day one, part two: flawed

How can you hide a distant memory that's so faded, so wasted?
Bury the shame in your reflection - there's nothing to gain and no one to blame.

As soon as she and Madigan fled the courtroom, Kellie had let her feet guide her path, allowed them to carry her away with no care nor thought in her mind. She'd practically been flying as she took off down the hall, rounded a corner, rushed down another hall, passed another corner. Her head was empty, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest that it had begun to overwhelm her other senses. She can feel her chest heaving, can hear herself breathing, loudly, the pain of her over-exerted lungs weighing on her as she begins to feel like she's running out of air. Her muscles are aching and her joints are stiff when she comes to a halt, but even with her sluggish fatigue, her exhaustion, she doesn't want to stop running. She can't stop running. Not unless she wants to end up like Virian.

Gotta go gotta go gotta go… real fast real fast real fast… just like gym class, Kellie, just like gym class… c'mon, gotta be faster, gotta go, run, just run, can't stop yet, need to keep going, c'mon c'mon c'mon!

And then something stops her.

Madigan's hand. It's still in hers; wrapped tight around it, their fingers linked together. She tugs on Kellie's own hand, her grip so emphatic that Kellie has no choice but to come to a stop, blink, take a moment to gather her breath again.

And then she realizes she can't.

"M-Mad…" Kellie gasps, craning her neck to face her ally. Her fingers curl in the Six girl's uniform, tugging her closer, arms around her back to pull her into a hug. She thinks maybe it's stupid - need to go, gotta go, need to get outta here, Madigan, can't stay, they killed Virian, maybe Cal too, and they gonna get us if we stay so we CAN'T - but she needs the contact. Craves it. Not for comfort… well, maybe it's comfort, who's Kellie to say, she can't think… but it's stability that she's really lookin' for, now. Something that can remind her she's real, that this is real, you ain't dreamin' Kellie, you're in the Games, still breathin', we got this, it's not good, but we got this, we can…

(Mama… Mama, I need you.)

She starts to pull away from Madigan, one hand going to the pack she's got on her shoulder, her fingers fumbling around until they feel the familiar leather binding of her journal, tucked away underneath whatever else the Gamemakers threw in their goody bags. Still there. It's safe. We're safe. 'Sall safe. Good. We good. 'Sall good.

"I'm sorry about Virian," Madigan says, drawing Kellie's attention back to her. Kellie's eyes are wet, but she doesn't want to focus on it. She steps back fully, shakes her head.

"Nothin' to be done… 's the Hunger Games…" Kellie forces a smile. "'Least we made it out. And I still got Mama with me." She sniffles slightly, but keeps her smile fixed; focusing on maintaining the expression is almost helpful. Distracting. "And we got some goodies, I guess. We ain't doin' bad. Even if it's just us two now."

She brings her hand to her face to wipe at her eyes again. A laugh breaks loose from her mouth.

"And I'm settin' a record. No number twenty-two, not today, no sir."

"You got that right," Madigan's mouth twitches. "Twenty-two's not even an option anymore."

Kellie grins, the expression feeling a little more genuine than it probably has right to. Madigan's words aren't really reassuring; it's like Cal said way back before all this stuff, the Capitol predictions are stupid bets and nothin' else. But she can't help acknowledging the little thrill that runs through her when she thinks back on the mess of her interview, the dismissal her mentor had given her when she'd been put out after because predictions are made for a reason and he thought Kellie didn't have what it took to power through even the bloodbath.

I'm showin' 'em up, she thinks. One place at a time.

"Hey, um, Madigan," Kellie hugs the bag she's carrying to her chest, her grin dimming to a relaxed smile as she bounces a little on the balls of her feet.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're with me." She scuffs her shoes against the floor as she shifts her stance, pausing a couple moments to look over her ally's face. Then she grabs for Madigan's hand again, linking their fingers and swinging their arms as she resumes their walk. Madigan doesn't pull away.

"C'mon, gotta get some more space between us and the Careers. Don't wanna be sixteenth neither."

There's blood on his hands - blood in his clothing, staining the metal of his sword, smeared over some of the bare flesh on his wrists and arms. Blood everywhere, and it's...

