through gritted teeth // night brigade, day 2.

The tavern was strangely quiet at night. Andrew supposed it made sense in a realistic sense, as most businesses had business hours, but he found it difficult to wrap his head around the idea that the slime monster running the place might actually need breaks. Like, he wasn't really real, right? Nothing more than a bunch of coding given gelatinous form? He'd suspected since the start of the day that it was probably being controlled from miles and miles away by a gamemaker, or some poor engineer who'd spent their whole lives training to get their current position, only to find out that in the grand play that was the 91st, they were cast as the boring-ass merchant, only there to give the adventurers their cool shit.

But now that he was gone, and the space behind the bar was quiet, and only himself, Tune, and Carly remained- all three nuzzled up in their bedrolls next to the fireplace- it was notably... louder. He heard several creaking floorboards from upstairs, could've sworn he heard whispering at some point, and then, sometime very late into the night, he heard an ominous scratching noise.

In his half-asleep daze, it took him an embarrassing amount of time to notice that the sound was coming from on top of his own sleeping bag. His eyes opened to find... something, a creature, sitting on his chest. It glowed white and pink against the fire's light, scales that shimmered opalescent. It was no bigger than a cat, curled up there on his stomach and peering up at him with over-sized sky blue eyes. A baby dragon, of some sort.

"Um-"

He spared the quickest glance he could spare in Tune's direction, but she was still fast asleep. He cleared his throat and looked to Carly. Out cold. Fuck.

"H-Hey there... Are you... dangerous?"

It opened its mouth and Andrew gasped in anticipation, expectation a lunge, a strike, to walk away with his face disfigured for the rest of his life. It did not come. The creature was only yawning. After a moment, he remembered the comically large egg that had been inside the wealth chest, and how he'd thought "oh, good breakfast if we need it!" and shoved it into his bag without giving it a second thought.

"I'm too young to be a mother."

It tucked its little head in anyway, closed its eyes, and drifted back to sleep.

Andrew, however, was not able to do so for the rest of the night. Look, you try entering a death contest, nearly getting your hand cut off ten minutes in, watching your friends kill a girl who kissed you and fucked up your haircut two days ago, sleeping in an Inn owned by a sentient pile of gelatin, and then getting woken up in the middle of the night to discover you've become a parent to a fucking dragon within the span of twelve hours. It gives you a lot to think about.

But by morning, and after reassuring Carly and Tune that it totally wasn't a dangerous baby dragon who'd crawled into his lap during the night, he'd decided he liked the baby dragon as much as it liked him. It now opted to curl up around his neck and sleep there like some sort of scarf as they travelled. Sun wasn't up yet, and the river had no traffic yet so it was easy enough for them to cross, even without looking for a bridge. By the time they made it to the forest, the sun was cresting the horizon and painting the sky various purples an pinks as the darkness lost to the invading light.

It was getting to the time of day gamemakers liked to start some shit. He made it a point to stay last in line, just in case something tried to attack from behind. Tune ran ahead, Andrew quickened pace as well without meaning to.

"You know, this is exactly why the Panem Olympics not allowing lower district athletes to participate is unethical. You have a calling. But I can explain that thought later, I just lost sight of Tune."

This from Carly. He guessed she must have meant how leisurely this still was for him, how he wasn't really bothering himself with hurrying along, how the forest itself wasn't enough to unsettle him, how his breathing as as calm and collected as he had trained it to be every night for the past two weeks so that none of the cameras knew what he was really thinking.

The baby dragon's head shot up, tiny little ears on alert.

"Something's wrong."

He managed it an instant before Tune's scream. Carly surged after her, Andrew right behind, as they burst through the treeline and into a clearing of sorts. There, descending from the trees, were several reptilian creatures. They were roughly half the size of a human, they stood on two feet, and oh, yeah, by the way, they were each carrying weapons.

"Thanks for the heads up, girl." He patted the baby dragon on its head, then unsheathed his axe to follow Tune and Carly's lead.

