the song of the l o s t // [stella v euley day 7]

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

Crimson skies and a false sense of security. Stella runs deeper into the forest of bent trees, twigs snapping under her boots and catching on her fur coat. Finley follows close behind. Red was smeared across the sky like molten glass and Stella felt her spine bending under the weight of it all. She was suffocating under the feeling, like swimming underwater knowing that her chest was aching for want of air.

They pause at a clearing and Stella drops her guard, latching her ski pole with the others and shedding her satchel with a thud. The wind whistling through the trees. Finley’s face was a darkened window, haunted in a way that Stella had never seen before. The flickering of a ghost across his features as he speaks.

"I've done it again." His face is downcast and Stella can feel the sadness radiating off of his body. He was trapped under the weight of it all, shaking hands and choked breath. Eagles circling his head waiting to sink claws of panic into the back of his neck over the second life that he had taken. Stella, with Finley, had always been the one to try to bring the fire of life back to them, by razor edge or emptiness, grasping with burned hands for the light, trapped and chained but still struggling.

"Finley, you have to remember here....it's always going to be the choice between living or dying." She has never been one for comfort, for hope speeches when she was raised as a solitary figure dancing on her own. Comfort to Finley, like a brother to her in all but blood and name, is not something easy, but it flows through her like water.

"There's not many of them left...not many more options left...is this our last time together?" Promises to him are fool’s gold but they gleam in the light all the same. Stella had never thought they would have forever, clasped tightly in the hollows of their hands. Even if they tried hard enough to fight it, anything here was possible and time and distance made liars of them all.

They were a fraying thread and a remnant of foolish hope that they could change their circumstances. Death was a debt bought and paid for the moment their names came out of the glass. Hardened and trained, but their fate had been sealed days ago.

She is hesitant. They have been living on borrowed time and she was not ready yet to pull the thread that had weaved them together. "Do you think it would be wiser to split up?" Logically, she knew that the answer was yes, it would be wiser. The final eight in the arena meant the end of alliances and the beginning of the real Games fought completely alone and purely out of self-preservation. "I would be dead twice over if it wasn't for you," she whispers. A girl cloaked in armor to hide her true feelings of fear. The wild bird in a gilded cage who had yet to take a life. Had yet to hold the string of fate in her hand and rip it apart. She was not built for this carnage and calamity.

Finley’s words bring her out of her reverie and Stella struggles to remember what they were talking about. "No but I guess they will split us up anyway. I haven't done anything, I haven't saved anyone. It is all you." Oh, how wrong he was. They had saved each other, that much was for certain. Stella may have drawn first blood but Finley was able to finish the job. If only they could escape this place together. Foolish thoughts would not do well to find their home in Stella’s mind. Nothing good would come of them.

”We saved each other." Tender words and heartfelt confessions to each other that an entire nation would see and hear.

There are words that could describe this - the way Stella feels when he speaks to her - safety, loyalty, and most importantly hope, but the human tongue does not have words for the depths of this - for the strength he unleashes inside of her. something that universe buried and burned so deeply that she thought it was gone forever, taken from her in the brutality of a life lost.

She wished that Finley would believe in himself the way she believed in him with a fierceness that outweighs history, wish a hope that rewrites the stars.

This conversation is too much and not enough at the same time. They have never crossed the line into familiarity and starting now would be dangerous for them both. "Let's hope their sadism doesn't extend so far as to make us face off against each other tomorrow. I cou- I don't know if I could ever hurt you." Her voice cracked at the end, betraying her. He had always been the one to feel more, to show he felt more as Stella stood and bit her lip into a pulp over the emotions of the past week.

"If you wake up before me...just run far away. Just get away from here." She feels fragmented, like this fragile heart cannot take another breath of wind, like his hands are too gentle for this ribcage to split open under. The warning of leaving him weaving through every thought, even though she knows that she will steal away when dawn breaks. His heart is too good for this place.

"I think I'll go to the peak - better vantage point up there anyways. You just - you have to save yourself to get back home to your family, okay?" Hands shaking heart pounding. The words rising thick in her throat, choking. This was a goodbye drawn out that had been coming for along time. Like earth is worn away by the smallest trickle of stormwater, this space has been growing between their hearts for what feels like a millennia. She wants this to be easy, but stringing it along makes them makes both of them cowards for hiding from the truth.

"Don't you have family to go back to?" A laugh breaks her lips, sardonic and cutting. She shakes her hand as a hand darts out from the warmth of her jacket to the worn golden triangle necklace around her neck. Her only token. Her only anchor to the world that once was. "Just my dad. But.....he wasn't even there the day of the Reaping. I couldn't find him in the crowd. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye." Darkness - black coal and darkness when she thinks of him. Memories are costly here. Blood is counted like gold and memories do not come cheap.

She holds onto the memories of him, something like a dependable ache in her chest. Memories of him, memories of home the wildfire turning her branches to ash.

His voice is softer when he asks her his next question. "There must be at least someone waiting for you there?" Did she project the facade of a happy home complete with warmth and siblings? She was not sure what mask she wore each day in this place, tearing more and more away to reveal her truth self. Was that even left? Was the Stella under it all the girl that had reacted to the boom of the cannon on the first day?

"Other than him and Allie, it was always about dance to me. Just me and my studio. I didn't have time for anyone else." A solitary existence rivaled only by a solitary star burning up alone.

"Just get home for yourself then. I wish I had the opportunity to see you dance." Another laugh and a shrug of her shoulders as she settles herself on the ground, boots digging into the snow and her back against a tree.

"It was nothing special. It certainly doesn't prepare you for the brutality here. It was just another form of escape.” Stella gets up quickly, motioning to Finley. “I can show you some steps. You'll have to make up music though." She beckons him to join her and raises her hands. "We don't need music, we...I have never really done this before."

"Here, come here. Raise your right hand up and grip my waist with your left. I'll lead but technically, you're supposed to. And don't you dare step on my toes." She wags a finger in his face, but the smile that breaks over her features makes her forget for a moment that they are in the arena. That they may die tomorrow. He laughs as they sway, tentative steps that give way to a smile on both of their faces. He’s a bit clumsy, but does well with a laugh escaping his lips.

