A/N: Just to clear up any possible confusion, all three of these segments happen on the same day.
~Gio: Joker~
I wake up to a bright sky and think that maybe today is going to be a good day. And by good day, I mean as good as it's going to be when everything sucks.
I stretch and yawn. It took so much effort to get to sleep last night because I kept getting paranoid and being wide awake again. It was not a fun night.
But, today is a new day, right? That's what I have to keep telling myself. I get up and slowly make myself stand up, as much as my body complains. My goal for today is to find food. I'm absolutely starving and I know that if I don't get food I'll be as good as dead.
Even if I'm achey and starving, at least I slept a bit, kind of.
I start walking, looking for any kind of berries, fruit, or food I could eat without having to skin or butcher it. My stomach growls and I sigh, knowing that I'm trying my best but it may not be good enough.
I find some small berries that I recognize and breathe a sigh of relief. They taste sour and really just awful, but they're food anyways, and I force myself to swallow them down. This should at least keep me going for a few days. Give me more time to find something better.
Things are going okay until I hear chaos in the distance. Of course. The Capitol is bored, so Solitaire's going to push us some more.
This is the first gimmick I'm going to face alone, and I'm definitely not ready for it. Too bad I can't really run that fast.
I try to get away, but the whirlwind of squawking and feathers gets closer and closer. There are so many of them I can't count, giant bird mutts with giant beaks, green and blue and red and yellow… I bet if they weren't bloodthirsty they'd be a wonder to look at.
Before I know it, they're upon me, swooping down with sharp talons and beaks.
I can't give up. I can't go down without a fight. It wouldn't be fair to the people that are depending on me to come home to them.
I think about Abri with a full plate in front of her, wearing a brand new dress and good shoes, and I draw my sword. Time to keep on not-dying. Even if it kills me. But, like, hopefully it doesn't.
The mutts descend in a whirlwind, and soon they're everywhere. I let out grunts and yells and battle cries to try and keep the energy up as I fight. I do pretty well at first, taking them down easily with my sword and trying to kick the corpses aside with one foot. But, just when I think I may have gotten all of them, another hoard descends, squawking like nobody's business.
It seems like I'm fighting forever, but soon I get overwhelmed by the sheer number and size of the enemies that are before me. My arm is getting heavier and heavier, burning, complaining to me to stop moving it, but something in me refuses to stop. More and more mutts fly over me, and soon I can't see anything but black, waving my sword around wildly and trying as hard as I can to kill more and more mutts. It doesn't take long for me to get completely overwhelmed.
That's it. This is the end. I can't… I'm not fast enough… I'm not strong enough… I'm just a failure and a liability.
I take a pause, feeling talons dig into my shoulder and letting out a scream of agony. I think screaming helps with the pain, and besides, if I'm doomed why not let people know who the cannon is ringing for?
Suddenly, though, I see the light of day, and I hear a very familiar battle cry and in that second I realize that I was so damn stupid for even thinking of giving up.
"Atty!" I grip the sword handle with both hands and fight with as much vigor is left in me. Fighting side-by-side with Atticus again revives me, even if only a bit, and soon the mutts are becoming less and less scary. Atty uses his knives like a champ and knows exactly where to hit to kill instantly. Before I know it, the mutts are gone, and all that's left of them are the corpses that litter the ground.
Atticus looks slightly more disheveled than the last time we talked. His hair's messier and that one damn patch of facial hair is painfully prominent among the rest of his stubble. He's got cuts and scratches, too, more than when I saw him last. A lot of them are bleeding out so I know they were from the mutts.
After a few seconds of silence, staring at each other as if we're not completely sure the other is real, panting and surveying the damage, looking for any further threat, I can't take it anymore. I run over and tackle-hug Atticus. There's no way in hell I'm letting him go now. He hugs me back.
"You found me," I say quietly, breathlessly, somewhat tearily.
"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have let go-"
"It was the right thing to do." I release him from the hug but still feel the urge to grab onto him and not let Solitaire get to him again.
"I heard you in the distance and came as much as they tried to fend me off." He scratches the back of his neck, laughing a bit. "January said she saw you and since then I haven't stopped looking."
"That's funny. I barely got by from the skin of my teeth by telling Dream where I saw Janie." I laugh a bit through my tears. I know Dream was pretty ready to kill me, though, especially after what happened with Empress. I'm sure if Atty were there he wouldn't have been cooperative. I'm still baffled by how finding her was more important to her than settling the score with prey that ran away. I try to ignore the fact that my hands are horribly uneven, and I hate it.
