I found god in a lover (Bella x Raven day 7)

[ryan]

Bella couldn’t breathe the moment she started walking away from the boy that she cared so much about.

She spent so much time taking care of him, protecting him, and telling him that he was worth more as an ally than any other career would ever be, yet, there she was, leaving him in the fog of white that everyone else left her in.

She was worried, sad, battered and bruised.

She couldn’t believe that this was what it was coming down too. She knew how the games worked after watching them a couple times.

When they got to 8 living tributes, the Gamemakers were looking to end it. So they started pairing them off until they reached their victor.

And the thought of being paired up against broke Bella’s heart in half.

She knew though that this was just the way of the games. That there would be no ill will between the two had they come up and had to fight each other. Bella would not want him to run from her, and she would not run from him.

It would be a fight to the death, and that is what she would want.

She took a deep breath as she continued into the night, trying to get as far away from Dymas as she could. The last thing that she wanted to deal with was running into him in the morning, because that meant that she would have to fight the one boy that gave her hope this entire time.

He was the only thing that kept her close to her sanity.

---

She took a minute to rest, trying to gather her surroundings in her picture framed eyes. She was far from him, and that was what she wanted.

The snow pelted her as she walked against it, but with the help of the ski suit that she acquired, she didn’t feel anything.

She wished she grabbed another bundle of firewood, but Dymas needed it more than she did. He needed a fire to keep him warm, and for once, that was something that Bella could provide to the man that traveled with her the last couple of days.

The log that she sat on was damp, almost icy. She felt like she could have fallen off if she released pressure from either side.

She put down her satchel and began to walk around the area. Her visibility was low, but with the help of her ski goggles, she saw a massive structure in front of her.

The metal was familiar, especially when Bella touched it.

It was the cornucopia.

She walked around for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to be here six days ago. She remembered looking around at all the blood and bodies. Apollo, Amelina, Alejandro and JJ. Four people that she didn’t really know.

That was shockingly apparent.

As she watched them die in front of her eyes.

One by one each of them fell, and Bella knew that was a good thing, because that meant she was one step closer to going home.

But she also knew that each person who killed someone had now become a murderer.

Bella knew she was close to that herself, sinking her ski pole deep into Mercy Woods that very day. There was nothing personal about it. It was merely survival.

Bella needed to make sure that she got out of there alive, and if that meant she had to kill someone in her way, then so be it.

She changed the moment she walked into this arena. And then each day changed her even more.

Now she was a killer, which meant that she didn’t have to think twice about taking someone’s life.

That was the difference between day one and day six.

There was blood covering Bella’s soul now.

Death looked at her with a wicked smile, dancing with Isaac’s corpse to the most romantic love song that he could think of.

Bella just hoped that he was at peace with whatever he was now doing in the kingdom of death.

---

After getting familiar with the area, she heard a loud crack across the sky, music playing louder than usual. Someone who the capitol mustve cared about died last night.

She looks to the sky, her mind wandering around until she sees the screen with faces that she once knew.

First was Gillian, the girl that she buried not too long ago. She wondered if her body was still there for them to see?

Dymas was a wreck because of it, and Bella didn’t blame him. She was full of wonder and hope, while she too had blood on her hands.

Bella remembered the scene all too well. Right as she jumped off the pedestal, she witnessed the girl from eight charge in against the girl from nine.

A little yellow strip floating across the white wasteland that they stood in.

When they collided, she watched Apollo fly against the wind, and her head landed against a jagged rock in the area, crushing her skull in the process.

And Bella watched in horror as she continued to bounce around the bloodbath as carefree as possible.

Did she not understand the gravity of what she had done?

Maybe it was because she was so young.

Bella watched her face disappear into the night sky as she pondered it for another moment.

---

Exar Shan was a man that Bella didn’t know all that well.

She did however, know him as a warrior. He was fierce in the battlefield, and Bella could not believe that she got the chance to work with him in the training center.

He helped with her form, taught her how to hold a weapon, and how to never falter when attacking.

If you falter, you die. he told her a his gruff voice that she remembered so well.

When she met him again two days ago, he looked like hell to her. Like he had seen things that no one should have ever seen.

She wanted to ask questions, but their meeting was not a friendly one.

They were enemies through and through.

However, Bella still felt crushed at the thought that she had to wield her spear towards him.

When she attacked him, he looked at her and smirked, like he understood her conviction. Like he knew everything about what she was going through in this moment.

As she watched Eva and Gabe both die in succession of each other, she looked at Exar and thought about what was going on in his head in that moment.

Seeing him in the sky made Bella wonder who could have killed such a man.

