Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, Chapter #29: The Blade's Sweet Song. Last chapter, Arena Night V focused on povs where Kai'sa found a slice of paradise, Catalus forged a secret, Girl Power got injured, Niklaus lost a piece of himself and found a new one in Poem, Diana has forged a new mission in the arena, and Orion took a life, downing our Final 15 to a Final 14. This chapter focuses on Arena Day 6 (VI) with just five POVs so potentially on the shorter side, but I am not sure. I have officially closed the Poll on who you all (the eleven of you that voted) wanted to see as the Top 8 in which I'll discuss the results down at the bottom until I put up a poll at the Final 8 on who you want as your victor choice(s). I am very excited as we're moving into the stage of the arena where the pieces are moving and the pawns who effectually will start landslides are going to start moving, and you have no idea how happy I am to be reaching a point like this in a Hunger Games story. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #29: The Blade's Sweet Song.

"Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing," ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Sylvan Adello: District 7 Male P.O.V (14)

He ran out of food half a day ago. Which technically means midnight, but Sylvan has been staying up, unable to sleep, for the last three days as he watches Valravn dig its bloodied maw into Nevaeh's torn open neck, all the while his district partner screams and flails her arms about, trying to hold onto any piece of sustenance left, and he stands there, scared out of his mind. He just… stood there, as someone from home, from the District 7 seven he loves and adores and cherishes, is mauled to pieces. Sure, the creature is dead, but that did not bring life to her lungs. Instead, he's ally-less, stuck in a cave, and clutching a shield with the dead beast's mark splayed across the center of it.

He is tipping the bag of nuts that he has clenched in his fist, crinkling the plastic all the while a moon shines above him, when the dust and crushed up bits curled in between his fingers fall onto his nose. He has not hunted for anything, hasn't gone after animals in the woods, though killing one wouldn't be an issue, as Sylvan glances over at the discarded axe slumped against the rock wall, the black blood splatters of Valravn and the Gamemaker madness decorating the shiny blade in an oily spill. Javier, that man with his kind voice, and sweet temperament… the man who says to his face that he is someone he'd bet on and put his trust in… where is he now? Sylvan turns to yelling at the rock faces for help, as surely they'll be someone on the other end to play the game with him back. Someone overcome with pity.

Sylvan has cried his eyes out, and then some, snot hanging down across his lips while his palms rub into the back of his eyelids. Trying and failing to blot the images out, trying and failing to get Nevaeh's dying scream out of his head. Out of his dreams, which are now just physical manifestations in the bleak gray mist shrouding over the cave entrance. Someone must notice him, and he must be doing something right. Killing an arena 'god' as that is what the calling card that is attached to the shield says, that must be worth something.

All Sylvan has to show for it is an empty hand.

"I did what you wanted me to do!" he cries out, again, in the middle of the night, after hearing raucous cannon fire disrupt the quiet that is his settling sobs and wracking frame of chills and shudders. "I played in the Hunger Games! And I'm hungry! Send me some food!" Sylvan begs, digging his knees into the dirt, scuffling forward against the rock wall. His eyes roam for a camera, but they come up empty, and his stomach simply growls once more.

He knows he is not as exciting as the older kids, the sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen year-olds with their chiseled bodies and perfect faces and desire for violence. Nevaeh talked about violence a lot, in their conversations by the fire. How the girl from Seven would do her brother proud, a man that Sylvan hears is supposed to be amazing, though it is all from her mouth, so he is not sure how much of it is due to bias. How Nevaeh would carve a ruby red smile on Vesuvia Vocanova's throat from ear to ear, all because she sensed that the girl from District 3 liked cruelty, and this is not a game meant to be cruel.

Sylvan objects that the simple idea of slitting someone's throat is inherently violent and cruel, but she shoots him a deft look, and Sylvan goes looking for more golden apples in trees, unsure of what he wants to find. His own demise, wrapped in black spots and talons, dark wings enshrouding his body, crushing his hope to coal dust and sawmill grindings that crunch underneath his feet like pieces of mulch.

He finds the cave by accident, as he knows he cannot stay in the forest any longer. He finds an old camping spot of theirs, the night Nevaeh's face shines in the sky, and Sylvan scampers for the hills. He is quite used to running, when escaping into the District 7 wilderness with Peacekeepers and timber wolves hot on his heels. His mother is holding a bag of grenades, though he never gets a chance to ask her where she stole them from, and he watches the skin peel off a man's body as he falls to the ground, his life ending in pure agony.

All Sylvan can think about is how the man deserved it. Deserves all of the horrible things coming his way…

"And what do I, a person who lets his flesh and blood die like that, deserve?" Sylvan hiccups to himself, wrapping his arms around his knees, tugging his body close and rocking back and forth. A pit of pity, he finds himself in, where the walls are lit by torches made of bone and spit, cackling whispers rising from the spokes of flame. He can crawl out of the hole, for he finds it and needs shelter from yet another rainstorm, when Cassiopeia Grey and Gemini Lennox's faces flash in the night sky, which had been just yesterday… well, two days ago now, for Sylvan can tell that the arena has shifted into the next day by a low rumbling.

It is some sort of process he feels on the first night in the arena, as Sylvan is too tired from nearly dying that morning in the cornucopia, when he flings the pumpkin at Catalus Drachma and flees like a cat who's seen too many dogs in one area, that Nevaeh takes first watch. It is a marching drum beat beneath his skull, a low thump-thump that causes him to awake. His district partner looks at him with a peculiar kind of sadness, though Sylvan never gets a chance to ask her what the look means.

He wonders if this is one spot in the entire arena that the Gamemakers cannot tell where he is. He knows of the tracker in his arm, the soft area of raised flesh that lumps out like an ant hill on his pastiness that glows in the serene surroundings of the cave. It occasionally pulses a pearlish white light, Sylvan circling the technological object with his pinkie, before pushing down on it with his thumb. He hisses at the pain, fingers curling into the stone, as he tosses his head back. It's a good pain, where his scream can surpass Nevaeh's. It can surpass the cute boy from across the street that is with his family in the woods, the one who consumes the Nightlock. His own screams distract the outside world and allow his problems to be ignored.

Sylvan knows he can crawl out and join the rest of the living, and he knows that every single one of the tributes, including the nine dead now – if he is to count that cannon that just fired – is given instructions that the Capitol populace, for the districts do not matter in their opinions in the slightest on what they'd want, are bored, then the Gamemakers must do something about it. They must do something about him, the terms sending chills up Sylvan's spine. He can't, though.

His legs feel like lead, and simply lugging the shield with him across the arena, to dive into the cave that he finds, seemingly smack dab in the middle of the fishing village around two or three in the morning, is too much for him. Sylvan has stayed in the same spot, hearing coalescing, and crashing water above his head, for nearly forty-eight hours. Joining the world of living sounds just as hard as thinking about joining the world of the dead.

Sylvan scoots forward, picking up his axe. The only thing in his life he has ever killed is the wolf that he finds stalking the outer parts of their camp, while his cousins and aunts and uncles sleep. No one is expecting a thirteen year-old boy to take up the job of slaughtering wildlife, but there is no feeling quite like being woken up with a vulpine and their mouth foam splashing across his jawline, digging into his gums, and eroding away his teeth. It takes all of his courage to not scream, but he cuts into the creature's neck like it is something he has done his entire life.

It is odd, however, and he notices this without ever needing to tell anyone, but there are not any nightmares of he and this wolf. He does not wake up in the middle of the night screaming and tearing at the sheets to get off of him as he is expecting the wolf to bite into his flesh and make him bleed. Sylvan does not witness the deaths of any family members in his head, just the act of sinking the silver blade into the beast's brown and gray coat is enough. Scarlet drips down his fingers, and it soaks into the skin of a few grapes that he eats while sitting on the beast's corpse, but in any other way, it is has not scarred or marred him from a good night sleep.

Would someone notice, now, if he were to start losing it?

There is a running trend in his life. Periods of action followed by inaction.

Sylvan has the axe in his hands now. He looks at the shield for a second, pondering what it would look like to the Gamemakers if he simply flung it back out into the elements. They might flood this cave or send lightning bolts down to fry him to pieces. Perhaps they can read his thoughts and send wolves after him, to know his worst fears. Bring Valravn back from the dead, the beast digging its way through rock beds with that bloodied maw hungry for another teenager to send to the abyss.

