Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, Chapter #22: The Arena's Kiss of Death. I know it has been a lot longer than expected for this update, and I heavily apologize about it, things just got away from me and outta hand, and it's been a very mopey period of time, but regardless I showed up. This chapter is focusing on Arena Day/Night I (just Night I to make it easier), and there's so much at stake, especially after that bloodbath, where your support for it really made my Halloween weekend, it was just so sweet of you guys, and I greatly appreciate it. Besides that, thorne98 and I have dropped the tribute submission form for the collab story we're doing, Red Silence, where all of those details can be found on my profile... lot of good stuff there! Six povs for you today for this chapter, but again, not spoiling who! Hope you all enjoy Chapter #22: The Arena's Kiss of Death.
"You've never lived until you almost died for it, and it is those that almost experience that as their end that seem to cherish it the most," ~ Anonymous
Pierce Alversway: District 6 Male P.O.V (15)
Pierce's legs are on fire, his heart pounding in his chest, the screams of the dying filling the voided space as he runs. He is not even sure where to run to, for there's Kileigh screaming at him and pointing a finger in his face, and Zachary's dead body floating around somewhere in the grass. He can't hide, he can't vanish and disappear like he wants to. The world will swallow him up whole if he is to stay still, and he saw how Diana Kratovska had been floating about from one foothold to the other, arrows glinting in the sunlight. He's never really been in pain before, besides when the Peacekeeper's whip cracks across his back, but that is a different pain. There are no Careers here now, just his decisions and the way his mind is cracking.
He wanted to break the arena like a puzzle, to perhaps see Zachary's body crack as well, to watch the vermillion splatters that Porscha talks about so much finally come to light, but now with him dead… who else is he going to go after? Pierce's stomach is in pain, the blossoming discomfort spreading into his thighs and down on his ankles, for his boots trod into the earth like a horse's hoof.
"Go! Go, you stupid idiot!" his mind screams at him in typical, beautiful fashion. He hasn't heard the voice in a good minute, ever since it abandoned him as the Peacekeeper approached his shirtless back… he should have never lost his temper. The voice is comforting, in an odd sense, for Pierce, only because it is the one piece of single, steady company that he has had his entire life. "You wanna die, huh?" the voice taunts him.
"NO! Of course I don't!" Pierce shouts back at himself, but he doesn't realize that he is speaking aloud until he hears the echo, he cussing to himself again. Pierce Alversway is not stuck in his little home, peering out behind the curtains, and hoping to see his parents walk by on one of their marches…
His body seems to throw itself forward, reaching for a tall tower out in the distance that Pierce sees. He has never been that good of a climber, truthfully, unable to get up and down from the rope course when all of the tributes do the joint exercises, but Porscha of course can… she seems to do everything better than he can.
"Then FUCKING move!" the voice screams at him again, Pierce reaching the tower. It must been about thirty minutes after the gong had rung out, and Cain is screaming at all of them to now… Pierce digging his hands into one of the bricks he sees reach out just slightly from the base, he hoisting himself up. He stops a few paces upwards to see that the stones jut out in a spiral pattern…
Another puzzle?
He grins to himself, hiking himself up higher and higher and higher until he can see a little window peeking out over the top, a slight breeze felt as he climbs, resting out on a few stakes here or there to let his chest heave, rising, and falling while the sun streaks across the sky. Pierce has no weapons, no supplies – he might've thrown them at Kileigh, truthfully, just to get away from her – but he has soul, and this soul is not about to give up on himself yet.
He hadn't known where to run, taking one of the more lethal looking routes, the scorched earth where many of the trees seemed to have died ages ago – "Will my body look like that one day, when I die?" Pierce asks himself, though the voice does not respond - but toeing the edge is the fisherman village, and of course, this tall tower.
Pierce lugs himself up to the very top and in through the window, though it might only be a height of around thirty feet, the soft grass mixed in with the burnt land down below. He falls into the tower with a soft thud, laying out flat. His chest burns with the same sort of rage he feels with his hands encircled around Zachary's throat, but in his veins, seeping down to his ankles, relief… "I- I did it..." "I did it..." he exhales shakily, grinning stupidly.
Which lasts about six or seven seconds, he's not exactly sure on the duration of time that passes.
It is a girl's voice that has him sit up straight, as if the electric chair his parents talk about a lot has seized him. "Who- wait who the hell are you?" The voice is filled with confusion, some petulant anger, something Pierce knows all too well.
"AH!" he cries, startled, and filled with shock, falling back against the window he had entered in, almost topping out of it if he were unlucky, Pierce looking back at the disgruntled expression of Cassiopeia Grey, the girl from Eleven, if he recalls correctly.
"Get back!" she cries, holding out a knife in her hand, the blade shining a musty silver with the sunbeam hitting it directly, part of the shine getting in Pierce's eyes as he lifts his hands to shield himself from the beam.
"I- I won't hurt you!" Pierce yells back in defense, throwing his hands into his pockets and pulling them out, doing a few spin arounds with his hands up. "I- I don't even have a weapon but-" He's got nothing, she has… she has no reason to hurt him. The girl he sees with a babe on her breast for a chariot costume, who scores better than his own Porscha who's killed someone… what type of violence is Cassiopeia Grey capable of? His gaze does not tear itself away from the zenith point of the blade in her hands.
Cassiopeia grits her teeth, taking a step forward, pushing Pierce farther back into the wall. It is a cramped space, one where he slightly has to bend his body over given his extremely tall height, but she has just enough space if they were in a fight where she wouldn't be at a disadvantage. "I found this hiding spot, you idiot! It's mine, so I suggest you get out of here before I-"
People have always said he's smart! He's smart, he can do this!
"We... we can be allies!" Pierce stammers over himself, trying to keep his hands from shaking, but it is the laugh that Cassiopeia makes as she tilts her head back that makes him almost shit himself. Laughing isn't good. Laughing is never good. Diana Kratovska laughed, and it ended with a child in an early grave, his hand cramping… Pierce finds himself flattening against the wall even more, his back meshed in with the damp gray stone.
"What use do you have to me? You scored terribly!" Cassiopeia barks a harsh laugh into the wind.
Pierce stammers again, syllables with zero coherency flowing out of his mouth in a pile of dogshit. "Well, I'm smart, and-"
Cassiopeia lowers the knife some, but she still advances a single step towards him, her backpack pressed up against the corner at the other end of the tower, which mustn't be more than five or six feet. "Aren't you the one who strangled that Zach kid in the middle of everybody?" Pierce's mouth drops open at the words, the feeling of strength surging through him. Zachary and Cassiopeia look to be the same size and… he could- he could do it… "Nope, that means you're a psycho, I don't need psycho. Bye!"
She turns around to him, sheathing one of the knives at her waist. She has multiple. Sonovabitch.
"Wait!" Pierce calls out, he stepping across the tower to reach over and seize her wrist. "I... I didn't mean to and..."
Cassiopeia snarls some sort of sound that is not human, Pierce releasing his hold on the girl immediately. "Keep the hiding spot, dude. No way in hell am I going to hang out here while your yelling attracts everyone else from all over."
Before his very eyes, as the girl from Eleven has gathered her stuff up together, she's squeezing herself through the window on her end of the tower, starting to scale down. Well… she didn't kill him, but something in Pierce feels like pushing his luck even more.
"Wait, what? HEY!" Pierce shouts after her, rushing to the window. Her ponytail blows in the wind, as Cassiopeia climbs down the side, she looking up at him when she's halfway down already, a chill sliding down Pierce's arms as he looks at how sharp the blade is in the sun. "Come back, please!"
Cassiopeia reaches the bottom of the tower, shouldering her backpack. She's gentler than Porscha, if that is somehow even possible… but… what did he do for her to not to want to ally with her? Is it something with him? Something he can't fix…? "Don't follow me, Pierce! If we find each other again, I'm not gonna let you just walk away," she yells back at him, turning around to start jogging the other way.