She didn’t dawdle on it for too long, seeing as Exar probably wouldn’t want her too. It was silly of her to think about it anyway.

---

Isaac Jacobi was next on the screen and for once, Bella felt nothing. She did not care about killing the boy who killed her friend moments earlier.

She did not care that he was one of the people who Euley held close.

She did not care that Aeson tried to break her with his words.

She did not care that Violetta spewed venom off her tongue as she blended into the scenery.

She did not care about any of that. All she cared about was that her friends death was avenged.

If she could, she would thank Isaac for what she gave to him. A new look on life here in the arena.

People died and that was something that she was going to have to accept.

Even if they died by her hands.

That was something that she was going to have to accept from here on out. As much as she didn’t want to have to kill to go home, it was a necessary evil that she was going to have to live through.

She wouldn’t do it happily however.

---

The final face was one that she didn’t know.

All she knew about him was that he was the boy from three who had an 11 labeled on his head.

Bella wondered how he had fallen from grace, seeing as he had made it that far.

She wondered who might have taken him down here.

She didn’t spend too much time on the thought, it was just one less person that she had to worry about coming to kill her.

---

The Anthem disappeared and for a moment, Bella wondered what the morning would hold for her.

That’s when she found a picture on the log she was sitting on.

She wondered where it could have come from, seeing as she knew that all the pictures she had were safely in the satchel that she was carrying.

She picked it up and noticed that it was a picture of her, walking away from the fire and into the darkness.

She was perplexed until she finally noticed the four that was etched into the lower corner of the photo.

”Dymas…” She said out loud even though no one could hear her.

If there was one person that she was going to miss here it was him.

As much as he portrayed himself as a clown, he was still good company, and a fierce friend. She wouldn’t have made it out of the fight with the careers if it hadn’t been for him.

While she did stab him in the eye, she knew that his attack had almost sealed the deal on Isaac Jacobi.

When she watched that axe go deep into his back, she knew that Isaac wouldn’t make it out of that fight alive.

And that made Bella’s mind stop for a moment and thank death because that meant that she could live for another day here.

It was a gift that he probably didn’t know that he was giving.

Her life. His life. The life of the people that he traveled with everyday leading up to his death.

Isaac Jacobi was hope personified.

And Bella Rose hated that she had to take his life, but better his than hers.

At least, that is what she thought.

---

After finding a place in the cornucopia to rest, she looked at the night sky and wondered what Caine would tell her right now.

If there was one person that she missed here it was him. He was the only person here that could have reminded her of home, and while they only had a few interactions, they were the ones that Bella remembered the most.

She did hope that wherever Caine was now that he was happy.

Sometimes she would reminisce in her mind about the stories that he told her about his family.

And while Bella might have lived in the same district, she never met Caine before in her life. Maybe it was because they both traveled in different circles. Or that his life was tied to being a farm boy and she was an orphan that no one would ever understand.

After all, she was sure that people thought that she set her house on fire. That she killed her parents. However, that was something that Bella chose to never think about. Mostly because it wasn’t true.

She loved her parents, and missed them to the point where it hurt.

She clutched the locket for a moment, holding it close to her chest before opening it one more time.

She stared at the photos closely, trying to figure out what her parents would tell her right now. What advice would they offer to their child that was about to die.

She closed the locket and held it close to her again, wondering if there was ever going to be an end to this nightmare that she was living.

She knew better though. Because her nightmare would end in her death.

And Bella could confidently say that is something she could live with.

Whatever happened. Happened.

Nothing more to it.

And she fell asleep for the night.

---

When she woke, she realized that the snow had stopped, and for a moment, Bella looked around her surrounding to notice that everything looked beautiful.

The way the snow looked crisp on the rotting logs around her, the way the pine was covered by a blanket of thick fluff, and even how the sun bounced off the outer perimeter of the place she slept in for the night.

She stood up, feeling the crack of her joints, each one popping in a symphony that she never thought she would hear.

She needed to walk around for a bit.

And so she did.

She thought about who might cross her path. Her gut was telling her that it was going to be Euley, because she seemed determined to make her pay for her friends death.

However, the Game Makers always had surprises in store for the people that managed to survive this long in the games.

When she was closer to the cornucopia, that is when she noticed a boy who was familiar.

She took a second to hide behind a tree, hoping to get a better look at his face before she went in for an attack.

She moved through the trees, feeling them tell her how she should approach such a boy that she did not know.

Until she got close enough to notice that she did know this boy.

She knew him all too well.

---

Raven Sayer and Bella Rose had more in common than one might think. Both of them shared a love for a boy that died too soon in this arena, and Bella thought it must have been fate for them to cross paths right now.

