Brother, My Brother [Mahlah vs. Jae]

Mahlah Shea

Dead. Alive. Together. Apart. All the lines in between. Everything is blurring together. She... she left Jae. The ran from Elon's corpse and she left the only person she had left. And now. She attacked him. Jae. Her brother, her protector.

The only person left that might give a damn about her. The tears came with more force than when she had been sobbing over Elon. What had she done? Her eyes went to her brother's arm and the giant dash she had created on it. No, she couldn't have done that, but she had.

Tiny fingers grabbed at her tangled, ebony hair, pulling and tearing. I'm just like her. The memory of the District two girl's eyes flashes before her. The cold, the insanity. It only took one flashback to stir up the girl's old nightmares. Without Elon's hand to hold there was nothing holding them back now and they came in full force.

"NO!" she yanked at her hair , kicking the sand and screaming at the top of her lungs. Images of past tributes flashed before her eyes. Blades sticking out of eyes, gutted corpses lying in the grass, a boy chewing on his own dismembered hand. The horrifying, gruesome memories all flooded into the present. It was it. Mahlah finally lost her grip. She was just like the girl, and the tributes before her. Crazy. With guilt, with nausea, with life.

It took Jae's attack to snap the girl back into the standoff by the sea. Her arm knocked his harpoon away, the one she had helped attach to his arm.

"I'm sorry," it was too late. The damage was done. She had already spilled his blood and there was no turning back. She was just a little girl, riddled with guilt, like a child caught in a lie. That's all a child can do once they've committed the crime. I'm sorry.

Her fingers finally loosened their grip on her hair, falling to her sides. The girl's eyes were looking at Jae, but they did not see him. She was just like the girl from Two. Mahlah Shea had the Games madness and there was no cure.

"I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever," the tune of the District Ten song came easily. The girl from Three raised her switchblade and lunged forward, not caring of the consequences or guilt. That's one positive of being insane, you tend to be bold.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Deep Gash on Right Bicep -- 8.0 damage]

Mahlah Shea

It was fascinating, blood that is. Mahlah could only stare as she yanked her blade back out of Jae's arm. The blood flowed from the wound and covered her knife. It ran down his arm making little red rivers across the abused flesh. How weird it is to be filled with red water. Like a walking ocean.

Many thoughts like those ran through the girl's mind, mixed with flashes of gore she had seen through her short life. One moment she'd be examining the red drops falling from the tip of her blade, the next Elon's cold, dead eyes were staring at her. The flashes didn't make her scream, but they sent a twitch through her body, jerking her head to the side, or her shoulder forward. Her tiny pale fingers went up the blade, running down the flat of it, collecting her brother's blood into her hand and then rubbing it between her finger tips.

Her eyes went up to her brother just in time to see him staring back at her with his one eye. Her head tilted to the side, giving a small smile, her hand reaching out offering him his own blood. That's when he lunged, his harpoon slipping between Mahlah's skinny arms to hit her in the stomach.

For being in the Arena this long you'd think a tribute would be used to getting hit. Not Mahlah Shea. Hiding behind her brothers for the majority of the Games, Mahlah had hardly been attacked at all. A few cuts and bruises yes, but nothing like loosing an eye or a hand. Nothing like being stabbed in the core of her being. It was an automatic response, her fingers wrapping around the arm of her attacker, or her brother. Her large brown eyes looked up at his scarred face. The empty socket looked down at her. Mahlah remember when she was scared of Jae's face, how the fresh wound kept her from looking at him. Maybe that was a good thing, otherwise she would have spent more time with him and fighting would not have been an option. Mahlah had given all her love, her all, to Elon Emberstatt a boy who's body had already been collected and shipped home to Ten. A boy who was gone and had taken Mahlah's heart with him.

Bloody fingers reached for Jae's face, to see if it fit into her palm like Elon's once had, but she didn't get the chance. The girl felt blood rise in her throat and she curled around the blade still stuck in her body, spitting the stuff onto Jae's harpoon. The warmth filled her mouth, running down her chin. Coughs racked her body and there was blood everywhere. Her eyes drifted to her wrist where Elon's token hung. A simple bracelet for a simple boy.

If you hands were in mine
I'd be sure they would not sever

Taking what little strength the hard blow had left her, Mahlah shoved herself off the blade. Stumbling backwards, she coughed up more blood onto the sand. Rising her blade, she aimed it at Jae's heart.

My apple tree, my brightness,
It's time we were together

She didn't say anything, she couldn't. Between the blood filling her throat and pounding of Elon's song in her head the girl couldn't form a single word. She still had the strength to slash at Jae again. She'd never quit. Mahlah would fight until one of them was gone. Even if the girl felt she already was.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

Mahlah Shea

I will fill this in the morning, perhaps. Just wanted to get attack there. In response, Mahlah looks up at him and says
"And I don't?"

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

Mahlah Shea

Of all the choices Mahlah had to make in the Arena, this was by far the most confusing. Pick her killer? What was Jae trying to say? She could only stare at him as the words spilled from his mouth. It has to be me. The last phrase echoed in the girl's skull. "Your brother.. or the ones that cut Elon down? " Mahlah barely had enough time to jump out the way before Jae attacked again, his harpoon slashing the air beside her. It must be his eye, he can't see well with just one.

The girl looked at the boy before her. A Career from District One, a brother of a runner up. He looked part machine part corpse. His whole body was falling apart- how was getting to another day going to make that any better? What was he trying to accomplish? "Your brother" When the girl thought of brothers she thought, of course, of Elon. A brother protects and cares for his family. No doubt there were brothers and sister in various Districts miles and miles away watching the Games as their own siblings were cut down before their eyes.

Mahlah took a good, long look at the boy who called himself her brother. He looked like a completely different person, not the boy she had spent a week. That's what happens when the glue that holds everyone together fails- you can't put it back together again. There was no doubt Elon had been their glue, keeping together in a odd little family. Without him, Jae was another stranger. Another tribute out for her blood.

"You're not my brother," she stated, her voice as strong as her arm as she swiped forward with her blade again.

[Attacks Jae w/ switchblade]
[dice=200+2000]
[Two Severed Fingers on Right Hand -- 9.0 damage]