"How ironic." How morbidly ironic, more like it.
"I was a wreck without you," I finally say. It's the truth. I really was.
"Then we shouldn't lose each other again," he says simply, ignoring the fact that one of us will have to die for the other to win.
"Right." My hand goes to the seashell that's still in my pocket. "But the team isn't all back together yet."
"You're right. C'mon, let's go."
"Go? Go where?" I ask.
"To find Ori, of course." He smiles at me and I smile back.
.
I sit by the fire that evening, eating some meat that tastes so good after a while of not having it. Then, Atty and I sit quietly, not talking. We haven't found Ori yet, but we didn't run into any other tributes either.
"This is so good," I say, eating the meat and ignoring the fact that I watched it be killed. "I didn't eat very much without you."
"Eat more then." He says it so simply. It's so easy for him to go kill some more for us, which still kind of baffles me.
I just can't wait for a full moon so that Atty can become a full-on werewolf and get us out of here. I know that's improbable, but it's bound to happen. Do werewolves even change under the artificial full moon of an Arena? I guess I'll get to find out.
Even after we're done eating, Atty keeps the fire going, and we continue to sit in silence. I want to know everything about his time by himself, but in that moment I fail to ask.
I get the seashell Ori got me out of my pocket and study it under the light of the fire. After a while of staring at it, I look back up at my ally and see him messing with a small pocket watch in his hands.
"Oh wow. That's nice."
He looks up, jumping just a bit. "Huh?"
I think about how I'm usually the one that's jumpy, and laugh at the irony. "I just said that's awful nice, that's all." Some families in the poorer Districts have certain heirlooms, things that could make a good buck but have stayed in the family so long that they just can't bear to part with them. I guess that's his.
We may have had some old Piccozzi heirlooms, but anything we did have was probably sold when my parents were trying to keep up with their house, when I was just a baby and Abriella was nothing but a name Mom said she liked for a baby girl.
"Oh. Thanks."
I walk around the fire to sit next to him, staring at the antique little watch intently. The way the firelight shines on it makes it even more interesting and unique. Atty glances at me occasionally but mostly keeps his eyes down.
"Does it still work?" I ask.
He flips it over. "Mhm." Through a little window on the back of the watch, I can see all the little gears hard at work to keep the time.
I watch the gears for a while, the constant rhythm of their movements making me feel at ease, or at least more than I was before. I can't help being mesmerized, really. "Wow. Cool."
"It's not too bad." He's pretty proud he has something as interesting as that to show off. I would feel pretty cool, too, if I had some kind of really interesting or unique token like that.
"Mine's really lame." I reach into the pocket of my pants and pull out a little square of fabric. "Just a piece of my favorite blankie when I was a kid." I don't really realize how embarrassing it is until I say it out loud.
Atty just laughs a bit. "Yeah? That's just a little bit adorable, don't you think Kiddo?"
"Oh, shut up." My ears burn but for once it's not the overwhelmingly, anxious, self-hating humiliation, just a simple, light embarrassment. I know Atty isn't going to taunt me about it. Which I never would've expected from the 18-year-old from District 10 that volunteered.
He laughs, and I laugh too, and even if it's for a second, everything seems to become easier. Then, the dark cloud of truth comes back to linger again, the fact that if I want to get out of here and back to my family, he's going to have to die. I don't think I could make it without him, especially if the past couple days are any indication.
The sky gets dark, and it takes unusually long for the anthem to begin. Another day with no deaths, which means more gimmicks are yet to come, of course. I wouldn't expect anything less of Ms. Chiarella and the Capitol.
"That's odd, though. I mean, they waited a while for that. I wonder why."
Atty's eyes are fixed on the sky, his eyebrows creased, in thought. "Hm."
"You can sleep," I tell him. "I slept last night." I didn't sleep well, but I slept.
"…Are you sure?"
"Of course."
"…I can take watch. You can sleep. Really, Gio, I insist."
"Well I insist. I'm not sleeping so you might as well make the best of that time."
"…Alright." He lays down and is soon off to bed, though pretty lightly I would guess. I wonder what's got him so worked up. I sit for as long as I can before I know I hear something, so I get up and make a circle around us. 1. I sit back down but am soon up again, making another circle. 2. And the cycle continues.
The cycle continues, alright, until my 27th circle, when I know for sure I heard something in the bushes and see a figure in the darkness.
"Atty!" I shout, grabbing for my sword.
"Gio, wait!" The voice is exhausted, worn, and hoarse, but I vaguely recognize it.
"Ori!" He found us, he really found us!
