the ferryman has come | day 5 fight

[Deleted]

TW: Assault
(Ah sometimes, I pray for you at night, oh
Someday, maybe you'll see the light
Whoa oh oh oh, some say, in life, you're gonna get what you give
But some things only God can forgive)

He can feel the heaviness pass through his body. Standing and watching the kids around him scatter, he knows it’s one, two, four – however many that want to live, want him to die. He doesn’t recall what it was that set it off in the first place but figures that it was enough to start a war. They swing on Damaris like she’s used to all the pain and suffering (she can hold it on her shoulders, like she always has, but that doesn’t mean she should). The elephant skeleton takes another swing forward and Saturn side steps out of the way, through the rivulet of water dripping down from the ceiling of the tent, and right into the sword of Ronan.

Think you're so tough, Saturn? Took down Braun? Think you're the biggest threat in this arena now?

His anger flames outward, untamed. Saturn should be angry, too. For one, he’d really liked the goat shaped skull helmet. For another, that he supposed to know exactly what was in Saturn Rhodon’s head. He shrugs and pulls back his spear, even though he’s not sure that the boy from six deserves much of an answer. He hadn’t killed Jessica Braun because she was the toughest (if anything she was fragile, and hollow, too). He’d killed her because she’d wanted him dead, and he knew that there was nothing good coming from it.

“Nah bro, I think the kids that rode in on their horses and armor might be, though,” He smirks, hand on his flaming spear, listening to the crackle of the fire. He, the girl from five, was it? The two from three. They were all together in this, while he and Damaris were a duo that had almost imploded the day before. But maybe his size said enough for Ronan – he seemed like a boy that didn’t read much deeper than the surface.

“Oh shit, isn’t that you guys?” Saturn gives a cheesy grin.

Don't think I'll let you take Rory without a fucking fight. Saturn stares over at the girl with the crown, and then to Ronan. Hadn’t she just stabbed him through his arm? But he sees their friendship and knows that this is the truth. They are fragile without one another. Apart they’ll fall to pieces, just as he and Damaris would. It’s the same thing that has his heart racing, still beating through the din of the battle. Damaris mattered more than anyone he’d known.

“She hit me first, dingus.” Saturn spits back, though he knows the words are for nothing. It wouldn’t matter who hit whom, not unless one of them survived. Losers didn’t get to write history, and winners didn’t have to think about what the truth was if they created their own.

After all, I'm the bad guy. Ronan speaks and Saturn feels a chill run down his spine. Bad guy?

“Ummmm… what?” Saturn stares at the boy from six. Good and evil, through the lens of a child. Did he really think he was wicked for something he was being forced to do?

Liar, you’re the biggest damn hero I’ve ever met.

The crown must have been too tight on her head, he thinks, seeing things in heroes and villains. Maybe she’d gone and thought of herself as a princess (and he a knight). There had been plenty of boys and girls to play pretend in the arena (hadn’t that district eight girl gone and thought herself a pirate?). Except he knows that life is not a mirror to good and evil. There are good men that have done wicked things, with families and loves – one of them is watching Saturn from the comfort of his home even now, because justice is not served so simply – and bad people who are trying, and breaking down, and falling apart in spite of all the good they try.

He was raised to believe that the games were beautiful, and that what he could do – his powerful body, his skill with a spear – was everything he needed to be. It was a world that taught them good and evil was simple. One where they could be small people because it was easier to care for what they wanted rather than what it might do. He’d been told that he was wrong, that the truth was not as good as order. He was just another boy that would lose: on his childhood, his story, and his life.

He didn’t want to be Damaris’s knight in shining armor. He didn’t expect her to ride in on a white horse and save him from Ronan or Aurora. He wants her to know that she matters, that he hears her, and that he’d waited too long to tell her. That was enough.

And then a can of preserves splatters across his back. And Saturn’s armor collapses, hot, sticky fruit slipping across his skin. He laughs, half at Finley’s curse, the other at the ludicrousness of it all.

It’s enough that Aurora pushes forward and stabs into her, and a cannon sounds.

He feels the powerlessness, the inevitable heavy feeling that slags over his skin. Saturn has known this for so long, strong as he was, that there is nothing that he could do. Ex is in the distance, alone. Damaris is circled by Nico, others at his back. The ship is sinking, and he is not strong enough, not even for this.

He could give up, or quit. Give in to all the pain that lurks underneath, that someone else had given to him. But he stirs an anger in his breast that kindles into flame. There was here, and now. Not much more than that, and if he died – or Damaris, or Ex – their truth did too. They would either be broken, and cast themselves to nothing, or fight with every ounce they could muster.

“Guess you two heroes get to decide who lives and dies, huh?”

And though it took being so close to death to learn, he knows now that sometimes, what was meant to break you, makes you brave.

“HNNNNG!”

[Saturn Rhodon attacks Aurora Lachance with his Flaming Spear]

[Kesha - Praying]

pc72VQBupVspear

1-50spear·1-50

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

( start again, start again,
build a new world up instead
let the old one burn,
you get what you deserve )

     The gold floral knife soars;
     like a promise, like an ode.

It promises vengeance and recites a sharp melody about how much Francisco Bloom has changed, before burying itself into the girl’s bicep. In the fray and the bloodshed, Francis decides to take a step back and reflect on himself and on the violence swirling about him like a storm. It began the moment his name thundered from the reaping stage; that was the seed of this poisoned tree, the sordid beginning. Now the tree had grown but remains impervious to its own toxin. Francisco Bloom is that tree, the rings of his age scarce but the flesh of his bark already venomous beyond its years.

He stares down at his hands and feels his own heart quicken when he sees blood instead of flower stems settled upon the calloused skin.

Once, he was not this boy, chasing revenge or spilling blood. Once, he would have never even thought or dreamt about being this boy, inhabiting this cruel physique and head. The boy he once was would sit on his windowsill until dawn for the birdsongs amongst the laughter of awakened leaves and use his pots of watercolors to record strange leaf patterns and foreign flowers. He was a sweet boy who loathed his heart for its softness; it’s a cruel irony how Francis, as of right now, wishes it to harden no more. The birdsongs have ceased and, in the empty space that they’d left behind, comes anthems of war. He sees his softness wrung out like a prey and gasps in a breath, winded in a sudden.

     Like how petals make flowers,
     Francis’ gentleness makes him.

