she ended up becoming. Obviously- it'd lead her to this arena in the first place.

"Oh wait, I think she meant I am supposed to kill my district partner!"

Ah. Just like when her fucked up great great grand-whatever killed her own brother. Larissa held up a finger to Xaahira and tutted.

"You could never be my sister."

[larissa attacks magi, sword]
ImdaGcRrzEsword
[ear, 8 +1 blades +2 pts perk]

[larissa attacks xaahira, sword]
sword
[thigh, 3.5]

sword·sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a g i

Father Time
Are you there?
Maybe tomorrow you'll have
Time to spare
And so I pray
For another day

He didn’t have time to be proud of his sword cutting clear through. Not when his shin burst into a flash of stars and a curdled cry escaped his lips. Followed of course by the venomous strike from Larissa.

Magi fell back against the trees and watched as the two women dressed one another down.

Maybe he’d always be the boy on the sidelines, the swing to their main ensemble, the shadow stuck to the tree limbs surrounding them.

They hardly seemed to acknowledge him at all. More nuisance than threat, it’d be his body on the ground if he didn’t manage something short of a miracle here. He lay back for a moment against the cool bark of the rotted wood and gagged. Heaven help him or the devil was going to pull him back under.

What did someone like Xaa or Larissa possess that a boy like Magi could never? Was it the way they stomped through life, crushing everything else underfoot? Was it that they could conjure up loathing and have it drip like poison from their lips just as easily as they could wield a physical weapon? Or was it deeper, that they had been built for the cold of a rotting forest as though they’d been walking through one their whole life?

“I’m right here,” Magi croaked, hands tighter on his blade, “She’s not the only one,” He spat out blood across the earth, “You know?”

He could play magician, too.

Whether adrenaline warming over the pain in his shin or anger finally coursing through his veins, Magi determined he would not fade away. Even if both of them cut him to pieces in the next thirty seconds, he’d still do his best to sink his teeth into them. He might go down swinging, but he was dogged in wanting to leave a mark.

“I always wanted a sister,” Magi mused with a grin, “But then again, not one that was trying to kill me. Is that how they do it where you’re from?”

He laughed again.

Magi shifted his weight onto his good leg and shivered through the shadows of the blighted wood.

He could never cast the same magic as Xaa or Larissa, but maybe that was the whole point.

Magi lived and died outside of seriousness. He existed in the same space as the regular and mundane, in a world that he imagined neither could comprehend. Life in little slices, full of people whose stories went unsung and never championed. Didn’t they need someone, too?

His strength was average and his skill mediocre, just as good as any man, but no worse.

And he’d lean into that to slay the vipers circling him now, or die trying.

[/b][/font][/font][/blockquote][/blockquote][/div]

[/div][/div]

ELEGANT

[Magi attacks Larissa with gloomblade (sword)]
K9iIM5QXCEsword
[result:+3.5]

[Magi attacks Xaa with gloomblade (sword)]
sword
[result:+9 + 1 blades]sword·sword

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

We were swarmed all around us with the distorted images of the other tributes. The rotting holograms looked almost as bad as the woods smelled. Decaying skin replaced by fungi and moss with insects crawling about on the skin as if their bodies had already gone cold. Yet their images still danced around, and their weapons clashed much like the those of the two that joined me in the graceful waltz to end each other’s lives. The woods turned into the likes of the ballrooms that filled with district one’s upper class. Despite all our fortune, we never were invited; old money stuck together and ours was polluted with indignity.

I saw Will in a peculiar tango with a swarm of butterflies and Tommy intertwined with two other boys – the young one from seven and the pretty boy from five. From what I could gather from Tommy and I’s late night strategy sessions; He seemed to have a way with girls, or at least believe he did. Not having spoken to him once, from looks alone…I just did not get it.

Although preoccupied with my own affairs, I could not help but keep an eye on the monstrous image of Tommy. My eyes wandering between my opponents and the distorted image of my friend. I watched ever so carefully as they sliced away at him, attempting to ensure the pain on my face was not as visible as it felt. Only last night did I learn the invaluable lesson that someone does not have to be family to gain your complete trust. It was not me, my family against the rest of the world as we were taught from a young age. When things got tough, Tommy stuck by my side, he was the one holding my hand when we learned of Luna’s death. He was the one who understood my pain when Will left. We were brought together by circumstance and not by blood. Watching him die while I was helpless to him felt like the ultimate betrayal. I should be by his side instead of having been dragged through the dirt to face the two who stood before me.

I could not watch any longer, but I let out a scream in horror as I watched his body hit the ground.

And another sound of pain echoed from my mouth as Magi struck me in the back of my head. That is what I got for being distracted. Could that be it? I wanted to believe that Tommy’s death was all a game of the Forrest to shake me up. A game to get inside my head and make me weak. Maybe I could still call their bluff and would find Tommy back at our campsite later in the day. Whatever I did, I could not afford to fold.