"It is really warm, do you feel warm too?" A full-bodied laugh erupts out of her chest as Stella shakes her head, spinning Finley slowly. The sunlit dipping below the horizon, honey-colored and ocre.

"Am I making you nervous, Finley?" A raise of an eyebrow and the hint of jest. A brief moment of levity in the heaviest of places.

"I am always nervous, I don't think this is nerves...it's probably all that fire from today."

She stops and grabs his face with her hands again, mirroring her actions from the night previous. Again he needed to understand her. Again he needed to hear her words. "You really did well today. I wasn't expecting a wildfire from you."

His eyes avert and she know that he has flashed back to this afternoon with the porcelain-skinned boy and the poet. "I don't want to celebrate doing what I did. Let’s just celebrate still being alive. Six days is longer that what I would have ever expected."

Her chest feels heavy at his words. Her ribs cracking under the weight of it all. "I didn't even think that I would make it past three." Their moment is over, passing as the night sky darkens and Finley takes a step back.

"I'll make a fire, let’s settle for the night."

---

West winds blow and the dawn cracks open like an orange rind beneath the gleaming teeth of the night. Citrus and calm sea. Caught, lost under cloudless skies, swaying up into sun. The yellow joy of breaking open into day. It’s not to last though, the sky darkens as Stella rises, a snowstorm a foreboding sign of the day to come. A yawn passing through her lips as she watches Finley sleep. She needs to use this moment to escape, gathering her things quietly. He deserved a better ally than a solitary ballerina from District Twelve. She hopes she had done right by him by leaving now, rather than another forced goodbye.

She runs from things she cannot see. This world, blurred like lights through rain on a window, water streaking down glass. She learned at a young age that your breath on the window only smudges the outlines of the world more. Later, she learned that somethings are destroyed in the simple act of observing them. She told him she would head for the High Peak but her feet bring her to the Snowflower Field on autopilot.

She’s been running for what feels like years, escaping something she cannot name. This haven, this harbor, the ways to say fear in a language she has never learned as a solitary creature in a world of her own making.

Her blood whispers in her ears. Silver and sun dancing through her arteries, sharp and sweet. This dark and wild side of nature as her eyes light upon the other tribute - Euley.

Unhymned, forsworn, and her: the wolf-sign, tracks in the snow, hunger for a fight that does not dwell within her. The monsters under her bed have nothing on the darkness tangled in her fingers, the gleam of white teeth. Crying out for safety into a careless snowstorm. All this light distilled into nothing.

Her armor is stuffed in her satchel - she had forgotten it this morning in her flight and now is not the time to pause to ask forgiveness, for time to make it a longer fight. No, there would be no time for gilded steel adorning her body. Only the crampons she thought to strap on her feet had she climbed the High Peak would have to do. She shouts at Euley, her voice loud as the snow whips around them. She drops her satchel, her coat swirling on her legs. She is cold, but she is ready. Senses heightened.

“Of course it would be you. It had to be you. You started it all for us, that first day at the Bloodbath. Do you remember his name? Do you remember him?!”

[stella's armor will not be active in this fight] 

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

BihxIyQxspiked blunt

[14138 -- MISS -- 0.0 damage]

accuracy re-roll - day 7

spiked blunt

[14104 -- BROKEN RIGHT KNEE -- 7.0 damage]

spiked blunt�spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

She pretends like she doesn't remember.

What he said, how he kissed her — how the snow felt when he pushed her away. And she didn't cry, she didn't pick herself up and run after him. She let go of the anchor between them and watched it sink. She didn't drown; and neither did he. He went to the darkness, to himself, and she watched only long enough to count the days she'd cared for him. Six seconds. Gone. When he turned back one last time, she was looking at her knees. At raw skin. Twin moons became eclipsed, blood in the sky, but neither saw the display. And that's okay. They've seen enough red.

( She doesn't remember. )

Ghosts scratch at her tent, but it's just the wind. There's a voice in her head, but it's just paranoia. She freezes herself and becomes the girl she was at the start — not the wolf, but still hungry. Still feral. Except now she just wants to go home. She volunteered for an adventure, for a break in the routine of her life, and now she's content. She asked for the sun and now she's blind. She doesn't give up; she's not Icarus. She dug a grave, lined it with roses, but she refuses to bury herself. She's not ready. She wants to sleep, but not forever. And she wanted to feel something in this place, but not always. Not now.

Her knuckles are white when she falls asleep, watching the entrance of her shelter and waiting for him to appear. To kill her and Violet like a coward, like a man of cruel intentions. She wants him to be the Aeson that he was at the start. But he doesn't show up — and she's almost disappointed. She doesn't say his name in her dreams. She doesn't dream at all. It's just a black wave; a blink and then she's awake again. Just a handful of hours have passed, but she convinces herself that she's rested enough. She pulls her knees to her chest and waits for Violet to stir. A sleepy smile is offered. "You okay, Vi? Did you sleep well?"

Euley brushes her fingers through strands of silver, craning her neck and spreading her arms like she feels something in her bones. Anything at all. But she's numb. And yet she feels more than ever; she's not actually who she used to be. She's just a hypocrite. She's the same as always and someone entirely new. It doesn't matter. For better or worse, she's still a killer. She still doesn't regret any of it. They exit the tent and they go about their morning like always, but it's quiet. There's tension in the air and a familiar clock is ticking. She focuses on making sure Violet is prepared, items gathered and weapons sharp.

"I'm sorry, but the alliance is over. I think we both know that," Euley begins, closing the distance between them and rubbing at her eyes. There's no tears. And there's no knife in her hand — none in Violet's back. "I'm not going to kill you. Don't worry." She brings a soft hand to her final companion's face, leans forward and places a kiss atop her head. Euley cares. She'll never deny her heart. "Go out there and fight. And just know that you were worth it." She nods, fire in her expression, but it doesn't burn. It doesn't hurt. "Being our ally."

