i'm gonna be free and i'm gonna be fine [peter & esther]

It had been hours.

Or perhaps it hadn't. As Esther stared absently at the canopy of green she could barely tell whether the colour had shifted in such a way that may have given them some sembelence of a passage of time. Closing her eyes, Esther decided that the time in the arena was not relative- that sometimes hours would last for minutes and others would last for years. She could see it now, Cricket turning a dial to speed up the procession of the Sun, Astraeus chasing that golden chariot across the heavens, to bring night with him the rising moon. 

This did not matter much, because there was a constant in Esther's life at the moment. Pain. Her whole body ached, the bruises from the bloodbath ached and itched against her shirt and stupid colourful jacket. She had removed her boot, gritting her teeth so hard through the pain that she caused her lip to bleed where her front tooth tore into the skin there, to find it bruised and mangled. She had wrapped it in bandages the best she could- but her fingers were always shaking. Despite being millions of miles away from the poision that had seeped into her bones, she could still feel it inside her, eating at her mind. 

Leaning back against the leg of her mech, Esther regarded Peter as he approached. For a brief second she felt a twinge of embaressment and shyness- her cheeks flushing red. She had seen the way both he and Ellis had looked at her as she had swung the final blade that bought the plant that had attacked them to its knees (not that plants had knees). Looking away Esther continued to fiddle with the small leaf, tearing at it until it was gone. So she picked up another with shaking hands as she waited for Peter to speak.