I ain't letting up until the day I die [A v. S Day 6]

[Izzabel Bennet D8A (Jorg)]

A R T E M I S

Tide and Vera's faces cascaded in the sky as the sun broke over the horizon against music she didn't recognize. Vera's face had shocked Artemis. The last remaining tribute from the Wealth alliance was slain, and she couldn't help but wonder if she should have stayed longer. Three against-one odds weren't great, but they each have fallen, and with the downfall of Tide, only the Upper Three Districts and Seraphina remained. Were the Gamemakers disappointed that she and Artemis had tagged team the boy from Four? Did they want the two Careers to take out the outlying Middle District? Who could have ever guessed what they were thinking, it wasn't Artemis's job to know, only to survive the little show they had created.

Artemis felt refreshed after her makeshift bath in the Ravine the night before, and with the heat rising from the comparative shivering, this felt almost comfortable. Especially after the first few days in the Arena, the temperature tonight was like a warm summer's eve. She found the energy within her to traverse the glowing sand dunes with ease, having spent days in the black sands. Instead of neon lights reflecting off the sand's surface, the lights were coming from deep within the sand. It was almost as if they were alive, vibrant colors against the night sky. She kept moving though, finding no reason to stay among the dunes.

Artemis managed to find her way back to the Art Instillations where the statues stood in their obscure styles. Did the statues have meaning, or were they meant to be abstract? It was hard to tell as the statues were basked in the same neon lights as the sand dunes were, creating shadows on the ground that mystified the statues' shapes. She felt safer here somehow as if it was almost easier to hide in the shadows and crevices. She weaved through them, simply enjoying getting lost in the art. The canvas was still yellow, with drawings done by the tributes somehow looking as fresh as when it was first painted. The bright sun hadn't faded away the pigment or the vibrancy of it. Artemis wasn't sure who drew those, but it was nice to see that a human touch remained. She stopped in her tracks though when she saw Seraphina again, the remnants of last night's conversation coming back to her.

"It's funny, what you said," the other girl said last night. "About friendships and vulnerability." Seraphina had admitted that she didn't think that she would be learning those kinds of lessons before running off. Artemis didn't get a chance to respond, but she agreed, that being under this kind of stress had brought up important lessons, ways in which they could have lived their lives for the better. Yet, the other kids never got to put those lessons into action as blades as flails stole their lives from them. Artemis would have done anything she could have to ensure that it wasn't her, and if it meant breaking that momentary bond that had formed last night so be it.

She didn't strike yet though, feelings stirring in her stomach as she contemplated how to handle this. Their truce had to have meant something right? She knew that relationships in the Games were fleeting, having no real meaning outside of surviving for a few days. So why was Artemis hesitating? Was it because she didn't want to take away the first real glimpse of a friendship that she had? She and Safina, the girl from Three who surprised Artemis by still being alive had a moment in the tent watching that silly little TV show together, but even that was momentary. Was it because she and Seraphina fought together, a bond forged and broken under the threat of death? Artemis knew two things though. The first was that if she was going to make it out of the desert hellscape, she would need to kill the girl in front of her, and second, she would do her best to ensure that Seraphina's death was as fast and painless as possible.

Artemis charged forward, glaive aimed directly where Seraphina's heart would be, and hoped her aim was true. She didn't want to have to hurt the girl more than she needed to.

ELEGANT

Artemis attacks Seraphina | Glaive
5vQxloleksglaive
Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5

glaive

[Cait]

sera keoch

I’ve tried not to think about what’s waiting for me if I make it home. If, in the incredibly and increasingly unlikely situation that happens to be my fate. Because I think if I thought about it too much, I’d realise what I’ve always kinda known, but have been letting Flynn distract me from on his daily suicide-watch check-ins.

I have nothing.

Even with the shiny new upgrades that being a Victor would bring – moving out of the orphanage and never having to work the night shift ever again – there’s still no family. There’s still no friends. There’s still no Izzy.

