Bride Of All Unquiet Things // [Cricket vs Nakom]

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] this is why we fight, why we lie awake this is why we fight and when we die we will die with our arms unbound this is why we fight come hell The Anthem is a wake-up call, sordid relief against the sky to others, but a moment of jealousy for me. For these few minutes, I am certain that the cameras do not belong to me, their attention distracted by the fallen who are not worthy of anything other than being forgotten. Even as my District partner's face lights up the Arena, there is little more than a ghost of confusion that occupies my body. This is not sadness within me, but it also isn't nothing. Their images fade, eight faces both familiar and so far from my thoughts that I swear this must be the first time I've seen them, and I take it as a sign that it's time to move on. Sleep is useless to me, my body so hyped on adrenaline that I can't settle, no matter which way exhaustion threatens my bones. Scaling the cliff-side of the snake pit turns out to be easier than navigating its mud-trap floor and the world beyond is tinged with green, even in the pre-dawn darkness. I find myself humming as I walk the fading night, footsteps twisting to the rhythm of my out-of-tune song: a swooping circus tune whose cheer sounds far more ominous here than it ever did in Two. The hours pass me softly, wind-kiss grass-stain gentle as the lazy curls of my hair are tossed into the breeze and the drying mud begins to flake from my skin like chipping armor. When the shadow of the temple looms up before me, I know I have found something better than sleep. I am tugged toward it as if it had grabbed me by the hand instead of simply by the heart and it is more than impulse that tells me to toss my rope into its rafters and climb. It is Fate that says: Conquer. And I comply. My bare soles against stone, I climb its walls not the same as I did the snake pit's — away, away, away — but instead I am seeking something. The temple's roof is the grandest of stages and as I pull myself up and over its edge, I kiss the stone leviathan I have claimed as my own. On hands and knees, I lean forward to press my lips to it, before looking up to see the sunrise cresting over the horizon. The light seems to shatter into fragments, breaking through the clouds as if it were a physical force to be reckoned with and it takes me a moment to realize: It is. Instinctively, I am already unscrewing the lid of the metal canister my sponsors sent me after my last fight, drinking it into the hollow of my mouth (don't swallow, Cricket; this death is not meant for you) as I reach for my dagger and a fragment of rock to hit it against. The broken light of morning is coming for me in a sky-fall swarm of cloud-sins and a flutter of angry promises, so I will greet it the only decent way I can... with the sun. Sparks fly into the air before me and I throw myself into them; exhale into them; consume them as the liquid that spits from my mouth renames itself Apocalypse and turns the whole world into a single devastating breath of fire and butterfly brimstone. [Cricket Uses Lighter Fluid // Breathes Fire At Nakom] [dice=6] [Charred Swarm — 4 Damage]

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[WT]

------somehow,-------------------------------------------we hurt.--
----food should not---------------------------------hurt; it waits-
----& we arrive, huge------`------------`-------& bright & ravenous
----& we feed as is right----`----------`----except for some reason
-----now. now we click-cry,---.--------`---barely recognizing the--
-------sound of our own voice--`------.--under our painfireHURTS;--
--------this is what the food---`----.--did to us and we are as----
--------furious as hungry so we don't back down. we draw closer,----
--------flying tighter, knowing well it is big but we are many-----
---------& beautiful, unfed for eons, since before the barren------
----------empty waters (many died searching for fish but why-------
-----------care why turn back with fresh food floating?) &--------
-------------more is ahead but the burning food is here &----------
---------------we are angry & its light is welcoming as------------
---------------the moon & painful as the sun & for the--------------
----------------first time we---have--some idea how it------------
-----------------feels to meet----us.---we will steal---------------
------------------back our own----------light it owes---------------
-------------------us this &-------------food & more.---------------
--------------------(always,----------------more.)

