The Bloodbath

[Python]

Jan 23, 2020 2:41:13 GMT -5 Python said:

Persephone Vega, D11F, Attack 5, 1198

Persephone Vega, D11F, Attack 6, 1136

"Not the reason. Just a symptom."

Persephone glanced away for an instant and gasped. The stadium had morphed into a graveyard - bloodied bodies scattered across the sand. She had blinked and all of these kids perished. No knowledge of their names or origins. She didn't even know the name of the girl before her, but if there was life after death Persephone promised herself that she would remember the girl's face. Even if this wasn't fate's punishment for complacency, it felt like something from a nightmare. It now felt like she was supposed to be here.

That was the trickery of self-doubt.

Somehow she was now one of the few remaining tributes. A wallflower in the corner of a slaughterhouse, with only one pair of eyes paying her any attention. A deadly gaze sharper than the blades they wielded in each hand. She had respect for this mysterious girl. If she had to guess, she would say the girl had faced unique hardships in her life. There was no time to ask nor was it any of her business, but she was sorry for whatever it was. She was sorry for all of this.

I don't want to kill her either.

Two girls who didn't want to hurt one another, yet a surrender would ensure instant death. The girl wanted to live on and have better days. If Persephone didn't cherish her own life, she would choose to set her free. Free of this game, free of whatever plagued her in district three, and free to live the life she truly deserved. Persephone could be a giving person, but nothing could oppose the natural instinct to survive. She wanted good days too. Better days. She wanted to return to Eleven and perhaps improve upon her own life if she could.

More than anything, she didn't want to die.

Death was frightening.

Another thunderous clash of steel. "I understand," she said, "But I can't give up either. Even if that's a selfish decision."

[Persephone attacks Antigone d3f - sword]
8hrubAsS|Hsword
Severed Left Arm at Shoulder -- 10 damage

sword

[WT]

[Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya | post 8 | attack 6 | 1107]



"Thak kachun,^[1] Jonas De Lange," Samiyuq murmurs as ze kneels. Tear-streaked and bloodied, Jonas' face looks less serene than Helena's—closer to resigned; reconciled, perhaps, if Samiyuq feels optimistic—but ze at least makes sure the body meets the sand gently, disturbing both as little as possible. "Joaquinta sasachakuykunannaq tariy."^[2] A handful of moments, less than they deserve but all ze dares to risk the time for—checking that the eyes are closed, turning Jonas' face to hide the missing ear in the sand—and Samiyuq stands, driving the tip of hir sword under the sand to support hir injured leg, to survey the arena.

The air has quieted, if by no means calmed, and the crowd thinned. At least one body lays where the trio at the wall once stacked themselves; Samiyuq shakes hir head minutely, and spares the doomed plan a heartbeat of regret but nothing further. Maeve still lives—not near enough to easily speak to, but not too far to see upright by what is either another body or a person about to become one. (A practical mind would find one of those things a relief; Samiyuq can't pretend to hirself not to be heartened instead, at least for now, at least until they have to face one another again, by the other.) Kastilla doesn't.

I'll catch up with you is a promise Samiyuq has broken before, and not the worst of them. (I'll stay safe, Tayma.^[3] We'll make this better; we have to. Hush, chiñi,^[4] you know I'm not here to hurt you.) Seeing blood pool from the ragged end of a missing leg still stings—and perhaps it shouldn't, here where any opponent in the sand is one step closer to home, but it has to, here where District One's rebel snapped a curse that felt like home and asked a question that felt like camaraderie.

Ze takes a steadying breath, and a first step forward.

Then another, and another, not running this time; ze hasn't forgotten that ze made that promise to two people, hasn't even changed hir mind about wanting to find Watcher if ze has a chance—but ze has a nearer goal. And there's nothing so clear as a word ze recognizes this time, no declarations, but something familiar in their bearing all the same—in the way their path never wavers and their shoulders never flinch under screams or crashes, despite their lack of weapon, despite their litany of wounds.

Samiyuq's own sword hangs heavy at hir side, not raised in challenge but not removed from the possibility of it. "Wrong type of battlefield here," ze says by way of greeting, half a guess and half an offer, "to need to watch the skies."

They should look ridiculous, this messy-haired tower of a person lowering their face to Samiyuq, so tall the coveralls that fit like hand-me-downs on Samiyuq dangle above their ankles. Maybe they would, if not for the blood in too many places and the makeshift bandage that can't be doing enough, As it is, they look solemn, somber—and sound the same, though they speak casually enough that Samiyuq relaxes the sword. Not all the way, not so far ze can't bring it to bear if anyone else runs up on hir like Watcher did, but enough to make it clear. "You could kill twenty Keepers from the ground, but if you didn't look up they'd send in their hovercrafts, wipe out the entire campaign." Samiyuq nods, and shivers a little with the only-mostly-ignored sensation of ragged ends of hair brushing the corners of hir jaws. "Us. Them. We were all just ticks on a casualty list."

"We heard about things like that. We had places to limit their options, where I ended up, but sometimes we worried they would figure out where to bomb over the caves, collapse the whole thing over us while we thought we were waiting them out." Ze tries for a rueful smile and doubts ze even reaches an approximation—feels it only on one side of hir mouth, nowhere near hir eyes. "Maybe you just get paranoid about the weapons you work with."

That's more on either topic—the field, or the work that took hir out of it—than ze's ever told hir parent. (Might still be more than they ever find out, if the Capitol doesn't cut that admission together with footage of hir death for propaganda, as salt over the grave. If it comes down to one or the other—if ze doesn't make it home—would that be kinder than leaving their questions unanswered forever?) Maybe it's easier, the way it was between battlefields when no one bothered to avoid the topic, knowing this audience understands—truly, through the easy stories and down to the ugly core of the thing, understands what those kinds of fights were like. Maybe there's simply too much else to carry here to not let something go.

"Thought I'd watch for it this time. It doesn't seem to be coming."

Dryly, with the slightest of glances toward the larger audience above, ze says, "Not much of a game for them, after that." Hir eyes fall past the stranger for a moment, stopping short of looking back toward Jonas, before flicking back up, and ze can't hold the tone; ze can't bring hirself to soften, but also can't help but turn a little more heartfelt, a little more real. Angry, still, but hurting, too. They'll understand that, ze imagines. "If that's really what they're calling this."

The answering smile holds about as much cheer as hir own words. "And people say games are supposed to be fun." They say a lot of things are supposed to be a lot of ways, Samiyuq tries to convey with a gesture and a wry, one-shouldered shrug—that life is supposed to be fair, that the Capitol is supposed to provide for its citizens, that revolutionaries are supposed to be villains or heroes larger than life and never children backed into corners until they find reasons to commit war crimes—but they're already looking past hir, eyes flickering through the same carnage Samiyuq took stock of moments ago. "They put too much on us." Ze hums a single note. "When all we want is—"

Samiyuq turns hir head minutely sideways in the beat that follows. Traces of this person's life, even traces ze recognizes, tell hir very little when it comes down to it about who they actually are, what they might want—Jonas' and Helena's peace, the rebels' justice, something else entirely. But ze recognizes that type of stop too well to press, and when they speak again, it's a new thought. "Tomorrow, I think, will be the worst day."

"It always is, for someone." Even as ze says that ze regrets it; it falls out more lightly than ze intended, leaving hir to hope that whatever bit of good faith has been built here is enough to tell them ze didn't mean for it to be flippant. Tomorrow will be the first day that too many families wake up and remember they have to face life without someone they love. Today was that day, for others—and the day before, and every day of the war, and every day before the war after someone starved or went missing or lay in the street where a Peacekeeper left them.

More reasons to grieve, not reasons to stop caring.

They look away—look down, unreadable. When Samiyuq follows the gaze, ze finds only sand. "You've got someone to go back to."

It isn't pitched like a question, but it can't be anything else. "A parent. They're—" Ze falters, half wanting to say more but too sharply reminded that less than a day ago ze'd been desperate enough to take Panem's attention off of hir parent to all but dare a Peacekeeper to concuss hir. It's just us and the goats at the end of the day, because friends got... difficult. But that's all we ever really needed anyway, before all this. They leave their hair ties all over the place and they didn't try as hard as I think I was hoping to stop me from leaving—the first time—and they light up when you ask them about alpacas and when I can't sleep I put as many spoons of sugar in my milk as they taught me to when I was little and I tried to fight a war for them. For a lot of people, but for them, too. "Yes." Ze studies them from the shelter of their peripheral vision, a fixed counterpoint to the jumble of moving limbs and metal still filling hir own; and ze pitches it like a question, but means it as a guess, when ze says, "Do you not?"

