on top of the world {feast, day five}

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

{ walherich cnáimhín ; "i know i'm only passing through."

"You're very quiet," Emberly had stated.

{i know.}

"Words are important, you know. You never know which ones will be your last." She gave out another response and he agreed. Though, that didn’t mean that he wanted to start speaking.. Sometimes you don’t need words to be the loudest in the bunch. The body speaks more than words in motions and expressions. In eyerolls and cringes. Death-stares and glares. The body may not have the entire vocabulary written upon it,, but it has the entire world designed for it. He’s known this- a simple stomp on the ground could be anger. A glare could be the eyes of jealousy. Hesitation could represent fear; sorrow, like they didn’t want to do it but they had to.

Walherich didn’t need to talk if his body could do that talking itself.

{never thought i’d have to make that comparison}

His face softened from his squinted eyes and furrowed eyebrows to a smile. The tribute kept his eyes locked on Emberly despite the pain searing from his stomach and side. It was important to never take your eyes off of the enemy. If you did, hell, they could be the ones taking your damned eyes out. Though he felt a source of sadness and a source of regret, looking at the sibling of Saffron. He held regret for attacking the girl from Ten. Because she was there for Mac- she was there with them in their final moments. One of the two (or it seemed two) people that gave a damn for the boy from eight who had been lost too early. She placed him to rest- she showed him a style of life in this reaper's’ playground that opposed the point of view he expected. It was hard to find people like that. It was rare to see a home to peace in a place like this.

It was even more rare to find people like Emberly. Someone so swift and pure, a woman who was dedicated to her job and dedicated to her home. She was a fighter as were many other people here today. Like Raquel- the girl from his own home that seemed to be dancing with death on the daily, yet still persevering. It was hard to find people who held such prowess and honor and respect even when they had to kill. It was easy to find people like Teddy. People who held onto those who attacked in the past and attacking right back- who wouldn’t? They would be able to try and kill once more. However he did not care for the people that were easy to find. He did not care for the people that were hard to find. He respected those people, the ones that were rare, but he could not care for them.

The only people he cared for were the people at home. For Kiki. For his father. For his other father. He wanted to go back. The boy had work yet to be finished; what would happen to Miss Bunker? She had yet to get her home fixed. Kiki would be working on the home, of course, but what was his work if he didn’t get it done? What was God’s plan for him if he didn’t fulfill it?

{god doesn’t exist, dumbass}

But hope does, and that’s all he could have.

He couldn’t even look at the woman from ten in the eyes as her cut her down. The male even hesitated for a second. Though, Mac’s voice had clammered inside of his head like it had every night in the past.

{"just keep fighting"}

So, that’s what he had to do. He had to fight.

Head held down and sword in hand, he swung towards the woman who showed him peace.
[attacks emberly lowe, cutlass (sword)]
vRlK86bqsword

sword

[Knuckles]

C H E S T E R .

Eyes darted back and forth as heavy bits of metal swung through the air aiming to kill. One of the twelve standing on top of this volcano would make it out alive, they would survive the hell they had been placed in, and right now, Chester was unsure of himself. Nothing ever went his way, yet the games toyed with him like he had done the first few days. It had been a calm before the storm, and the imaginary rain fell rapidly in the form of blood. The sky cried as the teens fought. Being stuck in a situation such as this only made life feel worse. But who volunteered?

Who asked for this to happen to them?

Chester did.

He knew what he was getting himself into, but it didn't seem like much. If he knew what he knew now, his hand never would've went up, and the words I volunteer wouldn't have slipped from his tongue. The one handed freak was chosen, and it was his fate he was playing with.

But the past was behind him.

All he had was the future, and hopefully it involved a life outside the chains he put himself in. Being chosen was one thing, but volunteering was another - only a fool would do that. Once upon a time that was what he believed. It was a message hammered into his fragile mind by unloving parents. Even after they were buried, the threat remained;

Are you a fool, Chester?

Yes, I am.

Now wasn't the time to think about the past or the future. He was living in the present, and he was in a fight for his life. Twelve tributes stood, and some would fall victim to the hunger games. Hopefully it wasn't his time, hopefully it was a few others gathered around.

