after us, the riptides { nc. vs tbd. } day 5

[kousei ♚]

You leave scarlet syllabary on his skin; you spell something that can only been as hatred on his porcelain flesh.

He stumbles forwards, silence that should be defeaning replaced by a wild desperation falling from his lover's lips -- you dance to the rhythm of adrenaline. "'m fine."

He wears a mask of bravery in the face of torn flesh, tattered hearts and scarlet snow. You listen to his rhythm, watch him bleed and see him fight; you wonder if he's being brave for himself of his lover's racing pulse. "Good to know," you should smile because you love the sight of bravery forming fragments at a broken man's feet. For if the name Aeson Kight should bring a whisper from someone's lips, the word monster ought to be the first word that comes to mind. You're a numbered cog that grinds to the sound of finer things; broken screams, broken bones and shattered hearts. You function for the suffering of others.

You were set in a soil of toxic love, you grew to be a bitter man and not a weak one.

The first loverboy, the one who's spear is heavy with your blood, spits at you. A rhythm for hatred drips from his tongue like venom and you scoff. Not a moment later, you see blood spatter fleck the snow and step back for you've never been one to stumble for the weak. You look down, a thin stream of crimson soaks the clothes cladding your thigh. One of the few unarmoured areas and you resist the urge to set a finger against tender skin. Your first comment seems all the more true with each passing mark left against your skin.

You feel the familiar sting of love; it's a double-edged sword.

You dance to the resounding rhythm of a skeleton shattering. Your cyclical pulse racing at the sight of your blood, the swelling in Caine's wrist at Violet's heavy-handed blow. You know a shattered wrist when you see one. "Looks like hand holding is gonna be a struggle," you remark, a smirk sends cracks through your sturdy mask of apathy. It seems the snake had some venom in those dried fangs after all. Caine feels the bite of love's double-edged sword and you're living for it. Raven's obvious taunts fail to burrow beneath your skin and leave any sort of impression at all; you're not fucking stupid.

"I have to disagree," Euley's voice reignites the pulse you feel in the wind, you don't tell it to die this time. "His pillow-talk is fine. Trust me." A pause, a spasm of surprise runs down your skin; you suppress the smile. "And he's right. I leave deep scars." The blood soaking into her crampons is evidence enough of this, and there's no urge for you to deny her casual admission of fact. Then again, is it not you who has always been blind to anything that lies deeper than skin level? It wasn't you who scattered your non-existent heartbeat for someone else, it wasn't you who said you cared.

You don't understand, the pull she feels to be by your side and your reasoning for having her there.

She shatters that girl's foot and let yourself smile.

You won't fall to two boys who's hearts beat for a chest that doesn't contain them. This isn't a place for redemption stories, this isn't a place for teaching a pulse to race for someone other than yourself. "Better watch that tongue of yours, Kight. Someone might end up cutting it off one of these days."

You tilt your head to the side, a flicker of amusement passes along your eyes. "Then they better hope they take out my teeth too, else I'd probably tear their throat out," you say with a shrug. You're not Shadow Svenin, you're not afraid to wear bravado on your sleeve because it's who you are. These could be the last days of your life, you never hid your festering soul from the world then and you certainly won't do it now. "Come on, why wait for someone else to do your dirty work? If you want it then come and get it."

Let him fucking try.

"And you don't know how anything ends, Aeson. All I know is, if you want to stomp my head into the ground, asshole, then you better do better than that, partner."

You step forwards, narrowing your eyes. "With pleasure."

He lashes out with all silver and bared teeth, catching your chest and tearing another piece of your chest guard. You look down; the EA remains untouched, just over where your heart should be. You raise your spear; you wake up.

"Come on, Loverboy. You know I'm right. Do you think the Capitol will let the two of you live just so you can keep making everyone's stomach churn? Wake up and smell the roses, your honeymoon is running on borrowed time."

Just like you are.

"And it's about to be cut short."

You are not a redemption story; this hollow chest of yours will never learn what it means to house a heart.

[dars]

[aeson kight attacks caine winchester; spear]

iVwHBQPkspear

[3039 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

A scent of old coins in the air forebodes death. Bandaided knees after a descent from sky, lilac patches from a drunken father and paper cuts on fingers—my nose’s akin to it. But, when the jagged ends of Violet Salazar’s footwear touches Caine’s arm and a crunch of bones deafen my eardrums, I begin to heave out air.

Tremors spread, slowly yet surely, throughout this body of timbers. Soon, the blood in my veins has simmered into red seismic waves. My heart becomes an epicenter, a site of distress and austerity. A living earthquake of Aeson’s making.

Euley whispers an icy retort but it’s filtered out by Maisie’s and for a moment, I almost break a grin.

There’s a cosmic irony in every numbered tribute, every snow flower and every silver moon here.

We’re a minuscule contrast to this stretch of pushed-up landmass our feet rest upon. We are technicolor characters of a melodrama to the capitolists—pretty faces and fiery demeanor made for a bed-time story.

Someone in the crowd, somewhere, is tucking their offspring to bed and spinning a make-believe tale about heroes and heroines, picking an arbitrary name out of the ‘victors’ jar for tonight’s anecdote. Jacinta Salazar, with her roses and thorns. Justice Fray, as his name says.