Their shelter is claimed by Euley, her own items packed into the sleigh and she gets inside for a solo journey. She's still a selfish creature. Her bee perches on her shoulder, buzzing a farewell. The muttations just want to travel. She only wants— something. A lot of things. It's pointless to dwell on that now. "I hope we don't meet again." She grips the reins, inhaling through her teeth. "If we do, give me Hell. Give 'em all Hell." And then she's off, one final glance behind her. Her features remain flat. Her lips stay shut. The horizon swallows her and not even a shadow is left behind.

---

A blizzard and red flowers; this is a beautiful place to die. She tucks her bee below her satchel, carefully hiding it beneath her armor and lifting a hand to her eyes. It's hard to see through the storm. And once, she would have claimed to be the source of it — but now she's just a woman on her own, pulling her coat tighter around herself and leaping off her sleigh. She's nothing more than a mortal. Her crampons dig into the ground, inclining her head to the plant-hedgehogs and shouting a command. "Stay here! We're lost. I'm going to try and figure out where we should go from here."

No one's listening, but it's comforting to speak to the silence. She treks alone, tries to peer through all the white and to find a way out. There's nowhere to go. She's careful not to stray from her means of transportation, but when a figure takes shape in the distance, she approaches without fear. It's either a beast that's come to kill her or a man that wants to make an attempt — she just prays it's not him. Not yet. A voice eases her fears, but her body remains tense. Coiled like a snake and ready to strike. "Of course it would be you. It had to be you." And she doesn't blame Stella for all this hatred. She deserves it.

( "Do you remember him?!" )

She remembers a lot, painful as the memories might be. They dull in comparison to the agony that soon grips her kneecap, experiencing a broken bone for the first time in her life. She cries out, a raw scream, and she clutches her leg. She falls like a wounded animal. She has to be more than that. Euley's tired of just being a wolf. She pulls herself up as best she can, unsteady and shattered. But not destroyed. "His name was Alejandro. I remember." She steps closer, careful not to trip and gasping with each movement. She lifts her feet and shows off her weapons. "These were his. I've been carrying him for seven days. I've carried everyone that I've killed."

No thunder, no flash of lightning;
she just lunges and shows her teeth.

"I won't carry you."

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
JNi3wcQqspiked blunt
( miss )

accuracy — day seven

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
spiked blunt
( MISS -- 0.0 damage )

OOC:
Alex and I have agreed to fight without armour.

spiked blunt�spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

Smoke in her eyes, and a prayer on her lips as the world is burning down around her. Falling snow made of ash as the past licks like flames at her feet. The snow piling grey and soft around them. A girl of fire, setting ablaze everything her fingers brush, cutting a path of destruction through field and sky. Her strike on Euley - a lunge that just barely arcs through the air makes contact with her knee and the wolf is falling, a crunch of bone and ivory. Euley sings like a guillotine with a mouthful of roses. Razor sharp cries that call forth a trembling apology to Stella’s tongue. She feels the blame for Allie’s death deep in her ribcage, like an arrow lodged in the loveliest parts of her. But no words break through. This is not a confession of past guilt. This is a song of the future.

Euley is a wounded animal, yes, wasted and waiting. She is a patient hunter, a beast that slowly stalks its prey. Two could play that game. If she was going to play the part of the wolf, she needed to prepare her jaws for action. Be ready to sink her sharpened teeth deep into Euley’s soul. Tear into her flesh, rip off great chunks of her until she lies in pieces before her. Make a massacre of her meaningless body. Cradle her corpse, whisper sweet nothings to her carcass.

But no, Stella was not yet ready for that transformation. There was no blood on her hands. She had waited in the shadows for seven days, never tarnishing her soul. Until perhaps now.

“His name was Alejandro. I remember." The girl steps closer to Stella, a hitch in her step but never once for a moment does Stella feel safe. She wears crampons as well, the universe granting a reprieve from its machinations and perhaps allowing a fair fight out of them.

"These were his. I've been carrying him for seven days. I've carried everyone that I've killed. I won't carry you." The attack is off, perhaps she is inhibited by the injury, and Stella takes full advantage to side-step it easily.

“I’m not asking to be carried around like some trophy. Whoever walks away from this fight will be like a queen with an embarrassment of riches. Savoring the taste of savagery and holding the memory close, but don’t take my tokens as your own should I fall to you. Take my armor, but leave my remains for the crows to fight over. Would you grant me that?” Stella tilts her head to the side, snow falling stronger now on the hood of her fur coat.

”Do you have any requests before we spill more of each other’s blood?”

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

T1TqObHUspiked blunt

[14089 -- MISS -- 0.0 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

Her kick misses its target, unable to aim with her wounded leg and spiralling to the ground. Snow burns against her cheek, hair in her face, and she bites back a growl. A god-empress falls from her throne, but Euley's not a holy woman. She's just a girl. And she's always known that, somewhere deep within herself, but now it can't be ignored. Her knee cries out, shifting beneath bruised skin, and sweat begins to trail down her temple. She's not beautiful. She's not without death. Her promise will be kept, the wind can have her soul and the mountain can claim her strength, but she's not ready. To die is not to give up; your heart has to be beating for it to stop.

And hers is still screaming.

She pulls herself up and leaps to the side — dodging Stella's attack at the last minute, hitting the ground once more and grunting in frustration. She's tired of this. And she catches Stella's gaze when she rises up on her arms, but there's no fury in her eyes. In either of theirs. It's an emotion that she can't name, so she doesn't. It just is. All of them, all of this, they just— are. Existing. She makes it to her feet and rolls her shoulders; all that's left to do is fight. There's no use in pageantry at this point, no reason to cry and weep and devour spirits that don't belong to her. She sets them free, looking up at a blurred sky and seeing nothing. Alejandro and Mercy and Maisie.

Stella.

Euley listens to what she has to say. Nods along to the passionate words and admires the sentiment behind them. She'd never deny a tribute's final request. If Stella wants her soul to remain trapped in flesh, festering under the soil, then so be it. There is power in death. It is the dying who choose their afterlife, not the killer. All Euley has are memories, and ghosts on her shoulders, but those are much the same. Just illusions. Temporary. Not a body, not a spirit; just a shadow. That's all there is now. She looks around her and there's only white. It could swallow her, but her jaws stretch wider. "I'll leave it all behind, I promise. Everything that isn't useful to my survival."