His attack didn't do much of anything, but perhaps it was caused by something else.

Adelaide fell into him, her purse slamming into his hand - what the hell is in that thing? A brick? He had heard the saying every girl carried a brick in her purse, but it wasn't until Chester finally believed it.

For a moment he stood perfectly still unsure of what to do, what to think. This was the first time he saw her since the chicken fell, since Dandy and Aline collapsed. But his gaze couldn't meet her's - whether it was from fear of seeing the scene play over and over, or fear of tears rolling down the side of his face, he didn't know. He couldn't bring himself to feel what he felt when Dandy's blood sprayed across his face. The red river was still very fresh in his mind, and in that moment it was all he could see despite trying to put it away.

"Do you remember my friend Dandy? Please say you do."

Forgetting was impossible, and for a moment his walls came tumbling down, and Dandy crumbled with them. The cane went limp in his hand -

Of course I do.

But the words froze against his parched lips.

A broken heart clawed at his ribs begging for an escape. Nothing would undo what he had done. Nothing would change it. His knife carved through her neck like it was nothing. He struck to kill, to prove the rumors Wendell spread were right, but never in a million years did he understand the price. He lifted his gaze attempting to meet her's. He wanted truth and honesty - Adelaide needed to know, and Chester wanted to provide some comfort and some relief;

"Yes, I do." His voice was calm, but his heart was beating through the walls of his chest; "and I will remember her for as long as I live."

It was a promise without the extra words because every night when he tried to close his eyes all he saw was her falling, her blood spraying forcefully from the damage, her face in the sky, the tears of Adelaide when she realized she was truly alone.

If sorry was meaningful, Chester would apologize, but why apologize for what had to happen? It was the hunger games, and she simply was a victim. Just like Lorenza. She didn't deserve to die, but she fell like Rory and Rhetoric.

I'm sorry for not being sorry.

Out of the corner of his watched Teddy attack, but he wasn't prepared for a the lone female career to strike him. Chester had never done anything to her, never talked to her - hell, he didn't even know her name, but that didn't mean anything inside the arena.

Everyone was the enemy.

Nobody was friends.

Wendell had told him that.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Part of him wanted to attack her, to retaliate for what she had done, but Chester had his eyes on a bigger fish in the sea. One day she would pay for all he had done. Her sins would put her in the grave, and he would personally make sure of it. Not a single word left his lips as he turned around, gripping the cane tighter than he had done before.

Words flew through the air, Wendell was shouting;

Chester had a job to do;

keep him and Teddy alive.

table by briar <3

Chester attacks {Whalerich} | cane sword {sword}
nHQU|yHtsword

{results: 1160 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage}

accuracy reroll
sword

{results: 1013 -- Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage}sword�sword

[pup]

{ cameron dialate ; "'cause i wanna know that i'm steady on my feet."

gonna do a quick lil filler so that i can move things along while i eat my lunch

To Adelaide: "I think you were right, I can feel it being cut."
To Emberly: "Aren't you going to respond, hypocrite! You were talking about friendship with Teddy then you fucking attacked me!"

^{[<333 ty briar]}

[attacks emberly w/ sword]
31s4qAxcsword
[Check
1044 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage
(Sword)]sword

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

ADELAIDE

"Good," Luxa Pelotte declares and I wonder if it is - the it Kaiser Fray bravely defined for me. Is life good? Are some lives better than others?

Is the one I'm living for the second time any good at all?

Hero's throttled yell slices the thought in two. He's facing off against Hungry Boy and there's something shimmering between them - a cord, a tether, a fate. "Hero! Don't - oh it's too late. Wendell, right!? You can read the bile like tea leaves but I'd plug your nose first!" He doesn't listen. He's yelling about order. I wonder if maybe he is the one to order this chaos, to put an end to this bloodshed.

But then I think, maybe he's just hungry and we're between him and something better than bananas and leaves.

"Can't say I ever have."

Ree's words, a whisper on the wind. "It's better that way," I whisper back. The gentle breeze snatches my words and tosses them over the gifts in the heart in the bowl. Surely it would be better to divide the gifts and make our sacrifices? Surely there is still 'it' to be found here?

