t's uncrossed and i's undotted {kiena v wyatt; day 7}

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Page seven of blurred words upon ripped pages, a sixth night comes on a flitting wind and refuses to fade with the flames that flickered to embers hours ago. Circe Lyon’s cannon reverberating through hollow walls that only had the privilege of an infrastructure that was threatening to crumble with the next fingertip that brushed against it. Bones of the same nature myself and the other three were as likely to crack as well, brittle skin and a dry throat crying for a cause that would not stand when the seventh day was to come and pass.

A night’s call standing in the way of that which would hold me accountable for four deaths that did not fall by my hand alone I dread the shifting seconds that thicken the air with their existence. War’s song on the tongue of an off-key choir Sue Tate’s face appears first. Scrawled across by the number seven he sings a hymnal whose lyrics have been lost for far too many years to count. An existence hanging in the balance by a thread as thin as the truth that had fallen from my lips for seven days that had come and gone on a broken breeze— he was gone before the last echoes of his cannon had sounded against walls as hollow as the bones that broken beneath marred skin.

When his face fades, it is replaced by that of the boys we had stood in the presence of the day prior, caught on seven again like a homebound memory that cannot be missed. Seven days passing and not yet a memory that can be forgotten, no forceful forgetfulness to be found I am lost in the number until his face fades like that of Sue Tate, flashing to Preston Garrity.

Faith in four I cannot find his time spent in the sky is the only time my mind slows the gears to a crawl and pretends that the mechanics of a mind are remembered. There is no working function for those who have lost sanity to the cracks in hollow bones. Slipping through sweaty palms he fades to a picture of Circe Lyon, illuminated by false fiction I see her features lit by flames that flickered at the end of a fading promise. She had thought us to be one and the same, Circe Lyon and I, but she had made the fatal mistake of believing the unknown was what struck our matches as similar.

Through the smell of burnt kindling and broken promises the knowledge lost suffocates my lungs and leaves my chest heavy, waiting for the wind to blow away any last doubts but instead only bringing in the rolling tide of thunder.

Lost in the storm I spent the sixth night in fits of incremental sleep that left the morning sun to be feared instead of reveled. There was no rest for the wicked, but there was no sleep for the righteous, either. Never lingering on either side of the black and white spectrum my heart beat in a shade of grey I could not define. There were no colors on the morning sunrise, no hope on the horizon and yet aching bones scream for retribution and I answer them with blind faith turned to aimless wandering.

Looking for nothing and nowhere in particular I do not step carefully— I would not hold to the pressure pad of a landmine if I was to set its detonation into motion. Bombing yourself to fix the bullet holes was only step one to a problem I cannot fix, replication of the inevitable only a second nature that would not bring the problem to be considered solved, only stalled.

Replication of the inevitable flames flicker at the end of sheer metal like biting words on the tongue of a poet left in the three a.m.’s to down alcohol like syllables that don’t synchronize.

Unrhymed lines I am left to finish the poem without finishing the last verse.

[wyatt o'connor lights 4 throwing axes on fire using match + tar]

[wyatt o'connor attacks kiena ward; flaming throwing axe]
ag8NudmEthrowing axe
[axe in back -- 9.0]

1-50
[+8]

throwing axe�1-50

[Stare]

147:59:15

though i’ve said the worse things
and i can't reverse things
secrets of the floor lay
gambled in the doorway

Sue Tate is gone.

I do not cry when I see his face in a sky shattered by lightning. I do not scream or curl into myself or blubber like a young child. Instead I gaze into his projected eyes until the sky goes dark again, until I’m once again watching the false sky. I let a breath come in, filling me with poisonous nothing, before releasing it and turning back to my knives, drawing a stone over the metal to give my hands something to do. I doubt that blood has already dulled their blades, but tomorrow I won’t be taking any chances. Kirito Miristioma wants to kill me. And finally, I think I’m ready to kill him, too.

I can just see the Capitolites in their candy colored thrones, murmuring and frowning. The scrawny half-starved scarecrow of a girl from Three was not supposed to make it this far. She was supposed to die early on, alone and unscarred. I manage a humorless smirk as I run the stone over metal once more, eventually finding a rhythm within the harsh sound. They were right to have doubts about the child who pretended to be a machine. But I know better now. I am not made up of clockwork.

What’s inside me is much, much colder.

