Brother, My Brother [Mahlah vs. Jae]

[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

That night had been the worst. She was alone, huddled in a corner of the sandcastle without Walker, Jae or Elon. They're dead she kept having to tell herself. Walker and Elon were gone. Jae left her and wasn't going to save her anymore. Toying with the new token she had acquired, Mahlah tried to figure out how she had gotten this far. The only reasonable conclusion she could reach was that she didn't.

Jae left her because there was no one left to leave. Mahlah Shea died yesterday with her hand in Elon's. She was just a shadow curled into the corner of the room. She wasn't a contender, she was dead. A mere ghost haunting the Arena. Nothing else made sense.

The whole building had shook with such violence that even a little girl such as the one from District Three knew she had to leave. What was with all this leaving? Leaving Elon, leaving the sandcastle, leaving everything behind. She must have left her body behind too. However the pain was real when the castle came tumbling down on top of her. Crawling from the rumble, Mahlah was positive that if she hadn't been dead before she was now. Perhaps her cannon could not be heard among the falling debris for surely it fired.

The ghost of what was once Mahlah Shea wandered down the sand of the beach, certain that nothing could harm her anything. No one can slay a ghost. A sword can not kill a shadow. Her legs were slow in carrying her to her final destination, the ocean. They didn't have such beauties in District three and she had wanted to look upon it. Dropping to the sand, she took in the texture of it, the taste of salt on her lips. Maybe life as a dead tribute wasn't so bad.

However, she wasn't alone on the beach. Another figure had intervened on her paradise. By instinct she grabbed her switchblade, rising on skinny, weak legs to face this foe.

Jae.

The girl's face screwed up at the boy. He had been a brother to her, yes, but not as much as Elon. He never held her at night to keep her safe, never even shared more than a few words. All he did was fight and kill. He looked just about as dead as she was. Missing eye, missing hand, he looked gruesome. A body rose up from the grave. Elon hadn't even looked like that on his death bed.

"You didn't save him," she muttered, unsure if he could actually hear her. "You left me."

Brothers don't abandon their younger siblings. Elon never did and never will. Her fingers touched the token tied around arm holding the blade. The girl examined the sharp tip before raising her gaze to the boy who she had once called brother.

It didn't matter if she was alive or dead anymore. Mahlah was tired of this sick limbo she felt trapped in. She'd risk it. She'd risk the life she wasn't sure she still had. Even brothers can be monsters. Even little girls can be heroes.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 damage]

[/size] [rand=436331632081419237651700819842517436118304729461675399772070813924]

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Call me when you need me
Call me anything you want
Darling believe me
Nothing I haven't done before

[/i][/font][/right]

Alliances give a tribute the opportunity to stay alive. That's what my parents say, and it's the first thing anyone learns. In fact, you don't even need to mention it in training. We all watch the Games, don't we? We're forced to see how it all works. Twenty-three die, one wins, and after a while it becomes a pattern. At the bottom of that pattern: allies. Human shields. The people you pretend are not really going to die. Or maybe you slit their throats, because that's what Careers do. Well, some. Don't you think they would learn after a while? If you ally with a Career, know that they are ready. Know that they are trained to kill. Know that they enjoy being tricky.

But my allies weren't like that, I guess. And, in fact, neither are my opponents, if you could call them that.

If they were to live back in District One, they would be type of people to walk into my candy shop and buy marshmallows and purple-colored lollipops. If I were to poke fun at them or even look them in the eye too strongly, they'd run back and whine to their mothers that there are mean, bad people in this world for no reason at all.

Then again, we're not in District One, and people seem to come alive when they're handed shiny spears and swords, all empty and bloodless. I personally think the weapons themselves like to taunt. Look how sharp! Not covered in a speck of blood..

Except I doubt anyone here, save for maybe Stark Harper and myself, sees a weapon in that light. The other alliance fled yesterday, as I struggled my way out of the seaweed. There we were, Mahlah and me (Ripred, we're the only ones left out of four) all distracted, and they didn't even take one swing at us.

With their armor and their weapons and their greater numbers, they ran away from a small girl and a boy with one eye and one hand, struggling in seaweed and mourning the death of an ally. What am I supposed to think about that? Fuck, in Reyes' Games nobody gave in so easily. He fought until his suicide, and every single one of his opponents gave him hell.

There is nothing honorable in dying if you're fighting a wimp with a sharp object. I personally hope the Gamemakers have something in store for them, because honestly? I've trained all my life for this, and they're making me look bad.