"What do you mean?" Pierce furrows his brow together, leaning out, and like before, nearly falling out of the tower as his balance seems to steady. He figures that shouting in the arena is not exactly the best game plan, but he's been in the arena for an hour and his puzzle has been shattered, pieces floating in the breeze like dandelion seeds… he'll never build another puzzle again. "I- I don't understand…" his voice is pathetic, in a sharp whine.
Cassiopeia smirks at him, unsheathing one of her blades, a different one than before, silver and longer, his blood turning to ice as she winks at him and sheaths it again. "You're a smart kid; you'll figure it out," she tells him.
The girl from Eleven is gone into the trees and condensed space of the fishing village, Pierce looking after her, having half the mind to climb down. He got into the tower… but how the hell is he going to get back down…?
"Welcome to the Hunger Games, kiddo. Here, you're screwed," the voice returns again, mocking, true, but this time it is Zachary's voice he hears, Zachary, the kid he never meant to hurt, but the kid he wanted to watch die.
And Pierce has no rebuttal… he agrees.
Camilla Rodriguez: District 9 Female P.O.V (17)
This is not okay. None of this is okay, none of this is going how Camilla expects it to go, but truth be told, she isn't exactly aware of what she did expect to happen. People were going to die, Clair had made that very well known, as even Gemini crying at the foot of her bed the night before rings that sentiment true, but it is different than physically seeing it happen in front of her eyes.
Camilla has no idea how her father died in the war, nor does she ever want to know the exact details, as vomit dribbles down her chin from the news. Hearing from Millet how the explosion killed their mother in the marketplace is enough for her, she able to see the hanging flaps of skin blow in the breeze, like curtains of flesh adorning the walls of her heart.
The three girls have been running without as much of a word to anyone or anything, but Camilla cannot go another step like this. All she sees is Nokomis plunging a sword into the chest of Zachary Edison, who from what she had seen in the few snippets of chaos, the kid had done nothing to her, someone she thought of as an ally ending that kid's life without a second thought. And… and Calen… who did not deserve an end as grisly as that.
She's seen blood enough times from her own hands to know it is bright and acidic and on her tongue, but she does not expect to see the amber flow in Calen's as his neck is torn open from end to end with Portia's blade. It is the sneer that gets to her the most.
They've been running into the fishing village, as Portia says there must be places to hide and shore up until the chaos of the arena beginning subsides… but there is no way Camilla is going to be staying in any sort of close proximity to these two without a discussion first.
She comes to a stop, resting against a tree, pressing her left hand up against her ribcage, feeling the thud of her heart, the roar that echoes in her ears… it is a deafening sound, an evil sound, a sound that makes her taste the same tinge of vermillion in the back of her throat.
"Okay, okay, okay..." she says, before realizing that she's been holding onto a knife, it lodged firmly into her palm, Camilla dropping the blade into the ground with disgust.
Portia stops first, a hair not seemingly out of place as the girl turns back around, Nokomis soon stopping as their de-facto leader calls her name. "What? What's the matter?" she makes it to Camilla, the girl from Nine consciously taking a step back. Portia has the blade out, the cardinal glow shining in the sun over their heads, beads of sweat trickling down in the same manner as the blood droplets trailing behind them in their wake.
"We're not going a single step until we talk about what just happened back there," Camilla points in the general direction of where they came from, the cornucopia. Ground zero, as she'll call it. She is not exactly sure why seeing Zachary and Calen die bothers her the way it does, as Clair makes it clear with smoke on her words, wisping like candle wicks, that one will survive and the other twenty-three will die…
Millet is most likely disappointed in her, Camilla realizes, with a frown, should he be watching.
Nokomis reaches them by that point, but it is Portia's sneer and raised eyebrow that has Camilla right herself off of the tree she had stopped to catch a breather against. "There's nothing to talk about," Portia snips away the concern dismissively, reaching out and resting a hand on Camilla's shoulder. "Besides, Cammie, what if we've got Miss Target Practice right behind us? Want to let Diana catch up with us and add to her kill count, cause we saw she clearly has no qualms about killing kids…"
"Don't call me that!" Camilla snaps, surging forward and closer to her 'ally.' She lies awake for an extra half hour before falling asleep last night on the decision of bringing Portia along for the ride, something about girl power or some sort of entitled bullshit, but if Camilla believes it, that's another story… "And nothing to talk about? Are- are you crazy? You... you... you..." she has a hard time getting the words out.
Each syllable is the sound of Calen's body hitting the dirt.
"You gonna spit it out or can we continue making sure we don't die, Cammie?" Portia frowns, tilting her head to the side. The girl's blood boils; she notes the usage of her nickname. Millet is not here, and instead his kind and nurturing soul has been stolen away by the rattlesnake in the crib…
"You killed someone!" she throws her hands up in the air, voice loud where the birds back in Nine might hear her as they sit on their grain stalks. "You slit Calen's throat!" Camilla whirls around, pointing at Nokomis, the girl who cannot even look her in the eye. "And you stabbed that twelve-year-old in the chest and didn't even..." Her hand falls wayside, Camilla's heart slamming against her chest like a snare drum, another bead of sweat being where she feels Portia's eyes follow down her face. "I-"
The girl from Two purses her lips, before bringing them together under her mouth, as if she's tasted something foul on her tongue. "Having second thoughts on being in our alliance?"
"How- how does it not affect you?" Camilla asks breathlessly. Wrestling with that trainer in the Capitol, for those private sessions that laud her so well is different, she knows, as Portia doesn't just wrestle with Calen, but end his life… if there had been a blade in her hand, would she have been able to bring it down and across the Capitol worker's neck?
Portia scoffs, lifting her head up, setting her blade down into the grass, hilt up, by her leg. "Who's to say you have the right to decide what does and doesn't affect me?" The girl takes a step forward, they being about the same height in case the situation is to escalate to violence… Camilla gets a view of her surroundings, in case the need to dodge arises… nothing promising, and they most likely lead to pitfalls with vipers in them. They're the same height, but Portia has more muscle, her arms bulking out underneath their arena uniform. "Maybe I am being bothered by it and just don't want to show it."
It is worth a shot. "Well, are you?"
"No, not really," the girl sniffs dismissively, rubbing at her nose.
"Portia!" Camilla cries out with surprise, slapping her hand against her thigh. The nerve! The nerve. Camilla hates the Capitol, she hates that they have put her in this position… but does she have the right state of mind to simply just let the Capitol burn down to the ground and see all of those men, women, and children burn into cinders and ashes in the inferno?
Portia grits her teeth together, rage flashing in her eyes. It is brief, but Camilla sees it. She sees more than the other girl might ever expect her to. Gemini's face flickers across her vision for a moment, Camilla wavering as her ally paces. "He came at me with a sword, Camilla! What was I supposed to do, just stand there, and let him stab me with it?" the girl shakes her head, scoffing slightly, Nokomis starting to bounce back and forth on her own feet. Camilla has her own words for the girl from Ten but arguing with Portia in the here in now feels right. "You told me he was sweet and kind and like... fed Avoxes or some dumb shit, but I guess here in the Hunger Games you turn against your nature."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better at all?" Camilla almost laughs at the sentiment. None of this is justice. She wants justice for the deployed mortars that kill her mother. She wants justice for the men who are the reason why her father is brought home in a wooden box, the word Traitor written across the top of his head in a glimmering copper… how had any of this been justice.
"No," Portia says, rather plainly, shrugging her shoulders, a crow cawing elsewhere in the sky, the sound of bristles and branches snapping causing Camilla to tense, her hands wanting to encircle around the blade for protection… hypocrisy, she sensing it, frowning with disgust. "Is it working?"
Camilla could tackle Portia to the ground right now if she chose to.
Nokomis rubs her arm with her right hand, frowning, taking a step forward to get in between them. "Guys... don't you think this should wait till we stop and make camp?"