“I don’t blame you for being nice,” eyes tremble at the wound he’s caused, but his words do not falter.

“But, even the nicest girl in the field has cruelty within her.” His words chime true when her sword springs towards Nico, a serpent unraveling its body, and almost cuts through the bone and sinew of his left wrist. “Even the kindest person in the world has a speck of malice in their heart.” At the mention of malice, his eyes settle on Saturn, those chiseled hands of his red with Jessica’s blood and that reckless gleam in eyes posing a danger still. Softly, he unhooks another knife from the belt. “I don’t blame anyone because, during a war, there is no one to blame but its creator.”

The poison Francisco Bloom is brimmed with has forever been asleep within him, like a relic, but the Capitol has awoken it – like it has awakened the cruelty Damaris wields to harm Nico.

     It poisons their roots;
     eats at the red hearts.

But, it has awakened things that are strangely pleasant too, such as Nico Thorne’s soft caresses on Francis’s cheek and Jessica Braun’s trust towards him. There are silver linings to their storm clouds, hope veiled thinly beneath the despair. He holds onto those silver linings and that hidden hope. He doesn’t let the poison mutate the kind flowers caged behind his ribs. A cannon sounds nearby but he doesn't let the noise overwhelm the sure beating of his heart. 

This is the splitting of the dark chrysalis that has enclosed him for the past four days, and the first unfolding of his wings is gentle and kind, despite the venom and the dark he’s been forced to dwell in.

     No darkness could devour Francisco’s light.
     No brutality could overwhelm his gentleness.

He is a forest, a garden, an orchard, astir with old magic and deep roots, something formidable and eternal. He can fight and be gentle, all at once. He is the boy he once was, but wiser and more ethereal. Francis would not let the Capitol steal his gentleness from him, but he would also not surrender to Damaris or Saturn. He knows the stakes at play, the inevitability of everything. He cannot halt the floods or the storms, but he could shield his loved ones from it.

     So, after kissing the honed apex of his dagger,
     his wrist flicks it towards Damaris, onward.

( go in exile, go in vain,
keep burning to the borderlands
we become all that we hate,
start again, start again )


Lyrics : Zola Jesus — Please

( Francis attacks Damaris Hope | Throwing Knife 3 )

7uCfUSr4Mnthrowing knife

9082 -- Miss (knife lost) -- 0.0 damage (Thrown Knife)

( Accuracy re-roll  | Day 5 )

throwing knife

9180 -- Miss (knife lost) -- 0.0 damage (Thrown Knife)

throwing knife·throwing knife

[ghosty]

h i s i d r o.

Fear trembled steps towards the giant creature: they achieve nothing. Hisidro felt the sword barely make a mark on the bones, sliding off leaving nothing in return for the effort. What's even the point in trying? Disappointment stained features lunge into panic as it lumbers again.

This time towards Diana. 

Hisidro half-ran, towards the back of the skeletal creature. Why couldn't it go for anyone, other than her? His sword was raised in his hand, adrenaline overtaking any fear his veins carried. It stomped at her, and she dodged.

Thankfully. His barely saw the leg flying backwards towards him, chest height. He lurched away from the skeletal leg, but it was too late.

For the first time in this arena, his blood dripped onto the ground. Adrenaline numbs pain, but even then, Hisidro grimaced as the leg of the thing pulls out of his arm. Like a needle, spent, empty. 

He was no longer perfect, not whole. Hisidro, he was still a lucky one. Nothing missing from his body.

Yet. 

He hoped it wouldn't come, but looking at the Twelve male- if he and Diana got out of here alive, he'd get all their names from her- it was inevitable. 

Hisidro dreaded the sounds that followed, staccato rhythms of two cannons firing. Three down already in this circus tent. He wished he could run, but he didn't want Diana to be one of those cannons. Ripred knows, he'd to anything for that.

It was the last thing Berlin and he promised, locked eyes more telling than words. Hisidro, he didn't want to insult his memory by failing. 

He picked his sword up from the ground, tensing his hand to make sure it still worked. His head swam with pain, but he wasn't ready to stop fighting yet. 

He wanted to prove himself.

He had to.

[attacks kharon with sword]
xwWlNwRY1lsword
[1065 -- Deep Gash on Left Calf -- 8.0 damage]

sword

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

The likes of my weapon dives once more into the depths of skin. Another’s worth is far from the realm of my decisions, while whom I choose to protect surely weighs heavily within the roots of my palms. His loved ones surely watch him who I harm from home, spraying tears to the growth of his injuries, spewing curses to the flicks of my blade causing such. But hearts invested upon my baby from Three are observing as well, sobbing to his own blood spill, and praising my dedication to destroy the ones who cause such. There’s no true definition of what’s right and wrong when those lines are far within a blur; and we are upon a land where there is no distinction between the good and the bad people.

Demands sprinkle from Ronan to our girl from Three who’s been kissed by a flame. Words of tension exchange between them, while the licks of their voices refute to absorb within my ears. The intensity of their conversation pulses upon my skin however, flooding me with goosebumps of sweet sadness. The pressure of clashing weapons, and weeping wounds, vibrating against my reality returns me to where I am. Volume seems numb to my senses, until Sev’s pleading eyes halt my dancing gaze - and his words register like a bursting dam.

“Fine. If they don’t feel like talking anymore, we will let our weapons say the rest.” Further wisdom breaches the boy of ultimate youth, while his eyes still flick with that innocence he still possess. There’s such a direness within my desperation to scoop him from this nightmare, to force him from this tent in an escape from this reality he shouldn’t have to deal with. Perhaps he has a maturity beyond his years, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for him to endure this shit then. None of the kids here do - not the Blind boy, or the craving Killers, and especially not Ro and Rory, and not our baby from Three.

But there’s no releasing anyone from this madness unless it’s in the form of death - and with that an ultimatum there will be no escape of this hellhole for any of my allies, not if I can prevent such. Perhaps that’s stupidity reigning me. Maybe such desire to protect is beyond idiotic. Possibly it’ll be the death of me, the return of me to Dove, that brought me here in the first place anyways. Only one can truly survive, yet I strive to protect them all.

The severity of the atmosphere thickens even greater. Fewer comments of spite glide across the air, as the brutality of whipping weapons fill the tent. The heart I believed didn’t exist within me deflates a little further as I’m unable to prevent yet another hit upon Sev from the blind boy. But suddenly my attention is yanked elsewhere, where my hearts is demolished beyond repair.

