i'll use you as a warning sign. // pillar v. sam, day six.

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

The mountain collapses. I with it.

De ja vu, awaking to creaks and rumbling from below. Hell, furious. Desperate. I hear it calling my name. Part of me wants to sink into it's embrace, to have this all be done with, the same part of me that pushed me to the edge of the rooftop and threatened to send me to the ground. The other part of me wants to outrun death. 

I listen to that part.

The ground shakes, I follow it's lead. Slipping forward, balance a myth, I tumble towards my weapon as it slips away, hungry hands clawing at the dirt, too far away, too fast to follow.

"Shit!"

I watch my chance at survival fall away, left with nothing but my bag and my bare hands.

A boulder smacks in to the back of me and I let it drag me down, defeat heavy against my chest. Great cracks on the mountain side open wide, inviting - I press on. Back on my feet again I sprint, watching the ground swallow in to itself, trunks of trees ripped from the earth and scattered in my path. Burning chest, breathing ragged, stumbling and falling, knocked down, get back up, knocked down, get back up, knocked down, get back up-

I reach the bottom, somehow, and fall to the grassy plain below.

The sky, blue as ever, as if the torrential downpour of before never existed. I look up to the clouds and breathe in, out, alive, still. Silence. Time to breathe, think, remember-

I couldn't save him.

Swallowing pain, I blink back tears as it scorches my throat, flame nestling inside of my chest. I'll save that rage for later.

Perhaps it was a dream. I didn't see him in the sky. But I don't remember seeing any faces in the sky that night, only feeling the echoes of their canon fire rapid in my chest. That reminds me that they're gone. That reminds me I'm still alive.

After a while,when their ghosts settle in my rib cage to dull throbs and my lungs learn how to breathe again, reason comes back to haunt me. It is easy to lie here, wait for death, whether it be mine or someone elses. But I've never taken the easy route, so I rise - perhaps for the last time.

Yellow blur on the horizon, I see her before she sees me. Friend, foe, one in the same. Hell, home, one in the same. The absence of a weapon in my hand clutches tight in my mind - the absence of Reese in the other clutches at my heart.

Courageous, stupid, both - I approach her with caution and then  throw it to the wind.

"Who killed him?" I beg, fire in my chest, voice charred and hollow. (I don't sound like myself.)

"Who killed him, Pillar?"

I wait for her own name.

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
exmAVfBTunarmed
bruised foot, 2 damage

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The sun's light reflects off of the fog that rises around her — serving as a contradiction against the expanse of clear blue that spreads out above her head. Tired eyes watch the pale yellow wisps that slide across the cloudy surface of the lake, and she finds that there is a certain kind of peace to be felt within this place. That morning had been her first time waking up in the arena alone, but in all truth, there hadn't been much of a slumber for her to wake from.

Faces had glared at her from their shelter among the stars, and she had steeled herself against the urge to flinch. When the blind boy looked down at her with eyes that could suddenly see again, condemning her for not being there to save him, she had answered his accusations by turning onto her side with a hollow sigh. She closed her eyes after counting to seven

— and she finally passed out from exhaustion an hour later.

Now she sits on the shore of the Fog Lake, feeling safe in spite of herself. She's a warrior on her own, no army to fight alongside, but she trusts in herself enough to walk through the dark forest with no one to keep her company. The serpents wrap around her wrists and the beasts bite at her heels, but girls are not born from sugar and kind men making love to broken angels — this one has acid coursing through her veins, and there's a set of fangs hiding behind her pink lips. A gold heart weighs heavily in her chest, but even the softest of girls can leave scars. 

She stands up once she finishes tightening the straps of her shin guards, placing on her layers of armor after she had stripped free of them in the night. She realizes with a weak smirk that being reckless is what makes her feel brave — not stealing the lives of terrified children. Lying alone with her body unprotected had released a bird from the cage of her ribs, and it had flapped frantically against her lungs and lodged itself in her throat. Any second and the wolves could have come for her — but they know how recognize one of their own, and she knows no fear. Porcelain skin becomes iron, and she thinks herself invincible. 