”Raven…” She said from the gallows, trying hard to not run away from a fight that she knew was going to be deadly.

”That is your name right?” She walked out of the trees that she was hiding in, holding her spear close to her. This was not a friendly meeting, but one that would be written in blood.

”You knew Caine?” She said to him, tears streaming down her eyes for a moment. She missed him the most out of anyone here in the arena. ”You knew the person that reminded me of home.”

Bella knew that she was a mess. However, this was her chance to get a little bit of closure.

This was her chance to say her goodbyes to Caine.

---

She saw the armor around Raven’s body and she couldn’t help but frown. She flipped off the helmet and took off the shin guards almost immediately. ”Im done not playing fair. ” She said to him, throwing them to the side. ”How about you Raven? Want to play fair?” She said to him, praying that he would oblige in her request. ”For Caine?” She knew well that is what he would want at the end of this story.

This wasn’t the end of the story though. This was the epilogue.

The end of the end.

However, Bella was determined to keep going. Not just for Caine, but for everyone.

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Bella Rose Attacks Raven Sayer with her ski pole (spear)
xnwYNdRjspear
3003 -- Deep Gash on Right Forearm -- 8.0 damage
(Spear)

OOC NOTE for the GM's, Griffin and I have decided that we are going to go with out armor for this fight.

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

There’s two ways a star flickers out: through a supernova’s rage or a hushed sizzle reverberating throughout space. Cade falls with a delicate grace of the latter; so much that I overlooked it as something theatrical and staged.

But as his back kisses the snow below, the concussion of a canon explodes and shifts seismic waves – drives a lost boy down to his knees. The sound doesn’t fade; it resonates – and carries on, endlessly. He’s perished; and I can’t spare an idle moment – to stand aghast and grief. These days had been a perpetual series of that – grievance.

Every step a memorial,
Every patch of land a boneyard
And every pine tree a shelter
To halt for a recess,
And press play
On the grieving process.

“…Fuck, they’re dead.” I exhale, a scattered breath which expresses realization and tragedy as a singular. Through flashes of silver, they waned and then, buried fix feet under, they’re dead.

Gone, like cigarette smoke in air, like stars soaring high above.

Maisie, the heartbeat of stars. Cade, a lost boy who somehow managed to carry a shipwrecked me away from a fading Caine, the pastiche of heroes from my bedtime anecdotes. The words reverberate till my stomach sinks to the very pits out of sickness and vertigo; I clasp it aback before the retching can commence. “They’re dead.” A broken mantra; rosy brims repeat and echo – some desperate attempt to ease this devastation out.

Near midnight, these bones halt their rickety dances – apart from the many in my jawline, which ensues to clatter obstinately. About the bonfire, there’s solely a creeping silence and I sit, relishing in it. After an hour or three, white noise does subdue to a complete stillness. The only noise’s from this clockwork heart inside, which does nothing but beats on.

The edges of my bonfire hiss into tangerine embers – which levitate in an eerie resemblance of different shapes. It took a moment’s time for them to become a steady company within the duration of these left-over hours. Dawn's a few tints and hours away. 

Only when they’re gone, I start to long brutally for Caine’s arms. No matter the snowfall, they could always give an illusion of warmth. And I should’ve exploited the warmth more – should’ve peppered more kisses – should’ve rushed in front of Aeson’s arcing silver – should’ve given him a proper funeral. In this head, I do everything right.

{ WIP; about to hit the hay xoxo. }

-

raven attacks bella rose / ski pole (spear)

AhG7LDRQspear

3020 -- Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage
(spear)

spear

[ryan]

Bella knew what this meant.

Her, attacking the boy that Caine loved here in the arena.

This was her chance to reunite him with someone that she didn’t even see die.

This would have been her way of making peace with the one person she had regrets for.

She couldn’t protect him, and that was crushing her on the inside. Every time she thought about it, her chest got smaller as her heart got bigger. She couldn’t go more than a couple of hours without thinking about one Caine Winchester.

That was why she found it poetic that she was now going toe to toe with the man he loved here.

Everything had its irony here, and sometimes it turned from being sad to poetic to fateful and back to sad again. Fight Raven was the latter of all those choices. She didn’t know what was going through his mind right now.

She wondered if he even wanted to win at this point.

After all, everyone that he knew was dead here in the arena.

Euley struck down Mercy.

Finley stabbed Gabe.

Euley then killed Maisie.

Aeson broke Caine.

Isaac harpooned Gilly.

And for the other boy that was with him, she didn’t know.

Maybe Bella would never know.

However, she had a feeling that it was the person that Dymas was going up against today.