[[Attacks Cricket]]
[dice=200+2000]
[[Deep Gash on Back of Head -- 9.0]]

Clue Three - Ninth Birthday Bash

Words are sharper than swords,

Or at least some might say

But cut out a tongue

And watch your words fall away

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] bride of a l l u n q u i e t t h i n g s bride of quiet bride of h e l l The butterflies come for me, consuming the air with a deadly swarm of color that speaks of intent. They are the ravenous beauty of greed. They are the palm-wide demand-winged we were not born to say please bearers of devastation and tragedy. They are nightmares guised in daydreams... but I am the spit-fire child of morning, burning brighter than their wings. My exhalation ignites the air a n d t h e y f a l l, bodies burned to ash and carried away by the breeze. Soaring through the air, they are a tornado of dangerous color and they are daring me to join them. As the last wisp of smoke drifts from my lips, I throw myself into them, flipping into the air with arms spread wide in an attempt to scatter them. Something gashes across the back of my head — teeth, claws, or the unimaginable... who's to say what the Capitol has armed these creatures with — and my pride burns with the taste of my own spilt blood. It is deep, but not nearly enough to stop me. The roof of the temple disappears from beneath me as my body somersaults past the edge and suddenly we are both suspended in midair with no promise of earth or sky, just elsewhere. Their wings flutter against my skin and for this moment, arms outstretched, I am one of them. We fly together, their antennae braided into the spaces between my splayed fingers as we keep each other aloft and I can't help myself: I laugh. The sound is as sweet as our performance must be, but just as deceptive. Exactly as this scene is infinitely more beautiful than the unsuspecting wounds it inflicts, I am not so doomed as I seem, falling towards the hard ground as if I were one of their ashen kin. My hand reaches out for the rope that dangles off the side of the temple, legs kicking out to tangle my body into the safety of its hold. The rope burns against my palms, but my callouses from years of practice swear no harm will come to me and suddenly the world is no longer rushing up at me, but spinning. Around and around, the rope turns with the momentum of my arrival until I am whirling in a dizzy spin, the proud mistress of a deadly web. Call me Arachne. Call me spider-heart. Call me blood-thirst predator. Call me the last silken memory of a butterfly's life. Dagger in hand, the blade reaches out for the blood of my most exquisite enemies, slashing at the hurricane that surrounds me as cyclonic force blurs us together, and I close my eyes. Not for the blinding riot of neon that assaults me or the rush of blood from my head, but for the giddy rabbit-heart pounding within my chest, an echo of my earlier laughter that promises: Onetwoyes, threeCricketfour, thisfiveis sixsevenreal. [Cricket Attacks With Her Dagger] [dice=200+2000] [Two Severed Fingers on Right Hand Severed Wings? XD — 9.0 Damage]

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[WT]

--------------------------------------------------------------the burning
------------------------------------------------------------halts but still
-----------------------------------------------------------the other comes,
---------------------------------------------------------wingless yet flying,
--------------------------------------------------------jaws somehow extended,
------------------------------------------------------a mutated form of what
------------------------------------------------------we never should become.
----------------------------------------------L-----when it comes again, teeth
---------------------------------------------LL-----too long & sharp & quick,
---------------------------------------------L----we die--------in pieces (and
--------------------------------------------LL----feast--------on ourselves
-------------------------------------------LL- --anew).-------- together we
------------------------------------------LL----spiral,------------ gleeful
------------------------------------------L---and unafraid---------and full
-----------------------------------------LL--and hungry and------terrified
-----------------------------------------L--because it is us,--------OURS,
----------------------------------------LL and we have turned--------on
------------------LLLLLLLL_______-------L ourselves, not the-----corpses
-------------------------~~~~~~~that are ours to eat by right-------(as we
-----------------------do now because we--cannot wait, grass------is far the
-------------------fight is long FEEDUS);--we rewrote laws,-------there's no
-------------it and us,--there is only us--and we are air water-------blood
----------sky-flesh food---we are our food---weareourfoodwaitNO!--------death
------is not ours to----- have but ours to-- give at will and we---------WILL.
-----the burner is-------not us it is only----enemyfood like so----------many
---other creatures;---WE are sky WE are air---WE------will eat----everything
--and leave none-------for THAT, which tried----to------TRICK---------us how
-dare it howdareit?---we click-scream-sing as---we all---------------always
have, fly-live-die------as we always have, and---hunger--------as we always
will; but now we---------------can exult twice,-- once for our eternal life
(blessed are we who--------------own the sky &------who die in pieces but
live forever ablaze &-----------eat&EAT)------ and once more for the first
-true challenge of our----------fleeting------lives. even in hunger even
--in anger we cannot deny--------beauty-------when-----we see it (it is
---woven into our lightblood-----and our-------wings--------and every
-----------breath that keeps us---afloat------when
---------------it would be so----------------simple
---------------------to give in--------------to our
-------------------------hunger)-----------and our
--------------------------enemyfood----is so very
--------------------------beautiful,--riding air
---------------------------and light; our rage is
----------------------------respectful, our teeth
-------------------------------almost blessings,
---------------------------------like its fire
----------------------------------(our fire).

