red. { finnterstellar, day 6 }

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

With all my heart, I truly think I started to love Stella again.

We danced by that lake, and we were a loud clash of laughter even when I fell and got back up on one leg and she laughed harder, and I swear we promised no more weapons but her laughs felt like daggers. Every time she said my name in between laughs and heavy breathing it made me homesick for the night when I was alone, because in this moment of energy I felt alive and I felt like there would be no more fighting for just the day at least. Stella just made everything so light again, and even with the smell of mercury rising through the area, we still bounced around like fifteen year olds and I didn't feel like drowning, but I felt more than one eye and one leg and nine fingers and one friend left.

I felt happy again.

When I said her named to the beat of our children hearts it tastes sweet and it makes me forget about all the drowning in my own blood and mercury. All I feel is alive, I feel like just Finn is just enough and me and her can be happy again, just the two of us. Y'know, I bet Jael would love her like he loved me, and maybe she'll love him for me like I loved him. I bet Stella would study with Sunny if she got the chance, and I would get back to dancing with Jael and we could all just sweat these games out.

I bet we could too, I bet we could go back to district eight somehow and she can learn all these people I've told her about, and I wouldn't feel so damn sad anymore. And she could go adventuring with Jael and I, and then later we could play by the lake because when I'm around her I'm not scared of drowning because when I'm around her I know I don't have to be scared of not making it back out. Maybe I could go to district eleven too, and we could run through the fields together and I could shake her mother's hand and meet Belle - who is Belle Stella, you've mentioned her but you've never told me who she is.

Maybe Jael and Belle would love each other; I sleep on this idea, and I wish I woke up thinking about it too.

Instead, I woke up thinking of the cannon that ran through the air, the cannon that left me with the reality that there's only Stella and I, and four others. Four others in the way of our infinity, and I kick myself off the rock we slept on at the thought. With the help of the flashlight hours ago I found the lake, this mass of gunk ready to take me home if I want it so, but I don't. Again, I've found it with a little help, and I'm sitting cross legged in front of it, with my bag in my hand. I don't know enough about mercury to know what it does, and if Stella hadn't told me about it I wouldn't know that it was bad. But I know enough about drowning that things heavy enough to, sink.

Sink.

I throw the blonde girl's leg into the lake, and then my eye wrapped in my adoption paper. A spear, a sword, a knife - I promised no more weapons, so why can't I throw them also? I promised Stella and she promised me, and I promised myself that I trusted her, so why can't I let them sink? I scrap my hand not holding a flashlight against the ground, Jael would want me to throw them too, so why can't I? And I realize; I can't throw them because there's not enough good in the world.

Her leg dips under and my eye remains bobbing; Stella's awake ten feet away, and I feel so helpless. There's only four others left besides us two and then it's just forever, it's just a forever of darkness and mutts and untrust, and there is so much evil in that forever to make up for the sin of twenty two deaths. What type of salvation is there in this forever? I grab two of them - a spear, a sword, a knife. Just two, and I let the third clatter against the ground while I make my way back.

"Stella?"

Only two lights are in this hell - this flashlight in my hand and Stella. Eventually this flashlight will burn out though, and so will I, and then Stella will be left burning in all her entirety for all her eternity, and I feel so damn sad thinking about that. My salvation, living in this cave forever, that's not her's, that's not her freedom. When I think of her I feel the sun on my cheeks, and she doesn't deserve to live the rest of her days in this without ever getting to feel the sun. She doesn't deserve this whole, but I can get her out. I swear, I know I promised no more weapons. But I have to get her out of here.

"There is no forever, is there?"

[attacks stella calloway with bone sword]
45F6BiPH200+1000
[1010 -- Severed Left Calf at Knee -- 9.0 damage]

200+1000

[Cait]

stella calloway district eleven

well no one’s gonna fix it for us
no one can

I don’t know how long we danced for.

Between falling over each other and filling silences with laughter before we became too tired to keep moving, time passed quick enough for me to forget my own worries about abandonment. Each time he fell I would help him back up because I think that’s what friends do. I don’t really know because I never had any friends before the Games.

When I do speak between childish giggles, my voice is nothing more than a whisper.

‘Finn, thank you.’

And I don’t know if he hears me in those moments, but I like those moments of serenity, when we’re dancing to an irregular beat and our footsteps don’t make any sense but the world is much too perfect to be real.

‘Finn.’

The temptation of sleep in the hours before the Sun should have been rising is too much not to resist, and the eventuality of sleep is a welcome break from the rarity of happiness, for even though I don’t want it to end, I don’t want to waste it all now.