It's not his own.

Lazaro ought to be happy for that - well, he is happy for it, really, even though maybe it's wrong of him, because even if the blood on his body isn't his own, it's still something that he's got a claim on, the lines of alizarin reminding him of Henrietta. District Five's annoying princess, who nobody had exactly liked, at least from what Lazaro could tell, but who was still a living, breathing human being just a couple hours ago. Now she's lying on a dirty wooden floor with her throat cut open, and it's his fault.

(But he can't let it get to him. He can't. He's gotta be the lovable, charming Lazaro he was in Four, all wide grins and gung-ho enthusiasm and bad jokes. He's gotta be alive, for the camera and his family, for his allies, for the Capitol…)

(And for himself. Mostly for himself. If Lazaro loses his humor over a few droplets of blood, then it'll just go to show that he's made a mistake, volunteering for the Games, choosing to be here, taking off on his own against all common logic and sense.

He has made a mistake.

(But he can't let it get to him, no, he refuses, not here, not in here, I'm alive and I got this and everything's peachy keen, heck yeah, I'm Four's next victor and I'm gonna make it back home and stick it to everyone who said I couldn't. Lazarus'll be so shocked that he'll get stuck buying me snacks and being the liquor bearer for the next month, and Mom and Dad'll be able to retire if they wanna and never have to worry about keeping up with work again. I'd get to be a mentor (that's a job!) and everyone'll love me. I can practically hear them cheering now… oh, it's breaking my heart, that's so nice of them, so great…))

(Okay, preeeetty sure that's actual screaming. What the...)

"-and then he just dropped," Ardelis decrees, her laughter oddly melodic, too upbeat to seem natural with where they are. "And I was like, whoa, what'd I do? It's a bad trip, it's a bad trip. Shit. I killed him. I killed someone and he's gonna come back and rip my guts out and leave me empty and dried up and bones like my bro. But but but then, Syl, then I remembered what you said, and like, I thought, hey! It's my chance, right? To make a painting… not just a painting, a display, shit, I'll make a full display here and they gotta see me, they'll fuckin' see me, won't they?"

Red. Ardelis' hands are painted in it, and she's drawing lines across the skin of Sylvain's face with her blood-coated fingers, weaving them across his flesh like a painter might twirl a brush on their canvas. Lazaro doesn't need to examine her closely to feel the warmth radiating from the Two girl's aura, how happy she seems, how content. She's content. And…

"Is that blood?"

His own words surprise him, not because they've been said, but because they seem so… nonchalant. Underwhelming. And they aren't what he means to ask, not really. He wants to say whose blood is that? Wants to ask her what are you doing, what's wrong with you, why, that's not yours to take, it's not, that's a person, and there's bile in his throat and some half-formed tears in his eyes and he feels faint, everything's too hot and it's constricting, why would you do this, why would I do this, why why why why…

"Yeah," Ardelis whispers dreamily. "It is."

There's an intake of breath from somewhere on his right, and Lazaro spies Ambrosia sitting on one of the benches, Angelo's head cradled in her lap, her teeth clenched, jaw tight like she wants to say something but can't.

Yeah, he thinks. Me too. It's not a good look for them, is it? Too much (violence sadism schadenfreude)... too much red. Too much red. Takes the color out of their faces a bit, don't it? Ug-ly, let me tell you.

He wants to laugh. Wants to, but he can't, and when he does, it's after he's wandered down the main aisle leading to the courtroom's outer wings, his feet dragging over the floorboards, his head tilted back, eyes turned toward the ceiling.

This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

(I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.)

"Lazaro?" Aitana's voice calls out to him, the same moment as his walking comes to a halt, foot nudging against a too-broad too-stiff object lain in their path.

He looks down, and there she is. Henrietta Daniels, the girl he killed.

She's so… cold. Empty.

Lazaro can't hold his laughter back anymore. A breathless wheeze is pushed from his lungs, and it grows into a high-pitched giggle. I sound like Ardelis, he thinks to himself. Oh shit. That's bad. That's so bad.

