{ telephone banking } ✺ finn/cha/stella

[Deleted]

fionnbharr stoddard.
✺

In complete and utter honesty, I didn't believe in myself that I would make it out of there. I mean, I wasn't expecting to completely die as much as they must have, with giving me a one and all, but I expected more than just a simple punch and cut and then running back out. Nobody hit me once, nobody even breathed in my direction except for the boy I cut open, and surprisingly I'm okay with that. I'm okay knowing that I purposefully cut open somebody's son's leg, because at least he's still alive. The sound of skin ripping open continued to echo even when I was sure Stella and me were out of there - except I wasn't really sure where there was anymore. We ran out together, panting and with the empty satchel of mine clapping against my back with every step I took, but even while we ran out of what I could tell was immediate damage and a faint glow of dying sins, I had no idea where I was going exactly.

Only twice did I hit somebody: once I punched Kia Soul, and I missed or blocked or something, I couldn't actually see anything, and the second time I stabbed a guy in the leg, and had it not been for the blood that ran down the tip of my spear and onto my hand and for his grunt, I wouldn't have known I even hit something nevertheless an actual person. I knew I hit Kia Soul because I never saw him walk another ten steps after that, but there's no way I killed him, I know that much as well. And for the second boy, I pray it was too dark for Jael to see who hit who. In this hell, I want to do good, I swear I do. It's just hard, you see, with everybody trying to kill everybody else it's hard to keep up without stabbing back into it.

I'm not proud, but I'm okay.

(We'll be okay, Jael.)

I'm almost too scared to stop running until I can almost taste my heart because it's so dedicated to beat through my throat right now. I'm almost too scared to stop by the time I notice it's just Stella and me, holding hands like elementary children as we slow to walks and my chest begins to heaves in motions and tides of sins and exhaustion. (She killed a girl.) I forgot that, that she was already sinned, the first, Meghan Cooper and Stella Calloway. One who had lost and one who already took a life out of this pit, lowering the numbers from 24 to 23 on the list of coming casualties. She killed somebody, and here I was shivering, and I bless the dark for it masquerades my face turning white.

She killed a man, and I'm still sitting here like a child. I'm not sure of I'm scared of her or for her, I'm not sure if she's the good guy anymore for killing, or if she's the blessing to a corrupt soul; I'm scared of the uncertainty. And I wish Jael was here, man always knew how to answer all of my questions, and I wished I had something more than the empty bag on my back and the blood drying on my hand. Mending Stella's wounds like a mother kissing bruises to make them better, I feel guilty. I'm helping a murderer escape the scene, and it scares me, but she is no monster. That much I know.

"I don't need your help."

"I know, shuddup."

I'm not sure why, but I smiled while I said that the same way I smiled while poking at her arm. She was in my care, and it was ironic; she killed a man and I'm here to kiss her bruises full-heartedly. It's weird to me, that even though I'm conflicted with where she's aligned, I still consider her a friend. She's a warrior, and I'm not sure what I am yet but good. And we'll be okay.

this is the thread in which finn does stuff i.e. getting items, crying and using f/a on stella

[Cait]

stella calloway.

An hour ago, we were fighting.

Fighting for what? A show? Recognition and respect? Revenge?

It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter because an hour ago, I had been hit and an hour ago, I had been the one hitting back and an hour ago, I had seen Crusader’s face for what could have been the last time – I miss him so much, my only friend, let him be okay – and an hour ago, I had run and an hour ago, I had killed.

How do you continue to fight with that burden?

How do you carry on, when all you can see in her is Belle?

Yet an hour later, the burden of murder is already subsiding into nothing more than another useless item stashed into my satchel of worry.

Her face, however, does not.

Death had welcomed me into his world all too suddenly, obscuring the pools of black that were Belle’s the girl’s eyes so not even a glimpse of her fear would accompany me when his hand grasped my wrist and whispered, “well done.”

Perhaps it is a convenience to be spared the grief and desperation of my own scrambled mind being reflected in her eyes. Or perhaps, she had wanted to die. Isn’t that why people volunteered? To die? Like me?

Neither thought is comforting.

An hour later, we walk - a pair of barely-there misfits who somehow managed to escape the bloodshed relatively unharmed. For now. Beside me, I clutch to Finn's hand - not because I am afraid. Not because I like him. Because it is warm. I do not remember who grabbed onto whose hand as we began to run from the death and destruction that brought lifeless bodies to the ground, but now, we walk, holding onto each other as if the chain of limbs connecting us was our only tie to the world. The warmth does not assist in fighting off the ghosts that add to the blackness which shrouds us in despair. But it is enough. Our footfalls are soft against the ground despite the screaming constellations and infinite galaxies crashing upon our shoulders. Our breathing is shallow, despite the panicked shakes reverberating from Finn's tiny figure.

Did I do that to him?

There is an overwhelming desire to show him I'm not a monster, I didn't mean to hurt her, I wouldn't hurt him. But how does one do that, when they cannot tell who they are anymore, themselves?

Part of me wishes to reach to him and comfort him; part of me wishes to kick his feet out from under him and leave him flailing in the cold of the night. A larger part wills silence to continue to fill the voids provided by the disorientating darkness, for I am too selfish to show care for him. For anyone. Finn was the closest thing to a friend I would have in here.

I'd never had a friend before.