Stepping forward, a wince across her features and she ponders what she wants out of this. Do you have any requests? She's not sure. Her tongue weighs heavy in her mouth, brow furrowed, and she shakes her head. All she wants it to live. How can she ask that? Why would her life be worth more than Stella's? It's not. And she accepts that, she embraces her morality and feels another wave of pain wash over her, but she's more than her undoing. Her birth and childhood and all her teenage years exist on a single thread, slowly creeping closer to the end of her life, but she gives it to the breeze and watches it spin. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, or it could be many years from now. Alone in her bed and with many ghosts watching with sad smiles. She has no right to know.

"I want nothing. Just give me nothing."

Do not give her death;
she's not ready.

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
lnLtnVRDspiked blunt
( DEEP GASH ON CHEEK -- 8.5 damage )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

The snow caught her body as she missed, the soft caress of the cold, flakes adorning her fur coat and her hair. Euley sidestepped her at the last moment and they both fell into the snow. Their chests were heaving, billowing breaths escaping them as the two girls got to their feet and stood apart. There was a weakness inside of Stella, a fault line slowly opening that had been there all along. As if Euley was plucking the feathers from her wings, she was falling. She was not built for this.

Pick yourself up, shake yourself off, and call it learning, she told herself, snow clinging to her eyelashes. There was a sense of respect between herself and the other girl as they watched each other, cagey. They were both looking for enemies to fill the emptiness inside, but was not always easy to believe the lies we tell ourselves to stay alive.

Stella still held words in clenched fists, she still held wishes in weak wrists. She still clung to the hope that they will all make it through this. A foolish thought but it quiets her soul. Her breathing calm and shallow as Euley limps again closer to her, circling as she speaks.

“I'll leave it all behind, I promise. Everything that isn't useful to my survival. I want nothing. Just give me nothing." A fair request and one that Stella would honor. They were creaking bones and aching muscles, bright stars growing dull. Worn down after six days. They were loose teeth and a mouthful of blood. Promises written in blood and burning, this is a season of smoky air and new poetry. Of grief and growing.

Her scream begins soft and slow and it builds, metal on her cheek. Her mouth tasting of decay and sorrow. Hands clutched to her face, around the gash to stop the bleeding as Euley's boot scrapes across her face. Stop the blood. Stop the blood. Blinking through the tears, there’s a bitterness on the breeze, blowing through the field.

It is a game, she tells herself. Remember that it’s all about the timing. It is giving and receiving at exactly the right moment. It is looking at the possibility of divine bliss and divine wrath right in the face.

Tears stinging, mixing with the blood and Stella is stunned, breath leaving her chest and eyes streaming. A wildfire who hadn’t yet been given the chance to burn and she was sparking. It is freeing. The warmth is starting to burn and the bitterness in her throat stops tasting of iron and regret. 

“I’ll give you nothing, but I’m here to take everything from you, in any way that I can.”

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

CT_icpz5spiked blunt

[14050 -- BLOCK -- 0.0 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

She's sent backwards by the force of her kick, landing on the ground and gasping from the still fresh pain that shoots up her right leg. A wiser girl would take the crampons off, swinging them wildly with curled fists and hoping for a decent attack to follow, but Euley is nothing if not traditional. Her bone is shattered — but she's not. And her body writhes in agony against the snow, but she still pulls herself up. She still has to live. She still has to fight.

A scream sounds — and red meets white. Stella clutches her cheek and Euley doesn't smile. There's nothing prideful about this. It's just murder. She admires that the young woman is still standing; split skin isn't less of a wound than a broken kneecap. Agony is agony. This is not death. This is only the prelude, an introduction to their undoing. Many chapters are yet to come, an epilogue buried beneath a garden of roses. It is for their eyes alone. This is an elegy for the damned.

Tears fall, but she does not mock Stella. There's no shame in crying. It's in the coding of a human to weep, to pull open their ribs and to display all the rot that's clinging to their organs. To be alive is to be a grenade. Euley's comforted by the ticking in her ear, the rising heat in her stomach. Detonation approaches. She doesn't look at the timer to know when it will come. Her rival lunges, but she takes hold of her advantage and moves to the side. This time, she stays on her feet.

"I'm here to take everything from you."

Euley narrows her gaze, lowering herself into a familiar stance and preparing to charge. "No," she starts, and it's a biting sound. She presses her hands against cold earth, feels the wind whip through her hair and claims its strength as her own. Hypocrisy — she's tired of being mortal. She wants to be a storm again. "I am everything, Stella." Both a blizzard and a girl and so much more. "And you can't take me. I'm not going." She launches; thunder roars without lightning.

"I refuse to die."

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
rsxgo|IOspiked blunt
( MISS -- 0.0 damage )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

A spectacular attempt and an abject failure and Stella is beginning to relish the feeling of the cold snow on the gash in her face, even if for just the moment it takes for her to register the ground. Pulling herself up, dripping wet and weighed down by the coat, she pulls it off. Sweat has begun to form on her forehead despite the chill, despite the wind, despite the swirling vortex of snow around them.

This is one of those days where Stella feels more iron than starlight, her bones aching with the heaviness of everything that she could never even whisper. Her skeleton is dull copper, dissolving into earth on green-tinted rivers. She felt like melting away - becoming something new out of the decay, fashioning a world of the rust creeping over her skin, but she would not be afforded that luxury should she fall to Euley. This was self-preservation, plain and simple. The crumbling of the foundation. The creation of a new person, even as the fire rages and threatens to burn her down.

She tries to become ice, cold and unapproachable but is matched by the girl from District Two, circling her prey, head high and shoulders back, like a ruler but without a crown.

Eyes level with Euley and the girl is smiling, her ferocity gleaming on white teeth, razor-sharp words. She has eyes that could suck you into their depths like midnight like coal mine shaft, like the way the air tastes when it is three in the morning and the razor blade is the brightest thing in the room. She was a black hole, something warping the fabric of the universe until it dips down into some dimension past this one, dragging you with her into something unknown.