The boy from Seven runs a finger down the blade, not uttering even a peep when his skin catches and nicks itself on the blade, sending a droplet of crimson down his arm. Sylvan grits his teeth together, digging the blade further into the finger, his pinkie now cut in deeply, but all Sylvan can feel or hear is the grinding of his teeth and jaw. No pain, no sawing sound. He digs his finger into the weapon once more, his knees slipping on the rock, the axe falling out of his grasp.

There is a flash of lightning, Sylvan hearing the sound of another storm starting again. A bolt crashes just outside the entrance to the cave, making him laugh, instead of yelping in fright. It illuminates, even just for a second, his torn up finger, the flesh parted like Nevaeh's throat, grimy blackness spiraling down to touch the Earth.

He cradles the hand against his chest, which has earned a few bruises and cuts of its own from when he stumbles into the cave and out of Valravn's territory, feeling the spilling blood slide down his body. Warmth, and it'll soon be followed by a bitter and biting chill. Nevaeh could bite him now, as a ghost, and he wouldn't feel her. He'd laugh. Sylvan knows he'd laugh.

Someone will send something.

Someone with pity, seeing this poor boy, who's cut his hand open and injured himself, just begging and desperate for attention. He'll get bread, or some gooseberries, or even a cup of water, though Sylvan could collect the rainwater outside.

"I'm not doing it," Sylvan says, shaking his head back and forth, looking up through the one hole in the upper roof that gives him sunlight. There is a crack just breaking out beyond the right side of the tomb, but only enough to where he gets a small snapshot of the anthem when it plays in the sky. "I am not playing your game, you sick fucks!" Sylvan shouts out, into the storm.

No matter how many body parts he'll have to cut into. Not if Javier begs him with a gift basket of fruit and roses. Not even if Nevaeh returns from the dead and is on her hands and knees, pleading with him.

Sylvan will weather out the storm, and he will outlast them all, until he is the only one left in Panem.

Vesuvia Vocanova: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)

They have been caught out in the rain. Vesuvia is soaked from head-to-toe when she and Jasper wander back to their camp spot, placed unearth two large boulders covering the sandy path. She collapses to the ground with an anguished sigh, sliding fingers through her tattered kissed by fire hair. Jasper groans, similarly, sinking to his knees in the warm sand, leaning forward with his head pressed into the soft dirt. Vesuvia smirks at him, stretching out her legs and massaging the muscles. A good run had been in the cards for them, which is what she makes her, and Jasper do just after the sun rises. They travel with their weapons, and she makes sure they have some gear with them too, but it is not Vesuvia's goal in mind to slaughter any tributes.

Jasper's response to the statement is what she expects, full of raised eyebrow and frowns that do not make his cheeks stand out against the granules of sand. "A run in the arena, but not to hunt down other tributes?" She is sure there is a laundry list in his head that he'd like to run through with the blade, and Vesuvia has her own set of names too, which has yet to be cut down despite whatever faces shine in the sky.

Vesuvia recalls Niklaus's cannon startling her awake, to find Jasper already pressed up against their crevice. A bunny got caught in the alarm system, which she finds peculiar, for the only sorts of animals they've seen so far have been snakes in the burnt wasteland, and she's not about to start devouring snakes left and right. "Who was it?" she asks, waiting through the quiet, under the raindrops falling down above their heads.

"Niklaus Peverell," Jasper says, flicking a piece of sand away from him. They lock eyes in the bleakness, a lightning bolt illuminating Jasper's jade eyes. A gorgeous color, one she finds herself getting lost in all the time until she pinches herself awake, reminding herself to not go too deep unless she wishes to drown. Jasper finds ways to remind her that their thing together is purely lustful, like the way he moans someone else's name against her ear fifty percent of the time. Vesuvia is great at acting like she is catatonic. His voice, on the next statement, is quieter than she's ever heard him speak. "He on the list?"

Vesuvia rolls over in her sleeping bag, nestled between one of her knives and her water bottle, which she rolls over between her palm and the ground. "No." A pause, as she lifts her head and looks back at Jasper. "And not one for Poem Cavalli?"

Her district partner laughs haughtily. Vesuvia hates the noise now, one that Jasper plays over and over again, as she watches him train in the middle of a rock formation as the ground burns and bleeds beneath their feet. Jasper is always laughing now, as if he has a secret, as if he isn't going to ever share it with her. "What is with you and that District 8 girl? You hate her, and I can't figure out why."

"Because she's stupid," Vesuvia spits out acidly, pulling the sleeping bag down over her knees. "She volunteered for the Hunger Games and didn't know what they were like." She bites down on the inside of her cheek. Uncle Kenny would tell her that biting down on her cheek is unladylike, and Vesuvia would switch the salt and sugar at the dinner table that night. "Say what you want about Catalus, Magnus, and Orion with their volunteering, but you know that they know what they were signing up for." There is glee in her voice. "Seeing Richmond Anvil wipe that smirk off of her face was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"More beautiful than me?" Jasper quips back, smirking. She, again, sees his face in the ghost of a lightning flash. Oh, so he has jokes now.

"Much more," Vesuvia teases back, sticking out her tongue. "A galaxy worth of emotion."

Jasper doesn't respond, and she goes back to sleep. Vesuvia feels the ground shifting beneath her as she tries tossing and turning, unable to get the picture of Dill Waylon's snaped neck out of her head. Or the boy she murdered with her video game, when the Peacekeepers dragged her away. Her maniacal laughter plays in her head, sometimes superimposed by Diana Kratovska's own gleeful cackling at the cornucopia with that bow in her hands, making 'target practice' shots. Do their laughs match? It is not guilt that stays in her mind, but the beauty of those moments, and how, when she makes it out of this arena, she'll play those moments over and over again for eternity, trapped in an 8-bit system for the Capitolites who surely adore her to play over and over again.

The tremors beneath the soil, the ones that cause her to wake up several times again throughout the night, until the break of morning that has been dampened by the fact that it is still raining when she opens her eyes, it is what spurs it all. The tremors do not feel of a natural sort, but something that has been engineered, engineered to make the hair on her arms stand up straight. She has never gotten a good look at it, the beast that walks around and is capable of incinerating trees into ash as if they never existed. She sees all of it there, playing out, making her heart tick.

The name of the god is Surt, the Norse God of fire and cleansing, sent by Cole in a letter that is not, to her disappointment, attached to a gift. Vesuvia taps the pocket of golden liquid in the see-through vial that is still there from when he sent the package yesterday. Jasper, thankfully, has yet to ask about it again, for he could see through her horrendous lie as bad as Vesuvia cringes when the words pass her lips.

Their run in the early hours of the morning, when surely none of the tributes would be up, during a rainstorm, is not to find any of them.

"You know why we ran out there," Vesuvia says, looking at her district partner, who is trying to start a fire by rubbing his hands down on a stick. She doesn't have a lighter – Cole could always grace her with one, but she knows the Games would not be that easy, the stab wound in her sneaker from Orion Maythorpe's blade enough of a reminder – so she simply sits there and watches Jasper struggle. It is amusing. Her district partner claims to have built so many fires from his time on the runaway from Peacekeepers, escaping the smoldering fires of Thirteen, but she's yet to see it take place. "C'mon, you're from Three, Overheart. Got brains." She taps her skull, giving him a sweet smile.

Perhaps he'll kiss her.

She's wanted one, actually, but Vesuvia Vocanova knows better than to beg like a common whore for one, pleading.

Jasper raises an eyebrow. Ah, playing the cute, dumb idiot. People in prison played that game, but Vesuvia knew what made them tick after a few rounds of corkscrews digging into the ear, or placing nails under someone's finger beds, driving them in with a hammer. They're moments that'll be placed in her next video game too.

"Vesuvia, I really don't-"

It is an idea borne of madness, for sure, but Vesuvia has never learned what it meant to take things slow. It is an idea that'll get the world on her side, for half of the country must hate her due to what she did to Dill at the cornucopia, as if anyone wouldn't have done the same with their lives on the line.

"I want to go after Surt," she says, smiling. Genuinely smiling. "I want the fire-god."