⋆

I don’t know when I fell asleep, or if I ever did. The dying part of me whispers you need sleep to function properly, you’ll falter without it, it’s like grease to the mechanism, but it’s easier than usual to shut it down. My jaw tightens, my grip on my weapons shifting as I continue to move. It doesn’t matter where I go now - there are only four of us left, and the Gamemakers will find a way to put us together anyway. It would be a waste of energy to try to avoid it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Kirito that suddenly appeared out nowhere, as startled and confused as me but just as willing to plunge a knife into my back. The Capitol would get a kick out of that - a kiss followed by betrayal. They don’t understand. I’ve hated Kiri since the day he killed my ally. There was never any trust between us after that point. Never any affection. Only confusion and clashing anger and panic at questions we didn’t want to answer. The memory of my lips against his is a searing, painful one, and I avoid it all costs. It isn’t worth the pain.

Occasionally I use my free hand to pull out my pocket watch, glaring at it. We’ve been here for nearly 150 hours. The thought makes me dizzy, and then my heart clenches because I remember that most of those who entered into this Arena did not get that amount of time. Some got less than a hundred hours. Some, like Rowan, only got a few. And that hurts worse than it should. I bite my tongue, shoving the emotions back where they belong. An obsidian heart is better than a beating one at this point. Beating hearts are only known for bleeding.

(Twenty three doesn’t equal one.)

Sue Tate is dead. I don’t care about the math anymore.

My head jerks up suddenly as my hand shoves my pocket watch away. There’s someone else near. I don’t know if it’s simply me picking up on another set of breathing, another heartbeat, or paranoia, but I spin around regardless and bare my teeth, my weapon drawn. At the last moment I spark the flames, watching as my world becomes engulfed in leaping oranges and licking golds.

(It was fire that killed Icarus. Perhaps I’ll be just as lucky.)

oh i've made the mistakes
and i have learned the hard way
even though you leave me
crying like a banshee


(Key lights her throwing knives on fire)
(Key attacks wyatt with flaming throwing knife)
nsAeedKMthrowing knife
(shallow cut on bicep, 3.5)
1-50
(+0)

throwing knife�1-50

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Two days prior I had spent twenty-four hours with the girl from three, her mentality falling to unsalvageable pieces as Stella Summit’s cannon sounded in a distance just at fingertip’s length. Sue had been determined to offer comfort where there was truly none to be found— it’s a stark symptom of desperation to cling to any tactile reminders of lost sanity in order to bring back that which cannot be found. Two days prior and my axe had struck spine and mind of a mechanical Sue Tate, gears and wires of a different kind severed by metal of a similar suit.

Two seconds and a half thought that his cannon would sound in the same manner my breath had been held until Sue Tate broke in an identical manner, fallen to quivering knees and ripping out sanity like severed veins, his chest had become hollow with the emptying of his counterpart’s. Broken boy and a grieving girl they were problems that I could not solve, souls of a pair determined to build the righteous up by tearing apart any stone of sanity left unturned.

Violence to fill the vicinity their initial exchange had been a mixed drink of two parts remorse and one part hatred, burning their throats as it went down they had fallen to the night with the idea that either could be saved. Yet Sue Tate was dead and Kiena Ward strays into the corner of my focus as the axe hand falls from my hand, sinking into her back with the flicker of a flame— never friend; never foe.

I do not apologize, only met with the response of her knife skimming across skin that’s seen the surrender flag one time too many. A war hanging in the balance by a thread thinner than the two of our sanities combined I meet her gaze for a moment longer than expected and let the second axe hang at my side like an extension of an arm I no longer see as my own.

Broken bones and singed skin— no longer eleven pages crumpled by the same hands.

A quiver for the quiet I watch her as if to forget a memory that is singed into my skin like that which matches upon hers. I wish to forget while she wishes for a future, two hands holding to the same blade but neither willing to strike in the silence. Sue Tate and Stella Summit’s cannons between us I see them at fingertip’s distance away— I heard horror stories of homegrown love weeded by hatred and horror.

Axe handle flickering at my side like a flame that can no longer be fueled I never broke her gaze, “I was with him when he died.” Solitary silence to fill the seconds that pass the heat of the axe threatens my skin with the reminder of the ashes she flung in my direction just moments prior, “The girl from two, she killed him only to kill herself— one death in the dark and one left to be seen.”