If this was dying, Stella was among the stars. Her lungs are burning and her bones are crumbling but she belongs effortlessly. Her cheek has yet to stop bleeding, droplets of red staining the white ground around her.

“No, I am everything, Stella. And you can't take me. I'm not going. I refuse to die.” Euley’s voice curls like smoke and it hits rough at the back of Stella’s throat. Stella’s lips taste like blood, her hands are so cold, but she is able to move out of the way of Euley’s attack. She is off balance and falls again.. Tornadoes of snow coat their world in a quiet grey and Stella rises, brushes destruction from her knees and speaks.

”Cut the theatrics. It’s just you and me here. We both want this. We both want to survive.”

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]


N7JfP0W|spiked blunt

[14097 -- BROKEN RIGHT WRIST -- 6.5 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

An avalanche —
and she crashes.

Her breath visible and legs shaking — but still standing. She rises and falls with one movement. There's too much in her body to be contained. There's not enough to ease her selfish heart. It screams against her chest, clawing at the skin, but there's no blood. She takes hold of her pain and wraps it around herself, shattering and healing and glaring at her rival. Two lives on a scale, a perfect balance, but one has to fall. Stella picks herself up from the ground, raging like the snow.

Euley is unable to dodge the attack, managing only to lean awkwardly to the side. Her wrist takes the force of the kick, bone snapping out of place and her scream fills the air. The wind does not steal the sound. It's shrill, furious, and she's tired. Tired of breaking, of crashing against the earth and tasting iron. She doesn't. She lands on her knees, but she doesn't collapse. The ruins of an empire form the length of her spine, burning and crumbling, but still there. Still alive.

"We both want to survive."

That's all she wants. She just wants to go home. Her eyes sting, but she rubs at them furiously. She doesn't want to cry. And it's true that funerals are for the living, to mourn and to repent, but she's not ready. She doesn't want to be in attendance when they lower her casket. "It's not just us," she spits, but her expression is vulnerable. There's no anger. "Two is here, and so is Twelve. Watching us. The entirety of Panem, even." She points a finger, hissing through her teeth.

"All of the dead are with us." Just memories, reflections and shadows, but they're here. "Their blood, their fears, and their dreams, too. It's all buried here. We're never going to be alone again." Her voice isn't bitter, just sad. Just wanting this to be over. "Do you think I'm a monster, Stella?" The question surprises her, but it needs to be asked. She thinks herself a survivor, just a girl playing a game with sick rules, but she agreed to them. She didn't fight them.

She wants nothing.

"I want to be more than that." And she stands, hair whipping around her face and her limbs on fire. She steps closer, a misty gaze and dry cheeks. There's so much inside of her, too much, but she refuses to expel it. She allows it fester, veins black and organs rotting. Still, a flower takes root in her stomach, and suddenly she's a garden. She's poisonous, but blooming. This is the nature of a woman. To burn away to ash and to rise from it. To keep going.

To charge forward —
an avalanche.

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
Zxe8VbRIspiked blunt
( DEEP GASH ON LEFT BICEP -- 8.0 damage )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

She stepped quickly, weighing herself on the balls of her feet before her crampons came down upon Euley’s wrist. The crack of the bone but no, no spray of red. Just the screams of the wolf as her wrist shattered. Stella’s eyes lit up like a supernova, her smile a razor blade, her steel-enforced spine, would not be bowed beneath the weight of fear. 

Her soul was a wildfire, consuming anything in her path with her fiery passion. It was self-preservation. She had the strength of an entire forest and the knowledge of thousands of years. A hammer against a heart of glass. Fragile, broken things. Euley collapses on her knees, rubbing at her eyes but bidding tears not to fall. There was no joy in the attack. There was no victory for another hit that that fell upon the girl. This was survival at its best - a wolf and a wildfire trading hits until one fell, never to rise again.

The day was growing colder, the sound of the wind and birds winding their way through the Flagging Trees, through dark needles that whispered names of the dea, discordant and sussurating. The sky was grey, the ground dripping blood. Stella’s hands were on her knees, her chest screaming at her for the sharpness of the wind. Her eyes were focused on the ground as the deep gash in her cheek continued to bleed, clotting be damned.

"It's not just us. Two is here, and so is Twelve. Watching us. The entirety of Panem, even.” Stella’s eyes draw level again with Euley, straightening her back and rolling her shoulders. Weight on the balls of her feet. If she was going to die today, she wanted to be standing up, not bent over in submission.

"All of the dead are with us. Their blood, their fears, and their dreams, too. It's all buried here. We're never going to be alone again. Do you think I'm a monster, Stella?" The question hits her in the gut and she pauses, but the answer has been there all along. "I want to be more than that."

She sees the attack as it is happening but cannot raise her left arm quickly enough, the steel of the crampon coming down on her bicep and tearing flesh away. Blood erupting, packing under thousands of pounds of pressure, spraying the ground. Stella gnashes her teeth together, the feeling of hundreds of razor bleeds as her whole body trembles. She sees black and feels the collapsing of a galaxy, a nebula burning out. Crumbling and ruinous, she is battered.

Silver purifies in heat, but she knows Euley will only burn. Stella needed to be the fire and the axe to hew. Lightning strike and firecracker, sparking dry heat. The trees she crumbles to ash in her hands care more about surviving than she ever did.

”No, I really don’t,” Stella sighs, the weight of it all crashing down, as she clutches her left arm. ”I thought you all were monsters in the beginning. Built up for this - sacrificial lambs volunteering for the slaughter and the rest of us…” Misfits, untrained and unwanted thrown into this hell for spectacle. Branded by district and by the Gamemakers.

“I should hate you for what you did to Allie in the Bloodbath - you took away my only friend. Cruelty comes easy, you know, when nothing seems real or important or lasting except your own endless infinity.” Stella shakes her head, haunted by the memory of his fall not once, but twice. ” But it’s all just self-preservation. We all just want to go home.”

Incarnadine - dripping blood and shedding her skin, she opens herself up, insides screaming for peace.