She wondered how Dymas was doing right now, hoping that he was keeping himself safe. If Dymas survived today, she would be happy, because that meant that there was someone that could go on to take on the three who wished them dead.

After all, one of them had to survive.

---

And when she took a moment to revel in the fact that this boy from seven was still going after watching the people he cared about die in front of his eye, she smiled.

He was as strong as she was, and that was something worth celebrating.

Bella hated everything about death, but she was slowly starting to realize that in this universe, only a few things are certain, death being one of them.

She wished she could change that, for all of them. But she had someone to get home too, and if that meant that Bella Rose had to kill another just to get there, she would tell death to ready his crown of thorns, because she was willing to accept her role as the princess of death.

And she would carry out deaths will until she was struck down herself, because that was the only thing that would inch her closer to that finish line.

”Tell me about the days you spent with Caine?” She said, pulling back her spear to block the now slight cut on her chest. She took a deep breath, trying to adjust to the pain. It was something that she would never get used too.

”I want to know everything up until the point he died.” She looked at him with eager eyes, paying no mind to the pick axe that appeared in the corner of her eye. Right now she was focused on finding more out about the boy that she wished she could have said more too before he perished.

”If it makes you feel any better Raven, I killed one of their own yesterday.” She offered him a halfhearted smile, realizing that maybe this could help. Hearing that someone got vindication for the fallen.

”Please remember, taking a life is not easy.” She looked at him, worried that there might not be much to talk about after her next strike.

She always worried.

That was the mother in her.

”But its necessary for our survival.” She looked at him with honest eyes.

Bella Rose was ready for anything, even in that meant she had to kill another to stay alive.

Anything to stay alive.

Bella Rose attacks Raven Sayer with her Ski Pole (spear)
HwDejMLRspear
3084 -- Deep Gash on Left Thigh -- 8.0 damage
(Spear)

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

There are no lovers here, only faint stars that could never border each other as a constellation. We were never complete or seamless, always broken and vulnerable at some edge to it. Always chinks and fissures in our armors.

When Bella whispers of a fair brawl, I claw out of my armor, layers of crinkling steel shed off of a breathing scar. Rugged lungs refuse to breathe, skin halts its quivers – some cold silence before the outbreak of an ultra-violence.

Six days have metamorphosed a different boy with a new elixir of life pumping these bones ragingly. Brown circles drink in her stance and sees only prey holding silver, making an effort to bludgeon their own blood.

She doesn’t conceal her lust for crimson; I don't either.

Moonshine oscillates, a pendulum of silver opening abrasions on this skin – adding more scars to the ever-growing collection. Her ski pole digs a deeper home whilst mine only scratches the surface. The pain’s excruciating but jolts these exhausted bones awake. It’s the ruby stimulus they pleaded for.

“Tell me about the days you spent with Caine,” a question, or a distraction, I can’t justify – but an answer’s whispered, lost in a canine howl of wind. “I would rather not. I – I want to treasure them, by myself, if you don’t mind,” Under a curtain of snow, she’s obstructed – but I don’t need sight to know Bella Rose. “Caine talked a lot about ya’. You reminded him of home – and, I’m sorry I can’t allow you to go back there.” I don’t use malice to mutter those words, only a sense of loss for Caine.

She declares a past victory, delicate grace in her articulation. “If it makes you feel any better Raven, I killed one of their own yesterday.” Memories retrograde, fall back ceaselessly, into last night’s bonfire and anthem, holographic countenances in sky, tacit as if ghosts, the face of that boy from One. Isaac. Maisie’s cause of death, along with the avalanche-haired witch – Euley.

“Ha, that does make me feel slightly better. He deserved it – he earned it for all those sins, killing Cade’s district partner – I reckon there was another one kill of his?”

Steady, I ready this span of silver for another time, for another violation. Even though she’s prey, Bella Rose isn’t a rogue that deserves to be brought to divine judgment. Unnervingly, she’s more human than any I’ve encountered. She is not celestial – more of a home showered with the glow of a stone hearth, aroma from a hot banquet inside every room.

“Promise me, Bella – that if I die here – you are going to take Aeson by his throat and feed his own tongue to him.” Bruised tongue, it doesn’t sting to verbalize my spite anymore.

“He killed Caine.”

With this penultimate sentiment, I haul silver towards her.

-

raven attacks bella rose / ski pole (spear)

hk5ildotspear

3103 -- Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage (spear) + 1.0 (strength station)

spear

[ryan]

Bella knew that this was going to be a fight to the bitter end.

Raven was fierce in his blows, which meant that Bella was going to have to be that much stronger to go toe to toe with someone that was much more defined then she was.

Bella could only imagine what it was like to lose everyone that you could have possibly cared about in the arena day after day. Except, Bella didn’t.

