The Guardian Games: The Odds of Five
Part 35: The Feast Part 3: Reshuffle, Redeal
Her breaths were getting shorter, her eyelids were drooping and her grip on her axe had slipped entirely.
"Astrid, come on, stay with me." Hiccup swallowed with a wince, before hissing through the sore of his throat. "We're together now – er, no that sounded wrong, um, we can go home together now. Working together! Ha! Erm, okay, not that great a prospect on your own side, I admit, but still – we could totally watch Gobber get drunk again, or shoot spitballs at Mildew! We could go – no, no, please, please don't-"
Her hands had started falling to her sides, so he took them into his own. They were still warm and sticky with sweat and blood.
"Astrid!" He was killing his own vocal cords at the rate he was going, but he couldn't help it. "You can't die. You can't-" his troubles in his speech only increased as sobs began choking up his airway too. "You're the warrior! You're supposed to fight this!" His grasp on her hands tightened when he felt her loosen own. "C'mon, Astrid!"
The Gods didn't just hate him. They utterly and completely despised his very existence, to the point that would only deliver him a blessing right before they twisted it into a curse. Here he was, almost murdered and crippled in one leg, freezing in the middle of the Cornucopia grounds, with the girl of his dreams dying in his arms.
He felt a tear trickle down his cheek, and though he had been taught to never show weakness, he didn't wipe it off, nor did he halt the downpour. What did it matter if the whole Capitol, the whole Panem saw him, a 'Career' of the Peacekeeping District, son of the great victor Stoick the Vast, cry?
Behind him, he heard Toothless emit a mournful croon, emulating his boy's emotions. He gazed up to find the dragon's head just beside his own, his green orbs flicking from the auburn-haired lad to the struggling blonde girl in the snow.
Where the images had been hazy before, Hiccup felt himself being abruptly dragged back to a very vivid and gruesome memory of another wiry young blonde, too in his arms, taken too early from earth by death's greedy claws. Even then he had been helpless, useless, like he always was.
Then an idea occurred to him. He couldn't do anything, yes, but he knew someone who could.
He surveyed the Cornucopia grounds hastily, praying that his old ally by some miracle was still here and not far away with Jack in the Summer Quarter. To his great joy, he spotted the blonde girl sitting mid-route between a heap of ice and the metal horn. She was on her knees, her face buried in her palms. One of the loose golden cords seemed to be coiled around a big bundle lying in the snow – he couldn't make out what it was, but he wasn't too concerned about that. What he needed was her help.
"Rap-" he choked on the first syllable. Massaging his bruised neck, he tried again, croaking, "Rapunzel!"
The girl didn't budge an inch. She couldn't hear him. The distance was too great, and his voice was too soft.
He attempted raised his voice again. "Rapun-"
It was impossible to continue. His throat flared up again, sending him into a coughing fit. Toothless hovered anxiously over him, grunting in worry, drawing his wing flaps move tightly over the District 2 boy. Hiccup was far too occupied to notice the dragon's actions, deliberating over the problem at hand, fully aware that Astrid's time was ticking away as he did.
He could try hopping over to where Rapunzel, but that would take far too long – judging by how wet his District mate's shirt was getting, she couldn't wait for him. He glanced over the Night Fury's wing and cursed. Hiro had escaped sometime during the debacle, so his own possible messenger had disappeared.
The simplest option was staring right at him – literally – and he had to smack his own forehead for not thinking of it earlier.
"Toothless."
The dragon met his gaze immediately, giving him his fullest attention.
The boy swallowed before speaking, "I need you to get Rapunzel."
The dragon blinked.
"Rapunzel," Hiccup repeated, pointing at the kneeling girl with the huge gold braid.
Toothless had glanced in the gestured direction, but simply returned to staring at the lanky little boy.
"Rapunzel!" The boy continued to point at the blonde halfway across the snow-ridden field. The dragon still didn't understand, no matter how many times he repeated the name. Toothless just wore an extremely confused expression while the skinny boy gesticulated wildly in frustration. "The girl in the cove with us, remember?"
The dragon's visage still had bewilderment, with a tinge of concern, all over it. Hiccup groaned, dragging a palm across his face. He knew that it wasn't the dragon's fault – he was supposed to speak human – but Astrid's breaths were getting shallower by the second, and her body convulsions were starting to settle quite unsettlingly.
Peering through his own fingers, Hiccup found the twin back fins of the Night Fury right in his own line of sight, and he got an idea.
"Your tail!" He cleared his throat as he directed beast's attention to the area which had once been crippled. "She's the one who healed your tail. You know,-" the boy mimed a wrapping gesture, then pointed at the tail again, then to Rapunzel.
The dragon's eyes seem to light up with comprehension, and he began to bob his head in excitement which Hiccup decided to take as a good sign.
"Yes, bud. Now I need you to bring her" -he gestured at Rapunzel, then brought his two palms towards himself - "to me."
The dragon warbled in acknowledgement, before bounding away across the snow, hopefully about to do what he had been instructed.
Hiccup got himself in another bout of coughs after that, an ache and a sore rubbing against his windpipe every time.
"You're gonna make it," he told the unresponsive girl lying beside him, taking up one of her hands and squeezing it. "You're Astrid." She had gone terribly pale from blood loss, and in the ice, her skin was turning cold too.
Blood loss. Hiccup stared at his own wound. Besides an occasional spike of agony, he was starting to build resilience against the pain. Nonetheless, pain was going to be the least his problems, especially with his own blood leaking like a bad tap. He made a peep of himself at the steel surface of Astrid's axe, grimacing when he noted that he too was as white as sheet.
Hearing heavy gallops on the snow, his head jerked up eagerly, then his face fell.
"Toothless, I said get Rapunzel, not her-" he had to break off from the reprimand in order to rub his throat again. Taking a second to think, he concluded that perhaps the dragon didn't deserve the chastisement. Rapunzel hadn't interacted much with Toothless, partially because she had been terrified by him, and because the Night Fury had been far too standoffish, as he had been once been with Hiccup. Perhaps in the dragon's mind, 'Rapunzel' was pretty much equivalent to healing hair.
As the Night Fury set the end of the golden cord with his mouth at his boy's feet, Hiccup had to blanch at the sight of the drool dripping from the dragon's maw onto the sparkling yellow locks. He shot a glance at Rapunzel, who had thankfully not seemed to have noticed the going-ons.
He sucked in a breath as he drew the tips of the hair over Astrid's wound. "Sorry about this," he whispered with a cringe.
He yanked the blade out as quickly as he could, but the blonde girl didn't react. Okay, that was really, really bad.
Pulling the yellow hairs more tightly over the crimson flesh, he could help feeling a twang of guilt. When Rapunzel had sung her sung in front him to heal his arm wound at the time, she had him promise to keep her powers a secret – who knows what the other tributes would do if they knew? By doing this deed, he would be not only betraying her confidence, he was exposing her to invigorated attacks, like Elsa.