"I did."

"I'm sorry."

They're rote words, too generic for something that terrible and complete—but maybe that's the point of them, a collective acknowledgement that there are no words terrible and complete enough for death and what it leaves in its wake. And ze means them as much as ze's meant every word today: advice, promises, curses, solidarity. This is not the place for anything less than wholeheartedness, and a handful of sentences may not be enough to know this person—they fought, and didn't let it teach them not to care for people; little more, though that's plenty in itself—but they're enough to ache for them. For whoever they had once and lost, and for the idea of living in loneliness that total.

They look back up, eyes not lighter exactly but animated somehow in a way they weren't last time Samiyuq saw them. Ze wishes scattered comfort from a stranger was enough for that kind of change, subtle as it is. Wonders what was. Worries what was. "Tomorrow will be hell, but maybe not for them."

More nonchalantly than ze feels, Samiyuq shrugs. It pulls the cut over hir shoulder blade, and ze finds herself suddenly acutely aware of hir own pulse, steady right now but fragile. Did Jonas dig deeper than ze realized, or has the last minute been that tiring? "We'll see." Ze tilts hir head up, breathes evenly, and echoes hir words to Maeve again— more deliberately, this time, than when ze made hir promise to Jonas. "I'm doing my best."

Because it's true, ze realizes—has been realizing, at least since Jonas, perhaps all day. Wanting may not make a difference until someone does something to back it up, but every swing and every step ze's made today has been a choice born of wanting—not resignation, not obligation. Ze wants to see hir parent again for their sake, but for hirs too; ze wants to complain about their hair ties and hug them tight the way ze's been avoiding for some reason since coming home. Ze wants to spin wool until hir fingers feel like they fuse with the spindle and laugh until ze cries at the things baby goats try to eat. Ze wants to dig hir fingers into life and find a way to make what ze did in the war worthwhile—for Panem, and for hirself. Ze wants to refuse to give up on believing that things can be made better.

And perhaps in a month or a year or five years, ze'll wake up again with no idea how ze could ever have wanted a life to fill, endless days to fight through with only the promise of more days ahead—but right here, right now, ze wants to live. Hell, ze wants to live.

"Clear skies today," they say, with a nod and a smile sadder than Samiyuq thinks quite earns the name—and then they look away again, but up this time, back toward a sky they both know they'll find still empty of hovercrafts.

Samiyuq hesitates for less time than the eternity it feels like—only seconds, in the end, wondering whether ze's seeing permission or only an excuse. (Or an echo, unfairly superimposed, of another young person at the end of a war, watching a sky that hung darker but just as clear.) Wondering whether ze should ask, or offer hir weapon, until ze thinks of Jonas flinging down the twin swords and of the time ze shook holding hoof shears and handed them to hir parent without a word, a bare handful of weeks after ze set out for home unarmed and told hirself, It's over. No more. I'm done.

"It's beautiful up there," ze says, and ze means you're not alone, and ze swings.



[D5M|N Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya attacks D8M Era Altyr, sword]

Y5S8wZMM9Zsword

[Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5]



[1] Be at peace (lit. may there be peace (for you)).
[2] Find Joaquin safely (lit. without problems).
[3] Portmanteau of tayta (father) and mama (mother). [I'm genuinely unsure how this actually reads, and am very much 1. taking my best guess and 2. leaning on the fact that constructing nonbinary familial terms is a messy work in progress in every language I know anything about.]
[4] bat

sword

[L△LIA]

[ D6F Maeve Idlewild | Post 8 | Attack 5 | 1071 ]

MAEVE. WELL I REALLY DON'T KNOW how we call this peace Before Maeve can fully turn around a hand snaps out to grab her wrist, lowering her sword and pulling her forward in a single motion. She cries out as loudly as she can, but her voice is immediately muffled by his chest as he wraps his arms, so tightly, around her — Instead of crushing her throat or bones, she is pulled into a bearhug. A faint hum still thrums in his chest as he tucks his head down close to her own, stooping to her height as well as he's able because maybe he's not clutching her for her sake. One glimpse of his face and it's all too obvious that he's the one who needs a stranger's comfort. Outright terror fading to a sense of strong caution, Maeve takes a deep, considered breath and wonders if she's still allowed to do a right thing for someone after doing such an incredibly wrong thing to another person. It makes her feel even worse for the boy she just killed that her unwillingness to pause for him is followed by her lifting an arm to reciprocate a hug for someone else. This isn't a place that makes sense and so she tries to stop forcing it to. There isn't rational logic for her to be so scared of one person and then feel calmed by the next — not when they've all been declared enemies. Here, trust is a fragile lie at best. After all, if she were another tribute looking at herself she wouldn't see a threat. Perhaps she too would take one look and go: awww, honey, you've been through it today, now haven't you? Yeah, come on. Let's get you a hug. She sighs and pats her hand on this stranger's back in a slow and steady rhythm, her sword still trapped between them. There's not much else to be done. It feels nice to be hugged so tightly, even if she doesn't deserve it anymore. A sword goes straight through one of his cheeks and out the other, sliding right past Maeve's own head and nearly skewering them both. Blinking up at the sudden mutilation of the boy's face, some of his blood drips down his jaw and into her open mouth as she screams, her piercing voice ringing out across the entire arena — making an accidental mockery of the loss of his own. He stares into the deep of her eyes as if the mere reflection of his face is a glimpse into Hell. He is unprepared. She barely ducks in time as the blade is jerked toward her, the sides of his mouth ripped out in a burst of sanguine spittle and grotesque, flapping skin that turns upon itself to leave most of his bottom teeth exposed. With his hold on Maeve loosened from the shock, she's able to pull her wrist and weapon free. Trying not to swallow his blood, she spits and heaves and tries to swing at their attacker all at once. It's too much to focus on and the other girl seizes the opportunity, pulling herself back quickly enough to avoid being hit. With nothing else to stop it, Maeve's blade turns full circle to the boy behind her, heels spinning helpless in the sand.

ROUX. SHAKING THROUGH MY SKULL through my spine and down through my ribs Before Maeve can fully turn around a hand snaps out to grab her wrist, lowering her sword and pulling her forward in a single motion. She cries out as loudly as she can, but her voice is immediately muffled by his chest as he wraps his arms, so tightly, around her — Her family sees the truth before Maeve does and while it may not allay their fears for their loved one, it certainly complicates them as her attempt at attacking is blocked by a hug. The haunting melody of Axel's dying song still hums as the name GROVER OZ flashes along the bottom of the television screen. There is sadness in it, but there is no shared comfort over a mistaken feeling of safety — not while Maeve's arms are pinned and the battlefield still rages. Even the cameras don't see it coming when a sword is plunged straight through Grover's face, the scene abruptly flickering through half a dozen different angles of footage in search of one that truly captures the way the blade spears him through both cheeks without losing sight of his impossibly wide-eyed terror in the moment before the sword is torn free, ravaging the skin to reveal a row of blood-drowned teeth. Roux's request to be told what's happening now goes unanswered as her father tightens his grip, holding her face against his chest in an attempt to protect at least one of his daughters from this savage turn of events. Holland shrieks as the bloody sword hurtles toward Maeve's face, the camera pulling back to show a girl named HARLEY SINCLAIR fighting for her own fate. The attack barely misses, Maeve ducking out from the boy's weight just in time. Sputtering and panicked, it's nearly impossible to make sense of what's happening as she spits blood from seemingly nowhere and swings her sword without a proper opportunity to aim. With nothing else to stop it, Maeve's blade turns full circle to the boy behind her, heels spinning helpless in the sand. "Abby —" Mordecai gasps as if hoping to be asked what he's so hysterical about, praying that the only shared concern his husband will respond with might be over how he seems to be having some kind of nightmarish hallucination, an aftereffect of his fainting spell. Maybe it would do him good to have a few sips of rose-chamomile tea to calm his upset tummy. Abiram doesn't say anything in response. No one does.

art of doubt metric | blinding (accoustic little noise sessions) florence + the machine



[ attacks grover oz, sword ]

jdd40CZ3yusword

[ 1071 — Severed Left Leg at Hip — 10 damage ]

sword

[shrimp]

[8m era altyr | post 9 | --]

era altyr

A single line divides the living and the dead. Nine souls stand, swaying in the haze.

