what is mine // p&c v daga v lorenza

We buried him among the vines and the poisonous flowers and the plants he would have known by name. We buried him as we best we could with his kin. In the end, after the resurrection failed and the parties disbanded, Aline, Dandy and I gathered around him. No one spoke. When we heard the hovercraft, we left.

I think he would have liked his funeral dirge, sung by the bees and the heat and the birds.

We carried the sea glass boat away from the others. It was Aline who chose the campsite and then we all set to work, clearing the weeds and making the arena habitable. It seemed both futile and vital, making a home of the place we would die. I opened my mouth to say as much and discovered that I had learned a thing or two from Gregor McGregor. I was, after all, still picking bits of him out of my outfit.

Later, spent from the trauma and the manual labor, we collapsed. Only the chime of gifts roused us. The sun had dipped, slathering the humid arena in orange and red. Little packages dropped from the sky. I scrambled for the first, eager for a sign, only to discover a curse.

I screamed, dropped the offending polaroid camera, and picked up the nearest weapon – Dandy’s longsword. I set the flat of the blade to the camera, smashing and bashing until it was only bits of plastic and glass. “Don’t touch it,” I wheezed past the exhaustion of exertion. “What do you think they need photos of us for? There can only be one reason to have a camera in the arena – to steal your soul.”

I waited a moment for affirmation but instead found two blank stares. Fine. I gathered up the other gifts and stalked into the shadows beyond our camp. It was only when the day stretched into twilight that I felt courageous enough to open the gifts. I’d been wrong today and I’d been given a curse; I’d never been stupid enough to trust Fate, but now I felt I didn’t even know them.

The other items were innocuous enough, to my great relief. A paper plate, a henna kit, a manatee-friend plushie, some flint and the like. To keep my fingers busy and my mind idle (do not think about what has already passed, only what it is to come) I mixed the henna, bottled it, and then pondered my two allies. I know what I saw in the blood – four figures, fleeing. But Gregor fell. So who was the fourth? Was it Death? Did he join us now in the grey darkness?

“Be gone,” I whispered, and then realized I must make it so.

I approached Aline first cautiously. “I’m sorry for earlier. I just want to keep you both safe, you know? This is the only way I know how. Will you let me tattoo you? It won’t hurt. You might even find some comfort in the wards.” I take Aline’s strong hand in my own, flip it palm up, and set to work. Between the recent electrocution and the plushie explosion, my fingers are a little unsteady. Some of the lines have to be coaxed into place. I draw one big open eye – a seeing eye – on each of her palms. By the time I’m finished, it’s proper dark, but I’m still drawing, still seeing, still illuminating –

My skin is alive.

A giggle sticks in my throat. “What is it with you Gamemakers and the color purple? Guess we won’t have to build a fire tonight, ladies. Dandy – your turn.”

I draw the same eyes on hers and then move to her bicep, coating her in symbols for faith, forgiveness and shielding. Later, as I stretch out in the canoe, lighting the glass violet, I turn the henna to my own palms, drawing a bold X on each. If Death is here, let him know me as a friend.

Despite the wards and the security of the glass canoe (which has begun to smell of Gregor), I don’t sleep. I keep watch. It’s only when light streaks the sky that I feel safe enough to doze for a few minutes. I dream of the sea, of teal light and weightlessness. When I startle awake, I am heavy, weighted down by knowing the depth of my failure.

It’s Aline and Dandy who strike our camp and set our path. The X’s on my palms have begun to flake; I scratch furiously at them when Dandy comes to an abrupt halt. Immediately I feel as she does; we are not alone. She’s quicker than I at assessing the situation, grabbing a girl (but we need a boy, I want to tell her – damn the numbers) and then – “wait!” – striking.

It takes so little to wake the bloodlust latent in all of us.

Another boy has befriended the puffy purple bugs. I drift away from Aline and Dandy, curious if he and I have been paired for a reason. Is he the fourth figure? Had it been him in the smear of blood, the shadowed boy who stalked us?

“Death is in the air!” The Career from One declares. “Can you smell it?”

And then, finally, I come fully to my senses. I turn to him, levelling my sword at our glass canoe. “Got a good sense of smell, do ya? It’s only the bits of Gregor McGregor. Some of the stuffing in his head got left behind. I think he wanted us to have it, y’know what I mean?”

Maybe that offends the smallest girl in their alliance, for a chill rattles her spine. I step to her, sword angled and my left hand pushed out so that she can see the henna’d X on my palm. “I can draw you one, to keep the ghosts from talking to you, if you’d like.”

Of course, it is always more effective to draw wards in blood . . .