But there was no other way. Rapunzel had been rather sympathetic with his 'situation' with Astrid, so perhaps she would understand.
He knew the lyrics to the song, because he had heard once or twice in the brighter days of his childhood. His voice was weak and rough.
"Flower, gleam and glow,
Let your power shine.-"
She was blessed with a gift - a gift to heal. How many people could boast that? But she had corrupted the goodness. She had used very medium of gift to deliver the opposite sentence.
She was a killer.
She was wretched excuse of a human being. She was filthy. She was guilty. She wanted to stay like this, prostrate on her knees, hiding her face from the world forever.
She was a killer.
It was gnawing into her insides, chewing into her like a parasite. The revelations and the taunts loomed and expanded in her mind, mocking her as she gazed up from the pit she had tripped into.
She was a killer.
Quite suddenly, the negative emotions - all the self-hatred and revulsion - vanished away. Instead, she felt as if peace had been draped over her shoulders, comforting her, soothing her.
"-heal what has been hurt,
change the fate's design-"
And then Rapunzel realized that the healing wasn't just mental.
Peering up from her fingers, she realized to her bewilderment that her hair was glowing. Hardly a moment, she also noted that there was a tugging on the right side of her scalp. Hadn't one of her loose cords fallen behind when she had been fleeing from Dagur? It seemed that someone had gotten hold of it.
Alarmed, she rose to her feet, her eyes following the river of gold to see who this hair thief was. When she saw that it was the puny young District 2 boy, she felt a mixture of relief and anger. Relief, because it was in the hands of someone she trusted, and anger, because he had just betrayed that trust.
Somehow, it didn't occur to her to grab the cord of hair and swipe it out his hands. The girl that he liked - the fierce girl with the pretty name - was dying, and he must have been desperate to save her. She couldn't fault him for that. Maybe it helped to assuage her guilt a little that she was healing instead of killing.
Killing. Guilt. Her entire body froze.
The right cord of hair was with Hiccup. The left cord was still wrapped around the broken neck of the Career she had just murdered a few seconds ago.
Except, with the golden strands wrapped around that very neck, glowing in accordance to the healing chant sung by the District 2 boy, it wouldn't be broken anymore.
The good news? The guy she had killed wasn't dead anymore, so she wasn't a killer. The bad news? Well, the guy she had killed wasn't dead anymore.
She felt the 'shink' before she heard it. She held a fist to her own chest, panting. It was like having part her soul permanently severed from her.
When Rapunzel turned her eyes to her left, she gasped in horror when she realized that not only had the left cord been shortened to a tenth of its original length, it been transformed into a dark, mousy brown.
"Thanks for the wake-up call." The criminal of the scene was guffawing to himself as he yanked the dead hair from his neck and torso, dumping it on the snow. The cord were all now brown instead of gold, and he stepped over them with a victorious grin. The glassy look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a gleam of fiendish delight. "Who knew? Another muttie in the Games."
She went stark still, her face going white.
\ Dagur whipped out a pointed projectile from his belt. Tossing it up first, he caught it again before hurling it at her. She managed to dodge it in time, but her hair wasn't that lucky. Her main braid had avoided any damage, but the dart had managed to slice the right cord clean off. The golden color leaked away as the dull brown crawled up the strands.
She cried out. He cackled.
She was breathing! Thank the Gods! Well, whoever they were, anyways.
Astrid hadn't awaken - possibly still drained with exhaustion - but Hiccup was in no mood to complain. She could live! She would live!
The twinge in his left shin told him that he had best attend to himself now. So he had grasped the golden strands and brought their tips over the wound on his leg instead. Clearing his throat, he was about to start singing, only for the gold strands to inexplicably turn ... brown?
He crinkled his forehead. He didn't remember Rapunzel go over this part. So clearing his thorat, he started singing,
"Flower, gleam and glow,
Let your power shine,
Make the clock reverse-"
He stopped short when he realized that the hair wasn't glowing. He began again, this time his brows furrowing more deeply,
"Flower, gleam and glow,
Let your power-"
It wasn't working. The hair was dead.
There was a squeal across the field, and he recognized that it belonged to Rapunzel.
Raising his head, he was gawking in horror as he witnessed the scarred boy from District 4 – where the heck he appear from! - slash the blonde right below her chest. The girl tried dart away, but the other boy stamped on the end of big braid, causing her stumble to the ground, flat on her chest. The Career was hooting away, spitting mocking words at her, laughing when she squirmed under his foot.
Immediately, Hiccup got to his feet – foot, the left one was still hurting like mad - calling out to his reptilian companion in a raspy, nasal voice, "Toothless! We need to go-"
He broke off when he noticed that the dragon had his eyes on the half-crumbled ice fort instead, where a terrible howl and shriek had just emerged. The russet-haired boy then watched as the Night Fury's pupils narrowed to slist again.
"Bud, what's-"
Without warning, the beast spun on its heel, biting into his shirt and picking him off the ground using his jaws.
"Toothless! Put me-"
The dragon gave no pause. Bounding over to Astrid, his front paws grabbed on her coat, and before Hiccup knew it, his entire world had gone into a blur, and the ground disappeared his feet - foot.
"TOOTH-"
His words were lost in the wind.
Betrayed. Abandoned. Alone.
Rapunzel had seen the Night Fury take to the skies, and she knew it was all over. Perhaps she should have expected as much from a Career, even a nice one.
But there were no friends in the Arena.
She made an agonized moan when she tried to push her body up from the ground, her face scrunching as she fought the pain. Dagur's foot however pushed her firmly back down, shoving her face back into the snow.
"Looks like the tables got turned, Goldilocks," he sneered at her, sniggering as he booted her on her injured side, making her yelp.
"And newsflash!" He sang as a chant, while he lunged with the blade, "I still win! I still win! I still wi-i-"
There was a sharp splat when a projectile suddenly tore itself through his chest. Glancing behind her, Rapunzel realized that Dagur's heart – whatever foul, cruddy black thing it was – was now replaced with a gaping red hole. Dagur's eyes went blank, and this time when he crumpled up onto the snow, Rapunzel was certain he would not be reawakening.
She knew the modulus operandi well enough to guess her savior. Getting back to her feet, she swept her eyes over the field. Near the rim of ice that Jack had entered earlier, she spied Gothel standing by spire of ice, her black curls bobbing in the wind.
The Career had in her hand another dagger, and this one she pointed at Rapunzel. The blonde felt her stomach constrict in anticipation, spacing her feet apart as she prepared to flee.
After all a long silent staring match between the two, Gothel, for unexplained reasons, lowered her arm, shook her head, spun on her right heel and left. Rapunzel still didn't dare to move. Surely it was some ruse to make herself let down her guard, allowing the black-haired girl to get better shot.
But Gothel just kept walking away, not even glancing back, and Rapunzel couldn't help feeling slightly put-off, and maybe a little bit disappointed.
Maybe after the series of alliances she made, she didn't want to fight in the killing field alone anymore.