But one look at Teddy, and I know goodness has fled from the arena. He's so close and so far - no longer whole and made anew. He's lost something, more than a limb. If only I could ask him, if only I could ask the Fates what they wanted of him. But to ask, I would have to speak his name.

"Yes, I do. And I will remember her for as long as I live."

I sidestep Chester, swinging my purse around my back. It's heavy, weighted down by the gun and kit and useful things. Not good things. "So will I," I promise.

THROES

[Adelaide hits Chester; unarmed]

f2BIFtmVunarmed

[Broken Right Shin -- 7.0 damage]

unarmed

[Tom]

[presto][/presto]

► ► ►

Gold glitters with red as he pulls his spear out of Walherich's stomach.

There's a chill down his spine as if a victor was screaming at his actions. The chill dips into his chest, until it heats up around his stomach. Adrenaline flowing through his veins as he watches the feast unfold in all of it's mess of broken kids with broken dreams. All they wanted was an escape out of the games to see whatever they needed to see again. Teddy wanted only one thing if he were to make it out of the games. He wanted to remember his past perfectly. He wanted to remember if Theodore Ursa was truly someone he could identify with. People change over time, but he's always been changing slowly.

He can remember his Ma's words in his head.

I'd want you to be a kid of mine any day.

He knew that his real parents never thought of that. They thought of him as a pawn on their board of chess. He can remember the slightly rich environment that was his home in the past, the floors were the most vivid thing that he could remember. Tiles of granite that were expensive for anyone to get in District Six that held small drops of blood from his nose. His father's foot hitting his side with anger. His real mother's voice telling him that he should just leave. He's always been scared of the world for as long as he can remember.

That's when he remembers two more people.

Unfamiliar to him, but they had smile son their faces as they were younger. Kids who had enough innocence in the world to treat it like an adventure. He can remember their group of adventuring kids that explored hospitals and empty buildings for fun. Ghosts and monsters always being in the confines of their minds as they laughed and ran like the day could end at any moment. He can remember the good memory with people who were his friends.

That only leads to questions that bumble around in his head. He had friends, but why didn't they go looking for him? Why can't remember why they weren't around when his parents were beating him down? Why had no one come to his rescue? The only answer was outside of the games, but he could relate it. No one came to the rescue in the games, unless they were your allies. Chester had rescued him from death the other day.

That's when he hears Adelaide move like the darkness of the night. A moon that creeps into the darkness to light it up just a bit, until it's blocked out by Adelaide colliding with Chester. Time stops and Teddy can feel his fear as he looks to Chester's leg that was now broken. Escaping was going to be harder than they had realized, especially if their legs were beaten down time and time again.

"Fuck. Adelaide. Fuck."

Teddy can feel his skin crawling as he turns to Chester with worry in his eyes. There's no time for focusing on the wounds they receive. Teddy moves past Adelaide with a glare in his eyes as he forces himself to meet hers. All he can do is hold his spear and face the world with what he could do. He can feel Chester nearby with the broken leg. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve to be as broken as Teddy was.

"Chester, We're gonna be alright. We can still do this. Remember our promise. I'm not letting go and neither are you. I lost part of my leg, you can survive this. Just trust in me, it's about time I pull my weight around here."

He brushes past Adelaide with a glare and a feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was angry with her, blood that once chilled near her felt boiling hot with anger, but there was no way he could strike her. There's nothing he would do to harm Adelaide, not even if she had put him in death's arms. All he can do is look to Chester as he speaks.

"Leave her, we'll deal with Adelaide later."

The same old dance and song playing in his head.

Walherich is still a pawn of Wendell's. Always listening to the monster that came from Twelve. If Wendell Gordon had come form his home, there wouldn't be any change in his outlook on him. He was a monster, that he didn't want to see grow. All Teddy could do was hold his blade, ready to strike at the pawn that could fall. Wendell Gordon deserved the hell that he would receive. Walherich was a guy that almost never spoke, but just struck like a beast on a leash. An animal that strikes for fun of just hurting.

