:| PeΔks .and. ▼alleys |:

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

Even as I slept, I could hear the haunting music of the harp play in my ears, mixed with the soft breaths of my allies. The deeper I went into sleep, the louder the music became until finally I woke with a start and stared into darkness. We had become tangled as a group, somehow a body part on top of another’s, and I saw no reason to disentangle myself from it. It was heat, it was protection, it was comfort. Never did I think I would be able to fall asleep in the arena, but my exhaustion washed over me like a wave and the next time I opened my eyes, there was sunlight.

I watched as Beretta and Harbinger started waking and I crawled over the small space that divided me and Kitty. Looking down, I gave him a smile as I said, “Kitty, wake up. We have to move.” He was fourteen, but it was hard for me to remember that when he crawled into my lap and tucked his head under my chin. I couldn’t help myself, but I ran my fingers through his hair, holding him as he started to wake up. We really did have to move though, and I tried my best to stand up only to be reminded that while Kitty was as much of a cat as his name, he still weighed as much as a small fourteen year old boy. He seemed to have noticed that I had been trying to stand up as he got off my lap and proceeded to carry his bag.

The walk was long, or maybe the fatigue from an incomplete sleep was starting to set in. It didn’t help that the temperature seemed to drop and I found my muscles shivering to try to keep me warm; the energy from that couldn’t have helped my state of mind. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I trusted that at least one of my allies knew and if they didn’t, well, at least all of us were together. There was a moment that I had been scared, scared because while I had Beretta in my sights, I didn’t know where everyone else was. Yet somehow Kitty found us and Harbinger joined later in the night. With Jax still making appearances before disappearing again, I was comforted, a feeling I knew would not lead to my survival in the arena yet I wasn’t ready to let go.

Jax always left as soon as he appeared, only taking the time to rub against my leg or curl up by my feets before fading into thin air. He never allowed my fingers to go near him, but I could always trust that he would reappear in front of me. He was only ever there for reassurances, nudging me to go in a certain direction, but once it became clear that I was not the one leading the group, he would walk away with his tail up high. In fact, it seemed like Kitty was the one who was in charge as he walked ahead, stopped ahead, and stared ahead. He must have sensed something that I didn’t as he drew his weapon, but I followed his movements and held my axe with my stronger arm, trying to see what exactly we were about to face.

[Chloë attacks Sheepish #1; Gallowglass axe]
lv_BmrS5axe
[Deep Gash on Left Forearm ; 8.0 dmg]

axe

[Cato]

Hearing only two cannons yesterday is disheartening. Two lives are lost, but they’ve been set free from the arena. Free from the chains that the Capitol wrapped around them, yet families mourn the loss already. I saw their faces in the sky. One of them was a tiny girl. She couldn’t have been any older than fourteen. I wish I would’ve got to know her or something. But that would only make her death that much harder to deal with. The other guy I never talked to. I had nothing to do with him, but his death. It breaks my heart into pieces.

But I can’t focus on yesterday because today is a new day, and it’s hard to know what the gamemakers have prepared for us. Twenty-one more of us have to die, and that number is so far away from achieving, but in the end it’ll happen. It always happens. Whether we’re in here for seven days or nine days or much longer. It doesn’t matter because in the end only one of us can become a victor. While I want Annora to return home to district eleven alive, I don’t want to die. I want to live, and that’s what keeps me going through the darkest hour of the storm.

But I don’t have much. Just my weapon I managed to snag from the bloodbath. I had to escape before it became horrible because there was blood everywhere. People were fighting like crazy. People were wanting to kill people in order to survive. I hate it. I don’t want to have to kill anyone. I don’t even want to attack anyone, but not attacking would end with me dead, and I can’t manage to just lay down my life for the sake of the tributes in the arena. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to fight me for it. They’ll have to overpower me.

