sell your soul — nico & raven. [ day 8 ]

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

Denial rings across the collision of our weapons, as my own is rejected from piercing his skin. A rattle feels to be quaking the likes of my arms, not from the weapons but the depletion of my body, as I attempt to fight against his force that refutes my blade from penetrating his exterior any further. Blood continues to gently river from my existence, and I wonder how much longer I can withstand this baffling plain of mixed emotions. Death and it’s Reaper are just before me, irises of health and confidence sparkling within his eyes - while every bone in my body is screaming a plead for me to simply crumble already. But I promised to try to survive, and try I shall.

Hefty breaths continue to curl from my lungs now, as they seek to deplete as well. Vision staring upon his lips that part in warning of words, and I tempt to prepare myself to absorb whatever he has to say. “Maybe wanting to live makes us human.” His own stare glances into mine with this almost agreement, while I can sense the but that’s brewing upon his tongue - the correction to why my statement couldn’t possibly be true.

“But volunteering makes us villains.” He states, whipping my memories back to the replays of the reaping. Nico, but it wasn’t his vocals introducing his name following his volunteer to the land of death. Further confusion ruffles my bleeding skin, but before my expression can conform to such - his blade is fluttering through the air.

Automatically my eyes close, my own weapon breaching up in a final attempt at protection, a lasting sigh swirling through the air with an acceptance that this is it. But his fork of destruction collides into the neck of my axe - and I swear that collision waddles me to conclude into the dirt below, while somehow I remain upon my feet again in some form of a miracle. A held breath of relief exhales from my tensed chest, eyes opening to a sight of disbelief.

Death has yet to kiss me away, while I feel it’s lips dangling an inch away from my own. But a chance still reigns, a chance to try, and try I shall.

Memories flutter to that young Mom who was called upon this Game, and the judgment that sickened my core against her. Limitless gratitude radiated from her as I stole her place from the Reaper’s den, while all I could observe was my selfish desire to do so - to join Dove, and leave one awful place for the next. Now however I find myself just as grateful that I had excused her from this terrain. Such a sweet existence wouldn’t have fared here, just as Rora couldn’t, nor Severus, nor even Ronan. The dead and dying awaited for me, while solely the living craved for the young Mom I denied this place to.

Softly my head shakes back and forth, refusing to accept Nico’s words. “Volunteering also makes us human, not a villain nor even a hero. Just human…” Eyes stare in a study against him, viciously wondering why such darkness reigns him. If any should understand his perspective, it should be I, as bitter negativity still nips at my ankles in permission to return. But just as two people can’t be summed as the same, I can’t assume to understand another simply off of a shared darkness.

“Who hurt you, Nico?” Sincerity coaxes my voice, truly seeking to understand. “Who hurt you so much that it’s not just these Games, not just the Capitol who created them, but all of humanity that you seem to hate?” Perhaps I’ll never know. Perhaps he simply won’t tell me. Perhaps one of us will fade before the answer breaches. And though that fade is licking against me far worse, my weapon flicks to protect. Because try I promised to do, and try I shall.

{Breathtaking Table done by the Beautiful Dars <3}

{Raven attacks Nico ~ Hatchet (Axe)}
6R4dINLbDhaxe
{11175 -- Severed Right Forearm at Elbow -- 9.5 damage
(Axe) +1 Strength}axe

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

Ash to ash, dust to dust
Everything in God above
Shed a tear, shed your blood

She catches his pitchfork with the bunt of her ax, and there's a symmetry to it that Nico should have seen coming. A kind of poetic injustice, or maybe it's justice—Nico isn't convinced that he knows the difference between the two anymore, is still trying to understand right from wrong and murder from war.

“Volunteering also makes us human, not a villain nor even a hero. Just human…”

Is there a difference between
an executioner and a killer?

Os is it all just death?

And what kind of a person would he be if his entire world wasn't built around the idea of it? Raven says that there's no difference between volunteering and being reaped, but Nico knows that isn't true, knows in his heart of hearts that there is a difference, especially when people volunteered for selfish reasons like Nico suspects that Raven did. But how can he be sure? She is standing there, having volunteered, having chosen to enter a ring where she would have to slaughter twenty-three kids in order to come out on the other side still standing, and she's telling him that she still has a heart, that she is still whole and healed and that she doesn't regret coming here. She talks about how the games have given her a heart, about how they showed her to love and to survive are one and the same, that salvation comes from survival.

It's almost enough to bring Nico to the edge, might be enough to bring tears to his eyes under any other circumstance. Maybe, if there wasn't adrenaline hot in his veins and blood escaping his body from already too make places. Maybe if they had met in the calm of a new dawn, in a place where they didn't have to kill to live, maybe then he would really truly listen to what Raven has to say about having blood on her hands and still being just a human. Who would he be if he stopped worrying about the death he caused? About the death that he had grown up dreaming about? If he could stop worrying about pain and anger?