Ori takes each step carefully, as if he's afraid he's going to fall.
"I found you…" he says, sounding tired and weak. Atty finds the flashlight and shines it on us. Ori is covered in bright red, bleeding wounds. "I found you…" He goes into a coughing fit and collapses on his knees.
"Woah, hold on! You're okay! Atty, the kit!" I say, quickly kneeling down beside him. "Ori, look at me, okay? You're okay. Alright? You-"
"I f-found you guys."
"You did. And we're not going to lose you now." I take his hand and squeeze it as hard as I can, tears starting to come to my eyes at seeing him like this. Atty comes over with the first-aid kit and bites his lip, but I keep talking. "We're going to save you, okay? Just like you saved me."
"Gio, there's only so much I can do…" Atty says.
"We're going to save him."
"It's okay…"
"It's not okay!" I shout. "It's not okay! The team is finally back together! We have each other again, and I'm not going to lose you!"
Tears bubble out of his eyes as Atty tries desperately to tend to his wounds. I refuse to believe that he can't be saved. He has to be alright.
"You have to win, okay?" he talks slowly, but in a very familiar tone of voice. Even though he's dying right in front of our eyes he doesn't seem afraid. "Do it for me."
"Stop talking like that!" I shout at him, with a sob. "You're going to make it! We're going to save you! Right Atty?"
Atty doesn't look up at me. He doesn't seem confident. "There's only so much we can do."
Another sob bursts out of me. "You can do this! You saved me, remember?! Against all odds you saved me and you can save him! You have to save him!" Atty slouches, he doesn't look up at me, and the next breath he takes shakes.
"Don't blame Atty, Gio," Ori says, cringing from the sheer pain and misery, a tiny choked sob escaping him. "It's not his fault." His eyes slide shut.
"No! No! Ori! Don't do this!" Sobs break up my words, I clutch his hand as tightly as I possibly can, "Don't c-close your eyes, Ori…" I sob quietly. "Don't leave us…"
His grip on my hand slips away. Atticus takes his other hand and starts to feel for a pulse. He looks up at the sky, looking everywhere but at me. "I'm sorry, Gio," he says quietly, his voice nothing more than a shaking whisper.
"I couldn't save him…"
A cannon booms.
"He's gone."
~.~.
~Pontifex: King of Spades~
The sun rises and I wake up, stretching. There were no deaths yesterday, and I'm sure the Capitol is getting antsy. I sure am.
As for me, as much as I don't want to, I want to find Janie at least. I know I shouldn't want to, that the alliances were split up for a reason, but the thought of Janie having to face a tribute: or a group of tributes: by herself really puts me on edge.
I collect my things and feel determined to find Janie and/or Dream today. I know I shouldn't want to, and that the trainers back home would be disappointed in me for it, but I'm just too fucking exhausted to be holding back emotions. After what happened with Katherine Tracey, my pride's pretty much been pulverized, anyways.
I can deal with the jabs at my masculinity when I get home, but for now I guess it's best not to worry about it. I mean, I can't really openly emote (my brother Pryderi was always better at that than Atlas and I), but I can't fight the urge to get to Janie and Dream. Besides, we can keep on helping each other.
It's all a guessing game, though. I mean, it's totally possible that the snaggle-toothed bastard from District 10 found one or both of his allies already, and who knows what other powerhouse-alliances have been made? If Tristabelle from 9 and Tueseday from 6 decide to benefit off each other's fighting skills, it could mean disaster for another tribute off by themselves.
I grab my spear and hold it close, not willing to risk anything. I'm getting closer and closer to victory with each footstep, I can feel it.
I hunt myself some late breakfast, noting that the area is eerily quiet. After I put out the fire over which I cooked my meat, I keep walking, more and more hesitantly. I don't like being by myself, it's too… Quiet.
Suddenly, a huge racket interrupts my thinking, and I see a big blur of black coming toward me. Running away from the mass is the boy from District 8. He pants and heaves, and I bet he's been running for a long time. He doesn't appear to have much of anything to fight them off with. He looks panicked, shouting after me to "Run, Pontifex!"
And I do run, for a little bit, until I realize they're going to catch up to us either way. I have weapons, so I decide to stop and take them on. I start out trying to impale them on the spear, but soon the mutts outsmart that strategy so I turn around and use the butt of it to start knocking them out. There are so many, and each blow takes more and more out of me.
I hear 8 wheeze and finally the footsteps stop. "Kuzey," he pants, "Don't watch!" He takes another heaving breath, balling his fists as the mutts catch up for him. "Please, don't let him watch!"
