A/N
Hello there! It has been a short while, hasn't it? I hadn't planned on taking such a long break from writing, but with moving house, renovating, work and going on a lovely trip away with some friends, the weeks flew by. I haven't forgotten MoS, nor do I intend on not completing it, so here we are with a fresh chapter which I hope will be the start of more frequent updates again. As a recap, we are currently at 20 tributes still alive, with the only deaths so far being Cameron, Velaris, Anri, Phoenix and Lunete. Will we add any more to that number today? Let's find out...
Sayuri Novem, District Three Female
"She can't be allowed to tell the truth; it would ruin me!"
"She won't be."
"How can you be sure?"
"The Gamemakers won't air anything she may say to incriminate you. You're safe."
"But what if something slips out and it's too late to cover it?"
"I can assure you, that won't happen."
"I need more than just your words –this is my entire life at risk! You knew that from the start."
"There are more than just words in place, don't you worry."
"…like what?"
"Contingencies."
"What sort of contingencies?"
"Listen, all you need to know is that there is no possible way for Sayuri to leave the arena alive."
Sayuri woke up with a startled jolt, smacking the back of her head into the stone wall behind her. Cursing under her breath, she rubbed the back of her head, already feeling the heat having rushed to the surface of her skull where she'd likely develop a hefty bruise.
She could still hear the conversation from her dreams as if it were still being spoken. The voices had been muffled, so she had been unable to recognise either, but Sayuri couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to the words. It was as though they weren't a dream, but rather a memory, stored deeply in the darkened folds of her mind. She tried to find the memory, to bring it into the harsh light of her consciousness, but she couldn't quite grasp at it as it slowly slipped away, perhaps forever.
It can't have been a memory though. Sayuri had been in the arena for perhaps two or three days now, and she hadn't encountered a single other person after fleeing from the cornucopia. Unless it had been a fragment of a conversation she had heard when the Peacekeeper had taken her from her apartment on the night before the Games to face her half-sister Florence? It was difficult to tell; already the snippets of conversation were slipping from Sayuri's memory. Maybe it was just a dream after all.
She supposed she would never know.
With a sigh, Sayuri lowered her hand from her head. It still hurt, a dull throbbing pain pulsating in the background. But it was a minor bump, nothing more. It was survivable.
Sayuri looked down from where she had positioned herself. She'd figured that she'd be safer sleeping at a height, in the hope that if another tribute wandered past whilst she was asleep, they wouldn't even look up to notice her. For the first twenty-four hours Sayuri had remained awake; too terrified to close her eyes through the fear that she may never open them again. But after the long hours passed in silence, she realised that she could not function without sleep.
Her strategy so far had been to lay low and keep moving. It seemed a fair enough plan for the time being, and she hadn't run into more trouble than occasionally tripping over uneven ground or scraping her palms and knees whilst climbing. Water had been easy enough to find once she had put a safe distance between herself and the courtyard in which the Games had begun –there seemed to be several rivers running through the arena, lying still beneath large arched bridges and weaving narrowly between clusters of peculiar plants, some of which resembled grossly oversized mushrooms and glowed as though they were filled with radioactive material.
Sayuri had found food too, both in the small packet of dried meat in the bag she had swiped from the outskirts of the cornucopia, and also the occasional plant bearing bland, but so far not-poisonous, fruits.
Sayuri supposed that all in all, she was doing a decent job at keeping herself alive.
Five had died so far. That brought the number of tributes down to nineteen –no, twenty. The additional tribute from One was unconventional, and added a further step between Sayuri and her ultimate survival. She wasn't sure if she had expected more tributes to have died yet; she had never really watched any of the Games as they had been cancelled for five years and before then she'd only been young. Whilst she didn't want to wish death upon anyone other than her murderous half-sister, Sayuri would have felt a little less nervous with fewer people alive in the arena with her.
A rumbling in her stomach prompted Sayuri to reach for her bag. As she did, she felt the beam beneath her suddenly sway to the side and her body slip from along it. Crying out, Sayuri's hands grasped for the beam, managing to catch her fall. She hung, suspended, looking upwards as the room appeared to be rotating around her.