To most it would seem almost impossible, but they don’t know what’s inside of me. They don’t know how much it hurts attacking people. They don’t know the amount of pain living inside of me. Normally, I wouldn’t hurt a fly, however, right now I have no option. I can’t just go on without hurting people. As much as it hurts me on the inside, I have to remain strong. I have to keep going. I have to fight even though I don’t want to. Isn’t that what the Capitol wants to do to us? To punish us by changing us into people we aren’t? It sure seems that way.

Sighing to myself, I keep moving forward not sure if Chloe, Beretta, or Kitty are following me. At this point, I don’t care. I’m just a burden to them. I’m not going to be any help to them. No, I’ll just hold them back with my will to bring Annora home alive. If they knew that’s what I was thinking, would they allow me to keep going with them? Would they allow me to walk beside them? I know I wouldn’t allow myself to do that. But I can’t tell them right now.

As much as I want to break away from them, I need their help. If Annora doesn’t survive, and I don’t survive, I want one of them to return home. They deserve it so much more than I do. And for that I’ll fight alongside them. I’ll become the person they need me to become. I’ll show them that I’m not a burden. At least it’ll appear that way on the outside because on the inside knowing that I could kill someone is eating away at me. I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid of killing someone. I’m afraid of hurting someone, but I can’t, and I won’t let it hold me back. I will look fear in the eye and laugh at it.

OOC Notes
Roll

-harbinger attacks sheepish 2-

Stl|7jhdglaive
13194 -- Severed Head -- 40 damage
glaive

[nell locke d5m [sitter]]

The crash of the ocean against lime rock swallows the vestiges of his nightmare. Kitty gazes blindly up at the dawn sky, hand numb from having clenched the loose cloth of someone's kilt all night. Someone stirs beside him; Kitty blinks and slowly turns his head.

He's surrounded by the warmth of shared body heat - Beretta, Chloë, Harbinger, each of them with eyes shut and breaths steady, untouched by the wicked night. Nearby, the snow cat stretches, letting out a silent yawn before padding closer to the fort they've made with their frames. The cat sniffs Beretta's breath curiously, scenting her like he doesn't trust Kitty's perception of the bloodthirsty girl; his tail weaves slowly through the air while the snow cat pads past Harbinger to fade into the morning's mist.

Bye, Kitty thinks, but it comforts him to know that the snow cat is still out there, watching over him.

He must have fallen asleep again at some point, because he wakes up disoriented and cold. Chloë's face smiles down at him, her words floating around his head: "Kitty, wake up. We have to move." Kitty blinks at her for a long moment, then pulls himself on all fours onto her lap, tucking his head under her chin to hide his face from the light. Her fingers card gently through his hair, lulling his unsettled mind to calm.

It's when she tries to lift him that Kitty urges himself to move. He peels away from her hold, rubbing his eyes with both hands before scooping his backpack into his arms. Steps later he recognizes that carrying a pack in his arms is not prudent in their vigilance, and finally pulls the straps over his shoulders; his footsteps weave in and out, his wandering directed only by the determined strides of those before him.

With the hilly horizon nearing in the distance, Kitty picks up the pace. The sight before him stretches out with miles of deep green grass, shimmering under light and darkening where shadows fell. A smile on his lips, he takes the first step into a run.

But out of the corner of his eye, the snow cat shimmers into sight. Kitty falters, head turned to watch his misty companion; the cat doesn't look back at him, doesn't seem to acknowledge his presence at all. His gaze is fixed upon something in the distance, teeth bared in silent threat.

Kitty draws his weapon and follows the cat's gaze.

They're not alone.

kitty attacks banshee
vbcLVXt7spear
Block -- 0 damage

spear

[L△LIA]

What the sky brings after dark is the afterglow of stars already snuffed out. Perished things lingering in the atmosphere past their time, you blink up at a constellation of dead suns hung in the eyes of a face that is no more. There is a black hole where the lie of those pinprick lights promise otherwise. You saw the halberd strike, watched the life blink out of him, and what you are seeing now is simply the last moment of radiance that remains after a sun has set. He is gone. A girl follows after him, a small smile shooting across the night and into nothingness. You do not make a wish upon it, but someone else does. There is twice as much terror upon the breeze as hope, selfish prayers pleading for home, and it makes you strangely sentimental. Voices of ghosts gone by resonate in your horrible heart as you remember similar strains begging you to let them go free. I want to go home, they pleaded to you. Home is not where you sent them; home is not where you will send these souls either. This choir of Hell sings you to sleep.