My mouth falls ajar upon my face, but I only scream internally. One day upon the next life I could probably forgive myself for the vicious hits that landed upon my loved ones, but never will I be able to forgive myself for watching the final blow that’s kissed away Rory’s life. Momentarily everything in my body freezes, my bones, my lungs, my heart, as I witness her collapse to the ground. And here I stand in a new choice of revenge or protecting. She won’t recover from that. The brutal Boy who caused such will have to pay. But for now, unfortunately, it’s solely the child who wishes the same for Sev that will meet the lips of my weapon.

{Beautiful table made by the Amazing Arrows <3}

{Raven attacks Exover ~ Hatchet (Axe)}
uTMLZjG|tRaxe
{11061 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage
(Axe)}

Re-roll Accuracy

axe
{11136 -- Deep Gash on Left Calf -- 8.0 damage
(Axe) +1 Strength}axe·axe

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The sun,
in that moment,
does not exist —

but it falls with her.

It falls with Aurora LaChance.

On the bloodstained walls of their prison, the shadows seem to grow restless. The figures twist in silent agony, their mouths open in fear and hunger and mourning — and the music reaches a crescendo, the lights dim. The beast goes still. There must always be a balance between the living and the dead.

Bea's hands hover over the simulation, a motion that has become familiar; she stares down at the corpse of a girl she favoured, their most lethal and most loved, and she bites down on the rising feeling of regret. She swallows it before it can do the same to her. What is a broken body to a god?

Lifeless, beautiful, too distant to love
— a sky littered with stars, with memories.

"It seems Saturn has come to steal her crown," she says to the room, arching her fingertips until they awaken the hologram once more. Kharon shakes under her influence, bones splintering from the pressure of recent attacks. She doesn't care about his pain. Death has always been his birthright.

"And so he has." Her wrist spins in the air, hand gliding across the space in front of her. Kharon rises as he always does, dust follows him in the air like an omen. "Come on, then. Show me your power." She says it to all the remaining tributes, to the boy standing in flames and blood, to herself. "Here's the monster you must slay."

She wants this to be over;
let the sun return.

table: kaitlin

KHARON'S FILE —
HP: 78.5 remaining
ATTACKS: 2 tusks (2 spears), front and back legs (2 spiked blunts)
NOTES: he may be attacked four times each round, the same as the amount he attacks; he will count for one of the 5 required deaths if he falls; he is immune to instas, however they will count for 10 damage against him

---

[Kharon attacks Damaris with left tusk; spear]
u0XhJnB8wfspear
[Stabbed in Eye -- 40 damage]

[Kharon attacks Exover with right tusk; spear]
spear
[Stabbed in Forearm -- 8.5 damage]

[Kharon attacks Saturn with front legs; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
[DEEP GASH ON CHEEK -- 8.5 damage]

[Kharon attacks Raven with back legs; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
[STABBED IN CHEST -- 9.5 damage]

spear·spear·spiked blunt·spiked blunt

[gamemaker kelsier]

a m b r o s i a .

"I'm insane but
on my toes
I had a slumber party
wit' all my foes"

Every time they fall he just sees them fall. Titus first, then Cickle whom he never even saw fall but only got the aftermath, a broken doll bleeding out in a cobbled alleyway and Titus wants to know why the fuck no one ever cared about it. They all care about the children on the television but no one cares for the children dying daily on the streets of Nine and Ambrosia doesn't expect them to either. He doesn't expect them to but he also doesn't expect them to have a fucking cow every time he lands a blow. It's fucking annoying.

But of course they stop paying attention, they always do. Ambrosia is used to that whole part of things. The only time he ever did get attention as a child was when they wanted to land a blow on him. He remembers the way the fists used to rain down on him from all angles and the time he took his father's boot to the chest. No one cares about that too, Ambrosia learned that long ago. In Nine it was kill or be killed and no one had time for tears.

He's lonely, he's been lonely for a long time now in no time at all. When everyone you ever cared about has died things start to go off like rancid meat in the fridge that's been cooling for weeks. The maggots still get in, they always do. The maggots have been in Ambrosia for a long time. He can feel them wiggling around inside of him, slipping down his bloodstream and worming around in is gut. He stares at the centre of the tent and there is Cickle, laying dead in a shaft of light all perfect like a little dream.

She sits up and looks at him. "Get on with it Ams, what are you waiting for?" she says as blood leaks down her throat, "Avenge me."

But he doesn't want to do that yet. Killing himself can happen last of all. He ignores her and focuses on Leticia, dogged in his attack. His axe seems to fly from his hand as if summoned by someone else. This time he knows where it's going all too well and for the softest, briefest of moments, for the split second where Ambrosia is allowed to be the fifteen year old child that he is, he is sad and he is afraid.

[ambrosia attacks leticia with flaming throwing axe]
jtw4HxYyNwthrowing axe
1-50
[]

throwing axe·1-50

[kap]

Death could happen so quickly. I was learning that. It felt as if only moments before, there were sixteen tributes standing. Then, chaos ensued, and five more were dead. It seemed so unreal to me in the moment, hearing their cannons and seeing some of them fall. Damaris, who I'd known at least a little bit, had even been killed by the giant creature that I'd been working to take down. Clearly, despite my spear going through the neck of the beast, it hadn't been enough. Damaris died anyway, and I somewhat blamed myself. Sure, I didn't kill her directly, but I didn't prevent something else from killing her, even though I was trying so hard to take down the creature that had attacked the tributes that stood before it.

When the boy from Nine made another attack, Leticia fell, skull split open, and my heart skipped a beat. She and I had spoken peacefully just the other day, and now, there she lay, lifeless, never to take another breath. Her cannon sounded, and then something I didn't expect happened. The giant beast fled. I suppose the Gamemakers had decided that they didn't want to kill all of their tributes in one place, and got the mutt out of there. It ran off and I felt frustration in my veins. I had worked so hard at trying to kill the damn thing, and now it ran away.

At least I got to live for now, I suppose. I was glad for that, and I could imagine that the Laws family back home was glad, too. Carter would be grateful for the fact that I hadn't died right here, in this fight, and that was certainly a good thing. I liked to make Carter and the rest of my family happy, and they certainly wouldn't be happy if I died. I still held my spear in my hand, just because of the fact that there was still a chance of another tribute trying to attack me.