Her fingers ached as she clung onto the beam, but she could feel sweat gathering in the creases of her skin as a fog began to cloud her mind. Pressure congregated in her temples, and the room continued to spin. Unable to maintain both her physical and her mental grip, Sayuri's fingers loosened and her body was pulled by the impatient hand of gravity.
The heavy landing, which caused her ankle to crack, was enough to stop the room from spinning, but as Sayuri pushed herself to her feet, the glimpse of the purple moon shining through the narrow window told her that this misadventure was far from over.
Groaning as a sharp pain throbbed in her ankle, Sayuri limped towards the wall, leaning almost all of her body weight against it for support. She was supposed to move on today; keep low and keep moving; but she could barely take two steps upright.
"Dammit," she cursed under her breath, pushing her back against the wall as she slid down to floor.
She would have to wait this one out –whatever the changing of the moon brought from the Gamemakers. Last time it had affected the plants; the rough patches of skin on Sayuri's hands from the blisters had taught her that. This time, Sayuri hoped, would be no worse.
An immeasurable amount of time passed. Despite having slept earlier, Sayuri felt herself dozing off; her head jolting every time she felt it droop to her shoulders as she battled unconsciousness. Her eyelids fluttered, seeming desperate to remain shut, but Sayuri kept forcing them open, unwilling to give in just yet.
She had a life to live and murderous half-sister to bring to justice. This was no time to die.
Listen, all you need to know is that there is no possible way for Sayuri to leave the arena alive.
"Did you hear that, little sister?"
Sayuri's eyes flew open.
"There's no possible way for you to leave the arena alive," the muffled words repeated in a far clearer voice as Sayuri's vision blinked into focus and she saw her half-sister Florence sat on the floor opposite her.
Sayuri immediately reached for a weapon.
"There's no point in trying to kill me," Florence smirked, picking at her nails. "We both know that you aren't capable of it."
Sayuri's jaw clenched.
"Although, it is easier than you think," her half-sister shrugged. "Killing your Mommy and Daddy was as easy as squashing an ant beneath my heels."
A scream tore from Sayuri's throat as she lunged forward, driving the small knife towards where Florence had been sitting –but was no longer.
"Boo."
Sayuri's head whipped around, seeing Florence standing behind her, cackling as Sayuri swung her arm round through thin air. Moments later, Florence appeared sat atop of the beam above her.
"You'll never catch me, Sayuri," Florence chuckled with a dark triumph. "I'm untouchable and your fate is sealed. You'll die in this arena like your parents died; choking on your own blood as you deserve, with me watching every second of the show."
"Florence!" Sayuri screamed in anguish, desperately trying to climb to her feet to scale the wall and drive her knife into its vengeful place. But as she clutched at the wall, her body shaking with anger, Florence simply vanished from view, only a pale purple haze filtering in from the window where she had been sat.
With a defeated cry, Sayuri fell back into the wall and down to the floor once more. It wasn't real, she told herself over and over as the tears boiled hotly in the corners of her eyes. It was all in your head.
If only the rest of her nightmares were the same.
Sayuri sat in silence for a while, both her mind and her body crippled with exhaustion. She could have given up there and then, accepted Florence's words that her plight was hopeless and allow herself to succumb to her likely fate. But beneath the bruised skin and the aching muscles, a fierce flame brought to life by the traumas of her past and nurtured by years of growing resentment and desire for revenge grew. Its heat drew Sayuri to her feet and kept the knife firmly in her grip as she heard the sound of footsteps heading towards her.
And when they arrived, she was ready.
Two tributes walked into the small rounded room. A tall boy with dark skin, and a girl with a gentle, but sad look in her eyes. The two of them froze as they noticed Sayuri standing with her weapon wielded.
"Oh sorry, we didn't know anyone else was here," the boy spoke first, holding up his hands.
"We don't want a fight," his ally piped up beside him, lowering her arms. "If you've had anything similar happen to you in the last few hours as us, then I don't think you want a fight either."
Sayuri hesitated –of course she didn't want a fight, but she also wanted to live.