And yet she doesn't hear the footsteps until they're right behind her, though she doesn't waste the effort needed to turn fully around to face the intruder. Hands run themselves through loose hair, looking over her shoulder into the face of a girl that she had lost the day prior. Lips part as if wanting to smile in greeting, but venom is spit at her face — and the warmth drains away from her cheeks within seconds. "Who killed him?" Samira begs to know, looking as if she's somewhere between shattered and unbreakable 

— and girls are a confusing thing, aren't they? 

"Who killed him, Pillar?"

— "The boy from Eight. It was a quick death, though.
I saw his body."

Then a bare fist flies forward and collides with Pillar's boot as the younger girl twists and jumps away with a shocked gasp. She looks at her former friend with a frown, leaning down to pick up her sword without missing a beat. If Samira wants to wage a war with her nothing but her hands, then Pillar has no problem with bringing a blade to the battlefield. She'll end the destruction before it can begin.

"I know that I wasn't able to save him, Sam — but neither were you. And maybe I wasn't the one who killed him—"

her sword swings, hungry and all too used to death

"— but I will kill you."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
h56Xvx_Jsword
[ Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

"The boy from Eight."

Samira Hart, kisses boys and makes them cry. Kisses boys and makes them die. Kisses boys and makes them murderers. I've kissed dead boys and killers and everything in-between. I've kissed on the brink of death, kissed empty air, kissed in the dead of night. Tasted of regret, pulled away, walked away.

Watched them tear each-other to pieces.

"I saw his body."

Fists of fury, I clench my fingers tight. Blink -- I'm back on the mountain in the pouring rain, washing away every trace of him from my skin. Blink -- Pillar and her pawns, two slain in battle. One lost, one found, eyeing her sword warily.

She could be lying. I wouldn't be surprised. To trust a Career is to jump off of the roof of a building (Career boy - ting, ting, ting against the shield in the sky) and pray you'll land on your feet. I've never been religious but here stands and angel dressed in white, blindingly so, and yet I see right through to the darkness underneath her skin.

"So did I."

"I know that I wasn't able to save him, Sam — but neither were you."

"Don't-" I gasp, shock to the heart. "Don't you dare-"

"And maybe I wasn't the one who killed him, but I will kill you."

When her blade finds my back I laugh, welcoming her pain. Grafts of broken skin burst open once more, a reminder of my strength. That I will heal. That I will fight. That I will get back up again.

"What," I spit, blood gurgling in my throat, "you're gonna stab a girl in the back when she can't defend herself?"

Gaze set to kill, I look to her own and see nothing behind her eyes. 

Heartless bitch.

"I didn't take you for brave, Pillar, but I never took you for a coward."

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
Zun9U5Bnunarmed
Gash/Bruised Left Wrist -- 3.0 damage

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The big bad wolf snarls when the girl in the red cloak breaks the script by standing her ground without a flinch — and Pillar recognizes that Samira's actions are driven solely by pain and emotion, but she's spent so many years being kicked while already down on her knees that she refuses to lose her footing ever again. The earth is no home of hers

— it's the stars that she looks to with longing.

Samira paints her as a villain, and Pillar looks down at the sword that she's stabbed into her former friend's back with a look of confusion — because the blood dripping from the blade should be used as a warning sign of the monster that she's made of herself, but she sees only the survival that is involved with damnation. A bone shatters and a body burns away to nothing — and she knows that she's kept herself alive.

Samira can fault her for surviving all that she wants, but Pillar has no time to listen to a dead girl who is desperately searching for a reason to call herself brave.

"No," the younger girl starts with a dry inhale, raising her hand up to dodge another punch before it can hit her in an unprotected area. "Sam, if playing the victim is all that you're able to do, then I'm sorry for that — but you need to stop bringing me into your little delusions, okay?" She grits her teeth, stepping forward.