She bit her lip, her eyes darting back and forth as she pondered uneasily over this conundrum.
"If the last two remaining tributes-"
Swing. Dodge.
"-are from the same dis-"
Cackle. Gasp. Wham.
"-trict, both would be crowned-"
Yelp. Falter. Reel.
"-victors. That is-"
Her head hit the metal wall of the Horn, and the impact was so hard that her clump of red coils barely provided cushioning. Before she knew it, she had been socked across the face by a boy two-third her height, fortunately with his fist rather than his mace. He delivered a jab to her abdomen, causing her to go slack against the metal surface, sliding down till she crashed down on her rear. Her spine, her shoulder, her stomach. Everything hurt. Her bow had been dropped some time ago, and she had taken the quiver off her person to use it as a bat, before he had knocked it from her hands too.
She had escaped merely fled from one peril to another, and now she would have been thankful if the blonde Career was the one who ended her life. Anyone would be better than him. Anyone would be better than Turbo.
His giggles were endless, filling her ears like the buzzing of bees, getting louder and louder as he approached her. Dizzy from blood loss – or was it the shoulder dislocation? – the sound which once simply grated her nerves now was drowning her in its shudder-inducing rhythm.
Merida tried to get up, to fight him back, to use her height over his strength and speed, but he shoved her back against the metal, chortling like the mad lad he was. She groaned, almost starting to see stars. She wished she was far gone enough too, but her eyes unfortunately worked well enough for her to capture the full insanity written across the gray-countenance.
"Hoo-hoo-yee! Isn't this exciting?" He squealed, shaking his mace around like a Pom-Pom in his enthusiasm. The redhead could only stare back at him, her expression blank but her insides squirming in fear- no, discomfort. Only discomfort, she told herself. She couldn't be afraid of a guy half her size and height.
But then, she was talking about the same guy who snickered as much as he breathed, and killed his own district mate with a smile.
"Have some candy!" He stamped on one of her knees and she screamed. The eerie grin on his lips widened as another peal of laughter. "Heeheeheehee! Aha haha-" he wipes a tear from his eyes "-I honestly have no idea why I say that. I mean, it doesn't even make sense in this – tee-hee – situation at all!" He threw his head back and laughed, before pushing the head of his mace into her bruised stomach.
Merida sucked in a tight breath, squeezing her abdomen to be as small as possible, while pressing her back entirely against the wall. Some of the spikes were cutting into her flesh, but it was the gleam in his eye that she was more wary of.
"Hmmhmm-hmm! Anyway, what on earth was I talking about earlier?" He prattled on as if this merely was a conversation over brunch. "Ah, yes! Why I love my mace! It's so shiny! Hahahaha! And sparkly! And when you put in the light sometimes you can –wait, where was I going with this?" He dropped to a mutter, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, right. I was going to kill you," he informed her with a bright beam, "silly me. I'm such a scatterbrain. Hehhehheh…" He stomped on her knee cap again, making her wince but not cry out this time. Merida's fingers were aching and numb, but she managed to ball them up into fists. She would not scream, or shriek. She would not give him the satisfaction of her suffering, no matter what he did to her.
"It's rather sad," he sniggered, more in malice rather than delight this time, "you know, that you have die like that bratty little friend of yours. What was her name? Vanilla? Van-therapy? – Wait, don't rush me." He wagged a finger at her, then snapped when it hit him. "Vanellope! Right! I mean, coz' your score's so much better than hers."
Merida froze, her heart stopping its palpitations altogether.
"We only targeted her because of you, of course. As much as she was a nuisance, I keep my eyes on the prize, don't I? Of course, Stabb-O boy had mess things up, but hey, at the end of the day, she still ended a dead brat." He gurgled sinisterly. "Am I right?"
Merida's ears were burning, and she was sure her face was too. This lunatic – it was his scheming that put Vanellope in danger in the first place. The dozens of vulgarities she shot at him felt far too inadequate.
Turbo only yawned at her screeches, even checking an imaginary watch as he did. "Blah, blah," he cut in, with a disdainful roll of his eyes, "now let's get to business." He removed the mace from her body, raising it over his head, still pinning her down with one foot. "So, Red," he chuckled, with a sinister smirk, "last words?"
She spewed the harshest curse she knew, followed by a spit to his face. The latter garnered at a response at least, as the gray-skinned boy flushed red, bringing the mace down in his fury.
Merida didn't mean to, but she closed her eyes, bracing herself for the impact.
But it never came. All she heard was the snickers melding into a startled shriek and a roar.
Her eyes snapped open, and her jaw dropped.
Towering over her was the gigantic boy from District 11. She had known how big he was before, but gazing up from the ground, it seemed that time in the Arena had only made him larger and scarier. With one beefy arm, he scooped the gawking Turbo up. Slamming the tinier boy against the steel surface of the Horn, the big boy boomed, "You killed her? You killed the kid?"
"Kid?" Turbo's voice had gone squeaky. His mace had fallen from his hand in his shock, while tittering nervously. "Wha-What kid?"
"Oh, I heard you!" The big boy – Roald? Ron? Ralph! His name was Ralph - bellowed, pulling Turbo off to thrust him against the Horn again, making the shorter boy grimace. "You killed the little girl, didn't you?" His voice swelled up an octave. "DIDN'T YOU?"
"It wasn't me!" protested the impish lad, panicked. His tiny arms groped uselessly against the other boy's solid grip. "I swear, it wasn't meeeeeee-heeheehee!"
The fuming boy growled at him disbelievingly, slamming his skull repeatedly against the wall, each hit harder than the last. Merida knew she should have tried to flee then, but she was completely transfixed by the older boy's wrath as he gnashed his own teeth, methodically bashing the whimpering and giggling boy's head. Then, a memory that seemed to have come from eons ago – a fragment of a confession.
"There was … this big guy who showed the bullies up one day. Since then, they've never bothered me."
It was then that it daunted on Merida that she hadn't been Vanellope's only friend in the Arena.
She was jolted rudely back the present when she witnessed the tiny form of the District 6 boy fall splat on the snow. His yellow eyes were wide open, and his pale lips had seemed to curl into a slight grin, despite the excruciating pain he must have experienced. There is no blood, only a little dent just above his left temple.
Shuddering, Merida withdrew herself, sucking in a loud breath.
Her first mistake. The puffing monster of a boy whirled around to face her.
She swallowed, her eyes darting to the limp body that once Turbo, then back to the mammoth. She squished herself against the surface of the Horn, as if she was trying to make herself smaller. Unconsciously, her gaze fell to the bow, lying ten feet away from her spot, and she found herself wishing it were her hand. That was the second mistake.
Ralph followed her eyes immediately. Finding them to be resting on the wooden weapon, he bent himself over without his own eyes leaving her to retrieve, then standing straight back to his full height again. In her head, Merida was kicking herself. All he needed to do was snap the bow in hlaf, and her chances in the Games would immediately crash down to zero. He might as well kill her right now.