I didn't bother freeing myself from the seaweed trap until the middle of the night. Mahlah left then and there, and suddenly I heard cannon sounds pop up. Elon's, and another.

Top six.

At that point, I cut loose and ran. With each step, the worries dropped away. Elon's death. Mahlah leaving. Fitz' alliance and their cowardice. I tripped once or twice, but I didn't care. I just stood up, dusted myself off, and pressed forward again. I felt.. free? There's just something comforting about not being watched by anyone.. but the cameras, I suppose.

Speaking of cameras..

I stop once, on the beach, and pluck out the hidden camera from my bag.

Twisting it around in my fingers. Who the hell am I even trying to be? I've lost track, and I just want to leave here.

"When is this over?" I say loudly, startling myself with the noise. Not death. Not victory. Just.. being here. The tributes are boring and this is not nearly as fun as I first expected. I mean, feeling things? I must have been awfully hormonal, because I'm slowly returning to numbness, except this numb feels different than before.

I don't know. Can I just kill something?

The opportunity presents itself as I reach the water. A shadow of something or someone stands there, ominous in the early morning light. I can't see well with just the one eye. Who is it? What is it?

I can't quite tell, but that doesn't stop me from forcing the duct-taped harpoon towards its body.

And it's Mahlah, and suddenly I'm shocked. She retaliates against my attack, and says something I can't quite register until the words slap me in the face. I do my best to look sad, though really I'm mad now. I didn't leave her. She was the one who fled! And I couldn't save him, either. How can I be blamed for his death when we both did our best to free him from his seaweed trap?

"You were the one who fled, Mahlah. I stayed right there."

[Attacks Mahlah w/Harpoon]
[dice=200+3000]
[3038 -- Block -- 0.0 damage
(Spear)]

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[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

Dead. Alive. Together. Apart. All the lines in between. Everything is blurring together. She... she left Jae. The ran from Elon's corpse and she left the only person she had left. And now. She attacked him. Jae. Her brother, her protector.

The only person left that might give a damn about her. The tears came with more force than when she had been sobbing over Elon. What had she done? Her eyes went to her brother's arm and the giant dash she had created on it. No, she couldn't have done that, but she had.

Tiny fingers grabbed at her tangled, ebony hair, pulling and tearing. I'm just like her. The memory of the District two girl's eyes flashes before her. The cold, the insanity. It only took one flashback to stir up the girl's old nightmares. Without Elon's hand to hold there was nothing holding them back now and they came in full force.

"NO!" she yanked at her hair , kicking the sand and screaming at the top of her lungs. Images of past tributes flashed before her eyes. Blades sticking out of eyes, gutted corpses lying in the grass, a boy chewing on his own dismembered hand. The horrifying, gruesome memories all flooded into the present. It was it. Mahlah finally lost her grip. She was just like the girl, and the tributes before her. Crazy. With guilt, with nausea, with life.

It took Jae's attack to snap the girl back into the standoff by the sea. Her arm knocked his harpoon away, the one she had helped attach to his arm.

"I'm sorry," it was too late. The damage was done. She had already spilled his blood and there was no turning back. She was just a little girl, riddled with guilt, like a child caught in a lie. That's all a child can do once they've committed the crime. I'm sorry.

Her fingers finally loosened their grip on her hair, falling to her sides. The girl's eyes were looking at Jae, but they did not see him. She was just like the girl from Two. Mahlah Shea had the Games madness and there was no cure.

"I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever," the tune of the District Ten song came easily. The girl from Three raised her switchblade and lunged forward, not caring of the consequences or guilt. That's one positive of being insane, you tend to be bold.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage]

[/size] [rand=024087460944429041968804998323321355558673082850875313984004314989]

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Call me when you need me
Call me anything you want
Darling believe me
Nothing I haven't done before

[/i][/font][/right]

I'm very sorry for fillering, but I'm extremely busy right now and don't have any time to write a post. Basically, though -

He's very pissed about his ally turning on him. He knows he should have expected it, but somehow he figured the fighting would stop because he didn't know it was Mahlah who he attacked.. that now they could just forget this accident and team together.

Then he realizes that this is something he would do - that he's no better than she is, that they are equal in the fact that they would both turn on an ally. He realizes that his facade is crumbling, that the anger is showing through again, and that all kindness is sliding away. He thinks she's crazy, and all he wants to do is make it stop. He doesn't say anything, just looks at her and then that look turns into a glare and then he lunges forward with his harpoon.

