Keep Ya Head Up [wendihoes day 1]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a r g u e r i t e

Now tell me whatcha gonna do
When there ain't no where to run (tell me what)
(When judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you)
And whatcha gonna do?

Marguerite didn’t bother to look back over her shoulder as the hunting lodge receded from view.

The bloodbath hadn’t gone exactly gone as planned.

‘Tits up’ might’ve been the best phrase for it, actually.

Azure was dead and gone, and Ines had looked like a deer in the headlights when it came to facing down the two careers that had practically stabbed Maggie to death. Marguerite had left her flank open and after getting sliced by Fray from one, the boy from four had run her through.

Blood trickled down her leg and along her back, and while it ached as she walked through the snow, she at least benefitted from the warmth coursing from each of her wounds. She tugged the parka closer to her body as she ambled along. She was careful to keep her gaze shifted downward.

She scanned over the footsteps and drops of blood before reaching down into the ice and wrenching free a pill bottle.

She turned over the orange plastic container in her hands and shoved it into her backpack.

Marguerite knelt to trace her fingers along the snow for anything else that might’ve been lurking underneath.

Footsteps crunched through the snow, and Maggie yanked the sword from her belt. She about faced and readied, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. Except all the bluster faded when she spied it was only to find Ines advancing. Maggie lowered her sword with a sigh.

“You good?” Maggie offered, as though anyone in their right minds, even the careers who’d trained for this, could feel good after witnessing that sort of chaos.

You can’t expect her to be anything other than shell shocked, Maggie reminded herself. She forced a smile as she furrowed her brow.

“Hey – ” Her voice was soft, just breaking above the wind and snow, “You were… you were great up there. Seriously. I don’t think anyone was expecting you to hang in there with me like that.”

[maggie collects items for maintenance]

ELEGANT

[Cait]

INES IZAR.

I’m under no illusion that I should be dead. My name beckons me to the basement of the lodge we’d been brought to, a deep cellar where all the light had been sucked into. I feel pain, but it’s not the sharp, biting sting I had expected to endure when the war began. It’s a dull, droning throbbing that permeates every heavy step I take through the thick snow. There’s a splatter of blood on my left shoe that camouflages into the amber leather so well I can almost believe it’s part of the pattern. Almost. But I know better. I shudder for a multitude of reasons.

The cold is relentless. Artificial, manufactured by kings and queens with malice in their heart, it blows straight through me. Running exhausts my lungs, but it keeps my blood warm. As I slow to a hurried walk, I cling tightly to the bundle of woolen fleece I’d scavenged from the lodge, stroking the soft fabric tenderly. Like a baby taking to a soft toy, I find comfort in the simplicity of this thing I get to call mine.

Maggie is not one of these things, yet I still run to her like a lifeline when she comes into view, hunched in the snow and bleeding out. I see Azure in her place – a girl I barely knew, but a girl who saw something in me and misplaced her faith. Maybe that got her killed. I hope it isn’t, though. I don’t want to be the reason for any more hurt.

It’s running again, like I’ve been running all day. I don’t realise the vulnerable position I’ve put myself in until Maggie whirls on me with a raised sword and a deep ferocity in her eyes. Visions of loyalty lost and being run right through flood my senses, and I have the common sense to scramble away from her until she registers who the timid girl swaddled in cotton wool is, and lowers her weapon.

She sighs. She tries on a smile; I try to match it.

“You good?” I nod. Know we’re both lying to ourselves that we’re anything other than fine.

“You were... you were great up there. Seriously. I don’t think anyone was expecting you to hang in there with me like that."

The howl of the wind mutes her voice. In the blizzard, she sounds gentler than I remember in the training centre, even when the bluntness of her words hits me squarely in the jaw. It shouldn’t hurt to be unremarkable. And yet.

“I just wanted to help.”

And, “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Because I didn’t want to be alone, either.

And I might tell her that it feels like my fault that Azure’s not with us right now, too, but I’m not the girl who goes looking for sympathy. Something tells me Maggie isn’t the girl to give it out – that I’m already pushing my luck with her half compliment, half pep talk, half assessment of my mediocrity. So I let the frosty air swirling around us fill in the silence instead as I slowly slink forward and crouch in the snow with her. I let my fingers go numb, to the point they warm again, as I sift through the sludge. We stay there until we can’t bear the cold any longer and move to our feet to seek some sort of shelter.

“Wait...” Hand in hand, Maggie reaches for me as I pause on the ascent, ears straining through the white noise. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe that vivid imagination of mine has finally broken too far free. But I ask the question anyway. “Do you hear that?”

picking up items!
aaaand rolling for a familiar!! <3

3FeW86ba|I1-15

1-24

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

m a r g u e r i t e

Now tell me whatcha gonna do
When there ain't no where to run (tell me what)
(When judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you)
And whatcha gonna do?

I just wanted to help.

It probably was better that they were in the bitter cold. That way the smile Maggie had forced was already partially frozen as her face numbed.

I didn’t want you to be alone.

She closed her eyes rather than letting Ines see that she’d practically rolled them out of her head.

Marguerite did not do pity.

And maybe Ines had meant what she said strategically. She wasn’t stupid, right?

But when Maggie opened her eyes and stared Ines up and down, nothing in her initial opinion had changed of the girl.

She had the tragedy of being born an Izar, a namesake which hung around her neck like an albatross, and doe eyes that screamed the sort of innocence that would shatter into a million pieces as sure as the ice underneath their boots.

The wind bellowed as if in agreement and Maggie moved to pull her hair back behind her and into her parka.

If Ines hadn’t proven herself in the bloodbath, then Maggie would’ve parted ways with her. She’d seen too many games where the weak were carried to the end of the games on the backs of the strong. Some pretty girl whose mother was Mayor made a far better story than some run-of-the-mill burn-out orphan. Just think of the merch they could sell.

But Ines hadn’t fallen, hadn’t broken down in tears (yet), and – as much as it pained her to admit, both with her dribbling wounds and metaphorically – Maggie couldn’t do this alone. Not yet.

“Of course. I said we’d be a team. If there’s one thing you should know about me right now is that I say things with my whole chest.” Maggie wondered if the softness in her voice betrayed the confidence of her words. Would Ines trust her? Oh well – she didn’t need Ines to trust her as long as she pulled her weight.

(That and she’d have been no better than her mother if she just abandoned this poor child in the cold, too.)

Wait… do you hear that?

Marguerite tensed. She gripped the handle of her sword and stared through the glare of white.

“We should probably get a move on.” She turned to face the wind and lifted her free hand to her forehead to get a better look. “They might not be happy with a single cannon today.”

[rolling for a familiar]
1Rs7UQYmDZ1-15

ELEGANT

1-15