Night 3, Part 1: The Familial and The Familiar.
Dior Marini. District 1.
They're separated.
And now she's alone, dirt slathering her face and so many jags and cuts worn upon her skin, all for the Capitol's caprice. She's breathing so fucking heavily and she's trudging across earth, even as the muffled explosions swallow the world and echoes of cannons ebb through the heavens.
And she's so fucking pissed.
What she'd least expected was a fucking insurrection. She was supposed to control them, Dior Marini had the power to, the authority, the brittle charm, the bitter fight in her soul, she's rational, smart, she's driven, she's supposed to fucking lead the pack and—
And it had ended in sedition, in insurrection, in a fight.
A near-fight.
(She'd wanted to drive that blade into Althea Ivory's heart. To show her, to end her, look who's in control. But the earth exploded underneath her feet, the noise of a dozen landmines rupturing the undergrowth. Bursting with fissures, ravines of their own, frothing with life, with the creaks and coughs of earth, and the earth had crumbled underneath their feet. She and Althea were uprooted, tossed into the merciless waves, ever-flowing, ever-changing, never in stasis, never stationary, flowing with dirt-rocks and rolling dust and flecks of golden specks—)
And the pack had splintered. All of them away—oh, no, Dior couldn't see a single one, all uprooted from her sight, too far, too close, so away, as she swept in the tides of dirt-grey.
(And cannons had erupted the skies, or perhaps it was the noise of the earth bursting in a frenzy underneath her—she didn't know. But despite the frenzied everything around her it's, oh no, her mind's elsewhere.)
They were supposed to fight with her. All of them were.
(But it's cause she's not enough, never enough. She can't even keep a pack together just like Mattie's year when the pack decayed around her and her sister ran before the chaos could commence. And Mattie acted as the trigger, really, cause then the pack murdered themselves in clashes red and raw and that was what'd ousted Mattie that was what had doomed her so it was thatthatthat and Dior was determined not to repeat it this year but what is she now nothing but another Marini that fails that falls that dies)—
And she was so ready to kill, she had to kill— (for Mattie for her sister to claw her way onto the crown just a little more and then Dior'll win—) but she couldn't find the Eights, couldn't avenge, and the earth's alive under her feet and now what'll she do—
Earthquakes desecrate the Arena. Dior Marini wants to let a laugh erupt from her lips, so mad, so uproarious, so blithe and sarcastic, because fucking hell, she was doing the damn Gamemaker's deeds, she was doing what Elkavich would've wanted her to do, and yet they're thwarting her plans, they're raising a dozen earthquakes and separating the Career pack, they're not letting her hunt—
—(and oh would you look at that? They're stopping you and wouldn't the Gamemakers agree too, you're too fucking animal to be trusted and controlled and oh, even moreso than the outer Districts, isn't she, so driven by revenge, so deadened by revenge, so screwed and so pissed and all-too-much living in her skin—)
—and the Gamemakers are supposed to be helping her, she's doing what they want of her, and fucking hell, then, if they don't want her to hunt the rest of the rebels so badly, then she won't, their loss, not her fucking fault.
(Like it wasn't her fucking fault when Mattie volunteered because Dior couldn't, so scared to, too fucking wretched to volunteer. Like it wasn't her fucking problem when Mattie died, like it isn't all because of Dior, like it's not her fault, it's never her fault, it can't be her fault, Dior can't cope if it's her fault— she knows already but she has to stay sane she can't cope—)
And she's spiralling, she's furious, she's laughing, there are tears by her eyes, she's sobbing, she's smiling, oh, Dior Marini is so fucked up in the head, Dior Marini's such a fucking wreck, she's breaking down, isn't she just, she's always been breaking down, dying—
(—long dead, really, before she started; ever since her sister was rent a corpse and she was left a cadaver, lurching in her life, she isn't anything really—)
Dior Marini chokes the laughs out of her breaths, crazed-mad, and she steels her breath, lets the smile, too-bitter, twinge by her lips.
