(silence) in the valley of the giants ☾ junie/sofia

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie St. James. 

Junie cannot hear the voices in her head over the sound of her own screaming. 

They have butchered her; stripped her back, laid her bare. She has had her hair pulled, woven into braids, tight against her head. Colourful ribbons weave in and out. Worse, they have painted her face with makeup. She has never worn any before, but they have made her eyelids heavy with blue glitter and gold eyeliner, and her lips bleed pink sparkles onto her teeth. She bares them at the stylists, trying to wriggle away, but they tied her down long ago so that they could work their magic without interference from the tiny, tyrannical child.

Last, comes the outfit. It is so small Junie squints her eyes to see it; just a slip of brightly coloured elastane and some silky, floaty strips affixed to it. It cannot be enough to cover her. They stretch it taught over her skin, so that she is imprisoned inside. Junie is right - her arms and legs and chest are bare, pallid, milky skin vulnerable and open to the elements. Finally, they paint these, too, with pink and glitter, so that Junie is unrecognisable to herself, a caricature of a wild, party-fuelled teenager that she will never grow up to meet. They untie her, let her collapse into tears in front of the mirror. 

When they bring her the VIP lanyard, she spits at it. They make a mockery of her. She threatens to bite the stylists when they come close; only Mackenzie can coax her into letting him place it around her neck.

"Do I have to?" she asks him, although she knows the answer. 

As the podium rises, Junie does not know what to expect, and so she does not notice when it veers off course. She hears the dull, persistent thud of the music before she sees anything, but when she does, she realises she is not standing before the glittering Cornucopia, like in the Bloodbaths she has seen on the television.

Junie blinks. The music grows louder until she cannot hear her own thoughts. She wonders if she will ever hear from the faeries again, or if she will die here in the noise, with their ever-present voices drowned out by The Headliners. Although they have hurt her feelings in the past, it feels lonely to be anywhere without them.

Please come back, she whispers, the sound of it immediately swallowed by the bass. Don't leave me here alone. 

It becomes quickly apparent to Junie that she is in fact not alone. 

They are here. The tributes. Not all of them - no, she can make out only a handful of faces - but certainly she has not lucked upon an empty space. It begins. 

The tributes are running, and so Junie, too, is running.

She runs right into one of the other tributes.

"Oh!" Junie exclaims, looking up at the girl from Twelve, Sofia Markus. Her plan had been to get away, to hide, and yet within seconds she is looking someone in the eye. She swallows, takes a hesitant step backwards.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asks, earnestly. 

Somewhere beneath the rumble of the music she almost thinks she can hear the sound of the faeries, giggling. 

. . .

Junie attacks Sofia (unarmed) 

cDOSJW7nLJunarmed

[black eye - 3.0]

(Junie picks up: knife)

unarmed

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

s(ofia) m(arkus)

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

No, that was not the plan at all.

In fact, Sofia was meant to be watching Coald Stone die from the comfort of her own home right now. But the universe is a fickle thing, isn’t it?

So instead, she was being shoved violently down a tunnel underground, poked and prodded one last time as her hair was tightly braided back into a crown atop her head without a care in the world about her scalp. The outfit they placed her in was ridiculous to say the least. There was no protection at all. In reality, she was lucky some of her skin was even covered. The outfit was mainly white, but would shimmer discreetly depending on the way she moved. Her skin looked ghostly in this color, and once it rained crimson she would be a mockery of a bride. A ghost of her own accord.

She only prayed this meant the spirits would be on her side.

The night prior, Sofia pulled out her spell book that she managed to smuggle with her and lit the twelve of so candles the Avoxes had brought her. Once she convinced them she had no plans to burn down the place of course. Her eyes closed in concentration, the gentle breeze tickled her nose, and the candles danced in the moonlight. She muttered near silent chantings in the dead of night. It was silent besides her voice, not even a floorboard dared to creak. The universe screwed her once already.

And she’d be damned if she let it happen again.

The voice began to countdown and there were no warm goodbyes from her stylist, not even a glance in her direction. Sofia rolled her eyes as the chute slowly took her upwards and before her eyes was a pool of sand, but no sun except the small glimmers that peaked through drapes overhead. At least they provided some type of shade. Low music hummed in her head that she originally thought she was imagining.

Until the gong rang.

And everything became very real, very fast.