"Think of me as the wicked witch if you want, but I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to hold your hand, or to listen as you cry your little heart out over everything that's gone wrong — Reese is dead. What did you think you were you going to do? Die for him to win? You're the dragon in your own story, Sam. You're the beast that's out lurking in the woods."

A sword is pointed in Samira's direction, blue eyes glaring

— "If you're going to stand up to your killer, then find a way to look at your own reflection."

She circles around the girl from Five, breathing in and holding the warmth within her chest until it starts to ache. She feels the weight of her sword within her hand, looking down to see the torn leather of her gloves. Her boot is dented, giving her the illusion of a slight limp when she walks, but Pillar has never felt stronger. Words can cut her straight to the bone, but they don't leave scars. She won't bleed for Sam

— for anyone.

She goes to address the accusation of being a coward, but then she notices the photograph that's lying on the ground in front of her. She bends down to snatch it with furrowed brows, flipping it over to inspect it. She sees two girls, both similar enough in appearance to Sam that Pillar knows she's looking at the girl's sisters without needing to ask. She smiles, and maybe her next words are fuelled by cowardice, but she doesn't hesitate to vomit up the acid that is building up within her.

"These are your sisters, right?"

a hollow laugh comes out, eyes finding Sam's own

— "I guess that makes two more people you can't save."

She lets the photo fall, the wind carrying it to Samira's feet.

"Stop torturing yourself, Sam."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
_vNTK|CKsword
[ Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

Silver pierces open my skin again and this time I scream, blinded by pain. I resurface to a spectrum of light and life pouring from my body in the colour red. Her hair is gold. That's all I can focus on. Gold, and it dances in the sunlit breeze. Angelic, almost.

Then she speaks, and a hell I am all too used to spills from her mouth.

"Reese is dead-"

"Don't!" I spit back fire - she should be used to the taste by now. "Don't act like you give a shit!"

"If you're going to stand up to your killer, then find a way to look at your own reflection."

That makes me laugh.

Blood splatters at her shoes from my mouth and I stand, albeit trembling. My eyes raise from the gash in my leg to meet hers.

"Empty shell of a girl?"

The corner of my mouth twitches.

"I'm looking right at her."

And then she plucks out my heartstrings from deep within my chest, feel my rib cage cave in, eyes wide with horror at her act. Two faces, two souls, two reminders of home - she holds my heart out in her hands for all the world to see.

"These are your sisters, right?"

Inferno - white noise in my chest, my ears, my lungs.

I won't let her hurt them.

I lunge, frantic, but she's too quick - all I snatch at is thin air, the photograph darting through my vision

Now it's her turn to laugh.

"I guess that makes two more people you can't save."

Their faces float to the ground, I catch at them, bring them back to safety. Then I spit in Pillar's face, all saliva and blood and hatred - red looks good on her.

"Fuck you."

"Stop torturing yourself, Sam."

"Says the girl with her sword in my leg" I heave, chasms forming in my lungs. "But that's how you were made, right?" I spit, again, acid bubbling in my mouth - it tastes like blood. "Can't tell torture from play?"

And yet her words resonate somewhere deep within me. In the echoes of the porcelain girl on the floor of a bathroom stall, all self-loathing and hatred and dancing on the brink. In the broken girl with a knife at her skin, red and brown and stitches, bursting, healing, bursting, healing, tortured soul inside and out. In the girl on the mountain top, what could have been ripped away to the sky, Reese's death in my hands that pushed him away.

"At least I can admit I'm a terrible person."

Gaze turned down on me with pity. It's like I knew it would end like this: her blade against my skin, watching my life spill into the water, washed away by the currents until I'm no more. Fighter thinking she could survive, beat black and blue, pummeled to the ground where I belong. Sam the wounded, Pillar the soldier, bloodshed and battleground and a no-man's land beyond us both.