(Because, Dior Marini is this: no different from Mattie Marini, of the 53rd Games. Confined in an Arena, environed in forests, brought up to volunteer; left without a pack, left with a will to live, left with a shorting breath and a faltering desire knowing that she'll die—)
And Dior knows she should fight, that she has to fight, that she needs to fight— for Mattie's sake, for her own sake, for dignity to be restored in her family, for her to be able to meet her parents' eyes—but Dior's so exhausted. There is only one goal that keeps her alive—and what is she, other than what it makes of her?
(And in her heart she knows this: Dior Marini will die.)
She's stumbling across the broken gilded-trees, and she's a machine, a well-oiled one, but she's floundering. She's exhausted of breath and yet there's a half-smile there on her face and sobs wrack her throat but they don't make her face and there's a gleam in her eyes, mad, ferocious, furious, despairing, broken—
(Dior Marini will die.)
And she'll be laughing, if she could, if not for the control that sets rigor mortis in her bones and the coldness that must stay in her expression, she isn't, she is, she's dying, she's falling, might as well—
(Dior Marini will—)
And then there's a figure, amid the broken earth, as if called forth by a demon. And Chrys Gerhart catches her eye and a twinge of a half-smile wreathes Dior's lips.
(Dior Marini will—)
No.
No.
No.
She'll kill him. She'll kill him and then she'll kill the Eights and that's how it'll be. She'll fight them all. She'll live. No. Dior Marini will not die.
Dior Marini will survive.
She raises her bolas and throws.
Chrys Gerhart. District 1.
Kiernan Alcraiz was swallowed alive in front of his eyes, and Chrys Gerhart is breathless and terrified.
(And Kiernan Alcraiz dies, with eyes so wide, a shock and a shell of himself and Chrys Gerhart couldn't comfort him, for the words had tangled his lips and he was speaking but Kiernan wasn't hearing and then the world fell apart into pieces, desecrating and dying, like ruins plunging into an abyss. Chrys screamed when Kiernan went under, swallowed with dirt-streaked eyes and a reaching hand like he's clawing out from the graves and his breaths trying to breathe and—)
And he'd broken away. Tidedoverand brought along the dross and sea of earth and boulders and he was being washed away and screams and yells and roars had torn at his throat just as pain flared in his once-arm and he'd yelled and roared and thrashed but it wasn't enough, nothing would be ever enough against an earthquake—
And Kiernan Alcraiz had died scared of him, had died terrified, had died—
(And then it's Emilio that haunts Kiernan's so shell-shocked face, like the moment Chrys dropped the news that he'll be volunteering, and Emilio had looked at him, shock inhabiting his eyes, no, no, no, Chrys, why? I don't wanna lose you in there, why, I don't understand, why are you doing this—)
A laugh, a laugh-not-quite-a-laugh shakes his lungs and his throat and he's so bitter and broken and oh, fucking hell, of course…
(His family flashes in front of his mind. The dreams they had — pretty dreams, beautiful dreams, dreams-so-many-of-them, of Melissa becoming a fashion designer and of Julius becoming their resident future author and of getting his father outta that hellhole job. All the dreams he's here for, that he's volunteered for, laugh back at him.)
For he can't achieve that. He's missing a chunk of his arm and he's dying, he really is, no matter how much he tries to deny it, he's bleeding out and the blood's making him lightheaded and the edges of deliriousness eat at his head and he wants to sleep, really, oh he does…
… he's dying and the Games won't ever end in three days and what's he thinking, really, he's going to fucking die, he'll perish and he'll be nothing more, fucking hell, he's killed Six girl, but it isn't enough, is it? He's not gonna make it back, he's not gonna be a Victor, even if his destiny was always to be in the Games—
(—to be in the Games to die in the Games he was the best but he was never really Victor material, was he—)
—and he's going to die and Chrys Gerhart's going to die and he was never really going to survive, was he, really—
He's laughing, he's shaking, there are tears in his eyes and a shake in his breath and oh, Chrys knows—
He will break.