He walks in the middle, counting his footsteps, counting his heartbeats, counting his sins. Each clatters against each other, digging a chasm deeper with each knock against stone walls and muscle memory. A part of him knows it is wrong: the war is around him, not in his own head; but in truth it is not a chasm so much as it is a staircase, and he's descended too far down to try climbing back to the surface. It would have been better, he thinks, or no, easier, to have stayed in that jailcell, rotting all at once instead of slowly with the seasons. But the Capitol knew that. It's why they let him go.

He closes his eyes, knows the world does not look back upon his gaze. It is alright. He never wanted a spotlight. Never deserved one anyway. But just as the sun rises and sets, as the next day leads to the next, he learns that he is incorrect.

"Wrong type of battlefield here, to need to watch the skies."

Ze watches him with hir sword at the side: the one who killed the Kid, who he told to breathe when he thought he could pretend like this was just another battle, another part of the war. Both sides could be fighting then, there could be revolution coming even if he would not live to see it. Instead it is a pantomime.

He would blush, if he had any blood left to waste—ze isn't wrong, and if he was smart he would have struck Crocodile down, taken both blades. But that line of logic forgets to account for the malaise that has become all-encompassing, hazy and settled. He doesn't have a name for it. It feels weak. It feels just. It feels like the only option. (Do you want to go home? What will you do about it?)

He tells half-truths. "You could kill twenty Keepers from the ground, but if you didn't look up they'd send in their hovercrafts, wipe out the entire campaign." Another one falls: Crocodile skewers Pip. Whether the sword is his own or Era's hand-me-down, he cannot tell. "Us. Them. We were all just ticks on a casualty list."

"We heard about things like that. We had places to limit their options, where I ended up, but sometimes we worried they would figure out where to bomb over the caves, collapse the whole thing over us while we thought we were waiting them out." You can't redirect the carnage when your home is the warzone: you crawl into the underground and pray for daylight to come. "Maybe you just get paranoid about the weapons you work with." There is a smirk, more of a habit than a feeling, that he returns. They are two strangers on a late-night train, creating conversation out of quiet because it's easier to not listen to yourself think.

He tilts his head, immeasurably. "Thought I'd watch for it this time. It doesn't seem to be coming." He wishes it would, but it is a dark thought that he tries to push away.

"Not much of a game for them, after that. If that's really what they're calling this."

His words are bitter, arsenic in tea. "And people say games are supposed to be fun." Stories lie in between phrases, of other kids who have already died on this cursed ground, who will die years beyond. He knows that he is not the only one hurting, but he will never know their tales. "They put too much on us. When all we want is—"

Era stops. It's what he feels but he knows it's wrong and it gets him nowhere. It is a childish tantrum, it is embarrassing, and he regrets opening his mouth (You're here now, he said just minutes ago. So deal).

He means everything: The Capitol, who demands that the rebels are killed and maimed, then die one million deaths until there's no rhyme to their spite. The District, who stood for truths then left those who fought for them to lie in the streets, wiped their hands of it all and pretended it never happened. The gladiators, who demand that he choose who among them will fall asleep and wake up the next day, to forgo the innocent and just help the righteous; it is selfish to reject them, but it is selfish to ask.

They put too much blame of them, when all they want is to see another sunrise. They put too much blame on them, when all they tried to do was make a kinder world.

"Tomorrow, I think, will be the worst day."

"It always is, for someone."

He will not give undeserved weight to another just so he can breathe freely at the end. He has been alone so long that time itself has blurred into one; a few more minutes cannot hurt him any further.

"You've got someone to go back to." Someone who cares, ze would no longer be fighting if there was no reason.

"A parent. They're—" Ze stops short. "Yes."

"Do you not?"

He feels a kinship there, in his own parent's exuberance, the way they put too much pepper in the stew and demanded more than they asked. They would let him rest his head on their shoulder when the nights got tough, would take him to speeches when he wasn't yet 12 and spin threads into narrative and story into song. "I'll see you soon," they had told him, was the last thing they said before they got on that hovercraft.

He thinks of his father, who taught him the power of an image even if he didn't know the first thing about a camera, who painted at dawn and always drank from the wrong mug. He thinks of Wilde and Atlas, who bickered like siblings and taught him to fight, who died back-to-back with a rage unheard of. He thinks of Cavalcade: laughing at a dry joke, curling up next to him and falling asleep. He thinks of Cavalcade: watching quietly as he is dragged away.

"I did."

"I'm sorry." It is the kindest thing ze can say, in a dialogue where too much is shrouded from the Capitol's ears and hidden in a locked drawer. He appreciates it more than ze would think.

"Tomorrow will be hell, but maybe not for them." This will be the closest he can get to outright pleading. He is too proud to say the words out loud. "Don't be anyone else's practice dummy," Maeve had asked—and he is true to his word, this is not practice.

"We'll see." Ze looks up, Era too: finally meeting hir gaze once again. "I'm doing my best." He nods. He smiles. Good.

"Clear skies today," and he is telling the truth. He knew his fate the moment they called out his name, thought he could pretend to die an honorable death: of a vigilante, of a hero, of a sword and a shield. And it was not false, what he said and what he did, but he laughs louder than he cries then forgets he laughed at all. He stands in an open field, and cannot forget what confines him to the earth.

The sky today is cerulean, wisps of clouds pulled together like strands of cotton candy. He once wanted to soar, but he's done enough flying. All he wants to do is look.

Kid: Jonas
Crocodile: Ram
Pip: Anderson

appearance notes: 6'3", broad-shouldered and lanky, messy short dark hair, light brown eyes, tan skin and a light dusting of facial hair. The uniform is too small on him: it looks like he is wearing capris.

[L△LIA]

[ D6F Maeve Idlewild | Post 9 | No Attack ]

MAEVE. START NEW when your heart is an empty room Momentum takes Maeve by the hand, asking if it might have this dance and twirls her in a full circle before she has time enough to consider the offer. There's no taking no for an answer. The sand is loose and slicked with blood beneath her feet, while the traction on the soles of her boots is sub par at best and, in all likelihood, much closer to outright hazardous. Her sword careens through the air, merciless and unstoppable as it chops through the boy's leg with enough accidental force to CRACK! and shatter his femur before continuing right on through the other side. The leg is severed in nearly the exact same moment that the girl who stabbed him through the face follows Maeve's lead, bringing the full force of her own blade down upon his other thigh. The sound of the breaking is like twin gunshots in the air, both legs racing to abandon the stumps they'd called home for seventeen years, as if it were suddenly every body part for itself. In the mad dash to evacuate this disaster there is no time to realize that it's already much too late. The pile of his corpse — after it hits the ground, piece by piece — juts out at awkward angles with foot above head and his spine crumpled into the back of a kneecap. His flayed jaw hangs open in an eternal song of silence. The flesh blockade of his body slows Maeve's speed so that she can finally stop herself as she turns just enough to come face to face with the girl who ambushed them. Sweat gleaming in the sunlight, her cheekbones look like razorwire peeking out from beneath the splattered blood of fools who didn't know to stand down and keep a safe distance. Maeve doesn't want to repeat their mistakes, taking a step back as the two of them begin circling one another in a much slower dance than the one she spun in only moments ago. There is a feeling of ceremony and etiquette to it, the boy's mangled body a colorful centerpiece for the affair. "My name is Maeve Idlewild," she states with conviction, holding her chin up and her fear in. Feeling her uneasiness reaching up to pluck at tendons and nerves that threaten to cause her hands to shake, she tries to condense every tiny piece of worry into a ball that she can imagine shrinking smaller and smaller and smaller with every step they take. Her sword holds steady. "I'm a flag girl in my school's marching band every spring and I think I look even cuter in my uniform than my twin sister does in her cheerleading uniform. There. I said it. I don't care if it's conceited because I think it's just... true. Somebody once told me that it's bad to compliment yourself out loud, but I think it's worse to waste time waiting for other people to say stuff and then being all sad and disappointed when they don't." She grits her teeth and takes a careful step over a particularly large pool of blood. "The marching band is just okay, but our flag team is great. People only bother to compliment the band because they understand music more than they understand the kind of precision it takes for sixteen of us move in perfect unison while marching and changing formation. People are pretty dumb sometimes, y'know? Like, maybe it's just as dumb for me think about flag team while staring down your sword, but it's also just as dumb to —" The unfinished words judge me for it hang in her open mouth as she stares at the girl across from her, their steps matched as if this were one of the very routines Maeve can't seem to stop rambling about. Her adversary's eyes are fixed, her attention unwavering. She doesn't pause to roll her eyes or sigh at Maeve as if she's a nuisance to be swatted away in order to focus on the real tributes here today. This girl looks at her as if she's someone who just killed two big dudes and severed a leg nearly as wide around as her whole scrawny body because she is. There's a twist in her gut that feels horrible and... and a little proud all at once, which only emphasizes the horrible part more. "Do you —" Maeve fixes her gaze on her opponent's, dark and watchful. Serious. "— think I'm going to be okay?" You'll need luck, Era had told her, but Maeve knows she needs more than that. Sure, she's small. She's fast. She's loud. But she knows she has to be something else to survive, she just doesn't know what, yet. Do you think I can do this? The two of them circle the boy they disassembled together. Whatever else Maeve might need to survive, she thinks this girl knows the answer. A hunch tells her she might even be the answer.