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

BWddqyF4spiked blunt

[14025 -- DEEP GASH ON STOMACH -- 9.0 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

A forest burns — and she runs. This is a dance of wolves and falling trees. And Stella is a wildfire, but so is she. Ice across her skin and flames roaring in her chest. It's just frozen tissue, the fatigue of a tired heart. She names herself after many violent storms and steals their strength. Euley; blizzard and inferno and hurricane. She's a thief. The wind takes her voice away, but she wields its strength. Its fury. There are so many different ways to howl. Feral and sad and silent. She sings of the latter. A quiet inhale and chapped lips.

And her crampons slice through Stella's bicep, the force of Euley's kick flinging her forward. Her knees hit the earth, pain rising up the length of her body and settling in her bones. It's familiar now. A monster asks of her humanity, spilling blood in the seconds that follow. This is hypocrisy. This is the survival of lambs raised for slaughter. An axe is raised and two begin to scream; only one may return to the meadow. She looks around herself, at red flowers and furious snow, and they're already here. They've escaped to find another butcher.

This is the irony of the dying.

"No, I really don't." And this is the forgiveness of the living. Sharp and hesitant, but also real. Enough. She listens to what Stella has to say, feels every emotion and accepts all the blame. The girl from Twelve has every right to spit at her feet, cursing her name and reprimanding her murders — but then she'd be a hypocrite, knife slit across another tribute's throat. She'd be Euley. "I should hate you for what you did to Allie." Euley should hate herself, but she doesn't. She can't. "We all just want to go home."

She's too lost in her thoughts to dodge the attack that follows. Metal spikes rip across her stomach, blood rushing from the wound in a hot wave and staining the fabric of her shirt. There's a clap of thunder and she's brought back to the third day, when Pillar Fray drove a spear through her core and forced her to realize what it meant to truly hurt. She remembers the sting, the agony, but this time she doesn't cry. She doesn't scream. She spits out iron and chokes back a howl. Silence takes root — somehow loud and deafening. Somehow so strong.

"Thank you," she starts, and there's no bitterness in the sound. It's gentle and warm. "For letting me have that. For saying that." She doesn't deserve it — but she doesn't deny it, either. To be selfish is in her code, wired into her being and commanding her to keep going. To keep fighting. And a war zone can become a garden, but there will always be corpses beneath the beauty. Beneath the lies. "Alejandro deserved better. All of us do." She rises and steps closer, hand against her gut and fingers slick with regret. With her destruction.

"Go home, Stella. If I can't." It's a genuine request, spoken through teeth that are tired of biting. Of killing. "Can you promise me that? Give me nothing, but go home. For all of us that can't." She lowers herself to the ground, digging her crampons into the earth and preparing to contradict herself. That's all they can do now. "And if you die here, I'll leave your body alone. I'll leave everything behind that won't keep me alive — but I'll go home for you. I promise." Static in her ears, she lunges and crashes like lightning.

A storm;
Euley Sarasin.

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
hYUUszANspiked blunt
( MISS -- 0.0 damage )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

The world tilts on its axis and Stella is packed with broken glass. This is a requiem for the dying, a sermon in brutality. Two girls - different sides of the same coin - one face wolf and one face wildfire - and neither strong enough to seize the moment and make it their own. This fight between them was the kind of battle that authors wrote Iliads about, trembling and fearful and always going back to the thing that kills them, that makes them human. They have no hope to hope for, as the authors who have seemingly penned them a thousand times over have already written. This was a tragedy etched in blood, the ink still wet as they take pieces of each other, despite promises to do the opposite.

Each kick, their weapons dripping with each other, brings them to their knees and exhaustion is the beckoning of a soft voice to close your eyes. The loss of blood swirling smoke in Stella’s vision, and she spits, if only to wash her mouth momentarily of the iron that coats her lips and her tongue. A tightness in her chest as her heart beats out of control, there is no silencing the organ as it drums loudly in her ears, a boom of the cannon every half a second. It is all she hears and she knows she is losing too much blood, the wounds on her arm and her cheek deeper than any simple first aid could help.

Her last attack on Euley shreds the girl’s shirt and red spills out - cerise to match the snowflowers. No sound breaks the lips of the girl from District Two - she is stronger than Stella could ever dream to be, a wolf volunteering to enter the fray. The fire inside of her burns with a fierceness that creates cracks and threatens to tear her adversaries asunder, but just because Stella was soft did not mean that she was not a force to be reckoned with. Both honey and wildfire are the color of gold.

Stella tears at the bottom of her shirt for a strip of fabric if only to stem the bleeding on her bicep, while Euley’s attention is on her newly acquired injury. A poorly engineered tourniquet - the material is stained cardinal in seconds and Stella’s hands are drenched in her own blood. Her hands, from touching dark souls in this place, are stained and burnt. There is no blazing glory, only bloody, bruised, ashen hearts where the hearts of teens used to beat.

Euley is speaking and Stella blinks furiously to retain the thread of their conversation. "Go home, Stella. If I can't. Can you promise me that? Give me nothing, but go home. For all of us that can't." Home - a place that surely would not recognize her now. The promise of a life stolen away - of dancing and flying and living.

“And if you die here, I'll leave your body alone. I'll leave everything behind that won't keep me alive — but I'll go home for you. I promise."

“I don’t need promises, Euley. We were all marked for the death the moment our names came out of the glass bowl. Well, perhaps not yours, but we all can’t be as brave as you, can we?” A cynical laugh, the wolf playing the role of a sacrificial lamb. “But I do have something to ask you,” Stella pauses, her chest heaving as she clutches the very token that she needs to live on, blood red hands marring the gold, as if it wasn't already damaged from the elements. She shivers as sweat adorns her body, her fur coat forgotten in a heap next to her.  “If I fall to you, like the others before me, take my necklace back to my father.” She gives no explanation and asks for nothing else.

Euley’s attack is tired, and Stella steps to the side easily, if not a little off-balance. Her crampons digging into the snow and keeping her upright. How are they still breathing? How are they still alive with this ash in their lungs, this blood staining vermeil? They cough up smoke and keep going.

“Enough about the future, though. One of us won’t live through this fight. Who’s it gonna be, Two?”