"No," Portia, holds a hand up, blocking Nokomis from advancing further. The girl leans down to wrench the knife out of the ground, swinging it around in her grip before sheathing it. A murderer, a killer… that is the judgement Camilla gives her while she watches her movements. A jaguar stalking an antelope through the grain. "Actually, it allows me to get something off of my chest."
"Yeah, like those twenty pounds of chocolate cake," Camilla snorts, unable to resist the jab.
"You two were farther away than I would've liked when Calen struck me," Portia asks, the ambiance and environmental buzz seeming to come to a halt, as if the birds themselves were drowning in the cascade of blood streaming from Calen's neck. "Would you have let him kill me?"
Camilla stirs from her spot. "I-" Yes. You're walking us to our dooms, but I do not have the heart to tell you that I will push you into the flames first.
Portia's mouth sets itself into a dangerously thin line, her gaze passing between them. "The very fact that your first word out of your mouth isn't no should tell me to walk the other way," A pause, a deliberate one, in the space of that heartbeat, Camilla has reached for her own blade. "We're allies, Camilla, Nokomis," A lingering look on Camilla, the shot piercing through Camilla's bones. "Allies help each other when they're in trouble. We need each other, and I have to know if you have my back, cause I have yours."
"We... you have our backs, Portia," Nokomis says, though her voice is barely heard over the wind and the chirping of the birds.
"Thank you, Nokomis," Portia nods, acknowledging that she's heard her, before turning to the girl from Nine, fire dancing along her diamond eyes. "Camilla?"
"Yes," Camilla says, just as loud as Nokomis had, fingers catching onto the fabric of her shirt, dragging a spool downwards across her arm. Lying. Her father taught her to not lie, that protecting Millet will be on the backs of honesty and good faith… lying will put her in a ditch. "We need each other..." We need to find a way to get rid of you, the sooner the better.
"Good," Portia nods, clapping her hands together. "Now that's been settled, let's get out of all of this stupid heat," she says, her voice way too eager for the mood at hand, she pushing past both girls, trailing her weapon behind her.
The blood still drips off of it, Camilla making note to not step in the mess.
Jasper Overheart: District 3 Male P.O.V (18)
Neither one of them have spoken all that much. Jasper isn't quite sure what he'd even say in the first place, when looking over at Vesuvia, she stoking the coals for a fire. It might be a stupid idea to light a fire, but the two of them have encamped themselves out in the scorched earth part of the arena, where the ground makes a crunching noise under his foot, like brittle bones that he smashes to pieces with his foot.
He is sitting up against one of the rocks, a sleeping bag rolled out against it, nestled somewhat into the sand, which is warm if he presses his fingers into the darkening land. The rocks are sparsely laid out, but they have found a rather thick patch to settle down in for the night, the sun starting to wane to around midday. Vesuvia hasn't started the fire yet, for the rolling of sticks back and forth and her constant cussing is clear that progress has not been made. The color of the soil looks nearly identical is to that of her hair.
Cheeky, dangerous, an open flame he has walked right into… Jasper shudders away at the thought of her tongue pressed up against his, the warmth of her breath over his shoulder, how he calls her beautiful while she hikes her nails down his back.
He's danced with her, with this volatile piece of machinery in his already rusted-over world, and now he has seen her kill someone.
Vesuvia looks back over at him, Jasper getting to his feet and stretching, his sword fresh with no one's blood settled in the sand, the hilt warm to the touch when he picks it up. "How's the cheek?" she asks him, though her voice doesn't sound too overtly concerned.
"It's fine," Jasper lies through his teeth. The shrapnel wound on his back is hurting, but the sliced cheek is hurting more than that, after the fall he has off the edge of the cornucopia from Diana's fired arrow. It does not cut that deep, but it is the worst injury he can recall having in recent memory. He runs a finger along the bandage pasted over his face, thick and bright white… it better not glow in the dark. "She didn't get me terribly bad. It could be a scar in the morning and just make me attractive," he smirks to himself, looking back at Vesuvia.
She smirks back for a moment. She must think he's attractive, after all, why did they sleep together if that isn't the truth?
His ally frowns, tying some sort of alarm system around a tree, a low rope that is the same color as the sand, where anyone racing through would trip. Jasper looks away for a moment, heart pounding in his chest. That is the same rope that… Dill Waylon's estranged cry as he sees his district partner twist, and his neck breaks… he will never be able to eat nuts again. "Perhaps," she muses, softly, tightening another knot, sawing through an extra piece with the knife sticking out of her backpack. "Next time we see her, I'm going to put one of her arrows in her eye."
"Vesuvia..." Jasper's voice trails off pathetically thin, resting a hand against one of the trees. The bark is rough, as he brings his palm up the side of it, and when he brings his hand back to look at it, steam is rising from it, small blisters popping up along the ridge of his knuckles. He hisses and brings his hand close to his chest.
Don't touch the trees…
"What?" Vesuvia lifts her head up, an inferno of pain and violence as she gets to her feet. She wouldn't hurt him, he knows that, but Jasper still jumps up slightly. "She hurt you! You think she should just get away with that?"
Think like that and the whole world goes blind… that is what his father tells him, but Jasper panics as the Peacekeeper approaches his younger sister with the metallic glove, and the gun is trembling in his flailing grip and he shoots, lord he shoots and there's blood and…
"There might be plenty more people in this arena to take down Diana Kratovska if that is what you're so concerned about..." Jasper interrupts his own train of thought, his hands shaking likewise as he sits back down on the sleeping bag, the fabric comforting.
Vesuvia pinches her brow, sighing to herself as she throws the tandems of the leftover rope to the ground, he watching where it falls. "Okay," she says, "Something's wrong," She sits down next to him, an inch away from his face, placing a hand on his shoulder. When one looks at Vesuvia Vocanova, they are not to expect this softness in her that Jasper sees. He sees it when the bedsheets tip back, the pink flower blooming, Jasper blushing that this girl would even let him get close like this… "What is it?"
You play with fire? You're bound to get burned.
"Nothing."
"Jasper, you aren't a good liar," Vesuvia croons, tilting her head to the side. Did she say anything to Dill when he died? Did she whisper sweet nothings in his ear before tightening the chokehold around his neck? Will he realize he's slowly being killed by her before the final heartbeat passes? "Time in the slammer helped with me seeing who's a good liar or not."
"How so?" Jasper raises an eyebrow.
Vesuvia rubs her face with a hand, the mark stunning and violently crimson on her pale skin. "Well, I mean, being able to keep your composure while Mr. Fyre ripped off their fingernails one by one and they still wouldn't tell us where the sugar bowl was, then yeah, good liar," Jasper's face blanches, he turning away, hand clutching at his stomach that is starting to vibrate in motions of uncertainty. Her eyebrows perk up softly as his head shifts away from her gaze. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Jasper." Her voice is tense. Coiled, like a whip, lashing out across his face, bringing him to his knees, the pain he sees in Nathaniel Coin's face when the rebellion ends and Emrick Israel is making his head roll onto the concrete, piled in a basket with all the others. All those kids… Jasper swears he sees his own head in the pile, Dill's there, or Cecelia Blackstone's, or…
"I- I saw what you did at the bloodbath," he looks down at his hands, voice filled with shame.
"Yeah, and?" Vesuvia asks, frowning.
He frowns likewise. There's no way he heard her wrong. Did… what did she just say?
Jasper locks eyes with her, mouth parting open. Violence used to be his M.O, back in Thirteen, back in the bunker where he believes it is safe, as they start building underground cause they knew the arsenal of the Capitol would be behind them, but… the land is uprooted, there are so many orphans and widows and grandparents who watch their legacies dissolve into cinders and ash; none of this is right. He- he hadn't attacked her and- "I've seen a lot in my life, running away from Thirteen during the rebellion and all, but..." he shakes his head, trying to swallow his disgust. "Nothing like that, Vess."