But I am no soldier. Despite all of this, I can see the sun rising again in the morning. I can see hope, in the face of Death with his hands outstretched above us both, playing puppet-show with his little Career. Killer in her veins, victory in her name -- all for show. All for a sick, sick show.

"You're blinded, Pillar."

Soldier Seventy-Five. If she wins, soldier Seventy-Six. If she dies, Soldier Seventy-Seven. Born and bred in a sea of blood they follow orders from birth, pumped full of toxins before they can learn to walk or talk, become their own people, make their own decisions. Perhaps Pillar would have been kind, had she been given the chance. A life, a purpose, stolen, all for a taste of greatness. But they will not stop, they will not care, whether she wins or dies she will never be good enough.

But I'm good enough for me.

"That's how you were made."

And I pity her.

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
A8iPEnTEunarmed
miss 0

accuracy day 6
unarmed
daaaaaaaaamn samuel, back at it again with the double miss!!!!
zero baby!!!

unarmed�unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

It's not until Samira spits red into her face that she flinches, stumbling back with a muffled grunt of disgust — because she can handle slicing open a corpse, and she's fine with shattering a dying girl's resolve with the use of sharp words, but the blood and spit now dripping down her chin is the realest thing that could have left Samira's mouth. Because words are just words in the end, and Pillar's spent so many years failing to live up to the expectations of others that she's learned to love the scripture of only one holy book — and the pages are her skin, with psalms trailing down her wrists. Each parting of her lips is the beginning of a new chapter, and it took hating the girl she saw in the mirror each morning to find her genesis, but she finally has: she's found love of self, and Samira Hart can't take that away from her. Sam's tongue is made of rusted steel, and it's harsh and it's poisonous — but a silver tongue makes for a quicker, cleaner slice.

Pillar wipes Samira's mess away from her face with her sleeve, tightening her grip on her sword until her fingertips burn a blistered shade of white. She doesn't regret what she said — and perhaps she should, but she's not able to apologize for it. It's not like with what she told Hyacinth the day prior; that was just some sarcastic jab meant to unnerve her competition. Her words to Sam had been a raw and valid critique. She's able to admit to her mistakes, to let the warmth inside of her come out when it's not being threatened, but Samira Hart is a storm of raging winds and Pillar refuses to get too close. If the girl wants to see her as a monster, wants to rip away her skin and only see the number of her district that's branded on her skeleton, then she won't fault her for it. 

But that doesn't mean she'll stand for it.

Samira's next swings are easy enough to dodge, like stepping away from a rabid animal's gnashing fangs and waiting for it to tire itself out. Pillar finds herself wondering whether she'll get the kill or not — because Samira's throat could just as easily swell shut from all the bile that's pouring out. And maybe she'd watch her suffocate without batting an eye, and maybe she'd put her out of her misery within seconds — but she doesn't know, and Samira's left is not hers to worry over. She shakes her head, blowing a stray strand of blonde hair out of her face. 

"Torture from play?" she laughs in mockery of the words, swallowing the taste of salt in her mouth instead of spitting it out. "I don't think you got the memo that this is literally a game. And it's sick and it's twisted, but I thought we both knew what we were getting ourselves into when we were reaped. Did you expect something sweeter than this? A little romance between you and the boy from Seven? Being told that this was all just some elaborate joke halfway through, and that the both of you would get to go home and start a family together wherever you'd want to — something like that, maybe? Grow the hell up, Samira. You can say whatever you want about me, but it doesn't matter. I'm not doing this because I'm a career, or because I'm a Fray — I'm doing this because I want to live, Sam, and I thought you did, too. You're such a hypocrite. If it were me bleeding right now and you standing tall over me, I think you'd be singing a different tune."