(He can't break. He needs to survive. He has the world to meet up to. He has the judgement and the sneers of the stupid rich kids back at home to defeat. He has Clay who supports him, he has Nemesis who watches him. He has to make back to her, and maybe then he'll maybe confess—)
(—and he has his family, he always has his family. Their faces; shimmering in pain, in hope. Of Melissa's held breaths, of his father's fears, Chrys, I can't bear to lose you too, of Emilio's quivers and his too-fast breaths, please, please, Chrys, live, I don't wanna see you die—)
No. Chrys Gerhart must fight.
He must. It's his destiny, he knows. It's what he should do.
(Can he still fight?)
He raises his eyes at Dior Marini, a dozen meters away, and there's a weak smile that prods at his lips. He'd seen her, in the distance; he'd seen her bola throw, and he didn't even bother to duck, or sidestep, or run; it'd veered off, anyways, struck in the ground beside him. Dior, so taken by rage: her aim would always be so off.
And besides: to run, now? After everything?
It was about time.
Dior's steps are cold, amid the quivers of ebbing earthquakes that shake the grounds underneath them—if a little calmer, if a little more dormant.
"Chrys Gerhart."
Her eyes are so gelid, like petrified stone. Chrys feels something quirk by his lips; how classic of Dior.
"It's nice to see you here," he says, half-grinning, half spiteful. Because she's his enemy. She's a killer, a remorseless one at that, and he can fight her without regret. And that's what he'll do, he'll kill her, cause all she gives a shit about's hunting down the outliers, and he'll end her, and for the better—even if he's dying, even if he can't survive for his family, he can fight, he can be a hero, at least, with her death—
And so he rivets his gaze on her and exhales a breath, lets a half-wry smile tinge his lips. "Stopped caring about the Eights?" he asks, and Dior's eyes flare, and she scoffs—
"What do you know about that?"
"Why do you care so much if they live or die?"
"And why should you care about my reasons? I can't imagine yours would be any nobler, Chrys Gerhart."
"I'm doing this for my family. Don't pretend you understand," he says, quietly, but there's a quality of ferocity which underlines his words. Because Dior couldn't know, would never understand selflessness. She won't understand what he's doing, why he's here, wouldn't understand it's all for his family. Chrys scoffs, waits, cause she's just another rich kid of the Academy, volunteering to win, for the prestige, gloryhounds and vainglorious freaks—
—and Dior Marini laughs.
"Then our reasons are the same," she says. Dior unsheathes her blade, and she cocks her head, and her eyes are the coldest glare from the coldest mires he'd ever seen—
"I'm doing this for Mattie Marini. And you're not about to get in my way of it."
The irony hits him like a goddamn fucking truck. His breath's shaky, and he swears more laughs makes it to his breaths. Oh, fucking hell. Of course.
And Dior's eyes are too cold when she strikes. Her blade sinks with a squelch into his chest.
No. He won't die now.
Chrys roars, jumps, and struggles a few steps back. His axe, he needs his axe— and he grips it in his hand and lunges and strikes back, and a glimmering red slash forms up her thigh. Dior buckles, but she snarls, and he makes it close, close, he just needs to decapitate her and it's over with—
—and her blade goes through his stomach.
He screams. He screams and slashes again, frenzied, and a fresh streak makes it up her chest, and it doesn't matter that their fight's so pathetic, a pithy show for the Careers, what matters is that he's getting more wounds in, he's killing, he's going to kill her, he has to has to has to—
But it's not enough.
Dior slashes his working arm open. It is so easy, so stupidly easy how quickly his axe clatters to the ground. And as metal tangs his mouth his legs give out from him, and it's then when it registers how much blood's leaving his skin, just how much he's bleeding…
He's dying. Exsanguination: sped-up by a metal end.
