bugging! / ruby v. duchess, [bloodbath].

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

cw for drug use

RUBY
WOLFE.

Ruby cannot see properly. This is the first thing she realizes about the strange uniform Ginger shoves her into. A heavy mask weighs on the bridge of her nose, a gaudy, gleaming thing with tinted purple lenses that obfuscate the room more than help her to see. Ginger says something she doesn’t hear, adjusts the uneven frayed fabric dangling from Ruby’s belt, smacks the back of her hand when she goes to push the mask away from her face.

Like a wild beast, she keeps herself to the present, no future in sight, only a fugue state of present tense that shifts around her every few minutes like a tall pine in the autumn breeze. Ginger fusses, forcefully turns her until she can adjust the already too-tight braids down either side of Ruby’s head. Then she tugs at the thick ribbons laced across her back, hard, pulling the boned corset hard enough to hear the grommets strain and bend.

This leads Ruby to the second thing she will realize, which is that she cannot breathe.

Spun back around, Ginger goes sideways and the world slips, until a thin white pill hovers in front of her face for a moment. Ruby doesn’t think she had time to blink before there’s a finger in her mouth and the thing is being pushed under her tongue. The popping her stylist finger sound makes slipping back out of her mouth echoes in the tube as something clenches inside her stomach. A yawning melancholy opens up and swallows her whole before the world shatters around her in familiar technicolor. Ruby lets out a trembling sob that chases after the vibrance when it begins to melt away.

Ruby barely even notices when Ginger loops a final piece around her neck with a cheshire cat smile, a thin ribbon of sorts, then steps back, finally, and the open air side of Ruby’s glass prison seals itself shut.

Blue eyes wild, laughing but desperate. That’s how Ruby steps out of the glass.

Halfway through, the thing had shifted course sharply, and she’d stumbled into the side of it before collapsing in a pile of tangled purple fabric and heavy leather boots. At first, she hadn’t realized it had come to a halt because the floor kept trembling, a low thrumming she thought was surely coming from the tube.

When she looked up through, the glass door had whooshed open so she tumbled through them, ass over kettle, the thick rubber soles of her boots catching on the hem of her skirt. The thing had torn immediately.

A stagger forward—she walks into the corner of something, feels where a bruise will blossom and sees a rainbow bloom instead of the pain. It’s only when she totters backwards, off-kilter and dripping blood, that she realizes she’s picked up a knife by it’s sharp end.

Ruby watches the blood pool in her palm for a moment, watching it form the shape of a lone wolf, before a curl of smoke peels away from its snout where a lit cigarette appears. A grin manifests across her cheeks before she can stop it, canines bared. It’s still painted across her face as she dances her way clumsily across the vibrating floor, springing down the narrow back hallway until an angel wearing red emerges from the smoke screen.

Be nice, be nice, be nice, until someone shows you their teeth. That’s what her Mom always said.

She hopes Duchess sees her smile for what it is.

“Did they give you the stardust, too?”

[ruby enters the arena, picks up a knife]

[dars]

"Before they take us away," she said in a rushed, quiet tone, "I reckon we should try to find each other when we get there. Stick it out together." Despite the age difference, Sayed was tall enough that he had to crane his neck down, tucking his chin in order to look Duchess in the eyes. It highlighted the youthful roundness of his features: plump cheeks and big eyes betraying his fear. He blinked and looked away when he realized she could see how scared he was. Somehow, despite the reality of the situation, and despite having her own dangerous future to confront, Duchess felt like when the Games started and it was only the two of them left, she was somehow responsible for the younger tribute. Even if he was a stranger she hadn't even known before the reaping, even if he was tall enough to look down at her when they stood in front of each other, and even if he didn't want her to see him being vulnerable. She nudged him on the shoulder playfully. "With your brains and my stage presence, we'd be a team out there competin' with the best of 'em."

He nodded in understanding, a boy of few words. He looked for a brief moment like he might've actually spoken, but the moment was interrupted when Blue entered the room. Immediately, Duchess noticed that for the first time, Blue's edges seemed to be... softer. This was not something that'd been present during their stay in the Capitol, nor even something that she could remember seeing at the reaping. But as she walked into the room now, her chin wasn't raised quite so high and she wasn't immediately barking orders at them.

"They're calling for you." Duchess felt her face sour into a frown but she nodded, moving to follow when she felt someone grab her arm. It was Sayed. She looked at him with a brief concern before he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. When they separated, his eyes were red with tears.

"I'll find you," he promised.

"Not if I find you first."