Then, I ran away. I ran as fast as I could, away from the chaos, like I had during the bloodbath, except this time, I was alone. There was no Alja by my side. She was dead. I was fending for myself, and that's how it would be until the end.

table by Ryan

[Jayne Ashbrook-Laws flees]
[Her actions will be in tribute maintenance]

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

The heat is like a fever. Red in the face and skin glistening like, it too, has become encrusted with a thousand tiny diamonds from the night sky. My eyes do not burn in the same way my head does; cool and collected, because I know that to give into the fires of anger is to blow out the light in your own eyes. It is to touch the flame with wet fingertips and watch as smoke dissipates from the wick like it has been summoned by the sky. Simply, but severe; an action that requires complete lack of heart and irresponsibility for your own humanity.

It is not something I could do. The heat stays behind my eyes, a fire contained within my mind that shall not spread any further because I am too soft to sacrifice my sanity for sick blood. The anger emerges from my body through the sway of my arms and my weapon scrapes against the creature's leg. It does more harm than good—slowly but surely adding to seal and send this beast to the underworld it calls home. A place where it can roam monstrously and blend in, ultimately a place where it can find its own sense of twisted peace.

Except the beast shows no signs of being capable of replicating such peace in our world. It mirrors the brutality it sees before it; the bones of its body making an example of anyone who tries to be more hell than heaven—it would only see you rot. The tributes around me continue fighting and fighting, longing for a means to escape a death sentence that lingers closer to their body than their own shadow, praying for their world to stay their world, and not become part of someone else's. It hurts my heart to see them act so cruelly against each other, but it shows how these games can suck every ounce of love from a person's body and force them to leave it in their district.

I wonder if it is still waiting for them if they make it back home. I do not think I would be willing to take that chance; for one, it could have easily been taken and stolen, and so when you return to refill your heart with something to replace the darkness within, you're met with emptiness. I think this is why some people turn to smoking and drinking; Angel might have taught me to keep my patience, but perhaps he can also teach me a lesson or two about not letting emptiness consume space. The two, at a first glance, seem very familiar but are like salt and sugar—stark contrasts, both with very difference consequences.

For two, there is room for rejection. To abandon one's love is to leave it lying on the ground in favour of following something darker. That is an act so callous that it makes me question whether a person had any love in the heart in the first place. What if you come home to love that has no time for you anymore? It, just like the rest of the world, has seen the things you are capable of: the tragedies and triumphs of your time and tongue. It can make a judgement on whether you are worthy to hold that same love from before, or whether to reject the body it called home. Love has the choice to single people out like that, and it can be sad, but it deserves that power.

I cannot take that risk. Love is the world to me, it is the be all and end all—without it I would be a silent wind chime that nobody could hear. Still the same, but unable to fulfil my purpose. Love calls to me like a bird does to the sun at dawn; I feel it when I am facing it raw and uncovered, it sends a shiver down my spine because love comes in such a jagged form that it reminds me not to get hurt through my own healing.

Though Lex told me back in Seven that having heart got her killed, there is no way I would let myself abandon all I have ever known for the sake of victory. Even when Mackenzie told me about how killing is the reality of the Hunger Games, how I didn't want to believe him when he said that I shouldn't feel sorry for the people who die because they all want what I want—I told myself, then and there, that I would not change who I am for their sake. I am a free spirit through and through, and this is a game that I want to play by my own rules; I will not lead from the head.

I will lead from the heart, always.

Doing such comes with its own baggage that becomes more real than ever before. Cannon after cannon in my ear, it becomes difficult to escape the murder of my peers with each shadow that dances past. The fires of everyone else are not contained behind their eyes, they have spread through their eyes and into the real world: flames dancing on blades and burning bloodlines faster than anyone can even think of thanking their allies or saying goodbye. Death becomes another moment in between each breath; something that happens so quickly you can forget it is there, but that does not diminish the weight or power it has.

Three booms in between my heartbeat—each signalling the book closing after the final chapter of another soul's story. A premature ending, a cliffhanger perhaps, but a story where the protagonist never quite gets to live out their dreams, never quite gets to say all they have been meaning to say, and just ends the book as sharp as they blade they died by.

I'll make sure I keep them in my thoughts tonight, when I see those faces in the sky and loop them back to the families and legacies they leave behind. I'll wish them well on their way to wherever, and wonder whether this was the return of their echo—or my own.

I look around at the others. It feels increasingly more like it is me against the world, with every number stacked up against me ready to crunch. But I have so much to stay here for, I have to keep my place for the people in Seven and so that I can break their silence before the silence breaks their heart. With the shadows still dancing to the stillness that follows after blood runs cold, I stare at the world, slow-motion, questioning where love with lead me next.

It has made me feel so warm and brought me close to the point of no return. But it was a lesson—not like the ones in school where you learn for the test, but a lesson in love where you have the test and learn from the outcome. I learnt that the anger has to be contained behind my eyes and between my ears; it may singe the jewels on my crown but it can never burn a hole in my heart.

I am in too deep—but I did not fall to get here, I am still standing.

[ diana flees ]

[Tom]

Ronan is ruin.

He walks with the ashes of his past coated along his skin, graying him with a fire of his own ruin. A flame that never goes out as long as he lives. A mother who screamed at him that he was wrong, always so wrong in everything. Never good enough to be an Einfallen, but never full enough to be a Keeni. He walks a fine line of sanity and insanity that he doesn't quite know where it crosses. The fire in his chest burning like a forest on fire, only creating ruin. The severed ear that falls reminds Ronan of everything that he's caused. Every single piece of the past that he's burned to ash with the ruin of himself.

No amount of cigarette ash or curse words could fix him.

Ronan was born broken, a mistake in this world.

"Liar," The words shatter Ronan. "You’re the biggest damn hero I’ve ever met."

Hero. All that he's ever wanted to be as a kid was a hero. A hero like Riordan in those plays. A hero like his mother who saved lives. A hero like his aunt who ran for mayor. A hero in the heart of others, but he can't exactly breath after Rory says those words. His breath is lost in the mix of his heart beat rising and tears almost threatening to break. Aurora Lachance was more than a hero in his eyes. She was a savior in his world. A savior who came with joking words and exhausted eyes, but she rescued him from himself.

Saved him from dooming himself to a bitter end in life.

