fill us with your hate//we will shine a light [AV Day6]

[sbeeg]

The jar slides into the tar, the thick black goo pressing against the sides fogging up the yet untouched sides. I move quickly and carefully, the heat blooming into my face and my fingers perched carefully away from the tar's grasp. I screw the lid on and start back to our camp. Bette is sitting on a rock lost in her own mind, which is not an uncommon occurrence for her. I understand, there is a lot to think about here.

"I have a bad idea. Talk me out of it?" Bette explained her thoughts briefly and despite the inherently idiotic nature of it I couldn't help but feel drawn to it.

"Actually, that sounds like a great idea."

We set to work. Normally, I wouldn't find the strength to yank nails out of boards but grief works in mysterious ways. All I could think of were Eve and Wander as I shoved one of Hell's abandoned spears in between two boards, wedging them apart. We don't talk much, but we don't need to. I feel when Bette needs help, and whenever the wood is fighting me she always seems to find her way to my side. Once the vehicle is in pieces we drag the pile to the edge of the tar pool. I dip the edge of a board into the thick blackness and bring it up. The heat hits me again but I don't falter. I strike Hell's flint against the board and sparks dance across the goop, lighting up like a Capitol stage.

I twist around and throw the board as far as I can into the pool. The fire hits the surface and spreads out in each direction. I start grabbing more boards, my fingers tangling with Bette's as we race to fill our hands. It becomes a rhythm, dipping the boards and lighting them on fire and then tossing them. Our voices soon join in, screaming as we toss piece after piece into the tar, feeding the steadily growing fire. Soon I can't tell what is the roar of the fire and what is my own strangled cries.

We run out of wood and stare at the fire, screaming at our offering. The screams disintegrate into laughter. Bette pulls out her camera and I pose, arms spread and lips spread into as large a smile I can manage. The flash goes off and spots cloud my vision as we head up away from the growing heat of the flames.

I drop the tablet into my jug and we wait, sitting on the ground and watching the flames. Eventually, we're able to start sipping from the heavy jug. We pass it back and forth taking turns.

Bette asks me what I think is next and I don't know. There's no way of knowing anything in the Arena. Everything is artificial. The odds are never in your favor, they're always stacked against you.

"Nothing good."

"Yusei and I..." She sips the jug before passing it back. "We tried to find patterns the night we were reaped. I don't think we slept - Justice did, off of the liquor. But through each quell." She pauses and I drink. "I found nothing. I'm not sure what that means."

"Mace told me 'Be good to whoever you can be, and don't worry too hard about the rest' but there has to be something else to this, right?"

“Functionally... maybe not. But I like to work with as much info as I can. And something crucial's missing." We sit in silence for a few moments. “It’s scary.”

"Yeah." I paused, fiddling with the lid of the water jug before daring a look at Bette. "Do you think they'll make us fight?"

"They'd better not. We've been through too much shit." It wasn't reassuring. Gamemakers never have sympathy for how much a tribute has been through. It will never be enough for them, they trade in suffering.

"At least we have one more night as a team, before..." I trail off, not wanting to say the words aloud. Speaking them might make them real.

"They might not, you know-" I look at her, trying to find comfort in her words. "Make us. Yeah they've... Things turn, when it gets to the end. But I'm not..."

"I understand,"I say. I don't want her to struggle with words when she doesn't need to. "I haven't understood a lot about the Games, but I think I understand you. At least a little."

Bette smiles, not too grand, just a small curve of her lips.

"I wouldn't abandon you all. A week ago, maybe, but not now."

I return her smile. "Thanks for stickin' around then."

Table credit griffin^^

[shrimp]

BETTE SUBLINO

The rock is rough, as if weathered by eons - not by a Gamemaker's scalpel. She runs her fingers across it, the grit scraping at her skin. Her other hand massages her forehead, her eyes closed, her breath labored. She does that for a time, as if the texture will root her to the ground, back to the earth.

Eve's death was painful; she tried to hide it, a girl from the stoneworks always would, but Bette knew the moment the flames were set alight, the instant the first spear struck, deep through armor.

Two weeks after the earthquake she'd stumbled upon a book in the remnants of the library, long since scavenged through. It was dusty, nearly untouched, a skull embossed on the front cover. She'd gone back home, slipping under broken beams and weaving through to the basement studio torn asunder, collecting what she could to refurbish her finding.

The cover was eventually separated from its contents, but not before she read through it, cover-to-cover. On Death and Dying, the author's name a burnmark in the canvas. Death by fire, it had said, was the worst way to die: the nerves set alight, neurons screaming in terror. Skin dripping off in melted drops. She'd found it a blessing, then, that her father died quickly.