They should know that the arena
isn’t a birthplace of heroes and heroines—
the arena breeds hollow corpses
who hold a permanent scar for eternity.

Aeson’s words are drowned out by the crunch of snow and Caine’s breaths, each one as wild as his district is pictured to be. I reach out to him, brushing a finger against his—and soft tangible medicine to alleviate that broken wrist but I’m not certain of its potency; Violet’s left quite a mark. “Together, okay? ‘Till whatever end’s waiting for us—and even beyond that ... because,” I repeat a memory. “We’re endless.”

I have a holy belief that this isn’t counterfeit as Aeson claims it to be - and the entirety of me clings to it.

This heart, it sings for Caine’s.

We’re not star-crossed lovers out of a storybook. The electricity which sparks in my veins whenever our fingertips touch tells me that this is more than what a sharp-tongued monster sees. It’s an intimacy of soul, starlight eyes at first sight.

We’re bound in a mosaic of constellations,
A cessation rings loud, silence before violence;
I pray for salvation before diving into sedation,
And silver leaps, as a bright declaration of our love.

-

 raven attacks aeson kight / ski pole (spear) 

dOLH55INspear

3044 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage (spear) + 1.0 (strength station)

spear

[lance]

Death walks among us, and yet his victims have yet to arrive.

A bloodstained blade makes a creek where seconds prior it had opened up a river, my opponent still very much connected to life. Euley's followup seems to cut through nothing but air, until ingenuity strikes and she brings her own foot down on top of that of the other.

A pair of Careers we are, and yet it is strikingly clear which of us is the killer and which is the killed.

She screams, the nameless girl who we marked for death, in pain, in fear, who knows. And I hate myself for it, lacking the backbone to make her passing quick, lacking the steel to face death with open arms and a torso bare and ready for skewering. I am a coward, and there is no denying that, for through my fear to reach the eternal sleep I thought I had craved for so long I had thrust myself into a situation where reaching it would be unavoidable.

Hah. What a fucking idiot I am. A coward, through and through, fighting to survive even when the odds most certainly are not in my favor.

A philosophy of black and white while the entire world is gray - that was the fool's bargain I had drawn myself into. The only way out of pain is death. The only thing stronger than a desire to die was a will to live. It was in our instincts, our very nature, to prolong our existence as long as possible.

I had never intended to be the hand that wielded the blade that sent a different soul to the place my very being had been in lockstep on traveling to for so many years. And yet that was the person I had become, whether it was striking at Aeson's district partner or wiping Cynthia's final shade from this earth or raining blazing fury on the girl from Eight. Each strike had been struck with the intent to kill, the intent to find someone worthy - that was what I had told myself.

And yet Vesper Daisy had fallen before my challenge, her allies too incompetent to make the most of my exposed back. Cynthia's ghost had been struck down in fear, her look-a-like lacking what had truly made that girl special. And the girl had fled, circumstance choosing that I would rather worry about my own well-being as opposed to end that of another, flaming spears be damned.

And now we're here. Euley and I are beating the life out of this random girl, someone who hadn't registered in my mind other than an unlucky soul who found their name drawn out of a bowl. She and the boy are blips on my radar, hailing from Three and boasting nothing that would make me awe or fear them.

They're just two unfortunate souls that had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And our verdict is to ensure they pay for that with their lives.

The boy's blade leaves his mark on my shoulder, a blow that would have been deadly had the weapon been a sword, perhaps, or had he carried any strength behind the strike. And there is no point in lashing out for him, not when I could likely break through his ribcage with a punch, let alone an axe or a spear.

I may be a coward, but I'm not cruel. Not to anyone other than myself, anyway.

Then the girl strikes, and my world goes up in flames.

Broken bones are nothing new for me. I'd broken both of my arms at some point in my youth, reckless daredevil stunts ending in pain. My nose I'd gotten smashed in a fistfight when I was sixteen, my ankle as a kid in some stupid incident I can't even remember. And then my collarbone still smarts from the smack that Aeson's district partner had delivered, my foot still sore from whomever had brought their weapon down on it prior.

This was new, even as my right leg ignites and a scream escapes from my lungs. Career or no Career, nothing prepares you for the shock when a CRACK isn't in steel but in bone. Axe falls from hand, spear buries itself into the snow point first as a crutch, and I find myself on the ground.

Ice and fire meet in battle, and I am their victim. And if pain is a drug that I need to feel, I decide right then and there that I'm going cold turkey. Scrapes, bruises, even the occasional gash are more cold than hot, more liquid adrenaline than molten pain, but this-

The girl from Three has brought me close to death's doorstep than I believe I've ever been. And yet I do not lie down and accept my fate, I do not resign to the inevitable.

Left hand grabs the ski pole, my good leg carries my weight, with the extra reach of the weapon and every ounce of strength I can muster, I lunge.

And when I strike, I think to the heavens with more determination and certainty that I thought I was capable of with a silent cry of Not today.

