Night 2: The Victims and the Talons.
Chrys Gerhart. District 1.
Dior Marini wants the Eights dead.
That's what he hears every single time Dior opens her mouth. It's always those same words; irritating beyond belief, frustrating beyond belief, ridiculous beyond belief.
"Our hunt will commence, now." "It is only fair that they die." "Do you dare protest against what I say?" "Are you staring at me?"
Sure—he'd exaggerated some of that. But all of it is propounded and expounded; and Dior Marini so extreme in her hate, so annoying in its excess. It's so stupid, really, her excessive obsession over the Eights.
(Because he could care less about the Eights. They've done jack-shit to him. Chrys Gerhart understands revenge, of course. Even the thought of Six girl froths a rage in his veins; her fucking decision to chop his arm off's left him writhing in pain for the night, left a phantom ache in his limbs, left him screaming and left him biting his other arm to stop his yells from making the cameras.)
If there is one thing that he agrees with Dior with, it is this: the Outer Districts do not deserve to believe that they are better than the Careers. Their audacity is ridiculous. Their desires are ridiculous. Their cries are foolish.
And Chrys wants Six girl to suffer. Eye for an eye, arm for an arm; it's simple, really; it's all he wants to do. He wants to kill her, maul her, break her; their battle hadn't finished, it'd never finished, she didn't know what she started when she decided to break his arm apart. Their fight is now.
Chrys Gerhart does not have time. Try as he might, as hard as he might, his tourniquet is not enough. His stump's opening. He's leaking blood, he knows. He's bleeding out. He'll be exsanguinated.
(And what a pretty death would that be? Just like in the 54th Games; that Victor, who mutilated themselves after the Games were over. Blood running down her arms, spilling out a river from the banks of skin, sinking a sea upon the carpeted grounds of her own home to touch the feet of the paparazzi. That flashed shots that splattered the news for years to come.)
(Suicide never escapes One.)
But Chrys Gerhart will not die like that. He's not somebody that'll kneel down and fold. The Games are his destiny. His victory's what he needs. He's not suicidal; he never was, and he won't be. He won't wait to die.
(He does not have time.)
Chrys Gerhart will survive. He has to—for his family. For their lives made better.
(He tries not to think about how Ten or Seven died.)
He has to. He's the chosen Career. It's his destiny.
(It is what his mother had told him on her death-bed. Chrys, please, Metella had whispered, her eyes shimmering in tears, of all things unsaid, of all she wished to say. Fight for us. For the family. Enter the Academy, and thirteen-year-old Chrys had listened, eyes wide but enraptured, and in her final breaths she'd choked out, please.. For… for us.)
And that is what he will do; he'll live. He'll fight for them. He'll fight for Emilio's smile; he'll fight for Melissa's career as a fashion designer; he'll fight for Julius's books that he reads after-school and he'll fight for Laurel's and Juno's reconciliation. He'll fight to get back to Nemesis cause then he'll have enough courage to tell her that he likes her and he'll fight for his father's retirement. He'll fight.
Chrys Gerhart will not die.
(It is not the families of Ten, or Seven, or Eight, or Six, or any-fucking-District that he needs to care about. It is his. It is his goal that matters now. His family. His life. Their survival.)
His eyes wander to Dior Marini. Still watching them all, still holding up her chin and still letting orders pour from her lips; still preparing the weapons needed for their hunt upon the Eights, bolas and a sword and the dozen other weapons that they won't have until they get them back.
Because of their audacity.
(And audacity brings him back to the Bloodbath, audacity brings him back to the Outer District's charge at the golden horn, audacity brings him back to his arm torn upon grass and Six girl, cocking her head, a snarl entwining her lips and so much righteousness in her eyes. Her audacity: to judge him, to look down on him, to stare at him, like she's got the moral-upper hand somehow.)
Six girl. Who dared to chop off his arm like he were nothing more than lamb to the slaughter.
And oh, he knows where to begin.
Althea Ivory. District 4.