[[Attacks Cricket]]
[dice=200+2000]
[[Deep Gash on Left Thigh -- 8.0]]

This shape is based on one from here.

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] this is why we fight, why we lie awake this is why we fight and when we die we will die with our arms unbound this is why we fight come hell Dying butterflies become a halo surrounding the tornado of my rope-spun body. Severed wings and the slain flesh of their fragile defeat swirl around me, as caught up in the momentum as I am. They are tangled in my hair, stuck to the sweat upon my skin, and still the air is so dense with them that the remainders sneak into my lungs with each breath, sticking between my teeth. I become so filled with them that the space between us blurs until we are brethren of a sort. Yet, as my blade cuts them down — severing the invisible life-strings that suspend them in the sky — I feel no remorse. This is simply a means of claiming them for my own. My dagger says: Come children! My sons. My daughters. Gather round and round and round. This blade shall put you to sleep. Dream sweet; dream of me. Butterfly blood shimmers transparent in the air as they click-cry-scream, a murderous choir of neon angels who wish to raze my eardrums as much as my skin. Uncurling my body from the safety of the rope, I release myself until I am hanging by one arm, upside-down and just beyond the worst of their vicious song-screeching. My other hand tosses my dagger into the air as my foot swoops up to catch the hilt between my toes. Knees bent at flawless angles as my legs twist above me into something more like contortionist-poetry than a fighter's stance, my foot kicks out to slash at my relentless attackers. Yet my free hand — My hand can't help reaching out for them, fondly pressing my fingerprints into the patterns of their wings as we soar together, because I have always been honest, even in my most undefinable moments. Belong to me, my greedy touch demands, be mine. [Cricket Attacks With Her Dagger] [dice=200+2000] [Miss]

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[WT]

--__________________------  -_ ------_---- ----_________________
-/we surge it slides\__-- --/^------^-\--- -__/like so much air \
/ like nothing food at \_---I---------I---_/all tricking us again\
/but that could only work\_--\_-----_/--_/once we are all there is\
\_and we know all there is \--\-----/--/which is that there is us_/
--\& there is the world here\--\---/--/to sustain us there is us/
---\___& there is food & this\--\_/--/acts like us but never___/
-------\sings. we know what it\ @ @ /is & we know to remind/
--------\___it WEaresky all in \|_| /good time of course___/
------------\but our time can only be NOW, we are always/
-------------\_the hunger is always the hunt is ALWAYS_/
---------------\_____soon enough it too will learn____/
---------------------\_these things which is not_/
--------------------/penance it did us no crimes\
-------------------/it is simply the way of hunts\
------------------/that we win and feed and after,\
-----------------|hunger still./ \ / \if anything,|
-----------------|this is the /---V---\only reward|
-----------------|we can give/---------\for beauty|
------------------\--we love/-----------\this food/
-------------------\& hunt/--------------\& heart/



[[Attacks Cricket]]
[dice=200+2000]
[[Miss, 0.0]]

Butterfly ASCII art adapted from another one found here, and I'm thrilled that almost six years later that's still a top result for searching "ASCII butterfly."

pardon me accidentally killing the dice in these posts, I just noticed I was doing that but this fight is nearly six years old so [shrug emoji].