[dars]

isaac attacks maisie; ski pole (spear)

16gmUG12spear

3130 -- Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage

spear

[Python]

The definition of chaos had unraveled. Growling steel and sizzling blood marred the peak’s beauty, and tributes were spitting venom at one another as if this were a battle of silver tongues. Evidently, tributes lived up to their reputations of spilling their passions in the heat of battle. Caine and Raven had a lot to say about Aeson, and Aeson had a bank of witty replies at the ready. She didn’t know whether it was wise to take one side or not. They had every right to hate Aeson, but Aeson was also correct about how quickly their relationship would be destroyed.

But was there shame in holding onto something precious? She could understand them wanting to spend their last moments smiling and thinking of one another. If and when Violet herself died, she knew she wanted her last breaths to escape through a smile.

Realistically, she knew death was not so forgiving.

”Looks like you are still alive, Violet."

Bones had broken but not spirits. She was alive, and there was enough determination in her blood to keep her muscles fighting. No matter how many times he blocked her swings, she had to propel the battle to its end. When it would end, she didn’t know. How many would die before they decided it was too much? Who would turn their cowardly noses away first?

You, if you’re lucky.

That cursed word again. Luck. Yet her skeleton was not the one cracking beneath steel grips. Isaac’s leg was definitely broken, and weapons had practically all been pointed in Aeson’s direction. Violet’s presence was noted, but fading, and it didn’t feel like luck. They despised Aeson and Isaac was a career, painting bloody targets against their spines. Who had the advantage now? The nobodies.

For now.

In this moment, she had to be thankful for her own weaknesses. Salazar or not, there were bigger targets in the enemy’s eyes. All she had to do was exist, fight for this broken alliance, and survive another sunset.

Breathe, swing.

Confidence bled into her fingertips.

[dars]

[attacks Caine - crampons]
1v5Zcy|Rspiked blunt
STABBED IN HAND -- 8.0 damage

spiked blunt

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

This is the swan song of the deathless.

Her leg misses its target, whistling through the air — but Euley improvises. She brings her crampons down on the girl's foot, bones cracking beneath the pressure and a stream of red following behind her. She doesn't smile. There is no grace in this destruction, no joy; it's just murder. And she plays the game and she follows all the rules, but it's not in the nature of the wolf to taunt a rabbit before snapping its neck. All it wants is to feast.

She's starving — though her stomach is full and hasn't growled in hours. This is the curse of the gluttonous, of the elite. She wears gold on her skin and tries to swim. To drown is to sleep; the sea can have her soul. Let it rise on the waves and be given to the sky, falling against a mountain and swallowed by the earth. She belongs to the world. She's a forest of limbs and a cavern of teeth. She gives and she steals and they call her 'Gaia.'

Mother Earth.

All things die, quiet breaths and a slit throat. She doesn't see the point in denying the inevitable. And when her time comes, she'll remove her flesh and bury her crown. It's just ash. Roses will grow from her remains, thorns and petals and a contradiction that will exist long after herself. She wants to be like that. She wants to be more than that. "Your use of metaphor is shit." And she laughs, but there's no spite in the sound. Her death is a metaphor.

"I'm not a poet," Euley says with a shrug, lowering herself to the ground as Isaac makes his attack. There's still life in Maisie, a light that's still burning, but even wildfires are dying right as they ignite. "I'm nothing — and I'm everything. Who cares what you think?" She frowns, but nothing hurts. "Who cares what I think?" She leaps, kicking outwards; a flash of lightning and for a moment she's blind. "We're all just kids playing war. It doesn't matter what any of us think."

They're damned and they're infinite;
nothing and everything together,
just trying to be something.

---

( euley attacks maisie; spiked blunt )
qLGEgMmvspiked blunt
( MISS -- 0.0 damage )

[dars]

spiked blunt

[tick 12a / calla]

c a d e.

Sirens scream their songs and you feel desperation - taste some kind of metallic fear.

A bleeding heart and a sorry excuse, you don't belong here. Words melt behind your teeth, a sinner's plea and the sound breaks in the air as you shake over her - "Maisie, please." Don't leave me here. Don't-

- don't get attached so quickly
because that's not how this is supposed to work.

Bruised heart; it's only been five days.

( You've loved and lost with less. )

But you're tired - exhausted with something that has nothing to do with snow or wolves or bloodthirsty children.

And they're only silhouettes, blurred forms because there's no pain but you still burn, nerves feeling like they're on fire - "Stop." Sinner's plea, there's a pattern engraved into your bones, a hymn of toxicity as telling as your own fingerprint, it burns an old melody, sears a new pain.

But you'll still be the first to jump, still be the first to run when something goes wrong. Always the coward; you'll wait for a signal and join in when the hard part is over because survival instincts are all you've ever had - an owner's manual with a few pages ripped out. You did the best with what you had.

Self-sustaining and self-destructive, you're a contradiction, an inconsistency in a row of hardened souls. You're broken and damaged, soft in all the wrong places with a barrier of fleecy cotton between your heart and your head. You're missing pieces of yourself that you'll never get back; rusted fire escapes and tired eyes watching the sun set, sharing secrets in exchange for promises.

You miss the empty words of a gospel, the hollow spaces near a heart where you made yourself fit, cutting fingers and contorting spines.

Lost boy, imposter, what can you do to stop an army? You hold destruction in your chest, Leviathan all but abandoned, you surmise, hope in vain that you can halt a planet, try to rearrange some kind of star pattern. There are pockets of space between your joints, weakness hiding it's face away and the galaxies there creak under the weight of the world.