Pillar walks forward, taking time to catch her breath and getting dangerously close to the howling wolf — but she's not afraid. "Sam, I'm not going to die for you. I knew from the start that I would put myself before all of my allies. I'm sorry if you think I'm a heartless bitch; and maybe I actually am a monster," she goes on before bringing up a finger to point in Samira's face. "But I cared. I'm human, Sam, and I fucking cared about all of you. Reese, Myara — everyone I got the chance to know. But I was ready for them to die, and I can get over it. But it'd do you well to remember, who stayed by your side the first night in the arena? Who stitched your wounds and brought you back from almost dying? Who carried you all the way to shelter on her own? Was it Reese? Or, oh — oh, dear. It wasn't Reese, was it? He went to help Myara over you, didn't he? Went off and left you there to die, yeah? Reese made everyone feel like he loved them; he showed everyone who smiled at him some level of caring. And if a dying boy with a virgin smile was enough to make you feel special, then good for you. But he screwed you over in the end."

Pillar thrusts her sword out without warning, face snarling despite the softness of her words

— "Count how many stitches I gave you compared to him;

and maybe I'm not as horrible as you want me to be."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
RX18kDnvsword
[ Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

She tries to cut me in two but I'm already in pieces.

Heart, mountain top. Mind, cornucopia. Hands, clasped to a dead boy. Lips, on his killer. Soul, the tip of her sword. I am torn apart by her hollowed gaze and stinging words and leave pieces of me in this arena she cannot touch. Scattered, my blood stretched across the floor of this hell, Pillar may take my life but will never take my pride, my strength, my will to live.

Still, her reason hits me like a train.

Impact - and I am back on that same train, flung from the tracks to the carriages. A shaking shell of a girl, withdrawals kicking in, champagne glass cracking on the floor. Gold liquid dancing in the light, yellow curls of hair escaping from behind my ears. Sacha. Patricia. Home. Pieces of, at least.

("Tell me, are you a fighter, or a survivor?")

I fight, in the hope that I will survive.

Heaving in rapid, broken gasps, I grit my teeth against her violence and stare into the eye of the storm.

"I'm not gonna stop fighting you."

Ignition now fumbling, fading, a light that once roared now flickering out. But I'm still here, dancing against the shadows in my skin, blooming from a darkness in Hell to find home again.

"Sticks and stones..."

Pain - I gasp at its arrival.

Her words still cut like shattered glass.

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
SMytNiwounarmed
miss

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Her skin is fire — fingers are comets, scalding the steel of her sword, and she glares at Samira with eyes that are born from starless skies. She ponders for a moment if she's ever truly been alight, but once she thinks of Corran's gentle smile and all things that are beautiful within her life, there's an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that tells her what she longs to know:

— this is what it means to be alive;
you don't feel your heart beat until someone cuts it out.

To her disappointment, her speech is dismissed by her enemy, and she watches as the girl deals with the damage of the blows that she's inflicted. She stands with furrowed brows, and she's not able to place the source of her visible confusion. The scars on her arms have long since scabbed over, and  the fatigue in her bones is only temporary — so when the iron girl looks at the porcelain woman, she's not able to understand her suffering.

Because when you break Pillar Fray, it only leaves a dent on her being — and you feel the force of your blow echoed through yourself, and although the girl is calm in her facade, she never fails to lash out in defense of herself. She is calculation where Samira is desperation: shouted words and shaking limbs.

Break Samira Hart, and the shards of her entirety pierce your palms, and she leaves scars on you that never close up. But what happens when two broken girls wage war against the other? One who can slice you open without meaning to, and the other who can crack your bones without letting you know that you've destroyed her?

{ She'll know soon enough,

which one of them is the survivor. }

"Good," she speaks in response to her former ally's words, dodging another blow with little more than a duck. Maybe it's unfair, how easily she has the advantage in this fight, but it's either her or the lost girl — and she's not dying today. Sixteen years were spent clawing out of the earth, bones splintering against the world's surface, and she arose from the dirt with the explosion of a thousand volcanoes — and she'll never be soft again. Diamonds are born from the dark.