Her lips vanish into her mouth as she sits back some, staking the knife she's holding onto into the ground, it swaying back and forth with a gentle ring. "Does it bother you? What you saw?" she asks him.
"Should it?" he frowns likewise, rubbing his arms innocuously. He knew Vesuvia had been violent, just from the talks they had in the training center while she splits open dummies with a knife, or the threats she throws at Kileigh, but he assumes them to be a bit more for showboating, that she doesn't actually mean any of the things she says… it is the prison talk that is getting to her, making her feel like she has to put on some sort of show, that this is all an act.
Maybe he is the one who is acting.
"Depends on your morals, I guess," Vesuvia shrugs, her smile wide, but he does not feel any less at ease. "Mine just happen to be a little bit lower than most, but I do want to survive," She gets to her feet, dusting off her pants, scraping her boots into the ground, as she makes her way back to the rope trap and the dying fire that never got off of the ground in the first place. Jasper's own inferno, he thinks distastefully, looking at it. "And besides, you know what Cole told us before we got out of the elevator. We need to shine, or otherwise the Capitol will find us boring, and if they find us boring-"
"We die."
The Capitol wants entertainment. You kill to entertain; you kill to keep yourself alive. He doesn't want to die… Jasper Overheart does not want to die, but what does it say about him and who he kills to survive?
"Yes, we die, which is something I don't want to have happen ever," Vesuvia's voice takes that of a little high note as she goes back to sawing through the collected rope that Dill had collected for them. An irritable buzz runs itself along Jasper's arms as he stirs in place, going back to lie down under the sleeping bag.
He's exhausted, they've run so far, and there are images of dead children he will never get out of his head again, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he squeezes his own eyes together.
"But why Dill Waylon of all of them to choose from, Vesuvia?" he asks, with a frown. Jasper isn't sure if he is so as much upset that Vesuvia killed someone – if it had been Diana looming over his ally with an arrow lined up to the forehead, he may have rushed the girl from Four immediately – as if it is the person who didn't even mean any harm… "He didn't speak to anyone, didn't hurt anyone, didn't try hurting us," he starts to babble, but Vesuvia turns on her heels, her look stern enough to get him to stop talking.
This is the girl he has slept with, felt her tongue against his in the caves of each other's mouths, yet out in the open, where there are no trees to hide behind, and just the open expanse of the sky, he is looking at a forest fire, a volcanic eruption that has his heart bleed, like that mural he had shot when they first met… he will never touch her again, not like that.
"I am not going to defend myself or feel the need to explain what I did, Jasper, and that's final," she says, turning back to him.
Jasper rolls over in the sleeping bag, pressing his arms underneath him, pinned to his chest to keep the warmth alive, for who knows how cold it will get. Vesuvia wants him to rest for now, and then in the middle of the night they'll prowl… how can he sleep without thinking his ally is going to stab him in the back?
"Vesuvia..." he asks, voice impossibly soft, his fingers threading through the sand, clawing, and digging a moat of lacerations into the soil. "What did you go to prison for?"
There's a pause, evident by the crunch of the ground beneath her feet, and for the first time since Jasper has met Vesuvia Vocanova, he can say that there is not a single hint of pride reflected in her voice. It isn't shame, but she isn't boasting either.
"Murder, Jasper. I- I killed someone."
Poem Cavalli: District 8 Female P.O.V (16)
Intense stress does not even begin to cover how Poem is feeling with the amount of pressure on her shoulders, weighing her body down from the base of her neck to her ankles as her feet pound into the ground, the obsidian beneath her feet shining in the blackening sun, clouds starting to stretch across the wide expanse of the sky.
She has no idea how far they have run, but Niklaus is ahead of her, carrying all of the supplies, as Poem trips a few times running down the hill away from the cornucopia, handing him the bag, the blades he had taken out of the ground glistening off of the rays of light. He skids to a stop, tripping over himself and falling face first into the ground.
Her ally lands with a weak cry, Poem nearly tripping as well as she hops over him, grazing his head with her boot, he crying out weakly again. Accident! Poem turns around, Niklaus rising to his knees. "I can't run another step..." he exhales weakly, digging his fingers into the hardening soil.
Poem places a hand over her heart, wiping at her forehead with the back of her hand. It comes away sticky and syrupy, her flesh, Poem grimacing as she sits down next to him, almost lying flat. "I feel like I swallowed bees," her ears roar with blood as Poem links her hand with his. "My heart is beating so fast in my chest," the girl's words are ragged, she's absolutely out of breath.
The only other time she ever runs farther or faster than this is when she has her first buyer of one of her dresses, the famous daughter of Anya Cavalli getting her first sale, a man with a tweed jacket and cigarette smoke blowing out of his nose, the bills landing in her hand like floating dandelion seeds. She might've kissed him too, but she's forgetting in the lull of things.
There is one thing she will never forget, however, even if she is to die in this accursed arena, and that is Niklaus wrapping a hand around her sex and…
Niklaus flaps his arms to the sides like a bird, his breaths coming out shaky like hers as well. "And of course we literally run into perhaps the worst place in the whole arena to go," he groans, shakily getting to his feet. "I mean, look at it! There's nowhere to hide in this section and the next..."
Poem shakes her head, biting on her lip, words of disagreement immediately wanting to spill forth. "We seem to be the only ones who ran this way, at least, so that's a good thing, right?" she asks. She knows she's right, as they had been some of the last tributes to leave the arena, and while she had been terrified, standing and hiding behind those trees as Niklaus braves his life for her, she is keeping watch, keeping track.
There is no cover, though, that is true. Unlike in the scorched earth section, there are some boulders and cave outcroppings, nothing extensive, but something that could work in a pinch. Here, on the beach, it is the stretch of sand from one end to the other, and the water, the ground crunching under the soles of her boots. Mistake after mistake perhaps.
"Are you a mistake?" a voice whispers in Poem's head, but she chooses to ignore it.
Niklaus shakes his head, running a hand over his face, tugging at his chin. "I guess so. I don't know, Poem," he takes another step, before wobbling over and sighing. This might be the largest amount of physical exertion he has ever done, if Poem wishes to be humorous. "All I know is that if I take another step, my legs are going to give out and you're going to have to carry me," he exhales, draping both backpacks off of himself and into the sand.
"Carry you? I could probably do that," Poem grins, crossing her arms.
"Poem." He looks up at her, his gaze solid and unwavering. It is not the same tender glance she had seen of his last night, his hands snaking up her spine, her fingers brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes… this is seriousness reflecting back at her, yet she wishes to crack jokes.
"Niklaus," she meets him at the same level of regard, still keeping her grin.
There is a moment of pause as Niklaus unzips the backpacks, pulling out of a thing of rope from each of them, two empty water canteens, and some other items, but Poem is unsure of what they are. She picks up the water canteen in her hand, heart falling at the fact that it is empty. This is the Hunger Games; she is not back home in her two second story with her sewing machine and turkey feasts at the head of the table, though it is her servants she is eating with and not… "Yeah, I have no idea why we ran this way."
"Because it was pretty," Poem suggests, tossing the canteen back and forth in her hand.
"The whole damn place is pretty, but yeah, I guess..." Niklaus frowns, sitting back on his ankles. His voice drops a few octaves, trailing off, he scratching at the back of his head. Poem frowns, likewise, leaning closer to him.
"What?" she asks.
He laughs. She has never heard him laugh. It is chalky, filled with dust and the plumes rising from the smokestacks, heavy and thick, the sound resonating with a rumble in her stomach. "It just hit me that I nearly died back there. That Magnus Winterthorn kid, who could use a chill pill by the way, tried to kill me, after he sliced into Orion Maythorpe's leg and all," he shivers, Poem shivering likewise. "I've only ever seen blood come down my own arms from my injections that I didn't expect it to be so... so red."