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

cpBEEJRTspiked blunt

[14071 -- TWO BROKEN RIBS -- 7.5 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

Icarus flies, wings against the sun —
and Euley knows what comes next.

( The fall. )

Her leg cuts through the air, but it misses flesh. And the blood on the snow is now black, aged and dried and fading fast. She wants it to be fresh. She wants the bleeding to stop. Thrown off balance, she crashes against her side and gasps at the shock of pain that shoots across her stomach. There's iron in her mouth, but this time she doesn't spit it out. She accepts it. Let her tongue become silver, a weapon slashed across the throats of her enemies. She's tired of wearing nothing but her skin. She misses the weight of armor. The shelter of steel.

To be free is not to be safe. She knows that now. It's easy to pick herself up, body on fire and organs failing, but she rises too quickly. Her thoughts swim, vision blurred, and a fur coat is useless. She's still dying — the blizzard is still raging. She shakes her head, holding a hand to her abdomen and gritting her teeth. There's nothing feral about her movements, she just wants the pain to stop. She wants it to keep her going. Stella speaks, catching her balance after dodging Euley's attack, and the girl from Two listens to what she has to say. "We can't all be as brave as you, can we?" And Euley almost laughs, but she can't force the sound. The warmth.

"I don't know if I'm brave, Stella," she starts with a shrug, looking to the ground and running a hand through her hair. It does nothing to remove the crown of snowflakes that has formed there, but she knows that she is a queen of nothing. A regent of death. "I want to be — I think I am — but not because I volunteered." She lifts her gaze, a weak smile on her lips. The world is still frozen. "That had nothing to do with bravery." She just wanted an adventure, a break in the routine of her life. Part of her wishes she could take it all back.

The other part wouldn't change a thing. This is the song of a hypocrite. The lyrics never quite match the music that's playing. You're not meant to sing along to the words. Stella's request is spoken, to which Euley nods and looks forward with a determined expression. "I will." It's as simple at that, no strings attached to the agreement. The dying owe their killers no favours. "What's his name? Is he your only family?"

Gates fly open, a flood of emotions filling the space between them. They don't drown. "I have sisters. Three that are identical, actually. A younger one, too." She grins at their memory, but it's a fleeting gesture. "I have nothing for them. But, if you ever meet them, just— be there. Hold them and treasure them, just for a moment. For me. I was never there enough."

A hand rubs at dry eyes, red and raw and on the verge of tears. It's just snow — just the melting of a woman that sold her soul to become ice. To become all at once stronger and more fragile. She's not ashamed of being vulnerable, of showing a less destructive side of herself, but there's no use in it. Not here. And Stella's right, one of them won't survive this war, but Euley isn't ready to think about that. She can't bring herself to accept what's coming. A kick hits her gut, further tearing a wound that's still fresh, but she hears the familiar crack of bones. Twice. It's agony. All of this.

"That is the future, isn't it?" She contradicts Stella's statement, holding on to a thread that's about to split and begging it to stay whole. To not break. "We're not dead yet. Let's live, Stella." She's not ready to go.

"You have to be alive to die."

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
0pm3Gd65spiked blunt
( DEEP GASH ON BACK OF HEAD -- 9.0 )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

Limbs weakened, bones snapped as they carve out pieces of each other. Stella craves the warmth and false security offered by the her armor, forgotten in her satchel in the snow by her feet, her fur coat trampled and soaking wet.

Each beat of her heart sends shockwaves concussing through twin wounds and for a moment she worries about the scars. About her body, about dancing again. There would be no scars if she died - her body decaying on this mountain or carted back to District Twelve, a gift for her father and a monument to her sacrifice. A funeral pyre for a wildfire burned out before damage could be wrought.

She wraps herself up with barbed wire and flame in hopes it might keep the attacks from Euley at bay. She is cold and her memory is hazy, her brain is hazy. A fog, no doubt due to the damage they are inflicting upon each other’s bodies, lingers over her like smoke over a battlefield. She wasn’t sure she belonged to these melancholy skies; a sunset, not a supernova. She found peace in the burning, but no relief in the fall.

Weakness - she was weak, she knew this. Her legs giving out after the crack against Euley's side. Bravery, some might call it rage, was not an integral part of her being. It was not embedded in stone fingertips or the way her ribcage formed around heart and organs. Her fragility shuddered in the bitter air around them, while Euley’s roared to life.

"I will,” Euley answers in question to Stella’s request. A frivolous token but an anchor weighing her to the ground when thoughts threatened to swirl and carry her to the clouds. Darkness creeping in on the first few nights after they lost Allie and Vesper. A wasteland of thoughts with an oasis of security.

"What's his name? Is he your only family? I have sisters. Three that are identical, actually. A younger one, too. I have nothing for them. But, if you ever meet them, just— be there. Hold them and treasure them, just for a moment. For me. I was never there enough."

“It’s just me and him - it’s always been just me and him.” Her heart wakes to memory. Distant worlds etched into skin, tangled but tender. Rough hands that told the softest stories late at night when sleep would not come easily to the girl with no mother. This conversation was all too much and not enough. Humanity, shining through two broken girls, talking about their families as they take from each other everything.

“His name is Cameron, but everyone always just called him Cam. Your family, they can hear you, you know? They hear you right now, your sisters, they’ve heard you for the past six days. They’re all around us, even if their presence isn’t always felt.” Stella rests her hands on her knees, her vision swirling before her as Euley’s words wash over her.

"That is the future, isn't it? We're not dead yet. Let's live, Stella. You have to be alive to die." To die. To die. Stella is looking down, not focused on the fight as the light goes out in the world and darkness reigns. It is peaceful here in the dark. Light can be vicious, the darkness calm. Light can burn, fire scorching skin, while darkness is merely an absence of what once was burning. It takes a few moments of darkness before she remembers herself. Remembers where she is. Trapped. Fighting for her life. 

Death seems a warm invitation, a blanket Stella could slip easily into as she blinks, snow around her fallen body. She blinks again, a warm trickle down her neck. She gets up, body aching from the gashes that cover her. Her body sets itself alight, heating up. Melting the snow around her as she slips into that darkness, burning alive. Her vision swims again and bile creeps up her throat.