But strangely enough, the boy didn't crush the weapon, examining it carefully instead, especially the handle. When he stared at her again, Merida could see the conflict in his eyes. After a terrible pause, he cast the bow to her, dropping it in her lap. Her hands clasped it at once while she shot him a questioning look.
"Just this once, Five." Ralph told her gruffly. "For the kid."
Stunned, Merida hugged the bow to her chest, watching in incredulity as the huge boy swung around, his backpack over his shoulder, as he stomped away across the field, heading straight for the Autumn Quarter.
She knew what he had seen; she could feel the jagged edges on the smooth wooden surface, and her fingers unwittingly started to trace out the letters. The thought would have made her smile if the day's events were already so upsetting. But no matter the injustices that the Arena wrecked upon them, one thing was true; even the Gamemakers couldn't stop Vanellope from reaching out beyond the grave to save the life of a friend.
Not daring to glance at the crumpled figure lying inches from herself, Merida scurried to her feet, grabbing her bow before dashing over to grab her quiver. Swinging it over her head, this time she didn't stop. She just kept running.
She was eight all over again, sitting in a hall of ice, holding onto the comatose form of her sister while screaming for her parents. Innocence had been unexpectedly shattered when they had rushed to the Victor's Village in the middle of the night, pounding on Pabbie's door and begging for aid. In the tension, in the fear, waiting in the lounge and praying for a miracle, she was rudely awakened to the two truths; Anna's recovery was exceptional and unrepeatable, and her own emotions had to be kept in line for the rest of her life. She was ice, and ice was cold.
And cold brought death.
There had been no sign of a wound – at least the one that was from her. From what she had seen, Jack had been faring very badly in the hands of the blood-thirsty Career.
Her fists balled, bordering on turning blue when she noted the straight puncture through his shoulder blade, right alongside the old wound. But she forced herself to uncurl them, taking deep breaths. "Don't feel. Don't feel. Don't-"
But how could she not feel the outpour of guilt and anger? They came to the Feast only, andonly, to get Jack a cure. From the small bag labelled '10' strapped to one of his wrists, she knew that the mission had succeeded, only for her to deliver a worst affliction. And there were no surgeons in the Arena.
She knew that the snow beneath her feet was turning to solid ice instead, and frost crawled up the icicles shield surrounding them. She was vaguely aware of a swirling storm outside, and that the winds were rising. Prior to this motions, she would have tried to bury her emotions further, lest she accidentally froze all her competitors to death. But the time for that was already over – she had already broken the rule, and she could only await the consequences.
All the same – why Jack? Why did it have to be the person who cared about her? Who she too cared about?
That was the greatest curse of all; not the ice itself, but the harm that befell anyone she held dear.
There was a burning ache in her head, as if all guilt and remorse were eating into her brain. She was sobbing, a lump clogging up her throat, her cold tears falling onto his frozen form. She wrung her hands together, finding herself praying that whatever fate the Gamemakers had in store for her would be quick to kill and would not involve Anna.
Anna. Her eyes widened. How would her actions affect Anna?
That thought had to be put on hold, because it was then she realized that the throb in her head wasn't from the guilt. Her skull literally felt as if it was on fire.
She held a cold hand to own head, trying to numb out the physical pain, then pressed another to her temple. But the smarting sensation only got worse, smothering and smoking until to burst into a full blaze.
She choked on her own tears, gasping and tearing now in pain and shock. She clutched her head hard, rocking back and forth in the rhythm of her emotions. Agony, fear, helplessness – each struck her soul like a clanging gong, and together the clamor deafened her, pulling her down into a spiral of darkness and shock.
Around her, the fresh cracks appeared on all icy surfaces, branching themselves out and ribbing into the icicles and boulders. The depth and length of each fracture grew as with every tight breath she gagged on. When she threw her head back and screamed, ice structures all around splintered at once, disintegrating into snowy ash and shards. Smithereens showered all around, but the strong winds blew them away from herself and her declining, if not already gone, ally.
Then suddenly, the pain stopped, and Elsa drew in a new breath, but it was not in relief, but grief. Exhausted from the devastating influx of pain, her body crumpled up, till she was also flat on the ground like Jack. Her eyes welled up against her will, and the rest of her body could not move. It was then she felt most keenly the departure of her icy protector.
Fire is an excellent servant, but a bad master, they say. But fire in the service of depraved masters couldn't be much better.
The snow giant had been a curved ball – Shen hadn't known the ice witch could create life, of all things. As he had fled the ice beast, he had murmured grumbles against life and how it had chosen to put him in an Arena with an ice mutant of all people. It had only irked him further that the blocky beast had caught up with him in seconds. The creature had picked him up in a vice-like grip, lifting him off the ground and swinging him about by the feet. Shen had writhed and shouted, but the giant snow creature had made no mind to his words, only morosely telling him to leave its mistress be.
But unfortunately for the snow creature, it had chosen to stand itself on top of a glittering metal plate. Even though disorientated from being hung and swung upside down, Shen had recognized at once that that was a tribute starting plate.
He had dug into his pockets, fishing out the remote controller that he had coerced from the District 2 girl the day before. It had been programmed to detonate the mines around the old food pyramid, but with whatever he had known about explosive controls, Shen had managed to reset it such that it would set off any mine within a ten feet radius.
And that had been exactly what he did.
When the plate below it had exploded, the ice monster had howled in both pain and fury. The impact of the detonation had caused a visible splinter right through the creature's torso, making the ice being groan and growl at the one at fault.
Having picked himself off the ground hastily, Shen had managed to speedily reset the control, before cutting a tear into the aluminum can of gun-powder. He had then tossed the can at the ice beast, then slammed the button again. This time, the series of explosions had sent the beast knocked the beast well and over, engulfing it in flames. The creature roared as its massive form began to shrink, its huge icy mass melting away, while a scream from its creator rang out through the Arena, echoing its loss and defeat.
The white-haired boy had wiped the soot from his lip, picked his sword from the snow, watching with grim satisfaction that the bothersome beast was now taken care of. Perhaps now if Fate would be so kind, he had better rid the Arena of the real monster.
While making his way back through the ice maze, braving the torrents beating against his skin, Shen spotted a metal canister lying in the snow. Bending over and brushing off the frost, he found that it was a blow torch, possibly once in the possession of the ice witch. It was an odd thought indeed, that she had carried on her person the very thing that could destroy her.
Using the metal claws attached to the gauntlet on his right hand, he sliced open the can along its rim. The liquid inside was colorless and thin, smelling thickly of alcohol. A smile crept on his face. Butanol.
Tilting his blade downwards at an angle, he poured the liquid down the steel, careful not to let any part of it touch his skin. Once the blade was coated entirely, he threw the canister to the ground, wielding the sword again with the gauntlet-covered hand, for protection.
It hadn't been hard to find his target – simply trace the origins of the weak whimpering. She was literally lying in a pile of ice shards, next to the lifeless form of her ally, bawling her eyes out and pulling her hair.