So, I could die right here. Lay down in the sand, refuse to move until the worms come to eat the flesh off my skin. (They do that, you know. I’ve seen it.) And when I let myself be comfortable with the threat of being killed in my sleep, I can at least take comfort in knowing it will be a painless journey to the other side.

I close my eyes in bliss and have the best night’s sleep I’ve had since the day Izzy died.

---

I forced myself to watch the faces that lit up the sky, even though I hadn’t wanted to. Tide and Vera. Just gone. Blinked out of existence until there’s only four of us left fumbling around in the sand, the artificial warmth back with a vengeance not unlike that which I’d stoked in Circe’s name yesterday.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be getting colder in here? Who turned the thermostat up?!”

Of course, there’s nobody around to respond. I don’t know whether I’m relieved or sad to realise it.

And I’m definitely right, for the record. I know the familiarity of midnight, of the way it cuts into your skin and gets into your clothes faster than the panic and adrenaline seeping into your bones when you know you’re doing something you’re not supposed to do. Tonight’s dusk is nothing like those strange, sordid memories from before. It’s hot and heavy and bruising in a sticky, unrelenting way. Still, my skin crawls with the anticipation of being on the brink of something evil, the way it used to do in the early days of our graverobbing antics, before I became desensitised to so much of the world and the guilt didn’t paralyse me so.

Call it a sixth sense; call it stale predictability and a lack of originality from the Gamemakers. All that’s to say, I’m simply not shocked when Artemis strolls up on me, glaive swinging like I knew it would be the next time I encountered her.

But it doesn’t come flying towards me straight away. And that tells me all I need to know: she’s not as unshakeable as I’d originally thought. I guess none of us are at this stage of the Games. Or maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe we’re the outliers, not quite all the way gone to the dark side. Maybe Jupiter and Safina are happily hacking each other to death as we speak, and we’re the ones looking like uncertain losers.

And even though the hesitation is fleeting – even though her weapon still scratches my skin with venomous intent, eventually – I can tell there’s more going on in her pretty little head than meets the eye. More than she probably knows how to comprehend. More than she wants to admit.

Not that I’m gonna exploit any of that. ‘Cause really, at this point, what’s the use in poking and prodding at her humanity to try and distract her or throw her off her game? That sounds exhausting. You see it every year, tributes playing with their food, making their enemies squirm to see if they fuck up. And I’m just not in the mood for playing those kinds of games anymore.

“Not even a hello for an old accomplice? That’s a shame.”

Maybe she didn’t see it was me in the darkness. That’s fine. I can help with that.

seraphina attacks artemis; lightning rod

|L9bencKM7spiked blunt

dg – 8 + 1

1-50

+ 4 fire

attempts lightstep on artemis’ attack

1-10

spiked blunt·1-50·1-10

[Izzabel Bennet D8A (Jorg)]

A R T E M I S

She managed to dodge out of the way and use a new weapon that Artemis did not see yesterday. A piked blunt that is somehow electrocuted. Where in the Arena did she get that? Artemis wondered as Seraphina turned to face her.

“Not even a hello for an old accomplice? That’s a shame.” she reprimanded, yet her tone was almost neutral as she struck out against me. I do my best to brace against her strike, clearly using the strength she had in her against me. It managed to break through the new armor Artemis had taken off of Tide, but not much more than that. She took a good look at the other girl, wondering if lying to her was worth it, but she figured that if this was to be her last day, it would have been better to be honest.

"A simple hello didn't seem appropriate. I'm still not sure what is appropriate to say here." Artemis admitted. Trying to say something along the lines of "Hey I know we made a great team today but I really want to live so I need to kill you now." didn't seem to portray the solemnity of the moment she found herself in. She could lie and say that she was only doing this because Seraphina was the first tribute Artemis ran into that day, but if Seraphina had survived and they were forced to kill each other tomorrow what could she have said then? Only three other tributes remained, and the Gamemakers wouldn't have let Artemis slip by while the other three killed each other. Artemis had already slithered through enough, now it was time to face the music.