She has seen red lining the walls of her upstairs studio, from the velvet curtains adorning the frosted windowpanes in the heart of winter, to the bucket of apples sitting by the door that Poem picks up whenever she is to walk up or down the stairs to greet her family for the few times she actually gets to see them. Their visitations with one another over a counter or sitting at the dinner table has gone up since the end of the rebellion, district travel banned by the president, and those caught violating the rules would be punished to the harshest of the degree.
"Harsher than being in the Hunger Games?" Poem asks herself, frowning, before sucking her lower lip into her mouth at Niklaus's words. Death. Red blood, crimson, and vermillion floating down her arms from a nicked thumb. "Seeing Zachary's wound was the first time for me," she lies.
It is the first time she has seen someone die in front of her, yes, that is the truth, but for all she knows, he will simply laugh at her if she counts the injuries she has sustained while bent over her workbench.
Niklaus raises an eyebrow, frowning. "You've never seen blood before?" He shifts closer to her, wrapping an arm tight around her shoulders. Security. Strength and durability, wrapped up in a tender soul, she resting her head against his, Poem longing to place a kiss on his lips. "And wait, you saw that?" he asks her, his eyes wide.
Poem nods. Zachary did not as much make a sound, the sound of Nokomis withdrawing the sword out of his chest something that will stick with her, forever echoing as the blade slices clean through his flesh. "I was high up, remember?" she rubs her arms tight, staying tethered to Niklaus's side. "I saw all of it. I- I had to look away."
He croons a soft noise in the back of his throat. "Poem, there's no shame in telling me that."
"I'm not ashamed," she shakes her head. "Just beating myself up instead on the fact that well, y'know, I didn't realize what I was doing," A lump forms in her throat. She has made a few mistakes before in her life, like mixing orange and yellow fabrics together to the point that she looks like a sunflower throws up over her midsection, but… nothing tops the cherry at the zenith of the sundae… volunteering. "Mr. Anvil in two statements somehow destroyed me, yet you and Damien were trying to tell me all week and-" the words tumble out of her mouth like the free-flowing spool of thread that spills around her feet, a sea of finery wasted like that.
Niklaus's mouth is on hers immediately, the stream of words and quasi-bullshit being blocked by his lips flushed against hers, the taste of cardboard and cocaine in her nostrils as he wraps an arm around her waist, pinning her into the sand. If this were to be any other man, she'd feel panic rising up from her ankles, but instead a strange warmth encompasses her body. "Poem, shut up, you're insufferably boring when you babble," he tells her, resting his hand on her chest.
She giggles, pushing him lightly off of her. "Niklaus, you can't just kiss me every time you want me to stop talking."
"Says who?" he grins, raising an eyebrow.
"Says me, buster," she circles a tickling circle on his forehead before getting to her feet, stretching. Poem looks away from him and down at the beach, tilting her head with a smile. The water looks inviting, strikingly blue, a quiet lull as it flows into the sand, she looking back at Niklaus with a faint smile. "I want to cool off in the water; you want to join me?" The tension of the bloodbath has almost evaporated off of the tense knot she feels in her shoulders, resting against the base of her spine to the center of her back, as if she hadn't been running away from psychopaths trying to kill her.
"I don't think it'll be a good idea to do that, Poem. We don't know what's safe and what isn't. There could be a monster in there just waiting for you," Niklaus says, getting to his feet, but Poem is already stripping off the first of her shirts as she walks up to the beach.
Poem laughs, tilting her head back. "Well, I don't think it'll be a bad idea to dip my toes in and..." She gets another step towards that bright blue water when the ground gives way without another warning, she turning back around to talk to him, offering another opportunity to join her. "Niklaus!" she screams in terror, just as the land beneath her opens up, her feet giving way as the sand around her crumbles into the hole.
She lets out a horrified yell as she plummets, her hands just barely catching on the side of the hole, her fingers holding her up, her muscles aching in protest.
"Poem!" Niklaus screams her name, rushing forward. All of their supplies are back on the sand dunes, the knives, the rope, the canteens of water… His face emerges over the side, he holding out an arm, bending over rather far, his hand latching onto hers. A lifeline. She is not about to lose him, not after getting him so immediately and- "Hold on! I've got you!"
He tries hoisting her up some more, he grunting, heels digging into the sand as Poem looks down. Bad idea, as nausea flows through her stomach at the fact that the pit is pitch black beneath her, and she cannot see the bottom of it, let alone if there is one in the first place. "Shit! Niklaus I- I can't hold on!" Her heart beat rises again, back to where it had been beforehand, seeing Diana Kratovska line up an arrow shot directly at her forehead and then-
"Yes you can! C'mon, you're stronger than you think you are and-" Niklaus grunts, but she feels herself slipping, sweaty tendons trying to latch onto each other, and his strength gives way.
She is unable to hold any longer, her fingers falling free of his, as she plunges into the darkness. "NIKLAUS!" she screams, but the added, sudden drop pulls Niklaus forward as he leans over to try and catch her too, tipping over himself into the sinkhole on the beach.
"AHHH! NO!" he screams out, but there is no one to save them as they fall beneath the earth.
The two tributes from District 8 disappear into the ground.
Catalus Drachma: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)
There hasn't been much said, but that does not mean Catalus is without thoughts he wishes to express. The sun is starting to set, they staying at the cornucopia for a few more hours, going through all the boxes, deciding which supplies to keep and which to leave at the cornucopia in case they were to ever come back, Magnus oddly distant, Diana seemingly irritated, but Catalus stays silent for most of it unless someone asks him a question.
Four tributes are dead, and while he knew months ago, when he sees President Emrick's face on the flat screen television lining the back wall, Harmony giggling with a martini in her hand as they make bets on who will receive punishments… he never expects it to be him who is paying the highest price. Sold to the bidder willing to pay the most, he supposes.
How much will he lose in the bargain?
Catalus looks up from his corner of the shack they've camped themselves in, going directly down the middle into the fishing village, not breaching that far in, just to stay to the outskirts of the open plain. It has been relatively quiet for the last hour, he dozing off on one of the benches laid in the corner. His weapon is there, the sword he picks up hanging on a peg against an overturned box.
He sits up as Magnus, who has just polished the blood of Orion Maythorpe's leg off of the spear he had picked up, walks over to Diana, who is counting the number of arrows in her quiver. She's fired a lot of the, spending the last bits of time on the plain picking them up. Magnus gets in her grill, crossing her arms, she looking up at him with an inquisitive eyebrow.
"First things first," he says, his voice solid. Commanding, aggressive, the words making all the hair on Catalus's arms stand up. He had seen the kid fight, far different from the humorous side he had seen during lunch over bowls of mashed potatoes. "I want the bow."
"I beg your pardon?" Diana's eyebrow rises up, Catalus deciding to get to his feet too. He is not sure if he needs his weapon, it hanging just out of his peripheral vision. It had not been what he uses in the private sessions, for he hadn't done much in those sessions to warrant his score of a three, but it is what he finds and what feels comfortable.
He can swing a golfclub; how difficult can a sword be?
"You heard me, Diana. I want the bow."
She laughs, the sound rebounding against the walls of the house, she prodding Magnus in the chest, their steps causing the ground beneath them to creak and groan, as if the house were to fall apart on them instantly. Catalus's skin itches at the manic look in her eyes; the man he owes 50,000 units to has that look in his eyes, from the gambling den, his face carved up in tattoos and scars, the only person to give Harmony, usually unflappable, the creeps. "It's my favorite weapon, and besides, I saw it first," Diana lifts her head up, voice matching the strength of his. "And you and Catalus also agreed to let me run forward and get it. Bow is mine, Magnus."
She is right there, Catalus has to agree with her, though he is still staying on the outskirts of this. They're both much better fighters than he is… why would they even need him?
"Bullshit," Magnus barks harshly, poking their leader back in the chest, the height and weight difference stark. He could snap her like a twig. "Catalus and I agreed to let you have it for the bloodbath, but I never said anything about letting you keep the weapon for the entire Games," he holds his hand out, Catalus flinching as he expects Diana to reach over and seize an arrow from the quiver and send it into his palm. "Hand it over."