"Lazaro…?" Aitana tries again, and he turns his head. She's frowning as she watches him, hands weaponless and hair down. You look younger like that, he remembers telling her, and was that really only this morning?

"Yeah, sorry!" He calls back. "I'm good, I'm fine. Just getting antsy, Tana, you know me. Always gotta be moving."

A half-snort. Still me laughing. Weird. Maybe I'm going crazy.

Lazaro looks down at Henrietta again.

Definitely, definitely weird. I can't - I don't want this. I don't want to do this.

He steps over her corpse and resumes his pacing, continuing on his (not so) merry way. This was his choice - whatever happens next is something he's gotta live with.

(There's simply no other option.)

At first, all Maddy can do is stare.

She hadn't expected to run into anyone here - not when the alcove was so out of the way, tucked behind a smaller-than-typical door in the hall and hidden behind a tower of boxes. She definitely hadn't expected to run into Seven, whose brash attitude and outspokenness made her stick out like a sore thumb through training.

Honestly, after what she pulled during the interviews, Maddy's surprised she even managed to make it past the bloodbath - no doubt the Capitol would've wanted people gunning for her left and right. But she made it. She's here...

And the look on her face tells Maddy that she's terrified.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Seven asks, imbuing bravery in her tone to compensate for her shaking hands, her half-tearful eyes.

Maddy watches her, trepidation beginning to swell in her chest. She could. No doubt it would be better for her own odds; knock off a strong competitor early, push forward on her own like she'd planned to when the gong struck. But honestly... she doesn't want to. Seven's kind of a loose cannon, yeah, but she's also someone Maddy's felt drawn to since she first spied her at the Chariots. Spirited, without question. Rebellious. Rough around the edges, sure, but there's a fire to her. If they'd met a year - or even a few months ago...

They most likely would've been friends.

"No," Maddy says, dropping her knife. It clatters against the floor, metal knocking on wood (too loud, should've thought before she let go) with a prominent clang. "I'm not going to kill you. It'd just be letting the Capitol win - and they've already stolen enough from us."

She presses her back to the wall as she shuts the door behind them, sparing just a brief glance outside to make sure they're truly alone.

When she turns back around, Seven's watching her with an amazed sort of relief in her eyes. No, not relief - this is something else. The same emotion that would overtake Helen when she was giving a speech, or kissing Maddy in the dim candlelight of the Underground base. A sparkle, a glint, so faint it wouldn't be obvious if she hadn't been taught to look for it.

Hope.

"Thank you..." Seven says, sinking back against the wall, wincing as she jostles what Maddy can now make out as an injured leg. "Fuck... everything just happened so fast."

"Yes," Maddy acknowledges, averting her eyes. "It did."

She grabs her knife, sheathes it through one of the belt-loops at her waist. Takes a step forward, waiting to see if Seven winces or jerks away. She doesn't.

Maddy drops to the ground next to her, and lets out the breath she's been holding since this whole mess began.

Seven presses her cheek to the brick behind her, tilts her chin up. "Fine time for company, isn't it? Don't suppose you've got anything to... patch a wound with..."

A tear slips from the corner of her eye. Her speech is slurring, more than Maddy had been able to tell from a distance. Maybe this was a mistake - maybe it's too late, maybe the girl's already gone.

But then Seven gives her a cheeky little grin - so out of place for someone in her position - and Maddy pushes logic to the wayside.

"No," she pauses, slinging the pack she'd grabbed off her back to rummage through the contents. "But I have some water."

"Much appreciated, friend, much appreciated..." Seven's mumbling now, slumping forward so that her head lolls against Maddy's shoulder. Maddy resists the urge to jerk back.

"Cuddling's fine, but no wandering hands," she warns. If Seven's faking it... if she so much as looks at her knife...

"Dunwrry..." Seven continues. "I'll be uh... a perfect lady..."

"Somehow I doubt that." Maddy uncaps the bottle, holding it out to the girl. She rushes to grab it, shifting her position to chug what liquid is in it, only stopping when Maddy grabs hold of her wrist to slow her down.

"Not too fast."

"Oh, pishoff..." Seven sputters, before bursting into a short fit of half-coughs. "Wha's the worst that could happen... we're already in the... nn... the Hunger Games."