At the sound of ice crunching below his boots, the ice witch glanced up. Her expression was worn, but hardly subdued. When he swung the sword down at her, she lifted her hands, gripping the blade and stopping its descent. By the time she realized that there was a strange transparent liquid dripping down her arms, it was too late.
He snapped the metal on his fingers, sparking the butanol. Like candles on a cake, the entire sword burst into flame.
The mutant lurched back, shrieking as she withdrew her hands. He noted how she stared at her scorched palms in disbelief, then how she clenched and unclenched them, as if trying to will ice over them. But the palms stayed burnt and frostless. The witch was incapacitated.
When her glowing blue eyes met his red ones, they were full of fear. He didn't consider himself particularly sadistic, but he couldn't help feeling extremely pleased about it. The lovely, the awe-inspiring, the all-powerful elemental was literally sitting at his feet, feeble and petrified, while he - the weakling, the weirdo, the outcast - triumphed.
For once in his life, Shen felt, albeit strangely, happy.
He lifted the flaming weapon overhead, poised to smite the girl, only to be interrupted by the bite of cool steel in his stomach.
There was a hiss in his ear, "I believe I hadn't finished the job last time."
As easily as it had slid in, the sword in Hans' hands slid out the boy's abdomen.
The District 1 boy was obviously in shock. His grip on his own curved blade had loosened, and the flaming weapon fell harmlessly to the snow, flickering in the ice. He stared at the redhead with complete incredulity, one of his hands groping at the hole in his torso as he staggered back. The sensation must have been a familiar one - the last time Hans had shot a bolt at the Career, it had pierced exactly the same spot.
"This time die, won't you?" Hans told him coldly, before shoving him to the ground, letting him leak away into his own puddle of blood.
He wasn't as skilled as the Careers when it came to swordsmanship, but he was definitely much better at handling it compared to a crossbow. It was fortunate of him that the Gamemakers had decided to watch his training session after all, even though they did give him a pathetic score of eight.
Kicking snow of the flaming blade and keeping his own in his hand, he approached the blonde girl. She must have heard him speak, but she made no sign of acknowledgment. Her eyes were glued to her hands, red and swollen.
"Hey." He tried to sound gentle as he crouched down beside her. Her gaze flickered briefly to him, then dropping back her hands. He took a look at them himself and cringed. It wasn't as bad as it could have been - it didn't even draw blood - but he knew the blisters would not heal easily.
"Put some snow on it." She glanced at him, mystified. "It'll help. Trust me."
She did as he had told her, and then it struck him how odd it must have been for her to scoop off ice from the ground, like ordinary people. Having spent her entire life in snow, she might have never been burnt before.
As she plunged her finger into the snowdrift, Hans noted the tear stains across her cheeks, and also a swallowed sob that she made. It was then that he noted that tears were not out of pain, but for the half-frozen body lying a few feet away.
It was the 'playboy' - the District 10 fellow with all the sponsors. From his angle, it could be observed that there was a deep stabbing wound in his side and in his shoulder - possibly the blow that killed him. Hans recalled seeing the brunette boy at the ice castle on the day of the attack. He had no idea why he had been there, or why he had even been with Elsa, but they must have formed an alliance, while he himself had been bleeding to slow and sure death on the mountain's peak.
Look like they had swapped roles.
"There's nothing you can do, Elsa," he whispered to her as kindly as he could. Her nerves must have been frayed to the last knot, considering how badly she trembled. An ice mutant shouldn't be able to get that cold, right?
"Shen?" The voice was came from far away, and one that the redhead was well-acquainted with.
"Elsa," Hans spoke to the wild-eyed girl in a low, but urgent voice. "We need to go."
She looked up towards him, then her gaze dropped back to the snow. She seemed unsure, almost guilty.
As much as he would have preferred to give her the time to grieve properly, he knew that the District 1 girl would arrive soon. She would then see the gap in Shen's torso, the blood-stained sword in his grip and put two and two together.
"Can you walk?" He asked her.
Elsa didn't respond immediately, so he was about to repeat the question when she shook her head. "M-my ankle," she stuttered, her voice weak from screaming, as she gestured feebly to her foot.
"Shen! Where are you?" Gothel was still way off course, but she was bound to hit this area eventually.
"Okay." Hans inhaled deeply, forcing himself to think to rationally. He needed to, for both of them. "Okay. This is what we'll do." His tone became business-like. "I'm going to have to carry you. You -" he held out the hilt of his sword out to her "-are going to carry this. Can you do that?"
She shook her head more vigorously this time. "I can't," she told him tearfully, "I can't. I'll freeze-"
"No, you won't." He disagreed, trying to take one of her arms only for her to snatch it away.
"I will." Elsa insisted, hugging her knees, turning away from him. "You should go."
Didn't she get it? This rule change - this opportunity was there for them, from the story that he had built. Why was she throwing it away?
"Elsa, please," he begged, but she would not be stirred, stubbornly refusing to even look at him.
She ordered, folding her injured hands towards her chest, "Go!"
He felt a chilly breeze sweep past him at that moment. Her hands or no hands, she was right. She was a hazard, and perhaps not quite worth the risk.
He could, actually. He could run off her and leave her in the razor-claws of Gothel. But when he had heard the announcement, he had abandoned his initial plans and returned. Even now, he was putting himself at risk just to plead her to let him save her life. And she was not going to throw all his effort out of the window.
"Please, Elsa." He pulled himself as close as he could, till his lips were just above her ear. He cupped a hand by the side of his mouth just as he whispered the words, so that the cameras would have no record of what he uttered. "For Anna."
As he expected, it had taken immediate effect. The blonde had stiffened at once, before sighing and dropping her arms. Shifting herself to face him, she informed him very seriously, "I'll still give you major frostbite."
"No, you won't." In his pockets, he whipped out the other gift - the other advantage that he had found from the '12' bag on the table. He placed them in Elsa's hands, a small smile on his lips. "To think, after all these years, I finally know what these are for."
The blonde was dumbfounded as she examined the pair of arm-length gloves he had given her. He could read conflict in her visage, so he said, "We have to hurry."
Hesitantly, she pulled the gloves over her hands. They fit over her fingers snugly, as if they were made exactly for her.
He handed her the sword hilt. "Let's go."
Elsa took the weapon, hugging it to her chest. When he nodded expectantly at her, she swung an arm over his neck, before he scooped her up from the snow. She wasn't very heavy, and he was able to carry her easily away from the ruins. She was cold, but everything around him was, so it was easily to shrug it off as he brought them towards the Autumn Quarter.
It must have looked pretty romantic on screen; the star-crossed lovers of District 12 finally reunited, and with the opportunity to stay that way. But Hans couldn't help feeling the effect must have been slightly ruined by how the blonde kept peering over his shoulder, back to where the District 10 boy lay. And even though he was already doing his best to suppress his eight year-old self, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy.
"Shen?"
Focus. Get the white-haired creep, and get out.
"Shen! Where are you?"
