I [cling] to you // [ xoxo vs. clingrays Day 3]
Mar 2, 2014 13:03:20 GMT -5
Post by Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] on Mar 2, 2014 13:03:20 GMT -5
ARGONITE SHORE
The pain, the dull nausea at the base of his belly, kept him awake late into the night. Late enough to watch the anthem, singular, drift through the night sky. At some point he rolled over his rucksack and fully spooned Magenta, drawing her close, one arm around her stomach and the other cradling her head. He shouldn’t have wasted a night simply holding her hand; Cheska was right. What was there to lose? So he held her as he chased down sleep, stalking it like a mutt. When he finally tackled the land of dream, he did so with a vengeance.
And he didn’t dream of the girl in his arms. He dreamt of home. Of paved streets and routine days, of Phena and Opal and their heart-shaped faces. He is following them through the avenues, elated, parading. But he doesn’t know what they’re celebrating. It is dark, but there are balloons. It is midnight but there is popcorn. The stars fall and turn into sparkly ping pong balls, rattling around his skull. He squeezes Opal tight in an embrace, but it’s not Opal. It is Magenta Ryker, and he rolls away in the morning light. Away from his sister, from One, from hope.
His tears are rain. Except they smell distinctly like piss.
Argo lurches, grabbing his naginata and crouching in one smooth movement. Someone was watching him. Argo searches the darkness, catches flashes of opalescent starlight. He angles his naginata at his attacker, watches him stumble in the dawn. But it’s only Ares, and the whisper of the tide coming in.
Argonite lowers his weapon, trying to get his bearings. The third day in the arena. Another sunrise closer to his dreams. “Your apology can hang,” he says, trying to put some verve behind the words. In the end though he cracks first, grinning as the first flush of golden light graces the area. He twirls the glaive, confident in the heft of it around his palm. Confident that its spinning blade will be enough to deter any other wayward rocks. He’s still clad in seaweed when he turns to the forest, full of eyes, and grabs his family jewels.
“You want these, Panem? Come and get ‘em!”
It is silent. Dead silent. Not even the twist and whirr of camera lenses, for a moment. And then it is cacophony. Argonite stumbles back a step. He stabs his helmet with the soft end of the glaive, lifts it atop his head, settles the fedora over it. His ankles brush the water, disturbing a rainbow. He squints as the rainbow resolves itself into the wave of a clingray.
“Lad-Are-es, I think that’s our alarm.”
[ Argonite attacks Clingray #1 [Lock]; glaive ]
ZNhtRqncglaive
[Severed Right Ear -- 8.0 damage]
glaive