In my distraction watching Ori, I feel talons dig into my neck, and the pain springs me back into action. I have to fight hard, and endure even the longest of toils. I imagine each bird to have the face of someone that wronged me, and soon hitting their lights out becomes much easier for me.
That one's my dad. Pow! And Atlas and Pryderi, together as always because they can't seem to be their own people, Wham! Smack! Katherine Tracey. "Fuck you Katherine Tracey!" I beat that one even after it's dead.
Soon, though, exhaustion creeps in, and as my attacks start to get slower, more mutts start to attack me. They sink talons into my head and neck and shoulders, nip with their sharp beaks at my chest and legs… Each injury is torture, but with each one I become more and more determined to prevail.
Just when I think I can't go on for even a second longer, the Arena is silent again. In Ori's place is a trail of red. Corpses lay all around me, but there is no cannon. Damnit!
I collect my weapon and then collapse by a tree to catch my breath and get back some energy. I drink the last water in my canteen and eat some provisional food, mostly because I'm too exhausted to get up to get real food.
I lay my head back against a tree, half wishing I had heard a cannon and half glad I know for sure that Janie and Dream are still alive. My eyes slide shut and as much as I try to fight it, I eventually succumb to a dark black sleep.
~.~.
~Gio: Joker~
I run away, after Atty said he's dead. I knew it, but it hurts unlike anything I've ever experienced.
He didn't deserve any of this. He was just a kid, like the rest of us. He never meant anyone any harm. He was so pacifistic, he wouldn't have hurt a single person. He would've been there for anyone, even someone like Pontifex or Dream. It's the kind of person he is.
Was. Fuck.
I let the sobs go, the scene replaying in front of my eyes over and over again. I get the seashell out of my pocket and stare at it, though the details are blurred by the tears that won't stop coming to my eyes. I can't believe it happened so fast. To think that just a little bit ago I was looking forward to finding him in the morning. I let out another sob, burying my face in my knees, my fist wrapped around the seashell.
"Gio?" Atty's voice is gentle, quiet, mourning, but composed.
"He's really-" I hiccup with tears, "-Gone." I practically choke on the word.
"I'm sorry."
"It's…" I take a deep breath, trying to control my tears. I know he doesn't like to deal with people that are emotional wrecks like me. "F-Fine." I sniffle and wipe my eyes but the tears don't stop like I wanted them to. "Not your fau-your fault," I say, hyperventilating slightly from the tears.
"I should've been quicker…" he says quietly. "I should've… I should've…"
"Sh. It's… Okay. You did what you could. And it wa-wasn't enough." I try not to stumble on word, try to swallow the tears, but it doesn't work too well for me.
Atty sits next to me, opens the hand that isn't holding the seashell, and puts something else in it, something unfamiliar. It's a chain, and on the end of it is a silver charm almost as big as my palm, shaped like an arrowhead with points on the end that look like fangs and an intricate, knot-like pattern on it. My stomach flips.
"He was wearing this," Atty says solemnly. "His token."
I suddenly get hit with a pang of guilt. I have it, he's giving it to me, but I have no idea what it meant to him or why he brought it. Every token has some kind of meaning, and I never got to learn the meaning of this one. I don't deserve to keep this. Another whimper pushes out from my chest, and another full-fledged sob after it. I don't deserve to keep the token, but I don't want to leave it unattended to, and I know Atty will want me to have it, so I wrap my hand around it and put it in my pocket with the seashell.
The seashell. My stomach drops.
"We're a team and we stick together." More tears push out of my eyes and I let out another sob, burying my face in my knees.
"I'm sorry," Atty says quietly. I shake my head, unable to speak understandable words.
I want him to know that it's not his fault. I know I made him feel like it all depended on him in my panic, but I always knew deep down that there was nothing he could've done, to save him. I want him to know that I don't blame him, and that I'm grateful for everything he's done. He's so loyal to us it's hard to see him so down on himself. His eyes, usually so cutting and bright, are dark and heavy, miserable, apologetic. I wish he wouldn't blame himself, but I know how hard it is to stop blaming yourself for things that happen.
I try to control my tears, to hold it together for Atty's sake, but it's so hard. I'll never be as selfless as he is, never serve as much as he and Ori did. I really feel like the liability now.
Ori will be missed. I'm going to miss him every second of every day for as long as I live, which isn't going to be much longer, I reckon. I shut my eyes tight, tears squeezing out of them.
"I promise I'll figure out what this means," I say quietly, squeezing the token.