Jasper's smile drops. She has never seen a facial expression plummet that fast before, a seed of doubt billowing in her stomach at the sight. "You… Vess," Jasper drops his voice lowly, which confuses her. Neither of them have seen another tribute inhabiting this scorched section of the arena the entire time they've been in the games, five whole days in a row. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly." She cocks her head to the side.

"Are you insane?"

"Definitely," Vesuvia nods. Bringing down Surt, the last god in the arena, as Cole mentions how the boy from Seven took out Valravn from the distorted forest, and Catalus driving a sword into the maw of Fenrir in the fishing village means there's only one alpha left. One prize, and Vesuvia wants it. Also, it'll be nothing less of horrific if another man gets the honor of killing something she can bring down herself. "Just think of what can happen to us when we succeed."

"When we die, you mean," Jasper cuts her off, his eyes wide. "Vesuvia, that thing is ten feet tall, has a flaming sword, and can just raise it's hand and turn something to ash. You want to fight that?"

"We're going to fight that," she corrects, tipping her head back for a sip of water. "And besides, maybe it won't hurt me because I have red hair." A stretch, as Vesuvia tries bolstering her voice up as much as she can, but it still wavers. Jasper's touch is light, it is full of infidelity, cheating on her with indifference. "We won't know how it goes unless we try. Besides, the other two gods died. They clearly aren't invincible."

"Neither are we."

She is beginning to doubt that.

Vesuvia takes another sip of water from her canteen, looking out at the rain that obscures everything that isn't more than a foot away from her face, as Jasper is sitting somewhat away from her. Always moving over and shifting in the sand. "Think about it," she says, trying to hide the patronizing tone in her voice. "Niklaus died last night, a Capitol favorite, though a lot of that might have to do with being Poem's ally and fuck-buddy." She saw the hickeys. Everyone saw them. Zachary Edison asks what they are, and his answer is Nokomis Yanaba plunging a sword into his chest. "It leaves the perfect opportunity to take the spotlight. Everyone else can lay low for a day, unless they wish to piss off the audience," she winks, playfully. "We charge them head-on."

Jasper shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. She could cut his hand off and he'd never even notice. Vesuvia could slit his throat open from ear-to-ear, and would he see the strike coming? Does the deer ever see the gun placed between its eyes before someone pulls the trigger? Did her helper ever expect he'd die? She is sure she placed enough hints, such as draining all the money out of his bank account before the deed is done.

"I'd just really like a change of scenery," he says. It sounds like a complaint, one that burrows its way into Vesuvia's heart with a pained slap across the face. "Too much red and black… too much heat…" Jasper digs his hand into the dirt, pulling up a mound that sizzles away into the rain, creating steam.

She yawns. His gaze lands on her like another lightning bolt. "Fine," Vesuvia shrugs her shoulders. "Go ahead."

"What?" Jasper's stare is that of bewilderment. A rook taken by a pawn, the king put in checkmate as the queen rubs her hands together over a lit up veranda.

"Go ahead. Run free," Vesuvia lifts a hand in the air, shifting it from side to side mockingly. "Go into the jungle with Diana Kratovska and Orion Maythorpe and Magnus Winterthorn and Portia Beninblade and let them see what kind of man you really are, Jasper. Fight against the other dogs for the top crown while I steal it from you all in the middle of the night."

He locks his jaw, huffing an exasperated amount of air out. "Why are you mocking me?"

"Why are you mocking me?" Vesuvia turns the question around on him. She sits up, crossing her knees together, rubbing her legs together for friction and warmth. "You allied with me, remember? You came knocking on my door with a kiss in hand and a condom because you wanted me. My brain, my looks, and my talents…" she blows him a kiss. "Have faith in me. We'll take down Surt, and you'll get your cut of the prize."

She doesn't let him respond back to that. Not in any meaningful way, at least, as Vesuvia presses a kiss against his cheek. She knows he admires her, and she admires him, in a lost puppy dog look, someone who has traversed too many battlefields for a boy so young.

She'll send him home one day. In a coffin, perhaps.

For there is no way Vesuvia Vocanova, a chance in hell, will let him do the same to her. Ever catch her on apropos.

District Three has a god to hunt. A god with cinders, soot, ash, and the mighty wrath of Hell championing behind him. A frightful enemy.

She laughs in the face of fright.

She will laugh in the face of Surt.

She will laugh in the face of death.

Orion Maythorpe: District 4 Male P.O.V (18)

Ramses hasn't said a word ever since they returned back to camp, with the hail of cannon fire following in their footsteps, a bloodied wake to remind Orion of the life he took. Of the head he cradles in his arm at one in the morning, sobbing into a pitch of dark black hair and matted blood spreading across his cheeks as he rocks back and forth. Ramses hasn't said a word as Orion hasn't let him get one in edge-wise, for once the head is thrown away, and they watch the body get taken, all Orion can think about is one centralized emotion. It is heavy on his heart, one he doesn't want to admit aloud, and even though it focuses on Ramses, on his centurion, it is the truth.

Failure.

In the eyes of those who matter, Ramses is a failure. He did not decide any of these rules, and the power is out of his hands completely.

"You have any idea how badly you fucked us?" Orion snaps at Ramses, his voice a harsh bark against the wooden walls of the cabin. His lover looks back at him in fright, eyes wide, but again, yet tom open his mouth. A pleading look, one begging him to stop, but he can't. He is transfixed on that moment, the singular moment he swings the axe blade, and the headless corpse of Niklaus Peverell collapses at Orion's feet. "You have any idea?"

"I have some sort of one…" Ramses mutters, unable to make eye contact as he looks intently at the floor, studying it. A boring piece of wood.

Orion is transfixed further than that however, beyond the scope of the boy he killed, where the blood is on his hands. It is his lover, the man he has pushed up to this pedestal of magnificence and has showered him with praise and gifts and tender kisses. He's trained him, hyped him up in the art of warfare as Alistair would've wanted. It is not the same man that Orion sees dueling Jasper in the middle of the fishing village.

His lover let a girl who volunteered, without any idea of what she'd be walking into, get away. Yes, not their targets; Orion is expecting Jasper Overheart's head at his feet instead of the pretty boy with a drug addiction. It doesn't matter, though, for Ramses would've sank a knife into Vesuvia's jugular had that actually been her wrestling with him down on the ground. She bit him, he cries out in pain, and she got away. Poem Cavalli, the girl who had the lowest odds out of everyone on the entire board.

Wyvern has expressed the Capitol's disapproval. Not of Niklaus's murder, as that makes for great television, and it means Orion gets to breathe another day. Another day to make sure Alistair's passing is not in vain, another day to keep Ramses alive and allow them to cuddle in the piles of hay straws. They're upset that Poem Cavalli did not meet her end, and now the two must hunt her down from arena end-to-end to get the audience what they wanted.

"You let her get away…" Orion pokes his lover in the chest. "She is a sixteen year-old girl, a whole damned foot shorter than you, and you let her get away."

"It's not like you helped!" Ramses barks back, jumping to his feet. Speaking now, all of a sudden. Orion eyes him up. The handsomeness and ruggedness that attracted him to the boy in the first place. He might not have saved him entirely out of purely selfless reasons. Getting to taste the flesh of an immortal has always been one of his dreams, even after Alistair proves his morality, even though they never slept together. Even though Orion never wishes to sleep with his best friend. "You were too busy crying your eyes out over Niklaus Peverell and his decapitation!" Ramses gets in Orion's face, where he can smell the jam from their morning biscuits on his breath. "Thinking about the fact that you murdered someone mistakenly? No, over your friend who you can't save."

Orion's face twists into rage. "How dare you!" He- no one, not even Ramses Boskov on his golden throne, clenching a titanium scepter, gets to mention that name. Diana says it once, hearing Orion mutter it in his sleep, and he almost flings his biscuit gravy into her lap. Let her deal with that mess.