Teddy wouldn't let another of Gordon's pawns get away with attacking Rory's district partner.

Ten wasn't going to die out from Gordon and his pawns.

Teddy would make damn sure of that.

He swings the spear with desire.

The same old dance and song in his head.

I gotta pull my own weight for Chester.

--

{ Perhaps hopeless isn't a place
Nothing but a state of mind }

(Teddy attacks Walherich with Lance of Approval[Spear])
SqvKOuItspear
(Miss)

Accuracy

spear
(Stabbed in stomach 9.5 +1 from spear +1 from Rivalry)

spear�spear

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

LUX PELOTTE


 

Hero is on the edge; he's fighting a battle of his own. Clouded mind that is riddled with the faint scent of alcohol, I shake my head. I thought that the two of us were in it together and that we had our heads in the game and were going to fight until there was nothing to fight—maybe I have been wrong. Maybe, all this time, we were a duo of lost and found where I was the latter and he was the former.

"LEAVE ME BE, MY HEAD HURTS AND--" He shouts when a boy takes one footstep too many into his own personal territory. His words slur and he stumbles forwards before being sick on the ground before the boy. Part of me wants to laugh but my head is pulsing with rage and anger; the other part of me wants to tear him limbs off one by one and use them as hiking sticks.

"Get it together, wow." I tell him, slipping into a passive aggressive tone.

And then Hero does. Typical, I think—for him to be as pissed as this and to slash away at the boy's arm like it is nothing. Beauty and pleasure from the pain; I can't help but smile when blood oozes from the wound and it drips down his skin and onto the ground. We are both laying the foundations of a cathedral of destruction, building it up brick by brick until we peak at jeopardy and danger. 

We will ring the bells and force them to dance to our tune. Wound by wound, they will wilt and we will grow.

It is because we are the products of Four. My memories of home are tarnished by alien desires to be different but being raised by the hearth with warm milk and gentle flames. Conjured within the realms of homemade lavender perfume where you can be lulled to sleep by the distant whispers of the waves against the sand. For years, I thought I was weak but it was nothing more than my mind's illusion; I can't deny my strength because it is in my blood.

It is in my blood, in Hero's blood and it always will be, no matter how much is spilled. 

I take a breath, sharply, turning my attention the boy who dares to dismantle our devastation. And like most in this arena, he lets slip words like his throat isn't going to run dry. For all I know, his next words could be his last. Why don't they realise that?

"Oh - I see what's going on - this - is your ally? Girlfriend?" I laugh, yeah right. Because Hero and I definitely fucked this morning. Oh well—now we're here to fuck him up. "Wait your fucking turn..." He shouts, and I put a name to the face.

Wendell Gordon, District Twelve.

"We don't wait for anyone." I say, hoping that some of these tributes would know better than to cry in the arena over a single injury. Time is precious, after all. These are the Hunger Games, it's life or death—if it's not life, it is death. Fire doesn't care if it burns wood or flesh; I don't care if who or what I kill. People are just people and people are just borrowed time forged in dying stars.

People have their time, they light up, they glow and get hot again but sometimes people burn themselves out too soon. Once the flame stops burning, you are done for. I think that is the case with half of the tributes here; clinging to the last bit of hope they have because they are scared of the reality where there is no hope at all.

I'm used to it. I'm used to all of it; it's tattooed on my mind and has been since childhood. I suppose that is why it is so easy to feast on others because I have learnt how to turn myself from prey into a predator.

I stare into space. Kenzie tugs at my fingers but I pay her dust. I ignore her because I am searching, but after a moment, I realise that I am looking for something that isn't here.

Adelaide, Hero and I—we need to summon it. We need to summon death so it comes and takes, giving us the survival we yearn for.

"We don't wait for anyone, and neither does death."

"It's coming." I say, eyes frantically flickering between tributes. Suddenly, they lock; Wendell Gordon becoming the only patch of clarity in my blurred vision. I breathe, I feel and then let go, weapon coming down like an angel plummeting towards Hell.