She looked at Seraphina, unsure if the societal norms even applied in a Games like this. Artemis tried playing a venomous career, only to come off as a whiny brat when she was ignored, and she truly enjoyed working together with the other girl when killing Tide. But any relationship is fleeting, to be treasured for the instance it lived. Artemis could have groaned and whined about how it was unfair that she was Reaped, that she was forced into this situation but it was unfair to be reaped all around. None of the remaining tributes had volunteered, so they were all in the same boat. Plus Artemis was a Career, she had trained for this possibility, but now that she was here, she didn't know how to handle her emotions. The school had always said that emotions don't matter and that one had to forget their humanity while in the Arena. But with the lack of Victor educators to teach them, was that true? Was Artemis supposed to become a killing machine to survive?

She may have been right about one thing though, her emotions led her to hesitate, which allowed for Seraphina to dodge. Artemis knew that she couldn't hesitate any more and that even though they had a temporary truce yesterday, it didn't matter anymore. She needed to kill Seraphina, no matter how much it tore at her soul. Artemis raised her glaive again before saying.

"For what little it's worth, this brings me no joy. Aren't we all doing what we need to to survive?"

ELEGANT

Artemis attacks Seraphina | Glaive
KMwjB8urrNglaive
Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0

Self defense against 14086+40
3-8

glaive·3-8

[Cait]

sera keoch

It’s familiar, but different. Electricity in the switchblade of a button flick. It doesn’t add any heat to the air, the way the fire did back in the labyrinth. If anything, it sucks something out of the atmosphere, turns it into something new and yearning. I see Artemis’ reflection in the glow of the rod, the surprise that passes over her face seconds before the crackling tip singes her skin. The smell of seared flesh is upon me immediately.

I guess the burning’s all the same, no matter the source of the flame you kindle.

It’s a one and done situation. There’s no reservoir of energy for me to coax out of the rod once I’ve struck. It’s as useless as the firewood I’m still hauling around in my backpack on the off-chance I manage to figure out how to create some kind of armor out of it like Circe had. But at this point I’m pretty sure it’s just wishful thinking. That, or I’m more emotionally attached to Circe’s memory than I’m letting myself believe.

Artemis recovers like she was always going to. Barely grimaces at the gash I’ve opened up on her arm. I wish I could say I’m surprised. But everything just feels numb and neutral in my head. An eerie kind of quiet, because strangely, I’m calm as ever. My heartbeat is steady. My hands don’t shake. I don’t feel at ease by any means, but I’m just... indifferent.

Six days of going through the motions, of adopting a new kind of normal, and that’s the change you see in the world around you. Let it become you. It’s better than being paralysed by the fear and the horror, I suppose.

Artemis catches a soft part of my throat, nicking the skin and letting the crimson open up like a leaky faucet. I’ve lost track by now of how many tiny scars I’m going to have to take with me to my grave. “For what little it’s worth, this brings me no joy. Aren’t we all doing what we need to to survive?”

“Yeah. I get it.” And I do, truly. I’m not angry. Can’t be without calling myself a hypocrite, because I’m doing the exact same thing as her, aren’t I?

“No hard feelings. Just try not to hate me for fighting back.” I haven’t done a lot of it in my life. Think it’s still a bit of a foreign concept to me, and now there’s no one left to tell me if I’m even doing it right. But I’m sure there’s a saying somewhere out there – that girls that come from nothing are the most feral, the most unpredictable, in the end. And even though there’s no one left to tell me what to do with my gracelessness, I listen to the voice that tells me to use it.

seraphina attacks artemis; spiked blunt

0uPkYCGCURspiked blunt

bruised right arm – 3

spiked blunt

[Izzabel Bennet D8A (Jorg)]

A R T E M I S

"Yeah, I get it," Seraphina stated, her voice so neutral that Artemis thought she was almost dejected. "No hard feelings. Just try not to hate me for fighting back." Artemis laughed at that statement, a moment of levity in the miasma that haunted this fight. Neither girl had their heart in this fight but was still swinging out of necessity. This fight must have been quite the show these two are putting on for the Capitol. In the sea of flashing lights and colors, two girls stood in front of each other without any true animosity, half-heartedly trying to kill each other.