Her original plan was to grab a weapon near the edge and get the hell out, but that all changed when another girl stood before her and swung.

”Are you going to kill me?” she had spoken before her fist went flying towards her face, causing a black eye.

’Well, that’s the only way to leave now isn’t it?”

And she swung too.

Sofia wasn’t meant to be here.

But the universe was a fickle thing.

( sofia attacks junie ; unarmed )
_wDuwIB2k3unarmed
( broken nose - 5.5 )

( picks up knife )

unarmed

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie St. James. 

Junie did not mean to hurt the girl. She had simply stumbled into her as she tried to run away. Junie St. James knows better to pick a fight with somebody twice her size - yet, somehow, it seems she had found herself in the midst of one anyway. 

You need to run and hide. Do not engage anybody in direct combat. These words, from her mentors, cut through the incessant clanging of the band, arriving in her head for just long enough for her to realise the futility of them now - it was a gameplan that was never going to work, not really. It was a gameplan designed as a pacifier, something to say to a little girl who didn't really have a chance at all. 

Junie was sick to death of it. 

The girl from Twelve gives her the respect of an answer before she swings at her: "Well, that's the only way to leave now, isn't it?" 

Her nose gushes blood, mixing with the glitter and face paint. 

She grits her teeth through the pain. Although she has cried many tears since she stepped aboard the train to the Capitol, she tries to suppress them now. Now is not the time for crying. She doesn't want her Father to see that. 

In the background, the faeries laugh. Do they laugh at her - mock her bloodied face, her outlandish, harlequin costume? Is it funny, that she will die looking so removed from herself, so far away from the forest she thought she would grow up in? Junie does not find it funny at all. 

Perhaps instead they are laughing at Sofia, who seems to think that there is a way out of this place. Sofia, who is deluded enough to think that she might be going home. 

Junie's lips curl into a snarl.

There is no dignity in laying down and dying. If the only way home is in a box, then Junie decides she must ensure that she earns her place there, that she puts up a fight. Junie St. James, since the day they found her in the woods, has always been fierce. Today cannot be the exception. 

"You are stupid!" Junie shrieks, "You are stupid to think you there is a way out of here. If you think you're any better than me, you're wrong."

She looks down, almost surprised to find the knife in her hands. If she considers for a moment, you cannot tell. 

Do it, Junie, whisper the faeries. She never did back down from a challenge. 

Junie throws herself at Sofia, knife gripped tightly between clammy fingers.

She aims for her eyes; tries to prize them from their sockets, claws at the girl, tries to pull her hair. The faeries shriek with delight. 

She can taste the blood. She spits a thick wad of it at her feet. 

"Maybe I'm going to kill you, instead. You ever think about that?"

. . .

Junie attacks Sofia (knife) 

PEV3vp7Xfrknife

[block]

reroll - accuracy

knife

[miss lol]

(Junie picks up: jar of tar)

knife·knife

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

s(ofia) m(arkus)

A loud sickening crack echoed between the two girls.

Sofia looked at the girl’s face, her nose now crooked and pouring blood. Then she dared to look at her hand, still clenched in a fist, the girl’s blood now covering it, and the slight purpling of her knuckles, already threatening to bruise. She hadn’t meant to hit her that hard, not really. She wanted to knock the girl from Seven on ass so she could grab her knife and run, but the girl still stood in front of her.

Albeit now, slightly disfigured.

She tried to discreetly shake off the stinging in her hand as she picked up the knife that lay before her. Her hand protested slightly as she gripped the hilt. Sofia wasn’t an expert by any means, but a knife was probably the only weapon she knew how to use properly, no matter how ungraceful it appeared. She shouted a silent ‘thank you’ to the sky that it was the one thing that lay before her.

Maybe the universe had changed sides once more.

"You are stupid! You are stupid to think you there is a way out of here. If you think you're any better than me, you're wrong."

A laugh escapes her lips, cold and merciless. So humorless that at first Sofia was not sure if it was even her own.

”There’s always a way out, silly girl. The universe most certainly has its favorite, and trust me, it owes me.”

Her mind flashed to the night before the reaping. The candles, her chanting, the warning her mother always taught her to head. Last night Sofia had used twice as many candles, said twice as many spells, and stayed up twice as long just to make sure the spirits would be on her side.

