where did your spine go? / damaris + saturn day 1

[goat]

damaris hope

My hands hit the ground before my knees do. I claw my fingers into the dirt and heave, lower my body as far down to the ground as I can manage. My left hand is broken, I think, and the blood streaming down my face makes me think that my nose is broken as well. The pain in my hand is almost unbearable but I keep pushing it into the dirt because I’m worried if I don’t ground myself, keep myself attached to something physical, I’ll lose my mind. It’ll float right out of my ears and up into the bright, dry sky, following the future paths of the hovercrafts.

There isn’t anything around me that could hide me. I should have run further, into the grass or the field of sunflowers, but this was as far as I think I could make it. My body feels like it’s on the verge of giving out, black blurring around the edges of my vision. If anybody followed me away from the Cornucopia, I’m making myself an easy target for them. They were all too eager to turn their fists and weapons on me as soon as the gong rang out. I need to get up, I can’t let anybody find me in the state I’m in now, collapsed like an exhausted animal. I need to find Saturn.

I push myself up and back onto my knees. So, what do I do now? I could have died in the Bloodbath, but I didn’t, which means I have a little more time to decide what I’m going to do. I know what I should do— I should be brave, press on, keep going no matter what, but that doesn’t seem very interesting, does it? Not what the audience wants to see. They want drama, disaster. They want the same tragedy that befell my cousins to befall me. Maybe I should choose to stay alive just to spite them for as long as I can. I don’t know. I’ve never been one for holding grudges.

I look out over the field, over the cracked earth and the holes in the ground. There must be some kind of burrowing animal around here. Other than that, I think I’m alone. I guess the other tributes didn’t want to come here. Either I made a great decision or a terrible one.

When I go to climb to my feet, I hear heavy footsteps approaching behind me. I stumble and reach for my weapon before realizing I dropped it just out of reach when I fell earlier. The footsteps get closer and there’s no time for me to try to grab it. All I can do is fall back on my elbows, clutch my broken hand to my chest, and hope whoever has found me is benevolent.


[title from dead-bird]

[Deleted]

Saturn Rhodon

The last thing he saw was Exover’s face - the look in his eyes as tributes piled on and he wondered for the briefest of moments if he’d ever see the boy again. Maybe they’d shared just one morning together, but Saturn kept imagining Exover’s face when he’d opened the door to his apartment. The sound of his voice as he whispered to his ear still echoed, and his hands across the small of his back were what he kept remembering. Not the push of the boy from two (a career he’d not much noticed) that sent him ass-over-tea-kettle as it was to the ground, nor the girl from five or the boy from three that took turns smashing his right hand. It was bruising purple and black now, swollen, but he’d felt worse pain in training. Better still to remember that they’d made an enemy of him.

He sees the shadow before he finds her body. Trails of footprints across the dirt around the different little holes. He made a mental note that there was likely something in them, and he wasn’t particularly game to try to find out just what. This was natural to him - the hunting across an unfamiliar place, with the thought of whatever he found to crush between his own two hands. Or to slice their throat clean open and gut them like a fish, with entrails hanging out their stomach as a reminder that as distracted as he’d been in the training center, Saturn Rhodon had set foot in the arena with purpose. First - to show the world that in the face of death he’d risk everything (and so he had, his lips against Exover’s as they lay on the sheriff’s desk).

And now he would take his time destroying the strong before he preyed on the weak.

It was the mistake that so many made in the hunger games: taking out unworthy competitors before focusing on those that put up a real challenge. Well, he was not as dim as they suspected, or perhaps his strategy came simple, but Saturn was strong, and would crush those first that presented the biggest threat. He made note of his fellow careers, and then the lower districters that had set themselves apart. Woe to them if they crossed his path or decided to take him on - he would make them suffer until his last breath.

Saturn saw her come into view, on the ground. For a moment he felt his instincts kick in and he thought: I could take her neck in both of my hands, and watch the life drain from her eyes underneath the afternoon sun. She was alone, and hobbled in the dirt. It would be easy, and quick. A clean kill to set him apart from the rest.

But he remembers their night in the little shrine. He remembers telling her his secret - the darkness he feels, much like her own but quite different. And he remembers that if she dies, then a bit of his truth dies. They are stronger together, strange duo that they are. And so he bends down beside her, into a crouch on his knees.

“Get up.” He commands more than asks, because he’s rude and not used to working with those that have patience. “Unless you’d rather just lay down here and die. But I don’t want you to die. Not just yet.” He grinned. “You’ll know when I do.”

He turned back toward the cornucopia, then stared off at the giant rock in the distance.

“It’s fucking hot. We should find somewhere with shade, and maybe water.” He offers her his left hand, the other cradled against his body. “Come on. You aren’t that banged up yet.”