You want to be brave and strong, but you were made to break, to fall and disobey. You were crafted from a fissure, a gap in the wall between okay and not, fucked from the moment you started breathing. You cheated - used up lives like they were going out of style but you can feel it now, the phantom pain, and you nurse something that doesn't exist.

Once upon a time, you made a deal with the devil and pretended that it meant nothing, meant something, meant everything.

-


cade attacks isaac jacobi ; knife

wQfIiXVMknife

[stabbed in hand -- 8.0 damage]

knife

[Tom]

c a i n e.

"You wont shoot."

The voice replays in his head as an echo of doubt coming forth in the storm of crimson and silver. A flurry of white and chill that takes a hold of his mind and numbs it to the pain that comes from wounds cut into his skin. He can hear Aeson in the white noise of the chaos with remarks of taking teeth out before he rips their throat out. Remarks that only a killer could make in the world they live in, but they were all killers already. Born to a slaughter that not many escape from. They were all killers from the moment their names were called or the words of volunteering falls from their lips. Death seemed easier than being a killer in this moment. JJ was the lucky one, dying before his hands could be dirtied. Everything was a sea of red with only some green to escape to.

"With pleasure."

Silver clashes with his back once more in a blinding white of pain that echoes across his mind for a second of pain. What would Jed have done in this moment? Back down with his heart still attached and accept death or let himself fall into the pain and fight for his last breath. He would have never known what his little brother would do if they had switched shoes. He wouldn't have blamed his brother for stepping off the plate too early if this is how it was. A sound of a voice from Six coming to the air with a resounding pain that hits his chest instantly.

"Come on, Loverboy. You know I'm right. Do you think the Capitol will let the two of you live just so you can keep making everyone's stomach churn? Wake up and smell the roses, your honeymoon is running on borrowed time."

Wake up. Smell the roses. It's over. Caine knew that they wouldn't make it out. Caine knew that even after all dreams of night skies were just that, dreams that couldn't be fulfilled. Love doesn't exist in the cold arena like people wanted it to, but Caine could try and let himself feel at ease with this idea. He can try and be there for Raven as a person to strive from. An open ended lover who could push him to survival where if he died, Raven would live. Love doesn't exist, but Caine could still hide away in the good parts and hold on tight until they were cut apart by death. A whisper of him reminding Raven that they are endless comes to mind, but really, endless was just the idea of being with one another forever. In death or life, they would still be apart of the other.

"And it's about to be cut short."

Like the moons above, Raven and him dance to find sense of a man who has never had anyone question him. Blood and broken bones, Caine still rises like the sun from the evening, a new dawn of day coming to himself as he hears Raven's voice from somewhere else. The world is spinning, but he can still see the forest boy that holds a piece of him in his heart. They were never meant to fall for one another, not in this way. The arena was already hard enough, but now they had a heart that they carried together, but it's hard to know that Raven may not survive if he's to fall here. Caine's already pulling himself back up at the words of Raven.

“Together, okay? ‘Till whatever end’s waiting for us—and even beyond that ... because,” Together. They were together in this moment, but if he died, they would be lost in the sky, spread like constellations, a memory of what once was. Raven could live without him. Raven would survive without him. Caine would not be able to. Deep down, he knew that he wouldn't be able to continue on without Raven Sayer in his life. The touch that he's created upon his dusty heart beats with the sound of Raven's own heart. “We’re endless.”

Endless beings that will be united no matter in death or in life.

Caine would always be with Raven, no matter if he fell into the snowy depths of the chill. Another body to join JJ and the girl that he had killed on accident. Would his family remember him or would they shun him for the love that he felt for Raven, even if it wasn't true love. Ma would cry with heavy tears. Pa would break down on the corner of the bar where he would drink his sorrows away. Jed would call him pathetic for letting his heart be the reason death takes him. Caine would be able to live with that. The Winchester family would move on without him. Life would be normal for them. He wouldn't be a nuisance anymore. He wouldn't cause them pain anymore.

Just like before, Violet gets him with a hurtful impact, stabbing through his hand this time. Pain spreads from it as crimson mixes with white. Pink forms into a stain on the snow as the blood seeps down to the depths of it. A whisper of anger is upon his skin, but all he can feel is exhaustion. All he can feel is tiredness of always following what he was told to do, but never going with his heart. And the one time he does, death seems to follow. A whisper of pain and knowing is upon him, but he still grips the silver and holds himself steady. Words come out of his lips, crimson falling slowly from his wounds, hitting cold air and making him shiver slightly.

"All things come to an end, Kight. I know this with my heart. Raven and I weren't both going to make it out of this arena. Borrowed time or not, we're still here and I am going to make this last as long as I physically can. Be it for one more hour or one more day."

Caine moves his hand forward with pain, but in the movement he makes the wound from his hand splash blood at Aeson in a fury. Eyes glancing to Raven, he mouths the words back to him. We're endless. Eyes glare back to Aeson Kight as he gives him a glare and then looks over to Violet who he feels bad for. Stuck in a place where she had to prove herself, but already having the pressure of a legacy on her shoulders. She carried the world upon her shoulders and he was nothing more than a roadblock in her way. Aeson was nothing more than someone she could rely on. A whisper of the cold hits his skin as he speaks again.