"Maybe I'm going to kill you, instead. You ever think about that?"

The girl lurched forward with her knife, but not before Sofia was able to throw up her own in defense and leap gracefully to the side.

”Well, that’s a way to leave to now isn’t it? Always more than one way out,”

She didn’t hesitate before taking her chance to be on the offensive, lunging towards the girl in a single swoop, aiming for the heart. A nice clean kill.

Mother always said be careful what you wish for.

But maybe this time the universe really was on her side.

( sofia attacks junie ; knife )
mRgBmyoeapknife
( miss 0.0 )

accuracy ;

knife
( severed right ear - 8.0 +1 blades )



( picks up tar )

knife·knife

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie St. James. 


Junie has never been vain. She has spent the past twelve years with twigs and leaves in her hair, mud on her skirts, and grazed knees.

She was wild, untamed. In fact, she mocked the girls who preened and fretted over these things; she found them trivial, thought them stupid for it.

Although he supported her in every way, she had always suspected that Pa wished she was just a little more like these girls; that she would brush her hair, keep her socks out of the stream water before Church, and make herself tidy, at least for the morning. Her sister, born of purer blood than she, did a better job of these things. Despite this, Junie had always secretly known that Father loved her best - the child he had found on a long wander in the woods, as though drawn to her cradle. He said it was as if the faeries had whispered in his ear, leading him to her, for they intended her to be his. 

Junie imagines Father and Pa and her sister and brother now. She pictures them watching from home, crowded around the pixilated television set, their flushed faces illuminated by the glow. Would her parents hide her siblings from the truth? Would they sent them to bed without dinner, hoping to spare them the pain of seeing their baby sister die? She can't see the cameras, but she can feel them capturing her and transporting her, clownish makeup, bloodied nose, frantic, frenzied Junie, all the way back home to District Seven. 

”There’s always a way out, silly girl. The universe most certainly has its favourites, and trust me, it owes me.”

If this statement was true, Junie had certainly never considered it before. Was she a favourite, to be found and nursed by Father, as a squalling infant? Or was it the opposite? That she was discarded, left to die, and her brave and valiant Father had stoppered the plans of the universe, protected her from its wrath? He certainly could not protect her now. She could only protect herself. 

"Well, that's a way to leave now, isn't it? More than one way out." 

Sofia tries to show Junie the door then; the door that will take her to the sky, so that she may rest among the clouds. She lunges toward her, knife out, looking to Junie like the monster in every children's story she ever read. In the long second before impact, Junie sees her for what she is: a wicked witch, a troll, the mangled corpse of a vengeful ghost. Then, as Sofia's knife comes down upon Junie's head, she sees her again: a child. 

Junie snaps her head to the side at the very last moment. Instead of drilling through her skull and sending her back to District Seven, the knife instead ploughs through her ear, cutting it clean from the side of her head. Impulsively, she yelps.

"I'm so sorry," she says - not to Sofia, but to the audience watching from the living room she will never see again. "I'll do better, I'll be braver."

Her chances are over to please Pa by proving herself civilised, demure. She is bare, exposed as the wild, unruly thing she had always been, led astray by the insistent hands of the faeries. 

It is not too late to impress her Father, though. All he had ever asked from her was that she do her very best, no matter what. That much, she could give him. 

"It must be nice, to think something bigger is looking out for you," Junie hisses, unrecognisable, her face twisted and savage. "But me? I've gotten pretty used to looking after myself." 

And she does her very best. She hopes that they are watching closely. 

. . .

Junie attacks Sofia (knife) using tar

5gVeXA6qc9knife

[Shallow cut on neck, 4]

Fire

1-50

[Severe burn, +8]

knife·1-50

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

s(ofia) m(arkus)

It was almost blinding.

Even in the gently shaded area of the Cornucopia, the fire the girl lit atop her knife burned brightly in the high peak of the sun. The fire blazed, increasing the sweltering heat of the desert they were stranded in by a few degrees. The droplets of sweat on her face doubled, but she didn’t dare waste a precious second by wiping them from her face.

The little girl, Junie, she may be small but Sofia could tell she had a vicious bite. Even after she broke her nose, lopped off her ear, and was gushing blood creating a small pool beneath her feet, the girl still stood.

She had balls, Sofia would give her that.

And lighting her knife on fire?

Major balls.