{ lux attacks wendell; spiked blunt }

KcVx79Usspiked blunt

{ block }

rerolling with accuracy

spiked blunt

{ miss }

spiked blunt�spiked blunt

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Hero Marvray

Thankfully for everyone involved, the tributes mostly left Hero alone at that point. If they made any sort of sign that they saw him, he wasn't paying attention anyway, and he bumbled forward. He was sobered up, sure, but that didn't stop the roiling in his stomach and the pain behind his eyelids.

If anything, his bitterness at the world and his annoyance at the current situation drove him to fury, and he would have killed anyone right then, given the chance.

Unfortunately, the only thing greater than his fury was the nausea, and the sickness won out.

Lux said something to his right, but Hero was too busy feeling like death to pay her any mind. He focused his energy on composure, standing up straight and watching his back. Feeling like death was one thing, but actually dying? Overrated.

Fortunately for Hero, the battle raged on without paying him a second thought.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that overshadowed everything else:

Loot.

Specifically, a bunch of shit that would help him stay alive. Not that he was particularly worried about dying or anything; he just wanted to be left alone. And left alone with a pile of goods that everyone else was currently ignoring in favor of killing each other?

What a reward indeed.

Once a thief, always a thief, and Hero moved toward the items at the speed of light.

(That is, until a tribute got in his way.)

"Move," he grumbled.

When the tribute didn't move quickly enough, Hero swung.

[Hero attacks Chester, spiked blunt]

f|nF6qjhspiked blunt

Hangover dice (1=hit, 2=miss)

1-2

spiked blunt�1-2

[solo]

if you must fight, fight with yourself
and your thoughts in the night
if you must work, work to leave
some part of you on this earth

The boy from Nine, the one who patched up Ree's jaw, starts to laugh, but I hardly take notice. His bat smashes into my leg but the breaking of bones doesn't hurt me as much as it did the first time. Bit by bit, pain is becoming nothing more than a dull ache, the blood flowing out of me no more than a pretty sight to see. There's a ringing in my ears but I chose to ignore it.

Vicious and agile, Ree's blade cuts through the air, once more slicing in to the boy I played hide and seek with. He screams, but all I hear is tinkling bells and the silence before a canon is fired. I pray to anyone who can hear me that it will be his and not mine.

The boy grins, and yet I can't understand what he's saying. His mouth is moving but I'm not hearing any of it. All I can hear is my heart pounding against my rib cage and all I can feel is the blood rushing through it only to escape through the ravines cut in to my skin. Vaguely, I see the boy's weapon flash through the air, but it's swept aside in a matter of seconds by my own blade.

"Ally," for the first time, actually words cut through the air, crisp and clear, Ree's voice breaking the storm around us. "she deserves better than me."

The dome shakes beneath me but none of the other tributes seem to be bothered by it.

No. No, he's wrong. He deserves better than this. He never should've been sent here in the first place.

My gaze turns to Wendell, fire burning inside of me until I think it's going to eat me alive. He deserves to be here. "You can go back to whatever hell you came from."

[ attacks Wendell Gordon | sword ]

_51U6ziQsword

[ result ]

if you live darling one
just l i v e
just l i v e
just l i v e

sword

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

ob wir zum sterben bereit sind oder nicht,
der tag kommt sicher
whether we're ready to die or not
the day'll come certainly

Emberly watches as Wendell Gordon's anger gets the better of him once again. "FUCK!" he screams in pain, but there is rage in his voice, too. "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

If it was the first day, when Emberly was nursing a broken bone and had not yet seen death, she would have flinched. She would have cowered and backed away with fear. But she is not that girl anymore — deep down, she is still there, trembling with tears in her eyes, but that part of her is masked by her sheer will to survive. There is no time to cry when her life is hanging on such a fragile thread.

"Who do we think we are?" Emberly repeats, almost astonished that Wendell would ask such a thing. The answer seems so simple, but Wendell's anger must be blinding him, Emberly thinks. "We're trying to survive, just like you."

She would like to think that attacking Wendell is not personal, but it is. Her allies know that he threatened to kill them all, and they didn't take it lightly. Emberly is not out for revenge over a threat, but it doesn't mean she pities Wendell like she should.