Rory's strike is nothing like the ones before. The beauty in the way that she moves, with a grace of power and accuracy. Everything's faster and yet slower than before. Rory's no longer grasping the ground anymore. Almost as if she had been freed for just a moment by his presence. The care that he's ignored for days because he didn't want to wallow in it. Another thing that he could ruin in his life, so he ignored the way she had made him feel as if he wasn't carrying the weight of his past. Endless skies above that remind him of her ever floating heart that soars higher than anyone else that he's ever met.

Including the only friend he had before.

As the strike lands, he can hear the sound of a jar shattering against Saturn, but his eyes aren't on the career like they should be. No, Ronan's stuck watching Rory with so much awe in his eyes that he can't help the sound of his own thoughts in his head. You're my hero. Her sword glitters with the colors of a rainbow, yet the beauty is deadly. Deadlier than any of the other weapons that they all carry. As the sword comes down, his breath comes back. The blade cuts Finley down and he doesn't bother stare for too much longer at the dead. Instead, he's entranced by the way Rory continues to live up to the name of Lady Death.

You’re the biggest damn hero I’ve ever met.

A hero to the one and only Aurora Lachance.

"Guess you two heroes get to decide who lives and dies, huh?"

The choice was already made in the career's eyes. Ronan desperately pulling forward with his scythe trying to catch up, trying to jump in the way, trying to do anything to save her. The desperation in his skin, the anger in his blood, the fire in his chest, he can feel himself wanting to die for her. He can feel the desperation in him to save her from Saturn. The world was watching them, every single second of this moment would be watched over and over again. In his heart, he could feel it. The fact that he's not gonna make it. The scream in his voice coming out faster than his own physical movement.

"NO!"

Death doesn't discriminate.

Not even for people like Aurora Lachance.

The spear hits and Ronan shatters like the fragile glass cannon that he was. Instead of striking, he's past Saturn. Past the person who killed the only person in this world who still believed in him. Tears seem to come from his eyes for the first time in six years. The words of his mother telling him men don't cry flashing vividly as he lets the tears flow. Rory is dying. Dying in front of him with wounds that bleed and a heart that shines like gold still. Soon that gold with disappear and he'll be alone again. Alone in a world where no one believed in him, not even himself.

The world is blurring together without her. The guilt comes first in his heart. The sorrow still feeds on his tongue as he's now crouching next to her, fingers going through her hair as he lets himself break for a moment. Break harder than he ever has. Ronan didn't cry when he lost his friend. He didn't cry when his mother refused to look at him. He didn't cry when Riordan's lifeless body stared back at him. This was the only time he's broken down into tears in six years and the reality of exhaustion finally hits him hard.

Words slip from his lips as he gently brushes his fingers through her hair.

"You'll always be a hero too, Rory."

In the chaos of everything else, he doesn't notice who the mutt kills in the background. Not until he glances around him to see Damaris, Saturn's ally dead. Loss resides in this arena. Death doesn't discriminate between heroes and villains. Hell, death did what death wanted to. Instead of staying with Rory, he feels the blood in his veins boiling with anger. The way that he can remember her secret that he would take to the grave with him. His heart shattered once across a white hospital floor, now was shattered in the tent of the biggest performance of the eighty first.

The sound of death comes once again in the form of Ambrosia Sin's throwing axes that sail with a deadly grace. Eyes stare intently, until the weapon strikes Leticia in the skull. Home didn't belong in this place. A little girl with dreams of being something more than a baker flashing across his mind. The way she stuck up for herself to him, the bad guy, as if she weren't terrified of him. Leticia was stronger than any of them. Death doesn't discriminate. His body is going numb with anger as the remainder of the cigarette still resides in the dirt.

Home didn't belong in this place.

Heroes didn't belong in this place

All that was left was Ronan Keeni-Einfallen.

The boy who creates ruin with every step that he takes.

Severus moves first. The way that anger lingers in the small kid's skin reminds him of the changes Ronan had went through. The remainder of that dreamer dying with that awful day. If there's anything he owed Rory, it was this. He couldn't let the dreamer be ruined by him or Saturn. Instead, his anger burns in the form of his chest. Eyes set on Saturn with the fire of ruin in his chest. This wasn't a place for dreamers to belong. Arm extends out to block the path of Severus Ward. Words deep from his throat, finally taking away the sorrow from his eyes.

"Get out of here. Now!"

A moment is all he needs. A moment alone with the new death that resides in this arena. Severus is stopped for a moment. Too many thoughts that cross into the boy's head, but Ronan can't handle him right now. His skin feels on fire. His body feels numb. The sound of his heartbeat is resounding in his ear. Severus finally speaks and lets the words hang in the air, tight, angry, and full of something Ronan hasn't seen from the kid.

"Kill him."

Ronan is ruin.

There's not a wasted second of waiting for them to leave. No, he's on a path of something awful. Something that the hero that Rory knew wouldn't have done, but she was dying. The words of Rory coming in like a fire through his head. Every single conversation that has made his heart grow fonder of her by day. The walls that she had taken down. The truth that she had brought out of him. The belief that he wasn't a bad guy that she made him believe. All of it was flashing before him like a haze of the loss he was given.

A loss that he surely would never bounce back from.

Words seem useless at this point, but the anger in his veins beats him.

"I already told you." A heartbeat. "I'm not a hero."

The scythe glittering with blood and metal, the words of Severus in his skin, the sight of death in Rory's body. Everything was hurting. Everything was numb. Ronan had all of this ruin behind him. Behind him for so long, but now it's everywhere. All around him in the ashes of his every step, his every word, his every existence. Saturn had broken the only sanity that was left in him and he was snapping. Snapping out of the belief that Rory had given him.

Instead of running, he stays.

He stays here with his weapon pointed and his heart beating heavily.

Ronan's been a fighter. A fighter since the day he was born into a life full of ruin. Not once has he stepped back from a fight. Some would call him brave, others stupid, but he's always fighting for more. This wouldn't be any different. No backing down. No giving up. This was his performance, not anyone else's. All he could do was push forward and shout to Saturn with the venom on his tongue, the anger in his veins, and the pain in his heart.

"You've taken everything from me!"

He strikes with everything in him. The memories of Rory. The dreams of Severus. The heart of Raven. This is their arena of ash. Saturn took everything from them. Ronan wouldn't let him do it ever again. The hero in him died with Aurora Lachance.

All that was left was Ronan.

The boy surrounded by ruin.