ROUX. HOME'S FACE how it ages when you're away "What's happening?! Dad?!" Roux pleads, struggling against her father's overprotective hold. It's not that she actually wants to look — her breathing was finally calming and her heart coming to terms with its mistake — but the darkness of looking away keeps feeling bigger and bigger, as if it will swallow her whole with the impossibility of ever truly feeling better again. "Tell me! I need to know! I have to see! I have to —" Maeve's sword careens through the air, merciless and unstoppable as it chops through the boy's leg with enough accidental force to CRACK! and shatter his femur before continuing right on through the other side. Mordecai's breathing comes in gasps of shock, his tea spilled across the coffee table and the cup in scattered shards. He doesn't remember picking it up any more than he remembers dropping it and Holland has to physically pull his hand away from the pieces, using her sleeve to dab at a spot of blood welling up from a cut on his finger. In her peripheral vision, both of Grover Oz's legs are severed and his body collapses into a bizarre pile of itself. She tells herself it's a trick of the television's flashing light, that if she looked — if she really looked — that couldn't possibly be what she would see. The sound of the breaking is like twin gunshots in the air. "— know what's happening! Let me go, dad! Letmego! Letmego! Letmego!" Roux continues to beg and thrash until she succeeds in freeing herself from his paralyzed hold on her. The first thing she sees is the image of her sister on screen with not one, but two gruesome corpses at her guilty feet. "Oh, god." She doesn't need anyone to tell her who killed those boys. The blood splattered all over Maeve tells her everything she needs to know. "Oh, god," she repeats herself, voice hollow. "Should I get you a bandage, Mr. Idlewild?" Holland asks cautiously, uncertain that he's even aware of what happened outside of the Games broadcast. She sets Mordecai's hand in his lap before leaning down to pick up the scattered fragments of his broken tea cup, carefully piling them on the table so no one else gets hurt. "I —" His voice rasps flatly as the cameras pull back to show Maeve and Harley staring each other down, their swords drawn over the corpse of the boy who just died. "I don't think a bandage will be much help at this point, my dear." He's dead. Mae killed him. She severed his leg and killed him. The spilt tea puddles around his feet, his socks soaking some of the liquid up, but not enough to dry the floor. He doesn't even notice. It would be too overwhelming to try to focus on a new mess before someone has figured out what to do about the one on screen. "My name is Maeve Idlewild," the television blares, her conviction ringing in their ears. She doesn't sound afraid and so no one knows why they feel that way anyhow. If only her family's hearts knew how to be as steady as her sword. ("Oh, god," Roux says again and again, but no god answers.) "I'm a flag girl in my school's marching band every spring and I think I look even cuter in my uniform than my twin sister does in her cheerleading uniform." ("Ohgod, ohgod, oh —") "Hey!" Roux exclaims, a knee-jerk reaction to being proclaimed second tier by her identical twin. For a moment her expression remembers how to be something other than glazed and vacant. "That's —" "There. I said it," Maeve declares unapologetically, deaf to her sister's protesting. "I don't care if it's conceited because I think it's just... true." Pretend as anyone might, there's no denying that the girl on the television is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, exactly who she keeps saying she is. That is Maeve Idlewild. No matter the situation, she's never known how to be anything else. "Somebody once told me that it's bad to compliment yourself out loud, but I think it's worse to waste time waiting for other people to say stuff and then being all sad and disappointed when they don't." There's too much irony in her words for anyone to contemplate fully unpacking it right now, but Roux has returned to herself enough to look at her sister's face and wonder just how many times Maeve was left waiting. "You do look really cute in your uniform, Mae," she assures the television quietly. "I'm sorry if I never told you that. I should have. I'm sorry you spent so much time being disappointed in all the things I didn't think to tell you. I just..." She trails off as her sister continues rambling about music and marching formations. "I always thought you knew how much I appreciate you." "Ohhh. Oh, honey. Mae knows how much you love her," her father's hand pats Roux's back, even if the rest of him can't bear to look away from the swords on screen. "She knows. It goes without saying that she knows." Does it? "Do you —" Maeve begins to ask as her family nods in support without needing to hear the rest of the question. We do, of course we do. "— think I'm going to be okay?" The answer doesn't change and the answer doesn't change and, no matter how many times she asks, the answer will never change.

your heart is an empty room deathcab for cutie

[mat]

ram tapsol; attack nine; 1039

[googlefont="Srisakdi:400;"]

ram tapsol
-=+=-

It's instant. For the way his former foe's blood-drenched sword glides into him, all it takes for Ram is a second to realize what he's done. Killed again. Responsible for one more on the list. The pace at which each of the tributes fall, like the beat of a drum. They drop dead with a thump on the wooden boards, each one like a brand new round of gunfire or cannonfire. No exception here as the man, who he exchanged no more than a quick glance with, crumbles down onto the ground and spreads like weeds.

Ram is unsure of how to react this time. Does it make him feel better to down a boy who he hadn't seen until moments ago? Not really. His heart sinks a little less, though, than it did for his initial assailant and the angel. Their battles all started the same way:

His assailant struck Ram first, so he stuck by her (except for when he was gagging toward the audience) until she died. He gave her an emotional farewell, pushing her off like the white puffs of a dandelion weed.

The angel waved her sword toward Ram first, and he chopped her arm off, leaving the girl to crawl away. Guilt had built itself up inside of him, and he was ready to accept his punishment.

And now, this boy tore into Ram's skin first, and Ram gutted him back. He felt nothing but paranoia.

You should be feeling the guilt of murder, Ram. Where'd all your tears go?

Ram takes a piece out of the boy's book of tricks, ripping a piece of his pant leg off of his suit, subsequently wrapping it tightly around his new wound. It has a pulse of its own now, that arm, pounding like Ram would on his grandfather's door, begging for some sort of response.

He uses the boys foot to get a firm enough stance to pull out the sword. The remnants of the open wound soak his clothing red. All Ram can do is watch intently, waiting for that shameful break of sweat to line up on his forehead, heating up his entire body like he's trapped in a furnace. It doesn't come.

The price of pride must be his emotion because despite his eyes remaining wide open, not a single tear falls.

"Fuck-" the panic sets in as he wipes the blood off of his sword with the heel of his boot. To make up for all the lost time Ram forced upon his family seventeen years ago, the boy who wept in the backyard's shed could no longer exist. A new start. A new start as a murderer, but for now it might have to do.

His boots leave a trace of blood now as he treads heavily away, now towards a pair of tributes rather than the larger group that clusters on the other side. To his recollection, the two had been challenging each other for a while now. No point in drawing out the inevitable, he thinks.

"I hate to intrude," Ram says, his voice doused with a sprinkle of disheveled worry.