[Attacks Mahlah w/Harpoon]
[dice=200+3000]
3056 -- Stabbed in Stomach -- 9.5 damage
(Spear)

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[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

It was fascinating, blood that is. Mahlah could only stare as she yanked her blade back out of Jae's arm. The blood flowed from the wound and covered her knife. It ran down his arm making little red rivers across the abused flesh. How weird it is to be filled with red water. Like a walking ocean.

Many thoughts like those ran through the girl's mind, mixed with flashes of gore she had seen through her short life. One moment she'd be examining the red drops falling from the tip of her blade, the next Elon's cold, dead eyes were staring at her. The flashes didn't make her scream, but they sent a twitch through her body, jerking her head to the side, or her shoulder forward. Her tiny pale fingers went up the blade, running down the flat of it, collecting her brother's blood into her hand and then rubbing it between her finger tips.

Her eyes went up to her brother just in time to see him staring back at her with his one eye. Her head tilted to the side, giving a small smile, her hand reaching out offering him his own blood. That's when he lunged, his harpoon slipping between Mahlah's skinny arms to hit her in the stomach.

For being in the Arena this long you'd think a tribute would be used to getting hit. Not Mahlah Shea. Hiding behind her brothers for the majority of the Games, Mahlah had hardly been attacked at all. A few cuts and bruises yes, but nothing like loosing an eye or a hand. Nothing like being stabbed in the core of her being. It was an automatic response, her fingers wrapping around the arm of her attacker, or her brother. Her large brown eyes looked up at his scarred face. The empty socket looked down at her. Mahlah remember when she was scared of Jae's face, how the fresh wound kept her from looking at him. Maybe that was a good thing, otherwise she would have spent more time with him and fighting would not have been an option. Mahlah had given all her love, her all, to Elon Emberstatt a boy who's body had already been collected and shipped home to Ten. A boy who was gone and had taken Mahlah's heart with him.

Bloody fingers reached for Jae's face, to see if it fit into her palm like Elon's once had, but she didn't get the chance. The girl felt blood rise in her throat and she curled around the blade still stuck in her body, spitting the stuff onto Jae's harpoon. The warmth filled her mouth, running down her chin. Coughs racked her body and there was blood everywhere. Her eyes drifted to her wrist where Elon's token hung. A simple bracelet for a simple boy.

If you hands were in mine
I'd be sure they would not sever

Taking what little strength the hard blow had left her, Mahlah shoved herself off the blade. Stumbling backwards, she coughed up more blood onto the sand. Rising her blade, she aimed it at Jae's heart.

My apple tree, my brightness,
It's time we were together

She didn't say anything, she couldn't. Between the blood filling her throat and pounding of Elon's song in her head the girl couldn't form a single word. She still had the strength to slash at Jae again. She'd never quit. Mahlah would fight until one of them was gone. Even if the girl felt she already was.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

[/size]
[rand=431977588217705531167512526735663847663542721420507163922186009586]

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Call me when you need me
Call me anything you want
Darling believe me
Nothing I haven't done before

[/i][/font][/right]

Another filler because I have to :/

He's upset with the silence now, so he looks down at her and tells her this:

"I have to live another day."

[Attacks Mahlah w/Harpoon]
[dice=200+3000]
3122 -- Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 damage
(Spear)

[/color][/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]
[rand=6094426431519727785902240032420660179286534578175294634445482228]

[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

I will fill this in the morning, perhaps. Just wanted to get attack there. In response, Mahlah looks up at him and says
"And I don't?"

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

[/size]
[rand=0167566379532217987224412562791258210878685582429177803463581949472]

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Call me when you need me
Call me anything you want
Darling believe me
Nothing I haven't done before

[/i][/font][/right]

Filler. He swears that he realizes her logic, but really he doesn't want to see her side of it. So he tells her:

"You'll be slaughtered. There's gotta be at least one of that big alliance, they had three last time I checked. Maybe even two of them. The Gamemakers will end it soon, Mahlah, and frankly, neither of us have a chance. So who would you rather be your murderer? Your brother.. or the ones that cut Elon down? I could handle it better, we both know. I was born to have my guts spilled out in an arena, and I can't do anything if I'm dead. If I'm dead, I can't fight. I can't take someone down with me if I'm not there. It has to be me."


[Attacks Mahlah w/Harpoon]
[dice=200+3000]
3135 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage
(Spear)


[/color][/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]
[rand=6731393303355675605198235014794074100128172537755989088797867784]

[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

Of all the choices Mahlah had to make in the Arena, this was by far the most confusing. Pick her killer? What was Jae trying to say? She could only stare at him as the words spilled from his mouth. It has to be me. The last phrase echoed in the girl's skull. "Your brother.. or the ones that cut Elon down? " Mahlah barely had enough time to jump out the way before Jae attacked again, his harpoon slashing the air beside her. It must be his eye, he can't see well with just one.