Maddy sighs.

"True..."

"I like you, Ten... something edgy and cool about you..." The water bottle slips from her fingers, and Maddy barely manages to catch it before it hits the ground.

"We need to keep quiet."

"I know... s'hard, though..." Seven licks her lips. "Ari and Scrim… I don't even. Fuck. Dunno if they made it. Didn't stick around to…"

"Think that's for the best," Maddy reminds her. "You'd have been killed if you had."

Seven's smirk is somewhere between sardonic and jaded as she flicks an eyebrow up, unabashed in her wryness. "Yeah, well…" She sighs, letting her head drop once more, form slackening at Maddy's side. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing."

Maddy refrains from giving a response. Seven's right, after all; in the hellscape that's the arena, death might be a mercy. Who is she to deny that perspective? It wasn't too long ago that Maddy had embraced the thought of her own end with open arms - assumed it better to give in than conjure up some false sense of belief regarding her longevity. She hadn't intended for her mind to change. Hadn't intended to hear…

It's a lie. Has to be. Inara has no idea what she's talking about, has no idea who I am. She was trying to manipulate me for her own benefit. That's all. Some sentimental words from a madwoman mean nothing in here.

Sentiment doesn't have a place in the arena. And it doesn't have a place with me.

Emboldened by a strange sense of mirth, Scrim doesn't notice the stairs until their left foot catches against a too-high floorboard, and their right steps forward into air.

They're falling. Head knocking against the plaster of the wall as their hands scrabble for a grip on the metal rail, knees knocking against slats of wood and rigid cement, then against each other as they start to tumble, no sense of direction left to ground them in anything but I'm gonna die, I'm gonna, this is how it ends, holy shit, no way, no fuckin' way, this is so FUNNY -

And then they're blinking their eyes open to darkness.

Scrim's laughing when they collapse in a heap at the bottom of the staircase, blood seeping from a myriad of smallish cuts along their legs, their arms, and especially their hands. Their knuckles ache and their ring finger's throbbing like it's been jammed, probably due to the franticness with which they'd been clawing at the rail as they tried to save themselves. Everywhere they look, things seem spotty, their vision static tinted with black dots, lighting over their head too bright one moment and too dim the next.

They force themselves to sit up, blinking a couple times, and then raising their good hand to smack themselves across the cheek, a last-ditch attempt to knock some lucidity back into their head. The static intensifies for a moment, and then dissipates, leaving Scrim on the ground, the fabric of their uniform ripped in too many places to count, their entire body feeling like one giant spot of pain, as if they've got bruises on every inch of their skin.

"Pro'lly not my finest moment…" Scrim mumbles, trying to haul themselves back onto their feet. "But 'least I can make an entrance. Style's iffy."

… and the words are greeted with dead silence. Right. Loner party. Time to be all 'woe is me' and lament my losses.

They grab their first bag of supplies - the food spilled across the floor, one bottle popped open and leaking water - and start to gather up what can be salvaged from the mess, shoving it back into the scratchy burlap and pulling the string at the top to close it up. Then they adjust their second bag on their back, make sure the tiny pouch of bandages they'd tied onto their pants is secure, and gather up the damaged water bottle, uncapping the top and raising it to the ceiling.

"Have a drink in your honor, Ari. We all know I'd be fucked without you. Sorry you ain't gettin' a better speech."

'specially since it's my fault you're dead.

The aftermath of the bloodshed at the cornucopia wasn't meant for the faint of heart, that's for sure. Scrim's sure they ought to be more bothered than they are, but hey, you can only spend so much time living it up as a thief in Six's slums before you just stop caring. What's a little death and despair now and then? Laugh it off, keep your chin up, the pain's as temporary as humans are. She'd have died anyhow.

El, too. Mads. And me, more'n likely. Well, time to get a move on!

They down as much of the unspilled water as they can without choking on it, then chuck the bottle over their shoulder carelessly. More trash to add to the dumpster fire of an arena they've made this year. A courthouse. Seriously, a fucking courthouse. What, were forests and deserts and oceans just not good enough anymore? The hell we s'posed to do with this? Nnnnnnngh, just kill me now.