I raise an axe to watch my reflection in the metal overshadowed by flames of a different shade, “I’d never want to die in the dark, Kiena.”

[wyatt o'connor attacks kiena ward; flaming throwing axe]
aN6koPDXthrowing axe
[shallow cut on thigh-- 3.5]

1-50
[+0]

throwing axe�1-50

[Stare]

147:59:48

it's down to me and you
in this cold and empty room
forgotten what we're dying for

Wyatt O'Connor was with him when he died. Somehow this doesn't surprise me - he was there in the beginning so of course he would be there for the end, just like I was for Rowan and Simon and Stella. And yet somewhere deep within me, locked away from the world, it just feels wrong because Wyatt was the one who left first. I would have stayed with Sue until his last breath if he'd have let me, but he didn't and that had to be okay because I didn't want to be the one who landed the death blow and shatter him just like our vase. But it doesn't feel right, that I wasn't there. That instead I was kissing a boy who swore to kill him, to kill us all.

"I'd never want to die in the dark, Kiena."

He wasn't with us in that final moment when Sue uttered Key and my life was torn to shreds. He doesn't know me by any other name and with a start I realize that I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful to not have memories attached to a face. In this Arena I recognize the small mercy on the part of the Gamemakers of not making me fight Kirito again. Kiena. Not even my own parents called me that, but here it seems that the only person who calls me Key is my worst enemy. And I'm glad it isn't him that plans on burning me alive. I'm glad it isn't him that I'm driving my knives into.

That smaller part of me tugs on its constraints, and I feel it echoing within me like the clanging of shackles within a prison cell. I frown and shove it back down - I cannot lose myself again, not like I did with Kiri - but it still fights, an insistent pull in the back of my mind. My shattered morality trying to see the light again, trying to bring back memories of Stella's dead body and my shaking hands. Wyatt protected you when you were small and weak. My jaw tightens.

I suppose it's a good thing I'm not small and weak anymore.

My lips draw back into a snarl, cold and foreign on my face. "I don't care," I say softly, slowly, fingers tightening around my blade. "Sue is dead, Wyatt. Why the hell do you think I'd want to know how it happened? It makes no difference to me." Bitter lies to hide an even more bitter truth - that I care more than I'd like to admit, that I'm putting the pieces together and realizing that the scream I heard yesterday was her scream. The girl who killed Sue. And I can't feel angry with her like I did with Kiri. Instead, I just feel sad for the loss of two more lives.

I'm bleeding like Stella and burning like Simon but I don't want to die like Rowan - Ripred, I'm scared. I'm clinging to the only thing I have left. And I know that Wyatt doesn't understand. He has his own things to worry about and I don't expect sympathy, don't deserve it. Preston died alone because I wasn't selfless enough to stay with him; Asher died in the dark because I took my light with him when I left. "There's no good way to die," I tell him, because I'm so sick of bleeding lies. A lesson I learned from Sue. "Either way you end up dead."

just tell me what to change
just tell me what to say
'cause i can't feel it anymore


(key attacks wyatt with flaming throwing knife)
HEnNnTLwthrowing knife
(miss, 0.0)
1-50
(+4.0)


(accuracy reroll)
throwing knife
(shallow cut on cheek, 3.5)

throwing knife�1-50�throwing knife

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

"I don’t care, Sue is dead, Wyatt.”

Two names unrelated I cringe at the first and numb at the second, eight letters I never wanted to see in correlation my throat tightens at the mention of my oblivious nature to a situation she could not understand. Blood boiling and bones breaking I open my mouth to speak but am instead caught off by anger disguised in a cloak labeled ‘arbitrary to common nature.’

“Why the hell do you think I’d want to know how it happened? It makes no difference to me.” Loosened grip on slick blade my chest tightens at words laced in lies, drowned in the idea that to live was to fall and to fall was to live. This was not a second chance nature— no forgiveness in the idea of a hardened heart.

She strikes, a simple scratch against marred skin and one hundred and three etches itself across my chest like false advertising, a reminder of the inevitable I press a palm to dripping blood and pretend sweat in the wound does not sting like salt— “There’s no good way to die,” Complications to simple nature she continues, a cannon on the sound of the living was quite out of the ordinary, “either way you end up dead.”