Don't go back. Don't look back. Don't even think about it.
"You know, I can't find you in all this frost on my own, White-wash."
There wasn't anything she could do to do bring her back. Saving Rapunzel wasn't going to change the past. Just focus.
"Shen!"
But to save Shen? He deserved to be beaten into bloody pulp, or, since she didn't want to risk further ruining her manicure, have his entails removed by gutting. It was he who destroyed her life, he who took what was most precious to her. What had been most precious to her.
Gothel halted her steps, pursing her lips together. She pressed the cool steel of her bare knife gently to her cheek unconsciously, taking deep breaths. Why should she bother herself was the mental-case? Why should she risk her own chances of winning to give him a second chance?
Deep down inside, she knew the answer. She still trudged through the snow, calling out his name, because she had the unfortunate affliction known as empathy.
No! Not with the psycho himself - goodness, no! She was better than that. She actually empathized with, as strange as it sounded, his parents.
When she had presented the evidence of their son's carnage to his parents, they had been beyond horrified. But instead of feeling smug that her plan had worked, she had felt only bitterness. She had never seen parents who actually cared about getting their kids fixed. Had she been in his shoes, her own - and fortunately late – father would have been flogged her to the bone and thrown her out on the street. Her similarly dead mother would have smiled, given her a cookie and a glass of warm milk, and then have her stabbed in her sleep.
Shen had no idea how lucky he was.
"SHEN! IF I DON'T FIND YOU IN - oh."
It turned out that he was at the site of her last big battle, so she had just walked one whole circle for nothing. The corpse of the District 10 had not moved since she had last seen him, only now he had been abandoned, and slowly being buried by falling flakes. Ten feet away, her district mate was lying flat on his back, hissing curses while attempting to plug the leak near his navel. He tried to sit up when he caught sight of her, only to slump back down.
"Oh, stop that," Gothel snapped at him. "You're just making it worse." He glared at her for the unwanted input, but she brushed it off. Acrimony from Shen was as common as light from the sun.
She went over to the District 10 boy's body first. Bending down, she grabbed the fabric of his jacket and ripped strips of cloths from it. From close quarters, she noted that the flush that he had during her battle had been replaced by a paper-pale countenance, complete bluish lips and … a white lock of hair.
She reached out to finger it, finding to her surprise that that it wasn't covered with snow, but rather natural colouration. She hadn't noticed that about him while fighting. How odd.
Grabbing the rags in her hand, she now approached Shen, who immediately attempted to edge himself away her, only to clutch on his wound and grimace. She rolled her eyes, dropping to her knees on the snow and ordering, "Hands off."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't need your help."
Impatiently - "So you'd rather bleed to death?"
He let his bloody hands drop with much reluctance. It was then that she noticed that one of his hands had a wonderfully crafted steel glove over it, with pretty claws attached over the fingers. Quite a neat weapon, but hardly fit for wound dressing.
His red eyes never left her while she dressed him. She didn't bother to be gentle, and his cries of indignation were blown away by the freezing winter winds. Gothel mechanically knotted the makeshift bandages together, refusing to even give him eye contact. She was going to work with him, but that didn't meant she needed to nice about it.
When she had knotted the last of binds together, she told him, "Get up. We need to move."
She then pushed herself off the ground, about to stand, when the boy tackled her to the ground. With surprise on his side, he pressed his knees down on her elbows, whiled the rest of his body locked her down on the snowdrift.
Gothel was broader-built and the stronger of the two, so technically, he shouldn't be able to keep her down with his puny weight, but he had one thing in his favour; the fancy metal glove of his were had her in chokehold. If she resisted, he would dig his claws into her throat and yank out her windpipe.
So, she could only curse, "You blithering moron! We can both win-"
"We?" He spluttered in rage, his teeth and his fists clenching simultaneously. Gothel winced when she felt the claws biting into her flesh. Vehemently, the white-haired boy declared, "I would rather die than share the victor's crown with you."
She tried shifting her arms, to make a grab at his own throat or her own knives, but he plunged darts into her arms - directly on pressure points, she realized to her chargrin, when her hands flopped uselessly to the ground.
"You-" his eyes had gone crazed "-you ruined my life. You have to pay."
"I have, haven't I?" Gothel retorted, her own blood starting boil under her terror. Her own tone was scathing, though there were tears in her eyes. "You took the most important thing in the world from me. Wasn't that enough?"
"The most important thing?" He made a harsh, cheerless laugh. With a shake of his head, he told her, his words dripping with malice. "We both now that isn't true."
She wasn't sure what he meant, till she felt his steely grip shift from her neck to just below her chin. She inhaled sharply, panic coursing swiftly through her brains.
"Look at it this way; I'm merely taking back what you have stolen," Shen said with a shrug. She felt the edge of his talons sink into the skin just behind her right jaw. "You have no idea how much the nose cost my father. And skin. And the cheekbones."
Gothel bit her tongue, holding back any desperate pleas that she could have. And she had a lot. At the corner of her eyes, she watched, powerless as he began the slow carving, his cool determination only marred by cruel delight.
Then - "Leave her alone!"
Clang!
Slapping the District 1 boy with the frying pan didn't have the desired 'instant-coma' effect, but it was enough to knock him off Gothel while he grabbed the bruise at his head. Rapunzel noted then that he had a bunch of rags tied around his stomach, so she kicked him there, giving him no chance to go for any of his weapons. He reeled back, releasing the black-haired girl from his hold altogether while occupied in his own auguish.
The blonde ran over to Gothel, crouching by her side. "Are you alright?" she asked. Glancing at the knives in the elder girl's arms and the incisions along her face, she supposed that the question answered itself. "Um, okay, okay. Don't worry I'll-" she swallowed, slightly unwilling to say the words. But Gothel had probably witnessed the whole mutant thing already, right? "-I'll heal it."
The other girl nodded without probing deeper. Instead, she went straight to more important things. "Help me take out the knives."
Rapunzel felt rather queasy at the instruction, but seeing that Shen was starting to pick up himself again, she did what was asked with a gulp. Gothel got to her feet at once, flicking the blood off her arms, as if was just dust. Turning to the white-haired boy struggling to rise, she whacked him in the abdomen with her sole, sending him back flat on the snow. Before he could move again, she brought a foot firmly onto his throat, not letting it move even when the boy tried to push it off. Her other foot she placed over the metal glove on Shen's right hand. Rapunzel swallowed, involuntarily taking a step back, but she couldn't rip her eyes away from the moment.
"I was willing to work with you, jerk!" Gothel was fuming. "I was willing to give you a chance -"
"I take no pity from you," Shen spat back at her. Rapunzel could detect no fear in him, even when the black-haired girl stamped her foot harder onto his neck.
"We could have gone home!" Gothel continued, her own anger rising. "Your parents-"
"My parents -" a harsh gasp "- hate me."
Gothel just shook her head at him, half-disbelieving, half-disgusted. "It really is impossible for you to even understand love, isn't it?" She snorted, sighing in exasperation. "All that love, all that care, all that compassion, wasted on a miserable cretin such as you."