"That would make me a hypocrite if I were to get angry," Artemis noted. She haphazardly swung her glaive around as she pondered the situation she found herself in. If she was facing Jupiter right now, her heart would be on fire from the hatred she felt towards him. She had no real feelings towards Safina, the girl from Three, so she could have seen herself not caring about killing the other girl. But now she's faced with the destruction of a temporary truce that taught Artemis too much about herself.

She never truly had any real connections, only using people for her own gain. She discarded people after their usefulness was done. Was that to be her legacy? Is that the person Artemis wanted to be remembered as if she didn't make it out of this desert concert? The fight with Seraphina had only brought these feelings to the surface again, and she felt distracted by it. Artemis was supposed to be a career, a child trained to kill without hesitation, to be ruthless. Yet here she stood among twisted art, contemplating who she was.

“Is there anything left to say to each other?” Artemis asked as she swung her glaive towards the other girl. She wanted this fight to end, for Seraphina to let go and accept her fate, but would that have made Artemis feel better about the situation? About herself? Who knew, but Artemis was still fighting.

ELEGANT

Artemis attacks Seraphina | Glaive
K9veFld0H_glaive
Block -- 0.0 damage

Accuracy Day 6
glaive
Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 damage

glaive·glaive

[Cait]

sera keoch

I’m starting to think about graves again. Must be a nervous tic. Resorting back to familiar memories on a subconscious level – even the ones that are triggering and sad. Oh yeah. That sounds like some psychoanalytic bullshit I’ve heard in a counsellor’s office before.

But anyway. Graves. Dirty headstones and cracking soil and the grimy feeling of sweat and shame all over my clothes and skin that I couldn’t wait to wash away in the stream of an ice-cold shower, even when I knew it would be no use. But we’d still try. We’d take turns from night to night of who’d shower first, but I know Iz used to pretend to lose track of the days and let me go before her more often than not; I was always the one keeping count of those kinds of things. Then, in the early hours of dawn, feeling slightly less dirty, we’d curl up together on the mouldy sofa whilst everyone else was still asleep to watch some end-of-the-world-doomsday cinematic masterpiece that would manage to hit wayyy too close to home and remind me that those worlds on the TV aren’t actually all that different to reality, and that would just make me sad and angry all at the same time. Like, it’s meant to be fiction for a reason. I’m not trying to spend my down time thinking about the real world, fucking hell.

Izzy didn’t see it that way. She’d just laugh about how unrealistic it was when the zombies got their heads sliced clean off by a five-foot-nothing girl learning to hold a rusty old axe for the first time. But I guess nobody’s laughing anymore.

And then I’m thinking about my last call with Flynn. About how angry he made me when he pretended like he wouldn’t be able to find Izzy’s grave. And all the anxiety about being separated from her forever comes racing back up to the surface and it makes me lash out clumsily in between words of warfare. I swear, if he doesn’t find that fucking grave, I’ll fucking kill him.

It’s too bad I don’t have a great track record with fulfilling my death promises.

“Is there anything left to say to each other?”

Huh. She’s got a point. “Nah. I guess not.” But I must be more anxious than I outwardly feel, because even though I accept the silence she offers to me like an olive branch, all I seem to want to do is keep babbling on. And I know deep down I should be preserving my precious energy to use for more important things, like dodging her attacks and retaliating with ones of my own, and yet:

“Either way, we gotta make sure one of us makes it out, yeah? For the girls.”

Just make sure it’s you, I add to myself, because I don’t think I’d do a very good job with living.

Not anymore. Not after everything.

