... Go! [Ski Race/Feast, Day 4]

You hold Euley Sarasin close beneath the tender shadow of two deaths.

You count a million reasons to let your fingers crawl and coil around her throat and squeeze the life out of her. You'd imagined Euley's tears had long since frozen over upon her cheeks, that she couldn't cry anymore because she was meant to be as inhumane as you. You'd sensed it, tasted it even when you'd tasted her and shown her nothing but apathy on your bare skin. You didn't show her a mask or a fantasy; you showed her you bare bones and she hadn't recoiled in disgust.

You count a million reasons to wrap your fingers around Euley Sarasin's pale throat because she's so much more human than you thought. You've always wanted to kill a queen, watch their golden hearts melt in your hands as you tore down their kingdom with the fading of their aristocratic pulses, Euley Sarasin's the personification of eminence itself. There's no reason why her blood doesn't stain your skin right now, no reason why you haven't torn down a soulless queen when she reveals herself to be porcelain.

Yet here you sit, her tears staining the EA sewn upon your chest. It should be her blood.

You hold her tight and tell yourself that she's still useful, so you stay her hand and let the tender shadow linger over you. You ignore the calls of broken souls calling to be fed, you see no need to part with the utility she feeds you yet. For as much as you hate to admit it, you've tangled yourself with her in a bond of interdependance. You keep each other alive despite the slow tattering of your truce banner; this peace between the two of you is at the mercy of time. You stay your hands, keep them wrapped around her and away from her throat and your ski pole, despite the gnawing beneath your skin to step on her while she's down.

You don't give in to your bloodlust at the face of opportunity, yet, but you don't give yourself to Euley either. You'll never give yourself to anyone because no one in this fucking world is worth it; counting ribs and reading dead scripture taught you that.

You break away when your allies return and she plants a kiss on your unscarred cheek, as if to express gratitude and you instinctively recoil without really thinking about it. You retreat back into your own twisted musings, thinking about what Violet's screams will sound like when you gut her and what Isaac will see when his dead eyes stare up at you. They tend to her, wrapping bandages and healing hands around her wounds, while you're more concerned with yourself. You poke and stitch at your wounds in solitude and you prefer it that way. You always thrived in solitary shadows.

Come the setting of the sun and the appearance of two moons, you still carry the scars Ingran Ansgot left upon your skin. You're marked with the weapon of a deadman and that thought anchors your mind to the ground by your tired feet. It overcomes paranoia, it eclipses jealousy and blood lust; you just want to sleep. Forget about the dried blood on your clothes and the dead man's mark you carry.

When you lay within the tent, you feel Euley's hand, her breath against the back your neck. You don't think to push her away, you don't care enough to. "You're cold," she states, whispering to the back of your head as if it's just the two of you.

"Congrats on noticing after three days you little genius," your tiredness does nothing to mask the snark but you suppose she's used to it. Hate is just who you are. Her arms wrap themselves around you again, just like they had last night with a sudden tightness. This is mutual survival, the interdependance that binds the two of you as you tangle together. You're not so cold anymore.

"Keep my secrets, Aeson, and I'll keep yours."

You aren't a fucking secret keeper.



You'd never give yourself to Euley.

The words are at the back of your tongue until she hums the familiar tune. A spam of muscle, her nails are digging into your skin like thorns on a red rose but your knuckles turn white as your fingers coil into fists. Recognition a loaded gun pressing against your back, a bullet threatens to tear throughyour mind.



They don't find you in your sleep this time, but you don't rest easy that night.

---

You're snatched into consciousness and you throw her arms off you, you take your spear and throw your bag over your shoulder. You're the first out of the tent. You need to get somewhere, anywhere, just away. You run your hand through your hair, a scowl stretching across your face and your fingers tightening around your spear, you let blood lust thrive again.

You position yourself behind the three of them this time, your eyes hungry and your mind plagued by the screams of broken souls begging to be fed. You'll never let yourself be vulnerable, especially not in the presence of them. You want to listen to the sound of their cannons.

A broken scream morphs into the hum of a familiar tune.



Apathy eclipses the internal panic driving the internal rapid beating of your blackened heart.

"Ah, fuck."

You spot the mutations that surround the four of you, you almost expect to have to fight them off. Until you remember. They're not here to strip your bones of their flesh, they're here to be guides and not hunters. You go with their flow, letting yourself be taken by wherever the gamemakers want to send you. Perhaps it's that special place no one's bothered to send you to.

Wouldn't that be fucking lovely?

You're greeted by a pile of skis, ski poles and other tributes. Thirteen others, some you've encountered but none that have left much of a lasting impression on you. Euley speaks and nods to the tributes ahead but her words are drowned beneath the promise of red snow. You let your mind wander from the mountain of medical supplies, armour and tar at the bottom. They need this, they desperately need these and you know there are those among you who will tear another man apart for the simple gift of a needle and thread.

Let them fight, let them die.

Let them think they can run from you.

You watch in anticipation as they scramble to set skis on their feet and collect ski poles in their hands. You spot Raven, and eye him hungrily.

Until he meets Caine and sets his chin on his shoulder, then your apathy is set to hide your confusion. He doesn't want to wait, he wants him to chase him. Not with a weapon in his hand but with... something.