"Also, I reckon that you fix your aim, Kight. Violet seems to be doing a better job than you ever will."

A pained smirk falls on his lips as his hat pushes upwards from the wind. Air is thinner up there as bodies sprawl trying to reach the top. A sky of stars rising above at the tip where the sky could become one with the earth. If he dies here, at least he'll be able to touch the sky one last time. A breath of air falls from his throat as he holds the silver in his hands and strikes forward. Words barely leaving his lips as he strikes.

"You'll never be endless, Aeson."

-

caine attacks aeson kight with ski pole [spear]

un63Xz3Nspear

shallow cut left calf // 3.5

spear

[heather - d2 [mylee]]

m a i s i e.

The first boy, the one who has turned his hand against me and then reacted in shock when I did the same, says nothing. He strikes light and holds tongue in cheek, and I return the favor of silence as we continue to duel. He is nothing but subordinate to god, an angel at best, but even this is questionable in the light of his inadequacy. He is not radiant like her.

When she speaks, I pretend to listen. She is another god with an excuse, another half-being that is convinced it holds worth between the teeth like predator, no. She is frightened prey, the same as myself, only there is something about her that has caused her bone to illumine while mine hang heavy in the dark.

I have said a final prayer; I have closed the book of hymns.

WIP

[maisie lennox attacks issac jacobi; spiked blunt]
VgfEziQbspiked blunt
[broken right collarbone -- 6.5]

spiked blunt

[kousei ♚]

You offer skin and bone in pieces; Loverboy's ski pole takes all it can.

You feel red flood, dripping down your arm and soaking into your sweater. It falls from your fingertips like scarlet rain and you leave part of yourself in the snow. You cry out, an involuntary spasm of vulnerability escapes lips loosened by agony. "Oh, fuck you." You spit through gritted teeth and swollen fists.

Raven claims they are endless and yet in that moment, with Caine's blood staining his weapon and Violet's crampons, it sure does not seem that way.

A crimson agony bleeds into the snow, iron flood peeling from your skin and the thundering of your heartbeat so loud that you mistake it for a scarlet storm. But fear that should be felt is displaced by the unnatural calm coiling itself around your veins and arteries and holding gripping itself around your throat. You won't die here, that much is certain, you will not fall to men who let their fragile hearts be their compasses in a world that doesn't tolerate porcelain.

It doesn't stop agony from pounding against your skin, cutting through apathy and into your skin. You count lacerations like stars in the sky and dead men beneath your boot; you decide you're so far past playing pretend. Apathy is only your second skin, after all.

Let them see the hatred that blooms within your soil; it's the only thing worth growing anyway.

Despite the death soaking his skin, the life weeping from his broken body, Caine defends his kingdom to his last breath. You might've respected him for that, if he wasn't dying for a cause already dead. He puts his body on the line and lets justification drip down his chin in a manner you allow acid to drip down yours; yet he's the one who burns in this moment.

"All things come to an end, Kight. I know this with my heart. Raven and I weren't both going to make it out of this arena. Borrowed time or not, we're still here and I am going to make this last as long as I physically can. Be it for one more hour or one more day."

A witty reply sits on the tip of your tongue, you speak it through gritted teeth. "At the rate things are going, you won't be able to make it last past the next five minutes." You smile for you love the sound of a kingdom that topples, a man who refuses to crumble but will die for a cause not worth fighting for. No one can care about someone else like that, can they?

You don't let your mind drift to Euley's heartbeat.

He moves forwards, his blood spattering across your face and staining your lips. You recognize the familiar taste of iron but you do not move. Not when it runs down your skin, not when Caine attempts to taunt you by comparing you to your ally. You only move when he does; he fights to preserve his dying kingdom.

"You'll never be endless, Aeson."

You ignore the silver that splits your skin into scarlet ribbons; you anchor yourself to his words. You step back, your skin numbing to the sound of your own name but your heartbeat accelerating at the word before it. Endless; you don't know the truth of eternity. You spun the wheel linking your feet to your death a long time ago; people in your business don't live long. It never bothered you, who you would leave behind and what you would miss for you view yourself from a plane external to the life you live. You see more than empty pleasures you chase, moments of exhilaration you crave.

You do not know the truth of eternity; you will never be endless.

You spin a wheel of a broken death and wonder if it will come to a halt at causation. You step forwards, your hair falling over your forehead and eyes and your fingers tightening around your ski pole, heavy with the blood you spill in the name of burning down a lover's kingdom, but this is not a realization of fear of a call for redemption.

"I don't want to be eternal," harsh breaths taken by staggered wind. Caine's blood runs down the corner of your mouth, drips from your chin. You become an extension of death himself, an incarnation of hell and a reflection of the ninth circle -- this is a kingdom worth dying for. "I don't want a forever." Yet you can still see one, it's blurred and distant but it's there. With Aeryn, Euley and Ava.

With yourself.

You see a forever you never wanted, an eternity worth bleeding into the snow for.

A weak grin pulls at your lips, Caine's blood drips down your chin and into the snow; you are an extension, a shade that will watch their kingdom burn down beneath the polarization of your hatred. Eyes wide, gaze wild, you step forwards and trace his form with red eyes. Your ski pole becomes an extension of your arm, you fight with the blurring rhythm of this adrenaline rush.