Waking without a knife in your back is not coincidence, but careful planning on your part. Kitty is curled upon your lap and, Mother Devil, you run your hand over his hair to thank him for guarding you from the night’s chill. Nuzzling your knees, his snores are soft enough to be endearing and you roll him over gently into Chloe’s side. Despite the way her eyes flutter with panic when she looks at you, she too is sprawled in the grass beside you and beyond is your mighty sentinel, Harbinger. You stand in his shadow as if it is a fortress wall surrounding you, confident in the strategic brilliance of your alliance.

They cling to sleep as you roam the misty hillside, silver sphinx prowling at your heels. She hisses possessively at every snapping twig and rustling blade of grass, pacing circles in the air around you as you pause to pick up a small stone. Slick with dew, it sighs softly as you run your nails across it (back and forth, back and forth) and it’s only after your companion investigates the persistent motion long enough to realize what you’re doing that her anxiety over your safety is calmed. Whether it’s because Circe and Elya’s memories of you are within her too or she sees that your claws are now as sharp as her own, it’s hard to tell, but you are undeniably deadly.

By the time you hear the first sounds of battle, your attention has moved on from your manicure as you use the blade of your spear to painstakingly slice the leather of your belt into long, thin strips. Braiding them together, you pocket the metal buckle and crack the nine-tailed whip against the air to announce your arrival. You are thunder. You are the flare before the strike. You are inevitability itself. It is not a mistake that the others attack before you, front line pawns rushing forth to make way for the commander, for the Queen. Harbinger beheads a mutt with a single strike and you cackle with pleasure, blowing a kiss as you slip past him into the fray. “Perfect.” Your sphinx howls a silent echo of approval, teeth bared at the enemy as your war hammer swings down with a promise of obliteration. When you are done with these mutts, there won’t be anything left of them for the stars to remember.

[picks up a stone]

[sharpens fingernails into claws]

[cuts belt into thin strips of leather with the blade of her pole hammer]

[braids the leather strips into a cat-o-nine-tails]

ATTACKS BANSHEE WITH POLE HAMMER

fkYWUbX6spear

Shallow Cut on Right Thigh — 3.5 damage

spear

[Rosetta]

~Ramsay the Sheepish
Ramsay awoke to his father nipping sharply at his ear; he had overslept again and his father wasn’t happy. With a toss of his orange head, Roose spun around and began to creep along the hill. Taking a moment to stretch, Ramsay yawned then followed him.

Ramsay never quite understood Roose’s devotion to their squad. It wasn’t that Roose, their leader, had any particular feelings for any of them, but as their leader, he seemed to believe it was his and Ramsay’s sole responsibility to acquire meat for the squad. Bring back meat, get the females to eat, watch Roose mate with a new female member of the squad, and then, finally, could Ramsay gets his fill.

Roose suddenly stopped, his fur rippling in a slight wind. Ramsay paused too, following his father’s gaze to where it finally landed: four humans were at the top of the hill, some lying down, others waking up. Roose flashed his teeth, silver and sharp, before continuing his slow stalk up the hill. Ramsay followed, keeping low, staring up at the humans, imagining the softness of their flesh, the meat on their bones. Perhaps if he moved quickly, he could eat part of one before he had to drag the meat back.

His stomach suddenly growled and that’s when they spotted them. The girl that Ramsay had been sizing up had leapt forward with an axe and Ramsay involuntarily whined as his front leg was cut deeply into. Roose gave a low growl in this throat, a low growl is disproval and Ramsay turned his head to face him. His father was staring at him with distaste so intense that no matter how hard Ramsay had tried he found he could not look away. That’s right; he was the disappointing son. Born to the ugliest, smallest mother of the pack, yet Roose’s only surviving son, Ramsay had always been disappointing to Roose. He just simply wasn’t good enough—even when Ramsay brought back the fattest meat, attracted the youngest, most beautiful members of the pack and had grown the strongest. His father simply took it all away from him and tonight Ramsay knew he would be punished, forced to grudgingly enjoy the scraps and mate later, last. How he wanted to sink his teeth into his father’s throat one of these days…and have all the squad to himself.