It is almost midday when Rhodos speaks for the first time in the day.
"There they are."
And they are, there—in the distance. Two tributes. Struggling to get a move on. Backpacks slung over their shoulders. As they swayed, and their supplies weighed upon them.
(Their Cornucopia supplies.)
Althea passes a small glance at her District Partner. He'd been quiet, for the better part of the day - even as Dior passed plans, even as they'd passed weapons, even as they'd passed remarks and customary pleasantries.
(Even as he looked at her, brows creased and biting his lip, and she'd known that Rhodos was thinking about last night again when she'd snapped at him and he'd recoiled with pain in his eyes. Althea stiffened, every time, but Rhodos would always look away before she could say anything.)
(And her mouth would dry whenever she attempted to think of words to say; an apology? Or to ignore him—to pretend like she hadn't said anything at all?)
Althea refocuses, instead. Now—Rhodos's eyes are fixated on the pair. He's tired. But there's also worry that seems to press upon them; even if they only manifest in the way he grips his knuckles, and the way which he looks at the tributes, eyes so faraway, wretched in conflict, so different from…
Dior Marini. Whose eyes flicker with almost a thirst— a rage, really. Her fingers tighten on her sword, the other her bolas. So ready to kill. And so, Althea Ivory clears her throat and says the words before Dior can get ahead of herself.
"It's not the Eights."
A certain surprise flicks in Dior Marini's eyes. But Althea Ivory simply cocks her head, lifts her chin towards the tributes trudging across the wearied-golden fields, dimming in the autumnal afternoon.
It is the Fives.
(Althea recognises them. Because the boy from Five's strong like an ox, built like a machine, even at a tender fifteen. He would've been made for the Career Districts, really, if he were not an outlier. And Eight… boy? - are they even a boy? - is a child, thirteen, probably, not nearly anything like what Five looks like.)
And Five boy's helping Five girl. He holds her by her hand. For her legs dragging behind. Like the bone's detached from her joints. But it still lives in the bag of her flesh.
There is a quick breath taken from the other end of the pack. And it's Kiernan Alcraiz's voice, she recognises.
Immediately, Dior's eyes are upon him - half a glare. Even though Kiernan only rouses the air with his breath and rustles the slow-falling leaves that descend.
Kiernan flashes a glare at Dior Marini, too, until it is smoothed over with barely-contained neutrality upon his face after Chrys Gerhart tugs his arm. And she sees Dior's rage flare up in her eyes again, and then she sees agony wreathe Hera Dalenka's face, and Althea has to resist a grit of her teeth, a frustrated sigh.
Their pack is unstable.
And Althea Ivory does not mind. The sooner they destruct, the better for her; more bodies down, more bodies dead, more stepping stones to the crown. She won't be caught in the middle of the fray; not when there are rivalries and divisions already-present. There is nobody she cares about that will die.
(That is what her rationality tells her at least. But then she thinks of her District Partner's gaze, so heartbroken, and then Althea Ivory is not quite sure how to feel, either.)
"Stop looking at him like that," Chrys Gerhart mutters, and his eyes are straight upon Dior's. "Do you want them to get away?"
Dior's sneer upticks by her lips, but her eyes are simmering with aggravation. And Althea holds her breath—because Dior grips her sword so tight her knuckles go white, and it looks like she's about to kill him, right there and then. A moment, and another, and then some more; and then Dior's anger tides over, and she's swathed with coolness again.
"No, I don't. What are you waiting for?"
They move upon the Fives. Crawl closer. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. They are like wolves; haunched, stealthy, unbidden. Drawing closer. They are like hounds; environing. Ready to raze and maul and to steal them into the night.
(Althea stuffs down what she feels in her stomach.)
Instead, she focuses on the Fives. And they are wary. Their eyes dart, their fingers clutch one another's closer, like they've felt a shift in the air.
And then Five girl's eyes land upon Althea's.