Dymas was still alive and kicking.

Euley was off trying to find herself in the frozen wasteland.

And Aeson was trying to become death personified.

The only person she cared about was that boy from four though. The other two were after thoughts at this point. They weren’t important to her because she was not fighting them right now.

No. She was fighting the boy of the man that she felt closest to in the arena.

And for some reason, there was never going to be anything vindicating about murdering him. Or anyone else for that matter.

---

She didn’t understand his words, but she didn’t have too. People grieved in ways that she could never imagine.

Caine was a hard loss on both of them, and the fact that they are together right now heightens that loss to a mountainess proportion.

The fact that he did not want to share those memories could only prove to Bella that this was not going to end well for one of them. ”And that is your choice. But so you know, it makes mine even easier.”

Her spear was soaked with blood. She landed two very precise hits on the boy that Caine called his lover. And for some reason, she did not feel satisfied with her results.

Then again, she never was going to feel satisfied.

Not until the day she died.

”Caine would want me to go home. Just as much as he would want you to go home Raven.” She said, looking at him with galaxies in her eyes. ”But we both cant go home. Only one.” Her voice shook a bit at the utterance of that phrase.

This was the dark truth that she had to face.

However, she was ready.

Ready to end it all.

---

Isaac Jacobi deserved to die.

There was no question about it in Bella’s mind.

While there were other people here that did not deserve it, anyone in that alliance deserved to meet a death as gristly as his.

She could remember the feeling of her spear launching right into his eye. The force of her blade puncturing the socket and finding its home in his skull.

Bella was not upset by it. She thought of it as the way of the games. He killed one of his friends, and she killed him.

Karma in every sense of the word.

However, she could also feel the crown of thorns being placed on her head every time she took a slash against Raven.

This was something that she didn’t want to do, but she had to do.

There were no choices here in the Hunger Games.

Not unless they involved death.

”He killed Gillian, so I stabbed him in the eye.” She looked at him, calmly recounting the tale of her sin. ”And then when I tried to explain what an eye for an eye meant, his alliance just looked at me like I was crazy.” She stated, trying to keep her eyes on the prize. ”They mustve been in shocked because they were not as invincible as they thought they were.” The words danced off her tongue. She was not happy with her actions, but she knew that she would come to love them as they were.

After all, it happened. She didn’t have a choice.

”Raven, what happened to the boy that you were traveling with?” Bella looked at him, sure that she was now traveling into territory unknown.

”You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. That is your right.” She said to him, her spear now firm in her hand. She was just curious, that’s all.

---

And then the conversation took a turn for the worst. Aeson Kight came out of his mouth.

Just yesterday, she witnessed him walk around like he was some god amongst us. That we bow down to his feet and kiss the very snow that he walked on.

Bella wanted to take her spear and stab him in the same eye that she stabbed Isaac in, however, that wasn’t the time.

Or the place.

She would meet him again.

She knew it.

”As long as you promise me the same thing.” She said, feeling the gash on her stomach flare up. ”I plan on cutting off his black wings, then plucking each feather off of them…” Bella trailed off. ”… one, by one, by one.” She hated him.

And she never used that word for anyone.

She wanted him to pay for the pain that he caused her. ”After I killed Isaac, he sat there on his high horse, peacocking those wings and told me that he killed Caine. Right to my face.” She offered to Raven, trying to tell him about how much she wanted to watch Aeson Kight’s head roll.

”I wished I could have met him today, but I guess fate didn’t have it in the cards for me.” She sighed, making mental notes of how the boy was standing, ”Fate instead brought us together.”

She trailed off again, wondering if Caine was watching them from wherever he was.

”I hope Caine is resting well wherever he is.” She knew that his body was not back in ten. It was somewhere in the capitol, being experimented on by some scientist, trying to figure out how they can bring it back to life in order to haunt them.

”I will not let his death go in vain Raven.” She said to him, pushing the spear outwards. ”and I hope that you will not either.” She ran towards him.

”Lets do this for him.”

And she struck.

Bella Rose attacks Raven Sayer with her Ski Pole (spear)
|jzwl8s0spear

3105 -- Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage
(Spear)

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

I wanted to bathe him pristine in rosewater, Caine; elongate a circle of scented candles about him and whisper ancient hymns, prayers of safety and safe havens and kiss my farewells into roseate skin. Blare out lamentations, scatter daises around, give a funeral, walk the death out.

But, Aeson Kight digs in and plunders. I can replay each scene, bright technicolor, in clear-cut details. Cade’s arms heaved a broken solar system up to his feet, though he was already rickety from the start.