Impact -

and she waits for the soul-shattering agony that comes from knife-like claws to the chest.

What follows instead comes quickly. Tune feels the impact, yes, the crushing weight of the beast's foot against her chest. Falls backward, hitting the leaf-strewn ground of the forest. Her body forgets how to breathe for several moments. But the pain does not come, not in the seconds after when Carly and Andrew arrive and launch themselves at whatever had sprung upon her from the depths of the trees.

When her lungs remember how to function, Tune sits up with a gasp. Her palms go straight to her chest, instinct, but they do not turn red. What falls away isn't skin or muscle, but the now-shattered remains of her armor salvaged from the chest in the tavern.

She thanks her lucky stars - her guardian angel, whatever. Carly hollers for Tune to get behind her and does not hesitate, crawling on all fours toward her allies. Bark and dirt cake her hands, fingernails turning black, tattered strips of armour left behind in a trail of her movement.

"What the hell?!" she gasps, though what lies beneath her ribs still isn't full-functioning. Her words come out as shallow, hoarse breathes, barely a whisper. A beat, two, Carly strikes, as does Andrew. Tune blinks, still in shock.

And then she snaps,

- impact.

Seeing Tune on all fours, crawling past Carly in the silvery morning light with so much fright legible on her face- it was... awful. It was terrifying. Seeing the shimmering red of their scales as more crept down the trees was like something from a nightmare. But in that instance, after realizing how horrifying it was, after seeing how quickly the three of them had jumped to action, he did not feel burdened by his fear. He felt strangely inspired by it. They were facing their fears head on, without hesitation. That was something to be proud of.

He didn't have time to waste being gentle, so he hoisted Tune up by grabbing the back of her shirt with his free hand. A bold move when concerning oneself with Tune Walker, he admitted, but she seemed to understand the urgency of the moment, rushing forward and nearly hacking off an entire arm of one of the creatures with the sword he'd swapped her for.

"Gotdamn, Tune!"

Carly quickly followed up by taking one of the others out at the legs with her sickle- he didn't see how bad the damage was, so much as he could hear the haunting sound of sharpened metal ripping through scale against the grain- a sort of hollow, echoey grinding sound. His nostrils flared and his stomach turned.

"Gotdamn, Carly!"

He tried to force-fix his face, keep his breathing steady. The blade of greataxe slid across the ground next to him as he walked forward.

"Fuck it! My turn!"

About to go out for dinner, will fill in when I'm home!

Gets lifted up by her neck, shrieks and flails-- "ANDREW!!" something something man-handling, he was a lot gentler last night etc etc.

On her feet, dodges an attack, pirouettes, so fancy.

Carly's point about the wealth makes her POWER UP, we love a motivational speaker.

Thinks back to the BB, head rolling, Alpha Quinn's influence! Runs at the thing from behind, goes for the severed head. Doesn't quite make it a reality but A for effort.

"The heads!" she yells, "Cut off the heads!"

also gonna filler, will add in my post once i have actually woken up uwu/other fillers get filler in!

Tune got them into this mess. Tune is going to get them out.

There's a leader, she realises. Alpha. Apologies that start building in her throat are swallowed back down. She could grovel for forgiveness later, swear she'll never run off like that again. Get down on her knees and promise to never put them in danger, so reckless, so stupid. She could do that later, when they were rested and still alive.

The cuts on her sides from yesterday sting, but she pays them no mind. It's hard to focus on anything except the blood in her veins, remind her she's alive. Tune wonders if she'll ever stop hearing the thunder of her pulse in her head. Whether she'll feel a beat in her chest so strongly that it feels though her heart may explode. White noise and shouts from Carly and Andrew, Tune grits her teeth and screams. Her blade comes down, hard, and splits the pack leader clean in two.

Then she collapses back down to the forest floor, exhausted and heaving in air.

"And stay down!" Tune spits with a groan; half to the corpse, half to herself, as the back of her skull thuds against the earth and she sees stars in the bright blue sky.