Too bad I just don’t know when to give up.

sera attacks artemis; spiked blunt

wQvawRpkNJspiked blunt

broken rib – 7 + 1

self-defense on roll 13033

3-8

spiked blunt·3-8

[Izzabel Bennet D8A (Jorg)]

A R T E M I S

Artemis found herself in a conundrum. She truly wanted to live, but she couldn't bring herself to find the fighting spirit against Seraphina. She had no reason to be vicious against the other girl, no venom to drive her forward. The only motivation she had was her own survival. One would think that surviving would be enough, but she hated having to be extremely hurtful to someone whom Artemis didn't think deserved it. Should she paint Jupiter’s features on Seraphina’s face? Would that have given her the motivation to kill like the Career was she supposed to be? Should she view Seraphina as one of the boys?

“Nah. I guess not” Seraphina stated. “Either way, we gotta make sure one of us makes it out, yeah? For the girls.” She ended before striking out. Artemis tried her best to brace against Seraphina’s attack, but there was only so much she could do against the force that broke her rib. She wanted to be upset, but she also felt proud at the same time. They were starting to prove that girls can be just as strong as boys.

“Good hit,” Artemis stated as she did her best to stand up. Seraphina pointed out everything Artemis stood for, and she wondered what kind of person she would be if she had a friend like Seraphina in her life. Would she have been better at forming genuine relationships? Would she have been better about navigating the patriarchal society to her benefit? Maybe she could still learn, but that meant killing the other girl who stood in front of her.

“Your feelings don't matter in this moment,” Artemis told herself as she stared at the other girl. “Set those aside and compartmentalize, you can deal with them once you get out.” And that's what she did. She brought up her feelings about Jupiter and the way in which he played dirty tricks to pit her and Lucia against each other. To be honest, Artemis didn't care about Lucia one way or the other, but still, to force Lucia to only attack Artemis was nasty. To still what should have been her kill was messed up. He got to take credit for killing her when she was the one who started the fight. Artemis brought those feelings to the forefront and used them to propel herself forward against Seraphina.

“For the girls” Artemis agreed, and she struck out with her glaive, aiming for Seraphina’s heart. Artemis would be the one to prove the strength of women to the world.

ELEGANT

Artemis attacks Seraphina | Glaive
8wi5Doa6iFglaive
Miss -- 0.0 damage

glaive

[Cait]

sera keoch

You know, people keep complimenting me for hitting them in here, and I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with that kind of praise. I’m not sure I’ve ever been shown any appreciation in my life for anything before the Arena. So Artemis praising me for hacking her to death? It’s a crazy thing to wrap my head around.

It does make me think that maybe I’ve always been a little stronger than I even knew. Guess that happens when you spend every other night shovelling and reshovelling dirt and transporting bodies across town. You develop muscles you shouldn’t ever have to feel the ache of. You cultivate a quiet strength, brimming just beneath the surface of your skin, beating in your bloodstream. And then I just get a bit sad thinking about how I should have had a little more trust in myself, been a little kinder to myself, for the last eighteen years of my life. All that wasted time in between birthdays spent being a moody little bitch that I’m never going to get back.

It wasn’t all bad times, though. And I guess that’s something comforting – that it wasn’t all for nothing, this life of mine. But I really try to envision what my future could look like tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week or year and I just... draw a blank. Can’t see anything past the mist, and I don’t know if that’s an omen of my rapidly approaching death, or a sign that I’m supposed to just give up now and let Artemis win, because she most definitely wouldn’t be having these kinds of dilemmas, and so maybe I’m just truly undeserving of a crown. I just don’t know.

“Good hit,” she says, before flinging her arm out wide and missing my heart by a whisper of a breath. I could say the same to her, sarcastic and scathing, but I’m not that kind of bitch. And I guess that sometimes saying nothing is the most powerful thing you can do.

sera attacks artemis; spiked blunt

zzDnW1bubqspiked blunt

accuracy roll

spiked blunt

spiked blunt·spiked blunt