from the sunlight that surrounds you [mutts v. Sunfell]

[WT]

He lights gently, a silvery whisper of air curling away from the rest of the wind, shrouded by the shadows of late afternoon clouds. For a breath he halts, one paw raised and mist coalescing around him, watching the humans—but their silly useless ears hear nothing, so Arcus pads forward through the mist, tail raised high in cheerful greeting to the cat accompanying them. Who are you? he asks with twitching whiskers.

Not interested, the cat announces with angry ears and a tapping tail.

Cautious but too curious to be deterred, Arcus leans forward and offers a slow, fluttering blink: I'm friendly.

The ground cat bristles.

Arcus leans back and lowers his tail.

The ground cat shows teeth.

Arcus, affronted, answers in kind.

They hold that moment, eyes wide and fur spiked and tails waving, as low rumble meets low rumble beneath the high whine filling the air from afar—until there's a yowl, and someone leaps, and they're scrabbling. Even the humans couldn't miss this; ordinarily Arcus would run from their voices, but he's more concerned now with battering the other cat around the ears as he tries to twist his way to kicking position before his opponent can get there. Bright stones clatter around them as they roll, adding clacks to the din, and Arcus thinks if he can only brace himself on a large enough stone, perhaps angle his back toward this next one in their path—

The ground heaves beneath them before they make it.

The fight breaks apart, Arcus hissing with the full force of his lungs, ahead of what looks for all the world like a creature of stone lurching into inelegant motion. Its teeth close on thin air and Arcus takes the chance to swat at its nose—then hisses again as a second creature follows with a grating hack that might have been a bark. Arcus doesn't know Greisen, ancient and creaking but not yet crumbling, or Rapakivi, younger and still energetic, has no idea how they bonded or how hard they'll fight for one another; but he does know a fight he can't win when he sees one, and so, other cat as good as forgotten, he turns tail.

One of the humans stands near enough to serve as a makeshift climbing post. Arcus launches himself upward, preparing to use the human's shoulder as a springboard to aerial escape, as the living pieces of ground chase close behind, teeth bared to anything in their path.



Arcus [Mormo] attacks D4F Perdita Leto
Ad6vpJWFBRknife
[Deep Gash on Right Forearm - 8.0]

Greisen [Dragoyle] attacks D8F Steel Campano
knife
[Deep Gash on Right Calf - 8.0]

Rapakivi [Dragoyle] attacks D8M Nikolai Konstantine
knife
[Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder - 3.5]



title song is "Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You" by Rilo Kiley.

Note re: the Day Three event: Lalia opted to keep Niko's cat mutt rather than take the block.

knife·knife·knife

[✨ zozo.]

STEEL.

but fix your eyes on me

i guess i'm all you have

and i swear you'll see the dawn again

When they took his body away and my fingers clawed up into the sky only to fall back down to earth again, I curled myself up into a ball and wept all night. Without Kenji, without my leg, I'm dead. So I play the part, lying still on the petal-swept ground, holding my breath until the screaming pain in my lungs drowns out the aching in my leg. Every gasp of air I curl into myself more, squeezing my eyes shut tight to keep the tears from escaping. Crying only makes this worse. Crying means I'm still feeling, and feeling means I'm still alive, and I don't want to live like this. Half of a person, half of a leg, half of a duo.

Alone. In agonising pain. Shivering with the cold, wrapping my cloak around me to keep myself warm - this is hell. It has to be. The anthem roars above me hours later but I don't see Kenji's face in the sky. I don't see anyone's.

But I saw him die. Which means-

He's still alive.

The thought comes with a low gasp exhaling from my chest, swelling with all the hope left in my heart. I haul myself up onto all fours, grasp my sword in one hand, and begin my crawl to find him. The pool of blood where his body was taken still stains the floor, petals landing delicately on the imprint of scarlet - but Kenji's not there.

Every move is agony dragging my butchered leg across the ground, even with my weight on my good leg. The strap of my bag digs into my shoulder and rubs raw through my shirt, its contents now weighted and dragging across the floor. In the dark I hear nothing but the wind and see nothing but the black of night. It's hollowing, every small shuffle forwards draining, but I keep going until I can no longer hear the wind nor feel the petals landing in my matted hair. A fruitless mission, I know that deep down. I saw him die. Saw them plunge a sword into his chest and cut him down until he was on his knees, watched his chest stop rising and falling, begged for him to come back. But maybe he's not allowed to seek me out. Maybe I have to go and get him.

A fool's errand. I must be going mad, dizzy from blood loss and shock. But I've got to keep going. For Kenji. For myself.

I crawl and crawl and crawl until my body simply won't allow me to go any further. The ground turns to a familiar feeling of gems and I collapse into them, muttering my friend's name over and over as my own darkness blankets me up and takes me away.

"Kenji... Kenji... Kenji..."

When I awake, I stare up into a frightful girl's empty eyes and flinch. Kicking out at her serves no purpose but to cause my eyes to prick with pain as I writhe away from her on the ground, hauling myself and my battered leg back as fast as I possibly can.

"Who are you?" I stammer, forgetting the weight of my sword as I hoist it up awkwardly with my weaker hand. "W-where's Kenji?"

Panic boils in my chest as a word rises to my thoughts: Career. I try to clamber to my knees but the pain is so awe-consuming I buckle over and gasp, letting the sword clatter into the piles of gems digging into the palms of my hands.

So this is it. This is how I find Kenji - a sword in my own chest. Cut down into pieces. Treated like less than nothing. At least when I see him again I won't be alone anymore. It was nice, having a friend. I'd like to feel like that once more.