She lifted the flap of her jacket, and Rapunzel was stunned to note the impressive collection of projectiles she kept beneath it. Removing a thin poniard, she told Rapunzel without looking at her, "Shade your eyes, dearie. This is going to be-" she rubbed some of the blood off the trail below her earlobe, examining it rather distastefully, "-ugly."
Uncertain, the blonde spun around. A second later, she was glad that she did. She never took Shen for the screaming kind of person, but apparently Gothel was skilled in using knives in many ways far worse than in throwing. Rapunzel cupped her ears, her shoulder hunching up and her knees buckling as she tried to drown her own revulsion in her palms.
After what seemed to be an eternity, Rapunzel heard the shrieks descend to a whimper, and against her better judgment, she took a peek behind.
She was aware that there was blood and ...something else, spilling out from Shen's lower body, but her vision focused on Gothel, who was hovering over the other boy's convulsing form, coolly tilting her head from side to side while aiming the knife tip under the boy's chin. Shen's eyes were still open wide, and he was very much conscious.
Rapunzel was starting to have second thoughts about coming to Gothel's rescue. But maybe the thing that stopped her from running off then and there were the three words the black-haired girl whispered to her District mate.
There was no taunting cheerfulness, just impassivity, like a judge passing a sentence. "For my daughter."
With that said, Gothel slowly slid the metal in and out of his larynx, causing him to gag and splutter, his arms flailing about against his will. Rapunzel spun her head away immediately, shutting her eyes and plugging her ears, hoping she would escape this event without remembering any details of Shen drowning in his own fluids.
He awoke to the sound of retching. It was one of those sudden sort of awakenings - the kind that you had right after having a nightmare. Or after having defibrillators pressed to your chest.
With a sharp gasp, Jack sat himself up, sucking in deep breaths, as if he had stopped breathing a moment ago.
He heard the retching stop, replaced instead by a screech.
He turned his head to the direction of that horrid piercing sound, wincing at when he discovered how stiff his neck felt. In a matter of fact, his entire body felt stiff. And cold. Definitely cold.
The noise-maker was a girl with a headful of red curls and bright blue eyes, and she was holding a hand over her mouth. Pointing at him almost accusingly, she exclaimed, "You're alive!"
He was going to demand of her why he shouldn't be, then memories came flooding back in. The Hunger Games, the Arena, Bloodbath, battles, blood, Elsa...
Elsa. He must have been awake all along after all, because he somehow recalled her weeping over his fallen form, before leaving in the arms of her District mate - her supposed 'boyfriend'.
It was like a hammer-blow to the chest, and he had to set his jaw hard so as not to show his disappointment.
Elsa left him behind, not the other way round.
When he became aware that the District 5 girl - her name was Merida, right? - was pointing an arrow at him, he told her off snippily, "Oh, put that down."
"Why?" she demanded at once, not lowering her weapon. "You were involved in some double-crossing scheme involving your fancy armbands." So she had noticed. Well, she was sharp, he would give her that. "You don't have your weapon right now." True, true, it was still strewn somewhere in the snow. "And this is the Hunger Games, and you're not from my District."
She made excellent points on all counts, which worked in his disfavor. Wilting second by second under her threatening glare, he noted that she squatting by the pile of ... was that the District 1 guy?
Jack slapped a hand over his own mouth. Now he completely understood the retching. "Whoa, who cut the-"
"No idea," Merida cut in, drawing back the bowstring tighter. "Stop stalling and give an answer."
Trying to bite back the bile rising up his throat, Jack noted that the jacket on the District 1 boy - or whatever was left of him - had been half way through being yanked off his arms.
"Were you trying to steal his coat?" he asked her, with a quizzical look.
Merida turned beetroot red, her fingers gripping tighter on the fletching of her arrow. "Is it a crime to be cold? And besides, yours is tatters."
She didn't have a jacket, so perhaps procuring one off a dead body wasn't that bad a plan. But she wouldn't really need one when she left the Cornucopia grounds. Everywhere else was warmer than here, so a little cold could be tolerated. Everywhere but...
"You're going to the Winter Quarter, aren't you?"
She frowned at him. "If I am?"
"I spent a good deal of time there in the beginning in the Games in Winter. I can be your guide. Water. Caves. Food."
She scrunched her face up, considering his words, but not convinced.
"There are some nasty wolves there too." He jerked his head at his wolf-bite wound. "Don't want to fight that alone, do you?"
Merida scoffed, nodding at her bow. "I'm more than capable with dealing with wolves."
"In packs?"
She fell silent.
Jack was grinning inwardly, adding slyly, "I've done shepherding, by the way. Fought them by the tens before. Serious. It sucked."
She took about a good minute to brood over this, before lowering the bow. He let out the full visible grin.
"This doesn't mean we're allies," she muttered rudely to him, hopping to her feet.
"Sure, we're not," he answered in far more agreeable tone, still smiling like a Cheshire cat. Stretching his frozen muscles, he finally managed to get to his feet. Now that the threat of harm was gone, he could take a better look at the redhead. Her left arm appeared to be crooked - possibly dislocated - and observing how she unconsciously tightened her elbows to her stomach, he guessed that she might have hurt a rib or two.
"What happened to your hair?"
He gazed at her in surprise, before starting to examine her hair. The curls around a large gnash on her head seem to have been stuck together in clumps of brown-red. "You should worry about your own."
"No, yours is turning white."
"What? That's rid-"
He broke off. In the periphery of his vision, he noted that there was a tint of white in his bangs. Thinking it to be snow, he ran his fingers through it, but the white didn't come off. Picking up one of the smoother, reflective ice shards from the ground, he examined his hair once again to find that the redhead was true. There it was, staring right at him in the face - a single, white lock.
He couldn't think of any logical explanation, except one that was intuitively illogical. "She struck me with ice."
"The Snow Queen? She did that?" He heard Merida ask in amazement. "What's it? A curse or something?"
"No, of course not," he dismissed that immediately. "It's just-it's just-"
Then he remembered how the sharp cold rammed against his chest, sending chills all over his body, causing his body to crumble. He held a hand over it, while a story came to mind. "Last time, she said that she stuck her sister's head, and froze her mind. I think this is something like that but-" he swallowed, fisting his own shirt, trying to understand it himself, "-I think she hit my heart."
S/N:
I'm not sorry for implying that Astrid died last chapter. Okay...maybe a little. But if you recall my exact words, I said that 'Astrid's...yeah. Well, as much as Dagur is.'Get my drift? Of course, Dagur fell back into death's claws soon after escaping, but whatever.
Oh yeah, Marshmallow's pretty much dead too...if he was alive in the first place. It's bad enough I have Toothless in the Games.
As mentioned before, there are two things that Gothel hold most dear. The first her looks, and the second has now been revealed. It would be explained later. If anyone of you are smacking your foreheads and going 'cliché much?', well, think about it – her full title is MOTHER Gothel. Even if she isn't Rap's mum here, I didn't want to take that from her identity.