"Sister’s are a great thing to have. Better you don’t have one though, darling. Wouldn’t want to cause her any pain when I take your life. "

I ignore Magi’s remark about the murdering of siblings. There were some things preferred not to publicly talk about and the fratricide that drove my family into the game’s history books was one of them. Too many years were spent and too many rules were put into place to ensure that whatever was left of the poisoned blood was quickly eradicated. We were a unit, and any other assumption was swept under the rug and dealt with discreetly.

"As for you, my dear…" I turned to face Larissa. The very girl that represented everything from home that I did not miss. We were two polar opposites built on a similar foundation. I was accompanied by a dark shadow of chaos while she glowed ever so eloquently in the shade of the rotting woods. "…You could not be more correct. I’d make a horrible blonde. " with those words I lunged at her my forked tongue hissing a battle cry like a cobra striking at her target.

Table by Dars

[Xaa attacks Magi; spiked blunt]
wonWzOHFoGspiked blunt

14015 -- BLOCK -- 0.0 damage
(Spiked Blunt)

[Xaa attacks Larissa; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
14159 -- DEEP GASH ON CHEST -- 9.5 damage
(Spiked Blunt) + 1 rivalry

[day 6 accuracy; attacks Magi]
spiked blunt
14081 -- BROKEN RIGHT HAND -- 6.0 damage
(Spiked Blunt)
spiked blunt·spiked blunt·spiked blunt

[dars]

"I always wanted a sister," Magi explained. As far back as she could remember, Larissa'd had siblings. Brothers and sisters. There was never a time in her life when she'd ever been alone, not truly. Even despite her best efforts. Because, yes, having siblings at times was amazing. Primarily, they made excellent soldiers-in-arms against their parents. There was always something happening, so life was only ever as boring as she willed it to be, really. But siblings were such a strange thing back home. Family, but somehow twisted. More cruel. Even though the Le Roux family was not actually supportive of the Capitol, the truth was that District One was the only life any of them had known. Of Course Aunt Eurydice began to rest on her laurels once she got them: she'd been threatened against getting to have them at all her entire life. Of Course her father was every ounce a man as he was a stunted fourteen year old- all he'd ever learned was how to fight and how to get what he wanted, even if he shouldn't have it. Career put a sour taste in her mouth, but she supposed whether or not she did it for the same reasons didn't matter.

End of the day, it's what she was.

"But then again, not one that was trying to kill me. Is that how they do it where you’re from?"

He laughed at that, though Larissa struggled to find humor in it. She narrowed her eyes, switching from Magi back over to Xaahira.

"Ask her. She's the one who-"

She couldn't go down that road. Because if after all of these years, the Mahdavi family hadn't changed, why would anyone ever believe the Le Roux family truly had? Sure, Ridley was a victor and several others who bore the same surname had been fan favorites through the years. But none of it seemed to matter here, and now. The question still hung in the air like a puff of smoke, refusing to dissipate as it remained unacknowledged.

Apparently never one to appreciate a good silence, Xaahira chose the moment to start speaking again. Larissa bobbed her head along to each word and rolled her eyes, practically overflowing with annoyance. Magi's sword slashed at her arm from the side, ripping through the fabric. In the moment of reacting to the pain, Xaahira lurched forward and stabbed. Larissa was quick on her feet and experienced enough to know that she should try to run backwards in these types of situations to avoid being completely skewered, but that wasn't enough to stop the first inch or so of the blade from burying itself into her chest, just below her right collarbone. She screamed against her will.

To be a Le Roux is to command fear.

"Blah," she said, unsteadily trying to rise back to her feet before they pounced like wolves.

"Blah," her voice cracked with pain as she finally came back into a standing position.

"Blah."

Her sword's pulse vibrated against her hand.

[larissa attacks magi, sword]
oK5lzwNVkGsword
[chest, 4.0]

[larissa attacks xaahira, sword]
sword
[chest, 4.0]

sword·sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a g i

Father Time
Are you there?
Maybe tomorrow you'll have
Time to spare
And so I pray
For another day

Neither of them had let Magi forget that he was fighting for his life. Not that he should’ve forgotten, because ultimately twenty-three would be put in the ground, but one blow after another had him choking back blood and tears.

When he’d turned back from slicing a deep cut across Xaa’s scalp, he’d thought he might have come close enough to taking off her head like he’d done the boy from a few days ago. Again, his pride needed only a second more to be mortally wounded when she clubbed his hand and Magi heard the nasty crack of his metacarpals. The stinging pain came first followed by warmth. Adrenaline to numb the pain momentarily. If he survived, the next morning they’d be black and purple, much like the rotted flesh of the projected images around them.