I fell asleep thinking how one of us had to make it out alive, remembering that no matter how long we lived in our world of fantasy for, we wouldn’t be safe forever.

I remember pain, sadness. How I had nothing back home to live for. That all I cared for was here with me. That living meant returning to a world without Finn, a world in black and white, because even though there is only darkness to surround us nothing has ever been more beautiful and colourful.

And then darkness.

♢

I woke to the sound of a cannon’s boom echoing across the arena, and terror swept through my body because even though I’m very much alive, it could have easily been my lifeless body the sound represented. But when I look at Finn, whose body is crouched by the side of the lake, the fear passes. We’re both alive.

We’re both still safe.

I lay still, listening to objects being tossed into the mercury liquid, waiting for the thud against the ocean floor that never comes, the lake is so viscous. ’No more weapons,’ he’d said, and if I wasn’t so at peace I’d stand up and walk to the edge, coming up next to Finn and throwing my axe just as his own weapons fell.

Somehow, in the darkness, I’d found a way to be happy, be lighter than I’d felt in a long time.

(Oh Stella, when will you learn?)

(Those things never last.)

’Stella?’

I turn to my side, searching for Finn’s face.

It’s there.

Illuminated by a silver blade.

I don’t register fear until I feel it slicing my leg away.

No, Finn.

And I scream so loud that I swear the ground shakes under my anguish, scream so loud that even Belle can hear despite being buried six feet under some part of District 11, scream so loud that I feel my vocal cords unravel until I’m left choking and gasping and trying to speak, but there’s no such success.

‘There is no forever, is there?’

I don’t want to hear him.

I don’t want to hear that voice I fell for, because I was right all along, he’s evil, a thief and a murderer, and I was a fool for believing we could be happy, for at least one more day.

(But that’s exactly what he’s saying, isn’t it?)

(There was never a happy ending to believe in.)

And there are more tears in my eyes, and I’ve cried a lake as big as this mercury-filled one to do anything else but nod right now. Nod through the stream of water pouring from my face, splashing to the ground and mixing with splatters of silver. Because he’s right. We don’t get a fairytale.

I nod, and it’s an action as conclusive as an illuminated face, a gliding body suspended in dance, a final breath.

It sounds like the end of the world. Calm, quiet.

Because that's how everything ends. A single second of peace.

Then nothing.

attacks finn with axe

VZJgPsw5200+11000

shallow cut on cheek - 3.5

200+11000

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

I don't think I'm supposed to kill her, not in this lifetime. In this lifetime we weren't warriors on different kingdom fronts, we weren't opposing leaders or jealous crooks, we were just children. This lifetime we were just two souls trapped in a jar, and only twenty three get another chance after it. That one soul is stuck with the darkness they toe, and that one is one of us (seven, six,) five. Just five of us now, you think I would feel more alone. I don't feel well, honestly, but damn, I don't feel awful. Because in this lifetime, I am just Finn and she is just Stella, and only one of us can live with these parasites eating on on the branches of our lifelines.

And I'll be damned if I let it be her.

Stella screams, she screams as if I had showed her everything I've seen in the past six days in that one motions - Barnabas tangled in gel and blind, Cha's training room after she cut out her tongue, district four's face. She's crying and her leg, her leg is as attached as the screams, and I bite down on one of my last good fingers to stop myself from crying too. I hurts to hurt her, not as bad as slicing off my own leg, but I don't want to. I just want to save her, but why does it have to hurt so bad?

It's a maelstrom in my temple; my cheek burns and I feel like throwing up because it was so easy. It was so easy to slice off half of her leg and why was it so easy, when did I get so good at this? Her eye's are still as green as I've always seen them be whenever I got the chance to see her face, except she's distorted and I did that. (Of course.) One of the first things I think of is now we're both cripples, my two time broken leg and her ghost of one, together all our fucked parts could almost build a twenty fifth body in here. An eye, two legs, a finger, her heart and my soul (what next, dead man?)

I'm no reaper, and I never will be, but I started this. This cycle of pain for Stella that for some reason I always try to fix, by leaving or dancing or crying or joking with her, I always think I can fix it but there's only one way anymore. "I messed it all up," oh god, oh god, I fucked this all to hell. ('There is no forever, is there?') Not with me, I can't find the meaning of it for some odd reason. 'No more weapons,' I meant it at one point, I meant to throw this sword in the lake and watch it sink like Esme's leg.