Still dually wielding swords in each hand, he takes his initial weapon and swings it at one of the two at random. Maybe it's his original blade that has the magic touch to trigger tears and his latest kill was just some bad luck. Or maybe it's the price he has to pay for redemption. If that's the case, he'll just have to deal with it later.

[ram tapsol 11m attacks persephone vega 11f; sword]
5CLlGmBdqasword
[1039 -- Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage]

sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

[antigone boyé | attack #8| ----]
act iii. scene i.

persephone. i understand. (a pregnant pause) but i can't give up either. even if that's a selfish decision.

(her sword cuts clear through antigone’s left arm, which sends a heavy spray of red across the earth. antigone staggers, and crouches down on her knees. she screams at the sight of her own arm laying before her)

chorus. is it the pain from losing a part of yourself that has you scream, antigone? or is it a despairing that swallows up your soul? you know that there was no way out of here without a casket, boarded up in pine and wrapped up in twine. perhaps there would be an unmarked grave; perhaps they’d stack all of your bodies atop one another in a ditch out somewhere, and let the earth leave you lonely.

choragus. you had thought they would tear you apart like they’d done to fray. his body had been in pieces, and when you’d saw him, it was then that you felt the meaning of rebellion. you thought of how there was a pulse inside of you, burning deep within – rising from the bottoms of your toes and up through the front of your forehead – one that could not let such a dishonor stand.

chorus. she knew that she would be put to death. that part did not scare her then, not when she thought – for the first time in her short life – she had a purpose.

choragus. i had to bury my brother, you’d said to the thick armed woman who kept the boarding house kitchen. she’d been slicing through some onion in the morning for prepping the day’s meals. her knife found each mark through the flesh of onion, a part of you believed she’d made shorter work of the girl from eleven than you ever would. she stopped to stare back at you, knowing that the boy who’d been put to death and left with scattered limbs was as much a message to all of them as it was a dagger into your eye.

chorus. there was no kindness there, standing at the edge of the doorway, looking into a kitchen that swallowed you up in loneliness. she gave nothing but a nod, and went back to cutting onions.

choragus. antigone wonders if she had gone home, and it had been her mother and not some bitter old landlady with hair under her nose, that maybe she’d have tried to talk her out of it. and yet – somehow, she knows that it wouldn’t have made a difference.

chorus. she’d never felt calmer than the moment she’d held the clumps of dirt in her hands atop her brother’s scattered remains. she took fistfuls of the clay and dumped it over his torso, others over his arms, over one of his legs. she remembers crying warm and chubby tears but she remembers how fast her heart beat, too. she only thought how that if it had been fray, or lazrus, they’d have done the same, too.

(a boy approaches as antigone staggers to her feet, wound sopping blood through her overalls)

ram. i hate to intrude.

chorus. he lies.

(ram launches at persephone, and glances her side)

choragus. you wonder why he’d have gone for persephone, worse for wear but still standing, and not the girl who was pooling blood.

chorus. but boys were cruel creatures, and you don’t believe in your short life you’d ever understand them. they seemed to revel in shows of strength and lack of compassion. they were good at all the physical labor, and agile. but somehow, you imagined that the world would have been a better place if it’d been left to just the girls. you believed them to be better people.

choragus. he reminds antigone of lazrus and the bunker. not because he is brave like lazrus, but that he is the gunfire that pinned all of you down. that this arena is your bunker, and when the moment comes, the sky will give way, and you will be buried. and he – this boy you’ve never seen or known – has given you all the reason to live again.

chorus. she is not your enemy. she is not your friend. antigone aches to have known her, to have had the time to sit next to her and ask all the questions that someone who looked like her, and believed in her could.

choragus. maybe she had nothing in common with you, or maybe too much. but in that moment you could only feel a sense of kinship. a heart that had only so many beats left, that should not have been wasted on this useless young man.

chorus. you could still be like lazrus yet, pinned down under guns and nowhere to run. but he hadn’t intended to run. he’d intended to die, and to die with purpose.

choragus. and so you will yourself to stand.

(antigone pries the sword from her fallen left hand and holds it in her right to face persephone)

antigone. you go’n do what you gotta do. take up space and make meaning. you got the heart for it.

(she turns to face ram and snarls)

antigone. they’d never make you executioner with aim like that. want me to show you how it’s done?

ram. do your worst.

[antigone boyé attacks ram tapsol d11m with her sword]
qfKoeaqcEdsword
[result: 1159 -- Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 damage (Sword) ]

sword

[WT]

[Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya | post 9 | attacks 7/8 | 1153 | 1118]



Samiyuq hisses as the sword slips—barely a breath, graver than but not unlike the sharp noises of surprise when someone drops a spoon in the kitchen or finds the goat that crept up beside them with their shin. That's still more than the other tribute moves, even as the sword scrapes their leg; they don't flinch or turn, but only say, before Samiyuq can even gather hirself enough to apologize, "Hey." Ze lowers the tip of the sword the rest of the way into the sand, watching quietly. "May I know your name?"

It's not what ze expects. Ze doubts, in their position, it would have occurred to hir to ask—but neither does it occur to hir, in this position, to do anything but answer. "Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya." Ze does pause, but only for a breath, before adding, "Do you want me to know yours?"

Their pause is longer, long enough that Samiyuq isn't sure they're going to answer and nearly adds, It's okay if you don't. There's room here for that much to be okay. But they do, in the end. "Era." Their voice is soft, still, perhaps the one soft thing left in this place; ze could lose it in the noise, even as more voices fall silent, if it wasn't also strong. "Thank you, Samiyuq. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be," ze says—almost gentle, closer to matter-of-fact. They each know that the other has killed people before, in person and at a distance alike in Samiyuq's case; they each know that it does not mean any less, cost any less, each time; they each know why it's worth it to hir, this time, for both their sakes. And whatever else Era carried here, if there's anything else they might mean to encompass, ze has a hard time imagining that it could be anything ze would have any right to or interest in casting judgment on. "But thank you."

"Samiyuq," Era says, stilling Samiyuq's sword just as ze begins to lift it again, "would you do me one more favor?"

Even though they can't see it, ze nods slowly, a touch cautious. Make sure no other kids have to suffer through this, Jonas said, as though a single person had that power, as though ze hadn't spent years trying to make the world safer and failed, as though it was fair to ask—but it wouldn't have been any more fair to refuse outright. Even if it was, even if ze could refuse Jonas or Era without guilt, ze thinks ze wouldn't want to. A fight is one thing, but Samiyuq is the only one holding a sword here. It's hir responsibility, insofar as ze can let it be, to make sure this is as much on Era's terms as possible. "Anything I can."

"If it comes down to you, to her." This time, when Samiyuq follows the shifting tilt of their face, ze finds a person—finds Maeve, spinning again but with sword in hand now, sword up. Fighting, not dancing; and there's something tragic in that, but Samiyuq also feels a spark of pride. However long she lives, Maeve Idlewild will always have proven both their doubts wrong.

Ze glances back to Era, wondering whether the two of them came here together or whether there's some other story there—other yelled anecdotes, another temporary and tentative but real connection. What ze can see of Era's face from this angle doesn't answer the question. That's alright; it's not the point. "Whatever you choose," they finish, "please make it quick."

"Yes. I will. But that won't be a favor, Era," Samiyuq says, suddenly choked. It feels strange to cry in front of someone else after so long, for its ease as much as much as for its long unfamiliarity—tears are rare for hir to begin with anymore, and more easily blinked tidily away than shed even when ze might prefer the latter; and Era still looks away, but the cameras still bear down on them both, on them all, but that doesn't matter. Crying is effortless, now, when it's so much more important to not blink. "For you or Maeve. That will be trying to do the right thing."



[D5M|N Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya attacks D8M Era Altyr, sword]

[Era qualifies as a peaceful tribute after not rolling an attack for a full ooc day and, per that designation, can be attacked twice in one post.]

7zuXWsSbHmsword
sword

[Miss -- 0.0]
[Deep Gash on Right Forearm -- 8.0 at Shrimp's discretion]

sword·sword

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

( harley sinclair | attack 10 )

Four.

His body comes crashing down between us. I swear the noise should be enough to fill the entire stadium, enough to make everyone pause, but they all keep fighting.

They all keep watching.