His laugh is so bitter.
He volunteered out of his heart; he's surviving in the Games, to help his family survive in One, It's an exchange. And the Academy were to achieve that, it was his means to an end, he was supposed to make it.
And Chrys wanted the money, he'd wanted stability, and if he admits it, he'd wanted the gold, too, the prestige and the awe of everybody else in the Academy and himself, proven to the world. But his family will never get glory. Not now—not with how he'd failed.
(He thinks of them at home. Emilio, whispering under his breath, oh no, Chrys, oh no, Melissa, covering Julius's eyes, Juno, exhaling a frantic cry, and his father, Lancer, pushing his calloused hands well-worn like valleys into his hair—)
Regrets overwhelm his heart. He's so fucking stupid, 'cause now Lancer'll have to work overtime, despite his shitty bones, and Melissa'll feel like it's her fault, and Juno and Julius'll have too many fucking nightmares, and Emilio'll feel so broken, and why did Chrys ever think that he should've volunteered-—
(Because there was so much to lose if he hadn't. There was so much to lose if he did. And it was hopeless, really, but he could only wish for the best outcome, and the Games were his destiny, he'd always seen it like that, so could they really blame him, really, when all he wanted to do was to help them live, damned if he did, damned if he didn't—)
Damned.
And another laugh razes his throat and another sob-half cry, and he's disintegrating, he's destroyed, he's dying, he's… oblivion.
A cannon crackles and Chrys Gerhart is rent so dead, that white knight blighted by his plight.
The ghosts of a dozen tearful faces raise up the night.
Kiernan Alcraiz. District 2.
He takes shelter, somewhere, in a nowhere-place.
(He had been sure that he had died. Death would've rent his skin eventually in the Arena: it was just fact. Kiernan Alcraiz did not have a fighting chance. He's the Gamemakers' pet, he's their example, he's their little clarion call—look at what'll happen if you decide to rebel. Look at what'll happen. You don't want that.)
He'd burned, the moment he volunteered, red florid on his face and his breaths too-choky. Resentment ate at his chest; rage in his veins; humiliation painting his skin and creasing his lips into snark and a snarl and a too frustrated laugh.
(And wasn't it such a fucking humiliation—to die live on-screen in the middle of a goddamn panic attack, a shell of his former self and struggling, always fucking struggling to breathe. Just like how they'd revelled in the way Maeve stumbled upon her words and paused too fucking long for all to see, not even three months ago, they must enjoy seeing Alcraiz after Alcraiz suffer.)
Wasn't it a perfect end? Kiernan Alcraiz, collapsing in a panic, dying cause of the hurricane of shit in his chest and cause of the earthquake that ate him alive from outside. More humiliating than Maeve's death, taken by a mutt, he'd die panicking about a death, he'd die fucking spiralling, and wouldn't the Capitol relish so much in that—
But he didn't. He hadn't. Swept away, swallowed under earth, and he'd struggled, he'd thrashed. But as quickly as the ground had swallowed him it had spat him out again: disoriented and dazed and with so many cuts on his skin but alive. And now Kiernan Alcraiz takes shelter in a nowhere-place. Amid the golden woodlands, so false, really, so saturated in gold, so fucking excessive. And he's underneath its boughs, catching his breathing against the crevasse of a tree.
(It's stopped. He didn't really realise it, at first: because the lands trembled still, but they'd stopped moving. At least—not as vigorously, not with so much volatility. But they leave their mark upon the lands; jagged earth-out-of-rock, spires busting up from ground like they were alien creations, but too familiar: nature unfettered, unleashed.)
Kiernan Alcraiz takes shelter in a nowhere place. But it is a recognisable place; a special place. There are no spires forcing the ground up. It's as if this area were left undisturbed by the earthquakes; deliberately undisrupted.
As if it were a resting place.