"You said it yourself once, Wendell, to Walherich when McCarthy was dying. This is the Hunger Games." Although Soft-minded and fragile-hearted, Emberly knows this to be true. She has always been one to follow her heart over her mind, but even this fact is too black and white for her to ignore.

This is the Hunger Games. You must kill if you are to survive — something Emberly has already learned the hard way.

Wendell taunts Ree with snide remarks, and he replies, "Ally, she deserves better than me."

Raquel's body should be broken but somehow her spirit keeps her going, fuels that never ending fire within her. She reminds Emberly of Ment with that undeniable, steel determination. She retaliates at Wendell's attack, "You can go back to whatever hell you came from." If Emberly wasn't bleeding out and in such a grim mood, perhaps she would have smiled — it sounds like something Ment would have said.

Walherich slashes at her arm before she can say more, and she winces in pain as blood oozes out her arm, spilling in thick threads down her arm. The girl from Five quickly follows his attack, lunging out at Emberly.

"Aren't you going to respond, hypocrite! You were talking about friendship with Teddy then you fucking attacked me!" Cameron Dialate's words once again pierce the air like acid, full of venom. Her outburst reminds Emberly of the tantrums her twin sister used to throw when they were children; Clementa was always the fiery one. Cameron has such a deep anger that Emberly cannot understand, a rage that seems to consume her.

It blazes in her eyes, shows in the violent way she strikes, spilling Emberly's blood onto the ground.

And it's a world of pain — agony ripping her nerves apart, striking terror into her very core and burning at her insides. The edges of her vision blur as if her surroundings are made of watercolor paint, but there is a single point that remains completely focused and sharp: Raquel.

Emberly silently calls out for her friend, looks to her helplessly as crimson pools around her. No no no, it's happening again.

Grief's teeth sink into her heart once again as she is reminded of Clementina. Her bloodied, broken body, lying in the ground, paralyzed with sheer agony. If Emberly doesn't do something, if she doesn't keep fighting, she or Raquel might end up like Clem.

No, no, she pleas to no one in her head. Not again.

"I'm not a hypocrite," Emberly says through gritted teeth, holding in tears and cries of pain. She is barely able to swallow them down. "You aren't my friend. I don't know you, and you don't know me."

She is saving her friends for last.

Emberly knows deep in her heart and in the back of her mind that someday, she may have to kill them. She may have to cut down Ree or Raquel or Teddy — but today is not that day. She and her allies have always been stronger together, and they always would be. So long as they stood together, they had a chance at survival.

Until the end, she had promised her friends, and she means it. Truly.

She remembers Saffron and Lucy, how they promised each other to rule their kingdom for as long as they lived. It could never last, but they waited until the end to turn against each other. If Emberly lives long enough, she will follow in Saffron's footsteps. Friends until the very end.

"I don't feel as guilty about attacking you, especially when you're trying to kill me and my friend." Emberly looks to Raquel, who Clementina fought so hard to save. She shot a boy in the head for Raquel Izar, and she paid for it with her own blood.

If Raquel dies now, it will have been for nothing — and she doesn't know how she can live with that, if she lives at all.

"I've already killed once," Emberly says. The words are meant to be brave, but she does not feel like a champion when she speaks them. "I've already killed once" — her words are so half-hearted, so full of self-pity. She killed Lace Eon, killed her so that she and Raquel could live. But she knows —

"If I have to, I can do it again."

But can you live with it? a little voice inquires. She can kill again, she knows, but she is not sure if killing another would destroy her on the inside. Emberly has known from the beginning that she would have to take lives in exchange to keep her own, but now she has learned what a heavy price it is.

Titus was right — it isn't the same watching others die as it to be the one to kill them.

In the past four days, Emberly has watched her friends die. McCarthy, Clementina — the memories of them are stones in her heart. But killing stays with you in a different way. It is like Glacia Eon's name is tattooed across her skin, like every time she looks at her reflection or down at her hands, the same hands that took her life, she will feel that awful, crushing guilt again. Remembering is like killing her all over again. It replays in her head on and endless tape — Lace's blood on her hands, her golden hair in the veils of sand, Titus's empty eyes.

