Wash Away My Sins [Artemis and Seraphina Day 5]

[Izzabel Bennet D8A (Jorg)]

A R T E M I S

Her glaive went deep into the stomach of Tide, and all he did was slump around it. No audible last words from the boy from District Four as his cannon reverberated across the Ravine. Artemis yanked her glaive out and watched as he crumpled to the ground, and she never felt more numb. This is what she trained for right? She was upset that Jupiter swept in and stole her kill in their fight with Lucia, so shouldn't she be ecstatic now? She had proven herself not only as a woman but as a Career, yet at that moment, she only felt numb. Maybe she wasn't distraught that Jupiter stole her kill, she was more upset about the fact that she thought that Jupiter made her look weak. Like she wasn't capable of holding herself together in the way Careers were supposed to. Yet she proved herself now, and all she could feel was nothing. He was just a person in her way, and the first thing on her mind was washing all the sand off her.

She made her way to the thickest part of the stream before unceremoniously laying herself in it, letting the water roll off of her, hoping that it would take away the pain of the past five days She didn't care about the potential infections with only one or days left. She had been keeping count, and only three other tributes stood in her way, each one she had interacted with in one way or another. She had seen two of them fight in action, the only one she hadn't was Safina, whom she shared a day in the tent with, watching that silly little survivor show. She's made this this far though, so she was clearly a fighter in one way or another.

She stayed in the water, feeling the grit and grime wash off her. She wished for shampoo and conditioner, body wash and a soft bristle loofah to help scrub off the sand and sweat that caked to her skin. She yearned for the basic necessities again, but she was grateful even for this. It wasn't common for a tribute from Two to make it as far as Artemis had, the last one being in the 94th. And even then, she had fallen to one of the boys from 10. The final two girls had fallen to the boys that year, but only one boy remained this year. Fucking Jupiter. She hoped that she didn't have to face him, that either Seraphina or Safina would take him down so that only two girls stood in the Finale. It had been too long since a girl had won the Games, and Artemis would have done everything in her power to ensure that it was her.

She opened her eyes when she crunching on the stream bank. She sat to see Seraphina had stuck around. Artemis raised herself on her elbows to face her, she enjoyed the stream too much to leave it.

"You stuck around?" Artemis asked with genuine confusion in her voice.

ELEGANT

[Cait]

sera keoch

Kinda glad it isn’t me that kills Tide, in the end. I’m sure Circe would be less than pleased about it. She seems like the type of prideful girl to want to take all the glory in vengeance, but that’s not really my style. I think there’s something to be said for that – about holding onto the last of my humanity, even though the hourglass on my time spent with it is running all too thin.

Artemis doesn’t stick around after Tide falls. She extracts her weapon from his skin with the precision of a surgeon, which causes me to shudder involuntarily as I watch her make her way to the other side of the clearing where the mouth of the river looms. I give her a head start on me, before my legs eventually follow a similar path to hers, tempted by the promise of cool water to combat my parched throat. I make sure to crunch my feet extra loudly as I approach so she knows I’m not a threat to her; I’m too battered and bruised to fight.

“You stuck around?” She doesn’t make an effort to move from away from the apparent bliss of the stream, but I’m shivering in my skin too hard to even contemplate joining her.

Oh, plus the fact she’s a cold-blooded killer and I could be skewered in five seconds flat, if I gave her the chance to do it. But you know.

“Yeah, guess so. Uhh… nice hit before.” Ignoring the fact that she’s probably going to be driving that pointy thing right into my stomach come tomorrow, but credit where it’s due.

I crouch down at the side of the water, keeping my distance, not wanting to spook her but also trying to keep myself out of harm’s way in the case she decided the time on our short-lived truce had expired. “It’s funny, what you said. About friendships and vulnerability. Didn’t think I’d be learning those kinds of lessons in a place like this, you know?”

But maybe that’s the point. You find yourself at the brink of all you are, all you’ve ever known, and have to confront deeper parts in order to survive. You learn that, impossibly, vulnerability might not be as weak as you’ve always been led to believe.

I don’t know. All I know is that I thought I knew who I was, and then Izzy died, and then I wanted to die too, and now I’m here and not sure what I want anymore and it’s the most infuriating thing in the world to have to go through. And I’m sure Artemis has her own battles and confusion to face. But the sun has set. The hourglass has run dry. There’s nothing more to say to her, not really.

“Okay. I’m gonna go now. Probably see you tomorrow.”

Feels strange to say that I wish I didn’t have to.