Scrim lets out a deeply unhappy, nearly melancholic sigh as they look back to the staircase they'd just made an enemy of, flipping up their middle finger before turning to evaluate their other options.

Three doors to the right. Isn't there some sorta riddle about that? Three deadly things and you gotta guess which one's survivable or whatever? They're taking the piss with us.

Trudging toward the second door - the one that's slightly larger than the other two and therefore, probably less likely to be hiding something potentially fatal - Scrim wraps their fingers around the handle to turn it. They jump back as the door opens a touch, preparing themselves to stay one step ahead of whatever nasty trick the Capitol's thought out for entertainment, grabbing the small, half-smashed wooden column they'd taken from in the cornucopia as a makeshift weapon, thrusting it outward to nudge the door open just a little more…

It's… a room full of books.

Well, that's a letdown.

The glint of something over their head leads them to cast their eyes upward to a metal plaque with the word Records spelled out in bold lettering.

So… my very own records room. Peachy. Maybe if I play nice the books won't all fall on my head and crush me to death. Or maybe they will. We love a constant threat of death with our Hunger Games!

Scrim snorts, nudging the door open fully as they enter the room. High walls. Lots of shelves full of papers. Long desk covered in open books. Few chairs.

They push the door closed, drop their supplies, and with one last, dramatic sigh, finally acquiesce to their desire to rest by taking a seat on the floor.

"It is boring, and now it is home." A laugh drags itself from their throat. Man, they're fucking losing it. More than they already had, that is.

Aight - let's kick back and rest up. Plenty of time to regret it later.

"I can't believe she's really gone."

Kahlan's voice cuts through the silence that's overtaken their camp, eerie after the blaring music of the Panemian anthem just minutes earlier. Cut off as they are from the rest of the arena - hiding out in a small office with nothing for company but a desk, a rug, some bookcases and a set of three stiff chairs - they hadn't been in a position to see the faces of the dead.

Which might be… probably is for the best. Celesto's managed to keep himself together well enough; a couple stray tears shed in the passing silence over his lost ally, a few half-hearted comments shared with Kahlan to try and keep his ally from lapsing into guilt. But he's not equipped to think about it at length. Not mentally stable enough to see her, even if just in the surreal capacity of a washed-out image tossed up on a wall by a projector. Not with knowing that she's…

That she's dead.

It's never seemed so close before; death, that is. Celesto had abhorred the Games since he'd first seen them televised, had found them frightening to a degree that he'd been unable to reconcile for years. But even with his fear, with the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him at seeing twenty-three tributes butchered each year in a fight to the death, with the hyper-awareness that they're dying, all of them are dying, there had always been a barrier of distance that kept his anxieties about death from intensifying. Being in here, actually inside a Games arena, has dispelled that distance - made death personal.

And he's terrified.

Celesto hadn't been deluded into thinking he'd survive the Games when he volunteered; he's not deluded now, either. He's not victor material. Not survivor material. If he's going to be honest and open with himself, he's the one that should've died in the bloodbath, even more than Althea. She was older. More knowledgeable. More important, at least he assumes - someone with a family that would miss her, friends who would notice that she's gone, siblings that would cry over her without having to fabricate their tears.

Not like him. Celesto's expendable, and he knows that, because his father had made it apparent since before he could remember. The youngest of the Peradas siblings. Not meant for inheritance, no particular skills of note that his parents could use, accustomed to following along with the conventions necessary for someone of his class but never particularly good at it, never skilled, never a socialite.

(Never a Peradas, no matter how much he tried to be. And that's alright - it's alright, because he doesn't care to be a Peradas, doesn't want to be part of a family where every person's allegiance is made solely to themselves, where his parents and siblings act out of selfishness and manipulate others to their own ends. He made a choice when he discarded his father's signet ring: the choice to be Celesto, not Celesto Peradas.)

A fine time to make that decision, Celesto thinks wryly, with a little chuckle. He quickly mops at the tears that are painting his cheeks, only aware of his emotional response once he's managed to pull himself out of his whirlwind of self-conscious thinking.

"I'm sorry," he says to Kahlan. "About Althea, really, I am. I - I mean, I didn't know her like you did, but she was…" He shakes his head, bracing his arm across his face as he slumps forward against the desk. "She was nice."

"She was." Kahlan's voice seems hollow, but when Celesto moves his arm and chances a glance at his ally, he finds the Eight boy smiling. It's a bittersweet, haunted ghost of a fond expression, but it's better than tears. Better than pain, even if sentiment definitely entails some hurt.

"What I said earlier," Celesto continues, "I didn't mean to make it seem like I… that I didn't care, Kahlan. I do, a lot. I just… I mean, with where we are…"

"Someone needs to be the rational one," Kahlan nods, sitting still for a moment in his thoughts. Then he rests his arms on the chair's sides, using his hands to push himself up to his feet. "I'm sorry, too."

"For what?"

Kahlan's smile seems a bit more genuine when he looks at Celesto this time, extending a hand to help him up from his own chair.

"For giving you the silent treatment. Unintentionally, but… I don't mean to freeze you out."

"You were grieving." Celesto tries to school his face into a picture of understanding and empathy. "It's alright. I'm not upset."

"I know."

He takes Kahlan's hand, lets the older boy drag him out from the leather seat before extricating his grip.

"Are we moving on?"

Kahlan nods. "It's like you said before… we need to focus on the two of us. On living. I don't think we'll be all that safe if we stay in the same spot for the whole night. We don't even have supplies…"

He shudders, the visage of calm lapsing again into a fresh display of sorrow as his eyes glisten and his lips press together in a downcast line.

"Hey," Celesto says, reaching out for Kahlan, gingerly resting a hand on his back as he resumes a position at his ally's side. "It's alright. We'll figure it out."

"I don't know how," Kahlan mumbles, shaking his head again. "I don't even know where we are, how big this place is, if I'll be around to see morning. I don't know anything."

Celesto sighs, a similar sense of uncertainty nagging at him even as he rubs Kahlan's back, doing his best to act sympathetic without adding to the emotional stress that's already present.

"Maybe it's better if we stay put for awhile. I can keep lookout. If anything happens, we'll leave. Is that alright?"

"Yeah…" The response is little more than a whisper. "Yeah, maybe… that's a good idea… if you're sure."

"I am," Celesto affirms. I have to be. For now, I'm the rock. Kahlan needs me. "Let's sit back down… you should try and sleep."

He's been lapsing in and out of consciousness for most of the day, now.

And the longer the day wears on, the more concerned Ambrosia finds herself becoming.

She'd done her best to wipe the blood away from the vicious gash on Angelo's brow, but the tear in his skin was a good bit larger than she'd been anticipating. Worse, when she'd felt along his skull as she dressed the wound, she'd found it impossible not to notice the slight inversion of his bone beneath the torn skin. Whatever Six had managed to hit him with, she has the feeling it was intended to maximize damage. Maybe a club. Maybe a mace, for all she knows, though she can't exactly imagine the lanky kid having the strength to wield one.

(But then again, the Games are full of surprises. Ambrosia knows that, as much as she knows that she shouldn't underestimate the other tributes. In the arena, anything is possible. What happened during the bloodbath is a testament to that fact.)

Regardless, the injury is… debilitating. There's no denying that. And it's worrying, not just because Angelo's wound might have some sort of severity that she can't even see, but because his being injured is a political concern for their alliance. She knows as well as Angelo must have that their position with Two and Four is precarious at best; while Ambrosia might have a chance to earn back some favor by hunting for other tributes with their other allies in the morning, her District partner isn't in a position to have that same luxury. Sylvain and Ardelis are already starting to think of him as dead weight - she can tell - and even though Aitana's doing her best to stabilize that tension, Ambrosia knows that their leader is a pragmatist. If Angelo doesn't wake up soon…

She might make the call to cut their losses. If that happens, Ambrosia doesn't know what she'll do.

"Cookie for your thoughts?"

Startled from her reverie, Ambrosia blinks a few times as she tries to focus her attention on her surroundings. Lazaro's smiling back at her from the bench in front of her, his arms resting on the back of the seat, one arm extended to offer her something that does, indeed, appear to be a cookie.