But I couldn't, because there's never really been a forever waiting for us. "I'm so sorry Stella," I'm sorry there is no good in the world, not with me. I'd swear it on my name five days and five nights ago that I'd love you until the day I died, but I'd be swearing on a myth. Because five days and five nights ago my name was Fionnbharr, and five days and five nights ago I thought I'd never see the day where you'd be killed.

"But I have to fix this, trust me, I can," just one more thing, I just have to save her from eternity.

"I can fix this."

[attacks stella calloway with bone swordddd]
kpZEBsrP200+1000
[1047 -- Stabbed in Stomach -- 9.5 damage]

200+1000

[Cait]

stella calloway district eleven

well no one’s gonna fix it for us
no one can

I need to move.

I need to speak.

I need to do something to remind myself I’m still alive, but it doesn’t feel like living when you’re being battered to pieces by someone you thought you loved.

The fucked up part is, I still do.

I need to speak, I need to, I need to ask him why, ask him so many things and finish stories that we never started. I need to tell him about Belle so he understands why I’m here. I need to learn about his home because I thought I’d be able to see it one day, and thank the people he loved more than me for making him so kind. But he’s not kind, and it doesn’t matter anymore. I know that I need to speak, I know that as well as I know Crusader should be here because he was the one who said he’d protect me even when I told him there was nothing I had to live for, but when I open my mouth all I can feel is a raw throat that doesn’t allow anything louder than a whisper to escape my lips.

‘I messed it all up.’

(No Finn, I did, I was the one who messed up because I believed we could make it out of here, or at least be safe. I messed it all up when I saved you. I messed it all up when I ran away with you the night we left Cha.)

(You don’t get to take this blame.)

‘I’m so sorry Stella.’

There’s no light to lead me to him, lead me away from him (I don’t know which is worse) but I can feel his gaze on my face and when he looks at me with the same eyes I drowned in as we drowned in our sins together, a part of me snaps.

It’s not rage, or anger. It’s not love, or forgiveness.

It’s acceptance.

So I listen to him, because if the last sounds to carry me from this world were the notes that made up his voice, that would be good enough.

‘But I have to fix this, trust me, I can.’

‘I can fix this.’

(Fix what? What is there to fix? We were safe, Finn, so safe, and even though I told myself to stop believing in happy endings and even though that stupid shell told me you’d leave me again, we were safe, and now we’re not.)

(And I still can’t find it in my schizophrenic heart to hate you.)

‘Am I going to die?’

I cringe as my throat closes up in pain, my scream surely damaging the vocal cords beyond repair. I cringe again for the ingenuous nature of my question. Of course I’m going to die. And even though I missed out on too many years of childhood and spent too long convincing myself I was a grown-up – that I didn’t need that youth – I don’t mind that I could be a five-year-old right now.

‘I don’t want to die alone, Finn.’

'I don't want to drown in this darkness.'

My voice is barely audible, but the lake behind us is still and there are no sounds except my own wheezes to disturb that same fucking silence I’d put up with for too long.

It hurts to speak, but I need to.

attacks finn bae with axe

_o5VKesz200+11000

shallow cut on right bicep - 3.5

200+11000

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

"I can fix this," and I'm trying, honestly, I'm trying so hard to end this. To get her out of here (she doesn't belong dead man) out of this cave and the darkness and all the pain, because that's all there is. I realized that, that no matter how long her forever is, it'll only end with pain. She'll win, she would've won, and lived old and had a family and sons and daughters and kings and queens, and she would've forgotten all about me, and I would be withering, but she would be so alive and I'd be so happy for her. Except those queens and kings would leave her, and along with those scars still licking around her knee and stomach from me, the scars I gave her, she would break away.

A crown can't stop time, you know, and she wouldn't be happy.

After all this suffering, everything I could've given her, she would never end happy. This way is faster, I promise Stella. I promise you the same way mothers make promises against tiny baby feet to protect them, that I'd do everything I thought to save you, to save just one goddamned person. "Am I going to die?" Only if I succeed and Stella, you're making this so fucking hard, it's tough I know but "I'm sorry." It's all I can say after stabbing my sword into her stomach - I aimed for her heart, like I always did, didn't I? (you're pathetic, dead man.)

There's not much I'm sure of anymore as I grab the sword from her stomach, but one thing I know more than I know my own name is that I know she deserves to be happy. She deserves that victor village house and to meet her district partner's family and to have kings and queens and to forget about me - truthfully. But she doesn't deserve the pain, she doesn't deserve to waste and rot throughout her forever, not Stella. Not my best friend.