Another figure comes into view - Nikolai - and the sight of him causes something in my chest to unravel and before I know it I am sobbing, though I'm not sure what for. Relief, perhaps, or regret that he's going to be the one to kill me. Fear of death, but knowing Dad will be on the other side. Panic, and joy, and regret - it all heaves out of me in great sobs and cries until I can't even speak. All I can do is cry.

And when there's nothing left in me and Nikolai spares my life and the girl bitterly obliges I simply smile, petting the little creature who'd joined us that morning between the ears. Kenji still thumps through every thought I have, the desperate need to find out what really happened to him wired in my nerves. I'm so terrified of saying the wrong thing that I just say nothing at all, nodding or shaking my head or wincing as I tend to my leg.

I feel safe around Nikolai. It won't last forever, I know that. But something about him being from home and all the little ways he'd made me feel better last week sits comfortably within me. I can trust him, for now. The girl I'm not so sure. But Niko's smart, and I trust him, so I guess I'll have to trust her too.

When the mutts leap toward him I bare my teeth and swing desperately. This place already took my one of my friends. I'm not letting it take another.

if we come back and we’re broken
unworthy and ashamed
give us something to believe in

steel attacks the mormo, sword
lNdEAwy_uusword
miss

accuracy day 3
sword
Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage


lyrics; mumford & sons!

sword·sword

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

PERDITA.

little darlin', the smiles returning to their faces

little darlin', it seems like years since it's been here

here comes the sun

The night is a moon phase.

Stretching moments, glimpses of light, the shadow that keeps creeping closer. And one moment she's trying to bandage her wounds, to clean the blood from her hair. And then the next she's sitting there with Niko, trying to avoid the sand and the water and redness of it all. The thought of him. The memory of a torn out throat.

Then they find the liquor, and they try to drown the emotions that have already slipped beneath the surface. A shot of whiskey, the scent of peaches, they're laughing and her cuts are on fire. But everything is so warm, and so terrible. She holds her fingers over her lips as she smiles, replies to his jokes in earnest.

And it's not real, not really. This isn't her.

But they're lying there beneath the stars, shoulders just an inch apart. And the buzz becomes static, and the numbness begins to fade. There's music, for a moment, or maybe it's just the wind. The waves. She squints her eyes in confusion, but there are no faces in the sky. Her breath catches in her throat, but maybe it's just a dream.

Maybe it's a coping mechanism.

She hears Niko sniffling, still by her side. Stillness that spans time, and the lack of movement. "I'm cold." It's the easiest thing to say. She can't bring herself to question Emmett's absence. But she can offer this much, feeling her ally's head fall gently against her chest. She inhales, he exhales.

They are a beast of the same sorrow, and rage, made of the same sinews. They fall asleep together, and they cry. And it's okay. Until sunlight moves across them, and they separate. She ties her hair in a bun, splashes water across the spots of dried blood on her skin. She looks like a mess, and she feels like one, but Niko still smiles at her.

( filler. introducing the cat & meeting steel & the fight )

"Stand clear." Then she fires.

little darlin', I feel that ice is slowly melting
little darlin', it feels like years since it's been clear
here comes the sun

perdita attacks the mormo, crossbow bolt #1
BQrzFcr8xIbow
miss

accuracy | day three

bow
Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage


lyrics; here comes the sun / syml cover

bow·bow

[L△LIA]

NIKOLAI.

hello darkness, my old friend

i've come to talk with you again

because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping

"Love shot!" You yell messily, out of your mind as you hold your crooked arm out for Perdita to hook hers into. Even in this drunken state she won't oblige you that much, but the booze makes you brave... or at least it makes you think you are. So you stare her down with something that looks more like a grin than any other expression you've made tonight, refusing to accept her denial as you insistently wave your bottle of peach soju at her bottle of whiskey and attempt to rephrase your demand. "...like shot!"

Before she can wave you off again, you hook your arms together and drink, nudging the whiskey towards her mouth with your free hand. There's a distant burning sensation as a splash of the liquor soaks your heavily bandaged palm, but you're numb enough to ignore it and pleased enough with your like shot victory that your thoughts move on quickly. You don't dwell on it. Neither of you do.

When the two of you discovered the cache of booze, buried in the sand like a pirate's secret stash, neither of you hesitated over questions of drinking it. Besides the need for a painkiller for your wounds, both of you were in need of relief of another sort as well and alcohol ticked both boxes. As the hours slipped by and you found ways to make Perdita laugh, it felt like becoming some kind of god and for the first time in a while you remembered why you're the way you are.

Even before coming here you liked making dumb jokes for cute girls not just because they're cute and you could be content to do nothing except listen to the ethereal melodies of their laughter for the rest of your days, but because you like the feeling of lifting someone's spirits. It's obvious that Perdita wants nothing more than to be the only person holding herself up at all times — and even as she drunkenly slouches against your shoulder she still believes she is — but all you want is to be leaned on like this, to be a little bit useful. There have been too many moments in your life that left you helpless. You don't want this place to do that to you all over again.

She laughs again and you light up brightly enough to chase away any kind of dark.

Side-by-side the moments fade into sleep, your fingers plucking lazily at a golden harp on your chest. You tried to tell her she was an angel and she put her hand over your mouth until you licked her palm and got flicked on the nose for it. Still, the sound of the harp echos on the air. If she wasn't going to confess to being an angel then you would claim the title for yourself, but she waves you off before you can get very far. The time for conversation wanes and the wind picks up, blowing wisps of cloud across an empty sky.