"How dare you!" Ramses spits back, twisting away from the boy from Four, stalking over to the corner. The boy from Twelve sighs, exasperatedly, rubbing his arms tightly. "Yes, I am sorry that Poem got away." He has his back turned to the corner, where Orion is unable to see his face. "But you scared me," he looks back, and there are tears in his eyes. Orion feels the rage in his chest boil some, bubbling and popping. Fright. Fright, which he has never seen before from someone he loves. His father looks at him in fright once, the time when Orion tries drowning himself out in the surf, but not like this. He's the oncoming wave. "I never heard you make that sound before. When- when Vesuvia and Jasper fought us in the forest, that was different. They attacked us. This- you just wanted revenge." Ramses's hands are shaking, as he wipes the back of his mouth. "You scared me…"

Orion sits down on the ground, losing all the feeling in his knees. He's right. Ramses is a thousand percent right. Angry, angry at an outcome that he can't change. What is he supposed to do? March right out in the rainstorm and slice Poem's head off as well? He has never wanted someone to be scared of him. Orion volunteers to give Alistair justice, as Alistair would've volunteered. He saves some other unlucky soul from this travesty. He gets to meet Ramses, to connect their lips together… and here he is, desecrating everything he's ever known.

The vicious predator his father wants him to be, the eel that his mother raises him to be… he is stepping into the role without a second thought. "I'm sorry…" Orion says, rubbing his brow. "I just… the letters…"

"We've all gotten them," Ramses says. It is a theory, but so far it has proven sound to Orion, corroborating with Ramses, and from what Ramses has picked up by observing other tributes in the training center, but they've all been told about performing. Look good for the audience, and the audience would wish to keep them alive longer, and if the audience loves them, then the Gamemakers wouldn't send the arena horrors after them. Orion no longer can see the haunting, glowing stare of an animal out in the distance, a beast that stalks the outer perimeter. "Perform, or else," Ramses continues speaking. "But that can't be your excuse, Orion. I know that you know better than that…"

Shame floods into his gut. Getting spoken down by the person he loves. He shouldn't have yelled. He shouldn't have pressed Niklaus's decapitated head up against his. But in that moment, all he can see, all he can hear, is how much of a failure he is. Going after the person who hurt someone close to him, and he cannot even get that right. He is not there for Alistair's execution, not even watching it in the audience. There is a graphic video passed around some chatrooms and online servers that the top one or two percent in District Four have access too. His parents discussed it over dinner, fried plantains, and cubed steak.

"The way the head just separated from the body…" his mother commentates, spooning some of the bits of steak into her mouth. Her hair is dyed a putrid seaweed green, the color of the vomit that Orion throws up onto his plate at hearing the words. How… how dare she.

"Aren't you glad, son, that we spared that you that fate?" his father asks him, pointing the fork and twisting it slightly. Orion can feel the sharp points puncture into his skin, bleeding him dry, making him scream with a contorted neck to the ceiling.

He is allergic to bananas, and his family serves him plantains. He might've thrown some of them at his father that night. Orion has thrown so much of his food away.

He cannot throw this away.

"I'm sorry…" Orion admits, hanging his head down low between his knees. Ramses's face goes lax, his mouth drooping down slightly, hands swaying back and forth. "I- all I have been thinking about is the people I've lost, and I didn't want to lose you too…" he says, holding out his arms. "I can't think about what I'd do if you died because we weren't playing the game and following the rules…"

Ramses does not connect the hug like Orion expects, his arms lowering down to his side, deflating. His heartbeat roars in his chest, a tidal wave of disappointment crashing to the sandy shores of his stomach lining, stabbing into his navel, tugging down at his hips, clawing, bleeding. "You won't lose me, Orion," Ramses whispers, but they do not make eye contact with one another.

Orion is disappointed, though. No matter how often he apologizes, no matter how many times he watches Niklaus's head get separated from the rest of the body. Death has never bothered him, the idea of killing has never bothered him – or so he thought – as signing up for the rebellion, when he is way too young and too inexperienced, would require people lose their heads, or that he squeeze a trigger and watch someone die far away from him. Perhaps no so up close and personal, as when he kisses down the scalp of Niklaus's head, and sobs into Alistair's gravestone.

"You said you wanted to be a leader one day, Ramses," Orion sets his shoulders back, running a hand through his hair. "An emperor or president or whatever." There is no clear emotion in Ramses's eyes, as the two men look at one another. Ramses's fingers on his right hand roll over the missing fingers on the left, back and forth, like someone painting walls with a wide brush. "They need strength."

"I have strength…" the boy from Twelve retorts. It is a crackle, a whimper, a dying gasp. Strength… a strength that Orion has yet to see replicated since they arrived in the arena. Always on the defensive. When Kai'sa attacks him at the cornucopia, in the beginning of the games, while Orion tries stopping the bleeding from the arrow wound in his leg, he sees the fear spreading across his lover's face. Terror, that this will be the end, as Kai'sa plunges knife after knife towards his head, missing every time and slamming into the turf.

He knows that Ramses has his back, and Orion will always have Ramses's, but is it enough? Is it enough to let someone else lead when they do not have the strength for it? The rain is starting to let up, Orion hearing the downpour steady into a slow trickle. They spend the night wandering aimlessly, searching for Poem, but she's gone. He may never even see the girl again, but he's not sure he'll ever be aiming for her.

They need a new plan of attack. Staying sedentary won't work any longer, but perhaps with Niklaus dead, the thirst for blood will be satiated.

"We need to go out there again…" Orion juts his head in the direction of the arena, out their cabin. Things felt comfortable four days ago, when both men are wrapped up in each other's arms, kissing down elbow lines and happy trails, tucking strands of hair behind ears, suckling sweet spots on collarbones. It is not enough, and he will push Ramses into the role that his lover has said he's always wanted.

"To do what?" Ramses lifts his head up, face plaintive.

"To compete," Orion says, resting a hand on the butt of his axe. This is what he came to do. He volunteered to save someone's life, sure, but he did not come into the arena to die. He will lose Ramses if he does not compete, and Niklaus is just the beginning. "To play in the Hunger Games."

Ramses nods his head sullenly, dragging his sword out of the scabbard resting on the ground. It makes a harsh, shrill hiss across the floorboards while Ramses makes his way to the door. "Sounds good, Orion," he pauses on the threshold, one foot out in the sprinkling rain, the other inside with the beast locked between two cages. "I forgive you."

"I love you…" Orion is quick to say it, making a step forward. The two do not connect in their touch.

Ramses heads out into the rain, swinging his sword back and forth as if it were a cane in his grip.

He does not reciprocate the same feeling back.

Magnus Winterthorn: District 2 Male P.O.V (18)

Magnus has come to the realization that the leadership he is under is starting to bother him. He never quite understood it, when the fight at the cornucopia happens, and he sees Diana race away off of her plate towards the bow, even if it is his weapon of choice as well, and he just lets her have it. Her response is to say that she's the leader, and as the leader of the alliance, she deserves to have the first picking of the weapons. Obviously, now, things have changed, as Magnus looks down at the bow clenched in his fist, feeling the strap of the quiver thick across his chest. It has to be readjusted from the slash that Portia gives him yesterday, but he's ignoring the pain, focusing on something far more central in the center of his vision.

Diana's leadership has not been earned but assigned to her by herself. She brought the alliance together, but Magnus knew he wanted to be side-by-side with Catalus during the arena from the moment he lays eyes on him at the tribute parade, done up in glitz and glamour next to the golden chariot, with Cecelia hiding beneath the spokes of the wheels. Never in this picture did the blonde spitfire from District 4 drop in. Diana is edged out of the corners, suffocating at the outer rim, getting knocked hard enough to push her out of the frame.

The newfound confidence she is exhibiting has yet to settle well in his stomach either. It could be that or the quail he catches for them in the morning, once the rain subsides, but that will go away in a few hours. As per her instructions, from her 'assigned' leadership, they're on the move again. Diana is not going to spend time going back and forth to an already established camp. Every day will be a new camp until they explore the entire arena.

He looks at the back of her head as she leads them on, spear angled horizontally versus vertically towards the earth. The stab wound in her leg is wrapped up tightly, and it doesn't even look like she's been injured. Catalus hangs back by his side, Magnus still caught off guard by the vampiric look of all the dried blood splashed down across the corners of his mouth and stuck up his nostrils. He is the least injured out of the whole party, which makes Magnus snort. Give it to the pretty rich boy to walk away from a fight unscathed, fighting the least dangerous member of the shared alliance.

