oh darling, go buy a personality {scout/celia}

She hadn’t needed to know how to function with this much blood loss. Never before had she witnessed the world from this point of view. She was the wolf, the tiger in the shadows, and now she’d been reduced to this fleeting image of a sheep caught in the jaws of the predator. It felt wrong, she felt wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It made the last of her blood boil, anger sparking in her eyes as she stumbled backwards, the axe too heavy for her numb arms. It slipped from her fingers and her eyes flickered downwards, watching it go. No, she had to get that, she had to kill this Circus freak, she had to kill Iain, and it was why she was here. She hadn’t volunteered to die.

What was she going to say to Kaiser? How was she supposed to look him in the eyes if she couldn’t do this? He’d be so disappointed in her, she’d lied to him. She’d never lied to him before. No, no, no. She didn’t lie to Kaiser, so why? Why was the world spinning? Why were her hands cold? Why couldn’t she feel anything but pain? He was expecting her at home, she couldn’t make him wait, she had to go, and she had to see him, hug him, and hold her twin brother. ”Kaiser…” She muttered thickly, blood coating her tongue, slipping past her lips to run down her chin. The taste on her lips was as familiar as it was unfamiliar, she knew what blood tasted like, but not her own, never this much. Crimson streaks coated her from head to toe, and she swiped messily at the blood that ran down her face.

She wasn’t done, hell fucking no, not yet. Not ever, not when- she could see him, grinning, she could hear the certainty in his voice, the undeniable truth in her own words that she was coming home.

Move, she commanded, but her legs did no such thing. Move, she pleaded, eyes flickering frantically forwards, only to find herself being thrown into a world where there was no up or down. Celia slipped into her view, twisting to her left and right. It made her feel sick, to watch the world spin. A leg slipped from underneath her, and she fell to her knees, hands moving to clutch the deep wound on her chest, flecks of white glinted through the dark red. Her bones. That’s why it hurt so much. There was something else wrong, some emotion she had never felt before crawling through her veins, a chill that both met her thoughts with fire, but also ice. It gnawed at her stomach, a persistent beast that tunnelled further into her mind then the pain. It was both the numbness and the creeping feeling that haunted the edges of her flickering vision. But as she slipped forwards, hands sinking into the clutches of the mud the world came to a halt, no longer a swirling mass. And before her was not Kaiser, but Celia. Far off to her right she could see another body-

So she was dying. That was this feeling, this creeping dread that was swallowing her. She didn’t like it, not one little bit. She heard her name, and echoing statement, from those lips she had kissed, and wanted to kiss more. She wondered if she would ever get to kiss them again. She couldn’t help, but smirk at the thought, in such a dire situation she could only think of that. It sounded like something Kaiser would ask for on his deathbed, and suddenly these thoughts were warm.

Celia kneeled in the mud beside Scout, and she pushed herself upwards, her stubborn pride refusing to be seen like this. Her entire body wanted to reject this weakness, wanted to banish the very notion of death from her limbs. It was such a horrible, horrible weakness to be able to die. How was she supposed to be her, this unstoppable, beautifully murderous beast if she could be killed? ”You’re hurt, Celia.” She muttered, fingers shakily moving to the bandages stowed in her backpack, she could fix this, fix this wound on Celia’s arm.

"Don't worry about me. We need to fix yo-"

”I’m fine,” she grinned, only to cough, blood bubbling at her lips. ”Just perfect, just like you.” She winked, before turning her gaze towards the bandages, but they slipped from her grasp. She watched them go, eyes widening in surprise, shocked at this sudden inability to get her body to function properly. ”Listen to me. You're dying." Celia was blunt, driving right to the point, the undeniable truth that Scout didn’t want to admit, that she didn’t want to believe. That creeping dread didn’t lie, the blackness that had begun to creep into her vision wasn’t fake. She knew. Ripred she knew, but there was too much to live for.

”I didn't think it was that obvious,” her grin didn’t drop as she looked at Celia. She opened her mouth to tease the girl once again, but was instead met with a searing pain that raged like fire through her veins. A raging inferno that momentarily consumed her, until she wanted to scream. It was blazing agony, but she couldn’t scream, her lungs too broken to take in enough air. She gasped, only to choke on a lungful of blood, and suddenly breathing was like drowning, and she slipped forwards, and onto Celia. She coughed and gasped, pleading with her stupid fucking lungs to just let the air in, it hurt, it hurt so fucking much. Never before had she almost been brought to tears, this pain made death seem like a lovely idea.

Scout didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to fucking die. She wanted to ask for Kaiser, to just say his name and ask him where the fuck he was. She didn’t want to break her promise to him, that unyielding certainty that she’d see him again was fading.

I don’t want to die.

Her hands twisted behind her, fumbling over the mud, searching for that one item that she knew would help ease her suffering. She couldn’t stop herself from groaning in pain, as another spasm of blinding misery took hold of her body. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of the knife, and with the rest of her strength, she thrust the blade towards Celia’s hands.

Her eyes met Celia’s, and she held onto it, stuck, for a moment within that gaze, before she shifted her head and buried it into Celia’s side. I don’t want to die. She wanted to say it, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t get anything past the blood that flowed from her lips, past her broken lungs, her battered body. There was only a split second of pain before the knife found its home in her heart.