Someone had read his mind. Some higher being, perhaps, or maybe it was the human boy. Either way, as Roose stared at his son, no doubt deciding a punishment for his moment of weakness, the human had raised his weapon and brought it down. In one clean slice, Roose’s head was detached from his body and rolled to the ground. For a long moment, as the green grass was watered red, Ramsay stared, caught off guard. Then something warm spread deep within him. He was free. The squad was his. Tonight he would have it all…but first he wanted meat and for that, he wanted the girl.

[attacks Chloe, head/blunt]
xGAGicVPblunt
miss


~Lady Stoneheart, the Banshee
She knew when they died; she could smell it. Dead flesh, even moments after death, had a distinct smell. Ripe, yet sour. Soft, yet bitter. And their blood, too. Metallic, thick, loud in her nose.

Ever since her arrival in this beautiful new place, after hours shut in a metal crate on some kind of metal flying device, Lady Stoneheart could smell them everywhere. This place, beautiful, yet deadly, was a death trap. And she grew stronger over it.

She was asleep this time, wings folded around her face, when she smelled it. Yet, fresh, so beautiful. It took her moment, as she unfolded her wings and stretched her talons, but she realized that it smelled familiar…like when her son had passed. Much blood had been spilled. She rose in the air, her song pouring strongly from her throat and flew, wings beating the air as a green hill rolled up in sight, dyed red at the top. Four humans were standing there, attacking a fluffy animal while another lay dead, blood pouring from an open neck, head lying a few inches away. Lady Stoneheart began to descend, to lie next to it, to sing to it, to promise it will be okay—and yet, there it’s killer stood, standing far too close, nearly over it. With a screech in her song, the lady extended her talons to meet his throat.

[attacks Harbinger, talons/knife]
knife
shallow cut on right hip - 3.5 (poisoned)

vvv Ramsay da Sheepish

blunt�knife

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

I had to shut my mind.

I had to block out the pain.

I had to live.

When that wooden block fell from my hands at my private training session, I had realized that my body knew more about myself than my mind ever could. I knew I wasn’t exceptionally smart; I also wasn’t exceptionally strong, but the inhibitor in my mind had to be removed as I thought of my allies. Blocking out the pain meant letting in the emotions, and yet I did not flinch as I sliced at the mutt. My eyes didn’t break focus as I watched its blood start pouring. It is my enemy now.

And I knew he felt the same way as he charged at me like it was only me and him in a circle. I knew better than to stand still as he charged at me and I had somehow managed to spin out of the way before his head could make contact with my body. I saw the other mutt’s head fly; I watched as that fearful creature—more fearful than Beretta—coast in. It seemed only fitting that Beretta would land an attack on the one creature who could incite more fear than her, yet the creature did not go for the girl with the cat eyes but for the boy who had learned how to kill.

I saw her talon make contact with his skin, saw the blood that she drew, and yet I had answered my mutt’s challenge by staring him down and daring him to charge at me again. Words started coming out of my mouth, words that I did not think about, and I allowed myself to loosen my body while tightening my grip on my axe. Would my body answer my call? Would my mind finally shut itself to give me the chance to live?

It was cold, the goosebumps already rising on the surface of my skin as I kept staring him down. Could I really kill? I never answered that question as I swung at the mutt again.

[Chloë attacks Ramsay ; gallowglass axe]
KlwZZoesaxe
[Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder ; 3.5 dmg]

axe

[Cato]

At first it was like nothing had happened. I'm standing here gripping the blade of the poled weapon staring at the mutts in front of me, and the next thing I know it's head rolls from it's body. My entire mind races as I'm brought back to the middle of the private training when I slayed the beast in front of the gamemakers only this time there wasn't any damage done to me. Reaching down towards the ground, I pick it's head up in my hands. Such a cute little thing, really, but it was bread to kill, and for that it had to die.