Cheering for our demise.

My sword had plunged into his cheek, and without hesitation I pulled it forward, ready to swing again, but the little girl was fast. Her own sword went through one of his legs, and mine went through the other, and simultaneously his legs came off in one motion.

Boom.

I stare at the tiny girl in utter shock, her face still covered in his blood, sword dirtied. A little girl, but she had so much strength. How did she get here? It shouldn't be like this.

She's just a little girl.

Her eyes bore into mine as she talked and talked and talk. For once, I found myself listening intently. From every little detail to every movement of her hands I found myself drawn in. I even squatted down, just enough to be at her eye level.

Just enough to hold her gaze.

I never learn names, I never put them to faces, but hers I did. As soon as she told me I burned the image into my head, I did not want to forget her.

Not now.

Not ever.

"I'm...I'm Harley." I realized that until this moment, I had not told a soul my name, I had not told them a single thing about me. But if I am to die, at least one person should know. Maybe not my story, but at least my name.

And then she asked me.

A question that I have been too afraid to ask even myself. A question that even I did not want to know the answer to.

"I-"

Should I lie? The same way I lied to my siblings as they too us to the stage, and I promised them everything would be alright? The same way that I lied to myself about Kol, over and over again? A little girl so strong and so innocent.

She deserves the truth.

"I think you'll live, but even if you do I don't think you'll be okay. I don't think you'll ever be able to be okay again."

It was a dark future. There was no good outcome for any of us. They gave us two options while we were here, death or the burden of knowing we caused it.

Nobody will be okay.

I stood up again and looked down at the girl known as Maeve Idlewild with a sadness in my eyes.

"My name is Harley Sinclair. I'm a girl who's experienced euphoria, a girl who's experienced sadness, a girl who has experienced betrayal. I am Harley Sinclair, and I am a girl who is ready to die."

Four that now lay dead on the ground.

I think I might be five.

( harley attacks ; maeve idlewild with sword )
mf_9D61sWAsword
( sc on chest - 4.0 )

sword

[Python]

Persephone Vega, D11F, Attack 7, 1121

Horror was written across Persephone's face. This was a vision of nightmares; the girl's arm separated from her shoulder, a waterfall of blood dripping, and the realization that Persephone herself was the cause. She hadn't meant to inflict such a cruelty - then again, where had she been aiming? For the heart? The neck? She was clumsy and inexperienced, swinging at a stranger hoping this would all end soon. By not taking care in her movements, she had forced even more suffering upon her. "Oh god," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."

Her eyes were wide and glued to the stomach-churning scene. She was unable to react as somebody else lunged at her with a sword. This game was coming to a close, only a few bodies left, and Persephone could no longer fade into the background. The sting on her shoulder made her shout out of shock and fear. "I hate to intrude," he said. She couldn't determine if he truly meant that or not. She recognized him from the Reaping in Eleven, but she didn't know much about him. Was he just another innocent citizen caught in the storm?

District Three didn't seem to care. She whirled in his direction, spitting fire, Persephone nearly forgotten. Had she come to her defense? Was this some sort of trick?

The words echoed in her head; " you go’n do what you gotta do. take up space and make meaning. you got the heart for it." Perhaps that was her way of expressing forgiveness. Persephone still felt guilt in every fiber of her being, but this girl was tough as nails. She swung at the boy without hesitation, as if missing an arm meant nothing. The boy also looked like a disheveled mess, like he would drop dead at any moment. The thought didn't even occur to Persephone to catch the girl off guard by attacking her.

No, if she was coming to Persephone's defense, then she would take all the help she could get.

But now she couldn't simply stand and watch. Action was required, or the others might catch on that she was the weakest coward here.

"You shouldn't have come over here," she said, sadly. There was a frown of regret as she rushed forward with her sword.

[Persephone attacks Ram 11m - sword]
y|CBcHDz49sword
Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage

sword

[L△LIA]

[ D6F Maeve Idlewild | Post 10 | Attack 6 | 1021 ]

MAEVE. I KNOW HOW to lose it all to find myself "I'm..." The girl seems to consider her own words with the same intensity as when she listened to Maeve's rambling, hearing out every frivolous word with equal weight of importance. It's not just that here, on the battlefield, every minor detail can affect whether or not someone dies; it's that here, in their final moments, every minor detail affects the way in which they all choose to live. "I'm Harley." The name is a weight on par with birthday stories and traveling songs or with the quiet desperation of someone reaching out for one last hug, in hopes of feeling less alone. It certainly doesn't make anything feel easier, but Maeve wonders if something being harder truly is the same thing as something being worse. "I —" This is not the same hesitance as when Era hedged his responses to Maeve's blunt questions, seeking out loopholes for kindness within a brutal truth. There is a lot of good in the act of giving someone hope, but there can also be good in giving someone the opportunity to realize that what they're hoping for... might not actually be the best thing for them. "I think you'll live," Harley declares, admitting something to herself more than to Maeve, "but even if you do I don't think you'll be okay." In this world there are as many versions of the truth as there are people. Era told her his much the same way Harley confesses hers now, but Maeve suddenly realizes that she can't keep trying to take everyone else's. She can ask and ask again — "I don't think you'll ever be able to be okay again." — but sooner or later she has to find her own. "My name is Harley Sinclair," she repeats, sorrow in her eyes as she prepares to come face to face with all of the unavoidable things she's been running away from in this terrible place. "I'm a girl who's experienced euphoria, a girl who's experienced sadness, a girl who has experienced betrayal." Raising her sword, the gesture doesn't feel like a threat so much as a challenge to find out whether Maeve herself is prepared to answer her own question. "I am Harley Sinclair, and I am a girl who is ready to die." Do you, Maeve finally asks herself as Harley leaps forward, her sword ready to share her declaration of truth if Maeve cannot admit her own, think I'm going to be okay? It would be easy to plant her feet and wait for the blade to slice her throat. It would be easy, but that doesn't mean it would be better. Instead Maeve pulls back, dodging the attack as well as she can, the very tip of the honed steel merely skimming the surface of her chest as she grimaces and moans with the pain. Gritting her teeth she slams her sword into Harley's with as much strength as she can, pushing back in defense of a truth of her very own. She swallows and looks into the eyes of a girl who's about to die. "I think it's okay not to be okay sometimes."

ROUX. WE'RE ON EACH OTHER'S TEAM and you know and you know and you know "I know she knows I love her," Roux finally whispers in the wake of silence and aching that follows her sister's question. (Do you think I'm going to be okay?) "I just wish I would have made sure she knew all sorts of other things too. Little things. Maeve really likes collecting little things." There's a reason her bedroom walls are papered in dense clusters of sticky notes and the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in the shapes of her various dreams and memories. There are reasons she rolled her worries up in fake joints made of grass, hidden in that cigar box beneath her bed; reasons why she stockpiled empty cough syrup bottles pulled out of neighborhood trashcans and filled them with thoughts of what her family might feel if they found them on the floor in the back of her closet; reasons why she poured water and rubbing alcohol and the worst parts of her imagination into scavenged vodka bottles at the bottom of her dirty laundry hamper. "I should have given her more nice things to collect." "I'm... I'm Harley," the girl on the television introduces herself as Holland continues staring at the tea spilled on the floor while she pretends that she has as little clue as Roux's parents do about why she's saying the things she's saying. Her stomach turns as she thinks about the garbage bag full of pretend contraband that they cleaned out of Maeve's room last night and it turns again as she thinks about why all of those things where in her room to begin with. It twists further and further still, as Holland thinks about what she's hidden in her own room during her unhappiest moments, wishing that she too had someone who cared enough about her to clear all of those bad things out — leaving little, nice things in their places for her to find later on when she might need them most. "I —" It's no easy thing to know what to do or what to say when someone is having a hard time. Sometimes there's nothing that can be done, but... most of the time that's a lie. Holland knows better than anyone that there are times when something as small as the word hi feels life-saving, but other times people need more than that. Maeve certainly needed more than that; maybe she even needed more than her fair share because, from what Holland's seen during her time in the Idlewild household, it's hard to see what more anyone could possibly be greedy for. Except... there's a sudden pause as she thinks of kissing Roux's cheek a couple weeks ago because holding that fluttering collection of hi, hi, hi in her heart for so long made it impossible not to wish for something more. Roux is right. Maeve would have liked being given more nice things to collect. They all would. "I think you'll live," Harley declares. It's quite the thing to say to a room full of people wondering if it's okay to hope this desperately for exactly that — knowing it would bring so much joy to them, while leaving so little for anyone else involved. "But even if you do I don't think you'll be okay." There is a mint tin filled with white powder that smells too sweet to be convincing, tossed out in the dumpster behind the house, but Holland and Roux don't believe that has anything to do with Maeve's real capability to be happy again any more than they think the bloody sword she holds should stop her. Sometimes the only thing standing in the way of someone's future happiness is their ability to believe in it. "I don't think you'll ever be able to be okay again." Other times it's another person with a heart and a name and a few final words to say. "My name is Harley Sinclair. I'm a girl who's experienced euphoria, a girl who's experienced sadness, a girl who has experienced betrayal. I am Harley Sinclair, and I am a girl who is ready to die." Lives are not small things to collect, but it's the kindest thing anyone can offer the Idlewild family today. If Maeve makes it home then maybe they can find ways to swap out all of these unhappy experiences from her heart, the same way so many other unhappy thoughts were removed from their hiding places in her room. They can try and they can try and they can try. "I think it's okay not to be okay sometimes."