Kiara, Ment, Saffron, Paige, Quinn. If she dies, Kiara will grow up in a nearly empty home and Clementa will be without her other half. Saffron would blame herself forever, trap herself in a cage of guilt. Paige might fall back into that dark spiral of self-destruction again, and Quinn —

and Quinn will only know Emberly Lowe as a story, a legend passed down through a generation.

Wendell slashes at Raquel and blood floods her vision as it spatters before her. She cannot bear it anymore, cannot stand by and let this happen.

"I can do it again," her own words echo throughout her head as she strikes.

[Emberly Lowe attacks Wendell Gordon; The Queen (sword)]
YAqM05V6sword
[1060 -- Block -- 0.0 damage]

[accuracy reroll]
sword
[1174 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage +1 blades]

ist das der engel, der vom dämmernden himmel hinunter flog?
ist das der teufel, der aus der felsenspalte heraus kroch?
is that the angel which flew down from the dawning sky?
is that the devil which crept out of the rock cleft?

. . .

"vogel im käfig" ("bird in a cage") by hiroyuki sawano.

sword�sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

when i see you the whole world reduces to just that room

My bat connects with another crunch and I should feel satisfaction but I feel nothing at all. With every moment that I connect, the sun moves a little more, with every disconnection I make I only feel more dissasociated. I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass being dissected in front of a classroom full of children, I know that all of Panem must be watching right now. I wonder if Mason's eyes are on me. I wonder if he's fucking proud.

He never wanted me to become like this, cold, senseless. Maybe I wasn't, for the longest time I avoided it. I made one wrong move, one foul hit and I lost it. I lost her. Aline, at the end of my bat.

It ruined me, made my knees feel like they were made of water, that I was hollow in my bones, but I wasn't ever a bird, never meant to fly. My body cried out in pain even when my mouth stayed shut. In the night, I cried. My eyes are still raw, still itchy from it, but no one touched me.

Kaiser and Lace and Basil, all dead because I stood by and let them be cut down by people who I had been friendly with only days before. It wasn't meant to be like this, to feel this way, but it did. It always does now, every waking moment a nightmare, every fibre burning with hatred, not just for Raquel, but for myself.

I detest what I've become.

I don't understand that I'm still laughing, tears in the corners of my life, my eyes, until I shut my jaw with an abruptness I didn't know I had.

My bat rests at my side, and I watch Raquel carefully as she starts to fade, like a cat watching a mouse in the allies back in Nine. I wonder if this what it feels like to be Tate Seraphim, nothing on my fingertips but a bloody warmth and the feeling of a breaching coldness all over my skin. My throat aches dry, I feel a desert growing in the back, trickling down through my ribcage. A dustbowl forms. Cold and unyielding, that is what a Seraphim must be. That is what I am reaching for.

I bite down hard on my tongue, searching for Titus.

He doesn't come here.

It's empty and silent.

I wish that I could tell her that I was sorry.

I wish I could lower my bat and walk away but I faltered yesterday when I shouldn't have. Who would be next? Adelaide?

I couldn't lose another, I can't. I can feel hopelessness begging at the back door of my skull and if I let him in I won't be able to make him leave.

I think about the blood, gushing, full from Kaiser's throat yesterday and I am not sorry.

I raise my bat and I swing it.

[Titus attacks raquel with spiked blunt]
_jpn90ZBspiked blunt
[14164 -- STABBED IN BACK -- 9.0 damage]

spiked blunt

[kousei ♚]

We are everyday robots on our phones
In the process of getting home
Looking like standing stones
Out there on our own

In this moment, we are weightless.

There's a crimson fire within every tendon and muscle within my arms, simple and slight movement invoking agony that spread is only accelerated by fatigue. I am battered, I am shattered and it hurts to even drag my spear across the ground in defiance of the natural process. "Fuck you, Twelve," I spit into the ground in response to my spear barely drawing a stream of crimson from his skin; a red flood from the back of his cranium that should've been just that little bit deeper.