Silver in hand, crimson at its brims – Bella Rose’s blood stains the ivoried carpet below us, ruby branching out as if they are heart lines. I pause, breathing out wisps of snow, and mouth Caine’s name. Even the name’s a pale ghost now – and, though, I exhale it again and again, it disperses after the blink of an eye.

We both stand on a boneyard; this is where more than a quarter of us perished. Sun kisses the cornucopia’s tip – and it bleeds a darker shadow upon our own. “As long as you promise me the same thing.” A nod goes at her. “Cross my heart, Bella. I promise.”

Every conservation seems to trail back to the same name, the same person – the same monster. Aeson. He was more than a dark-winged creature. Kight held pandemonium under his skin. A boy who homes that many demons can’t metamorphose.

He self-destructs, or falls prey to madness. 

A homemade dynamite, of some sort. 

The gunpowder either denotes,
or loses its potency.

“There’s a special place in hell waiting for Aeson. It’s our duty to condemn him there.”

“I hope Caine is resting well wherever he is.” Her care for Caine is adjacent to my heart’s. It’s almost therapeutic, to dig up the loss you’ve given burial to and cremate it forever. ”I will not let his death go in vain Raven, and I hope that you will not either. Let’s do this,”

I close my eyes. “For him.”

And open them again, to be met by a newer sting on the scruff of my neck. Bruised tongue’s too exhausted to hiss the agony out. “I won’t.” Footing wavers for a moment but I quickly regain it, spinning on my feet – distancing us apart.

“And, the boy travelling with me – he was called Cade. Tacit, really, but he was good company.” A face flashes in memory, kaleidoscopic as it whirls around in distorted colors. He’s five feet under now too, as Maisie and Caine and Gillian and Mercy and Gabriel and a minority of nameless bodies were.

“Is the arena supposed to make us feel guilty, Bella?” The tremors arise again, from my scabbed fingertips. “I’m starting to think of myself as a breathing curse – they all died because they knew me.”

I soundlessly sing a plea
that she would too.

-

raven attacks bella rose / ski pole (spear)

AegiJJ1|spear

3162 -- Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage
(spear)

spear

[ryan]

Everything infinite was ending in Bella Rose’s brown eyes.

Time was starting to stand still in this place that they called hell.

Nothing seemed to peter out the way they wanted it too.

No.

Everything was starting to turn black.

Black snow, black sky, and black memories that Bella knew they both kept.

Bella would remember everything until someone finally got the upper hand on her and stabbed their weapon into her temple.

When that would happen, the memories would bleed into the snow, and she hoped that her soul would at least find its peace for only a moment before death took her into his arms.

After all, she was spawned again when her parents died, and death knew that his children needed to return to them.

---

However, he gave Bella the time that she needed to come back to this conclusion. She had been running from it for so long that she couldn’t believe that it was actually happening anymore.

She thought that death forgot about her, but once she took the stage back in ten, she knew that this was the final chapter in her life.

She knew that death had found a way to slither his way back into her mind and hold her by the throat.

Except this time, death had sent a disciple, by the name of Aeson Kight.

A man who did not care if you liked him, mostly because here, you did not need to be liked. You just had to be willing to kill.

Something that Bella discovered she was willing to do yesterday.

So maybe she did have a chance to finish the epilogue to her story after all, as long as she made it out of this fight alive. ”Good. Then lets give them hell Raven.” She said to him as he affirmed her promise out loud for everyone to hear.

Aeson Kight would not win these games even if Bella Rose or Raven Sayer had anything to say about it.

---

Her thigh stung for a moment, but she pushed through. She had too.

She didn’t have a choice.

This was her chance to reclaim her life in a gristliest of ways.

She had to kill to get what she wanted, and she realized that she could live with that.

She wanted to live. Not just for Caine, or Dymas, or Gilly, or anyone else that might have died in order for Bella to get where she was.

She wanted to live.

Those were words that she never thought would cross her mind.

”Aeson Kight is a prince in the kingdom of death, but he will never be a king.” She said to Raven with eyes that mimicked the auroras that crossed their night sky.

Except it was daylight, and nothing changed here when it was morning.

At night, new faces appeared into the sky, and those faces crushed peoples hopes and dreams, because at the end of the day, someone here, or at home, lost someone that they loved.

”Raven, you would be an artist in the kingdom of death…” She trailed off for a moment, listening to the way his words reverberated off of her ear drums. They were pleasant. Poetic in every sense of the word.

”And Caine would be your muse and together you would cover canvas’s in your love…” Her heart hurt when talking about this, but this was information that death wanted her to share.

”But only people that have shared your type of love would understand.” She ended, watching the blood drip off the blade, creating a pastel hue as it fell into the snow.uuu

”I wish love was stronger here than death.”

