stem, leaf & blade — will v kaius v cachi
Jul 25, 2022 21:19:55 GMT -5
Post by fox on Jul 25, 2022 21:19:55 GMT -5
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He gives him willow bark to chew on, cleans out the wound as best that he can, and patches it up. And some time between the stitches and the bandages, Storm falls asleep, resting in his arms in the golden glade as Will wipes away the rest of the blood on his face.
He lies there, head on Will's knee, ragworts growing between the spaces of his limbs. And his delivery word friend rests too, strange little creature that seems just happy to be nestled against a heat source. Behind him, he hears a low rumbling deep in Nehalennia's belly, her head coming over his shoulder and he gently pushes her snout away.
"No, not food," he whispers.
The sun is setting when he's finished.
At the end of it, he ties the bandages together in a square knot, tucking the ends in the way he's seen his mother do time after time.
There's Storm – District Nine and gunpowder on his fingers, smoke and spry chaos, a firework kid and the worst swimmer Will's ever met.
He could wake him.
He could ask him to come with them.
Carefully, he moves his leg out from underneath Storm.
Somewhere between the tall stems of the clearing, in the dimming light, he looks for their swords. His hand touches the bone blade, still warm from sunlight, and there's something engraved in it beneath his fingers, faint letters that spell out N O W L –
The word stirs awake at the movements, honks a gentle honk of protest when it sees the weapon in Will's hands, puffing out its chest to call out a louder warning.
"I won't hurt him," he tells it softly. He places the weapon next to the boy.
And then he takes off his robe, placing it over Storm, pulling it up to his chin.
A last gesture of peace.
Freyr is in the sky tonight.
A dull squeezing in a place that's familiar, right at his sternum and it's like being hit with a riptide.
But the feeling's gone when the anthem ends, some weight in the bottom of his stomach with all the other things he's swallowed to survive.
He feels tired.
And maybe it's because Will's had all this time to think about Freyr bleeding out in the mountains and time to think about Freyr hovering over them in their sleep, sickle drawn like a myth of death, and then slipping away into the dark deep woods.
Dead to them either way.
"Charlie," He starts. His throat feels raw.
A cool breeze blows the embers of the fire into the dark blue night, light shifting the shadows. It's the pulling of the ocean, time and tide washing over the shore of him, and he just feels so tired now, pressed against the current.
All he wants to do is stay.
"Goodnight," He says instead.
He touches the grass and it wilts in his hands, touches the flowers and he's left holding a handful of dust.
That's the thing about nature that the gamemakers get, Will thinks, how the coyotes will spill a deer alive, how a cuckoo will kill a nest the moment it's born, and how eleven people died out at sea the year of his fourteenth birthday, the ocean drowning her playthings with fickle rage. There's pretty flowers and there's a painting in the landscape, lift a brush, and there's the rot, bodies, death.
It's purple, it's deep and violent.
Paint a bruise on him, suffocate him, veins bulging for a moment with a pulse that moves like a bolt of lightning and it sounds like the cry of a beast that's older than mountains and everything, everything is dying.
A blink – and then it's gone.
They're left in the bones of the forest. The mist falls around them and when he meets Charlie's gaze, he feels unsettled.
His hand rests on the hilt of his sword.
And it would be so easy to unsheath it, point it at him and say you and me. Five days of watching him fight, five days of dissecting his weakness and the way Charlie is never needlessly cruel but as brutal as a force of nature but how he will never, ever be like a career.
It's a different thing, to fight for the validity of existence. To prove worth to something that's already dead and buried and ash in the sea. These are his hands, these are his calluses, and how could he hide that he knew the knife when it had shaped him? Whole being melded around a blade and a name, and a sword is a sword whichever way the light may hit it.
It scares him, the sudden thought.
Charlie looks different too, purple splattered over him like an accident and soaks into the shadows of his face, eyes burning bright.
A feeling tugs at him.
"Let's not meet again," Will manages.
And then he runs.
Dead trees, dead plants, and then two things alive in a clearing of the forest. There's the boy he's only seen in the bloodbath, and then there’s Charlie's district partner coming through the withered branches and how funny it is that they would all meet right here, right now, at the same time.
Clever painter, the gamemakers.
A thought writhes into his head, venomous, hot and bleeding and vicious.
Maybe, it's time to give what the Vanas name demands.
He turns towards Cachi, drawing his sword.