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] so come to me come to me now lay your arms around me this is why we fight come hell Just as we are growing too close, the distance of missing reminds us of our divide. We are not the same. Meant for each other, perhaps, but not meant to be. The rope I swing from is a tick-tok pendulum of time, counting down the seconds of our lives together, because it knows that this was never a beginning. Ours is a fate of end times, of airborne quicksand drowning, of ricochet bullet heartbeats that will fire freely until we discover one another's most unguarded moment of quiet lunged stillness. The thudthudthud is deafening, each beat of their wings a tiny explosion in the air that shakes my aim off course. My knife destroys only the emptiness until there is nothing vacant left. There is only the unceasing twist of my limbs as I curl my body around the rope in search of midair footing and the swoop-wail-screech of their own too close, too far, too eager failure. Our need to consume each other — hunger and pride are not so different here — has made us forget ourselves. So I wind the rope around myself like armor coiled around my torso, pulling myself up into the height of the fray with each loop. I want to escape this chorus of desperate heartbeats, searching the air not for the click and whir of their voices, but for that of the cameras. I need something that will remind me that I am not here to become the bride of all unquiet things, of butterfly-beasts that seek to devour me until I am so literally in their blood. No. I am here because people die, but legends live forever. [Cricket Attacks With Her Dagger] [dice=200+2000] [Deep Gash On Right Forearm... Swarm? XD — 8.0 Damage]

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[WT]

----------------------------------------we don't understand
--this--------------------------------enemyfood's colourless
-scales------------------------------can't find its wings but
-we know--------------------------what it means to split & sink
-and lift------------------------ourselves up in death when we
-no longer----------------------are we. on the edges we scream
-for we are-------------------fine food when we must be but not
-enough it's------------------never ENOUGH we need the enemyfood
-& it's a loss--:--:---------to the world but what matters in the
-world if not---:--:--------to be sated? it writhes and we chase,
--meant, too,---: .:-------for this: upward & onward in the hunt
--flowing high---:::.-----& bright & sharp & wild & loud. some
--glance against `:::---its solitary long antenna, chewing on
--it once, twice, :::---finding it too tough when there could
--still be sweet sky-flesh in our lives. the enemyfood moves
-quickly and avoiding its long (bright like fire brightlikeUS)
-claw costs us the taste of our prey so we fly into it again
-& again &-----cannot care-----because we know pain now
------------and the clawed ones-------are gone before
--------they know the glory of the pain
--------giving way---`::--to feeding the rest.
--------we chase we---:'--fight we love the hunt
--------but we will--------it to end for we love
---------flesh more--------than any joy and we
----------can only----------feed on so many
-------------of----------------ourselves.


[[Nakom --> Cricket]]
[dice=200+2000]
[[Miss, 0.0]]

Another butterfly adapted from the same source.

[rand=1554169855080545448505874024704177041404740884911488390993326902]

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] come the avarice come the war come hell come attrition come the reek of bones The rope promises it will hold me tightly enough that I will not forget who I am and that even if I let go, it will not. With the scratchbitestrangle of it around my waist, ever-constricting as I continue to twist it around and around and around me... I believe it. So it is a trust-fall when I let go and surrender myself to the violent chaos of unwinding. Limbs outstretched and dagger still gripped between my toes, I crash down upon the swarm of my enemy, a vicious flurry of elbows, sweat-whipped hair, and bladed unpredictability. Their bodies smack against my flesh, hard enough to bruise, and I am blinded by the rush of it all: neon splicing itself into the air into my skin into every bonespun heart-thud of my existence. The whirl of my attack is as dizzying as it is astounding, illogically graceful as each loop is undone in perfect time to the swoop of my weapon. This tornado-fall is not flight, it is not almost-wings, it is not evidence of invisible angels. Flesh screaming out with rope burn and a feverish demand for the kind of relief that only victory can bring, I give myself over to the twisting momentum of the rope and the way it swings not just my body, but my dagger through the air. It extends my reach wide enough to match my smile and I know this because when I glance at the ground below, it is scattered with ash and the death-bright blooms of a hundred thousand million infinite butterfly corpses. [Cricket Attacks With Her Dagger] [dice=200+2000] [Block]

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[WT]

----------------------------------------------our
multitude-----------------------------------knows
all there is-------------------------------to know
but this means----------------------------we know,
too, how to learn.----------------------those who
remain (many & more,-------------------for we ARE
sky we are everywhere-----------------& embracing
& even we cannot devour--------------the whole of
us) land against the shine----------& we reflect,
still whole, still reaching,--------still always
-reaching & hunting & biting------still singing,
-praises of ourselves and our-----enemyfood &
-our sky-dance together in the---bright clean
-air clean as the world after we cross it clean
---as hunger lancing through us. we have never
-----thought to share air except with feathered
-------things we eat and shining whirring alien
------things that fall without feeding us (an
---affront an abuse don't they know we hurt?
--don't they know we starve?) and we do not
--think to share for much longer, no this
--dance has been a thrill a joy a light
---new in our blood but it's time to
---end it we cannot starve here, we
---still have so much of the world
--to consume to lift up. we dive
-now after the enemyfood and
-we------will then rise.