Complexity unraveled I hold the axe at arm’s length, weapon of choice in a hand that had lost its nature for help the first day. Victors do not come from district six and neither will I, for the graveyard will flourish with my decency to the deceased, but that does not lend to the idea that preference is not an option. “I spent five years carving an existence on my bedroom walls— reminders, if you will, of that which was human and that which was fallible.”

Reflections turned to resurrection I see Sue Tate’s face in place of my own, faded to Noah Bowers and Maya Xiaoqing— no rest for the righteous, but I am not, left to play the part of a lie lingering in my lungs like second hand smoke. “Five years is a long time for a boy who’s only lived eighteen.” Carved into existence by a hand that cannot be held steady the axe in my hand quivers with quiet loss of sanity— we do not realize things are missing until their lack of existence leaves a void that cannot be filled by the material.

Sweaty palms and straining voice I point the tip of the axe at the space between her lungs, where a heart would sit if a heart was to be had, “So when you tell me that all death ends up the same in the end I cannot help but wonder what death you have been watching for the past seven days, because if you had been paying attention, you would know that death itself is not the time that is remembered by any, it’s the moments that lead to it.”

Free hand missing a thumb since the first day spent with gears turning and mind quivering I raise my index finger to space below a clenched jaw, “In those final moments,” Quick line against sensitive skin I shiver at the touch left behind by the line drawn across a throat spitting sin, “I would like to go quickly.”

[wyatt o'connor attacks kiena ward; flaming throwing axe]
l9xRzvvhthrowing axe
[bruised head-- 3.5]

1-50
[+2]

throwing axe�1-50

[Stare]

148:00:14

come into the world
alone
and you go out of the world
alone

For someone who wants to die quickly, Wyatt is a phenomenally slow killer.

I grit my teeth against the pain, but it’s not enough. I can feel my inner functions beginning to fade, my heartbeat becoming more and more frantic. It is a butterfly in my chest desperately trying to break free, beating against my ribcage desperately. I nearly reach my hand up to hold it in, grimacing at the way my blood splatters against the ground. A part of me murmurs to just give up, to drop my blades and let him deliver the killing blow if he’ll be so merciful, but the stronger part is dead terrified of the emptiness that I know awaits me beyond those moments. I know I’m dying, but I’ve come too far to give up now. Rhyme, Stella, Preston - they deserve to know that I went out fighting, too.

But his words set something ablaze in my chest, a distant memory brought back to light. Our lives should never be measured by the way we died. But the newborn honesty within me reminds me that even if that’s not how it should be, that’s how it will be. I will be remembered not because I was an awkward girl whose parents died that lived in a clocktower for most of her life. I will be remembered because I died young and in a Quell. Because I was a girl from District Three who made it farther than she should have, because I kissed my worst enemy and killed my best friend.

I don’t want to be remembered because I died. I don’t want to tie my life to hours, minutes, seconds spent in this damn Arena. I want to tie my lives to moments. I want to be remembered because I was always the first one that rose in the district and I saw nearly every sunrise, gripping the rusty framework of a tower that seemed nearly as old as time itself. I want to be remembered because I spent hours at night in the candlelight trying to figure out how I could fly someday. I want to be remembered because I was born among the stars. I want to be remembered for my potential and not everything that I lost. But more than anything, I don’t want to have to be remembered.

I don’t want to die.

And for the first time in days, I do not blame death on the killers. I think I’m starting to finally understand the mechanism of this Arena and who it is that flips the switches. We kill each other because we are simply parts of the machine. My eyes dart up toward the false sky and flash, the fire spreading in my chest. (Icarus died because he burned. Be careful not to fly too close to the sun.) It’s too late. I’m already burning. And so I shake my head a bit before meeting his gaze, a wry smile tugging at my lips. “You know that I’m one of them?” I jut my chin upward, hoping he understands that I refer to the puppetmasters pulling our strings. A scoff escapes me. “The result of some affair. She dumped me off in Three as soon as they landed.” I’m one of them. The words make me feel nauseous.

I stagger forward a step and my blood looks black when it hits the ground. The world feels unsteady and blurry, difficult to translate, but when I look at him it feels like nothing could be more clear than it is in this moment. “They’re power hungry animals,” I state, because they can’t hurt me now. Nothing could be worse than the fate I’m about to endure. I shrug, and my laugh sounds slightly unhinged. “Let ‘em eat if they want to. It’s too late for us, anyway.”

the days and nights are killing me
the light and dark are still in me
but there's an anger on the beach
so let the wind blow hard
and wear the falling stars


(key attacks wyatt with flaming throwing knife)
xLn9vCfJthrowing knife
(knife in stomach, 6.5)
1-50
(+4.0)

throwing knife�1-50

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

"You know that I’m one of them.”