She screams. She tugs at her companion, points a shaking finger at her, at the Career pack, yells incoherencies to her District Partner. And Althea reaches for her halberd, stuffs down the anger in her veins, she should be reacting by now—
Dior gets there first.
The pack leader takes the bolas, twirls them effortlessly, and it's less than a second when it wraps over Five girl's legs, and less than another when she advances far enough and her blade's stabbed into Five girl's body.
Dior murders. And there is nothing that wrongs Althea Ivory's stomach. Her stomach doesn't roil, there is no chaos that reigns in her gut and there's nothing bubbling up from her lungs no Althea Ivory does not feel anything at all-
Five girl screams, and she shrieks, and she writhes like a struggling animal. A struggling animal that spews fountains of red from her gut.
And she's choking, and she's dying, already. "I—I'm sorry," she whispers, but even then her hands don't go where to her wound bleeds. Instead, her fingers press to a dark curved mark upon her wrist—a mark, a talon.
Althea Ivory's eyes are wide as the cannon bursts forth into the skies.
Dior doesn't spare the dead a second glance. Her chin's tilted up and there's a sniff of disdain upon her lips as her eyes catch Hera Dalenka. Staring at the dead, still so stunned.
And Dior's eyes lock onto Althea's. And something constricts in Althea's throat.
(Because there is a request that lingers in Dior's eyes, razor-sharp. A behest from her mind. She looks.)
No.
Five boy's traumatised. He's wild, glancing to-and-fro from his District Partner and them, and Althea's staring at the scene, even as he screams, and then it's like a fire lights his skin because then his feet patter across the waning-golden fields, and—
And Dior's waiting. Her head's lifted, her eyes are riveted.
But it's not on Five boy.
And their prey continues to run. Descending into the golden wreathes in the darkness.
Dior cocks her head at Althea.
Go on. Is on Dior Marini's eyes. Won't you.
(Prove yourself.)
(Show me what you can do.)
(Don't tell me you're weak.)
(Don't tell me you're impotent.)
(Aren't you just?)
Althea's fingers tense on her spear. She throws.
Her aim is straight.
It impales his chest.
He goes down.
Bubbling in red.
He dies.
It is quick.
It is immediate.
It shorts her breaths.
It breeds too many feelings in her chest.
"Good," and Dior's lips are pursued, they're pushed-up high; they enshrine the corner of her smile, as she watches the Five boy gargle on dirt. Her eyes meet Althea's; and that prick by the corner of her lips lift. "Good."
(There is a golden laurel upon her head. Althea Ivory. One more dead.)
(She feels awful about herself.)
Dior Marini. District 1.
They had not done anything of merit.
Her pack is useless. They killed the Fives. But they are not Eight. They are not the animals she wanted dead.
(And it were her vision that she had imposed upon their minds; it was her vision that she wanted them to see, that she wrangled them into seeing. For she was the leader, here.)
They did not get the Eights. And if Dior tempers the fire that razes her veins, even then—she might begin to forgive them. But that did not make her pack any less pathetic.
Chrys Gerhart. Armless. And pathetic.
Kiernan Alcraiz. A child in the pack. Worthless. Even more than his sister, really—what a showing, last year.
Hera Dalenka. High. What's the Two girl worth to her if she's in withdrawal?
Rhodos McNamara. Not so much different from a dog, really. So eager to please. At least he'll be useful, occasionally.
Althea. Faltering. Able, maybe, but those moments of hesitation were not acceptable in the Games.
And so the words slip from Dior's lips; involuntary, sardonic, far colder than she had intended.
"What is wrong with all of you?"
Eyes snap towards her. Shock—surprise—curiosity meet her eyes. Chrys's eyes are particularly resentful upon hers. Hera's are particularly hurt.
She lifts her chin to Chrys, first. "What have you done in our hunt?"
"Give me a break," he scoffs. And Dior rolls her eyes; breaks were not for the Arena. Breaks were not for anybody here. Breaks were not for the Games.
Do you want to die? flits upon her lips, till she takes a purposeful look at his arm; oh, wait.