The hovercraft ride was positively nightmarish. She started to feel nauseous almost immediately after takeoff, and by the time they landed she was positively certain her skin would be permanently tinged a sickly shade of green. Her brow was sweating, her palms, her underboob, her pits- she'd never flown before either, so she didn't know how much of it was from some sort of altitude sickness and how much of it was from fear of what was to come. She just hoped they'd let her take a shower before they sent her into the arena. Wouldn't that have been a sight, a tribute rising into the bloodbath looking like she's already half-dead.

Thankfully, at the very least, they kept the waiting room below the arena cold. The air flow did wonders to help clear the nausea alone, and after her stylist practically force-fed her a handful of crackers, she definitely felt better. "No shower, though?"

"You could splash some water on your face in the sink?" he offered, but she wasn't interested.

"No, let's go ahead and get me dressed then. I'll manage well enough."

The stylist took down the only garment hanging in the wardrobe and unzipped it. The first thing she noticed was the color: red. Bright red. The stylist pulled the pieces out one by one and held them up for her to see. for the record: there wasn't much to see. A red patent-leather bralette with white lace detailing around the edges, a match pair of high-waisted dancer shorts with long, sturdy, peculiar red spikes jutting out around the waistline, and a matching set of knee-high boots. To complete the look, she was given a simple, vaguely-futuristic circlet to wear, which made it so that a gorgeous sizable ruby stone hung directly in the center of her forehead.

"Well, I don't reckon they're sending us to the snowscape again!" she joked as the stylist tied a lanyard around her neck, the final touch. Trying the look on just confirmed her suspicion that she'd look more like a pop-star than a tribute but hey, who was complaining? If she had to pick between looking like Lionel Estrada and looking like Paris VanBuren, the choice practically made itself.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said at last, stepping into the tube. It sealed shut behind her, and she closed her eyes the instant she felt them start to dampen. No crying. No crying. She could be strong. Even the Gamemakers thought so. Mace told her he was given a ten in his Games, and he obviously went on to win the whole thing. Just as she refused to rise into the arena a vaguely-green sweaty mess, she also refused to do so crying. She looked up and could see a bright evening sky above. There were no clouds. She could hear no birds, or see no treetops. She hadn't given much thought to what would be waiting for her up there, but the Capitol was doing an amazing job of waiting to unveil it. She told herself no matter what it was, she had to be ready.

But then, about halfway up, the plate below her feet jerked very suddenly, and a panel in the side of the tube slid open, just long enough to fit her inside. "W-" The plate began to move sideways. She looked back up and watched as the small circle that was the exit slowly panned out of view, and she was left in the world's most horrifying temporary darkness. She couldn't help the whimper of fear that fell from her lips. What was happening? Was this normal? Surely not- why would there have been an exit at all if it was never intended to be used? She couldn't see anything, but she could feel that the plate still moved. After a few seconds, it came to a stop, and she began to rise again.

When her plate finally did click into place, she knew instantly that something was wrong. There were others, a few but definitely not all, all wearing their own ridiculous outfits, all seeming as confused as she. She scanned the room in hopes of finding Sayed to no avail, only to turn and realize that the other tributes were all outside, protected from what seemed to be a relentless heat by canopies of every color. An endless desert sprawled in all directions around them and there were lots of different items lying around in the sand. Inside, though, where Duchess was, there were only knives. What did it mean? Was it a trick of some sort? A damnation?

"Did they give you the stardust too?" A voice called. She found a masked individual standing near her. The girl wore a mask so Duchess didn't know who she was looking at, but if her size was anything to go on, she was from the upper districts. Blonde hair, clearly in shape, it didn't take too long for Duchess to decipher who it was. But that wasn't the chief concern at the moment. It was the blood dripping from the girl's hand, and the knife she held in it.

"Stardust? Sugar, I don't know what you mean. Are you alright?"

She stepped closer gingerly, hesitantly. It was stupid, walking toward a potential adversary with no weapon, but she'd been so dumbfounded by everything and she still hadn't laid eyes on Sayed and-

A parachute from nowhere seemed to drift directly in front of her and she gasped, stepping back and away from it. As if offended, the parachute closed the distance again before coming to a rest right at her feet. her eyes widened. A long, gruesome sword with a serrated edge on one side and a simple hilt laid before her. Not a knife like the others lying around, but a full-length sword, longer than her arm perhaps. She looked around and saw no others like it, nor any other parachutes inside or out.

"What in tarnation is goin' on?" Was this even a bloodbath still? She knelt and lifted the blade into the air, surprised at how balanced it felt in her grasp. Almost as if it had been made just for her. Almost like all of this was planned.

[Duchess enters and receives her Sardaukar Sword from IC Sponsorship!]