“I hope you have a habit of underestimating people,” Magi shot back. Why did so many people revel in wanting to take his life? He hadn’t been much more than a blip a few minutes ago. He would’ve bet money that neither of these young women would have been able to pick him out of a line-up before this.

He staggered back toward another set of trees when Larissa sliced off the barkskin armor, freeing it from his chest. If he had believed in any sort of god it would’ve been then, considering how close he’d come to having her blade go right through his chest.

Larissa didn’t offer quite the rejoinder, favoring instead to hone cut through the chatter. He could respect that. All this talking had only served to make Magi red in the face, a feeling both unfamiliar as it was uncomfortable for the boy who couldn’t remember the last time he’d raised his voice.

As he turned again on the balls of his feet, he wondered if either of their chests burned like his. Or if they had started to get a bit light-headed from the blunt force trauma or blood dripping from their wounds? He doubted, however, that either would concede such a thing.

“There’s not much left to say then, is there?” Magi took his sword in his good hand and did his best to grip with the other, “One of us gets torn to pieces and left to rot. About as good of an end as anyone could get here.”

Fear crept up through his shoulders and yet it didn’t manage to linger.

Magi was done holding back or toeing behind the limelight. It’d be his blood for theirs until he heard a cannon sound.

ELEGANT

[Magi attacks Larissa with gloomblade (sword)]
sJ0OF9juy3sword
[result:+10 + 1 blades]

[Magi attacks Xaa with gloomblade (sword)]
sword
[result:+10 + 1 blades]sword·sword

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Too much surprise, Larissa had not been much of a threat unlike the nearly irrelevant boy from three. Both district three’s tributes proved to be a bigger threat than one could imagine. Vallen almost getting in the last blow before the queen took Luna’s life and now Magi slicing off her right arm, I quickly uttered a quick praise to whatever higher power was looking over me for making left-handed. My fleeting moment of praise quickly turned into many moments of searing pain as I realized that my arm was no longer attached to my body.

The hand that bore my family’s symbol, the tattoo I was given with the utmost of pride at twelve laid detached from the rest of my body. In that moment, the boy from three had made this personal. I complained, I bitched, and I did not want what was rightfully mine in the hierarchy of our family tree. However, the severing of my tattoo dug deeper than just any physical would. This was attacking the one thing I knew made me stand out from the rest of these pitiful tributes. Ones with no greater purpose, the ones with no greater good to fight for.

That is why I was here, right? Somehow the fact that I landed in the arena had to attribute to the greater good. It deemed itself a difficult task to find the sense of it all, while I was bleeding from each limb. My physical state left me looking like a creature hanging on its last strings and apparently the popular opinion was that my mental state had been doing so for years now. The world around me began to spin as I noticed the effects of the loss of my blood, my mind took an almost drunken state as I staggered towards Larissa and Magi.

I was in copious amounts of pain and severely pissed off. This has been the worst day of my fucking life and I was not about to let it get any worse.

"”Well then wouldn’t it just be kind of me to offer you bitches the opportunity to say your last words?" I sneered as I narrowed in on my targets.

Too bad I was not going to give them the chance.

Table by Dars

[Xaa attacks Magi; spiked blunt]
Br8b0Gsfi0spiked blunt
14185 -- DEEP GASH ON LEFT BICEP -- 8.0 damage
(Spiked Blunt)

[Xaa attacks Larissa; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
miss

[Xaa uses accuracy reroll coin from re to attack Larissa; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
miss again lol

spiked blunt·spiked blunt·spiked blunt

[dars]

It wasn't even that she was afraid of dying, or of death. When a person grows up with it so ingrained in them, so much a part of who they are and where they come from, death became little more than an abstract concept no one was ever around to see themselves go through. If she died, she'd be the last person to care about it. But that wasn't the point.

It was dying now. It was dying here. That was the source of the fear itself: she'd always had a hunch that maybe she wasn't meant to live to be old, but dying before she had the chance to do what she set out on doing? Dying here, in this place where nothing ever made sense, in front of these people who knew nothing about her: that was what she didn't want.

If she had last words, neither of these people deserved to hear them.

Feed me, her sword demanded. Her hand stung with its insistence.

There was only one second until the rest of her life now, she could feel it teetering over the edge of a cliff waiting to see which way it would fall. She rushed forward all at once, unafraid. Not afraid. She was in control of herself now, just like Aunt Eury said-

A Le Roux.

"I’m not dying to either of you," she explained, her eyes darting between them.

"I refuse to accept a life I do not deserve. "

Her stomach churned. She didn't want to be this person. She didn't want to be this person. She didn't want to be this person.