The air seems to drop a few degrees in temperature.
"I got it first, mine."
"Technically I am the one who is making all of us look good by getting a twelve in training, so that means I should get it," Magnus says.
"Or it just means we're getting gigantic targets painted on our backs…" Catalus mutters under his breath. That had been his other thought, as Adriane rushes over to them with the odds chart nestled in her hand, the paper fluttering in the wind as they have the windows open, Cecelia wanting to look at the street-
Cecelia… Catalus nearly bowls over at the thought of his district partner. His dead district partner, with that wide-eyed expression that'll be the last face she ever makes, the arrow sticking out of the back of her neck, now poking through her throat, spilling scarlet everywhere as she falls onto the grass.
"If you keep the bow, then I want your spear. I need something ranged, or I'm a duck in the water," Diana crosses her arms, likewise, shrugging the bow off her shoulders, which clatters onto the floor with a loud bang, Catalus flinching once again.
"Why don't you shout that out a little bit louder so Orion and Vesuvia can hear you, huh?" Magnus scoffs, snatching the bow up in his hand, and he doesn't wait for Diana to give him the quiver, forcing it off of her arm and slinging it around his.
Catalus scoffs himself, going to pick up his weapon resting in the corner. There are plenty of weapons with them, the ones they've collected, but a vast majority of them are different kinds of knives, the maces, and heavier weapons that Magnus has a hard time even holding up being left behind. What they have now in the cabin consists of food piled into one corner, all the empty canteens of water and a few sleeping bags. "Why do you automatically assume I want the sword?" he asks.
Diana turns to face him, Magnus preoccupied with testing out the strength of the bow as he loads an arrow into it. "Well, since you got the lowest score I'd say your opinion doesn't count right away," she tells him, his eyes widening as he takes another step. Last he checked, she asked him to be in this alliance, and last he checked, regardless of his training score, she hasn't kicked hm out… "Not until you prove yourself," she tells him, a look of disgust rippling across her features as she stares him up and down.
Until you prove yourself. Her words are barbs in his chest, bleeding, spikes driven deep into his ribcage, scratching against his heart. How else does he have to prove himself? He doesn't prove himself to his parents, they cast him aside for Khristos. He doesn't prove himself to District One, he is forced to volunteer with a death threat thumbtacked between his shoulder blades. He doesn't prove himself to Cecelia, she rushes him with a blade… he-
"If it is about that stupid three I've already told you-" Catalus starts to say, the veins in his neck bulging out in prominence, and he does grab the sword, holding it downwards, non-aggressively, but he needs it before he throws it straight for the girl's gut.
"Yeah, you got scared and freaked out and nervous about going first so you choked," Diana waves a hand flippantly, discarding his words, before pointing a finger at him, another creak rebounding around as she steps towards him. "Just make sure you're not the first to go down on another guy in an orgy and you're good, Catalus," she says, and that came out of left field.
"You-" he starts to say, the rage in him reaching its peak. "What-" What the fuck does she mean by that?
Diana scoffs to herself, untying her ponytail, letting her hair flow down against her back as she brushes her fingers through it. "Actually, since we're on the topic of proving ourselves, I find it funny how there's three of us, we're considered the scariest tributes in the arena, and we've only got a single kill to our name." She shakes her head and frowns, sneering.
Prove yourself. Prove yourself by jumping off of the roof with me. Take the bet, take the gamble, take the shot of adrenaline. Throw your poker chips across the table. Take that chance, and the next chance, and the next chance, and-
"You're morbid," he tells her, wrinkling his nose.
The official he couldn't kill, the golf club in his hand, calls him a monster as he runs away, when Catalus's feet slip on the concrete and he's smashing his face into the concrete. The rain mixes in with the blood, weeping rivers of scarlet flooding past his fingers.
"She has a point, Catalus," Magnus tells him, Catalus turning to look at him with a gaping mouth. Two minutes ago he's attacking her and-
"Why are you acting all high and mighty?" Diana turns on him next, jabbing another finger at him. Magnus looks back at her, and it is the fact that his eyes are unemotive that brings another shudder across Catalus's skin, that he is looking into her own eyes emptily. "Last I saw, you let Niklaus Peverell escape. That weakling drug addict managed to cut you open while he and his idiotic district partner get to live another day," She's back to Catalus, however, his eyes seizing her up like a cat seeing a mouse, and now that they've switched weapons… if he took the gamble… "And you didn't even get a weapon till the end after I cleared the field, and-"
Does he take the gamble?
Fuck it.
Catalus throws his sword to the side, not caring where it lands, hearing it clatter against the wood, a beacon telling any other tributes to stay away as his throat locks up, choking on the harsh words that wish to break free. "Do I get to point out that you killed Cecelia, Diana?" His voice cracks, a single tear slipping down his face. He knew that Cecelia had all the right reasons to hate him, he even taking a beating from the Peacekeepers to defend her as he sees Adriane hold that rubber glove in her hand and strike her across the face with it… "Shot her in the back of the head like she was cattle. My district partner..." his hands have nowhere to go except against his side.
Diana shakes her head back and forth, hair moving in a similar fashion, eyes alit with fury and anger, a simmering rage, the sweltering tide. He's seen that look in his debtor's face before, in Vander Ularch, who swears he is from the Capitol with those dangerous tattoos, as Khristos chides him for hanging around with the undesirables, because he is a Drachma, and a Drachma's company is always that of the highest tier. "Do you forget the part where she had a knife in her hand aimed for the back of your head? Or should I skip over the fact that I saved your life and say you sound ungrateful?"
And what would his brother say of the current company included? The same sort of disgust, or is he to be lauded with praise?
"Fuck you, Diana," Catalus's voice is filled with venom as he spits at her, hoping it'd land directly on her forehead. Cecelia is dead, and while he still does prefer breathing the arena air – a sentence he'd never thought to utter – is this the way he should be living? He could've spoken to his district partner, let her down gently… when Magnus and Diana are eventually dead, nothing is stopping him from seeing her if she were still alive, and-
Diana does not miss a beat, keeping eye contact. "Fuck you too, Catalus," she tells him.
"Guys..." Magnus steps in between them, holding his arms out. "Guys, seriously, we're all friends here," his voice is lighter than before, a frown stretching his lips from end to end.
"Are we?" Catalus's eyes flash in the dark, as he looks between them, and past Magnus to look into Diana's eyes. "How am I supposed to trust someone who killed my thirteen-year-old district partner?" He takes a step back, towards the side of the house that they had all come in. "She wasn't much, and we didn't get along yesterday but she still was from home. She was from One."
And now she's gone, and he swore to protect her, and she's gone.
Diana frowns, likewise, as Catalus continues walking away, not even going towards his sword. He needs some air. There's nowhere to go, but he needs it; he cannot stay cooped up in this shack with the Queen Bitch and the Merciless Soldier, not now. A bet he'll take, coming across Vesuvia Vocanova or Orion Maythorpe or even that girl Portia Beninblade in the arena, without a weapon… he'll throw all he has onto that bet. "Catalus... don't you think you're being a little bit stubborn?"
"Perhaps I am... but I have right to be," he tells them, not looking back. He won't leave, he can't leave yet, for he agrees, and unlike last time when he is unable to stick to his word, Districts One and Two seceded out of the rebellion, Friedrich Calvary still alive, and it is all because of him.
"I suppose you do, Catalus," Diana hums, nodding her head from what he can see in his peripheral vision. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't going to let her kill you."
He doesn't want to hear another word out of her. Catalus refuses to let her speak, and if she does, it is words to the wind, tossed and turned and ripped to shreds by the air.
Catalus's boots are now firmly in the soft mush of dirt and leaves surrounding the house, as he turns his head to the side, some. "... thank you, but no thanks…" he says.
He does not wait for her reaction, or her response. She is dead to him.