"Where'd you find that?" Ambrosia asks, momentarily amused for as much as she's confounded.

"In with the rest of the supplies, believe it or not. Guess the Gamemakers figured we deserved a treat or somethin'." He winks. "There were only two, and I already ate the other, but you looked like you needed a 'pick me up.'"

"Why?"

Lazaro blinks, cocking his head to the side, casting his eyes up toward the ceiling. "Weeelll… because we're buddies and sweets are a pretty decent distraction when it comes down to it? I mean, if I was having a bad day and my bro turned up bearing snacks I'd definitely feel better. At least a bit. Dunno, guess the situation's different… ah, just take the cookie, Ambrosia."

Lazaro leans halfway over the bench, grabbing for her arm and uncurling her fingers as he places the snack in her open palm. He closes her palm around it and rubs a thumb along her knuckles reassuringly, then pats her arm in some awkward gesture she thinks would be a lot more comforting were he not literally straining to reach her from across a court bench.

"Angelo's gonna be fine. Dude's strong as hell, and everyone here knows it. It'll work out."

"That's pretty optimistic of you," Ambrosia murmurs, unable to bring herself to smile, unable to agree with Lazaro's positivity. There's no logic to his opinions, just unfounded hope, and hope's rarely helpful. Ambrosia's been disappointed too many times to think that just having faith in something is going to make it work out.

"Guess it is." Lazaro pulls back, and then stands up atop the bench, swinging his legs over the top and bracing his hands against the wood as he drops down on the other side, his feet hitting the floor next to her with a loud thud.

Sylvain sits up abruptly from where he's sleeping with his back against the defendants' box, glancing about.

"What was -"

Lazaro giggles. "Oh, man, that was not subtle, was it?" He waves to the Two boy. "It's good, it's good. Just dicking around, buddy, nothin' to worry about. Get your beauty rest."

Ambrosia doesn't need to see Sylvain to know that he's glowering. "... don't wake me up again unless it's for watch."

"Yikes, someone's got his panties in a knot," Lazaro hisses into Ambrosia's ear as he drops unceremoniously onto the bench next to her, stretching an arm out across the top, bringing one leg up into a half-cross, with his shin resting on his knee, his body turned toward her attentively. "I oughta count my lucky stars it wasn't Ardelis, or I might've gotten a knife instead of a reprimand!"

"She's definitely not your biggest fan," Ambrosia smirks, though her humor fades quickly as Angelo stirs next to her.

"Hey," Lazaro nudges her shoulder. "Quit worrying so much. He'll wake up when he's ready - though he's definitely taking his sweet time."

"He is."

"Better for his head," the Four boy shrugs. "Concussions are a bitch."

Ambrosia nods, half-heartedly. She's probably overthinking it - probably overestimating the potency of Angelo's injury, making it out to be worse than it is. After all, she's had her fair share of concussions and none of the symptoms are exactly worthy of being called pleasant. Angelo needs sleep. But…

"What if he doesn't? Wake up, that is."

"Then he doesn't wake up." Lazaro looks down at his lap, pulling his arm from the back of the bench to rub at the back of his neck, gaze averted so as to keep from meeting Ambrosia's questioning eyes. "But it's only been a few hours. It's not gonna come to that."

I hope you're right, Lazaro. Truly, I do.

For Angelo's sake - and my own.

No deaths.

A/N: Chapter title from Flawed by Pop Evil.

Saturday update? Yeah, at least this time, y'all; this chapter kind of goes with the last one and i see no harm speeding things along a little. Another shout out to Firedawn'd for being a fantastic beta! Thanks so much for everything you've done to assist on these chapters.

Day One is a wrap; no deaths for any of our main cast, but hopefully there's been plenty of excitement to keep you entertained. Couldn't resist spending a bit more time with these kiddos, so you won't have to worry about submitted tribute deaths til Day Three/Four. Hopefully that gives you a chance to relax and enjoy the next couple chapters without worry - though it is still the Hunger Games. :')

Take care and stay safe! Thank you again to everyone who has left feedback of any sort, via review, PM, DM... always means a lot to me.