It's an abstract concept you could never wrap your head around, the way people recklessly scattered their hearts and buried them within the flesh of someone else. Aeryn said she loved you before you were taken away. You didn't say you loved her back, maybe she expected you to lie.

How can someone care about someone else that much?



How can anyone give themselves to someone else like that? Leave themselves so vulnerable and easy to break. You did it when you didn't know any better, giving yourself to your mother and father before their god told them to let you whither in repentance for walking this sinful world. He should've told them to strangle you in your cot, lives would've been saved. But he didn't, and now you're going to make the world suffer for it. They're going to suffer for missing their chance when you were vulnerable. You're going to shatter glass hearts with the pitch of their screams.



People are fucking stupid.



You think about them for a split second, then kill those thoughts with a twisted sneer. Just a fleeting thought.



You know what it means to be loved, and it would've killed you if they hadn't struck the flames of divinity across your skin. You don't need to love to hurt people, you're a hateful man.

You see Euley bound forwards with excitement, strapping skis on her feet and readying herself. "Catch you at the bottom." She shouts, before meeting the snow with her face right before she can ignite.

People are fucking stupid.

You roll your eyes and scoff. "Not as good at being graceful as you are at fucking," you strap skis onto your feet and take the sharpest ski poles you can find, lathering 4 of them with tar. "You dumb bitch."

Tributes race down the hill and you watch them hungrily, striking a match against the point and igniting hell's flames across your spear. You spot a tribute, a small girl, strike at Stella's skin with her axe but instead leaves a gnarled signature for missed opportunity along her helmet. Stella left scars on Isaac's skin on the first day, she's a hurricane.

But you'd rather wait to see her become a storm before she gets put down.

"Oh, fuck you." The thought is finished for you, Isaac's flaming ski pole slices across her arm and leaves a singed spot behind in place of red. You set yourself on the edge and you wobble. You let yourself smile, you love a man who sees the world through a similar twisted lens to you. You don't care if they can't hear you, you only care if they fear you.

"Big mistake."

No one in this world is worth giving yourself to, so you fall and pray you'll ignite with hell's flames.

Graceless;
she knows the truth of falling stars.

A tribute trips ahead of her, knees buckling on impulse — and with a sudden swerve, she loses her footing on her blades and crashes against the snow. And she laughs. Icy hair and flushed cheeks, Euley's not ashamed of playing the fool. She treasures her youth, walks the line between being too reckless and too cautious, and she's comforted by the contradiction. To be a teenager is to not know your identity; she doesn't want to. Not yet. She wants to kiss a man and slit his throat only a moment later, to harden her heart and still crack open her ribs. She wants to be everything.

No biting remark is given to the boy that fell in her path. She shakes her head, taking responsibility for her mistake and dusting off her clothes. There's nothing she needs to prove to those watching. Let them think her a false queen, a woman learning humility; she's never claimed to be anything more than a witch. And her teeth are red, iron bones and steel claws, but her skin is soft and warm. This is the becoming of a rose. Love its petals, fear its thorns. She can maim and she can nurture. She can rise and she can fall. The same goes for each of them. They're all gods and they're all damned.

Bella passes her, asking if she's alright, but she slips not long after. "Are you?" Euley teases, playfully and gentle. "I'm okay." She appreciates the reminder that they're all just kids, lambs raised for slaughter and naming themselves 'Wolf.' So much innocence has been drained from them, blood she can't wash away and sins she can't repent. She owns them, refuses to regret any of her choices, but it's freeing to just be human. Only for a moment. A peaceful pause in the war, white flags and laughter and a friendly competition.

( Only for a moment. )

She catches Violet when the girl lands beside her, wraps an arm around her shoulders and offers a smile. "Come to keep me company?" Euley helps both of them to stand, rolling her eyes in advance when Aeson approaches. He taunts her, tries to hit a nerve that can't be reached, but she shrugs it off. She's seen him with his flesh off, just as he has with her. The difference is that she embraces both halves of her whole. Kight's a grenade with a missing trigger. Still, she doesn't take kindly to the derogatory term he mutters under his breath.

"I won't lose any sleep over this, Aeson. The same can't be said for you." And she hums a mocking, familiar tune — just short enough to get the message through his dense skull. It's not in her nature to kick someone while they're down, but she won't accept his behavior. She'll bring him to his knees and face the consequences that follow. He's not the only one with secrets to keep; he's not the only one who's witnessed the crumbling of a stone. "And you're one to talk," she adds, nodding to his unsteady footing and how he barely makes it any further than her. "Ready to try again, Vi?"

Her allies have a different plan than enjoying leisure, it seems. Flames ignite across blades, a battle proposed and soldiers clashing. Euley nearly pouts, fighting back the urge to scold the tributes involved for ruining the fun, but she knows it's pointless. All of this is. No one can take a break from dying — from destroying. And she knows the reality of the situation. Four days and only seven dead? How boring. No faces were in the sky the night before, and with a lazy shrug, she finds herself suddenly agreeing with the reasoning behind the attack. The time to take action is now. A crown can't be shared. She'll be a hypocrite.

"This slope is way too crowded."

---

pre-roll position: 1
rHVpXUO01-8
post-roll position: 4

[euley attacks mercy; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
[DEEP GASH ON BACK -- 8.5 damage]