She's in so much pain after only two hits (just two hits, Stella, is just two, I promise I can fix this, I can fix it, just one more hit, I promise) and two scattered cuts don't hurt me as bad as they used to. "I don't want to die alone, Finn." I know you don't want to Stella, "I promised I wouldn't leave again, I promised that I promised and I'm still here." I'm still here Stella, after five days and five nights I'm still here.

"I won't leave you in this darkness, not again."

Not ever.

I've wasted our forever on leaving you Stella - I've left you black and blue and red, and the palettes of your skin are my fault. Five days and five nights were all it took, but I promise, I won't ever leave you again. I can't even look her in the eyes when I attack again; a sword, a knife, a spear, yet all these damn promises seem to hurt her most. This isn't right - killing her in this lifetime - but I just gotta save one person before I die.

Just one goddamn person.

[attacks stella calloway with bone sword]
2sfN4lzr200+1000

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[Cait]

stella calloway district eleven

well no one’s gonna fix it for us
no one can

I never wanted to make it home.

I’m strong, I know that (or at least I used to know that, before I became a fool and cried every day a new piece of my heart was torn), but I’ve learnt that going back home would be a torture I couldn’t bear. I’d sit in an empty house with no one to love and no one to love me (Finn would be dead, you see), a crown upon my head that I didn’t deserve (I would have had to kill Finn, you see.)

I had never wanted to go back home, but these caves wouldn’t stand motionless forever, and I think they’re closing in on me now. It was that, or the clutch of Death around my throat, and I don’t think I’m ready to believe in that alternative just yet.

I wanted us to last, me and Finn. Not in a realm outside the arena, because we both knew that land was far from our reach. But I’d wanted to stay with him until the end, until four more cannons had resonated and there was only one last thing to do: send Finn back home. Because he’s gonna make it, I can feel it, he’s gonna make it out alive and I’ve been wrong about many things in my life but not this time. He’s gonna make it.

‘I promised I wouldn’t leave again, I promised that and I’m still here.’

You are.

Thank you.

‘It’s okay.’

I can’t even hear my own voice anymore.

‘It’s okay.’ It’s okay because it has to be, because we have to be, even though I’m dying and I can’t see where I’m swinging because pain sits behind my eyes and blurs with my tears. Pain that was much harder to deal with than the pain of losing family member after family member. I don’t care if that makes me selfish. Finn’s worth more than all of them.

‘It’s okay.’ I would say more, but I can’t. Physically, emotionally – I’m tongue tied with thousands of unfinished sentences buzzing around my mind, the stench of blood (this time it’s mine, truly mine, waterfalls of red red red) overpowering as it seeps between tiny crevices and empty spaces. I can’t see the liquid draining from my body, but I feel myself drowning in it – like a twisted nightmare that had come to life, no metaphors to prove otherwise.

Literal drowning, and my fingers touch the blood from the scratch on my thigh (no lower, because if you can’t see it’s gone, it doesn’t have to be.)

‘I won’t leave you in this darkness, not again.’

It’s okay.

I just needed to keep my eyes open. Keep them open a little longer, so that my eyelids didn’t shut and my last trace of light didn’t die out before I did. I wouldn’t die in darkness. The same darkness that had consumed Finn, and yet somewhere in the black I can still see his glowing outline.

It’s enough to guide me to where he stands, and my legs give way as I swing a weapon I don’t want to hold any longer.

(He’ll steal that one, too.)

attacks finn with axe

gZ9yBPs0200+11000

shallow cut on forehead - 4.5

His sword scares me.

My own axe scares me, but at least each of my swings is in defence and with half-hearted intent, no trace of malice. Because I couldn’t kill Finn, no, but he’s killing me even though he promised and his sword looks so terrifyingly close and I’m almost glad I can’t see his face because surely then I would truly lose the Finn I once knew.

I don’t want to be scared of Finn.

So I don’t be.

‘I’m glad, you’re here.’

(Why do you keep talking? He doesn’t care anymore – he never did.)

But that’s not fucking true.

What is true is that he does care, I’ve always known that, and what is true is that I am dying and I am sprawled across the ground and I am utterly hopeless and I love Finn Stoddard.

I don’t want to fight anymore.

‘It’s okay.’

And maybe if I say it enough, it will be.

‘Finn, I just don’t want to die alone.’

Even before I manage those eight difficult words, I know there will be no more.

No more words.

200+11000

[Deleted]

[presto][/presto]

it's 1:45am tbh
kinda tired
gonna go to sleep soon
just wanna finish this fight tbh

[attacks stella calloway with bone sword]
nKeFEyvr200+1000

200+1000