Who would he be if he stopped trying to live up to his mother's lessons? If he had never allowed himself to get so sucked into her dogma and her cruelty and her bone-white anger? Who would he be if he had been afraid of death as a child, if he had allowed hunger to break him over and over until he wasn't strong because of it, but in spite of it?

If he had allowed himself to be afraid, would he have ever become something to fear?

“Who hurt you, Nico?” Raven asks, and Nico can barely concentrate enough to hear her next words. “Who hurt you so much that it’s not just these Games, not just the Capitol who created them, but all of humanity that you seem to hate?”

Who hurt you?
Who hurt you?
Who hurt you?

It's almost enough to make Nico's heart stop beating. He's thought a lot about who he's hurt, about the people he has sliced open in these games, about the people who's lives he's had a hand in ruining. He's thought about his mother, leaving her alone and ruined, with only his chance at victory to give her strength. He's thought about Reggie, who he wasn't good enough for, who he could't bring himself to love the way that he deserved—completely, with nothing else in his heart. He's thought about every swing of his weapon since he stepped out of that glass tube and into the bloodbath. Fuck you, Nico Thorne. But the people who had hurt him—he's spent twice as long on them. He's thought about the Peacekeeper who murdered his father, thought about the boys who shoved his face into the dirt and made him know what blood mixed with earth tastes like. He'd thought about his mother most of all, and how much he had loved her, and how she had raised him like a lamb for the slaughter.

Raven swings, and Nico feels pain, but it's nothing compared to what he has done to himself. We're pressed flowers, he remembers, and it's enough to make him honest, enough to make him bear the truth.

"I did," he says through gritted teeth, voice hardened by the truth. "I hurt me. I did this to myself."

You cannot give enough
Finally become second to none
In a kingdom of one

[ nico attacks raven, pitchfork (spear) ]


X29cBDTS||spear


[ 3021 -- Block -- 0.0 damage (Spear) ]

spear

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

With every second that manages by the expiration of my existence surpasses realism. Even the grasp of this reality is fading from my vision and fingertips alike, causing me to question whether that threshold between life and death was already stepped over - and I’ve become stuck within purgatory of a never-ending battle. Blood continues to weep from my body of already mere skin and bones, and the reserve of the red goo is bound to reach its end. Strength seems to be absent from every muscle, as though it may not even keep me up, while some how it does even far more than that.

The remainder of his stubbed arm is stolen by the whip of my blade, and in response my eyes extend beyond belief, draining further of my dying energy. But with the surprise, delivers shock with a curl of my empty stomach to the reminder of who chopped of the rest of his arm previously - me. The hand freed from attempting to carry the heaving weapon, brushes through my thin, dark locks in a nausea of forbidding to accept this memory. Just about, how long now, four days, ten?, my weapon greeted his skin before - not just meeting it, but slicing his arm off entirely. How could I have forgotten such? Assuming I had only viewed him from the corners of my eyes before, and never within my line of fire until now.

“I did.” His voice pulls me from my internal debate of stubborn disbelief. “I hurt me. I did this to myself.” And so did many others, including myself. The tension of his jaw nearly cramps my own, while his voice no longer sounds to be spitting anger within my direction. He claims as though it were purely himself that made him so cynical, while I can’t possibly agree to such. The destruction of my blade did so too. The Capitol forcing him here did so even more so. Being born into this wicked place of cruelness cursed him with this fate especially so.

Confusion rattles me even more so. The fingers combing through my hair tense around those very locks, pulling them ever so slightly in a desperation to gain a slither of sense. A gruesome ache feels to be pounding against my scalp, while at the same time a numbness is spreading and pulling me from this place. With that aroma of blood growing even thicker against my tongue, the ability to even think appears foreign to me.

To further the baffling cause, instinct once again take me as I flinch away from the weapon aiming for my life - my own means of destruction fluttering back in front of me in a last stitch effort for protection. With the shambles of my muscles, and wobble of my vision, surely this will be the strike to knock me from all I’ve ever known. But with a brunt force that once more nearly stumbles me to the filth beneath, and threatens to snap my arms holding my makeshift shield at impact, nothing occurs yet a denial of all those things - and the rejection of my death just yet. Eyes pierce open to witness that I’m somehow still here. Another sigh, just because they’re limited.

“Well, fuck…” Surprise intertwines with my tone, both at Nico’s previous words - and the miracle that I’m still standing. A blurriness took over, finally settling upon the Foe before me, while there’s surely no chance I’ll form an understanding of him. “I don’t know what to tell you, Nico.” What did he say again, that he blames himself, the he hurt himself? Something like that. What did I just say? The lights are dimming… But I have to try. “Just try to find happiness. This place is fucked up. This game is fucked up. Everyone and everything is fucked up. I spent my whole life being miserable over it, don’t do the same. However long you have left, just try not to be so miserable.” I feel, and hear, and taste my voice mumbling - while I have no clue why.