How did Portia even manage to get those girls on her side? Magnus knows very little about Camilla and Nokomis, but they seemed to him to look like intelligent people, yet there they are, following his district partner's orders…

"Where do you think we're going?" Magnus whispers over to Catalus, beckoning him closer so their elbows are touching. He gestures his head towards Diana, who has stopped to look up at the sky. The clouds are gone, the bands of puffy gray and dreary black washing out into a blue sunrise, arena clock representing just a quarter after noon.

"Beats me," Catalus frowns. One hand is strapped to the hilt of the sword at his pocket, the other gripping onto the device that he receives from killing Fenrir in the caves. It is a grappling hook, as Catalus has demonstrated that morning after devouring into their quail. The boy from One aims it a tree with a loose branch, pressing down on the trigger. The claw shoots out of the device, snagging around the branch, and then, as Catalus flicks a tiny black switch on the upside of the claw, which fits around his hand like a glove, the cord flew back to his grip with the branch attached. Magnus eyes it enviously, even as Catalus shifts the weapons at his side around. "Just hopefully not to our deaths…"

Magnus laughs, which earns Diana's attention back towards him. Generally it'd be glare that is given his way, but Diana's look is more of a general desire to be included, as the trio comes to a pause. They're still in the fishing village, but they're walking south instead of north to the cornucopia. Catalus brings up the point that there could be potential tributes hiding out on the outer edges of the sections versus going in deep, but the idea is shot down by Diana without much of a fight.

"How's the cut?" she asks Magnus, nodding her head in his direction.

"Better," Magnus smiles, plucking an arrow out of the quiver, twirling it back and forth in his fingers. "I am going to make sure Portia gets hers." Of all the people in the arena to fight back and injure him, it is his insufferable bitch of a district partner with her bleached blonde hair and her traitor tendencies. What kind of person throws their own family up to the gods to be slaughtered? How can she even sleep at night. "Because she has no heart…" he thinks to himself, half humorously. It is a depressing thought.

"And what if I beat you to the punch?" Diana quips a half grin, stamping the spear into the ground.

"Fat chance," he says. "I'm the better runner."

"I'm the better shot," she fires back at him.

"And remind me again who has the twelve in training?" Magnus raises an eyebrow. He should be the leader between the three of them, he decides. It's his time, where all Diana has done has lead them down into caves with magical wolves and run into fights with old enemies that leave the enemies better than the attackers.

"I-" Diana opens her mouth to argue, but Catalus clears his throat, cutting her interjection off cleanly.

He tugs at his shirt, sweat pouring down his face. The air is muggy after the several hours of constant downpour, Magnus noting that as he feels similar pools of sweat building up under his arms and the crook of his knees. "Look, we can argue about who deserves to kill Portia all we want, but can we get some shade first? It's too hot out here to argue…" he trails off, digging into his backpack for his water canteen.

Diana sighs, tilting her head downwards, retrieving her spear out of the dirt. "How about over there?" she asks, pointing. Magnus covers his eyes with a hand to shade out the sun, following her line of sight to a ground level cave opening, shortly down a hill, nestled under what looks like a gigantic clump of roses.

There are no other buildings around, the last cabin they passed back by about twenty minutes, Magnus feeling the energy in his soul getting drained down through his ankles, hanging around his heels like wet moss that he tries trudging through. A good soldier is one who is able to adapt to all sorts of environments… his drill sergeant would be having him do fifty push-ups right now if his inner complaining were to be heard.

"The last time we went into a cave…" Magnus's voice trails off, as he scratches the back of his neck. It surprises him, his own weariness. He is often the first one to go face the charging of the bulls head on, to be the daring one of the group, yet he's practicing his own patience and caution.

"Well, there aren't any wolves in there to devour us now, is there?" Diana places her hands on her hips, lifting her head in the air smarmily. Famous last words, he supposes. Catalus shrugs, again without an argument, and starts making his way over to the cave entrance. It is slightly poking out of the ground, the top layer of the ceiling caked in some form of dust that dribbles down onto the rose bushes below.

They look out of place to Magnus. Sure, the only parts of the arena devoid of any greenery or flowers of any kind are the obsidian glass stone beach that they've seen glimpses of, or the scorched earth that borders their section of the arena, but floral red roses glimmering a bright amber in the sunlight sends goosebumps up and down his arms. Catalus shifts his backpack off of his shoulders, angling it so that when he throws it, it doesn't turn upside down or break any of the contents inside as the bag lands inside the cavern. He hops over the ledge next, landing firmly on the other side.

Magnus shifts his own bag off his body in a similar fashion, throwing the bow over his shoulder as well, while Diana lines up her shot. She isn't carrying a bag, having both of her 'boys' do the heavy work instead. She takes a running shot across the two or three foot gap, Magnus reaching out to grab her as her foot slips on the dusty edge into the cave. A cry of fright leaps from her lips for a second, her ponytail brushing against one of the rose bushes that are looking awfully, awfully sharp. Catalus grabs her by the arms with both hands, tugging her forward, the two falling back as she collapses onto him.

"Hey, beautiful," he cracks a joke, grinning up at her, the smile even ghastlier with the dried blood plastered over his face.

"Gross," Diana moans, pushing herself off of Catalus. "You wish!" Her voice rebounds around the cave, Magnus's ears perking up as he swears he hears some sort of gasping noise deeper in the cave, but he marks it up to a wounded noise form Catalus as the boy coos lowly in his throat.

Magnus takes a farther running start than Diana did, telling the duo to move out of the way as he stumbles right over them and directly into the wall. "Ow!" he groans in pain, gingerly pressing his nose as he rights himself off of the wall. Another gasping noise, but this time, it doesn't sound just like Catalus. He frowns, ignoring it, as he grabs his bag and hoists it back over his shoulders.

"Good going, hotshot," Diana teases him, twirling her spear around. Catalus hands Diana her water canteen from his backpack, while he digs for his own.

Magnus corks the top off of his, angling the bottle up to fountain the liquid into his mouth. Something moves in the shadows out of the corner of his eyes, but he's drawn towards Catalus taking another step out of the sunlight and into the shadows. There are more stalagmites and stalactites jutting up and around them, a cool draft of air blowing into the cave entrance and out of several holes poking through the ceiling. Pillars of sunlight fall onto his face, Magnus stepping out of the way from one.

"Hey, this reminds me of when I saw…" Catalus starts, but as he looks back at them, with Diana raising an inquisitive eyebrow, the smile on his face vanishes. "Never mind…" he says, ducking his head, arming the grappling claw and his sword.

Magnus corks the can close, sticking it in his back pocket, when a harsh grinding noise catches his attention to the left. The cave did not seem very deep, enough where it allows an echo of sorts to rebound off when Diana's cry of shout had been reflected. Depth bleeds into…

Brown hair. A flash of silver. A flash of gold. But… brown hair.

Magnus draws and loads an arrow into his bow. Diana stands up at attention, holding her spear out for the attack. "What?" she hisses.

"Someone's in here…" he whispers back. Magnus catches a side glance of Catalus's face, which is dropping by the second, now turning into a frown. He wears his emotions on his sleeve; Magnus is always able to tell what the rich boy is thinking, and it shows. Another gasp, another sound shushing the gasp that follows… it sounds like it is coming from the same person, but the noises are building the notion that it is all coming from the same person…

A long line of metal flashes by his vision as Diana chucks her spear at something through the rocks and misses. There is a very audible scream, filled with terror and fright, as the brown haired tribute darts to the side, away from her weapon. Diana curses, leaping forward, Magnus hot on her heels.

"It's Sylvan Adello!" Diana cries, and there is Catalus in his ear cursing yet again as the trio makes chase.

The girl from Four picks her spear up off the ground as they weave their way around rock formations. Sylvan is just ahead of them, angling for something on the ground, the glowing object that Magnus spots. A… a shield. How- how in the hell… Magnus stops to a crawl, looking at the gorgeous piece of defense. It is beautiful looking, something that does not deserve to be kept away in the shadows.

Catalus is behind them, but not at fast enough pace for Magnus's liking. He fires an arrow that just barely whizzes by Sylvan's ear, clattering against the stones. So much for the better aim… It is enough, however, to send Sylvan diving to the side, out of the way, reaching for the shield. The perfect opportunity for Diana to throw a knife into the boy's shoulder blade.