At some point, we stop. We no longer find ourselves running away from terrifying memories that bring sharp pains that shoot through my wrist – still bruised – and I am silently grateful for the rest, hoping it may relieve some of the inescapable tension we’d brought upon ourselves. My shoulder aches where a doe-eyed girl had clubbed me – the girl from Five. All over, a numbing type of pain demands to be felt, but it is pain all the same.

I had not dealt well with pain in the past.

I am only vaguely aware of Finn attempting to mend the cuts and bruises spotting my skin. My mind is elsewhere.

Crusader was right. They attack the weakest tributes. It’s easier that way. That was the way the game was played.

But I’m not weak.

I just wish he was here.

“I don’t need your help,” I manage to mumble, despite the tumbling thoughts clouding rationality. It is a half-hearted cry, but sitting and receiving help from this boy is pathetically embarrassing.

It makes me wonder: would I have done the same?

I grimace, sinking into the shadows, for that was what I did best. That was all I knew. Remaining hidden, unnoticed. I only hope I can do the same, now.

I remain silent.

We do not move.

Stella Calloway receives first aid from Fionnbharr Stoddard bc she's a useless bitch who can't look after herself, She also gets that voodoo assistance from Cha Leviane who ends up stumbling upon the little arena-warming party ay [-6 damage]

you also got her getting the sponsorships which be the empty water jug, rope and antivenom.

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

C H A  L E V I A N E

There are stars of blood on the ground, and a human constellation in the middle, with it's body racked into pieces and it's eyes frozen open with a paralyzing fear.

It was a universe of chaos, the threads of time slowing down, grinding to a halt and her mind conquering her sense of reality, spilling blood onto her clothes like the stains of her missing tongue and she watched watched watched the bodies of Kia Soul and Meghan Cooper and the shell of her former self hit the ground and disintegrate into dust. Not the stardust she was mixed with but true, lifeless dust, blood infused, death carrying dust.

It clogged her lungs and her soul, dragged this funny feeling from her stomach and brought it to her mind, to her arms and legs and fingers and toes and as her lungs clog up her breaths become shorter and heavier, labored and strenuous and her grip on her weapon slips for just a fraction of a second, the time it takes for a shooting star to streak across the night sky. Her fingers part with the wooden torch she held in her hands, bloody with someone's life force and as it clatters to the ground the light seems to vanish completely from the arena around her, and darkness swallows the arena and her weapon.

She can't see anything, and through the mist of darkness she drops to all fours, ignoring the fact that there were monsters with fingers still wrapped around their weapons behind her, in front of her and around her and threatening to end her at any moment, and she searches, gropes the ground for the weapon she had clung to for however long it had taken for her inner star to collapse and a new one to rise.

But her fingers find something else entirely, it feels like desperation, it feels like death, it feels like flesh.

Her hand recoils as fast as it was sent out, eyes staring down at the darkened digits as if they had just been infected with some fatal disease, fingers twitching and eyes wide with fear and body rigid. She had just touched death, stroked it with her fingerprints and transferred it's powerful, killing stench to herself.

A light illuminates the cave, fire flickering yet again (flickering, flickering like a star), and as the light floods the cavern of blood and death her torch is uncovered, laying right in front of her, handle leaning against the neck of a faceless, lifeless tribute. She doesn't know, she doesn't want to know who it is, because the feeling in her stomach brings vomit worthy effects to her mind, so instead she lets the shadows obscure the body like a mask, she herself refusing to look at the face, and as she rises on broken wood knees, weapon returned to her hand she lets the darkness hide the body, cloaking it in darkness.

She looks back once as she runs into the eternal darkness of the arena.

She see's death, and that's all she needs to get out.

She's running, running, crashing through the darkness around her, hands scraping against the walls and doing more damage than she'd received in the entirety of the actual Bloodbath. And what a Bloodbath it was, because she could faintly see the blood still clinging to her shoes, and even worse, on her weapon, on her hands and on her mind. Her skin is together, not ripped like some of the others, not bruised not tainted not dying. The worst thing that happened to her in that hellhole, star killing place was that she had gripped her weapon so hard it pained her to release it from her grasp. It pained her to release her only defense, it pained her to let go of her potential to kill.

She's crashing, crashing, crashing through rocks and stone, through the sounds of far off monsters and footsteps and through her own moral walls (but those were broken long ago). And she's falling apart at the stardust threaded seams, with her fingers tainted with death and her mind at a loss, darkness playing with her mind and the never ending twists and turns playing with her reality. She can't find her way, she can't think she can't breathe right. Where is Finn? 

Where is Stella?

Where am I?

She falls into a single opening, she falls into a body. And at first, she believes she has circled around to the Bloodbath and landed on the corpse which had tainted her fingers with its rotting death, and for a split second after that it strikes her that she could have ran straight into another tribute, another tribute that could strike her down and could kill her like they killed that girl like we killed that girl.

She sees Finn, it's Finn.

"Finn." She says it once, tasting the words on her tongue.

"Finn. It's you, Finn." Her legs become weightless, and she falls halfway into his arms and halfway onto the ground, eyes staring into him, through him. 

"I touched death Finn, I touched death." She shows him her fingers in a brief display of fear before noticing that he had been in the process of recovering, healing his- their only other ally.

Fionnbhar Stoddard is not hurt, but Stella Calloway is.

They were lucky, they were lucky that they weren't dead on the ground. They were lucky they were still kicking, they were lucky Stella could be patched up, could be good as new.

"You're hurt."

They were lucky, they were lucky that they were dying slowly.

[presto][/presto]

ooc: first aids the shit out of Stella Calloway for -3 dmg on her