[attempts a word catch]
tXsiGX9VJU1-2

1-2

[goat]

damaris hope

It’s Saturn who finds me, luckily. My ally, or at least, he’s supposed to be. I have no idea what he thinks of me. I’m not inside his head. It’s probably better that I’m not, I can barely handle being inside my own. He crouches down beside me and tells me to get up, and it’s brash, and it makes me want to laugh for some reason. I don’t know why. Maybe I wish that I could act like that. I imagine it’d be quite a shock to people if I were to suddenly appear rude and headstrong.

“Unless you’d rather just lay down here and die. But I don’t want you to die. Not just yet. You’ll know when I do,” he says, and I’m not sure if his smile is joking or malicious but I smile back at him anyway. All this time agonizing about whether or not I wanted to live or die and it looks like my ally will be making the decision for me. Now that that decision been made, I suppose I can pack it up and move on to overthinking something else.

Saturn offers me his hand and I take it. It looks like we’re down to two hands between the both of us. “I feel banged up,” I say. “I’m not used to getting punched in the face.”

I go and pick up my scythe from where I dropped it. It feels a little lighter in my hand this time, like I’m getting used to holding a weapon. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that. I let it drag behind me as I return to Saturn, the metal blade kicking up dust and dirt behind me. My feet are still a little unsteady, my shoulders still shaking. I know how pathetic I must look, I do, but it’s hard to maintain composure when the sun is beating down on me and there’s blood drying on my chin and down my front.

“You know, if I wanted you dead, nobody would suspect me. You wouldn’t even see it coming.” I lean on the handle of my scythe and stare out over the vast expanse, to the plains of grass in the distance. “I’m kidding. Promise. I don’t want to kill anybody.”


[damaris receives items from sponsorship]
[uses f/a on self for -3]
[uses n/t for -5]
[uses 10 ft bandages for -2]
[receives knife and firewood from saturn]
[LOSES the flint like an absolute FOOL]

[Deleted]

Saturn Rhodon

His life was action to reaction; to boys and girls that wanted to challenge his strength, or to those that looked to find a deeper meaning underneath his bravado. When Damaris replies she wasn’t used to getting punched in the face he gave a shrug and leaned in to help her off the ground. He tries to think about who had done it to her, adding their face to his growing list of folks. The girl from three with a familiar name and a high training score; the boy from six that hadn’t answered his advances; and the girl from seven who’s little head he thought he could crush like an overripe melon. Not that he would go hunting for any of them (they had the boy from seven, did they not?).

You know, if I wanted you dead, nobody would suspect me. You wouldn’t even see it coming, Damaris speaks after ambling a ways as she leaned on her scythe. For a moment he wonders what that would look like: whether she’d slit his throat in his sleep or betray him with her scythe through his chest. A part of him is impressed she was so openly thinking about killing him already. I’m kidding. Promise. I don’t want to kill anybody.

“Well, did you ever think of what I might want?” He crosses his arms across his chest. “You get the chance, and if I last long enough to get there, kill me.” The words come out matter-of-fact, his shadow stretching long behind him and sweat starting to drip down his forehead. “I don’t mean in my sleep, or tomorrow - we’ve got a long way to go just yet. But when it’s just me against you, and I’m standing in your way to get back to eight, I hope you don’t hesitate.” He starts to walk around the different holes in the ground, between a set of shrubs. “Because I’m not going to. None of these kids are. And the ones that do you’ll see them up there,” He said, pointing at the sky.

“Of course, I guess I’ve got to tell you that we're going to be fast friends and never want to do that to each other,” Saturn adds, thinking of the boys and girls every games that play the imaginary games that they’re knights fighting for princesses or some kind of band of heroes. As though this wasn’t basic survival, they turned the games into an exercise in friendship. Amazing how there’d only ever been one victor in each of the eighty-games. So much for friendship. “But you probably already figured I wasn’t the type to coddle you.”

A beeping fills the air, and in another instant, a large crate comes crashing down alongside a husk of an old tree. Saturn Rhodon is emblazoned in red along the wood of the box, and he starts to dig through the bounty with a grin. Whatever someone had seen in him, they’d paid an arm and a leg to get a stash of armor, some medical equipment, a morning star, and his favorite, a helmet shaped like a goat’s skull. He puts the thing on his head and turns back to Damaris, all smiles. She’s gotten a set of things too, it seemed (his own self-centered point of view contended it was his connection).

“What do you think? Be honest? Are the other boys are going to like it?” Saturn turned with a hand on his hip and a grin across his face. He barely notices her drop her flint into one of the holes.

[Saturn accepts sponsorship + does FA stuffs + other actions in TM]
[attempts a word catch]
6HZdGaAA9q1-2

1-2

[goat]

damaris hope

If it got to the point where it was me versus Saturn, and one of us had to kill the other, I wouldn’t kill him. I don’t care how self righteous he wants to be, going off about hesitation and coddling. I already said that I didn’t want to kill anybody. I felt bad enough throwing my fists out during the Bloodbath, I don’t know what killing somebody would do to my mind.