(And that thought unnerves him, that thought's so uncomfortable in his chest, no, Kiernan doesn't like it at all. Because he can't think about what it means, no, he won't think—)
Instead, he forces his eyes to wander across the scenery. He'd never really taken the Arena fully in—it was beautiful, but in the ways arenas were beautiful: tinged with falsity. It was grand, yes, but only in the way which the Capitol was grand; it was gorgeous, yes, but never like natural scenery. And he'd never realised, not really…
Just how superficial it was.
(It's uncomfortable, this thought also, but he can't not focus on it. How could the Capitol build an Arena in three months? They'd Reaped kids perennially because construction's at least twelve months. And sometimes it took even longer—Quell Arenas, other Arenas, hell, so many Arenas had spent more than two years in the making. How did… how did Elkavich conjure this one up so quickly?)
(Did she conjure this Arena out of nowhere?)
Goosebumps creep over his skin, and the deja-vu swathes his skin. Thoughts race across Kiernan's mind and his breaths constrict in his throat—
(—and he's looking at Maeve, who's smooshing clay bits and pieces on one another, and her artistic skills have never been pretty, 'cause she's making a so stupidly lopsided head. And he rolls his eyes, what the hell are you doing? and she's laughing, umm, duh. It doesn't look… like you. I don't... like it. I'm tryin' again!)
Trying again.
It strikes him at once. What they've done with the 56th Games.
(What they've made of the 55th.)
They want a reprise. A redoing. A fresh-slate; they want a forgetting. The 56th would supersede the 55th, and that would be done so easily.
Especially when they used the same fucking Arena.
He doesn't know why it takes him so long to realise it. But it smacks him in the face, and it makes sense. From the forests to the winds—oh, aside from the dross of gold they'd doused over the place (as if with a shiny glean they'll be able to forget fuck-all)—it's the damn same.
And oh, it's so fucking funny (—it's not, really, it's never fucking funny, but it's funny how the universe likes to play jokes on the Alcraiz's), and Kiernan's half-laughing, already, a quake in his chest already, as he sits and exhales and breathes in so much fucking air, the freshest air, only the ones made by winds too-cold, winds that reigned an Arena not so long ago before—
And he knows this place. It's embedded in his mind: from the too redolent lights to the glint of bare dirt-ground underneath and the forests that shroud all in-between.
He's seen it on screen.
Kiernan Alcraiz takes shelter in Maeve's death place.
(Why is it so funny to him?)
Placements.
12th Place. Unnamed tribute. D9M. [Died to earthquake.]
11th Place. Unnamed tribute. D7F. [Died to earthquake.]
10th Place. Chrys Gerhart. D1M. [Killed by Dior Marini.]
A/N: So! What do we think? I mean, aside from thoughts about the shitty chapter name (... sorry not sorry...) I teased this reveal last chapter a bit… and we're here now! Oh man, I am so happy that we got here, because I have been ANTICIPATING this reveal since I began this fic, and I'm so glad we got here! Soooo... thoughts about the Arena? Of the Games? Predictions of what might happen later?
Of course, it goes without saying that we are finally sending off our main cast! Chrys was a character who I just understood when I got his form; he was fleshed-out and so interesting to behold. His drive was so incredibly human - because everyone would want to help their families, and he just needed that so much. But what had also stuck out to me as I'd written him was his pettiness, which manifested in an almost blind vengeance - even if understandable - but it'd consumed him so much that he was (as Joseph observed, and I'm sure many others have, too) somewhat hypocritical and stuck in his own mindset. His arc was bittersweet to play out, and I always enjoyed writing Chrys.
Thank you so much for reading; I adore all of the feedback y'all give me, whether if it's through reviews, messages, and more! Huge thanks to Joseph, Linds, Slytherin, Bradi, Haiden, and so many of you for keeping up with this fic - y'all give me life. Please let me know what you thought, and I can't wait to keep writing!