A smirk played across her lips. She had never expected the girl to roll over and die, but she also didn’t expect to need to kill anyone this early. She gripped the knife in her hand tighter in attempts to keep it from trembling.

"It must be nice, to think something bigger is looking out for you. But me? I've gotten pretty used to looking after myself."

The girl went for the kill. Her bland of fire a dance of red and orange as it slashed towards her neck. Sofia avoided the brunt of blade, but the flame was hot. So hot. And it took everything in her not to cry out as it burned through her flesh.

If she didn’t die by the hands of Junie, the infection this burn would fester certainly would. But that was neither here nor there. She had one thing to focus on.

Living.

”You don’t have to rely on anyone but yourself if you know how to manipulate. But just remember, everything has a price.”

She eyes the tar next to her, but she didn’t dare to light it. Not yet.

Sofia had learned her lesson.

The cost was sometimes worse a fate much worse than death.

( sofia attacks junie ; knife )
h0_LRs1F8Iknife
( block - 0.0 )

knife

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie St. James. 

Junie has played with fire before. 

She wouldn't tell you if you asked her, but in the long summer she turned ten, she felt a curious itch in her palms as she sweltered in the empty house. 

Everybody else had been out - her parents at work, her siblings at school. Junie didn't go to school, because Junie didn't like it. She had spent the morning swimming in the creek until her skin had grown pink and blistering; then, she had retreated to the shade. Even there, it had been stifling, so she had sulked back home to roam restlessly through the rooms, waiting for her family to return. 

That had been when the faeries had started up with their chant: Go on, Junie - see what happens! Don't you want to know? Junie had tried very hard to resist them - she promises she did - but she lost the battle, and when her Father returned home she was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, watching the curtains burn, her eyes wide, in awe of the way the flames licked the fabric, swallowed it whole.

She didn't really understand why Father was screaming. He doused the curtains - and Junie - in water, grabbed her by the ear and pulled her away from the blackened mess. When Pa returned home, later, Junie was in her room awaiting the lashing she had earned. She had pouted and pleaded. It wasn't me, I swear it, she had said, and this was true, in a way. Part of her had never stopped thinking about it since. 

She was the kind of child who had within her the urge to burn the whole world down. 

When the flaming knife tore through Sofia's flesh, she did not flinch. In fact, she grew stronger; deftly dodged the girl's next blow. She was growing powerful, despite the blood loss, spurned on by the crackle of the fire. Perhaps it was delusion, but the pain of her wounds hurt her less than she would have imagined. In fact, she felt stronger. Was it true, after all? Were children of the forest immune from human qualms, like broken noses and severed ears? Would she continue to grow bigger and braver as the fire kept on burning, as her not-quite-human body suffered? 

Maybe she could fly away from here, after all. 

Maybe, just maybe, if she burned the whole arena down with her. 

"You don't have to rely on anything but yourself if you know how to manipulate," Sofia says, poking fun at the beast she had already awoken. Junie doesn't know much about manipulation. She is a straight-forward kind of girl; you always know exactly what you are getting, with her. 

She blinks at Sofia, trying to make sense of her. 

The girl continues on without hesitation: "But just remember, everything has a price." 

Now, she is speaking in words Junie can understand. This rule, Junie knows all too well. This is the law of mushroom rings and three-wishes, of trolls under bridges and of pumpkins at midnight. There is always, always a price. 

"Maybe that's it-" Junie breathes, readying her weapon to strike again. "Maybe it's only a case of who can pay the highest toll."

The fire is alive, a beating heart accompanying Junie, an obsession that she can finally indulge without restraint. It buoys her, gives her some kind of twisted hope. Not of survival - no, that was a dream she never once entertained. Instead, the dream that dares to burst in her chest is even less likely; she wonders if just maybe, Junie St. James will die the hero of her story. 

"How much is it worth to you?" she asks. "What are you willing to bid?"

. . .

Junie attacks Sofia (knife) using tar

GciMGowT4lknife

[Deep gash on left forearm, 8 damage + 1 (blades)]

Fire

1-50

[+4]

knife·1-50

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

s(ofia) m(arkus)

She was dying.

She could feel it.

Death was waiting at her door, surprisingly patiently, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before he came knocking. There was only one way to pay Death.

And she forced herself not to think about it.