intervention anna akana | team lorde



[ attacks harley sinclair, sword ]

cvl84MnwPYsword

[ 1021 — Shallow Cut on Right Hip — 3.5 damage ]

sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

[antigone boyé | attack #9| ----]
act iii. scene ii.

(exterior – only five stand now, the sounds of sword against sword a gentle din)

(antigone’s blade glances ram, who holds at the edge of death)

persephone. you shouldn’t have come over here.

(her swing is true across ram’s back, and another falls to the ground, never to rise again)

antigone. hoo-ah. (she raises her sword to praise persephone and manages a pained grin – she looks a mess of fifteen, every wrinkle of her brow framing a little lifetime of sadness)

chorus. fray had always led a small cheer after every skirmish. he liked to talk up that they’d run the son-of-bitches out, made them pay for each and every thing they’d ever done. he had an anger to him that antigone believed made him strong. the kind that burned white hot and scorched any idea of kindness or mercy. there could be no mercy for the ones that disagreed with them. war took away that possibility, and more than that, the capitolites had proved they had no interest in a world where any of them would see the fruits of their labors.

choragus. but she regrets the celebration. she sees the boy, and the other bodies, the sand steeped in blood, and knows that no matter her own future, his was ended here and now.

chorus. two dozen has whittled down to five. two girls that she doesn’t recognize, the one from eleven, and then the soldier that had been sparring with the little fighter from the start.

choragus. melancholy settles into her bones like arsenic. she’s tired, blood loss or not, from all of it.

chorus. if she could just get past the last of them, she’d be able to find a new day. a dawn to call her own.

choragus. antigone puzzles out that there were reasons for hitting each of them. there was the one that looked closest to death, now red with blood and swaying as though it would take only the wind to rend her spirt from her. the girl who’d taken off your arm, who’d spent the entirety of time whittling you down to nothing. the soldier, strong as ze was, perhaps the strongest left. or the child, one who you didn’t believe had been in this for the long haul, but managed now to have a chance at victory. perhaps she’d discovered bravery, or changed her mind in deciding to live.

antigone. (she wipes the sweat from her brow and hacks out a mixture of spit and blood onto the sand) mesi ampil.

chorus. will there be a funeral for you? oh – but you know no matter what they tell her, delilah will invite the neighbors, the cousins, the entirety of districters she knows. back home she imagines that her mother will wear red to the funeral. a homespun crimson dress with yellowed white lace gloves and a patterned headscarf.

choragus. when they ask of you, she’ll say you’re underwater now, swallowed up by earth and sea, a part of the universe, then. she used to tell each of you that the world would let you float back to her, when all was said and done. a bygone belief that would settle you into bed, and have you dream of a great shore far away where you’d spend the rest of your days.

antigone. (to sami) eh, now – you still getting on then? love to see it.

chorus. it’s not fair, is it, antigone? how much of your life did you spend trying to do the best you could? do you feel that it would’ve been different if teoc had told you lazrus and fray were foolish? that maybe the hard work and grit that your mother and father had done to give you the fraction of life you had could’ve been enough for you?

choragus. but there’s been no rolling fields for you. no gentle creatures to take care of. no marching band or birthday cakes. nothing that would have brought the same satisfaction holding a rifle between your two hands had brought. more than anything you loved the powerful agency that rifle gave you, a heavy justice you could extract at your choosing. something that never before, and never again, would a girl like you have.

chorus. but perhaps it could be, one last time.

choragus. there’s still four others within your sights, and – if your aim proved truer, one of them wouldn’t see another sunrise.

antigone. how bad you want this, huh? (she looks over to persephone) you want to see home? huh?! (her voice cracks as she holds her sword, and stares) you got to keep goin’ you hear me? go’n. go! (she waves away with her sword. she looks to sami then)

choragus. it wouldn’t be the one who’d believed you. or the one that likely knew the taste of war. you couldn’t bare it.

(her gaze drifts to harley)

chorus. and you weren’t an executioner. not when the work had all been done for you.

(she at last settles on maeve)

choragus. and so it left the choice that might’ve been the least kind. or perhaps, if they’d known you, known any of you, one that silenced a voice who seemed least familiar with your struggle.

antigone. (whispering, to herself) c’mon lazrus. bring the boat around. let’s go find that shore together, eh? (yelling out) heeeeyuh!

[antigone boyé attacks maeve idlewild with her sword]
ivB0Vm9bYasword
[result: 1027 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage (Sword) ]

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[WT]

[Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya | post 10 | attack 9 | 1091]



The sword comes out more easily than it went in. Blood wells out in its wake, trying to insist that Era lives even as Samiyuq catches them by the shoulders and lowers them, backing up step by step. Exhausted and aching, ze wavers faintly on the way, but the task is easier than ze might have guessed; Era is lanky enough to be lighter than their height implies, and perhaps souls weigh more than Samiyuq knows. "Urpi sunqu,"^[1] ze murmurs, depositing the body in the sand as gently as ze settled Jonas', "utaq allin ñan, Era."^[2]

Hir tears settle before the sand does. Samiyuq brushes the heel of one hand beneath hir eyes—careful of the shallow gash across one cheek, wrinkling hir nose slightly at the feel of grit made sticky by sweat and blood clinging to hir face—and pushes hirself off from the ground with the other, wavering again but finding hir footing, sword still held tight. "Waliq,"^[3] ze murmurs even more softly, "waliq," and ze steps toward the remaining fighters without looking back.

Watcher stands among them, over a body and beside another tribute who looks out of their element but rather less the worse for wear. Five years ago, Samiyuq would have at best clapped a hand over hir mouth at the sight of a missing limb; now, ze simply takes it in, one more wound in a field of them, before meeting hir attacker-turned-momentary-compatriot's gaze above it. "Eh, now – you still getting on then?" The words are clear, despite how painfully young they look under the flush of exertion and pain and how heavy the missing arm must feel—but then, ze isn't sure anyone left here is truly young anymore. "Love to see it."

"And you," Samiyuq says with a tilt of hir head, and then tries, tongue hesitant on the consonants but voice sure, "li bon, hm?" Easy for hir to say, when ze's down some hair and a little blood and Watcher is down an arm. None of this is good—little has been good for a long time, perhaps, for either of them; but ze doesn't mean the words, exactly, only the sentiment. I remember. You're seen. For now, just for now, we're alive.

As is Maeve, facing down an older tribute who seems to be hanging on by a thread—"Hanging in there, Maeve?" Samiyuq says with a sad but not entirely unreal smile, eyeing the blood on her blade and the body at her and her opponent's feet. And the first stranger ze noticed: an adversary, ze had assumed, but with Watcher looking toward them—"You want to see home? Huh?!"—ze wonders whether they hadn't been working together after all. If they were, Watcher has decided they aren't anymore.

Inevitable, ze supposes, but not without a heaviness settling in hir as they lock eyes again and the five remaining tributes hang in time the way "Go'n. Go!" hangs in the air. Like gentleness, camaraderie only has a home in war when it's useful.