(Ronan Keeni-Einfallen attacks Saturn Rhodon; Scythe)
gfSDY7h6cGsword
(Deep Gash on Stomach 9.0)

sword

[Arrows]

 I didn't mean to make you cry,

if I'm not back again this time tomorrow,

carry on, carry on,
as if nothing really matters 

There was a time when they were all just children playing with their toys. There was no death to rap on life's gnarled door. There was no sorrow to sew their salted tears. There was only the soft flicker of the candle of innocence burning in the center of the cathedral of youth. But hounds of hell tore down youth's walls and blew out innocence with a howl. Death then came in from their shadows and stole the worshipers with a sinister smile.

The roar of Hades howls loudly now.

The girl with hair matching the heart of fire extinguishes at the end of Rory's blade. Another sacrificial lamb to the white serpent's slaughter. There is a moment where the winds of release inflate Severus' chest. His heart which races trying to out speed lightning settles for a second. There is an eye in the middle of the scarlet storm.

But the eye passes.

When he watches the spear find Rory, it's not her he sees perish to the ground. The girl who wilts, uprooted from the earth, is framed in a cascade of red. Her fingers furl over her stomach as her eyes turn towards the skies in search of a star. She tells him, the boy bound to listen to her by the theft of her blood, stories of a never aging boy and a place above the clouds. She begs for home admitting to the presence of the fear rumbling within her. She finds her spot in the sky as her final breath breaks from her lips.

He sees Kiena Ward in the fall of Aurora LaChance.

His heart breaks for a second time, anger erupting from its shattering surface. It taints his blood and multiplies in his veins, the venom of loss. It steadies his shaking hands and engages his muscles, throwing him into a sprint. He is not present nor is he human, he is entirely  transformed into an animal acting on impulsive instinct. A single thought screaming through his crumbling skull.

Kill the fucking bastard!

An arm crunches against the blonde ball of rage slamming him to a stop. Instinct swings Severus' scythe towards the owner of the unwelcomed arm while Hades laughs at the death drawn delirium and  echoing canon fire. More worshipers are being stolen from the crashing cathedral as Death increases his bountiful harvest. Severus' scythe only stops just short of removing Ronan's arm. The younger boy stumbles several steps back in a breath of composure.

"Get out of here. Now!"

Severus' teeth gnaw into the squish of his gums bringing warm metal from underneath their embrace. His fingernails scratch themselves raw against the metal of his scythe. He's never had such a strong desire to decapitate another human before, but in this moment he could be born a murderer. Only remembering Rory's passing minutes pulls the blonde away with two icy words of departure.

"Kill him."

Severus' feet sprint across the mud red earth, his shoes nearly sliding in the small scarlet pools. By the time he reaches her side, his eyes have formed wells of water not yet daring to fall. Now is no time for his weakness, but the strength she has always seen in him. A strength that he will use to be with her, to help her when finally Death steals her too.

"Hey, can we get out of here?"

His nose sniffles with his efforts to wall in his childish emotions.

"Yeah of course," he says helping her slowly to stand, "why don't we find somewhere we can see the sunset?"

The thought seems to bring a bit of happiness to her dulling eyes, "That sounds wonderful." But her words don't finish there. She always has been able to detect when he is nothing more than a boy trying to pretend to be a man. "Don't worry, Sev. It doesn't hurt."

But he does. It's selfish, she is here dying and he is the one crumbling. All because he doesn't want her to leave him, to leave all of them. But he knows that it isn't her choice. She's not leaving because she wants to, but because the boy from One did this to her. Because he killed her. Because to him she is nothing. But to Severus, she is everything.

Finally composure gives way to the truth of age and the grip of grief; several tears trickle down Severus' cheeks. A free hand rubs them swiftly away. He has to keep on the face of man. And real men aren't supposed to cry, right? They aren't supposed to let people know that inside they are fucked up and bleeding too, and that all they really need is someone to hold them. Screw that, he sniffles again and wipes away a few more tears. That's not the type of man, or boy, he is.

He's strong because he isn't afraid to cry.

He breaks the momentary silence as he helps her towards her horse. "Good... because you don't deserve any pain." His voice begins to shake slightly. “You’re so strong Rory, and if you’re scared remember... that you are allowed to be... and that you aren’t alone.”

With Raven's help Rory saddles her horse as she responds. "I'm not scared. I thought I was, but I'm not."

Severus nods running towards Percy as sees Ronan slash Rory's killer in the distance. Severus' throat tightens as he brings Percy towards Rory to help guide her.

You better make it back to us.

Little high, little low,
anyway the wind blows,
doesn't really matter,
to me, to me

Lyrics --  Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Severus flees helping Rory onto her horse with Raven

[cameron]

As his pitchfork kicked back against him for the first time, a sign of success in striking his foe, all he felt was inhumane.

For days he’d wanted to maim the assholes on horseback, to cut off their arms and legs and punch them in their faces, to show them what they’d so kindly shown his friends; but, there with his weapon finally drawing blood and piercing flesh in a way that could be impactful, Exover wanted to vomit. That urge only increased when Lady Death’s blade tore into the Sheriff from nowhere. Finley’s attacker’s scent was strong, sweaty and suffering, but he could make it out next to ten other sweaty, suffering kids, knew whose tried and true blade struck Stanley down only days before, and as his only remaining ally fell to the ground with nothing left to lean on, he wanted to show Aurora LaChance just how to be human. She needed to know. She needed to know because killing two of his friends while proudly defending the guy who referred to them as his “food” he wanted to “play with before eating” was not a humanity he understood, a humanity he could stand in support of.

He’d push through the bubble in his throat rising again and again, the lurching of his stomach and nausea that dizzied his darkness, to show her what it meant to be. He’d deal with the need to dry-heave the moonshine from yesterday, the sickness that accompanied stabbing someone and not just grazing their skin or splitting their armor, in order to help the doctor the same way she’d offered him assistance in healing his broken nose. A hand floated up to it, tender and sore, and with a grimace he pressed his palm flat against it, and the pain ripped through his body and he felt the salt sting his cheeks and he screamed inside, the same loud, need-to-be-felt-need-to-be-heard scream from the top of thumb rock, and he turned to the murderess to remind them both just how little they meant to the world. How little their humanity meant when the blood of twenty-three would soak into the arena’s dirt, how little a track record mattered in the games.