“We need to finish this, Euley. Or else there won’t be anything of either of us to send home. Fragments, ripping each other to shreds. This needs to be over.”

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

ePXN|KW2spiked blunt

[14061 -- STABBED IN STOMACH -- 9.5 damage]

spiked blunt

[lucia valentine {d8} 🔹 tris]

e u l e y

The eclipse —
of twin moons;
of twin deaths.

Of a dying girl.

A skull fractures beneath Euley's boot, torn skin on the blades of her crampons — and this is a slow undoing. There's no joy in the song of splintered bone, but she wishes it would be over. That it would reach its crescendo and for silence to arrive soon after. A clap of thunder and the soft whistle of winter rain. Her features twist, caught somewhere between a sad longing and a hunger for the end. For the unbecoming of Stella Blakesley. For the survival of herself.

She rolls across the ground, landing on her knees and holding herself up by her arms long enough to catch her breath. Everything stings, her limbs are shaking, and there's so much blood. It's difficult for her to realize how close she is to the darkness, to becoming nothing, so she sets herself on fire and calls it mercy. And the flames have to die and her body must burn, she knows, but to be ash is not to be a shadow. A memory.

The wind can scatter her soul. The mountain can cradle her spirit. There will be birth in her ending. Just not yet. She doesn't want it to be today. A clock ticks in her ears, her lungs are screaming, but she doesn't let go. She has the thread of her life wrapped around a broken wrist, fabric stretching and a lifeline at its final stage — but there's so much more for her. She wants another day of being destroyed. Of fighting.

Rising on unsteady legs, she looks to Stella and brushes a strand of silver out of her face. "It's just me and him." Cameron, but they call him Cam. She wonders, for a moment, what he must think of her. Of the tribute that is at war with his only daughter. She can't bring herself to be ashamed. It is the nature of a man to be selfish — and a woman is the same, but her cruelty is graceful. Almost gentle. A knife in the heart of the sleeping.

"They can hear you, you know?"

And she's not sure if that's a blessing or a curse. She just shrugs. A weak smile, a nod of understanding. She's grateful for the kindness, but she's too busy thinking of Stella's heart. Of how she wishes it would just stop beating. Desperation sinks in, but she doesn't sob. She doesn't fall against the snow and cry. She inhales, looking at the blizzard around them. "Yeah, you're right, but I wish you weren't." She laughs, a true hypocrite. "They deserve better than to be here with me. In this horrible place. Watching me die."

Watching her be a wolf,
decay on her teeth.

Stella says that it needs to be over, and Euley agrees, but that one statement has two meanings. She can't accept it. Even as another kick slices across her stomach, too lost in her thoughts to dodge the attack, she refuses to come to terms with the inevitable. She's not afraid of dying, of becoming one with the world, but why does it have to be now? Why here, in the arena, after seven days of proving herself? Of doing everything she can to get home? It should be her. She can't bring herself to consider otherwise. Her victory is just on the horizon. She doesn't stop running.

"I don't want it to be over, Stella.
I don't want to die."

The eclipse —
of a soldier;
of a war that can't be won.

---

( euley attacks stella; spiked blunt )
rPpCzOYjspiked blunt
( MISS -- 0.0 damage )

spiked blunt

[alex 🐺]

s t e l l a

They were dying. Twin stars falling out of orbit at the same speed. Comets burning up in the atmosphere. Stella had read once somewhere that the path of comets is the path of poets: they burn without warming, pick without cultivating. They are an explosion.

The metal of her crampons, covered in gore and blood from herself and Euley makes purchase again on the girl’s stomach, ripping and tearing skin and Stella wills it all to stop. She wanted to burn, to be a wildfire and prove that she could survive and find her way back home, but not like this. Not when she was taking pieces out of Euley and speaking of her family and love and hope. There was too much humanity in this and it was breaking her down more than any weapon could. Razor blades disguised as words, tearing into her skin and carving into her heart as she thought of home.

The snow swirling around them is silent and drifting, the flowers frozen over. Trails, tendrils spilling from their bodies, blooming chrysanthemums and violets and lilies. Red. So red against the swirl of white. Blood pours through her wounds and seeps from her fingerprints. The mark Euley left on her cheek like claws tracing to her throat.

She is tearing through the pain with her bare teeth, iron bleeding into her mouth until she can school her emotions and bite back another wave of nausea. Its reflection could blind those watching. Her will to live burns a hole in her chest, the ragged edges of her soul fluttering in the wind as her legs give out once more.

Pulling herself upright with her limbs screaming from injuries, sweat beading on her forehead despite the storm around them, Stella blinks at Euley as she speaks of her family. "Yeah, you're right, but I wish you weren't. They deserve better than to be here with me. In this horrible place. Watching me die." Watching us die, Stella wanted to correct her but the words turned to ash in her mouth. The day was falling into shadows and every movement, every moment was a performance of girls falling to dust as they tore into each other with weapons and soothed them with words. She was speeding onwards into dusk, the darkness mixing with her vision.

Her head was in agony and Stella willed herself to task a mask and form it to flesh, fluttering warm against her hands and frozen beautiful in a shape that would fool those watching. She needed to hold herself together for just a bit longer, showing the model of a girl with a painted smile as fire tore through her damaged body, wincing as she touched the back of her head, the blood clotting and deep cardinal.

Euley was the slow unmaking of her, the ways they bit each other to the bone of what they were. "I don't want it to be over, Stella. I don't want to die." Tears spring to Stella’s eyes as Euley’s attack falls short, heart a riot of beats, tangled and lost.

”I know, Euley. I know you don’t. It’s almost over. We'll be going home soon….” Stella’s voice breaks and trails off. The sky was glowing or maybe it was all in her mind. Glowing like after thunder had passed and Stella stood with hands stained red and cheeks thin with cold. Her breath is suspended. In silence, her teardrops sounded like an explosion.

[stella attacks euley; spiked blunt]

S5VBEFDlspiked blunt

[results]

spiked blunt