"I know how hard it is," Atty says quietly. He's holding it together much better than I am. The breeze blows us in the night, and I shiver a bit, exhausted but never wanting to sleep again in my life for fear of awful nightmares. In the couple weeks I knew him, Ori was able to change who I was and what I believed in. He made such an impact in my life. He was a true friend. He was loved so dearly, and now he's gone. It must be god-awful for those at home, waiting for him. I can't imagine.
I compose myself, if only a little bit. Atty hands me the canteen and I drink a little bit. "I just… I c-can't believe that he's… G-Gone. Just like that." More tears bubble out of my eyes.
"You know what that means, though?"
"Wh-What?"
"It means that you have to win."
"We have to win. One of us. You or me."
"Right." He doesn't sound solid on that. I have no idea how he has more faith in me than he has in himself. He's well and strong, he knows how to fight, he's secretly a werewolf… I'm just the liability. Injured and hobbling along, barely holding onto life. I have no idea how he thinks he's going to die before me.
"Get some sleep," he says.
"No way," I say quickly. "I'll stay up. You get sleep." I know I'm going to be haunted by the sights either way.
"Alright…" He looks hesitant, but stiffly reaches into his pocket and holds out his watch to me, looking slightly hesitant. "Here. You can… Watch this."
I take it. "Oh, wow, thanks."
He lays down. "Mhm." There's a pause.
"Oh, and Kiddo?"
"Hm?"
"Don't open it, alright? The latch… It's pretty old, and it's on the verge of breaking. I wouldn't want it to snap or anything. Okay?"
"Alright." There's no way I want to break his watch. He nods and soon dozes off. I stay awake, not crying any longer but feeling utterly miserable. It feels like a pit I'll never be able to climb out of. I'm stuck at the very bottom, trying to find my way out.
I watch the gears of the watch, letting the steady, consistent rhythm try to calm me at least. I'm able to get ahold of myself emotionally, watching the gears shift and work to tick the seconds of the night away.
It's the first night ever that Atty doesn't wake up to circles in the sand.
He wakes up in the night and sits up, stretching.
He yawns. "Get some sleep now, Kiddo. I'll take watch from here."
I can't stall any longer. I hand him the watch back with the sincerest gratitude, and sigh, the weight of the sadness dragging me down.
Miserable and hurting all over (especially in the heart), I lay down and close my eyes, surrendering to the inevitable nightmares that are coming to get me.
.~.~
A/N: I'm just… Digging my own grave as we speak. This made me very sad. I'm so sorry!
That being said, we're into the final 8, which means that prices will go up and next chapter we'll have a break from the Arena to check in with the friends and family of the tributes with our very own Capitol reporter Yin Kozart! Also, this starts the other tributes' POVs, which I'm very excited for (hopefully I do them all justice!).
But yeah I'm SO SORRY JESS I LOVE ORI SO FUCKING MUCH I HOPE I DID HIM JUSTICE! I was writing his death just as we were Skyping and she said she hoped he lived for a couple more days :( I hate how the cards turned out I'm so sorry! I hope his death satisfied your hopes, even if it was a little bit earlier than hoped!
That reminds me, don't fear if your tribute is dead, because anyone that wants me to, at the end I'll compile many assorted tributes' POVs for AUs in which each one is the Victor!
I'm sorry but from here I can only see it getting sadder.
Oh, another thing while I'm thinking about it. Just a reminder that sponsoring DOES change things! The plot of this story is flexible and I figure it out two days at a time. Nothing is set in stone for anyone, (not even the Victor, I still don't know who it will be!) so if you sponsor you can easily change fates!
Also, I did change the chapter titles just to mess with you. XD No, I just decided to change it because Lullaby Set is a song much more appropriate for this chapter.
Chapter Question: If I were to do a real, all 24 submitted SYOT, would you submit to that? Because I'm honestly getting closer and closer to doing that. It just seems like a challenge and a lot of fun.
Points:
Kate: 193
Dreamer (your gift will be received soon!): 116
Jess: 236
magicharity: 163
hopefuldreamer1991 (your gift will be received soon!): 20
Sinfonian Legend: 205
xQueen-of-Applesx: 40
Lady Lysa Arryn: 56
rising-balloons: 75
superneet1214: 6
elisa. anya: 5
Coolgal02: 61
epictomguy: 34
Medium-Indigo (Guest): 60
AbbyCorabby123: 10
falyn. oliver: 43
seaotter99: 22
ThisWorldWeHate: 17
Blonde4ever: 62
Beauty. Is. Strange: 61
Ibbonray: 35