How long he has left is beyond my grasp. Perhaps it’s mere seconds, maybe days, it could be entire years. But all I know is that I promised to try, and try I shall.

{Breathtaking Table done by the Beautiful Dars <3}

{Raven attacks Nico ~ Hatchet (Axe)}
VUBy7CuINuaxe
{11180 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage
(Axe)}axe

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

Ash to ash, dust to dust
Everything in God above
Shed a tear, shed your blood

Nico lifts his pitchfork again, and remembers. 

He shifts his weight, remembering every lesson that he had ever beaten into his own skull, the ones about where to put his feet and where to keep his center of balance, the ones about how to shift it so that he could duck out of the way of an enemy's swinging fist before even they could think to swing it.

Get used to the weight, he had said to himself time and time again in the deep woods, swinging around broken branches like weapons, trying to teach himself how to wield something that he had only ever seen on a television screen. You have to be the strongest person in every room, the best fighter, the best rationer, the best everything. He remembers the pain of being hungry and swinging those branches around, remembers training among the trees and dancing about as though he was in battle. He remembers going running every morning before dawn, pushing himself further and further towards his limits, and then going right past them. It hurts—it hurts too much, his body had protested every time.

Good, he had told himself.

Pain shapes strength.

Fighting though, it's not the same as training, not even close. It's a game of cat and mouse, of constantly questioning everything that was going on around him. It was being wary of the way the air smelled, knowing what the breeze would taste like if rain was about to open up across the sky and starting coming down upon him. It was knowing the way another person breaths, knowing what a hitch of their breath sounds like and what their eyes look like just before they are about to swing. It was more than just thinking and strategy, it was a practical application; it was a game using his whole body, one that would leave him covered head to toe in bruised skin and break his ribs too many times to count. Fighting was anticipating the moves another person would make before he got hit himself, before they could even think to hit him.

I hurt me, he hears himself saying over and over and over again, the thought ringing around in his head like the cannon he knows is imminent. Raven is the definition of fighting to her dying breath, if they pain surging through his severed right arm says anything, and he doesn't know if she'll keep blocking his attacks, doesn't know if she's as well versed in knowing your opponent as Nico is. But Nico had hurt himself, had caused himself irreconcilable pain time and time again, and he would not go down without a fight either.

“Well, fuck…” she says, and Nico can hear the ways in which she is fading, can hear the fervor disappearing from her voice. “I don’t know what to tell you, Nico,” she goes on, and Nico finds he understand.

He doesn't know what to say anymore either.

“Just try to find happiness." He knows that she is being serious, that in her last moment she is trying to do something kind, to say something that he will hear and perhaps take to heart, that will perhaps fill that void he had been so adamant was incurable. "This place is fucked up," she goes on, and it is almost enough to make Nico laugh. Perhaps in another world, in another life, he would have. Perhaps in another time they could have been friends. "This game is fucked up. Everyone and everything is fucked up. I spent my whole life being miserable over it, don’t do the same. However long you have left, just try not to be so miserable.”

She swings, and he ducks out of the way, seeing the blow come from a mile away. It's the same dance they have been playing at this entire time—saying something, and then swinging.

This time though, she has been kind.

This time, he is ready.

He doesn't have any words left for Raven Elsu from District Five, a girl with a family and home to get back to, a girl with a life that she thought wasn't worth living only to realize too late that it was. He has made his admissions and spoken his truths, and he has never been any good at comfort, never been any good at true and genuine kindness, not really. Perhaps he's been learning, perhaps in a year, or maybe two, Francis could have taught him to be soft, could have taught him to be kind, could have taught him how to give Raven the last words that she so clearly deserves.

But Nico is hollow
and there is only
pain.

You cannot give enough
Finally become second to none
In a kingdom of one

[ nico attacks raven, pitchfork (spear) ]


dPyAn32oeWspear


[ 3038 -- Block -- 0.0 damage (Spear) ]

spear

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

*Filler ~ Cuz this fight needs to end already, & another dice decided to do this now xD And this fight needs to end already lol <3 But Raven's all dying & trying to stay alive, what will happen? Filler* *P.S I'm out & busy, & time is limited, hence my inability to wait*

{Breathtaking Table done by the Beautiful Dars <3}

{Raven attacks Nico ~ Hatchet (Axe)}
m6Jb2fVodLaxe
{11091 -- Shallow Cut on Back of Head -- 4.5 damage
(Axe)}axe

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

Ash to ash, dust to dust
Everything in God above
Shed a tear, shed your blood

filler bc it's past kaitlin's bedtime!! i will more than likely fill this in a least a bit tomorrow, but want to get the post out sooner than later for practical reasons xx much love

You cannot give enough
Finally become second to none
In a kingdom of one

[ nico attacks raven, pitchfork (spear) ]

wd29fuos22spear

[ 3134 -- Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage (Spear) ]

spear