Kai'sa Shadow: District 12 Female P.O.V (16)
Her head is a jumble of thoughts, a mashed-up pile of incoherencies and inconsistencies blending together to form a muddled picture that soaks into her palms, as Kai'sa tries blocking the way behind them, Porscha moving on ahead while Kai'sa hoists a few bricks and rocks on top of the other to block the path behind them. She could be trapping them as well, for all she knows, but Kai'sa is not taking the risk of one of the undesirables following behind them.
Leaving the cornucopia shortly after it had happened, the two girls find themselves wandering around from landscape to landscape, trying to find what seems to the most suitable to them. The obsidian beach and the scorched earth are without question, and every few instances they pass onto the cornucopia, Porscha notes that the gigantic tree that had been sprouted on top of the golden horn is starting to shrink, disappearing into who knows where.
The trio of Catalus, Magnus, and Diana had been on the plain the last time they walked around the outer edge, heading towards the southeast quadrant, the last slice they've yet to step into, high rise canyon walls trapping them in from side to side, allowing some wiggle room, but it does not seem as expansive as the others. That must mean it is perfect for them, then!
Kai'sa looks behind her, to make sure that the path is blocked. She's been feeling against the stone every few minutes, checking for hollow spots, the blades she had picked up littering the grass sheathed at the belt wrapped around her waist. Porscha has a mace or club of some kind, it held out in her hands down, angled towards the smooth sandstone beneath their feet.
She stares at the back of her ally's neck, at the fading ink of the 'tattoo' she had gotten, of the way the black is starting to soak into Porscha's porcelain skin, chipped away and scratched, bleeding. Kai'sa herself is not wounded, but there is a small cut on Porscha's cheek from when Kileigh pushes her away in their scuffle as the girl from Five has Pierce pinned to the ground, shrieking, and screaming at him, shaking him about. The girl had a bow and a quiver full of arrows on her, but the two girls don't pursue her as she races into the decaying forest, for there is no need. The girl most likely has no idea how to use the weapons.
Just as Kai'sa has no idea how to use the knives strapped to her body, even when she rips one free, hearing it tear on the weeds it is entangled in, snarling at Ramses, who dares approach her. For all the good he has done her, she hears the words of disgust that he has sprouted up into Kenneth's ear when she isn't looking. Because she is now the mayor's child, even though she does not ask to be picked up by Simon Ether in any capacity, she is dead to him, dirt under his feet.
Her scars are his scars, she knows that. Somehow, Ramses Boskov, with how much he claims to see, is even blind enough to not see that. Her wounds may not be in the same spots as his, but they're both from Twelve. They were the closest to Thirteen, to hear about the rising radiation and decay that comes from the destroyed district, to see the sky that is already black with coal dust get choked up in the fires from the napalm dropped into them. The walls of the Hob are a place Kai'sa frequents often, when the firebombs fall, yet to Ramses, apparently, she has only ever stayed in one place.
Opulence.
Her opulence will be the knife she plunges into his heart if she can help it.
She is so lost in her thoughts that she almost skewers Porscha in the back, who has come to a stop, she looking upwards. The moon has come out, and it is night time, the girls taking rests before they decide to block the way, and that has been a few times for them so far. Kai'sa rubs her head, having hit it on one of the rock wall sides, it sure to leave a red mark on her skin in the morning.
Kai'sa realizes, starkly, that the rocks are covered in some sort of bluish glow, and despite the height of the caverns beside them, walls that she will never be able to climb up no matter how hard she tries or how much protein she eats, the glow seems to come from above. She shimmies next to Porscha as best she can, a smile on the girl from Six's face, the Capitol logo shining high up in the sky, curved against the dome.
Kenneth had said it's a dome that the tributes are to be trapped in. She escapes one dome, the one underground that burns away and she loses all she's ever known, to die in most likely a different one. If her opulence is true, she'd be dying with sheets wrapped around her ankles, Avoxes feeding her from morning to night, loved ones that do not exist hanging on at each side of the bed.
"Kai'sa, look at the sky," Porscha says, wonder on her voice. Kai'sa wants to rest again, even though it has only been a few moments since they started walking again. They have nowhere in mind, but she does not want to stay idle.
"Didn't the Head Gamemaker-" she starts to speak, but Porscha is looking at her sharply
"Vice President, Kai-" her eyes dart from side to side, as if the rock wall would open up, ghouls of the night reaching out to snatch them up in claws made of raven feathers and fangs of tigers.
"Who cares what title we use..." Kai'sa complains, falling against the right side of the canyon path, her stomach growling, her throat dry, dying for a drink. Simon, her adoptive father, let her have anything she wanted as long as she'd don the tutu at night and spin, and no matter how hard she insists that they're called turns, and that turns in ballet slippers should not be done on carpet, he'd still slap his hand on the dining room table and demand… she is an Ether, and they do what they're told. "Anyways, didn't he say that we'd be shown the recap of who dies at the end of each day?"
It is a few hours after the cornucopia fight, when they're crunching dead leaves beneath the soles of their shoes in the dense forest section, that Vice President Cain Passionia returns over the loudspeaker, congratulating the tributes that they've survived into the first day of the arena, headlong into their nightmare. Something called a cannon sound, which the president duplicates for them, echoes around the open arena, that signifying when a tribute has died, and shortly after his message, four of them ring into the night.
The following words after the demonstration is that at the end of the day, the dead faces will be shown in the sky, to commemorate the dead.
"Or to keep us in our guilt and shame…" Kai'sa tells herself, bitterly.
"Then this must be it," Porscha says, leaning back likewise, right next to Kai'sa, their elbows brushing against each other, a spark of electricity sliding down Kai'sa's spine, but she does not say anything as the bluish glow softens to a more warm color, a silver tone, and the logo disappears. It is replaced by the face of Cecelia Blackstone, the girl's name and district number spaced next to her picture. "Cecelia Blackstone, huh? Never really thought much of her and it isn't like she scored amazingly well."
"Neither did you, Porsche," Kai'sa teases, poking her in the side gently.
Porscha shoves her, but Kai'sa keeps her balance, the two girls keeping their gaze directly on the sky. "Stop being a peach and reminding me of that, asshat," she tells her, resting the weapon in her hands down on the ground.
Cecelia's face transitions to that of Zachary Edison, a soft noise of sympathy rising in Kai'sa's throat.
"He was a nice kid," she says. She didn't know him, nor did she try to get close to anyone except Porscha when she realizes that Ramses wants nothing to do with her, even after he takes a headlong tumble into the training center pool, and she foolishly hopes he is okay and survives… now he is another name to cross off of the list.
"You think Pierce did that?" her ally asks, voice soft, eyes illuminating in the silver halo cast on the rocks. Porscha is gorgeous, Kai'sa realizes, even as the dead faces shine on in the sky, and she's not sure fellow dancer even believes that.
"He's your district partner, Porscha. Do you think he could kill?" Kai'sa asks her, tone gentle, as she crosses her arms over her chest.
A moment of silence washes over the two girls, Kai'sa rolling her left foot in her boots, seeing that Porscha is in the right mindset as well, as she's seemingly stretching the back of her heel. Kai'sa knows she herself is gorgeous, for Simon tells her every single morning with one hand ruffling her hair, or the people who come to see the Underground Ballerina, the one borne in smoke with flames rising off of her chest, burning up the carpet as she leaps and glissades from one corner to the other.
"He was nice too," Kai'sa comments when the face of Calen Kinegrove passes over.
"Too tall for my taste, anyways," Porscha says, as Dill Waylon's face shines next. There is a triumphant hum and trumpet sound in the sky, the four dead faces of those who died in the beginning of the Hunger Games forever hanging in the air.
The anthem – that is the word Cain uses, in his announcement – disappears, and the world returns to silence, their little slice of the arena. They most likely are alone out in this section, for Porscha swears no one had followed them, and that no one had made the most likely stupid decision to head that way.
Porscha leeches herself off the rocks, picking up her mace, taking another step, but Kai'sa hesitates.