His scream could shatter the sound barrier as the blade lands directly into Sylvan's skin. He falls back, his body bright underneath a pillar of sunlight pouring down on him above. There's blood caked to his forehead, and grime under his fingernails, as if he has been stuck here for quite some time. Luckily, to Magnus's chagrin, it is not like finding Pierce in the tower with both of his eyes removed by… well, he's still not sure what.

Catalus makes it in between Diana and Magnus, holding onto his grappling claw. He presses down on the trigger, the metallic hand reaching out for the shield. Sylvan ducks, thinking it is for him, but horror is reflecting in his stare as the grappling claw snags onto one of the shield's straps, slinging it back over to their trio.

The boy screeches, but Magnus is unsure if it is derived from madness or terror. Sylvan reaches for an axe, and throws it, but it never goes that much farther before Magnus fires an arrow which embeds itself into Sylvan's arm, pinning him up against a rock. Sylvan is crying now, tears and snot dripping down his face, as he wrenches the arrow out of his arm. It is pitiful, and Magnus feels pity for the kid, but fate is simply unlucky for him today.

Diana approaches again, Sylvan screaming, blood pouring out of him, as he crawls back on all fours away from the trio.

"He's scared of us…" Magnus comments, rubbing his hand down his chin.

"As he should be," Diana smirks. She raises her spear, about to throw it, when she pauses. She turns back around to face Catalus, Magnus following suit. "You know what… no," she says, and then points at their ally. "You should do it."

"What?" Catalus protests, mouth hanging open.

"You're the only one who hasn't made a kill yet between the three of us," Diana points out, counting on her fingers. "Ten dead tributes and not one of them done by you. If we're supposed to be contenders…"

"I'm… I'm not-" Catalus sputters, face turning a bright red.

"Or I could strike you instead, Cattie," Diana says, calmly, rubbing a hand down the spear, rising back up to the point. Magnus looks back over at Sylvan, who is still trying to crawl away towards one of the openings in the rock, blood pouring out of the two wounds. "Give the audience something. You volunteered for a reason; you can't play ignorant now." There is a sharp edge to her words, once that rouses Magnus's attention towards the drama.

Catalus stands there, arms crossed over his chest, the shield now placed by his side, with the grappling claw hanging on his belt. He locks his jaw, gaze directly lined with Diana's, unflinching. Unapologetic.

"Fine." His voice is a snake's hiss.

He rushes forward, but not before seizing Diana's spear out of her hands. "Hey!" she exclaims in surprise. "That's mine!"

"You can get a new one!" Catalus shouts back, in fury.

He's atop Sylvan like lightning, the boy from Seven looking at him in fright, until Catalus rams the spear into the boy's gut. Sylvan never even makes a sound, as Catalus heaves the boy off the ground, where the boy couldn't weigh more than a hundred or so pounds. A sickening squelching noise fills the cavern, Sylvan making pained gasps until Catalus drives the spear into the rock wall, pinning the boy directly to the side of the cave.

The boy's eyes are dilated, he gasping, hands clawing for the spear, but his movements get weaker and weaker as Catalus stands there, hand firmly gripped onto the end of the spear, pushing, pushing, pushing.

Catalus only walks away once the cannon fires, harshly shoving Diana out of the way.

For the first time in his life, Magnus is at a complete and total loss for words.

Camilla Rodriguez: District 9 Female P.O.V (17)

Seeing Niklaus Peverell's face in the sky has transformed Portia into a bitter beast. Camilla has no other idea how to describe it. Their leader, their fearless commander who walks them into the maw of death, is swearing and kicking their supplies over while the face of the boy from Eight shines in the sky, disappearing into a blue halo behind the clouds. She and Nokomis simply look at one another without speaking, but Nokomis often mocks Portia by mouthing her words and making wide hand gestures whenever Portia has her back turned to the two girls.

Another cannon fires shortly after they decide to resume their travel for the day, sticking to the territory they know. The decaying forest is Camilla's home away from home, as odd of a thought as it is to think about and dwelling in any other area of the arena is not something she wishes to do after coming across Diana and her two male bodyguards. The adrenaline sits under her skin in a low hum, a quiet rumble that slides across her hands and down her thighs, rattling in her ribcage and making her teeth clatter together. They all could've nearly died yesterday, and Nokomis, despite knowing her hand injury is going to hurt, still pokes at it from time to time, hissing in pain whenever she does.

Camilla can still feel Diana's fists pounding into her chest, she running her fingers over her skin, reimagining the impacts made that cause her to lose all the breath in her lungs. There is a slightly raised lump from where Diana's butt of the spear connected with the back of her head, but that'll go down over time, if she has time left to heal. While they are recovering back in the copse of trees and crunchy leaves, Portia knows that they're safe, for the injuries sustained to Diana and Magnus would be worse than theirs, so they are to not be pursued.

Camilla expects to feel some sort of pride stirring in her veins at the fact that she managed to drive a knife into the leg of the fearsome and formidable Diana Kratovska, the girl who could've picked all of them off one-by-one at the cornucopia had the wind blown in her favor versus whomever else it could've been rooting for instead. However, all that comes up is Millet's face, and his shaking head. The first one to strike, and he's criticizing her. "Violence won't ever solve anything in this world, Cammie."

It is as if he is speaking directly to her, and she back to him. "Only one of us is getting out of here, and now that means twelve other people are separating me from them… how else am I supposed to make it unless they all die?" Camilla's gaze lingers on Nokomis's back, as she's in the center of everyone, Portia leading the girls through some rather thick brush, slicing away at branches with her machete.

"Who says any of them have to die by your hand?"

Camilla places one hand against the knife strapped to the hilt by her side. She doesn't want to hold the weapon and is having an extremely hard time even looking at it, and she hasn't dried Diana's blood off of it yet. Portia has wrapped her shoulder wound from one of Magnus's arrows up, the fabric soaked in a blooming crimson that sends chills down Camilla's spine, but their leader claims she's fine.

Fine enough to have them wander in circles, at the very least, since Camilla is hopelessly lost. She knows that twelve others now need to die, with the following of that thirteenth cannon shortly after noon, before the girls all stop for lunch. Portia yet again brings up that if Niklaus Peverell is to just die late that evening, what did it hurt to have sliced his throat open that afternoon? Her eyes now trail to follow the braid that Nokomis has tied her hair into, it resting squarely on one of her shoulder blades, she holding onto her sword in her right hand, bandages thickly splayed across the hand with a hole in it. She views the girl as a sister, the one she's never had, yet if she wants to get out of this arena alive, it'll end with Camilla alive as Nokomis lays beneath her, bleeding out. Hopefully, Portia is out of the picture by then.

Nokomis looks back at Camilla with a soft smile, Camilla picking up her pace, while Portia ducks under a wide branch, holding it up for the girls to pass under. "You doing okay?" Nokomis asks, sweetly.

"I'm not the one with a hole in her hand," Camilla laughs, slightly. Not too abrasive of a gesture, and not meant to be mean, for she has no idea what she'd be doing in handling an injury like that if she were to have one. There's been scraps with boys before, and they've hit her square in the mouth a time or two, but she cannot imagine what kind of pain Nokomis is experiencing right now.

"Moot point," Nokomis nods. She plays with her braid with her free hand, looking around the lush and green environment above them. It is a far cry from the withered out greys and exhausted yellows, like dry corn husks, that surrounded the girls in the heart of the decaying and dying forest. "I actually have been working on a poem idea in my head. You want to hear a few lines?"

"Sure!" Camilla exclaims, grinning back. Nokomis has shared a few pieces of poetry with her before, and they have been wonderful, for the very little she actually knows about anything in that vein of writing. Working in the grain fields did not exactly cultivate a scholarly understanding of too many things.

Her ally giggles, licking her lips from side to side, Nokomis pauses in her movement, Camilla coming to a stop as well. She frowns for a second, noting that the ground beneath their feet has been transitioning ever so slowly into more of a padded soil, as if it has become very damp all of a sudden, drenched in water. "Childhood was tattooing butterflies on our cheeks and admiring the colors for days to come…" Nokomis finishes with a flourish, and a large smile.