"I want your life."

You want to drag him down to that special place in hell with you; hatred is the only thing worth blooming in this rocky soil of yours.

[dars]

[aeson kight attacks caine winchester; spear]

pvMs9FYIspear

[3130 -- Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage]

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

He’s all the sunrises I drink in, a varicolored phenomenon that never grows banal. But, now, I dare not look at him because these eyes are threatening to explode with tears.

Violet Salazar’s luck is relentless after being ridiculed at and failure strikes me flat in the face when I try to shield Caine from her jagged footwear. The silver sinks in, drawing crimson. It’s a ruthless color—the color of dynamites and bush-fires: the kind that scorch woodlands down to a wilderness of skeletal trees.

From another direction, Aeson’s spear flashes.

Before all of this, I thought of myself as a forest. But, through brimstone and fire, this forest defies gravity and levitates skyward - to become a moon: weightless and potent.

When he hisses out the four words to Caine—“I want your life,”—I dissolve into an eclipse, casting a shadow so long it veils my lover and the two Three’s.

“Hey, Six,” My ski pole metamorphoses into a feather; I take a moment to speak—“I want your life too.”—before letting it pounce, a predator’s bite in steel form. I address him as a number; the ghosts inside say Aeson Kight isn’t worth a label.

They decide he’s as nameless as they are. 

{wip}

-

 raven attacks aeson kight / ski pole (spear) 

HM97yUIHspear

3092 -- Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage
(spear)

spear

[lance]

Not today.

Never before had I made such a vocal declaration on my fate - and oh, how different it was from even just a couple of days prior. Getting bashed about in the bloodbath hadn't garnered a cry like that. Getting double teamed by a little girl and an older girl who clearly did not know how to stab someone in the back hadn't unlocked such raw instincts.

Hell, at this point I don't know what is the conscious part of my mind and what is just the human body acting out in its quest to survive another day. And I find I don't really fucking care.

It's the same old fucking coward's cycle for me. Get within an inch of death, or sometimes several feet, and then chicken out at the last minute, as if the mantra I've recited to myself day in and day out for years past didn't fucking matter when it came down to crunch time. You'd think that putting the responsibility in someone else's hands would make things easier, but no. Surprisingly, the role of death is too great for one stranger to handle, at least for me.

And when Euley misses, I wonder if it's intentional, whether to tempt fate or cripple me a little further before coming to my rescue. It wouldn't surprise me at this point - day five is usually the beginning of the end, and I've already long overstayed my welcome - but my focus is too much on the pain in my leg and the girl at my front to care.

I rise, and the boy from Three finally grows a spine as his knife pierces through my glove and into my skin. I rise, and the girl cracks the last part of my chestplate and sends me tumbling back to earth with the breath knocked from my lungs.

And yet I rise, spear planted into the snow as a crutch, my good hand once again finding my axe and my gaze firmly set on my opponent.

She's fading, I can tell that much. But she isn't out of this world yet.

And yet when I move to remedy that, only pity fills my heart.

I'm sorry.

[dars]

isaac attacks maisie; axe

DYCVJdA2axe

11194 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage

axe

[Python]

A glimpse of her nightmare flickered in the snow; blood dripping from her fingernails, a crown bejeweled by lost souls, and Jacinta’s stoic face melting in front of a fire. The day one mentality was returning, and it made her stomach uneasy. She ripped her crampons away from Caine’s hand, having gashed him so badly he was leaving blood trails in the snow. The air was thick with a winter’s chill and lovesick blood, because minute-by-minute it was becoming clearer that Caine and Raven would be separated by the reaper’s scythe. Although she disagreed with Aeson’s ruthless tongue, he was right about borrowed time. They each had an hourglass in their palms – how many grains were left? Sand would spill into the bloody snow by nightfall. Aeson would have his victory, and Violet would have played a part in it.

A permanent frown was etched into her complexion. Caine’s harping about her skill couldn’t even bother her, because he was the one knocking on death’s door. She only wished he didn’t have to die so gruesomely. Gash after gash, he was falling apart. The spirit was there but it could not inhabit a broken body, and Aeson was drinking it up like wine at the dinner table. Indeed they were allies, but more often than not she found herself wishing desperately for his demise.

She sighed, breath visibly curling around pale lips. It was a mixture of exhaustion and disgust, the blood on her hands having already turned cold. This battlefield was not designed for a Salazar, yet here she was facing predators that felt like nothing menacing compared to the ones who fought by her side. Euley and Isaac were careers, and Aeson was a unique example of a district’s failure to raise human beings rather than beasts. She knew she belonged on the opposite side, but a true Salazar would surround themselves with the strongest advantages. Being a decent person had nothing to do with victory.

A snake in identify, but not at heart. She was of another breed that she could not name, but she had to adopt the strategies of her family if she ever wanted to stand a chance against not only the ones she fought, but the ones that stood by her side. With that mindset alone she remained silent and unknown, rearing her weapon Caine. While Euley chanted her poetry and Aeson hissed his violence, she decided not to paint herself as the despised. Right now, she was just another girl fighting another battle.