Tightening my grip on its head, I slam it into the ground before pounding my chest. Right now in this moment, I'm on top of the world. I've done something that I never dreamed possible. "Is that enough for you?" My voice is calm and confident. Fear doesn't control me, and it'll never control me anymore because I am the one they should all fear. But deep inside the fear is eating away at me piece by piece.

And then I heard an awful sound, and I reached to cover my ears from the deafening noise. I felt the small amount of pain before I saw the beast standing next to me. And something is coursing through my veins. I can feel it taking over me. Like it's trying to control me. My entire mind races, and I'm trapped in the pits of not knowing what to do. Poison. It works almost immediately, and I know if I don't get something soon, it'll kill me, and I can't let that happen.

OOC Notes
Roll

-harbinger attacks Ramsay/sheep 1-

zVHW5Y3Uglaive
13057 -- Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damageglaive

[анзие (Anz)]

Heads rolled at the brandishing of Harbinger's strength; one of the orange creatures fell to his knees without a sound. Death, it seemed, came just like that: swift, seemingly painless but for those watching. There is a moment of silence, a second of mourning. Kitty is an onlooker for the animal grief of the other orange mutt, the instant denial that rushed straight into anger. 

Does it make a sound? Kitty doesn't hear. He only sees the thing rush at Chloe, sees Chloe spin aside like a dancer with an overly aggressive partner. She handles him well. She isn't hurt.

Is that enough?

Harbinger, the bringer of-

Something rises wicked in the light of day, and a woman monster unfurls her wings for death. Her voice tears into Kitty's mind; he falters, fumbles, slows. The creature gets Harbinger, her talons drawing a thin line of blood through the cloth of his shirt like a punishment for taking a life. Perhaps it is Death herself, courting life in the only way she knows how.

She can't take him. She can't take any of them. Innocent lives are not hers to choose. They're not trade to be picked out in the market, though what would that say of any them? Kitty knows himself: unwanted, unneeded, no longer fulfilling his purpose to the Capitol. Abandoned. Left to die.

"But I can fight," Kitty whispered in the ear of Aiden Pierce. Aiden shook his head immediately at the very idea of the boy holding a gun in battle. 

"You don't have to," Aiden said. 

Kitty bit his lip, uncertain how to say that he wants to.

kitty attacks lady stoneheart/banshee
9nQmSUArspear
Deep Gash on Right Calf -- 8.0 damage

spear

[L△LIA]

The banshee keens for the scent of death, starsong descending. She is silver born from the edge of midnight. That she has come to haunt the day is a testament to the blood that is being spilled in all directions and you reach out for this angel with both hand and blade, knowing as you aim to kill that you are meeting your equal. Even the sphinx that leaps through the mist around you is overtaken with confusion — this creature is so much like you that it doesn't feel like an enemy so much as a future. One day, this is what you will become.

Harbinger hurls the head of the decapitated mutt at the ground in victory, pounding his chest as if following your footsteps into the land where men become beasts and women their gods. Your whip licks the air with a hiss — snake tongue, parselmouth — of victory, a language of love coming from you. Such a good boy, you giggle with a mother's pride, sweet son of death. Giddy, clapping, distracted from your prey... the banshee slips through your fingers and swoops to attack your new prodigy of destruction.

No.

The world is yours to end. You have missed having others standing side-by-side with you, spilling blood like joining hands, and in this moment not even you are willing to let that die. One day you may become this fearsome, beautiful banshee, but not now. Maybe you will keen for her death. For now you are content to be the cause of it.

ATTACKS BANSHEE WITH POLE HAMMER

zJGWJujqflail

Broken Left Hand — 6.0 damage

flail

[Rosetta]

~Ramsay le Sheepish

Ramsay could feel his life leaving him. Every blow across his furry body left his soul pouring from him, washing over his grass, then his father and then the banshee that had appeared to mourn his father’s death.