Deranged, devastated, defiant— Kiena Ward takes my strike in stride and snaps the last string of sanity that ties me to the ground beneath my feet. No longer weighted by heavy stones around broken ankles I feel blood rush from my stomach and char to the spot, tattooed across smooth skin like a reminder that repentance is for the righteous and neither of us are liable to fill the role. Similar to my mother’s sway of speech with the idea that it was acceptable to declare the endpoints and never the equation Kiena Ward leaves me to fill in the blanks to a problem that is not my own, for identity is a card best played at the start of a hand and I’ve been shuffling the cards for seven days straight.

She never stood a chance when I had had the ace of spades up my sleeve the entire time.

Play back on my side of the table she continues as I hide my cards in the open wound, blood flow attempted to stop when paper thin cuts threaten my sanity with pain that singes at the edges but numbs at the center, “The result of some affair. She dumped me off in Three as soon as they landed.”

No sympathy for the sinful— she killed Stella Summit; she sent Sue Tate spiraling into insanity at the cost of another cannon sounding above her own screams. Sympathy for the silent— victims of a truly victimless crime we both attempted to state the arbitrary when we initiated innocence.

The only difference between Kiena Ward and Wyatt O’Connor was how you decided to decipher the letters, spelling secondary to the idea of killing for a cause— only the endpoints; never the equation, we would be the musicians of death’s hymn regardless.

“They’re power hungry animals, let ‘em eat if they want to. It’s too late for us anyway.”

Head shaking blood rolls across torn skin like a catch in the gorge, always falling but never landing my broken bones cannot give way to the blues any longer. Breaking is a process that reaches its point of intensity when the pressure becomes too great of a strain, and when Kiena Ward’s knife sinks into my stomach like a sickness I cannot cut out— poison runs through our veins and exits from our fingertips as if that which falls from our lips is not enough.

Conceptual concentration I let the axe hang at my side limply, tired muscles giving way to fatigue in failure and I cannot bring my gaze to rest on the point between her eyes, “There is never such a moment as the present, Kiena Ward, for every moment we spend acknowledging the present is just another split-second of paying homage to the past.” Never allowed to live in the time I wished I choke on the seconds of silence that split the space that separates us, “You tell me that it’s too late for you or I, but if every moment is lost to the past, prior, previous time we’ve spent thinking of it, when did we ever stand a sliver of a chance?” We can never be late if we were never present to begin with.”

[wyatt o'connor attacks kiena ward; flaming throwing axe]
JuMWLJFgthrowing axe
[shallow cut on calf-- 3.5]

1-50
[+4]

throwing axe�1-50

[Stare]

148:00:39

i pirouette in the dark
i see the stars through a mirror
tired mechanical heart
beats 'til the song disappears

(I’ll hold it off, go!)

(I once read a story about a little girl.)

(Why can’t you fix anything, Kiena?)

A breath staggers in, and then one - two - three - out. Every inhale is a gasp, lighting my entire world on fire. I see lights behind my eyes, flashing with every movement I make. Somehow, I always thought death would be quieter. I never imagined so much violence, so much pain. I thought it would be slow and gentle or harsh but quick. Never did I imagine this hell in which I stumble forward, half-alive and listening to the voices of people who are long gone and waiting for me on the other side. And even though I know that death was never supposed to be pretty I thought at least that it would be clean, with a slash and then a sense of finality. This death is ugly and incomplete and messy, like an inkblot at the end of calligraphy.

And I suppose I also thought that death would come alone. I thought it was a solitary thing, a single cold hand that would reach from the darkness. But now that I see it in the corners of my vision, I realize that it bring all of my sins with it. They rise like corpses from the grave, trembling and angry, and they, too, reach for me with their ugly grasping fingers. Every breath I take aids me in just narrowly dancing away from their touch, keeping strung to life but just barely.

(I… I don’t want to go. There’s still so much more left to be said. To be done.)

But another part, deep within me, sighs.

(It’s time.)