"We're not here to hurt you, we promise," the boy seemed intent on peace. "We're just passing through."
Sayuri said nothing, but held her stance.
"Are you alone?" the boy asked. "You seem a little shaken up –if you want, you can join us? You're from Three, right?"
An eleven was clear from the boy's chest, and a seven on the girl's dark outfit. They seemed unwilling to kill Sayuri, and from what she could recall from the Capitol, neither of the two had shown themselves to be particularly vicious, though the boy had demonstrated some level of strength. They were likely telling the truth, but there was no room in Sayuri's flooded mind for allies. She was in this alone, as she always had been. But she was also not her half-sister, and she refused to shed blood without need. In that moment Sayuri decided there was no need; not yet.
Sayuri allowed herself to lower her weapon, trusting the kindness she could see on the tired faces of the two tributes in front of her.
"I don't want a fight," she agreed. "But I also don't want anyone's help. I appreciate your offer, but I'd rather do this alone."
The boy opened his mouth, seemingly to protest, but his ally held her hand to his arm and spoke instead.
"We understand," she spoke on behalf of the two of them. "If you'll allow us, we'll be on our way."
Sayuri nodded, gesturing for the two of them to have safe passage. As they both quickly left, Sayuri felt a tension easing in her muscles.
She knew she may come to regret her decision, as in a game of life and death, there was only room for one survivor. But she also knew that despite her intentions to survive and seek revenge for her family's killings, she was not a cold-blooded killer. Her heart may have been full of hatred, but somewhere in the darkness, there was light and no matter what, Sayuri was determined not to extinguish it.
Anise Montague, District Eleven Female
True to her nature, Anise Montague was torn. As she stared at the four knives in front of her, her gaze lingering over the careful craftsmanship, she wondered whether Accel had been right, or just naive.
See, they like the real you too, Accel had said to her after she'd received the sponsor gift. For a brief time, Anise had entertained the idea that his words had been true. The timing of the gift had coincided with her moment of vulnerability, as she had allowed herself to overlook a few cracks in her guarded walls, but that could have been mere optimism. The butterflies that decorated the handles of the blades spoke a different story: Mariposa's story.
The gift was for Mariposa, not for Anise.
With a defeated sigh, Anise returned the knives to the belt in which they had arrived, fastening it around her hips where it was the perfect fit. Of course it was; stylists had known her every measurement throughout her entire teenage life. The belt was simply another accessory for their perfect popstar.
"Accel, maybe we should-" Anise began to look for her ally, walking back into the building they had spent the last few hours exploring. But as she turned the corner, Accel was nowhere to be seen. "Accel?"
"Oh, there you are!" a distinctly female voice startled her.
Confused, Anise turned around. "Wilhemina?"
"Who else would it be?" laughed her stylist, scurrying over to her with a deep blue fabric hanging over her arm. "Now, as usual, we are running late. So quickly change out of whatever it is you are wearing -I mean, what is that? Is dark gothic fantasy making a comeback I wasn't aware of? In fact, don't waste time explaining, just get changed before the sisters from hell arrive."
Anise could not make her body move as she stood, bemused, staring at Wilhemina. She blinked hard; once, twice, three times. But Wilhemina remained.
"Anise, my sweet, are you alright?" Wilhemina stepped towards her, reaching out to touch her arm with concern. "You seem awfully pale."
"I…"
"I know this must be surreal for you," the stylist spoke softly. "Your first Reaping in so many years; returning back to Eleven. But you'll make it through, you've got far too much of a life back in the Capitol for the Games to take that away from you. Fate would never be so cruel."
Anise's heart skipped a beat. The Reaping? But hadn't she already been reaped? Wasn't she in the arena now?
Doubt was like a wildfire in her mind.
Anise found herself stepping backwards, almost as though she were retreating from the only person she could consider a friend. Looking down at her hands, she could see that they were trembling.
She did all she thought she could, and ran.
Rushing down the stoned corridor, Anise gasped desperately for air, her throat feeling as though it were collapsing in on itself. As her vision blurred before her, she felt her body drifting to the side, the stone walls scraping against her sleeved arms and tearing at the fragile skin of her wrists. She turned a corner, dashing into a room and slamming the door shut, but when she turned around, she was not alone.