Hiding in plain sight.

[dars]

[attacks Caine - crampons]
gp0hZO6Uspiked blunt
14025 -- DEEP GASH ON STOMACH -- 9.0 damage

spiked blunt

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

A grey sky, snow on the wind —
but there are stars here, too.
Falling and burning,
like comets named after the dying.
To die is to find peace.

Her kick fails to land, body spinning through the air and knees skidding roughly across the ground. She doesn't have the chance to improvise another attack, watching as her target fights back against Isaac and shatters his armored vest. The scar on her stomach stings, almost as if trying to understand her companion's pain, but broken bones are unfamiliar to Euley. She frowns, but you can still see her teeth. The privileged are never taught how to mourn.

"Hold on," she calls to her ally, rising to her feet and rolling her shoulders. "I'll end this." Wolves travel in packs, protecting their own and feasting on those who get too close. And it doesn't matter that they were the ones who brought first blood — they'll bring a flood, too. Red and raging and swallowing all in its path. Flowers will grow from the skeletons that are left behind, and the birds will find somewhere safer to make their nests, but it's all pointless. A wildfire will always follow.

"I want your life, too."

She turns to Raven with narrowed eyes, digging her nails into the dirt and preparing to strike. There's so much tension here, in her limbs and in her lungs, but her voice doesn't shake. "His life is mine, Seven." She's a territorial creature, claiming what is hers and raising Hell when that ownership is challenged. "Let Caine go. You can keep his corpse. Bury him, for all we care." She looks back to Maisie, exhaling a cold breath. "You have to know when to stop fighting."

Euley leaps, kicking with all of her force and focusing her mind — this is the ending of a girl. It has to be. And she forms a mountain out of her spine, holding an ocean in her ribs and letting her hair catch flame. All elements exist in her movements, life and death and rain and drought; the killing of an innocent is not a singular thing. It is both survival and murder, a lamb crying out and a butcher that needs to eat. All cruelty can be justified. "You can bury her, too. Just let her soul be free."

---

( euley attacks maisie; spiked blunt )
3dljnuzbspiked blunt
( BROKEN RIGHT WRIST -- 6.5 damage )

[dars]

spiked blunt

[tick 12a / calla]

c a d e.

You orbit dynamically, slowly, with sunspots in your eyes and a heart on your sleeve. Limitless; you ache melancholic until it's numbing - frost in your veins.

Because you're just a boy from Three, a setback who holds his breath and pretends to drown.

It was different before, when the blood on your hands felt synthetic, when it came from something different, something inhumane. But now there's a root, a feeling of reality taking hold, and you think of the spring melt.

wip - here comes the big breakdown

-


cade attacks isaac jacobi ; knife

VIOROmXcknife

[x]

knife

[Tom]

c a i n e.

"Did you ever dream of life being different, Caine?"

"No, I reckon this is how life is. Us working on the ranch until we're old and frail and have kids of our own to do it."

"That'd be nice, wouldn't it."

Life was never going to be that way for Caine. No children. No old. He would die young on a mountain top in the cold. A lover to his side, a friend somewhere farther, and a body to be. His blade does nothing but hit metal with a clang that rings through his head like a painful sting of the truth that everything was falling like asteroids to the earth. Wiping out all life that there was. Wiping out, Caine Winchester's own breath. He can hear Jed's voice in his head, trying to reason to him to keep fighting, trying to push him to live longer. Death seems easier in this state of crimson. The chill along his skin was beginning to grow warmer and warmer. Giving in would be easier than just fighting to keep the cold in him. Death's knocking on his door, but he doesn't want to answer.

"I don't want to be eternal," Eternal. A word that doesn't fit with anyone. No one was eternal, but their effects can be. Aeson's a liar, deep down, Caine knew that Aeson was just like anyone. A boy in a world surrounded by death, even if he loved to be surrounded by it, they still wanted the same thing. Life. A chuckles falls from his lips as he spits blood for a moment. "I don't want a forever," Aeson wants to live for now, not forever. Selfish men with selfish minds who don't know what good they can have upon the world. Selfish children who didn't know what hard work was or what it was like to never have anything change.

Caine's first everything was happening and it would only last for a little bit longer. The blade cuts somewhere, but he's numb to it already. Snow, crimson, and the stars. Raven's voice catches somewhere, but he doesn't listen. Aeson's words reach the air once more still. "I want your life." He wants to take Caine away from this world and into the next. A dangerous man who doesn't know what life holds, doesn't know how to live life to the fullest. Caine's tired of him, he's tired of everything, he just tired. There's no point in watching Raven strike. There's no point in standing his ground. There's no point anymore.

"You won't shoot."

Maybe the outlaw had always been right. Shooting would mean changing for the worse. Blood was already on his hands, but he doesn't drop his weapon. He doesn't stop attacking, he thinks of Raven and Cade and Maisie. He thinks of how they are still trying to live, even if Maisie was already dead. This was a bloodbath. This is the final stand for him. A breath catches in his throat because he's accepted death. The stars will write him a place up in the sky above with a face of his own. A constellation of a cowboy, that'd be a new addition to the strangest of constellations. A chuckle falls from his lips once more as kicks his foot into the snow for a moment. Cold. Chill. Freezing. Death.