Your hand aches and burns. That must be the reason you catch yourself crying, huddling into Perdita's back after she turns away from you for breaking the unspoken deal the two of you struck when you cracked the seal on your peach soju and clinked it against her bottle of whiskey. Still, knees pulled to your chest and the top of your head tucked against her shoulders, she doesn't roll away. It's kind of her. She doesn't owe you that.

Perdita wakes first and you lay there drowsy in the early morning sun as she ties back her hair and gets to work packing supplies. Staring blearily at a shadow near the edge of your vision, it stares back. "Do you —" You start to ask, unsettled, only to be distracted by something more unsettling still. A tug on your hair, too strong and sudden to be the wind. You freeze. "Is there something there?" You ask, but she's too preoccupied to pay your uncharacteristic whisper any mind. The tug on your hair comes again, sharper this time and with claws. You whine slightly, too nervous to move. Suddenly the tiny claws dig into your scalp, scrabbling for purchase as the creature tries to get a better hold on you. You shout, jerking up from the ground with a flail as the thing attacking you flings itself at your back, climbing your shirt until you can feel it on your sh—

A mangy black kitten leaps from your shoulder, haphazardly tumbling down into your lap where it flips over its back and onto the top of its head, upside down as it attempts to unhinge its jaw to better gnaw on your knee — its new mortal enemy. It's missing a few tufts of fur, while other patches of slightly grayed fluff are overgrown, and half of its left ear and the tip of its tail are missing. It looks suspiciously familiar.

"Ahhhhh!" You yell.

"Yowwww!" The kitten screeches back at you, with a dizzying series of swipes.

Perdita's more upset with you for the false alarm than she is concerned for your safety versus a tiny kitten, especially after the two of you realize how similar it looks to the stuffed animal you found yesterday. Try as you might to wail about its vicious attacks on you, the moment Perdita reaches a hand out the kitten begins purring and happily leans in for ear scratches. You're the kind of stupid that still realizes that having it out for a cute little fluffball like this only makes you look bad, so you stop complaining and nurse your scratches in silence.

Hours pass and despite its apparent dislike of you, it refuses to let go. You and Perdita begin hiking in search of a place less covered in blood and the kitten refuses to stay nestled in your bag or your pocket, climbing up your arm or down your chest every few minutes until you attempt to wrestle it back. Eventually you compromise and carry it in your arms, ever-wriggling, trying not to focus too much on the way it enjoys absently chewing on your fingers with its teeny, needle-like teeth.

The red sand fades, turning to a patchwork of dazzling gemstones. It would be enough to take your breath away if something else hadn't already done so. "Hey! I know you!" You announce dumbly, pointing at a girl laying prone on the ground as Perdita aims her crossbow for an easy kill. The kitten jumps before it can be dropped, scrambling up and over the side of your head — dumbface! it seems to yowl — before making a graceful leap to the ground.

Taking a few steps forward into the path of Perdita's deadly aim, you drop into a crouch beside the girl and wave your poof of blood-stained bandages that used to be a very normal-looking hand, but certainly isn't anymore. "Hi, Steel!" Taking a seat beside her, cross-legged, you ignore your ally's frustrated grumbling ("Niko? You can't be serious right now.") and offer your district partner a weak smile. "I'd say you looked like shit —" She's obviously been through some since your time together on the train, but you try your best not to stare at her missing leg or the way she's covered in filth from dragging herself around. "— but that'd be a lie." She sobs, breathless and heaving, and you resist the urge to hug her, in case that would only hurt her more. "I'm all out of cookies," you lament, "but here." You scoop up the tiny creature antagonistically clawing its way up your arm once again and plop it in her lap. "Boom! Kitten."

When you turn back to Perdita her crossbow is lowered, but it's certainly not out of sight — neither is her ire. She looks like she regrets not shooting a bolt straight through your back and into Steel. You blink, expressionless. For once you don't know what to say. Reaching into your bag you pull out the half-empty bottle of soju and take a swig. "She's my district partner," you explain with the ridiculous scent of peach candy on your breath, as if that sentiment is supposed to mean something to someone who left their own district partner in the bloodbath without a second glance. You say it as if Perdita is somehow supposed to believe that you wouldn't have stood between her crossbow and any other helpless girl in this arena.

You take another drink before the ruckus starts. It's a tussle of yowls, high-pitched cries, and hissing shrouded in mist. Swallowing, you glance at Perdita and Steel nervously before tipping the bottle back and shamelessly chugging.

Setting the bottle down, you grab your weapon and impulsively hit the switch on your hover-boots. This time you're prepared: drunk, armed, and airborne.

( C H O O S E Y O U R O W N A D V E N T U R E )



( You hit... )

If being attacked by paper birds wasn't strange enough, this time you see a pair of large stone lizards running toward you. One of their horns digs into your shoulder as you attempt to dodge too slowly, fumbling awkwardly in midair as your boots save you from cracking your head against the dangerously hard ground at the same time they prevent you from regaining your footing. Like this you whirl in place for a few moments, too dizzy to see the attacks on your companions until it's too late to do anything to prevent them.