"What time do you call this?!" demanded Rayla, her hands poised on her dainty hips. "Mariposa is on in less than three minutes!""
"And you don't even have your mask on!" added Reyna with an equal level of frustration in her tone as her sister.
Anise opened her mouth to speak, but she could only let out word-less air.
"Stop gawping like a dead koi and put this on," tutted Rayla, handing Anise a mask. "You do remember the lyrics to your own song, don't you? This is no time for a breakdown, Anise, not on the opening night of Mariposa's Victory Tour. District One is just the first of twelve shows."
Victory tour? But Wilhemina had been preparing her for the Reaping… Anise's head was confused to say the least.
In a haze, she looked down at the mask which had been thrust into her hands, and screamed.
It was not one of many butterfly masks which lay in her palms, but instead, it was a mask of her own face. The skin felt and looked just as real as the skin on her own face, down to the last crease beside the corner of her eye. A splash of glittered eyeshadow sat below the perfectly shaped eyebrows, but there were simply empty holes where her eyes should have been.
Horrified, Anise immediately dropped the mask, flinching as she watched her own face hit the floor beside her feet.
She backed away, fumbling behind her for the door as Reyna and Rayla shared the same frown as if there were nothing abnormal about the nightmare Anise was stumbling through. As Anise fell backwards through the doorway, a sudden bright light caused her to squeeze her eyes shut. When she opened them, she saw that she was sat in the middle of a large stage, with endless rows of spectators facing her. It was a familiar setting; it could have been any of the many concerts she had performed; but despite the familiarity of the stage, lighting, music and audience, it felt incredibly out of place.
Mariposa! Mariposa! Mariposa! The crowd cheered ecstatically for her.
Slowly and shakily rising to her feet, Anise looked out towards the crowd. As she peered through the wall of spotlights, she realised that the crowd was not a crowd at all, but rows upon rows of the same person repeated over like a million clones. Her father.
"No, no, no," she whispered to herself, beginning to retreat backwards. She had no idea what was happening to her, and she had no idea how to escape. The throbbing in her temples was growing louder than the pounding music around her, and she continued to step backwards until there was no more stage to support her and she felt her body falling.
Anise fell for what felt like hours. Nothing but darkness surrounded her as she reached out for something to hold onto in order to free herself from oblivion. Screams tore from her raw throat, tears streaming down her face until at last she felt something sweeping up beneath her.
Two arms, sturdy and steady, caught her body.
No longer falling, Anise looked gratefully towards her rescuer, her heart skipping a beat as she found herself staring into the grey eyes of Cassian Bouchard.
"Cassian!" she gasped, never so pleased to see her lover and fellow celebrity.
She reached her arms around him and hugged him close, breathing in his musky smell. After a few moments, Anise's body turned rigid. Musky was not Cassian's smell; his scent was clean, like fresh linen. This was a far more earthly scent; a fragrance mixed of sweat, grease and smoke.
Peeling herself away from the boy's chest, Anise looked up to see that Cassian's face had been replaced with a dirtier face. Accel's face.
"Accel!" she cried out, partly in shock and partly in relief. "Am I awake? Is this still a nightmare?"
"You're awake," he replied, though his voice was cold and void of emotion. The usual chirpiness to his demeanor was just a distant memory in the soulless look in his eyes. "But you'll be asleep soon -asleep for a long time."
Anise's eyes widened as she felt Accel's arms around her tighten. She struggled against his grip, but she could not free herself. Like a snake, Accel gripped her harder and harder, squeezing her body so tightly Anise felt as though her bones would surely snap. She begged him to stop, but he barely blinked as he continued to crush her. With a terrified feeling that she was about to die, Anise suddenly remembered the knives in her belt. Managing to move her hand, she wrapped her fingers around the handle of one of the knives, retrieving it. With all her strength, Anise pushed the knife forwards, burying it into Accel's thigh. He yelped, dropping Anise instantly. As she fell to the ground, she scrambled away on her hands and knees, reaching for a second knife in case he came after her.