She forced herself not to think about District Twelve. She forced herself not to think about her sisters and how they were watching this happen. She forced herself not to think about her father, who betrayed her mother all those years ago. But mainly, she forced herself not to think about her mother, and how her life ended in flames too.

It was ironic, wasn’t it? So ironic that Sofia could feel the laugh rising in her throat, but she had nowhere near enough strong to let it slip. Ironic how a witch’s life was being ended by fire, just how the old stories used to go.

The universe was a fickle thing.

And oh did it love to play cruel jokes.

The girl’s knife slashed through her own arm, leaving another cut to add to the pool of blood at her feet. The heat of the flame stung, but not nearly as bad as the mark on her throat.

Sofia had done everything right, the candles, the moon, the spells, but somehow her world was still crashing down upon her.

"Maybe that's it-maybe it's only a case of who can pay the highest toll. How much is it worth to you? What are you willing to bid?”

She tightened her hand around her blade, preparing for one last swing of desperation.

”I used to say I would give my life for it. Funny, since that’s exactly what’s about to happen.”

The universe is a fickle thing, and it most certainly was not on Sofia Markus’s side.

Not today.

Not ever.

( sofia attacks junie ; knife )
1k6bgsWEj9knife
( sc on back - 4.0 )

knife

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie St. James. 


Junie told the Gamemakers she was done with playing games. 

She realises now, with blood on her hands (and her face, and in her hair, and dripping down her arm and off her elbows), that she has been tricked into playing just one more.

She had been angry, then, filled with a righteous indignance; she had accused them of cheating. As she stares at Sofia's trembling body - clinging to its last grasp at life - she realises that the rules, that she had once believed so integral, were made up. There is only losing. 

Sofia Markus is losing. 

And Junie's flames - which represent an unfair advantage, a power she is not entitled to - burn on. They are undeterred by Sofia's plight; they would burn down the whole damn arena, with everybody inside it, leaving behind no Victor at all. And such was the truth of it: death didn't care for fair. It came without rules, without restrictions. 

Junie has little choice but to follow suit. 

"I used to say I would give my life for it. Funny, since that's exactly what's about to happen." Sofia's voice is a listless rasp. Junie can hear the hurt in it, the extent to which she has been torn apart. The extent to which Junie has torn her apart. 

There is satisfaction in that: they thought she was going to roll over and die. They thought she was useless, just a little girl. All of them, they thought she was going to lose. 

She is going to lose. But for now, she is not in last place, and that is something. 

"But, Sofia," Junie says, looking sad all of a sudden. "That's not enough." 

The girl from District Twelve thought that her life was a high price to pay, that for Panem this bid would be sufficient to save her. For this, she was stupid, and for this, she will die. 

"They want a whole lot more than that, I'm afraid." 

Junie wipes the blood from her eyes. It might remind you of a child wiping away the sleep after a bad dream, only instead of sleep dust, her fists streak blood and glitter and ash across her face, giving her the look of a deranged raccoon. Despite this, her expression is serious. From within it, she is not quite able to grasp the absurdity of the situation. 

Junie Bug, kill her, whisper the voices. Junie gives a curt little nod of assent. 

"If you ask me- I don't think you have much left to offer them." 

Then, she raises the flaming knife, and tries her very best, just as Father would want. She is not playing to win. But she plays, nonetheless. 

. . .

Junie attacks Sofia (knife) using tar

d75nrZhyODknife

[miss]

Fire

1-50

[Extinguished]

knife·1-50

[florentine, d4b ❁]

Junie throws herself at Sofia, her tiny body airborne. 

Her shaky hands lose their grip on the knife. It clatters to the ground and extinguishes itself in the sand, which a careful observer would notice has slowly been building around their feet, as if drawn to them by magic. Junie does not even look at it, instead keeps her wild eyes fixed straight ahead. 

She does not need a knife. 

She is brave.

She remembers asking Sofia: Are you going to kill me? 

It was mere minutes ago, but feels like a lifetime. Since then, Junie has changed.

Go, Junie Bug. Kill her and run! The faeries shout so loudly that their voices ring clear over the sound of the band. There's no such thing as fair play! 

Junie tears at Sofia's face with her fingernails, sinks her sharp teeth into her flesh. 

She comes away with a mouthful of courage. It tastes bitter. 

She spits it out. 

. . .

[Random event: Junie bites Sofia... to death]