Camilla can't help but clap her hands together. "Nokomis, it sounds beautiful. You think of a name for it yet?"

"I-"

Portia raises a fist ahead of them, the girls looking over at her. The taste of sour milk splashes in the back of Camilla's throat at the sight. Always something to ground her down back to the current situation… she's stuck in an arena, fighting for her life. "What is it now?" she asks, in a complaining tone of voice.

Their leader tilts her head to the side, strands of blonde hair blowing in the breeze. "You hear that sound?" Camilla and Nokomis edge forward to be close to Portia. "Sounds like water to me…"

Camilla cannot believe she didn't hear it, but it is clear as day, the sound of rushing water. A lot of it, much more than just that of a river. Nokomis's poems and her laughter and the worrisome thoughts in her head have drowned out all other ambience. Portia nods her head, gaze steely, as the girls venture forward through the thicket of trees and vines.

It is a beautiful sight, as it is revealed to the girls. A waterfall, quite massive, they standing atop it at the highest point where the stream crests over the cliffside to crash into the serene pool below. The hot sun beats down directly on all the girls, Camilla shielding her eyes from the sun. A swim sounds delightful, but all of it is interrupted by Nokomis and Portia both cussing at the same time, nearly in unison, their voices rising in panic and overlapping.

"We're not alone…" Portia hisses.

"You've got to be kidding me," Nokomis groans, Camilla feeling the groan sink back into her ankles. "Can we go one day and one new location without some conflict?"

Sitting away from them, by at least fifty or so feet, as Camilla's vision adjusts to the lack of shade, are two girls. She recognizes them instantly, especially after seeing the vined tattoo on the side of one of the girl's necks, as Porscha Watanabe and Kai'sa Shadow.

Kai'sa is leaning on the ground, on her back, laughing at something Porscha must've said. However, the girl from Six's attention is immediately deviated from her ally to them. The girl swears, clamoring to her feet, hands immediately encircling around the base of a mace and a cudgel laying next to the upper layers of their clothes.

"Shit! Kai'sa, we've got company!"

Portia makes a step forward towards the other girls, but Camilla and Nokomis stay back by a few inches. Camilla liked them well enough in training, but she could've only said around three or four sentences each to both girls, since once the two spun pirouettes into each other's arms, they never interacted with anyone else.

"I was wondering when I was going to see some other girls around here!" Portia exclaims in jubilance. She's still holding onto the machete, Camilla notes, though it isn't in a threatening way. "So much testosterone!"

"We- we weren't expecting-" Kai'sa starts to say, the girl trembling even in the bright light. Both of their bodies are dripping wet, puddles down underneath their feet, with their top layers resting on the edge of the waterfall that crashes beneath them.

"Can we help you with something?" Porscha asks, crossly, as she drops the cudgel by her feet. "This is our spot, and we'd like to keep it."

"Whoa, wait a second…" Nokomis interjects, stepping away from Camilla's sanctuary. The girl from Nine hisses a cussword to herself as she decides to take the leap forward. Unity is needed, and if something is to hit the fan. "We aren't trying to- we're just-"

"I like to call the little trio we have together as 'Girl Power,'" Portia grins, gesturing between her two allies. Camilla frowns at the name. That had never been something they agreed upon, but she knows that Portia Beninblade being able to drag soapboxes out of nowhere is one of her specialties. "You're ladies, or at least, I think you are, and maybe you can turn our trio into a-"

Camilla is all about not ending the lives of other people without a damned good reason for it, such as the concept that Magnus fired first at them back in the fishing village, but there are zero cards on the table about drawing others into their alliance, which has not turned into a duo yet no matter how much she wants it to happen.

"No way," Porscha shakes her head back and forth. "Kai'sa and I aren't looking for anyone to be allies with. We've got each other."

"You're crazy…" Kai'sa says, but it is soft enough that it can come across like she's whispering.

Camilla sees out of the corner of her eye how Nokomis's grip on her sword tightens to the point of her knuckles bearing a strip of white across them. Kai'sa seems to be reaching behind her for something, but she can't get a good look at it.

Portia's facial muscles freeze in place, her mouth twisting into a sneer. "Crazy? Honey, look who's talking!"

"Hey!" Porscha snaps, her eyebrows furrowed together in anger. "Your parents ever tell you that being rude won't get you anywhere?"

Their fearless leader goes tit for tat. "My mother would comment on my language usage and grammar choices, but at least she'd be able to give me an opinion," Portia says, her gaze going up and down over the girl from Six. "At least I know my mother."

Porscha's face goes five shades of red and purple. "You bitch!" she seethes with rage. The girl holds onto her mace and slugs a hit at Portia.

"Fuck all of us…" Camilla interjects the thought.

Portia moves out of the way of the strike, enough to have Porscha stumble forward and nearly bust her jaw open at the impact of hitting the ground. Kai'sa brings out the flash of silver that Camilla could not get a good look at, two knives angled in the dancer's hand. She cries out in a rage of similar fashion, aiming for Nokomis's exposed neck. The girl from Ten has just enough time to curse in shock before ducking away from Kai'sa.

However, with Nokomis moving, it makes Kai'sa barrel directly into Camilla. She tries scrabbling for her knife, but Kai'sa is too quick on the draw, and one of the blades goes across a finger, nearly down to the knuckle. Camilla swallows a scream of pain, trying to reach for it again as Kai'sa bears down another series of blows. The two girls got the same training score, she realizes, which means that this is not just some random miner or emaciated straggler from Twelve that she is up against.

Camilla knees Kai'sa as hard as she can between the legs when the girl tries getting atop of her. Kai'sa howls in pain, before Nokomis then stalks over to her and grabs the girl by her hair and tugs her back.

"Get off of her!" Nokomis shouts in a fury that Camilla has never heard before. Kai'sa has to parry a strike from a clumsy sword thrust. Camilla scrabbles over to her knife, just as Portia makes a bad misstep and steps onto the two girls' wet clothes. She cries out in fright as she slips, head colliding with the stone. Portia lays there, dazed, eyes blinking in confusion, as Porscha raises her mace again. The strike only manages to come up with a few strands of Portia's hair, but the girl is already prepping her next strike.

Camilla's fingers just barely snatch onto the end of the knife, she tugging it close to her chest. Déjà vu hits her hard as she stands there, getting back to her feet. She can- she can let Porscha kill her ally, kill her ally, do the thing she's always wanted to have happen. Or she can face Millet's disappointed expressions back home in Nine, where she no longer has a brother since he wants to have nothing to do with her.

She snarls an angry sound in her throat as she collides directly into Porscha's back. It must be like running directly into a truck at full speed, for all Porscha does is turn around and backhand her across the face. Camilla widens her eyes in anger, jutting out an arm with the knife. It slices into Porscha's cheek, cutting a gash that is starting to drip blood down her face. Portia is struggling to get back to her feet, the slick rock surface making her shoes have a lack of grip.

There's another sound of undeniable pain over in the corner of Kai'sa and Nokomis, Camilla whirling to see that Kai'sa has managed to unwrap part of the bandages protecting Nokomis's wound. She's digging her fingers in and around it, like Catalus did, the girl from Ten's head tilted back in a harsh scream that has hardly any sound bearing out of it. Kai'sa whirls towards the other part of the fight, eyes zeroing in squarely on Camilla. The girl gulps, as the dancer is already racing towards her.

"You're going to die for that!" Kai'sa screams at the top of her lungs. Portia and Porscha are back to exchanging blows, and the girl from Six seems completely undeterred by the cut oozing blood down her cheek. Camilla braces herself for the impact, nearly dropping her knife, which falls out of her grasp again.

Camilla lands back onto the stone, coughing, stars exploding behind her eyes. Before she can beg for mercy, Kai'sa's hands have encircled themselves around her throat. She coughs, kicking and trying to tug the girl off of her, but the grip is like hot iron squeezing down on her Adam's apple, crushing her throat to pieces. Portia dodges out of the way from another brusque strike, managing to slice Porscha across the upper thigh near her hip, but the girl hardly reacts.

There is hatred, molten hatred reflecting in Kai'sa's eyes, burning with desire and a want for murder as she squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes… Camilla can't even choke as black spots begin to burrow in her vision, her heart beating faster and faster in her chest, oxygen burning up in her lungs as her entire body seems to be on fire.