"Anise!" Accel called after her, but she kept on crawling, bruises forming on her knees and her wrists scraping as she screamed. "Anise, wait! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Get away from me!" Anise shrieked, running out of floor to crawl across. She found herself stuck in a corner, turning around and pressing her back against it, holding the knife out in front of her.
Accel was stood up, but limping as he clutched his leg where blood leaked from between his fingers. But there was no longer an empty look across his face, just an expression of worry, and of hurt.
"Anise, it's not real," he called to her. "It's just a trick -the arena is playing with our heads, making us see shit that ain't real!"
"You tried to kill me!" she replied, her voice cracking as tears broke down her face once more. As Accel limped towards her, she shook the knife in her hand towards him in warning. "Stay away! Fucking stay away from me!"
But he persisted.
"Anise, it's me, I promise," Accel begged. "It's gone now -look, the moon is back to normal. It's me. I'm not going to hurt you."
Paranoia having gripped her tightly, Anise could not let go of the knife as Accel approached her, but she found her arm softening as he lay his hand carefully on her wrist, lowering the knife away from his chest. Looking into his amber eyes, Anise could see her own reflection; a shaking, anxious mess.
Maybe it was over.
"Is…is it really over?" Anise asked Accel with hope.
He nodded. "What did you see?"
Anise shivered at the thought of the scenes she had walked into -or at least, had believed herself to have walked into. She described each of them to Accel, and his eyes widened.
"What did you see?" she asked him the same.
He shrugged. "Just some past troubles. Nothing I haven't already tortured myself with before."
Anise's brow creased; she had never considered that Accel may have had his own demons. She had always been wrapped up in her own internal struggles that the thought hadn't crossed her mind; not that it should have, seeing that she had planned to use Accel merely as a means of protection. But now, she felt herself wanting to know more about the rugged boy from Six, as well as distract herself from remembering the visions she had just encountered.
"What did you torture yourself about?" she asked with genuine interest and care, feeling her heart twinge at the sentimentality which was foreign to her.
Accel shrugged. "Ah, nothing like the shit you've had to deal with. Honestly, it's just dumb shit."
"It's not dumb," Anise touched his forearm softly. "I want to know. Tell me."
"Ah, well I had a bit of a rough patch just under a year ago," Accel ran a hand through his tousled hair. "Dropped outta school, drank a bit too much, you know. Got myself into a mindset where I was just running myself into the ground, going nowhere. My Dad, he had some issues with alcohol in the past and I could see the way it brought those memories back for my Mom. It was hurting her -I was hurting her. And myself. I cut the drink out and got back on my feet -well, until the Reaping, but I guess you know what happened there."
Anise could understand, better than she thought she would have.
"So yeah, not nice looking into a mirror of my past mistakes," Accel sighed. "But it wasn't real, was it? Just the Gamemakers doing their weird magic shit to mess with our heads."
Anise nodded, her eyes drifting down to where they fell to Accel's thigh.
She shrieked.
"Oh shit, Accel, your leg!"
Accel's eyes widened, as if he were suddenly remembering that he was in pain. "Oh fuck yeah, you stabbed me. For real. You know, that shit actually hurts, like a lot…"
Peach Bellini, District One Female
Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and Peach always had her eyes open.
She saw beauty in everything she could; the gentle overlapping of petals in a handcrafted bouquet of flowers in the hands of a man walking home to see his wife after a hard day at work; the delicate curves of ink across crisp cream paper in a handwritten note; the tiny droplets of dewy water which clung to the cold surface of her bedroom window in the autumn. If you looked hard enough, there was beauty everywhere.
The arena was no different.
Titling her head slightly to the side, Peach looked blissfully up at the constructed sky which cloaked the arena in an endless twilight. If she'd had her camera with her she would have taken a thousand photographs of the sky by now.
"It would make a very pretty photo," Beau seemed to read her mind, as he so often did. Feeling the gentle heat of her best friend beside her, Peach's muscles instantly relaxed a little, though her fingers remained gripped around the handle of her rapier.
"It would," Peach replied softly, reaching into the chest pocket of her clothes and retrieving the photograph she had been given in the Justice Building by Beau's parents. "A photo can speak a thousand words, can't it?"