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

cw for drug use

RUBY
WOLFE.

The girl seems like an angel or some sort. A queen. Something divinely wrought, something chosen. In the back of her head, Ruby remembers the way Ginger grimaced at a television screen and numbers start to collect across the empty air, bouncing and hovering like music notes. They thrum in time to the vibrating coming from beneath Ruby's boots, catching in the think rubber soles and bouncing her up higher and higher until she begins to feel like she's floating, too. Ten, ten, ten…

“Stardust sugar...” Duchess looks at her wide-eyed and worried, but Ruby only sees her own wonder, is dumbstruck by it and the cloud that descends from above to hover between them both like a guard. Light leaks from behind, glinting against something that flashes like a burning star.

Ruby stumbles right towards it, hands extended, desperate for the world to slip out from underneath her.

Damnation, damnation, damnation, she's here to save her from it, Ruby is sure of it, she's suddenly so sure. She's a mess, tangled in her own limbs, but she's sure, so sure.

"You understand!" Her hands go for Duchess's cheeks, clinging to her, trying to find purchase, nails clawing. "You understand!"

[ruby trips into duchess unarmed]

Y0dskObM70unarmed

2

unarmed

[dars]

Duchess clenched her teeth to prevent them from chattering with fear. She pressed her lips into a thin line so they would not tremble. Why were they split apart? Were those moving figures standing in the distance people? Why was she given a sword? What was happening to Ruby? What was Stardust?

The sword was weightless in her hands, the grip hugging the curves of her hand like a glove. Like it was made for her. There was a note hanging from a small white envelope around the base of the blade, but she didn't have time to read it at her current juncture. She peered at Ruby's eyes through the other girl's mask. Or, tried to. The mask's black glass eye holes made it so that she could only see the vague outline of where her eyes might be. She saw them grow wide in surprise.

"You understand!"

She rushed forward, reaching for Duchess's face while still holding the knife. She flinched backward, but the girl grabbed at her cheeks, the flat of the blade pressed against the side of her nose while the girl's nails gripped along her jaw and cheekbone. "You understand!" She repeated in her bewildered, slurred tone. Duchess did not understand. Duchess jerked herself free of the girl's grasp in a violent snap, but not before the girl managed to rake her nails down the side of Duchess's jaw and neck. She gasped in pain- "Ow!"

Her off-hand rushed to apply pressure to the stinging aftermath.

"I don't understand!" She said, her voice growing teary, "what the heck?"

She held the sword in front of herself, hoping to ward the other girl off.

"Go on! Get!"

[duchess attacks ruby, sword]
l9JDwwYjrssword
[3.5]


[picks up tar]

sword

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

cw drug use

RUBY
WOLFE.

Boarding the hovercraft on her way back to the Capitol proper, slingback heels click clack across the tile as Ginger taps away at the small glass screen with the sides of her thumbs. Nails rapid fire rapping against the surface, she adds “E - Celestial” to the ever growing list of things in the Wolfe girls’ bloodstream. The trainers had started her out easy when she first approached them: bet you wanna share, Ruby had tried, so demure, up through her lashes in spite of her height.

After a quick chat with Lauren, Ginger had promised to communicate a complete list of imbibed substances, and the deal had been struck. Another District Two disaster. It’d be brilliant television.

Ruby plays her part well, some hollow hungry thing feasting on the feeling rising in the pit of her chest.

Go on! Like a bad dog, kicked in the gut and left to hide under the porch in the rain. There’s something beautiful about getting locked out of beauty. Duchess looks at Ruby and catches her breath, afraid. Get!

“You’re…” her hands drop to either side, limp, “...scared of me.”

The birdcage Ruby’s always lived in dies the tiniest death.

A reckoning begins on her hip when the tip of that sword finds the exposed skin there, and while Duchess skitters back a step Ruby watches for a moment as the drops of blood collect and hover in the air, as if carried away by a great wind. There’s a breeze against her cheeks as she has the thought, and behind her mask some sharp stings her behind the eyes. Her blood turns to sand and begins to sparkle.

A beam of sunlight cuts through it, let in through a falling cloth attempting to cover the window. The light leaks in any way it can, and Ruby watches it begin dancing in time to the music still thrumming. She takes a deep, shuddering breath that tastes like clarity feels, lets it in until she feels the spice in the air begin taking hold of her bones. It grows roots through the marrow until it finds the floor beneath her feet.

Something heavy presses underneath her ribs, takes control of her arm, and flings the knife barely held. The tip of it slices across Ruby’s own finger, making it wobble as it sails through the air towards that shimmering angel, letting the haze devour her.