( You miss... )

Pulling the dagger out of your bag... You forgot. You forgot there were two paper-like birds impaled on the blade that you didn't quite have the stomach to pull off. Even now you're not prepared to feel the crunch of their fragile bones beneath your fingers and so you give the knife a shake, grimacing as you attempt to fling the tiny pair of corpses off your weapon. They don't budge and so you shake harder, but still the twisted design holds them in place. Soon you're whipping your arm back and forth with enough force to hurt yourself — so much so that when you feel something sharp dig into your shoulder you're certain that you have.

and the vision that was planted in my brain
still remains
within the sound of silence

niko attacks greisen, falcata
CLEuzJ06UWsword
1094 — shallow cut on left hip — 3.5 damage


lyrics; sound of silence / simon & garfunkel

sword

[WT]

Humans, in Arcus' admittedly brief experience, bring more hassle than actual pain. He'll fall asleep sometimes and wake up in a sharp-smelling enclosure where they hold him down and prod him with instruments and spread goop at the spot he can't reach at the nape of his neck, but he always wakes up again safe in his own enclosure—or lately, this new one, which isn't quite as good as his real home but which he's enjoyed exploring while he waits for the humans to figure out they put him back in the wrong place. (There's a place where the wind never stops and he found himself swept into a whirl of cloyingly sweet petals, and a great red lake whose other end he tried for a time to search for, before growing bored with the lack of fish and flying back to shore, and his favorite so far, the tall stone tower full of bird roosts to stalk. He only meandered into the field of bright stones a few days ago, and he thinks he might turn back for the tower soon; there's nothing nearly so fun here as chasing birds around the tower, and here, apparently, the rocks jump up and try to eat you. Ridiculous.) The trio accompanying the ground cat are new, so he avoided them at first, but they're humans, so he doesn't think twice about running to them when something scarier snaps at his heels.

He isn't prepared for one of them to rake something long and sharp down his leg.

It doesn't take a deep cut to wound a small body. Arcus hisses and clings hard to the shoulder of his temporary roost as he processes the way one front leg hangs: not dangling freely, but not cooperating, either. But whatever the human did is less deadly than the jaws of those things below, and he has—well. He had a clear path to freedom, it seems, as another of the humans stumbles into his path, airborne but clearly less used to it than Arcus, whirling aimlessly, ungainly even for a human.

Arcus hisses again and launches anyway, wounded leg tucked as close to his chest as he can manage—then, as this third human shifts to show a face he recognizes, pulls himself to just as abrupt of a stop. One of the keepers—?

No. Much more recent, he realizes, remembering flashes of a quiet floating melody he listened to with his head poked up from behind a pile of shimmering blue stones; there had only been two then, he feels sure, but he glances over his shoulder to the human he climbed and, yes, perhaps that could have been the other he saw. Looking back to the third, he lashes his tail, wondering whether this familiar one might offer some measure of safety from the one that hurt him; he trots cautiously higher, flicks his ears, offers a rare mew—

—the second human, still closest behind him, speaks, and something lashes across another of his legs.

Arcus yowls outright at that. It comes out more piteous than angry, and as hard as he tries, it trails into more of a whine than a hiss as he turns back to lash at the light-haired human. Forget the third human; he'll make sure this one is too distracted to throw anything else at him, and then he's gone.

---

Had she been aware of the small cloudburst of internal drama playing out just a little above her, Greisen still wouldn't have cared.

Why should she have? Can't an old lady do anything in peace? Honestly. Try to scavenge a nice breakfast, and a nearby innocent-looking crack in the ground bursts into flames that come three inches from singing you. Try to nap, and a catfight rolls practically on top of you. She's old, she's tired, she's earned her damn peace and quiet, and today has given her none of either. And now to top it all off a human is waving a blade at her. At her! Like she's the interloper here.

Barking once at Rapakivi to make himself useful, she swipes back at the human. If they won't run, fine. Greisen may be long since retired from a life guarding windows and rooftops, but there's life in her yet; if anyone here has forgotten the respect she's due, she'll can still remind them.

---

Rapakivi chirps miserably as Greisen barks at him. He doesn't think she blames him for the commotion, but only because she still thinks of herself as the protector. That was true once, of course, for a long time even, all the way back to when his horns were barely more than stubs and she shielded him from the rubble of the building they were both guarding; a little awed, he stuck with her after that, and she made grumbling noises but looked out for him all the same. She never quite stopped grumbling, but he learned to pick out the fondness in it, and never felt unwelcome—and when she started slowing down he stuck around as firmly as ever, promising himself he'd look after her in turn, because that's what family does.

And today he's failed her.

The fire, of course, he couldn't do anything about, but at least neither of them had been hurt. This mess should never have happened on his watch, nap or no, and now a slash through Greisen's shoulder is bleeding. All he can do now is choose a human to slash at with the points of his horns, and hope that he'll be able to keep her from any further harm.


Arcus [Mormo] attacks D4F Perdita Leto
xm7qXT1ZF|knife
[Shallow Cut on Back - 4.0]

Greisen [Dragoyle] attacks D8M Nikolai Konstantine
knife
[Shallow Cut on Back - 4.0]

Rapakivi [Dragoyle] attacks D8F Steel Campano
knife
[Deep Gash on Left Thigh - 8.0]

knife·knife·knife

[✨ zozo.]

STEEL.

but fix your eyes on me

i guess i'm all you have

and i swear you'll see the dawn again

"She's my district partner," I heard Niko tell Perdita. And it was enough for today. She's got a killer aim on that crossbow, one that makes me shudder with each arrow that buries itself so easily into the flesh of these creatures knowing I could be next. But I think she must have some heart in her to keep us around. She's certainly got it in her words, clear and confident, nothing like my awkward murmurs and half-whispers to Niko.

"Stand clear."

I can't really stand, but I get out of her way regardless.

The boots - well, boot - oddly helps. It grounds me, gives me a center point to swivel and pivot from as I swing my body around and drag my sword through the air with the movement. One of the things lunges for my leg and I howl, tipping sideways as I loose my momentum with the sear of pain.

"Not my other leg!" I cry as the gems below me crunch beneath my knees. My voice is desperate and bitter, lunging wildly with my sword toward the blurs of fur and tails. This awful place took Kenji from me and then it took my leg and now it wants to rip me apart bit by bit, lunging toward the only person I've got left.