Passion was what kept them alive. No one fought for their lives lethargically. And Aurora’s little black book of his friends, of the girl from one, of the dogs Ronan hated them for fleeing, would soon have her name jotted down in the margins, a crown repossessed and a pitchfork through her neck. Exover turned from Severus to his caretaker, and he wondered how they’d get away this time without their horses, and he wondered if he’d join Finley on the dusty floor soon to bleed out together, hand in hand, stump to stump. He wondered if it made him more or less human to strike the killer queen in vengeance instead of attacking the boy he was, for all intents and purposes, babysitting.

Then there was a noise, a wet sound accompanied by a thud, and the witchdoctor fell before he had the chance to slit her throat, to throw Finley’s old pitchfork at her and hope it found its target. Somehow something went his way, worked in his favor and he didn’t know who or how or why but he was thankful. Severus ran to her side, screaming, and a second of empathy danced across his tongue before satisfaction took over. Sweet, sweet satisfaction, the cries of the boy unable to stir Ex when he’d contributed to the same mournings before, when he’d cut feet from bodies and hands from arms without flinching. A war machine he was not. Teeth pressed into his bottom lip. None of them were human. Not anymore. Not after the gamemakers stripped them of their identities and reduced them to numbers on a chart, players in a board game.

They wouldn’t succeed in taking away something he hadn’t had before the reaping.

As War herself took another cheap shot, slashing into his calves right where she’d destroyed the bone guards, the unidentified menacing beast tore through his arm, and as it pulled its -- fang? Sharp arm? Tail? He really wasn’t sure what the mutt was to know what it attacked him with -- out of him he fell to the ground and his stomach pushed itself out of his mouth.

Hands reached out for the Sheriff, latching on to her bag and heaving himself toward her. He didn’t know how much time she had left. And he knew he didn’t have much at all to look forward to, not with the gallons of blood spilling out from his legs and his arm, the searing pain that persisted in his nose, the burning of his wildfire thoughts, and he hoped in her last moments she knew she was human and loved and real. Fingers wrapped around Mr. Cactus Friend, laying beside her body, and he buried his head into her side and breathed.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” he started, turning his head to cough and dribble out more fluids. “You probably need a better deputy.” An arm stretched over her, resting along her torso, heavy and numb.He held to Mr. Cactus Friend tight. “But I’ll keep this prick for you till I see you again. I won’t let him out of my…. Well, sight.” Tears flowed by then, though moments before he’d been ready to kill. “Tell Savvy to keep it warm for me down there. I’m not far behind.” Stanley wasn’t in hell. The three of them would never see him again. But Ex’s time was nearer and nearer every minute, and he laid there with his head in her side, waiting till his humanity burnt out too.





ooc: exover flees the feast with the assistance of saturn rhodon but first he cryin', he a sad bitch not a savage yall

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

filler flee bc ya girl is pretty drunk but doesn't wanna keep holdin this up. soz about it

[ nico flees w francis *cue tears* ]

[Deleted]

TW: Assault
(I'm proud of who I am
No more monsters, I can breathe again
And you said that I was done
Well, you were wrong and now the best is yet to come)

He sees the world under the shredded fabric of the tent for what it was. Chaos that swirls through the fingertips of the boys and girls around him. Charged emotions over life and death. Connections made tenuously but fervent, they can’t help but feel hearts plied from their chests with every cannon sound. He is not as dull as they have wanted to think, at least not enough to know that justice can’t be served in a place like this. Justice is for fairytales and those who sit on thrones; it exists only because we say it does. Justice, as he saw it, was the bastard child of fairness and desire. It knew no form, but only that of the person who proclaimed it.

Aurora falls and Saturn feels nothing, aside from knowing that he no longer has to think about her.

He doesn’t want to know that she had a family any more than Jessica might have. They are names written in dust, to be swept away as soon as their names fade from the sky. Perhaps he could’ve felt more if he gave it a chance (or would, in time). But as his spear crackles, pulled out from her body and in his hands, all he sees is carnage, and rubble. Maybe it’s that he grew up being trained for death that it moves him so little (he thinks this is a lie). Perhaps more that he has felt nothing for anyone in quite some time, aside from those who took any time to help him feel.

Time stretches out before him and the bones of the elephant ache and screech. He barely has time to dodge before the creature slices across his face a second time and he swears, drown out by the sound of flesh impaled. His vision doubles as he staggers. Damaris doesn’t move fast enough, her body arched as the elephant stabs through, and retracts. She falls and he knows then that there is no god.

“Damaris!” He finds his voice screeching out over the big top. His chest tightens and he feels the electricity run along his arms. He can’t believe that she’s fallen but knows well enough that there is no coming back from the wounds. There is no hope, no faith that will raise her back to her feet. He is at once a thousand pounds, on his knees and unable to move forward. A scared child that has lost the one thing in his life that meant quite anything at all, he forgets the sounds of battle (of another girl falling right before him, flaming axes and all).

You've taken everything from me!

Did Ronan say this?

Saturn wonders if it’s his own voice echoing, back behind the memories, through the void and darkness of his mind.

Ronan’s sword slashes across his chest and Saturn hisses, blood spraying out across the dirt. Saturn slips and tumbles down, his spear sputtering out into the dirt. He coughs up blood and sees the crown across from him, fallen from the head of the girl anointed. He lets out a growl and looks back at Ronan, at the elephant, at all of the mess they’ve made from one another.

Saturn has spent the better part of a year knowing what it meant to have everything taken. His childhood was extinguished within an evening and left for dead. His truth was another, believed by no one because – how could such a thing have happened? Sadness has invaded every space of his life, from the moments he once felt joy with his littlest sister to the moments in the gym that once steadied him. He has seen darkness and evil, has known what it meant that everything has been taken, and broken, and changed.

But he knows the difference between pain and wickedness; he knows that his strength cannot come from this anger. The pain that coils through him cannot hurt the same. It is hollow and empty, much as he feels, and nothing remains when it has faded. A boy like Ronan has not learned this lesson, revenge at his fingertips as though that will solve all the hurt he feels. And for a good spell, Saturn had loved believing this, too. How much better it would have been if he could have killed the man who assaulted him, and left him for dead. How much better it would feel if he could use all the anger and pain and smash another to pieces.