Obviously, as many of you have guessed before, Ralph is Thresh.
Hans is back! And so's Jack.
Shen's death has to be one of the most terrible of all that I've written. Hope you guys got the implications, because I'm not adding any more details to it.
So role call!
Death Recap:
1 - Shen
3 - Honey Lemon
4 - Dagur, Heather
5 - W. Dingwall
6 - Turbo, Taffyta
7 – Male & Female Stabbington (the Gender-bented)
8 - Greno
9 - Nameless Boy, Nameless Girl
10 – Toothiana
11 - Vanellope
Remaining Players
1 - Gothel
2 - Astrid, Hiccup
3 - Hiro
5 - Merida
8 - Rapunzel
10 - Jack
11 - Ralph
12 - Elsa, Hans
Known Alliances :
Team Vikings: Astrid and Hiccup (& Toothless)
Team Starcrossed: Hans & Elsa
Team Tangled: Gothel & Rapunzel
Team Outliers: Merida & Jack
Metal Band Band:
Hiro - 3 bands (Hiccup gave his back to Hiro)
Jack
Rapunzel
If you look at the alliance list, you'd realize that all of them have changed - hence the title of this chapter.
With the Feast over, I'd like to know, what was your favorite fight/event/death? My personal favourites are Hiro vs. Hiccup, Rapunzel being attacked by a revived Dagur, and Gothel killing Shen.
Up Next: Featuring Aftermaths - Backstories, Wound-fixing and the general lost and gain of Hope.
A/N:
Sorry about the really late update guys. Writing the Feast arch has been killing me. After this chapter, I fully intend to go back to writing 5000-7000 words chapters again.
Oh, last week I said that Chap 34 broke the review per chapter record. This week well, Chap 35 broke that record again. I'm glad to note that people are really hyped about the whole Feast! Yay. But yeah now time for boring stuff like relationship building, bonding recovering blah blah then finally boom etc.
A/N:
the fam man: Wow. Really? Me? Thanks, dude. Hope the speculations worked out... Or maybe didn't. Thanks once again.
waveringshadow: The great thing (and worst thing) about Gothel is her lack of backstory in canon, which leaves me to try to shape her in anyway Iike. How I post regularly? I write about an hour before I sleep every night, I write on the buses, and on weekends I sit down and write for like 3-5hours straights. It's very unhealthy actually, but I have deadlines for this story, so yeah.
hiddeninthelibrary: All's well. Astrid and Jack are still living. Sorry for the trick...a little. Rapunzel killed someone and unkilled him too, but she's not going to let herself off that easy either. Hiro needs a comforter alright. He's gonna be a very guilt-wrecked guy.
Guest: Chill, man, Jack ain't dead...yet. Will he and Elsa survive? Maybe, maybe not. Will they end up together? Um...do you mean that they end up dead together or in a relationship? Because option1 is more likely than option2.
minerbuilder12: Hahaha, I would argue that Elsa isn't more powerful than Jack in movies - it's just that both of them have very different ways of manifesting them, and that Elsa has far less control over hers, which is why hers always ends up harmful. The effects of Elsa's ice blast on Jack will be revealed only later in the future, but I will say upfront that the results of that effect is unique to Jack and Jack only.
MissiriKoharehn: Yep, your assumption was right. I'm just mean. Come to think about...Turbo is - I mean - was quite remarkable in his escapes with death, wasn't he? But in the movies, he did survive being eaten by a bug.
Booksaremylife: There will be a sequel. Odds of Five is based on The Hunger Games and a bit of Catching Fire. The sequel will probably be an overlay of Catching Fire and Mockingjay. There may even be another one for the last part, like a Mockingjay part 2 or something. My summer is different from yours so I'm not sure if the dates are right, but if this story goes beyond July, I will have to hiatus it for three months, which sucks.
M.A. KH: Ha, Astrid's doesn't die. Still plenty of angst in the future.
Breathes-the-Stars: You know, when this fix started, I was actually really neutral towards Gothel, to the point that I wanted to kill her earlier. Well... that didn't happen after all. I'm really glad that you love this story! Ha, I love it too. I read my own story a lot (and cringe at my own grammar). Don't worry - there would be a sequel after this story, so stuff to look forward too? (I'm looking forward to the sequel too, but then, I have to write it...) I'm really really glad that you enjoy the story that much!
Awsomaniatica: Hmmm...yeah, the last chapter's intensity beats this chapter's, but I think this chappie had harsher death scenes (except Dagur. He got off easy.) As for our favorite block of walking ice, ...poor Marshy. Yeah... As you could probably note, the entire alliance structure has changed, so everything is gonna go madder. Have fun reading!
yo I cry: Cheer up! I was just a mean kid. Hiccstrid lives - yay!
Maggietheawesome: Marshamallow's your favorite? Oh, um. Oops. Rapunzel's power is her healing hair, but when she broke Dagur's neck with her hair, it wasn't using her mutant ability. It would be like Elsa using her hands to strangle someone to death vs Elsa freezing a person to death. Hehe, just let Hans die? Can't let that happen now - I've worked too hard to bring him back. Home POVs would be really interesting, but it won't fit in with the story, and there's still loads of storyline to come, so I can't fit it in. Sorry bout that. And Toothless kinda of accidentally ruined stuff too, but it's not his fault. He's a dragon! He can't speak Panem-ese!
WarriorQueen 14: The Odds are really really in Hiccup's favour. Girl of his dreams, and a dragon, and he has his backpack too! Cool stuff. Yeah, everyone gets stabbed - strangulation would be more creative, but I didn't really like writing about it. Haha, sorry if Jack's 'powers' end up being a let down.
BurningMoon101: Oh, there will be a sequel (see my answer Bookaremylife). I can't say anything about it though, not without giving away stuff that will happen at the end of this story.
mackjoyo35: You're freaking out? YEEEESSSSSSSS!
Nightingale82: People in the Capitol were probably were probably shocked, but the tributes were kinda occupied in trying to live. I'm really sorry about Marshmallow...yeah. Toothless seems like he's sticking with Hiccup after all.
SmilingStarcat: yeah, not a lot of people died. Out of 24 kids so far... Only 14 people have died. I will be honest and say that I've been delaying deaths because I'm obsessed with character development, and because I'm cheating (Duh. I don't actually want to kill my favourite characters.) The death count will start plunging more in the future. Astrid has been revived (how convenient, right?), but she has hardly been redeemed (at least in the eyes of certain tributes...). Jack's 'powers' are not going to be that great a factor in the Games, I'll be honest on that too, because the point of him getting struck is actually to do more with Elsa than himself. (PS Elsa is really overpowered, and your point on the Gamemakers is excellent.) there was some Hans and Ralph in this chappie, so I hope that it helped to tide you over. Thanks for reviewing once again!
Well, till next time guys! Bye!
Review. Critique. Ask Questions.