Her shroud still stands there, overlooking the bog. Its technicolors are stark against the ground: blue against gray, pink among beige. It flutters slightly in the breeze, but all Bette can see is the flickering of flame, Angel's words twisted bitter and sharp - cutting her through.

Fingers scrape rock until they're raw.

Carter Laws had smiled as he chuckled, his suit jacket dragging on the pristine floor. "I mean, I guess there are worse ways to die? At least I'll be remembered for something."

She sighed, adjusting the drape of her saree. "Maybe."

"An obscure death would be kinder."

Eve deserved kinder.

If Bette were calmer, less attached, perhaps it would have been easier to move on, to more forward. But Eve's stuck on this rock instead, overlooking a lake filled with the very thing that killed her. As she stews, an idea worms its way to Bette's thoughts, so ridiculous she almost wants to laugh. But...

"I have a bad idea," she starts, coming down from her stoop. "Talk me out of it?"

"Actually," Temple says, "That sounds like a great idea."

They break up the wooden structure easily enough - Temple had been there for its construction, and they switch roles on and off between hacking and finessing. Bette makes sure to collect the pictures scattered across the dashboard, slipping them back into place in the camera bag. She takes a moment to look at the first picture taken, all four of them smiling with the sea setting orange. She didn't know them enough then - hell, one could argue she barely knows them enough now, but does it matter? She knows Wander's empathy, Eve's resoluteness, Temple's grit.

They scream as they throw the pieces adrift, Ares, Hephaestus, heeding their calls. The flames lick at their offerings and sparkle, spreading out like wildflowers billowing in a brisk wind. Her exertions are accompanied with a growl, fury compressed into something that can't quite spit out what she wants to say; she knows if she did, there'd be no chance of her coming back at all. But she toes the line, knowing that Kinkade and Azazael will at least have a field day in dealing with their mess, the smoke rising.

Shouts turn to a chuckle, to a boisterous laugh as they throw the last kindling onto the flames. They rejoice, cackle, dance. Such an occasional calls for celebration, memory enshrined in flash and film. Temple spreads her arms wide, head tilted back in a laugh that lasts forever. Bette poses, squatting down with her hands clasped in front of her face. A mockery of a masterpiece, an artist's interpretation of damnation.

Then, common sense rushing back, they scamper to higher ground - still erupting in laughter, glee, relief at what they've done. The tide of smoke rolls in, and as it crests atop of their hill, they sit together, watching the flames ravage. The minutes flow by, the flames warming her skin. Exhausted in Death's wake, in the aftermath of a rebuttal, she leans slightly on her partner's shoulder.

"So, what's next?" she asks, sipping from their shared bottle.

"Nothing good."

A quell is a quell. She tells Temple of how she and Yusei spent that night on the train, tea and cocoa in hand as they flipped through scene after scene, carnage illustrated with an artistry that twisted her stomach, her tea left cold, the changes in each arena too unique to pinpoint. Yusei had joked about not being killed like his doppelganger - if only he knew what was in store.

Temple tells her about Mace Emberstatt's warnings, a hesitation to put their cards on a single suggestion. Mace Emberstatt is wise beyond years, but he is still not in this arena. Bette admits, finally, that she doesn't have the answer. That this fact sends a chill down her spine worse than December's bite.

The cicadas chirp and Bette tilts her head back, the clouds rolling above. Temple takes the jug from her, her fingertips cool against her own. It's silent for a time, just the crackling of the fire, the breeze blowing - the scent putrid but tinged with the slightest hint of nostalgia, of photographs snapped and Lex mooing and Wander doe-eyed and Eve showing off her battle wounds. Her shoulders sag ever so slightly, and she leans a bit more on Temple's frame.

"Do you think they'll make us fight?"

"They'd better not," she says, her voice flat. "We've been through too much shit."

A long silence. "At least we have one more night as a team, before..."

Oh. Oh. She stammers her response quickly - too quickly, her thoughts for once have trouble catching up. Temple interrupts, but even as Bette smiles - "I wouldn't abandon you all. A week ago, maybe, but not now." - "Thanks for stickin' around then." - she's not sure if Temple really does understand her. The main point yes, but the nuances. Nuances are important.

When she first stepped off her plate, she could have left. She could have chalked it up to the rules and left them to drown; she nearly did. But then, they stayed. And so did she, and now she finds it impossible to just pack up and go.

Even now, as the sun sets but the flames still light the sky with goldenrod and scarlet, she doesn't have the words. They're not family - her family is at home: Aja and Tharshana, Hedy and AK, Rakesh and Seig. They're her home.

But here, they were, she is, the closest thing to it.