Chrys does not retaliate. And so she turns her eyes towards Hera, then. So… pathetic.
"Oh, Hera," she mutters. And her words come out soft, but she lets the saturation of ice tip upon her lips. "Where were you, today? Or yesterday, for the matter, too. Or before launch even; and the day before that. Where is your mind? Still in the clouds? Still ebbing-away?"
Kiernan Alcraiz stiffens. Dior raises an eyebrow at the boy. Had she tugged on a nerve?
And then it hits her, then, for weren't the definition of clouds Maeve Alcraiz? No wonder he was so affected.
(And it's so obvious how he tries to push down his feelings; so obvious how he tries to push up a facade of neutrality, of carelessness. But his hurt and pain and anger overflow his eyes.)
Dior's eyes rivet on the boy, then.
Kiernan Alcraiz. That Two boy grates on her especially. Not only is he useless, but he's irritating. So whiny; brooding, acting far larger than his age. Not to mention his sister. The Alcraiz family was incomprehensible in themselves.
Dior Marini had never wanted Kiernan in the pack; but Career tradition had prevailed, lingering upon their decisions like a penetrating phantom. And as much as Dior disliked the boy, she would not be the first to destroy precedence.
Especially when his death was practically inevitable in these Games.
"It seems to be a commonality, for the Twos," Dior says, and she lets her eyes stay upon him, then. "So inhibited in their freedom. So stupid in their excess. So languid in their deaths."
Her eyes stay upon him, and Dior dares Kiernan Alcraiz to speak.
"She's dead," he says, simply, and his throat is thick with stiffness. Oh, how hard he tries to control himself. "That's what you wanted, right, Dior? They're dead. Fives are dead. Five girl's dead. Five boy's dead. Isn't that enough?"
His emotions. Thick in his throat. How pathetic.
"Do they look like the Eights to you?" Dior scoffs in reply. "Those that we're trying to hunt for aren't dead."
His scoff is loud, and harsh in her ears. "... They'll die anyway, won't they?"
Dior controls her breaths. That's not the point, she wants to snarl, because it isn't, it was never about dying anyway. They'll perish, eventually, but for their deaths to be anything but by her hands? Strangulation, like they intended- like what they'd done to her sister.
God, how much she'd like to see Kiernan dead. Body strewn upon the golden leaves, dying, dying in so much red—
(Mattie's screams; strangulation her end; porous red leaking from porous skin. Dross left of her life; gargling, choking, dying.)
Dior's breath catches in her throat.
(And for a moment she's not staring at Kiernan Alcraiz, angry, mad, but Mattie Marini, still a child, always a child in her eyes, never old enough for the Games-)
"Perhaps they will die anyway," and her eyes turn right on Kiernan Alcraiz (he's Alcraiz, he isn't Mattie, he's somebody that she doesn't know, he's someone that'll end up in the dirt six-feet under, he's dead not a child not anything really—)
"But have we ever won by staying stagnant? By not hunting as a pack?"
(She knows she speaks in a fallacy; she knows her words are underpinned with untruth; she knows that she does not say what she means. But to think about Mattie, to think that she didn't matter - Dior Marini cannot do that.)
"You understand me, then," she says. And her eyes wander over the pack. Hera does not meet her eyes. Chrys's countenance shines even darker. Althea's focused on her halberd. Rhodos is the only one who dares to meet her eyes, but even then they're fleeting, shy.
And although she speaks on the behalf of the Careers - it is never for them.
(It was never for them.)
Her heart tightens. Her resolve tightens. She'll have to win, then—like what she'd promised in the interview, that's why: she'll do it for Mattie.
(It's always only for Mattie.)
A/N: Hi all! Thank you so much for reading, and for all your reviews and comments - whether here or through Discord! They're honestly appreciated so, so much, I don't even know where to begin.
Thoughts on our tributes? On the Career pack? What's going to happen, from here on out?
Thank you so much for reading! I can't wait to see what you guys think; I hope you liked it!
Next Update: 31st-1st November!