There’s beeping, and then two boxes fall from the sky to the ground. One of them has my name on it. I set my weapon down, close to my body this time, and kneel next to the package. I guess the Capitolite audience has deemed me worthy enough to receive their gifts. I open the package to find a backpack, some medical supplies, and flint to light fires. I run my fingers over the canvas surface of the bag. I’ll never know who sent this to me, and I’ll never know why they sent it. I’d like to think it was out of the kindness of their heart, but for all I know, they could have bets riding on my head. That’d be a poor choice on their part.

I open the bag and start to load my new goods into it, but my shaking fingers slip when I pick up the flint and it falls, right down into one of the burrows. Alright. I take a deep breath. No time to be upset about that. There will be bigger things to be upset about later.

I put my new backpack on and take hold of my weapon again. Saturn turns to me with a smile, decked out in a new set of armor. “What do you think? Be honest? Are the other boys are going to like it?” he asks me.

“I think so. Although I’m definitely not the expert on what boys like.” I offer him a smile in return. “We should keep moving. We need water, right?”

[Deleted]

Saturn Rhodon

Saturn pulls back the helmet by its horns and stares over at Damaris. Odd as women were, he wonders whether she means that she doesn’t care for boys (the horror) or that she doesn’t have the experience. He’s primed to believe the latter; Damaris was the type of girl to stand along the wall and go unnoticed, even as unique as her bone structure was. Perhaps it was different in eight, but the few girls he knew in one (relegated primarily to his sisters) didn’t play a wilting flower. He had been proud of his youngest sister for socking a boy in the eye when he’d thought he could lay any sort of hands on her.

“Oh yeah?” A smile curls across his face. He started to think about how little he knew of Damaris beyond that she was from some big family in eight, and that she felt sadness ache through her bones. He was reminded of standing beneath a waterfall, with the weight of the water smashing down. Damaris, drowned in her own thoughts, and he could relate to that. He liked that she was honest, and didn’t play games with her words. She wasn’t trying to prove she was smarter, or stronger. She just seemed to exist – an effortlessness he could never envision for himself. “Not a lot of gentleman callers, eh?” He hopped around another set of holes and gave a grin as he kept pace beside her. “Of course, it’s all right if you’re into that whole girl thing. Not my jam, but there were plenty of girls back in one that were.”

He rolls his neck and stretches, and stares out across the flat of the desert landscape toward the giant curve of the rock. There’s bound to be water someplace else, and if the rock had any caves he could imagine fresh water flowing through. The shade would be tempting for the others, as well, with the heat climbing the higher the sun got. He could feel the drops of sweat collecting in the small of his back, his new armor not entirely breathable in the humidity. Saturn spies the tall grass in the distance and points – bingo. They could likely dig to find fresh water, especially if there were grasses reaching up toward the sky. Something had to be keeping them alive.

“That way,” Saturn decides, because he doesn’t wait for Damaris’s input, “We can stake out a spot in the grass in case we need to hide ourselves, or even ambush someone if they’re stupid enough to go wandering on their own.” He reaches a hand back behind his head and smirks. “We’ll be able to get some water and maybe eat. You think you can keep up?”

[Saturn will be exiting this thread for the grass plains]
[attempts to catch a word]
H8G8g4dboN1-2

1-2

[goat]

damaris hope

“Not a lot of gentleman callers, eh? Of course, it’s all right if you’re into that whole girl thing. Not my jam, but there were plenty of girls back in one that were.”

It’s a part of myself that I’ve never admitted to anybody else before. I’ve never been close enough to another person to. Saturn and I aren’t close, not at all, but we’re close in proximity, and I suppose that’s good enough right now. I might never get another chance to do it.

“Not a lot of callers at all. It’s hard to put yourself out there when you never leave your house. Still, though.” I wipe my hair away from my face, where it’s stuck to my skin with sweat. “I’ve always preferred girls, I guess.”

We continue our way through the maze of burrows. I take great care not to let my feet fall into any of the holes. I already lost my flint to one of them, I don’t want to lose a limb. Saturn points at the grass plains in the distance. He says we should be able to find water there. He mentions food too, but I don’t think I have the stomach to eat right now.

He asks me if I think I can keep up with him. I don’t know if he’s joking, or if he actually thinks I can’t, but I won’t ask. It makes sense that somebody like Saturn would underestimate somebody like me. He’s much stronger than me, he’s trained for this. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it away from the Cornucopia. Still, I did. There will be no cannon sounding for me today.

“Of course I can keep up,” I say. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”


[damaris yeehaws out to the grass plains.]