---

The name of the boy that appeared in the stars was Cade.

Now that Bella heard it, she remembered him as well. He was the silent one in the training center, who blended in with the crowd because that was the easiest thing to do.

He was the Salazar of wallflowers, but he didn’t have the same cocky attitude that she did.

”Cade. That was his name. I believe it when you said he was good company.” She offered even though they had never crossed paths in the arena.

”The arena cant make you feel guilty, it’s the people that are watching us that make us feel that way.” She was quick on the trigger this time. ”They watch us murder each other and then revel in our deaths like they know what it is like to die.”

She wished that things were different here, but they weren’t. It was a sad truth that she faced the moment she killed her first mutt.

”If you are a breathing curse Raven, then so am I…” She said to him, thinking about the faces in the sky that she knew so well. ”… I was supposed to protect Gillian, Gabe, and Caine and look where they are now?” She felt a tear fall from her eye.

”Look where my protection got them Raven? In deaths arms. Clutching them by the throat.” She couldn’t believe that they were gone. Gilly, Caine, Gabe, and everyone else that she had crossed paths with over the last couple days.

”Now it is just us, two curses battling it out to see which one is stronger.” Her blade was steady in her hand, the pain was dull, and she didn’t feel too much anymore.

”And I am still wondering which one of our curses is stronger.”

She offered him a faint smile, which was weird here in the valley of death. There was no happiness to be had. There was no message to be sung.

Just blood painting the snow, and a body to become a set piece.

Bella Rose attacks Raven Sayer with her Ski pole (spear)
v1u9D|bospear
3163 -- Block -- 0.0 damage
(Spear)

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

r a v e n.

I keep an ear out for Bella’s words, each idyllic as the next, echoes and resonances of halcyon days. Serenity rests in her throat, it seems, for the world is hushed before the masterpiece she’s painted through an ode. Ultra-violence crosses the threshold, enters a state of inactivity for a moment and the two of us relishes in this newfound white-noise.

Time becomes a glacier, slowly wading through frozen waters. “But only people that have shared your type of love would understand.” She whispers; thoughts reverse back to Aeson again. He never comprehended it – disregarded it as peripheral to his own. “Aeson was wrong. Love is stronger than death here, that’s why we continue to act oblivious to all this violence.”

There was never a safe haven here. Every inch, strewn about with amethyst flowers wrapped adroitly in lilac poison, creatures awaiting the moment you drop guard and reflect vulnerability, giants reigning sky above.

Even now, the air carries a distant howl of something aggrieved and bestial. Every delicacy inside the arena is bound to catch decay as Aeson’s crown and scepter already had.

But, it would be a shame to cause Bella Rose’s descend – the world would be robbed of a breathing hearth.

The names she tally are regrettably not extraterrestrial. Gillian, who mirrored Dove Sayer back at Seven and Gabriel Izar, one of many cross-out names. I never wanted to leave their company or quit as a reservist of theirs. But, love conquered everything – allies, tacit deals, foes, and strangers. On those moguls, we chased each other – like purple comets that were destined to connect pathways. But, Caine’s kissed earth and smoldered out.

“Now it is just us,
Two curses battling it out
To see which one is stronger.”

“I fathom neither of us are,
and that’s okay too.”

Potency is the magistrate of our destinies; whose curse is greater. Albeit the taciturnity I’ve been residing in, fear pangs inside chest – and shows subtly upon my lion-heart facade. Everyone fears Ripred, one way or another. 

“And I am still wondering which one of our curses is stronger.” Snow crunches as Bella Rose’s rosy brims arch. Moonshine oscillates again, but this time I hold my silver up, a collision of tides – then hers subdues momentarily. 

“Let’s be miracles for a second.”
I see opportunity;
And seizes it.

-

raven attacks bella rose / ski pole (spear)

P3_I|aFRspear

3124 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage
(spear)

accuracy re-roll; day 7

spear

3169 -- Block -- 0.0 damage
(spear)

spear�spear

[ryan]

Meeting Raven was the only thing she could have hoped for at this point.

There was a beauty in his words that struck a chord with Bella, and as much as she wanted to take her time and revel in the words. She knew that this dance was going to end soon.

There was no point in reveling in the splendor of the morning.

There was no chance for them to stop and discuss the depravities in the world.

There was no time for them to discover how they could have been friends in any other situation.

However, Bella would stretch to say that they were friends, if friends were people that you shared common interest in.

Raven Sayer shared the same musing as Bella Rose did, and to her, it quenched whatever thirst she was looking for.

She did not feel parched in this moment.