"I want you to keep fighting, Sam. I'm not here to kill someone who's already dead."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
NDm8VHEPsword
[ Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

("You better fight like hell."

I laugh.

"I am hell.")

Heart beat lulls in my ears, slowing, ending. ("Good. I want you to keep fighting, Sam.") Death lingers in shades of red - day one, day five, their hair like fire. Pillar paints today with my own blood: hell fire.

The fighter, the survivor, it all blurs together. Career Boy and Mitchell, fragments in my mind, they dance in the glare of Pillar's sword and remind me of who I am. ("The world wants you dead, Samira!") I stand against Pillar, against death, against the world. ("My secret is that I want you dead, Sam.") He, in the sky, I, still with my feet on the ground and blood on my hands.

("I don't want your soul. I want your life.")

I wanted her life. Her life meant a fighting chance. Maybe we're all fighters and thieves, stealing each-other's lives for a measly grasp at survival.

"I'm not here to kill someone who's already dead."

Somehow I smile - though I'm not sure how.

"Neither am I."

Hell fire in the sky as the sun sets, my face will surely follow at the day's end.

I still swing regardless.

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
ywkje6lOunarmed
block 0

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Samira smiles despite the blood that's trickling from her wounds, and Pillar finds herself admiring the girl who just doesn't know how to stay down — or at least, is much too stubborn to let herself kiss the earth in foreshadowing of her death. Because girls are nothing more than dragons wearing silken dresses, with claws made of diamonds and scales forged from platinum — and beautiful things are broken things, with cracks running down their hardened skin, but rust on iron doesn't lessen its strength. Bruises on a girl's entirety don't make her any less of a living Hell.

Fire burning steel bones serves only to make the girl untouchable.

Pillar blocks Samira's fist with ease, sending a smirk her way with a laugh that's lost somewhere between arrogance and desperation. She could search for the truth, but she's far too tired to look inside of herself

— "I'm deathless."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
zTlL4chHsword
[ Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

Hart, not quite beat. Heart, not quite beating. I've been here before. Familiar - I wait for the blackout. Blink and I'm awake, somehow, on the grimy floor of a stranger's house or face in the gutter. Blink and I get back up off of the floor. Blink and I'm on my way. Blink like nothing happened, because I can't remember what did.

It doesn't come.

All that arrives is the truth, full-frontal and unforgiving.

I have died, ten thousand times, in all of those moments. Peel back my skin, there is Death. It found a home in my body all those years ago and lingered, dark and heavy against my heart, waiting. Poppy, sword in the back of her head. Paisley, throwing herself into the sky, her crumpled body at the bottom of the world. Holding their hands on the mountain cliff side. Laughing behind me. Plunging a knife into Reese's eye. Take eight pills, float into the sky, wake up on the ground. Drink until I can't see, drink until the world spins, drink until I'm drowning, wake up in a bathtub. Starve for six days straight, find food on the seventh. Stay awake for three days, sleep for twelve hours. Dance with my own reflection. Find a home in Hell.

I do not become death.

Death becomes I.

Through metal on my skin, on my tongue, I go to swing but she has other ideas. My arm meets air and her sword meets my arm and I scream, a searing anguish grabbing me by the nerves and ripping away vision. Red, white, gold - it's all the same. Everything, everything, blindingly agonizing.

Laughing in my ears, "I am deathless."

I laugh too - and retch. My insides wash away with the currents.

"And heartless."

My heart still beats, so I keep fighting.

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
8OL77rdFunarmed
bruised right femur  - 3

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The first flare of pain she feels that day spreads out through her leg like a fire — and although it lasts for only a few seconds, it still causes her to gasp with a flinching of her features. She looks at Samira with narrowed eyes, lifting up her sword with a blistered hand and pointing it at her opponent. Samira walks on the edge of death and dances across a bridge of bones over the ravine of her undoing, but despite her shaking limbs and the blood on her chin, she doesn't dare fall. There are only dying embers left in the chamber of her throat, yet Pillar swears she sees flames when the girl laughs.