With a stab in his chest, Ramsay realized that no one would mourn his death. Not his father (why would he?), not the banshee, not these humans, and not the squad. No one would care for him. Ramsay stumbled, dazed by his blood loss and the thought. No one would care.

Ramsay could not die then.

He had to get out. He had to drag himself back to the pack, dying, but still living. He must let them see him. He must survive. With his last attempt at strength, at valor, at power, Ramsay flew forward, teeth bared.

[attacks Kitty, teeth/knife]
9rlBHgfiknife
what's good?

knife

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

And with another blow she was gone, gone as soon as Beretta swung at her, and then she became mortal.

Yet the battle was not over as the other mutt—my mutt—still stood, although shakily, and had a vengeance in his eyes that I knew could only end in pain. Me, he will hit me. And yet he charged not in my direction but toward the smallest in our alliance, the one who acted more like his namesake than an actual human. How dare he disrespect this dance? How dare he hit Kitty?

Any fear and anxiety I felt had been translated to anger as I stared at the mutt. Once the blood fell in droplets, my chest tightened as I gripped my axe. Not him. Don’t—you can’t. I would prove that he was mortal, mortal as we all were, mortal like the banshee who bowed at Beretta’s feet. We were all condemned to die but so were they, the minute the geneticists decided to cross DNA strains. And I would not let any of them survive longer than I would.

The emotions that swirled in my ever tightening chest were strange, foreign, inexcusable, and yet they knew something about my ability, more than I ever could. I was not a killer—yet was there a possibility that I could be? He’s not human. He has to die. My arm started shaking as my mind started interfering with my body, allowing the Chloë from District 12 to overpower the Chloë trapped in the arena. NO! With the greatest effort my body could afford, I pushed the other girl in my mind aside as I swung at the mutt, re-entering our dance.

[Chloë attacks Ramsay ; gallowglass axe]
_cep7kJAaxe
[Shallow Cut on Right Forearm ; 3.5 dmg]

axe

[Cato]

I don't know what's going on. My entire body feels strange like a poison is rolling through me. It feels like my insides are twisting together, and my life is threatening to leave me. It's like a fog is forming around me as I try to make sure my allies are alright. I want to save them, to help them, but something is preventing me from doing so. The colors of the world are blurring together. Elidor can't see colors, and I don't want to be like him. I love the colors of the world. The sunrise and sunsets. The crops of district eleven. A bonfire created by Elidor for everyone to gather around and share stories and sing just to forget about the harsh world around us. Oh how I long for that right now. But arms are shaking. My legs are quivering. But I only see one mutt and Chloe is taking care of that. It feels like poison is taking over my brain. An icy chill eats at my blood freezing it in place.

Lifting the poled weapon, I try to move away. I try to take it easy. To go away from this before anymore mutts come. It's hard moving away. It's hard to know if they're alright or not. I just know that I need help. Breathing is hard. My heart is racing. Looking around trying to gather my bearings, I'm not sure what to do until I hear the tinkering of a parachute in the sky. I search for it trying to find it because I don't want my mind to be playing tricks on me. When I see the parachute on the ground, I run towards it stumbling around like a drunk man, but I keep going until it's in my hands. Looking at the name, I try to calm down. To make the world a better place. To control the venom coursing through me. Antivenom. Removing the needle from inside, I inject the liquid into my body, and immediately feel relief as my body shakes ridding the toxin. Looking towards the sky, I whisper a thank you to Kirito and Kate because they just proved they care.

OOC Notes
Flees the fight
Uses Antivenom
Uses first aid on self
Gathers plants
More to come in trib maint

[анзие (Anz)]

filler filler filler whoops sorry pythor

kitty flees the fight
-- performs first aid on himself
-- more to come in trib maint

[L△LIA]

fa on kitty

MAKES A BAJILLION THINGS OUT OF BANSHEE AND SHEEPISH BONES AND GUTS

see trib maint c:

dowsing rod

mwGn|Dr81-3

1-3