Nikolai spared me a hundred times this week. Spared my tears, spared my grief, spared me a goofy smile each and every time. He gives and gives and gives and I take and take and take, and he never asks for anything in return. I couldn't give my life for Kenji's, even if he's still out there I cannot find him in this state. But maybe I can give my life for Nikolai's. Maybe I can repay him the only way I have left.

"Get a-way!" a grit of my teeth and a shaking hand, the last syllable lurching with my movements as my sword begs to find impact. "Get away from us!"

if we come back and we’re broken
unworthy and ashamed
give us something to believe in

steel attacks the mormo, sword
oqoBlYuzDWsword
Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage


lyrics; mumford & sons!

sword

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

PERDITA.

little darlin', the smiles returning to their faces

little darlin', it seems like years since it's been here

here comes the sun

They think her cruel.

Full of rage, and hunger. She does not try to sway their thoughts. The crossbow stays in her hands, the ache of yesterday's injuries bleeding into the new. There's a cut across her back, and a gash down her arm, and blood seeps through her clothes until she's not sure which shade is black or red anymore.

It's already ruined. All of it.

The cat-beast crawls over her, flapping its wings against her body in a state of panic. She wonders for a moment if it's only seeking shelter, but all she can think of is the cold fire shooting through her veins. She glances at the infection spreading from one of her wounds, and she wonders for a moment if she should cut the limb off.

Maybe this is a metaphor.

When something has to die, you kill it. You can't consider who or what they were before the death sentence, you can't think about the memories you used to share together, you can't listen to the boy who steps in the path of your arrow with his hands lifted.

She narrows her eyes at Niko when the creature leaps away, looking back to find Steel finishing off the tiny terror with a swipe of her sword. "She's my district partner." The words echo in her head, moving up her throat like bile and tasting like regret.

"Looks to me like she's dying."

Her words had been harsh, but they were not false. She keeps her gaze on the stranger now, listens to the desperation of her voice and sees the courage of her actions. There is a difference between saving yourself and being worth saving. Perdita admires her for fighting.

But she does not feel ashamed of offering the mercy killing. Because this girl will die, no matter how loudly she screams or how fiercely she attacks with her weapon. She's like a broken hourglass, and the sand is spilling everywhere.

If Niko wants to try and pick up the shards of glass, that's his choice. Perdita will not listen to his whining when they cut into his skin. The wind smells like peaches, and her heart is heavy. She grounds herself, pressing her heels into the sharp earth.

There's music on the horizon. It sounds like wailing.

"Breathe," she says to the girl whose air she tried to steal from her lungs.

"And, Niko," she loads another bolt and turns to face the horned beasts.

"Just stay out of my way."

little darlin', I feel that ice is slowly melting
little darlin', it feels like years since it's been clear
here comes the sun

perdita attacks greisen, crossbow bolt #2
JWrIosbBzmbow
Arrow in Hand -- 6.0 damage | +1 target practice (7)


lyrics; here comes the sun / syml cover

bow

[L△LIA]

NIKOLAI.

in restless dreams i walked alone
narrow streets of cobblestone
beneath the halo of a street lamp

If being attacked by paper birds wasn't strange enough, this time you see a pair of large stone lizards running toward you. One of their horns digs into your shoulder as you attempt to dodge too slowly, fumbling awkwardly in midair as your boots save you from cracking your head against the dangerously hard ground at the same time they prevent you from regaining your footing. Like this you whirl in place for a few moments, too dizzy to see the attacks on your companions until it's too late to do anything to prevent them.

Iridescent falcata in hand, you're unable to aim properly, but luck slices your blade across the creature that attacked Steel anyhow. It doesn't feel like a deep wound, the sword bouncing back quickly from the rock-like flesh, although the cut looks long and surely that must count for something. You have no idea what you're doing, that much has been obvious from the beginning. It's miraculous that you've done as much damage as you have when all you're doing is swinging your weapons around the same way you did as a child, play sword-fighting with your sister over who got to be the daring knight and who would get stuck as the damsel in distress. You're prettier, Charlie would argue and you weren't going to disagree with that, surrendering and putting on your princess gown like a good boy until one of your parents would catch sight of your sister swinging a stick around as a sword and declare playtime over. It was too dangerous.

You wonder what your parents think of telling you not to practice sword fighting now.

The stone creature turns on you, taking advantage of your flicker of distraction to swipe at you. Ducking too slowly, you feel something like claws drag across your back. It burns like split skin and welling blood, but you don't feel it in your bones the same way as when the bird stabbed itself fully through your hand yesterday. Maybe you're stronger from that experience or maybe you're numb enough from the booze to shake off these small attacks until you sober up and tally them all later... if there is such thing as later. Witnessing the way the creatures take advantage of Steel's severed leg to strategically attack her remaining one while reopening the barely clotted wound that must have already taken her to the brink of death once, well, you're not so sure if later exists. It certainly didn't for Emmett.

( C H O O S E Y O U R O W N A D V E N T U R E )



( You hit... )

Before you can once again attempt to position yourself between Steel and her attacker, Perdita fires a devastating bolt at the one swiping at you. The sudden flash of deadly movement causes you to pull up short and you have to pull yourself into a midair somersault to avoid being hit. "Niko," her words register too late, "just stay out of my way." Eyes wide, you try to make oh-so-shocked eye contact with her as if it's totally not your fault that you didn't heed a basic warning properly. It's obvious that she doesn't have time for ineptitude, so the only thing you can do is swing your sword in hopes of compensating for your many... many... many shortcomings.

( You miss... )

The frenzy of the battle is too fast to track. There's a screeching ball of mist grappling up Perdita's body, only to die — was it even alive? — just as quickly at the hand of the girl whose life was already on the line before all of this began. The bizarre creature that stabbed at you with its horn immediately turns on Steel as the other lizard registers your own attack and wheels back on you in search of revenge. Slamming into you as you lash out once more, only to have your aim thwarted by the collision, you're nearly impaled by the crossbow bolt that soars past you and into the creature ironically pushing you out of harm's way.

i turned my collar to the cold and damp
when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
that split the night and touched the sound of silence

niko attacks greisen, falcata
E3U6D750vDsword
1084 — shallow cut on left shoulder — 3.5 damage


lyrics; sound of silence / simon & garfunkel

sword

[WT]

The wound hurts less than hitting the ground.

The moment he was old enough to wobble into it under his mother's watchful guidance, a flight lasting mere seconds but opening worlds, the sky welcomed Arcus home. It's been playground and refuge ever since, not free of danger—there are birds with talons as sharp as his claws, and thunderstorm winds that break trees, never mind bones—but easily traversed, familiar, comfortable. Falling comes as such a shock that he almost doesn't know what's happening—but his wings realize it for him, flapping frantically all the way down, still flapping even after he crashes.

For Arcus, who swiped a stone lizard in the face before he gave in and fled, who has chased eagles and danced over water, helplessness is new. Surrounded by the feet and shouting of larger creatures, he tastes it for the first time he remembers, hates it, and refuses to accept it; he rolls painstakingly onto his stomach, flares his wings, stretches for the sky, stretches and stretches and—

—can't.

---

One of the small creatures who first woke Greisen falls from the air in front of her. It's quiet now, and still struggling but bleeding profusely and going nowhere; she judges it inconsequential and steps over it, dripping blood from the foot now bearing a shining projectile, eyes still trained on the human who has twice now dared to slash at her.

With long as she's been alive, Greisen thought she had seen it all: buildings collapsing, tiny explosions in humans' hands, flying metal, one home after another, bumbling young Dragoyles who decide to stick with grizzly old ones for no discernable reason. Floating humans are new to her, though, and she didn't believe her eyes at first, but a hard squint confirmed that no, that's not her fuzzy vision: at least one of these humans has figured out flight. Now she's still squinting hard, half wondering whether they've all always been able to do that and half wondering why this one isn't just flying away.

Now that she thinks about it, actually, never mind that—with the whole sky available, the hell was that one doing down here bothering her? Freshly irritated, she bares her teeth and barks; without missing a beat Rapakivi answers with a chirp, a condolence she huffs at but allows to settle her a little anyway.

No matter. She and Rapakivi will make themselves reasons to fly away, and if the humans still refuse, that's on them.

---

Rapakivi tries, to no avail, to shove his way between Greisen and the bright thing one of the humans throws at her. He doesn't make it, and Greisen barely reacts as the bright thing drives into one front foot, but Rapakivi warbles in frustration and lashes toward the human.

Busy with her own confrontation, Greisen barks behind him, and he chirps instantly as he steps back to rejoin her. Small comfort, he knows, but she seems at least to take that small comfort to heart, and in any case answering her is as instinctive as breathing. Dragoyles are not social creatures by design; they're designed to tolerate one another's presence comfortably and no more, so they can be moved easily from location to location. But they are protective creatures, and Rapakivi has no idea there's supposed to be a difference between these things—has no idea his world is supposed to center around a location, an assignment, instead of adoptive family he chose for himself. He knows only this: he loves hearing Greisen grumble at nothing in particular for her own amusement as much as he hates hearing her bark when she's hurt, and he does not want to see a world without her in it.



Greisen [Dragoyle] attacks D8M Nikolai Konstantine
i3fh8fAxBOknife
[Shallow Cut on Cheek - 3.5]

Rapakivi [Dragoyle] attacks D4F Perdita Leto
knife
[Deep Gash on Left Bicep - 8.0]

knife·knife

[✨ zozo.]

STEEL.

but fix your eyes on me

i guess i'm all you have

and i swear you'll see the dawn again

Perdita is a commander. If Niko is the heart and I am the broken bones then she is the head, leading our every move with nothing but a finger on her trigger. We dart and dive, dodging and lunging and thrashing about - and she stands still, clear and calm on the horizon.

"Breathe."

And with one word she reaches into my chest and pulls out my heart as if she knew my every thought, every fear, every feeling. Breathe. I try, gasping and choking on a confused exhale - but the panic in me only makes me want to hold my breath even more. Closer to death, closer to Dad. To feel his lungs on fire as smoke billowed and suffocated him. To fall victim to the twinges of agony in my legs, punctured and bleeding and sure to be my end. Breathe, she tells me, but I've spent my life holding my breath in order to feel closer to the last of my father's. It's a hard habit to break - but I'm a fragile kind of person.

So she breaks me to make me better. Because she knows how to win this, and I know without her I'll only lose.

In, out, she fires a bolt into one of the things hands and it screams. The one I swatted away with my sword lies still in the pool of gems below my foot and my hand still shakes with the ghost of its squirming body writing against my weapon. Instinctively I press my lips shut and blink back tears, feeling the itch from my lungs beginning to cry out for air. To breathe is to live. I'm still not sure if it's worth living anymore in this retched state but Nikolai seems to think I'm worth keeping around for a day longer. Kenji did, the thought of his crumpled body causing me to shake violently. He died to keep me alive, even when I was moments away from death and surrounded by devils.

And I can't die without thanking him. I can't die with the chance that he's still out there somewhere clinging on to his life. So I succumb to Perdita's commands and haul in another breath, let it out, fill myself up with life and take a moment to feel my chest rise and fall in time with her bolting up another arrow.

In the distance a canon fires - a reminder.

Live. Breathe.

Fight.

if we come back and we’re broken
unworthy and ashamed
give us something to believe in

steel attacks Greisen, sword
MaqrjUEitSsword
Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage

lyrics; mumford & sons!

sword

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

PERDITA.

little darlin', the smiles returning to their faces

little darlin', it seems like years since it's been here

here comes the sun

She experiences the world through a sheet of glass.

Or at least that's how it feels, standing there as claws rip across her arm. Her throat tightens, and she slips against the gemstones beneath her feet. She gasps, and her mouth fills with fire, and she starts to back away even as her limbs are ensnared with thorns.

But all she recognizes is that she has been hurt, and she has to go. Blood rushes down her arm, she regains her balance on the rocks, and she gets away. Things are not as beautiful, and grand, for her. She smells peaches, even now, and she remembers dancing with Niko.

It must have been wonderful. He must have loved the sight of her smile, the wind in her long hair. Her laugh, her warmth, the innocence of it all. Just a girl, and a boy, bleeding out on the sand with whiskey on their tongues. With their fingers reaching for the sky.

But she just remembers the movement, and the numbness. No words, no feeling, just her and him and the buzz of her thoughts. He held her, and she let him, and she's grateful that she can't bring that memory back. Him curling against her, and the echo of his sobs.

Now she has told him to get out of the way, out of her way, and she does not regret it. Even glancing at him now, even seeing the red smears across his skin. She doesn't make a thing out of it, she doesn't look down at something dying and pretend that it's okay.

She cuts her eyes at Steel, but they soften when they see her trying to catch her breath. It had been different for Niko, finding the legless girl and recognizing her from home. He spoke so softly, and so sweetly, and all Perdita had done was lift her crossbow.

The girl had been dying. She could have helped.

And that was all there was, that's all there is now. She will not save them, they have to die and she has to be okay with that. But not yet. She loads another bolt, and turns on her heels to line up her shot. They can stay, for now.

She doesn't have to go. But she will.

She always will.

little darlin', I feel that ice is slowly melting
little darlin', it feels like years since it's been clear
here comes the sun

perdita attacks rapakivi, crossbow bolt #3
dPwDBVWSv1bow
Arrow in Chest -- 7.0 damage | +1 target practice (8)


lyrics; here comes the sun / syml cover

bow

[L△LIA]

NIKOLAI.

and in the naked light i saw ten thousand people, maybe more
people talking without speaking
people hearing without listening

Before you can once again attempt to position yourself between Steel and her attacker, Perdita fires a devastating bolt at the one swiping at you. The sudden flash of deadly movement causes you to pull up short and you have to pull yourself into a midair somersault to avoid being hit. "Niko," her words register too late, "just stay out of my way." Eyes wide, you try to make oh-so-shocked eye contact with her as if it's totally not your fault that you didn't heed a basic warning properly. It's obvious that she doesn't have time for ineptitude, so the only thing you can do is swing your sword in hopes of compensating for your many... many... many shortcomings.

It's certainly not the best job you've ever done of making up for your mistakes. The cut is shallow, the lizard's natural stone armor deflecting you easily. It feels like it shouldn't be this difficult to attack a creature so much larger than the ones you fought yesterday. In this battle there isn't such a need for speed and precision. Still you struggle. Maybe it's because you can't stop stressing over how you should be able to do this, how it shouldn't be this hard, and how... h-how it shouldn't feel like it's supposed to be easy.

The truth is you should have some qualms about fighting animals that don't deserve to be here any more than you do. You were never a kid prone to getting into playground fisticuffs — you were always the one pulling your friends back, telling them they were dumb for trying to solve problems with their fists. You are so far out of your element that you can't find anything to latch onto except for a girl just decent enough not to kill you on sight and another who grew up somewhere near-ish your own home, as if that's a true connection and not just a geographical coincidence.

Perdita and Steel, they don't deserve to be attacked either. Choosing not to fight is choosing to die and you're not ready for that truth. For now, you can pick sides. You'll try to solve a problem with your fists just this once, twice, three times —

( C H O O S E Y O U R O W N A D V E N T U R E )



( You hit... )

It's a bad habit, the way you shift to position yourself between Steel and the stone lizards. You're not such a good person that you do it on purpose, it's just so trained into you — protect Charlie, always protect Charlie; that's what you're for, that's what we're all for — that suddenly you're positioned there without thinking about it.

When your cheek is sliced open, a truly shallow part of you is even more upset than you were over the paper crane fully stabbing itself through your palm. This hurts your vanity far more than it hurts your body, and yet the pain is truer because if you lose your pretty face then you're fairly certain that means you don't have anything left. "Not the face!" You screech, gasping with indignation.

( You miss... )

The sudden force of the stone creature throwing its weight at you sends you hurting through the air. There's a distinct burning sensation across your cheek, but it's nothing compared to the damage caused by your commotion distracting Perdita from her focus. You see the blood pouring from her arm after the other lizard seizes the opportunity to slash at her and your stomach sinks, knowing it wouldn't have happened if only you'd done as you were told and stayed out of the way.

people writing songs that voices never share
and no one dare
disturb the sound of silence

niko attacks greisen, falcata
bJizOl0aSqsword
1056 — shallow cut on right shoulder — 3.5 damage


lyrics; sound of silence / simon & garfunkel

sword

[WT]

Somewhere around a second bright projectile lodging itself in Rapakivi's chest, the force of the blow making him stagger for a heat-stopping step, he starts to wonder whether they should have run.

It isn't supposed to go like this. Fights with humans are brutal, but quick: either an explosion in their hands rips through you, or you rip through their throat. The only hard part is when they come in enough numbers to overwhelm you while you're dealing with the first few, and three should be far too few for that. Yet here they are trapped in a drawn-out affair. Maybe he should have considered, before charging, how out of practice they are—how Greisen struggles to set her sights anymore, and how distracted Rapakivi might find himself—and how neither of them has ever fought for their lives without the advantage of a building to climb. Maybe the only good use for this open field would have been escape.

Wondering doesn't help now. Greisen is listing to the left, still stubbornly on her feet but bleeding from hip and shoulder and leg on that side; even if she could muster the energy for a good hard run, and even if—more doubtfully—he could convince her to go, Rapakivi doubts her legs would hold up to the trip. He let them miss their window, the same way he let the whole ambush sneak up on them; no changing that, now.

All he can do now is hold his ground, aim for the most dangerous human first, and try to make it quick, after all.

---

Greisen, for her part, has no thought of flight. She spent a long time as a guardian before she was retired to other purposes; she's seen humans retreat, but her kind are conditioned to hold their posts to the bitter end, and old habits die hard. Her years have taught her that any fight holds only two ends for her, and the fact that she stands here today tells her that she has never had to worry about the second.

She feels herself limping, to be sure, but she tosses her head in the offended way that they both know means she's really amused when she feels Rapakivi lean into her left side to prop her up. Gunshots and falling buildings couldn't finish her off; if she were any less irritated at them, it would tickle her, truly, that this trio of hatchling humans think they have the trick of it.

If she anchors herself a little against Rapakivi when she lashes out again, well. It's nothing to worry about.



Rapakivi [Dragoyle] attacks D4F Perdita Leto
qetjOk70aPknife
[Miss - 0.0]

Greisen [Dragoyle] attacks D8F Steel Campano
knife
[Shallow Cut on Back of Head - 4.5]

knife·knife

[✨ zozo.]

STEEL.

but fix your eyes on me

i guess i'm all you have

and i swear you'll see the dawn again

I find a rhythm - boot, swing, dodge, breathe. It's feeble, weathering and slowing as each hurl of my sword fatigues me and I barely scratch at the things with the blade, but it's a rhythm all the same. How strange to think I'd start to find fighting familiar, how I'd re-learn how to balance and move without all of my leg, that I'd do anything with my life except lie on the couch in my living room and stare up at the ceiling. Adrenaline makes you do strange things and so does the idea of being dangled over the cliff, threatening to plummet into nothingness.

For a long time I thought I wanted that. Then I felt my leg buckle underneath my weight and I realised Kenji wasn't dead and Niko and his cat made me smile through cracked lips. In the heat of the battle, no words except those a boy named Emmett once told me guiding my hands around the hilt of my blade, I can feel what dying's like. Taste it. Almost touch it. Something I craved. Something I wanted more than anything.

And now I want no part in it.

It's a desperate swing, one that my arms ache under the weight of. I'm getting tired now, sticky red blood rolling down my skin and the wounds screaming with every move. The ground begs me to meet it, to curl up into it, to let it wrap me up and swallow me whole like it almost did last night. Even with one knee bent and broken, another twitching with pain, I refuse to buckle. I'm not dying to these horrible things. Niko isn't either.

But they have other plans. Leaning against each-other for support they lunge toward us, each spread out with not enough room to mirror their actions. One darts around me and I feel claws digging into my shoulders as a sharp pain drums into the back of my skull, the damned thing crawling onto the top of my head.

"GET OFF OF ME!" I scream, throat raw and dry from last night's grief and my earlier silent mourning. My free hand reaches back up to clasp at the thing and I hurl it with all of my might, wincing as it rips locks of curly hair from my scalp.

"They're not," I gasp, the tip of my sword falling to the ground for a moment as I look toward my allies, "going away."

Dizzy with fright, I tilt left and swing right - screaming into the air as silver blurs in my eyes.

if we come back and we’re broken
unworthy and ashamed
give us something to believe in

steel attacks Greisen, sword
99mRCoEHFHsword
Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage

lyrics; mumford & sons!

sword

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

PERDITA.

little darlin', the smiles returning to their faces

little darlin', it seems like years since it's been here

here comes the sun

"Not the face!"

"They're not going away."

She would like to say she doesn't mean to be so harsh, but she does. She kicks her heel against the hard ground, activates the jets in her boots — and then she's flying, over sharp claws and gnashing teeth. She lands on her feet, putting distance between herself and her attacker, before turning to face her allies.

"Stop whining." She loads another bolt as she says it, moving her gaze back to the beast that has its sights locked on her. Perhaps she should say more, 'It's not going to change anything. They'll leave when they're dead. Just keep breathing,' but she only scoffs and moves ahead. Each of them is bloody, and afraid.

Perdita doesn't see the appeal of sharing.

Least of all herself.

"I'll deal with this one. Surely both of you can handle the other one." She raises an eyebrow at this, tilting her head to the side as if to say, 'Can you?' It's not that she's trying to kick them while they're down, really she's kicking herself. Because she allowed this to happen; these are chains that she wrapped around her own wrists.

She applies pressure to the trigger.

She dreams of breaking free.

little darlin', I feel that ice is slowly melting
little darlin', it feels like years since it's been clear
here comes the sun

perdita attacks rapakivi, crossbow bolt #4
tc5OynxOn9bow
Arrow in Back -- 6.5 damage | +1 target practice (7.5)


lyrics; here comes the sun / syml cover

bow