The girl looked at the boy before her. A Career from District One, a brother of a runner up. He looked part machine part corpse. His whole body was falling apart- how was getting to another day going to make that any better? What was he trying to accomplish? "Your brother" When the girl thought of brothers she thought, of course, of Elon. A brother protects and cares for his family. No doubt there were brothers and sister in various Districts miles and miles away watching the Games as their own siblings were cut down before their eyes.

Mahlah took a good, long look at the boy who called himself her brother. He looked like a completely different person, not the boy she had spent a week. That's what happens when the glue that holds everyone together fails- you can't put it back together again. There was no doubt Elon had been their glue, keeping together in a odd little family. Without him, Jae was another stranger. Another tribute out for her blood.

"You're not my brother," she stated, her voice as strong as her arm as she swiped forward with her blade again.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Two Severed Fingers on Right Hand -- 9.0 damage]

[/size][rand=269237228436395509318665415048599573530148714780819019333296455443]

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Call me when you need me
Call me anything you want
Darling believe me
Nothing I haven't done before

[/i][/font][/right]

As if my body were not mangled enough.

I don't feel the blade slice through my fingers, except I do. I see it before the pain hits me, and the sudden realization of the loss registers stronger and more hurtful than the actual blood pouring from the remnant of my right hand.

I've got three fingers left. My thumb, my index finger, and the middle finger that holds the snake ring. Out of everything, the snake ring is constant. Maybe she'll sever the other three, or my entire hand will fall to the ground, and I won't have any fingers left to wear rings.

Huh.

It's not the pain that stops me, but rather the functionality. It's not like I'd use the anchor anyways, but now I doubt I could even pick up a weapon in my right hand. It's been stabbed and severed to the point where it doesn't even look like a real hand anymore, just this lumpy, twisted thing with ugly fingers and a cruel snake ring covered in blood.

And who am I kidding? I might die. I'm as good as dead, all this blood dripping out of my wounds. Coming into this, I figured I'd have lots of blood on my hands, but not for one second did I think that it might be my own.

Mahlah, me - neither of us stand a chance in the finale. Even if we were at top health, which we're not, somebody else takes the advantage. Somebody else wins.

I'm not her brother, she tells me. Don't I know it already?

Brothers and sisters cut out each other's throats.

I smile, because I'm mostly sure this is the end of me. If not today, then tomorrow, and these Games are so utterly boring.

What a way to die.

[Attacks Mahlah w/Harpoon]
[dice=200+3000]
3133 -- Stabbed in Calf -- 8.5 damage
(Spear)


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[rand=6631698748987715812782660411428997038063560853529955073051548187]

[sbeeg]

Mahlah Shea

Watching the fingers fall from Jae's hand brought the girl back to her first day in the Arena. After killing the District 11 girl, she had severed fingers off the boy from the same district. At the time it was awful, horrifying. Watching the skin, bone and blood just fall from the hand as if it had been plucked off. Now... she couldn't feel anything. Mahlah stared at the fingers lying in the sand and was just empty.

That's what she had been reduced to, an empty shell. An empty little girl. A doll. A porcelain doll that could so easily be broken into a million pieces. Looking at the District One boy he didn't look any better. If she were porcelain, Jae was a battered old rag doll. The home made kind with buttons for eyes and string for hair. Only one of his buttons was missing, actually a lot of him was missing. Mahlah wasn't missing anything on the outside, she still held all of her limbs and fingers and eyes. It was inside where she felt cold.

He lunged forward, proving how delicate a hollow doll can be. Jae's blade stabbed itself into her leg, cutting through muscle and nerve and clinking against bone. The fragile layer had been cracked, just like the large crack in her stomach and the little scratches just nicking the surface. They were both just little dolls in this game, falling apart and neglected by their owner.

For the first time in the Arena, Mahlah just wanted it all to be over.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Stabbed in Bicep -- 8.5 damage]

And then it was. Her blade slashed at his arm and she knew it was over. All the blood, the missing chunks, he wouldn't survive much longer. Looking at him, Mahlah felt a small pang of guilt which was quickly consumed by the numbness that had devoured her heart.

And just like that, Mahlah Shea was once again an only child.

OOC: Mahlah Shea flees the area and uses first aid and needle and thread twice and 5ft of bandages.

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