She felt like this was all she needed to be able to move on to the great beyond.

There were days where she wished she could be in the sky with the people that she once knew, but being so close to the end, made Bella want to fight.

She wanted to go home.

And their thoughts merged like one cell swallowing the other.

They were mentally linked at this point, and there was nothing grander than that.

---

”Love is what keeps us alive here. We want to get home to see the people that we love. We are fighting because we love.” She said to him. Realizing that every word out of his mouth struck home in some sort of way with her.

Everything started to make a little bit more sense once Bella was able to piece two and two together.

It opened up a map to a world with infinite possibilities, that Bella wished she could have explored with Raven. She would be the first mate and he would be the captain.

They would sail on the sea of lost love until they found it again.

They would rejoice and talk about how much they missed the feeling of being able to hold someone without the fear of losing them.

They could map out other destinations and find different forms of love that they didn’t even know existed.

Raven would have Caine, and Bella would have someone that could love her unconditionally.

After all, it was hard to love someone so close to death.

”Aeson Kight can go fuck himself.” Bella mused, knowing that was something that they both could agree too.

---

And as her spear clanked against his, she wondered if she was losing her will to get home.

She wondered is this was a sign that her luck was running out.

After all, she had been going at it with other people for the last three days straight, so she wouldn’t be surprised if her resolve was waning a bit.

Luck could only get her so far after all.

Death wanted her to come back to her already, so she was starting to grow frustrated, because he was willing to do anything to reclaim what should have been his years ago. It made her wonder why Death hadn’t come out of hiding and just took what he wanted.

It would have been the smart thing to do after all.

The sound of metal clanking made her wish that she could see the sparks fly.

Something. Anything to give her some sort of view that wasn’t as dim as hers.

”Good, because living our lives as curses will do us no good. That is not what Caine would have wanted for us.”

She smiled at him, pulling her spear back for a moment.

She wished that she knew what Caine could have wanted, but she didn’t get to see him much. All she knew was that they were both ticking time bombs, but neither of them knew when they were going to explode. Eviscerating the other into absolute nothingness.

---

And so she waited for him to strike, listening to the words that he says in order to explain their current situation.

”Miracles? Yes.” She said, watching his spear come down on her. However, it missed, and she was confused for a moment. ”Let’s live in the love that we both know we deserve.” Then he came back up and brought his spear with him.

They blades crossed again, this time, Bella pushing it back. ”And watch the stalemate that our love created.”

And with a deep breath, she struck.

Bella Rose attacks Raven Sayer with her ski pole (spear)
4QcNG445spear
3080 -- Shallow Cut on Forehead -- 4.5 damage
(Spear)

spear

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

                                                                                         i'll be your sky
                                                                                         for i saw galaxies
                                                                                         deep in your eyes.

Pain’s grown numb; so when Bella’s arc of moon unveils its fangs and digs home in my forehead, I don’t bother to winch – or convey agony, because I’m already weightless of that. Living in a Greek tragedy can turn prosaic after enduring the same cycle of violence for days, and, perhaps, further days to come.

Scarlet cascades down the forehead to lips, as thick as honey yet bitter, a coppery taste resembling old coins. “Love is what keeps us alive here. We want to get home to see the people that we love. We are fighting because we love.” – I don’t accept this philosophy of hers; “I am fighting because I loved.” Because, I want to carry him onward, towards the intersection of starlight ahead us.

We’ve fallen prey to exhaustion; I can see it smeared across her countenance – she can spot it within my flaccid movements. It is our fiery hearts, which pumps fire and brimstone, which keeps us on two feet.

The snow howls and there’s a comfort in the scattered melody the winds hum. It takes fatigue to contemplate surrender – and many kaleidoscopic memories to reconsider. Caine would tell us to not fall, for we aren’t the chess pieces – we’re the board of pieces, a mosaic of dark and ivory.

“Aeson Kight can go fuck himself.” She screams, and we’re children again, doe-eyed and roseate band-aided knees – chuckling because of an in-joke we only comprehend. “Preach, sister. And, I'm sure he would do it if he could.” Through a snort and broken laughter, I achieve a hearty grin, these bloodied edges of flesh arching in a merry union. It’s my first taste of laughter since forever. The arena’s made to asphyxiate, force a soul to solitary confinement. But, they failed to do that with Bella and I – we’re as sentient as we’ve ever been.

“There’s nothing we’re not worthy of, Bella.”

we’re already soaring;
on scorched wings.

-

raven attacks bella ; 
ski pole (spear)

czfpvbJaspear

3031 -- Stabbed in Eye -- 40 damage
(spear)

{stabbed in heart, as requested by ryan}

spear