"Charlie's back there," ash and venom, thick in his mouth. "You'll see him soon."
He lies there, head on Will's knee, ragworts growing between the spaces of his limbs. And his delivery word friend rests too, strange little creature that seems just happy to be nestled against a heat source. Behind him, he hears a low rumbling deep in Nehalennia's belly, her head coming over his shoulder and he gently pushes her snout away.
"No, not food," he whispers.
The sun is setting when he's finished.
At the end of it, he ties the bandages together in a square knot, tucking the ends in the way he's seen his mother do time after time.
There's Storm – District Nine and gunpowder on his fingers, smoke and spry chaos, a firework kid and the worst swimmer Will's ever met.
He could wake him.
He could ask him to come with them.
Carefully, he moves his leg out from underneath Storm.
Somewhere between the tall stems of the clearing, in the dimming light, he looks for their swords. His hand touches the bone blade, still warm from sunlight, and there's something engraved in it beneath his fingers, faint letters that spell out N O W L –
The word stirs awake at the movements, honks a gentle honk of protest when it sees the weapon in Will's hands, puffing out its chest to call out a louder warning.
"I won't hurt him," he tells it softly. He places the weapon next to the boy.
And then he takes off his robe, placing it over Storm, pulling it up to his chin.
A last gesture of peace.
⚔
Freyr is in the sky tonight.
A dull squeezing in a place that's familiar, right at his sternum and it's like being hit with a riptide.
But the feeling's gone when the anthem ends, some weight in the bottom of his stomach with all the other things he's swallowed to survive.
He feels tired.
And maybe it's because Will's had all this time to think about Freyr bleeding out in the mountains and time to think about Freyr hovering over them in their sleep, sickle drawn like a myth of death, and then slipping away into the dark deep woods.
Dead to them either way.
"Charlie," He starts. His throat feels raw.
A cool breeze blows the embers of the fire into the dark blue night, light shifting the shadows. It's the pulling of the ocean, time and tide washing over the shore of him, and he just feels so tired now, pressed against the current.
All he wants to do is stay.
"Goodnight," He says instead.
⚔
He touches the grass and it wilts in his hands, touches the flowers and he's left holding a handful of dust.
That's the thing about nature that the gamemakers get, Will thinks, how the coyotes will spill a deer alive, how a cuckoo will kill a nest the moment it's born, and how eleven people died out at sea the year of his fourteenth birthday, the ocean drowning her playthings with fickle rage. There's pretty flowers and there's a painting in the landscape, lift a brush, and there's the rot, bodies, death.
It's purple, it's deep and violent.
Paint a bruise on him, suffocate him, veins bulging for a moment with a pulse that moves like a bolt of lightning and it sounds like the cry of a beast that's older than mountains and everything, everything is dying.
A blink – and then it's gone.
They're left in the bones of the forest. The mist falls around them and when he meets Charlie's gaze, he feels unsettled.
His hand rests on the hilt of his sword.
And it would be so easy to unsheath it, point it at him and say you and me. Five days of watching him fight, five days of dissecting his weakness and the way Charlie is never needlessly cruel but as brutal as a force of nature but how he will never, ever be like a career.
It's a different thing, to fight for the validity of existence. To prove worth to something that's already dead and buried and ash in the sea. These are his hands, these are his calluses, and how could he hide that he knew the knife when it had shaped him? Whole being melded around a blade and a name, and a sword is a sword whichever way the light may hit it.
It scares him, the sudden thought.
Charlie looks different too, purple splattered over him like an accident and soaks into the shadows of his face, eyes burning bright.
A feeling tugs at him.
"Let's not meet again," Will manages.
And then he runs.
Dead trees, dead plants, and then two things alive in a clearing of the forest. There's the boy he's only seen in the bloodbath, and then there’s Charlie's district partner coming through the withered branches and how funny it is that they would all meet right here, right now, at the same time.
Clever painter, the gamemakers.
A thought writhes into his head, venomous, hot and bleeding and vicious.
Maybe, it's time to give what the Vanas name demands.
He turns towards Cachi, drawing his sword.
"Charlie's back there," ash and venom, thick in his mouth. "You'll see him soon."
willem attacks kaius | Bancroft Saber (Sword)
aVjrLP2SQPsword
1010 -- 9.0 damage(Sword) + 1 blades
willem attacks cachi | Bancroft Saber (Sword)
sword
1165 -- 4.0 damage(Sword)
sword·sword