"I fucking said to get off of her!" comes Nokomis's voice, barely heard over the distant din of rushing water and rushing blood.

The pressure releases as Kai'sa rolls out of the way from a sword strike that nearly buries itself into Camilla's own thigh. Air floods into her lungs as she tries breathing in as much as she can. The two girls, Kai'sa and Nokomis, trade blows again, as Camilla's trembling body ambles once more for her knife.

She could fight the boys. She fought Catalus, she fought Magnus. She can fight the girls too. She wants to help Nokomis, even as she sees Kai'sa swipe Nokomis's legs out from underneath her, the girl crashing hard onto the ground. Portia is locked in a blow-by-blow trade-off with Porscha, and all Camilla can see is the end flash before her eyes. She can see the blade puncture Nokomis's lung, she can picture it so clearly… yet she doesn't even move.

She does all Camilla believes she can do.

Camilla Rodriguez throws her knife at Kai'sa Shadow, and the blade embeds itself cleanly into the girl from Twelve's neck.

Camilla has no idea if the scream comes from her or Porscha, but all the movement on the top of the waterfall slows down to a crawl as Kai'sa's own twin blades clatter onto the ground. A gurgling noise rises from her throat, a sickening burst of blood frothing and exploding out of Kai'sa's lips, covering her pale face in a sickening red tie-dye of scarlet and fuchsia. The girl stumbles to her knees, hands soaked in blood as it spurts from the cavity in her skin. She is unable to grapple onto the knife, and the girl flops over.

The cannon fires instantaneously.

Porscha drops the mace with a dull clatter, as Camilla looks on in horror at the dead body. Oh… oh my God. "Kai'sa!" Porscha screams, trying to make a run for her downed ally.

Portia gets there first however, simply catching the girl's own outstretched arms and fists in her hands. The girl from Six is swearing, screaming, fighting back, trying to push forward, but Portia is pushing her towards the watery edge.

Portia gives the girl a sly wink and a smile, as Nokomis covers her mouth with a hand. The girl from Two, their fearless ally, pushes Porscha off and over the side of the cliff into the water below.

"Kai'sa!" Porscha screams again, the sound distorted and warped by the harsh gusts of wind and the bellowing of the waterfall.

Camilla ambles forward on her hands and knees about a minute later to the edge of the cliff. Portia is laughing at the top of her lungs, head titled up to the sky, as she wipes blood off onto her shirt. Camilla looks over the side fearfully.

There is a blooming pool of blood at the bottom, in the water, but she cannot find Porscha's body, and there hasn't been a cannon. There will be one soon, surely.

Camilla looks back at Kai'sa's unmoving body, with her knife still embedded in her neck. All the horror hits her directly in the face, as if she had been crushed to pieces by a sledgehammer.

What… what did she just do?

What has she done?

14th: Sylvan Adello, 14, District 7 Male. Killed by Catalus Drachma of District 1 via spear to the gut and bleeding out. Submitted by In Writing. Oh, Sylvan, sweet Sylvan. You were another tribute that was on the more 'normal' side of things, but in a Paradigm story, normalcy does not equate to anything other than room for me to mess with your head. Cee, I loved him, I massively enjoyed writing him, and I think people are surprised he survived as long as he did, but I truthfully ran out of area where I thought I could take his story, so it has been cut short and has ended here. I briefly thought about having him in the top ten, but that never was a fruitful concept. Live on, Sylvan.

13th: Kai'sa Shadow, 16, District 12 Female. Killed by Camilla Rodriguez of District 9 via knife to the throat. Submitted by Rune Whisperer. Kai'sa, my sweet damaged little darling in tutus and ballet slippers... any time I got to write your pov, like with Niklaus or Gemini, it allowed me to explore options in my work I didn't know were possible. She is probably another one of those shocking deaths, as many of you believed she'd go far, but this is the farthest I ever had her, at 13th, and it means Porscha gets to live on. Kai'sa, keep dancing in the shade, and rejoin your family. You've earned rest, dear.

Tribute List (Boy - Girl)

District 1: Catalus Drachma [Submitted by Manny Siliezar]

District 2: Magnus Winterthorn [Submitted by Audmirable] / Portia Beninblade [Submitted by WhateverIsOpen]

District 3: Jasper Overheart [Submitted by ParanoidSylph] / Vesuvia Vocanova [Submitted by Platrium]

District 4: Orion Maythorpe [Submitted by jimster920] / Diana Kratovska [Submitted by Firedawn'd]

District 6: Porscha Watanabe [Submitted by thorne98]

District 8: Poem Cavalli [Submitted by LordShiro]

District 9: Camilla Rodriguez [Submitted by Reign of Winter]

District 10: Nokomis Yanaba [Submitted by Ripple237]

District 12: Ramses Boskov [Submitted by Guesttwelve]

…

ALLIANCE LIST

The Mini Careers: Catalus Drachma (D1M), Magnus Winterthorn (D2M), Diana Kratovska (D4F)

Girl Power: Portia Beninblade (D2F), Camilla Rodriguez (D9F), Nokomis Yanaba (D10F)

Brutal Technology: Jasper Overheart (D3M), Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F)

Damaged Principles: Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Ramses Boskov (D12M)

Loners: Porscha Watanabe (D6F), Poem Cavalli (D8F)

…

Kill Leaderboard:

Catalus Drachma (D1M): I
Magnus Winterthorn (D2M): I
Portia Beninblade (D2F): I
Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F): I
Orion Maythorpe (D4M): I
Diana Kratovska (D4F): I
Porscha Watanabe (D6F): I
Gemini Lennox (D9M): I
Camilla Rodriguez (D9F): I
Nokomis Yanaba (D10F): I
Cassiopeia Grey (D11F): I
Arena/Mutts: I

There we are ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #29: The Blade's Sweet Song, which has claimed another two victims by the names of Sylvan Adello of D7 and Kai'sa Shadow of D8.

Well, I know that ended up being quite a massive chapter for only having five points of view, but I think you all expect that by now, haha, don't you? Man, Magnus, and especially Camilla's povs ended up bleeding over longer than I expected, but that's what happens when I am sent great characters. Our final fourteen has dwindled down to a final twelve, and while I expect a lot of you saw Sylvan going eventually, I wonder how much of a shock Kai'sa's demise has turned out for you. Sylvan showed that he was having a very hard ass time with coping, Vesuvia has a new mission in slaying the last arena god, Orion and Ramses have come to a cross road, the Mini Careers snagged another kill of the games, and Camilla can no longer claim any sort of innocence. I am curious on what you expect Porscha's fate to be from where I left this off at.

I will credit that the line of poetry that Nokomis says in Camilla's pov is in fact not something I wrote - though I do write poetry - and was instead gifted to me by Trish, or MeTheFanatic19 for her writing is beautiful and I wanted it highlighted before I wrote bloodshed. I am also announcing the closure of the poll that I made which contained seventeen tributes in who you wished to have in the Final 8, which we're rapidly approaching. Diana and Poem both received 9/12 votes, so congrats to Dawn and Shiro for your darlings topping the list. Catalus and Vesuvia received runner-ups with seven votes apiece. Kai'sa claims six votes by herself. Magnus, Portia, Porscha, and Nokomis received five. Jasper, Orion, Niklaus, and Ramses received four. Sylvan had three, Cassiopeia stagnated at two, and man, no one believes in D9 because Gemini received a single vote, and Camilla only had a single vote as well. The next poll will be on your two most wanted victors from the collection of the eight tributes that'll be there for the poll.

Next chapter will be #30, where holy hell we're in the 30s now, and there's only nine arena chapters left of madness. It'll be Chapter #30: Moments of Wilt and Decay, focusing on Night VI, with five povs. However, like two chapters ago, this'll be closing another round of tribute povs in the arena with two Capitol characters starting and ending the chapter (Richmond and Adriane) respectively, and three tributes sandwiched in between. Don't miss it! I also apologize about the delay of this chapter, as depression, anxiety, and finals pushed me back worse than I expected. Please review and let me know what you thought; I'd greatly appreciate it! Love you all! Have a great day! Bye!

~ Paradigm