This is it, the agony that comes with simple existence. The price of sobriety in all its glory: manacles digging into my ankles, trembling fingers at my side and the weight of over a thousand galaxies and stars upon my shoulders and beneath my skin. They flare with every twitch, every blink, every swing -- they burn like solar flares in the sky.

Raquel bleeds red galaxies from her skin, her breathing becomes labored beneath the weight of steel, death a tattoo in the air between the twelve of us.

Skeletons fold, crack and shatter; the tension becomes unbearable.

One cannon, Emberly holds death within the palm of her hands once again. Wendell Gordon hits the ground with a sickening thud and I'm not even sorry, this empty heart of mine not even weeping at the power he once held in his hands dissipating in an instant with a single sword stroke. I step back, lowering my spear so it hangs limply at one side and making eye contact with Raquel, weeping wounds, bleeding heart and all.

Behind a colored smokescreen, I might've pictured her as something else; something other than a girl who just picks fruits, who fights for home, who kills for home. In the name of getting back to the wheat fields and orchards, a world of a million questions that I never thought to answer beneath the stars when they showed Clementina's face. It sits on the tip of my tongue, scarring my throat with every passing moment but it doesn't see the air.

("Did you enjoy the feeling of the sun on your skin?"

"Could I have done more?"

"Who's waiting for you back home?")

We're all bound by a common purpose; survival of the essentials. The need to listen to our hearts beat one more night, watch the rise and fall of our chests for just a moment more but I never once tried to pry below the surface of the need to see someone's family one more time, or the need to relive playground memories beneath an orchard.

I scattered my humanity into the sky just so I could revel in a euphoric fantasy one last time.

Not to watch Orion, not to endure another episode of my sister's kicking me while I'm down and not to ruffle my brother's hair one more time because they could all live without this fucking mess risking wealth to feed addiction.

My humanity remains scattered into the sky so I can get high, cut the ties binding me to this universe and just float up and up.

Blood; dripping from the tip of my spear, trails dotting the ground and I swear, there is death in the spatter.

She made me forget what it meant to play with wealth just to put another joint between my lips, a needle in my arm, a bruise on my skin; even though it was only temporary.

I look up, catching her eye eye. "Raquel-"

("-- please,")

Time rewind, my spear sits in Five's abdomen, opens Rhetoric's chest and the veins in Kaiser's arm all over again.

Dirty fucking liar, heavy soul -- pieces of myself are lost in the sky for more than one concept. A fantasy, a chemical, the people; I drive my pulse on the substance of sin for these three reasons.

("--Please, don't die.")

Titus weapon sinks into Raquel's back and she just

falls.

For the first time she just falls, body thudding heavy against asphalt and all.

"No!" My exclamation is automatic.

Is it my fault?

I'm too withdrawn to even move or fight, or sob.

"You're okay, fucking get up."

Too withdrawn to heft my spear and attempt to pierce a smokescreen.

Too withdrawn to even scream.

Everything built begins to whither but I don't see it; not the rotting of life, the eroding of life, the bleeding of beauty.

(Nothing beautiful can exist in here)

I need a smoke, I need a joint, someone help me.

There's no salvation for an angel who clips his own wings here.

I'm withdrawn.

I need colored smokescreens, I need chemical rage -- I need to escape.

I stumble, scooping up the first back I see as the world turns and I look back, half expecting Raquel to be following suit and half petrified with shock when she doesn't.

I spot Emberly, she's struggling to move, bleeding, fighting, dying.

(should'vecould've'would've done more)

Everything's strange and time passes wrong but I grab her anyway, scrambling to find a good grip on her clothing when I drag her up and sling her arm. Stepping over the body of Wendell Gordon to hide from the storm. "Raquel, you have to get up, please." The cracks forming in my voice are all too prominent, once sturdy but now marred by desperation.

Apples, orchards and fields -- it's all I see when I call for the one who showed me the light in sobriety.

We’re everyday robots in control
Or in the process of being sold
Driving in adjacent cars
'Til you press restart

[ree fer flees the thread with emberly lowe]
[claims the jar of tar (item 2)]
[uses first aid on emberly for -3

[getting burned]

IRB0cko01-50

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