[larissa attacks magi, sword]
X9yeAKY4mbsword
[thigh, 8.5 +1]

[larissa attacks xaahira, sword]
sword
[forearm, 8.0 +1]

sword·sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a g i

Father Time
Are you there?
Maybe tomorrow you'll have
Time to spare
And so I pray
For another day

Magi eyed the detached arm sprawled across the ground with a loss of color across his face.

He hadn’t lay the killing blow, but he might as well have. In the instant he’d swung his sword one way and careened back in the other he’d managed to find space between both of their armor. Not that the favor wasn’t returned, in a way, albeit no loss of limb.

But Magi could tell the mortal wound had come when he’d looked up at Xaa. No one could sustain such an injury, especially not when Larissa clipped her one final time.

She didn’t fall there, though – instead choosing to hurl herself off into the woods.

Magi stood with his sword raised, not intent to follow the wounded young woman to her final resting place. After the fight she’d given, Xaa deserved whatever dignity she could muster to die as she pleased.

A cannon sounded, and Magi threw himself back against the bark of another knotted oak. He lowered his sword as blood dripped from his arms and oozing wounds stained the fabric that clung to his chest. He tasted blood at the back of his throat and wondered how he’d been spared when these two warriors seemed far worthier to live another day than he did.

He stared at Larissa, her words replaying in his head.

‘I refuse to accept a life I do not deserve.’

Blood dripping from the corner of his lip, Magi snorted and gave a grin.

“We’re just crabs, huh?” Magi gripped his sword with his good hand. He shifted on his feet and looked over at Larissa, just as torn and broken as he seemed to be.

If he wanted to, he could swing his sword again.

Fate would decide what she deserved, wouldn’t it? Or would it be him deciding what she deserved? Or, that he could succumb to the same rot of who was worthy and who was not. They all had to die. Even after such bloodshed, did she deserve to see tomorrow’s sunrise any more than Xaa had.

“Just keep pulling us back down into the bucket. It’s what we deserve.”

He swallowed his spit mixed with blood and spat at her feet.

Magi raised his sword.

He stepped forward.

He gave her one last long look before sheathing it and cutting away into the thicket behind him, out and away from what they’d both done.

[Magi Karp flees]

ELEGANT

[dars]

Just like that, Xaahira was a memory. A blurry shadow, a looming thing, another secret Larissa would have to keep against her own will. She faded into the pitch like a wounded animal- Larissa's training was to give pursuit, but she knew where she hit Xaahira with that last swing. It was only a matter of time, no matter how far she ran, or how safe she felt when it happened. It would happen. The sword's pulse hadn't ever felt so full within her palm, pleased with her for taking a life with it. Happy, it seemed to be saying, for now. Within her, a fire burned. She was trapped within it, scraping against the walls of herself to escape the burning. I've never- I've never- I- I-

She wanted to scream, to spit, to fall to the ground and thrash. She'd never killed before. It was such a silly thing, her secret hope that she'd get to be one of the only victors who won without needing to dirty their own hands. She'd always known it wouldn't work out that way- it never did anymore. Still. Even though she thought she'd guarded herself against the inevitability of it, a piece of her was just as shattered and heartbroken when it happened. No one would ever see her the same. Her mother, her father. Aunt Eury, her cousins. Her siblings. Worst of all, herself.

On the outside, she blinked.

Magi spoke, she thought. Everything sounded too far away. She blinked again, numb. Her hands. She could feel the blood on her h-

He spoke again then, she was sure of it. And he spat at her feet.

"Okay."

She blinked a third time, unmoving. Flop away, fish. She willed him to go away, go away, go away. He pointed his sword at her instead. Was this not enough? Had she not already made enough of a monster of herself? Would he force her hand? Her hands- they were already so bloody. Don't make me, she thought. She couldn't-

She could, and she would, but she didn't want to.

This time, it was her who laughed.

An unexpected giggle, one that somehow brought Larissa back into her body and then exploded outward into an unstoppable belly laugh. Rather than raising her sword, she rose her finger and pointed at him. He was no warrior- not any more than she or the rest of them. They were all just kids playing pretend because it was the only way to make any sort of sense of any of this. He didn't look scary to Larissa. He looked scared. Just as scared as she felt.

He dropped his sword and walked away, and Larissa laughed for a long, long while after that, fallen to her hands and feet in the muck. Her chest began to burn so badly she thought she might be able to laugh the fire right out- make the burning stop once and for all. Her stomach ached from it. Her hands, still bloody, balled into fistfuls of the murky ground. She laughed, and laughed. And then Xaahira's cannon sounded.

She caught her breath like she could somehow still hide from it if she stayed still.

She stood with a sudden start, her knees caked in dirt and shaking along with the rest of her. She brushed herself off and forced her breathing to even. Her gaze cast downward, to a trail of blood disappearing into the bushes. A heavy sigh. She'd never been a big fan of hunting.

[larissa flees]