[[Nakom --> Cricket]]
[dice=200+2000]
[[Shallow Cut on Right Bicep, 3.5]]


Made this one by throwing free clipart into this snazzy converter.

(listen I love the idea of the camera techs and the mutt techs getting into screaming matches at each other because the Nakom keep wrecking drones they can't even digest)

[rand=265070822555571836633834918029606401303121587261562539312394801527]

[L△LIA]

[bg=292226][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=style,width: 450px; border:1px solid #000000; opacity: 1;] this is why we fight, why we lie awake this is why we fight and when we die we will die with our arms unbound this is why we fight come hell In my downward distraction, the Nakom deflect my attack with enough force that the dagger slips from my foot's grasp, free-falling toward the ground. This is a loss infinitely more dangerous than the blood they swoop in to draw, seizing the opportunity to bite into my right arm. The loss of my weapon is certain death, disarmed deadliness, my muscles stretched too soft to fight with the weaker force of my fists. Options dwindling with every inch it drops, I do the only thing I can: I go after it. Letting go of the safety of the rope, my body plummets into a flip, a rotation familiar enough that I can tell time by it. My limbs become the tick of seconds, legs turning in a radiant countdown as I reach my arms in opposite directions. One hand grabs for my knife, a five fingered prayer for a hilt (although I would rather catch a blade than the nothingness of my own final breath). The other hand stretches back towards the sky, begging for the end of the lifeline I released in a fit of desperation. Save me, Rope-God. Save me, Mother-Line. Bind to my burning palms, scorch me with your mark, scar me with your memory, but please don't give me up to the butterfly graveyard below. Don't carve my bones into tombstones. Do not write the memoirs of this battle across my broken and splintered shoulder blades. Don't — Vicious fibers rake their teeth into the pads of my fingers as they curl around cruel salvation. Flesh is rubbed away so forcefully that years of callouses must have disappeared in the skid of a single moment. I am screaming, mouth canyon-wide so that I nearly swallow a butterfly whole, grazing its belly with my teeth. The feral cry sounds like them, tearing at my damaged vocal chords until my voice is rattling the air in a mythic echo of their own devil-tongues. Dangling on the edge of defeat, blood-scorned and slipping, it is time to prove that I am not one of the Reaped so much as I am the Reaper. [Cricket Attacks With Her Dagger] [dice=200+2000] [Shallow Cut On Right Bicep — 3.5 Damage — Death] [Cricket Uses First Aide]

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[WT]

------------------the
---------------other is
--------------diving as
--------------the shine
-------------falls & falls
-----------and we need our
----------inevitable win,
----------but still we are
--------disappointed with
---this opponent so worth
-our efforts until now &
worthy again the plunge
halts & it swings roaring
into us & it. has. Teeth. we
know the fire we know the shine but we know
only our own teeth & as it grazes us we remember
that we are one and the same never a trick at all
--because who is allowed to devour us but US? and
---above we see other prey, not far for feet and
------------nearer for we who are sky & bless
-------------the whole world; bodies grounded
-------------but bright like ours & bleeding
-------------brighter, and when the we
-------------above peel away the we
--------------below follow as ever,
----------------free & voracious
--------------------as ever &

-___----___
(---\||/---)
-\__this__/
--{_/''\_}----------------___----___
-------------------------(---\||/---)
--------------------------\__ is __/
---------___----___--------{_/''\_}
--------(---\||/---)
---------\__over__/
----------{_/''\_}





More clipart plugged into the same generator! I kind of love that thing.

(R.I.P. Aaqui.)

The swarm accidentally carry off the fears list, some of them thinking it's another Nakom. A couple of times, one or another catches on and nibbles at it; they end up chewing small holes in Cricket Antoinette and first impressions, and make lacework of one edge, but do no major damage. It flies with them until such time on Day 3 as I have a chance to post they appear in the sky over the next possessor.