But the sword doesn't come for hir; it goes for Maeve.

Samiyuq follows almost without thinking, brain a clatter of make it quick and happy happy caaaaake, baaaaabe and li bon, nan kou^-1- and one overriding, fervent urway.^[4] If it would have been easy to bring a sword to Maeve's throat before it would be even easier now with the distraction of someone else's sword in her arm, as quick as ze could hope—and nearly as easy to defend her, to position hirself against rather than beside this person ze wishes ze could have tried to befriend; and ze can't pretend that not choosing one of those isn't a choice in itself, but ze has one more option in that small space, one chance for a moment not to turn hir back entirely on what ze meant by I'll watch yours or you can breathe.

Full momentum of hir run behind hir, ze turns hir sword on Maeve's opponent.



[D5M|N Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya attacks D4F Harley Sinclair, sword]

9SS6BFH08psword

[Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 at Kari's discretion]



[1] Thank you (lit. dove heart).
[2] and have a good journey (lit. good road), Era.
[3] Okay/alright/fine.
[4] fuck

-1- that's good, of course

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[Python]

Persephone Vega, D11F, Attack 8, 1132

There was a feeling she could not grasp - death sprouting from her fingertips like stems of a rotting flower. She hadn't thought herself capable of causing death on any scale. To make something disappear was skill developed by those who worshiped violence - or so she thought. That was the lesson her parents had taught her. In Eleven, she could hardly process the idea of killing a plant. They were her life's work, her pride and joy, and she was a careful mother of such living things. She would harvest their resources, but she took care of everything with a gentle hand.

She didn't think a gentle hand could slay, but the boy in front of her - the only token she had from her home - collapsed. He did not stand back up again. At first, she thought he was too hurt to struggle. She could still feel her own aches and pains from district three's sword, yet the boy seemed to stop moving altogether. There was an initial denial in her thought process - he passed out, that's all. But his blood feeding the earth in such large pools warned her that he was likely dead. Not injured, not broken, not fighting. Gone.

Persephone had killed someone.

Whether she blamed herself, that was yet to be determined, as she didn't have enough time to contemplate. She had struck a final blow, but it was those before her who sliced him over and over again, leading to this point, his life stumbling into her arms. Another girl fell in her peripheral and suddenly she could count heartbeats on one hand.

Her attention was quickly drawn back to Three and her chants. " how bad you want this, huh? You want to see home? huh?!" It made Persephone's heart pound in a flurry of panic. "You got to keep goin’ you hear me? Go’n. Go!"

But she didn't know where to go. The death trail on its own could not lead her, so she followed District Three with her bloody sword clutched tight. If she had murdered her own fellow Eleven, then perhaps she was capable of killing a complete stranger. Would it feel any different, she wondered?

[Persephone attacks Maeve - sword]
tNkbBNDCblsword
Stabbed in Thigh -- 8.5 damage

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[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

[antigone boyé | attack #10| ----]
act iii. scene iii.

(exterior – three remain: samiyuq close to the fallen girl, persephone and antigone over the other)

antigone. (looking down at maeve) she’s gone under water now.

chorus. her heart beat pounds through her ears, and she can feel each step heavier than the last. staring down at death, at the cold bodies of twenty-one children who’d served a final purpose, she wants to feel something. she wants to know that the pinprick of pain that throbbed across her gaping wound of a shoulder was more than just her body shutting down. she wants to remember that there were days before this that she wouldn’t have been so hardened that death was as natural as a rainstorm. or that she could just as easy strike someone down as go back to playing cards with her brothers at camp.

choragus. amazing what you could get used to, antigone. trading jump rope and dice for a high caliber rifle with a scope, you didn’t just step away from a young girl’s life, you ran straight through to the future. and maybe it was your want to be like your older brothers. lazrus was well over the hump of eighteen, a grown man (as much as he still couldn’t grow a mustache). and fray, teetering on the edge of seventeen into adulthood. both of them knew you were too young at thirteen to make a real choice, but what were they to do?

chorus. but staring down at their bodies, their eyes open as though they could see up into the empty sky and tell you where heaven was – you wanted to sue for peace.

(antigone stares out at the crowds of peacekeepers, one hand shading her brow)

choragus. lazrus used to say that when the war was won, freedom would be the river to wash away all the sins. walls would come down and reveal an age of plenty for the men and women of the districts. all the pain and pettiness would disappear when people were free to see themselves as people, not as objects of a greater machine.

chorus. your brothers would say a lot of things like this, and you would nod along. you were young enough that their truth was sweet as honey, their words filling up your heart with enough hope that you practically levitated. it fed you when you were hungry and kept you warm when the snows came, and the tent you were forced to use out on the front lines wouldn’t seal.

choragus. but each day, this talk of freedom, this ideal seemed to tarnish and fade, its golden luster disappearing. better was the marching, the grassy knolls and thickets of trees to pass through. the nights that you got to stay up late with your brothers telling stories, swearing all the while as though you still didn’t look over your shoulder to see your mother coming at you with a switch.

chorus. is she watching you at home, antigone?

choragus. she is.

chorus. you wonder how any of this was supposed to have made their lives better. your mother and father, toiling away in a factory, one disappearing before dawn and the other as the sun went down, gossamers floating through life, their spare time spent darning sweaters and feeding you all. because it was always about you, about your brothers. not the far away ideas that families with enough food dared to think about.

delilah. (antigone’s mother’s voice) one day, you’ll see that we had it good. not with what we had but who we were.

choragus. you don’t blame your brothers for wanting a better life. it was easy to be seduced by the men who promised freedom. how could a boy of sixteen refuse, when it meant holding a gun and traveling further than he’d ever known? or better yet, that when all was said and done, it would be his voice that carried out through a new panem?

chorus. you don’t suppose it ever would’ve been a place promised to fray, or to lazrus. they were numbers, boys who’s bodies carried on until they’d been stripped of every last piece of dignity. and when they lay in tatters, they’d find new boys to carry out it all, until at last, they could find no one willing to carry the banner.

antigone. (to sami) land of the free, huh?

choragus. did ze believe in a bold new vision for panem? was ze like your brothers, who drank all of it up until they were dying of thirst all over again?

antigone. you don’t still believe in it, do you?

chorus. ze was smart enough to still be standing, so she imagined no, probably not. but here they were anyway, on the edge of death. close enough to live another day. but freedom?

(antigone stares at the sand, sword heavy in her hands)

choragus. they’d always win, years and years and on and on. maybe because men are wicked. maybe because it’s human nature to be selfish – to look at all that men do and think it preposterous you couldn’t be doing the same. that they could leave you lonely, tear you up, and laugh because you were easy to hate. a girl who’d been willing to die for an idea she’d never really understood, save for the few moments she lay next to her brothers, quiet as a dormouse, and listened to them sleep under the stars. and now?

antigone. (looking up at the sky, pained, she closes her eyes and at the top of her lungs) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

choragus. she lets it out as much as she can, a scream into the void. full of all that she couldn’t have done before, all the anger, the bitterness, the way she wished it didn’t feel as though a stack of bricks had been placed on her back. she carried on until she thought her lungs would burn out from within her.

antigone. we have to do this the right way. not the way they’d want this. not how we might.

chorus. you’d seen persephone trail you, too afraid to step out on her own. but you know the world soon may not give her much choice.

antigone. (to persephone) you got to have honor, even now. show that you don’t just rush in and kill for the sake of it, for your own reasons. those are small people, those are all the reasons why the world won’t change, you hear?

choragus. you face the one that’s seen war and shake your head with a smile.

antigone. you understand me, yeah? some folks don’t have it, some folks lie to you and say they have your back but – it’s about your word. and i swing, you swing, and she does, too. until there’s one of us. no one gotta take more than they can handle. and whoever that is – don’t fucking waste it.

choragus. she doesn’t cry. doesn’t shake. just steels herself for the inevitable, her jumpsuit soaked through in blood. but she nods to persephone, and to samiyuq, and grips tight to her sword. no matter how it ended, she’d be fighting until her last breath, the way she’d decided.

[antigone boyé attacks samiyuq hernández huapaya with her sword]
HUnYyQ_zkDsword
[result: 1067 -- Deep Gash on Back of Head -- 9.0 damage (Sword) ]

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