"Porscha... there's something I have to tell you, about today," she says, suddenly, wringing her hands back and forth, her ally turning around, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know if you saw it but I... I tried attacking Ramses, and-" She has no idea what takes her over, looking at her district partner, and while she still wants him dead, this is different… Kai'sa has never harmed another living soul before, and he's a living soul, when she slashes a knife just across his elbow, catching part of the flesh there, seeing vermillion splatter onto the foot of her boot, she unable to see the blood mark in the dark. "That just felt entirely unlike me, y'know? I... I don't know what came over me, but I felt this rage and anger and I-"
"I get it, Kai'sa," Porscha is at her side immediately, hands soothing into her shoulders, rubbing back and forth into her skin. If there would only be the room for them to dance again, like on the rooftop… it is the only time she feels free, up there, with the girl from Six who has slayed dragons and conquered krakens in the sea.
"Do you? Do you really get it?"
"I've had my demons too," Porscha says, softly, lowering her head, pressing their foreheads against each other.
Kai'sa looks down too, before straightening up some, eyes widening in delight at the sight below her. Porscha is still speaking, and there is always time to share sad and depressing information with one another, but this is… this is different… "Look at the ground!"
"What- what?" the girl from Six chokes on her spit, but Kai'sa is already pushing past Porscha, keeping her eyes on the ground.
"It's changing, see? We're walking on some sort of pebbly path, and the obsidian beach we saw definitely did not have anything like that in its arsenal, so..." she continues following it, the ground spotted and glowing, each step furthering them down this glittering path of stones, it looking like precious gems pushed into the land, with each flickering beam of moonlight.
Rounding the bend, the high-rise canyon walls slope off into a hill, Kai'sa's feet connecting with softer grass than that of the stone just behind them Porscha nearly colliding into her as both girls round the bend.
They didn't need a destination in mind, for it appears to them instead. At the end of the path, this path the two girls have been on, there is a singular rock, about four or so feet tall, and angled outwards at them, the ruby encrusted hilt speaking Kai'sa's name, is a sword.
Out there, ripe for the taking, and they've found it first.
"Kai'sa, there's a sword," Porscha bounces on the balls of her feet, the ground vibrating underneath her, Kai'sa shifting her weight some."Seems better than these at the very least..." she regards, looking down at her pitiful club in her hand, though Kai'sa wouldn't say she feels shame about the knives she is holding onto.
It is there, and it is hers, for she found it. Something she has earned, something worthy of her name, a little bit of brightness to the shadows wrapped tight against her throat, suffocating her so the wings on her back cannot sprout free, so she cannot take flight.
"C'mon!" she cries out, happily, rushing towards it, wrapping both hands around the hilt, giving it a tug.
"What are you doing?" Porscha asks, concernedly, not moving towards the weapon like Kai'sa expects. Never thought of her as one to be stuck in uncertainty.
"Haven't you ever read a damn book, Porscha? Swords in the stones are meant to be pulled!" Kai'sa says, happily, tugging again, but the weapon won't budge. King Arthur, pulling the sword Excalibur out of the stone… it is her favorite legend that she's ever read, it sitting in her father's library back in the manor, a red spine, a glimmering gold cover… what would this sword be doing here? "C'mon, help me, you idiot!"
Porscha scoffs, blowing a tuff of hair out of her eyes as she makes her way over to it, wrapping her hands around the weapon as well. The two girls tug and pull, digging their heels into the grass, the contrast sharp and bright, where the ground is luminescent beneath their feet.
"Are you even pulling?" Kai'sa snaps at her ally.
"Of course I am! Don't be an asshat!" Porscha snips back for equal measure.
Kai'sa grits her teeth, hissing, pulling harder, for if she pulls any harder her arms just might dislocate, angling her arms just right. The blade comes free out of the rock, sailing above their heads, both girls falling onto the ground as if the sword pushes them back. "Whoa!" Kai'sa yelps, out of air, seeing the weapon shatter against the ground when it lands, a scream nearly ripping from its lips… what… why? "Oh hey! That's not fair!" she protests, but Porscha's hands are tugging at her shoulders, forcing her to look around.
From where they had pulled the sword from the stone, the rock gives way into the earth, the land shifting around, groaning underneath their feet, an open cave entrance inviting them in, it illuminated the same sheeny emerald color as the grass beneath their feet.
"Kai'sa, we're in the Hunger Games. Is anything here going to be fair?" Porscha asks, getting to her feet, brushing her knees off, picking the cudgel up. "So much for the sword…"
"Well..." Kai'sa stomps her foot, bringing out one of her knives. She'll yell at the anthem the next time it plays, just so the vice president is listening. "You think we should go down there?" she asks.
"I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen?" Porscha laughs, Kai'sa's eyes flashing in fear, looking over at her ally immediately. "Rhetorical question, Kai'sa," the girl from Six chides.
The two of them had been searching for answers, and while it may not have been the answer she had been looking for… is this the secret to the arena?
Kai'sa swallows her fear, nods her head, and steps forward into the jaws of the leviathan.
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 5: Kileigh Katsaras [Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie]
District 6: Pierce Alversway [Submitted by Merlin's Brown Jacket] / Porscha Watanabe [Submitted by thornehub]
District 7: Sylvan Adello [Submitted by In Writing] / Nevaeh Davoli [Submitted by dyloccupy]
District 8: Niklaus Peverell [Submitted by timesphobic] / Poem Cavalli [Submitted by LordShiro]
District 9: Gemini Lennox [Submitted by Apple1230] / Camilla Rodriguez [Submitted by Reign of Winter]
District 10: Nokomis Yanaba [Submitted by Ripple237]
District 11: Cassiopeia Grey [Submitted by ZeroIsANumber]
District 12: Ramses Boskov [Submitted by Guesttwelve] / Kai'sa Shadow [Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn]
...
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)
Respect for the Principal: Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Ramses Boskov (D12M)
The Dancing Queens: Porscha Watanabe (D6F), Kai'sa Shadow (D12F)
Woodland Family: Sylvan Adello (D7M), Nevaeh Davoli (D7F)
Wax Poetica: Niklaus Peverell (D8M), Poem Cavalli (D8F)
Loners: Kileigh Katsaras (D5F), Pierce Alversway (D6M), Gemini Lennox (D9M), Cassiopeia Grey (D11F)
...
Kill Leaderboard:
Portia Beninblade (D2F): I
Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F): I
Diana Kratovska (D4F): I
Nokomis Yanaba (D9F): I
Okay, so that was Chapter #22: The Arena's Kiss of Death! I am very happy to finally have the chapter out, and while I do not think this is not my best work, this chapter, it still feels greatly refreshing to actually have something finished and out for you all, and I am again, so sorry for how long this took to get out. Six povs, from Pierce, Camilla, Jasper, Poem, Catalus, and Kai'sa, all concerning the aftermath of the "bloodbath" and exploring some secrets of the arena... I will tell you right now, as no one really got it, haha, that this arena is based off of the complete game of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which is heavily into Norse mythos, and all the landscapes in this arena derive from the game, and many other secrets that will happen inside, of which District 8 and our Dancing Queens have seemed to find.
No deaths for this chapter, alliances stay the same, leaderboard doesn't shift... but that does not mean it will stay the same. I have a decently long Games I believe, and things will stay at a steady pace. Next Chapter, #23: Seal of the Gods, will focus on Day 2, and will have seven povs, six tribute ones, and a seventh pov from Emrick to close the chapter, and I am hoping, now that I am back on my own two feet, that the chapter will be out before December 1st because of this hiatus.
In other news, happening very shortly, I have a collab SYOT with fellow writer and best friend thorne98 called Red Silence dropping its first prologue out on Thanksgiving Day. It is a partial, but all spots are technically open for grabs, and submissions are open - form is on mine and his profile if you care to look at it - and I am so excited to be starting another story alongside this one. Thank you for your support! Have a great day! I love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm