~Finite~
There is a boy three feet away from the bush Cirrus is hiding in. And that would be fine, he'd move on, she'd slime after him then CRASHCRUNCH with a rock and it'd be all over, one down sixteen to go, perfect as a circle. But- she's an idiot, that's what. Dumber than dirt stupider than silt worse than waste cringeworthier than crap, and more than all that, because she didn't clear away her fire, that's what. And he's looking. Looking all around for Little Miss Idiot. If he's not struck down by the flames of perdition and rendered blind with hell's fury, yea, he could find her in seconds.
Fuck. Fuck! She clenches her teeth and probes the slice across her cooked-like-chicken intestines. It's not bleeding for now. For now, for now, means nothing for later, but if, if he doesn't see, she should be able to at least twitch fiercely at him without losing half her bodyweight. If he turns away, thinks the firestarter is long gone, because thank his unlucky stars the charred pile is cold, she can still leap out. Her fingers tighten around Siegemeister Genuine Igneous Co. Heavy Rock 3000, her muscles tense. Now or at no time in the past or future. She can do games. She can win. Knight to B4. Up a level, upgrade Siegemeister to that intimidating sword in his belt. Time to play.
Ah, just wait a picosecond, it's in his belt, he saw the firesite, why wouldn't he have the sword out?
And, damnit to hell, his district partner steps out wielding a Huge Fucking Axe with one hand, no big deal. The lumberjack next to her at the beginning. The woman made of beef and little kids' tears, right, woman, she's probably sixteen or seventeen but let's not kid ourselves, she could be twenty-five. Yeah, the audience will love this.
"It's cold. The fire's been out for a while." The boy prods the ashes with the tip of his shoe to demonstrate their coldness. "You want to stay here? I mean, we could move on. But I mean, there's not really a danger. You've got your- you know-" He gestures at the HFA and gives his best impression of a chipmunk giggling.
HFA wielder scans the area, passing over Cirrus's hiding spot with no indication of causing her grievous bodily harm. "We can stay here," rumbles a bass tone from the pit of departed death metal. "Considering my you know, I don't think anyone'll want to get near us."
"Um, you will be sleeping tonight, right? And, I mean, when you are, someone might really want to have the you know, so-"
"Braxton," reverberates 57-octaves-below-middle-C, "I'm doing watch tonight. Because if I don't someone could find us, and finding us would be-"
"Bad. You're totally right. Okay. I'll just get more sticks for the fire, right? If you want. Which you do, I bet. Okay then." Exire Septem puer.
HFA squints after him and waits for his scrawny back to get out of sight before sighing more heavily than a dark star. She flumps onto the ground, triggering a 4.9 Richter quake, and stares at nothing. Cirrus shrieks doom and destruction at her internally, for that blundering behemoth is facing right at her. As if the prospect of bashing her brains out hadn't been hard enough already. She can't sneak worth pork drippings when she's not trembling with exhaustion, malnutrition, and suffering from Gutsfallinoutitis. God. Damn. It.
She settles in for a long wait, tapping her chapped fingers on the Siegemeister in a distracted heartbeat, and tries not to think of fresh meat, no matter what her skin smells like. And time
p
a
s
s
e
s,
until night falls, along with the Sevens' eyelids. At the present time or never.
And, lo, Cirrus unfolds, back popping like corn, and steps out from her fortress, graceful as a half-blind lemming. In one palm a rock, in the other her nails, she approaches. She halts next to the lumberjack. She toys with her weapon ripped from the earth's heart, raises it to the woman's temple, and-
Can't.
Brings it back, the point so perfectly aligned against the weak bone barrier, and-
Can't.
It has hit at the most inopportune time. It. Cirrus grits her teeth, breathes hard and deep, but it's here. It doesn't let her sleep. It kept her up at night crying, Daddy and Mommy didn't understand, said it didn't happen for them anymore, but howhowhow can't it, it is everything and all that the human body is designed to fear. It. The utter suddenness and eternalness and mindstabbingbreakingkilling finality of death. And it's just- when she lets it get through, she can't stop, she can't stop it at all, it descends harder than a planet, and it is. The only terrifying thing about death isn't terrifying, it's more, more than anything, the fear of fireheightsdrowningdarknessblood all wrapped into a package the size and color of void, it's forever. That's what it is. Death is nothing without the shriveling thereness of forever. Infinity, the worst and most staggeringly impossible to comprehend thing that ever could be. The little bird comes once a century and sharpens its beak on the world, when it finishes a day of eternity has gone by, but that's not true, that would make it a time not the lack of time, if the bird sharpens its beak once a millenia and finishes nothing at all of infinity has passed. And life- life can't be the littlest part of infinity but nothing can be, so just let life fucking be, it's the only thing we have before the inevitability of it.
So, yeah. She can't do this. She just can't. She cannot send this girl into forever one single Planck before she would have gone. Cirrus cannot play this game because nobody deserves infinity before they've had the brightest and best and most meaningful finity they can.
She sags under the weight of I can't, lets escape a gasp of relief, of horror, of I'm sorry, and the girl from Seven hears it. Her eyes snap open and bore holes in Cirrus's.
And the thoughts, the knowledge of it, only belong to the mind. The hindbrain doesn't care. It doesn't know. It shoots through her predator here, predator bad, stop predator, and her brain doesn't catch up before the rock.
And-
So very perfectly aligned after all, the bone really is quite weak there. Fascinating results, Miss Green. Let's all make a note of that.
And-
All the light and strength and thereness spirals down the drain, and oh that must be a tic, Miss Green, no fault of your own, after such a wound muscle tics are to be expected, the rock may have gotten ideas of its own, and the 3000 model is so temperamental, that must be why it just keeps hitting and hitting and my my look at the blood on your shirt, I'm sure that's worse than forever. The grumpy old lumberjack won't have to deal with that kink in her neck anyway, even if it does look uncomfortable.
Oh, Miss Green, it's okay. We studied the hindbrain, remember? Eliminate all threats to stay safe, right? That silly boy would've killed you otherwise, and probably in some nasty way. Don't cry now. Let's get you cleaned up. That'll take a while…