"And heartless."

The younger of the two chuckles at the words that are spoken, pushing a stray strand of blonde hair out of her face before she can give herself a chance to dwell on the truth of what's been said. She hears the sound of drums ringing in her ears, feels her fingers twitch around her sword's hilt with every inhale — but maybe that's all nothing more than an illusion. Maybe no one's truly alive until the day they die.

"Yeah, you're right.
I cut my heart out a long time ago

— and I'll help you with yours, too."

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
Y6zSd_Aysword
[ Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 damage ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword

[✨ zozo.]

S A M I R A  H A R T

 

Death is a second skin.

It sits comfortably within me, a skeleton made up of layers from my past. Tiny girl on the floor waiting for her heart beat to slow down, pretend she's dead, sneak out of the window and never return. Older girl, letting recklessness take hold of her, spiraling, breaking windows, playing dead, dying, waking up again. Dead girl walking - that's what I've always been.

I've always carried my end with me.

Death clutches my chin in its hands, pulls my head up, looks me dead in the eyes and smiles.

I close-

my eyes.

(Don't!)

Because I don't want to look. I don't want to let its gaze consume me.

"I cut my heart out a long time ago — and I'll help you with yours, too."

I don't-

want-

to die-

Thoughts like fragments, fading dangerously.

She aims for my heart, I launch violently to the left-

fifth strike, and I scream.

Canon fire-




dead.

Hand at my chest-

A heart beat.

(Still here. Barely, but still here.)

Heaving, the air tastes like a wasted life. I spit back at it, proving my worth with every flickering pulse left in my body.

Deathless, heartless.

I've-

got-

heart.

I've-

got-

both.

So I look at Pillar, death, one in the same - and snarl.

"Over my dead body."

D I S T R I C T F I V E

sam attacks pillar // unarmed
mzN|yP70unarmed
bruised head 3.5

unarmed

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

Skulls crash together — iron against porcelain, and she's not sure if it's the cracking of Samira's bones or the splitting of her helmet that sends her stumbling backwards, but she does so with a startled gasp. There's a ringing in her ears that distorts Samira's words, but she can still feel the sheer intensity of the dying girl's desperation. It's a fading storm, screaming until its voice burns raw, and it threatens to swallow the younger woman whole in its last few moments of being a tangible force. But Pillar's spent her entire life dying for the sake of other people, and now her entirety has been placed in her own hands for the first time, and she refuses to ever lose hold of it again. Samira Hart's a fighter

— but she's not a survivor.

There can only be one.

Pillar doesn't laugh; she doesn't smile — she raises her sword with an inhale that causes her chest to sting, sending a solemn nod in Samira's direction. She knows what's coming, and if she has to bathe in a former friend's blood just to see a new break of dawn, then Pillar is more than willing to drown herself in rivers of red — she'll choke on the salt and the rust,

and it'll be the closest thing she's ever felt to home.

She steps forward as Samira begins to falter, placing a hand on the woman's shoulder before she can fall over from exhaustion. Pillar looks into her eyes with a clenched jaw, swallowing so harshly that she swears her throat might crack from the dryness. She lets herself drown in Samira's blue waters as the world hums a parting tune — and she knows it's selfish of her to find so much beauty in a girl's undoing, but she's not one for lying to herself. It's not that she could have cared for Samira had the circumstances been different

— it's that she already did;
fiercely,
and with every shard of her ruined heart.

For the first time in the arena, she lets herself cry when she plunges her sword into Samira's chest.

"Go strong."

Because a girl will always die with innocence

— her own, 
or another's.

---

[ pillar attacks samira with her sword ]
rK4ICUEqsword
[ Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 damage;
*per zoe's request,
this roll will be written as
stabbed through heart ]

PILLAR  ●  FRAY

sword