She looked down at the small square photograph, and her brow instantly furrowed. Instead of seeing the familiar faces of Bronte and Opal Ducreme alongside the man she believed to be her father, Peach found her eyes resting on an image which caused her breath to falter.
It was Beau. His eyelids were closed, resting silently against the pale glow of his peaceful face. He looked to be asleep at first glance, but the unsettling feeling which Peach could feel brewing in the pit of her stomach made her believe that it was simply naivety making hopeful assumptions. She turned the photograph over, reading the handwritten words on the back.
With dread, Peach recognised her own handwriting; the additional curls on the end of each letter distinct.
The cost of dreaming, it read.
Feeling a nausea wash over her, Peach immediately stuffed the photograph back into her pocket, sucking in a sharp breath as she felt a heat pricking in the corners of her eyes. She knew deep down that entering the arena with Beau would mean certain death for at least one of them, yet she had ignored the truth in favour of her dreams. How long did she expect the veil of ignorance to shield her from facing reality? She had been hoping it would last longer, but already she could see the flimsiness of the material and wondered how long she could convince herself that she had made the right decision.
"Foolish girl," she heard her mother say, though it was inside her ears that the words rang and not in the privacy of her mind.
Looking beside her, Peach noticed that Beau had gone, and in his place stood Minerva Bellini.
Peach's mother possessed beauty, but the scornful frown that consistently creased her skin and pulled her lips in tightly made it difficult to look upon her face with pleasure.
"You're going to kill that boy," Minerva spoke with an almost gleeful tone, as if to say I told you so. "Either by your own hand or by another, you will be the death of Beau Ducreme."
Peach bit her lower lip, instantly tasting the metallic fragrance of blood in her mouth. She looked away.
"It was your fault he volunteered," her mother's voice continued. "You know he never wanted to train; he just didn't want to let you down."
"Beau made his own choices," Peach found words forming in defence. "He promised me that he volunteered for his own reasons and not because of me. He wouldn't lie."
"Wouldn't he?"
Peach's head turned back to where her mother had now vanished and had been replaced by a much smaller and furrier creature. Her cat, Sylvia, with her ginger fur almost glowing against the dark background of the arena paced around her feet.
"People lie to protect the ones they love," words seemed to flow out of Sylvia's mouth. "You lie to Beau every day –why would he not do the same?"
"I don't!" Peach protested, but then realised she was talking to her cat, or rather likely a vision of her cat. "Stop this!"
She backed away, shaking her head. Above her, a purple moon had shifted into view, casting an ominous hue over the arena.
It wasn't real. It couldn't be.
Looking around her, Peach saw the rest of her alliance spread around. Beau was the closest to her, and Peach's legs instantly shifted into a run to reach his side.
"Beau!" she cried out, reaching for his shoulder.
When Beau did not look up towards her, Peach took his face in her hands and positioned herself directly in front of him. His dark eyes were glazed; his pupils enlarged, though she could not see her own reflection in their blank stare. A state of fear seemed to grip him as he stood still, his fists clenched tightly by his side.
Peach reached down to take his hands in her own, feeling that one of them was slightly larger than the other, suggesting that he was gripping onto something. Prying open his fingers, Peach retrieved the bullet from his grip; the one he too had been gifted by his parents after the Reaping, and one with the names scratched into it that formed another piece of their families' past.
A past they may never know if they did not reach their own future.
"Beau, wake up," Peach shook her best friend's shoulders. "Whatever you see, it isn't real."
"It's already over…" Beau whispered, though his expression remained the same and his eyes did not flicker.
Peach shook her head defiantly. "It's not over! Beau, wake up, it's me!"
Tears began to break down her face as Peach's fingers dug deeper into Beau's shoulders.
"Give him time, he'll awaken when he's ready."
Peach turned her head to see a slender hand resting on her own shoulder.
"Cephus?" she was surprised at their presence, and the calming aura that settled around them.
"Clementine," they smiled with a charming grin. "I assume your friend has never taken a hallucinogenic before?"