Let Caine go. You can keep his corpse. Bury him, for all we care." The girl from two, Euley, speaks with a chill upon her tongue. A career with her dangerous man. Fist tightens around the silver weapon in his hands. Then words fall from her lips like ice and she strikes like a wolf among the snow, like this was her home. Maisie falls and his voice near screams out, but it's useless. It's always been useless in that moment. Pain already soaring through his body from the wound on his stomach. More blood comes from his throat as he coughs out loud. Pain seers through his skin, but he doesn't dare let himself go. Instead of facing Aeson and Violet, he looks over to Raven. Broken bones and bloodied skin. Moving ever so slightly to his forest boy, he lets himself stand as tall as he can.

The face of the stars in his eyes, the face that was his forest boy's, this could be the last time he sees that face. Dropping the spear from his hand, he moves his hand up to Raven's cheek, rubbing a thumb generously along his cheek. A whisper in his throat, "Don't." Caine doesn't dare let tears run down his own face, all he lets out is the smile that he's ever known. The genuine smile of white teeth and a boy who lived a fulfilled life on a ranch. Thumb rubbing gently along his forest boy's cheek as he pushes forward once more with a passionate peck on the lips, pulling apart.

"Leave Raven. Live for me, my forest boy."

Rough hand leaves Raven's cheek as the tingling of his own skin comes forth. The stars were in his eyes, but a black hole stood nearby, ready to take him away from the light into a darkness. The sky crashing into a sea of red and the only green left would turn red. A deep sigh as he moves away from Raven as he whispers to the air. "We're endless, Raven. I'll always be with you." Hand moving to the top of his head, he pulls off the cowboy hat that his father had given him at a young age. A hat that kept a piece of his heart with him. A hat that held every single idea he's ever had about life in it's fabric. Home was in that hat, but he wouldn't be going back there again. Someone had to get it home to them. Trust in Raven. It'll make it home to them.

The hat fits perfectly among the forest boy's hair and eyes that look back at him. A smile upon his lips as he turns away from Raven this time to see Cade in the distance. A broken boy who didn't deserve the hell that they had been given. A boy who had no family before. Aeson and them be damned, he didn't care what they were going to say now. He didn't care if they say his heart or if they ignored his heart. All he does is wave his hand in the air at Cade and hopes that the boy understands what he means. There's always going to be a family for him in the end. The Winchesters would become their family if they are to live.

Family. It was done for him to be apart of them anymore. Days spent on a ranch with Jed. Mornings and business deals with Pa. Ma's lovely cooking and hobbies that he helped with. Younger siblings telling him stories about school and friends and anything else they wanted to tell him. Abel's neighing when he would go to sleep that night. They would find a new pattern. A new life that would be normal for them to live. No more pain. No more sorrows. A dead body and a new life. That's how it was always going to be. Death be damned, they would find a way to survive.

"Alright guys, It's time you two left, Raven and Cade."

Tears do not fall from Caine Winchester's eyes. He's cried enough already to last his entire lifetime. The pain is barely bearable upon his body, but he holds himself steady as he waves to them to leave now before things became too much. There's nothing left for him anymore. The stars were calling. The sky was falling. The earth was spinning. The comets were flying. The moons were dancing. The sun was burning. And all that was left was a supernova in the midst of it all. Voice cracking as he speaks to his allies, friends, one last time.

"There's nothing left for y'all here. I-I'll hold them off for as long as I can."

Like the icicles that hang from ledges, he can feel himself falling. The shattering sound of hooves in his ears as he knew this was the time for his own slaughter. Raised to become nothing more than another slaughter. A starry eyed boy with dreams of a life grander than what the had. He'll miss the nights of cuddling by a fire with Raven in his arms. He'll miss telling a broken boy that he had something left in the world, even if it wasn't his own. He'll miss watching Maisie's eyes for signs of approval. He'll miss watching the stars of the night vanish into a rising sun. He'll miss the rush of wind that chilled his bones as they raced to the bottom. Everything was ending, but he would be apart of it forever.

"You want my life so bad, Aeson. Go ahead, take it."

Hands grasp for the spear that he had dropped as the sky grows darker and darker with every second. A heartbeat of his own beating in rhythm of Raven's heart that he hoped was leaving the area. Ski pole raised as he knew death was coming, but he wasn't a coward. He wouldn't stop fighting even when he's at deaths door. A smirk across his face as he looks to the other four that were there. Two careers, a Salazar, and a dangerous man. What a terribly awful joke this could make. Words leave his lips again.

"You'll never know what life is Aeson. What life could be."

A glance to Euley as he ignores her words from before. His life is hers. Love could be brewing even in the coldest of hearts, but life was too short to wait for it to play out. Death was still knocking at his door with bony hands and cold chills. All he can do is imagine the stars falling and the galaxies swirling as he pushes up his spear and strikes forward for the last time in his life. He wouldn't be seen as a coward, a mad man maybe, but not a coward. Like a rose, his thorns were too much, and he would learn of his death soon. Experience what is next for him in the world after.

"Eternal or not, you'll be left behind Aeson. Just another boy who didn't know how to rope the moon."

-

caine attacks aeson kight with ski pole [spear]

zP3f98lMspear

3110 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage

Spear