I fight it. I take deeper breaths and try to hold the blood in with my hands, hating the way it seeps through my fingers. Hating the way I can feel my mortality so easily as it slips away. I am a jittering machine, smoke trailing black in my wake. I am a dying mechanism, functions slowly beginning to shut down. My vision blurs in and out and then in again. My limbs don’t work quite the way I want them to. I am Icarus, for I have flown too close to the sun and now I am alight, and I take no comfort in the fact that he is struggling just as much as I am. The only difference is that he isn’t plummeting from the clouds like I am.

So eloquent. I used to love words - I would stay up with Papa and read the dictionary if he let me, and we’d learn all kind of new things. I used to speak like a proper lady. After he died the words died with him and I took on the pauper accent, the one that defines me as a clockwork girl and nothing else. The fascination never left, though. I would stay up for hours and read tattered books, the only kind I could afford. They were adventure stories about hot air balloons and daring rescues and brilliant minds. Poetry, fantasy, non-fiction - if I could get my hands on it I would devour it. I was an analytical thinker, sure, but I was also a creative soul.

But I can’t speak like I used to. So how do I respond to such profound thinking? My mind is clouded and untrusting of itself, preparing for death even as my body so desperately fights it. I nearly topple over when I lurch forward, crying out and then looking up at him pathetically. “I don’t care about any of it anymore, Wyatt. I just… I don’t want to go home in a box. I’m scared.”

But I don’t surrender. I gather myself together (again) and put what’s left of me into one last shot at life.

if only the clockwork could speak
i wouldn't be so alone
we'd burn every magnet and spring
and spiral into the unknown


(key attacks wyatt with flaming throwing knife)
AwxnfRHathrowing knife
(severed finger, 8.5)
1-50
(+0.0)

throwing knife�1-50

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Terror in true form her words tear at loose skin and leave it dangling from broken bones—the body of a bruised boy only holds up as long as the strongest attack allows it. “I don’t care about it anymore, Wyatt. I just… I don’t want to go home in a box.” Anger turned to arrogance the thought of adrenaline fades with that of pain and leaves me staggering towards her before two words halt me in my path, “I’m scared.” Never fear for those at fault anger shakes from my fingertips like red paint of a different shade than that which streamed down my skin in the prior seconds.

Throwing axe thrown down I discard death’s defiance in order to stamp out the last flickers of a flame long faded, instead pulling Stella Summit’s spear from its place of storage. Staggering towards the summit of a mountain I cannot climb my voice takes its place and rises instead, “It does not matter to me what you care about in the slightest, but it matters to me, Kiena Ward” Catch of breath on the evening air there is a sun that will sink below the horizon in order to accompany one of our deaths. Shaking step in what is possibly the worst direction my breaths linger on each syllable as it falls, “You aren’t the only one dying— think of who you’ve already killed and who may be next.”

Smoke filling my lungs I long for clean air and a cleaner conscience, “Selfishness is a dangerous trait to wear upon your sleeve.” Self-loathing in my heart— there is a monologue to paint upon the bloody ground and claim it as my own when my cannon sounds as background noise, the narcissistic needs of a boy who laid his existence upon a wall he would never set a palm on again.

“I care, Kiena Ward. Not about you; not about whoever is left to stand when the sun sets tonight, but I care, because death is distant on the list of items I have figured out and maybe I’m selfish too, but I need a little longer to figure it out.”

Clock rewinding Kiena Ward stands by Sue Tate’s side on day five, killer of a conscience I pray that Stella Summit’s cannon has haunted her ever since, a doomsday call for the damned the point of her spear sinks into my sweaty palms and sways with the passing breeze. Never steady under the odds one hundred and four stings my skin when she strikes, a second finger severed— that which I had used to trace my preferred method of departure across my own skin. No prayers for the powerless my steps stagger into a mixed drink two parts searing pain and one part sympathy— overshadowed by fire that was now smothered at our feet like a memory of yesterday we were determined to forget if it meant tracing our fingers across our throat.

Two steps towards Kiena Ward and death’s play still sinks under murky waters, never clear for victor or fallen on either term.

I do not think that Kiena Ward does not deserve to die; I believe Kiena Ward deserved to be defied.

[wyatt o'connor attacks kiena ward; spear]
xGjF1LZ3spear
[stabbed in stomach-- 9.5]

spear