Peach shook her head. "Not that I know of?"
"His reaction is completely normal; nothing to worry about," Cephus attempted to reassure her. "You're fine, aren't you, Cherry? I know you must have been seeing something, you looked rather alarmed a few minutes ago."
"I…" Peach bit her lip, wincing as her teeth clamped down on the same spot as they had bitten earlier, rereleasing a droplet of blood into her mouth. She frowned. "How come you're so calm about it all? Did you not see anything?"
Cephus grinned. "Oh Blueberry, this is the clearest I have ever been able to see. In fact, I feel as though I have reached the peak of the mountain – I have experienced what you could call enlightenment. I see it all now, the roots of my sister's anguish. I know where I went wrong."
"Where did you go wrong?" Peach asked.
"Instead of burying myself in a bag full of pills and powder I should have grasped a shovel and dug my way out of the sand," Cephus explained in a manner Peach had never expected from the usual lunacy that came from their mouth. It was brutally honest, and tenderly inspiring. "Perhaps if I had done so sooner, Circe wouldn't be so lost at sea…"
Cephus' eyes drifted over to where Peach presumed Circe had been standing, but the sudden widening of their eyes and the rigid jolt to their shoulders suggested that something was concerning her eccentric ally.
"Circe?" they called out, their voice breaking.
"She's over there!" Peach spotted the distinctive tall, but thin frame of Circe a short distance away. It was dark, but the light of the moon and the luminescent plants around them were enough for Peach to make out that Circe was standing in a large body of water. She seemed to be wading in deeper, more of her body becoming lost to Peach's sight as it slipped beneath the dark surface of the water.
Cephus was the first to break into a run, sprinting towards their sister. Peach followed, her time spent in training allowing her to very quickly catch up to Cephus' erratic pace.
It wasn't long before they both reached the water's edge. Without hesitation, the two of them waded into the water, a coldness surrounding Peach's legs as the water engulfed her from her thighs down to her feet. Circe was out of reach, her back facing them, as she continued to walk forwards, as if her movements were being controlled by an external force.
"Circe!" Peach called out after her. Circe did not seem to hear her; or perhaps she did and she did not care.
Somehow Cephus had overtaken Peach, and was gliding through the water like a streamlined boat, using their arms like oars to propel them further. Peach opened her mouth to shout over to them, but her words were cut short by her own gasp as she saw Cephus' body suddenly disappear, as though something from below had grabbed them and pulled them under.
Moments later, Cephus' head broke through the surface, spluttering.
A second head followed behind. Ragnar.
Eyes alight with rage, Ragnar reached out an arm, curling it around Cephus' neck. With a shriek, Cephus clawed at Ragnar, kicking out their legs and splashing water which did not seem to deter Ragnar from his goal.
"Ragnar what are you doing?!" Peach screamed, pushing herself through the water as quickly as she could against the current. "Let Cephus go! Stop!"
But like Beau and like Circe, Ragnar did not seem to hear her.
Ragnar began to pull Cephus further down, forcing their head into the cold waters. Peach could see that Cephus was frantically trying to free themselves; their strongest motivation not their own survival, but for their sister's. With a quick glance, Peach saw that Circe was nearly fully submerged, the water's surface tickling her chin. Hopefully she would break from her trance before she drowned, or at least be able to hold her breath for long enough for Peach to reach her.
"Ragnar!" Peach cried out again, desperate. "You're killing them! Stop!"
She was within a stretch of them now. Cephus' head was now mostly beneath the water, though the frantic kicking and swiping of their limbs indicated their consciousness.
Peach reached out to Ragnar, grabbing his arm tightly and attempting to pull him away from Cephus. Ragnar's head turned to face her, but his eyes did not seem to register her as they blazed with a fury that made even Peach feel nervous. She had been in the presence of anger countless times in her life, but she had never seen an anger as raw as the look in Ragnar's face as he continued to squeeze the life from Cephus.
"Let go!" she cried desperately, pulling at Ragnar's arm, but barely making a dent in his solid bicep. "Ragnar you need to stop!"
Realising that she wasn't strong enough to break his grip, Peach's heart sank as she felt her hand dip into the water, where it wrapped around the handle of her rapier.
