bright {lights} and [cityscapes] // galifrey

What a deal I've worked with Father Sky
He's given me a choice with time, walking straight on lines
Don't let our ankles roll
You've got to tiptoe not to hurt your soul
Our bodies take a toll

The whole point of her life, Eris muses as the sticky heat of summer bakes into her skin, is that her life doesn't have a point at all. She exists as the independent variable in a world too full of droll predictability, the aptly-named embodiment of Chaos that hangs as an invisible threat above the heads of the unwary. Such discord can't be tamed for any long stretch of time, simmering inside the silvery stretch of her veins and eventually driving her into the vast expanse of Out There that is all too peaceful and practically begging to be visited by the forces of destruction. At least, that's the way things used to be, back in a life confined within the boring walls of the community home that offered no form of excitement besides the exquisite song of ruination humming in her ears. Now, there's a sort of heavy difference humming at the back of Eris' consciousness as she restlessly prowls the tree-lined lanes of the richer part of District One. If someone had told her a month ago that she'd be searching for a moment of peace, she would have laughed at them.

Peace is a word she can't even define, forever embroiled within the silken strands of her beloved destruction, but a life in the Moreno household has to be the antithesis of it, the air thick with hurtful words and harmful weapons flying below the radar of her pseudo-parents' not-so-watchful eyes. Eris had begged for chaos when she'd signed her own adoption papers, anticipated it with bared teeth and clawed hands and a sort of feral satisfaction that few could ever understand, but the existence grows tiring, fighting every waking hour - and sleeping as well. She's taken to sleeping with a knife under her pillow ever since that first night she woke up and Elspeth was standing above her looking like she was deciding exactly what cut to make with the wicked-looking blade clutched in her hand - for survival without even school as a respite as a result of the summer holidays. Life as a Moreno calls for a sense of self-preservation that stretches beyond constant vigilance, and as much as she thrives in an existence of blood and bruises and terror, Eris knows for a fact that she can't be on her guard a hundred percent of the time. This is why she flees the damask tomb of the house despite the stifling heat, determined to find some faraway park or shady patch of ground to take a simple, undisturbed nap. How the mighty have fallen.

Awareness still prickles in a sticky-hot spark up her spine even as she progresses farther up the street, insecure of the idea of turning her back to anything with the moniker Moreno slapped on it, even a house. In that house, you don't turn your back for fear of finding a knife in it. Eris learned that lesson quickly after having the smiling sister who had offered to help her move her things into the house pull a dagger out of her belt as soon as their trainer's mother's gaze travelled elsewhere, the glimmering arc of the blade barely missing her jugular vein thanks to her own quick reflexes and more than a little bit of luck. The rest of that first night is a blur of muffled screams and blood and rattling final breaths, a swirl of bright vermillion and a coppery tang on her tongue that Eris can't remember nearly as well as she'd like to. There was an empty spot at the dinner table that night, and the dagger has remained sheathed securely and discreetly in Eris' boot ever since.

Her status as the taker of someone's life hasn't changed her paradigm all that much - after all, the truth of the matter is that she was a murderer at the age of seven, her childhood games the thing that ended her parents' lives - the invisible stains on her hands only adding to the growing sense of entirely justified paranoia that hums at the forefront of her consciousness. In the Moreno family there is no friendship, no brotherhood, but there are alliances. That girl, whose name Eris never even learned, she's sure to have had allies, faux-siblings who will have a target fueled by vengeance in the wake of her death. But Eris isn't scared of dying. She's lived her life in a constant game of chance with Death himself, round after round of Russian Roulette that has amazingly turned out in her favor each time. Death is just the other side of the coin that sits constantly in her pocket, a twist of fate that hasn't visited her yet. Eris is not afraid of dying. But she is afraid of losing.

It's far more entertaining to think of it all as a Games game, a throw of the dice with the highest stakes possible, and when it all comes down to it, that's what Eris knows she signed herself up for on that day back at the community home. The Moreno's shopping trips for new children was a Reaping in and of itself, and she had volunteered proudly. It's a decision she will never regret (a life of chance is a life of never being sorry, commending herself to the whims of Fate with every breath she takes), not even as some tribute sibling rakes a blade across her throat after a lapse in her defense and she breathes her last. Dying in a blaze of glory is a far better fate than living and being bored, and Eris is as far from bored now as she's ever been in her life.

Something sits in the air, a familiar sort of tension that prickles across her mind and alerts her that all isn't as it should be (it never is when she's around, always the fingers twitching at the strings of the world and letting mayhem flow unchecked), an eerie sense of being watched pulling taut at the sturdy musculature of her shoulders and bringing her to a tentative halt, dark gaze raking back and forth over the empty street. In a split second, too many things to count happen. A rustle of the leaves overhead, a bright blur of crimson dropping down behind her. Eris' reaction is pure instinct by this point, one hand snatching the knife from her boot as she turns, the other arm catching the slightly smaller form and pinning it against the rough bark of the tree trunk, shiny-sharp metal glinting threateningly against the pale skin of an unidentified throat.

A second's pause, a ragged breath and one or two surprised blinks. The girl isn't a Moreno, not some sword-wielding angel of death come to cut her down as she tries to escape from the deadly trap of the house. Large chocolate eyes, a smattering of freckles, and most distinctively a shock of hair as red as the blood from that far-off memory that left her with a raised guard and the knife currently kissing the surface of another life staining its blade. She's pretty in an ethereal, elfish way, but that realization does nothing to the feral snarl stretched across Eris' face or the pressure of the blade against her thrumming jugular. If anything, it simply makes her smile even wider and wilder (Trouble has a habit of coming to Eris long before she ever has to go looking for it), ducking next to the shell of her ear and growling in a low, tumultuous alto. "You don't sneak up on a Moreno, sweetheart. That's not a good idea if you want to live."

She could kill her. Eris knows she could, could increase the blade's pressure just a bit and leave this odd little red-haired forest nymph to bleed out in an exquisite cataclysm of the chaos that comes to her so naturally. She could do it and walk away without batting an eye, simply because she's gotten used to the idea of Death following her but still never touching her, decimating her surroundings and leaving her to stand as witness. She could do it, but the decision isn't hers, never has been. Eris continues to hold the dagger's edge in place, but her free hand digs in her pocket, withdrawing a circle of dulled metallic shine that winks in the sunlight. "All right. Heads you live, tails you die, sound like a deal?"

With a flick of her thumb the coin spirals skywards, turning over itself in a graceful arc before landing in her outstretched palm. Heads. Without any sort of preamble Eris takes a step back, tucking the knife back into place and casually stretching out the adrenaline-fueled tension in her limbs before turning gracefully on her heel and walking back up the street without so much as a backward look.

"Looks like Fate likes you, princess. Have a nice day."

Tearing through the light of your horizon eyes
Trying to find a way to screw my head on right
Tell me to confess, but I have no regrets
You've got me by the neck, it's raw to my leather flesh
I gave my best away to no one specific