[ruby throws knife at duchess]

9QVPgpBidXthrowing knife

miss 0

throwing knife

[dars]

"You're... scared of me?"

Duchess could feel the beat of her heart in every pulse point. Her stomach was soured and her throat was tight. Yes, she wanted to say, I've never been more afraid. But she couldn't manage to make her lips form the words. She wished so badly she could close her eyes and wish for this to all go away, but she couldn't spare the seconds. A fraction of a second was all the girl would need to get her hands back onto Duchess's face, and the next time she might get more than the flat of the blade against her nose and a cat scratch down the side of her neck.

Whether she liked it or not, Ruby was forcing her to confront a part of Games reality that'd always seemed theoretical up to that point: the war of it. Duchess did not feel like a soldier. Yet, on a battleground she stood. Her weapon was drawn. Her enemy stood before her, stumbling and feral. As Duchess was wondering what might possibly be wrong with Ruby, the other girl flung her knife towards her. Instinct took over, and Duchess fell to her knees. She landed hard on the right side, undoubedtly ripping skin along her shin which made her wince, but the knife flew over her head and clattered against the wall.

As she stared down at her hands, she noticed a splotch of wetness dot the ground between them. Tears. She was crying. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the sword.

The war of it.

Reality raked its teeth across her heart and shattered any hope that'd once dwelled within. She'd been so naive. What had she expected to happen? Did she expect everyone to hold hands? Make the Capitol choose? It was a noble thought. But the reality is that she wanted power over her own fate, not to leave it in someone else's hands.

"Fine then," she said, her voice a whimper, and she stood.

[duchess attacks ruby, sword]
J7Ls1IfSI4sword
[miss, 0]

[accuracy]
sword
[3.5]

[picks up pts gloves]

sword·sword

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

cw drug use

RUBY
WOLFE.

The roots of her expand, reaching longingly through the stage and the stone to find the sand, the warmer rays of the sun and boulders of glass. The edges of everything start to bleed together until she feels herself looking in on the lives of everyone fighting around them, everything the light keeps trying to find. Every breath of the land echoes back through her and for a moment, this one moment, Ruby almost feels like she and Duchess are one. Stepping into the embrace of togetherness, tied fates, (the comfort of nothingness,) Ruby closes the distance between herself and Duchess, and lets the waves of sand crash down over her. The angel from District Ten leaks diamonds from her eyes that trickle down her cheeks, radiant, before shattering on the floor. They turn to crystalline mist that waltzes away into the burning clouds.

“Don’t cry,” she blinks and she’s standing right in front of Duchess again, or Duchess is standing right in front of her. She thinks she reached for her again, looks down and sees her hand outstretched towards those red feathers. "Don't cry," Ruby attempts one more time before she feels the waves of sand sink and swell around her, the sound of wind on water rolling in her ears. She thinks she floats for a moment, just a moment, but then a gleam of light catches across the silver sword, and Ruby feels all her bones turn to lead as the waves shoulder her under. The glance of pain falls around her in a shower of light and dissolves any hold she had on herself.

It’s a wounded animal that fights back in Ruby’s place, a howling coyote that surges forward canines first, going for the throat.

Fierce and unbroken, for the first time.

[ruby bites duchess]

kFOitmAhKQunarmed

3

unarmed

[dars]

She was like a streak of lightning, blink-and-you-miss-it pace. As Duchess stood, she swung up with her sword at the girl to ward her away. Tears stung her eyes. Blink. The space where the girl had been an instant before was empty. She was rushing forward, hunched down with her hands stretched out in front of her. Right toward Duchess.

There was no time to move; the girl slammed into her and she stumbled backwards trying to keep her footing and losing her grip on the sword in the meantime. "No!"

It clattered onto the ground in the opposite direction from where she fell. Duchess scrambled towards it on her hands and knees, not daring to meet the gaze of the girl before her for fear of what might come of it. The wound on her shin was sticking to the linoleum as she desperately pulled herself along the surface, minding a set of steep stairs as she pulled herself back up. The girl was standing between Duchess and the sword. Her sword. The one that'd been sent to her special by... Well, she still wasn't sure. Mace, maybe? Though she wasn't sure how he would've managed to swing something like that so early for her, or why he would've had the forethought for it.

Before the girl had time to size her up and realize how much taller she was than Duchess, she lurched forward to shove past her, trying to make it back to the blade before the other girl or anyone else got it first. She rushed passed, thrusting her hands out as she glanced off Ruby's side, "Unff-" before scuffling to pick the sword back up.

[duchess attacks ruby, unarmed]
gF8zzcyszqunarmed
[x]

unarmed