Hesitantly, Peach pulled her weapon from her belt, holding it by her side, just below the water's surface.
"Ragnar, I don't want to hurt you," she said, breathing deeply to keep her voice steady. "But you're giving me no choice."
Her fist tightened around the rapier's handle.
Cephus' body had now gone still, and in her peripheral vision, Peach could no longer see Circe's head above the water.
Drawing in a sharp breath, Peach pushed her blade through the water.
"Peach!"
She suddenly froze.
Her head snapped to the left. Beau was standing at the water's edge, his conscious posture indicative that he had broken free from whatever hallucinations had gripped him earlier. Matthew was also beside him, though Riddle was nowhere to be seen.
But it was that momentary distraction that meant that Peach was not expecting the sound that followed.
The firing of the first canon sent a startled jolt through Peach's body.
The second stole her breath.
A/N
So, two canons, but to whom do they belong? Also, the next coloured moon made its appearance; the purple moon. It seemed to cause hallucinations and delirium, which threw quite a few of our tributes. Was this more or less of a threat than the poisonous plants, do you think?
We finally heard from Sayuri in this chapter, who so far we have not had any mention of since the start of the Games. She seems to be handling herself well, keeping low and surviving with little struggle. A distant memory, or a dream, of a rather curious conversation is in her mind. Who could have spoken those words, and was it a real conversation or just an anxious trick of the mind? Sayuri's experience of the moon's effects saw her envisioning her half-sister Florence, who tortured her over her parents' murder. Sayuri also encountered her first tributes since the cornucopia; Logan and Livvy, who offered her an alliance, which she turned down. Should she have accepted the offer, or is she better as a lone wolf?
Anise had a pretty tough time under the purple moon, finding herself running from scene to scene without knowing what was real and what was not. After being gifted several gifts from sponsors in the previous chapter, there was hope that perhaps Anise could allow herself to step forwards away from Mariposa's shadow, but she still seems unable to escape her spotlighted life. As the effects of the moon pass, Accel is there as always to comfort her, but not before Anise's fear caused her to stab him in the leg. With two canons firing by the end of this chapter, has Anise's fears accidentally taken the life of the one person who sees her for her true self?
Finally, we touch base with the careers through the rose-tinted eyes of Peach. She continues to romanticise her situation, but the seeds of doubt are growing as she struggles to ignore the realities of being in the arena alongside Beau. The purple moon seems to play on these fears further, with the photograph displaying a lifeless Beau, and with visions of her mother (and cat, because hi Sylvia) telling her that she will be the cause of her best friend's demise. How long can Peach ignore reality, and what will her fantasies and dreams cost her? Beau's life? Her own? Then as she breaks from her own dilemmas, Cephus is having a moment of clarity as the purple moon seems to actually help them to see through their antics. A different side to them emerges as they voice their regrets and note the root of both theirs and Circe's issues lie with the actions of their parents, but that revelation soon is cut short by the realisation that Circe is still under the effects of the moon and is wading further into the water. As the two of them attempt to retrieve her, Ragnar appears in a wild rage and begins to drown Cephus. As Peach struggles to rescue Cephus and draws her rapier, she is momentarily distracted, and then two canons fire. But whose canons are they?
Two deaths confirmed, but the identities remain unknown until the next chapter. I shan't do the chart as I cannot allocate any kills, but we are now down to 18 remaining tributes. Who do you think the canons belonged to? Has Ragnar's rage struck again, or perhaps Peach's rapier claimed a life? Did Circe move to the next life, or perhaps Accel's was cut short in a tragic accident? Sayuri may have changed her mind about bloodshed and put her own survival first, using the element of surprise against Logan and Livvy, or maybe something else happened in a distant part of the arena, where the aftermath will shed light on the mystery? Guess you'll find out when I'm able to get the next chapter up (which hopefully will be in the next week or two!).
Thank you for your patience if you are still here. I hope to not have such a long break again in the near future, but sometimes life gets in the way sometimes. It's been great to post a chapter up though, and I hope you enjoyed it!
Until next time,
Firefly