Except he knows that he has become much stronger in a few days – his body not pressed to react from Ronan’s strike – and instead, he knows this boy knows nothing. Saturn Rhodon could carry his own weight, and mistakes. He had been hurt and he hated how it made him feel so ugly. But he would not be weak, and give in to what made this world so cruel. He would be a better man than the one who hurt him; he would be a thousand times better than the boy standing before him.

“Fuck you Ronan,” Saturn rasps. “You don’t know what it means to lose anything, you selfish prick.” He reaches for his morning star, and heaves with all of his might, down at the ground.

He smashes the crown as hard as he can, breaking the gems, denting the metal, mangling the thing to ruin.

“Fuck you and the horse you road in on. Fuck these games,” He spits out blood and wipes across his face. “Fuck everyone."

Ronan was not the real enemy, Saturn sees. This chaos – the elephant, the boys and girls tearing one another apart for what little glory they could hold – was the problem. He remembers the adage, perhaps one of the few he could remember from his days in school. The districts were the wheel that turned panem, with the capitol as the spoke in the middle. Some years, district one would find itself at the top, and others one of the lower districts. But the wheel would continue to turn, grinding down all that stood in its path.

He stands, and kicks the broken crown at Ronan. He would not be a part of the wheel, not if he had any breath left in him. He was going to break it – one way or another – and smash the spoke to pieces. And when he won the hunger games, he would track down each of the game makers and give them a taste of what each of them felt. Even if it meant his own life for theirs.

Ex is first, Saturn making sure to scoop him onto his back and catch his legs as one would a child. “Come on bud,” Saturn wrasps, “We ain’t dead yet.”

Damaris is pooling in blood, the girl scattered in the dirt. He wastes no time scooping her into his arms, and carrying her at his front to the exits. He does not think of the pain coursing through his body, or the blood running from his lips. He thinks only that he can carry this weight, as much as she has carried the two of them.

***

They reach the edge of the sunflowers and he sets Ex down first, whispering that he needed a minute. He moves a few steps toward the flowers, and kneels with Damaris. His throat tightens. He holds her body in his arms, now feeling how heavy she is but not wanting to set her down.

“I’m sorry. I broke our promise,” she says, barely a whisper. “I tried really hard.”

“Damaris,” Saturn’s voice cracks, and he can feel his chest heave. He starts to cry but doesn’t hold it back, because she is everything to him, and deserves to know it. “You did your best.” She has spent five days following his footsteps but leading him. She has taught him that they can live each day, no matter how heavy they feel. That he is brave. She knew his truth and carried it, and shared hers, too. “It was enough… you were enough.”

“I don’t want to die,” She says, and Saturn begins to rock her in his arms. He can’t breathe and keep from crying at the same time, his tears and mucus mixing together, face contorted and heart broken.

“You’re not, no, no, no.” He rocks her in his arms, as though he can will her not to die. “Damaris, dam, please, don’t go please, I can’t, I need you.”

“You’re going to be okay.” She says, and he knows nothing else.

He would try, for her.

[Saturn flees the big top, helps ex, and does a lot of TM stuff]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

( safety net, don't hold me now
in this hole i've fallen down
secret home i made and found
and a new way to breathe )

Deaths pile on top of each other and altogether, they transform the circus tent into a cathedral of fractured bones and rot. This is death’s carousel and they are strapped down, unwillingly, as the roundabout spins in whimsical circles.

His dagger misses Damaris entirely, which inflates his chest with cool relief, but there are stronger, more sinister forces at play that they have been disregarding.

He sees the living carcass inch closer to them seconds before, its tusk sharp and vicious. “Look out!” Francis shrieks, arms outstretched towards Damaris, but Death is swifter than a boy with blue lilies in his lungs. He knows how inevitable everything is when he is widths apart from Damaris, who has a blood-soaked tusk protruding from her body like a bone that has grown, and then splintered, inside her. “No,” Shakily, he breathes out. “You can’t be—you can’t be dead.”

Existences have always been circular, stuck on a loop like a worn radio, and everything is caught in a circle of living and dying; whichever comes first does not matter.

What beings such as Francisco Bloom can do, is to merely commemorate and immortalize lost things before they become sunken relics, sleeping forever at the cold bottom of the sea of time. Damaris Hope is quickly falling asleep, he notices. She seems so fragile in front of him, eyes fleeting of luminescence and limbs curled as if she is a mere porcelain doll breathed into life, but Francis knows she is anything but that. He’s seen her strength in her valor, in the way she stood by Saturn’s side unwaveringly. A sword clutched in a hand full of tremors and gentleness can still slit the warmest throats.

     They mirror each other in a way;
     gentleness tangled with thorns,

     Hands full of tremors and
     —a heart taut with hope.

A hand wraps around his wrist and he knows who it belongs to before doe eyes could even whirl around to see their countenance. Nico’s face is tattered and streaked with blood and dirt, but he is alive, he is alive, he is alive. He can feel the crescendo of the other’s pulse from where their skins brush against each other, making Francis shiver in both relief and exhaustion. Fatigued bones lean forward, collapsing onto Nico’s, and he snakes his arm around the other’s physique.

There is a home in the space made by the other’s chiseled arms and warm chest and Francis falls into it, willingly, both feet above the floor. This is another sort of inevitability, he muses; another destiny scripted across the constellations overhead. “Let’s go,” tired lips mutter into his skin, “please.”

Fingers collect the knives he’s thrown and try to collect the fragmented pieces of his heart – but to no avail. Bits of Francisco’s heart are some of the rotten things strewn about the circus tent’s floor. He snakes an arm around Nico’s torso, his weight on Francis’s shoulders, and stumbles out of the tent. The Gamemakers have granted mercy in the form of their horses; Ms. Turnip grazed on a small pasture, a few steps away from the mouth of the tent. Briskly, he helps Nico onto his horse and turns to do the same for Jessica. Then, the grief shatters the remnants of his heart.

     Jessica isn’t here.

The horse’s skin feels warm and its muscles shiver beneath Francis’s fingers, which are splayed out over its neck. A tug on its glorious ivory mane makes the creature the signal to move and it does, strong hooves galloping across the plains. Only when the world is blurred, painted with whimsical shapes and curves, and only when air enters his lungs completely, ceasing his breathlessness, Francis frees the tears.

( and in the sickness
you are free
and in the thickness
you'll find me )


Lyrics : Zola Jesus — Skin

( Francis flees with Nico )

[ghosty]

h i s i d r o.

filler filler filler, don't wanna hold things up

[ hisidro flees ]