forget | the marauders | day 1

Can regret know any other form than dissonance? It dwells as despondent notes to some song no one really remembers, but flickers on the fringe of familiarity. Its taste: bitter. Its sound: harsh. Its memory: repugnant. It can be a vile anthem when played by the trumpeting orchestra of someone's distraught. A distraught that disarms all sense of security and rips away at any sanctity in there being the slightest breath to the being known as redemption. So when you hear its chords crashing over you, clutching at your throat with a rancorous clamor, there is only one true answer: submit to its song and befall its emotional rapture.

So that's what Duke does as he pulls himself out of the mud.

There's metal lapping across his tonsils. He must have bit his mouth when he was tripped up trying to run away from the fighting. Now he's alone looking for his allies, correction, for careers he is calling allies. He can taste that bitterness with the blood that's sickening his tongue: wonderous regret. Can Prism see him? Does he hate him the way he hates himself? Is that why he did this? Is that why answers to his own questions feel more like punches than pauses in thought? Was he already dying? No one to blame other than himself. Oh how strong the bitterness tastes.

His lips rip, his throat explodes, and his hands pull hair from his head as a guttural scream spews out of his mouth. Who cares who hears when he picked this poison to drink? Isn't this what he wanted? Isn't it? Wasn't it? It all tears out of him until his breath is gone and he's back in silence. He doesn't have answers, sixteen year olds hardly ever do. He only has his emotions and his mud stained hands.

Duke isn't sure how long he's been walking through the fields when he comes across some kind of blade buried between the plants and more mud. At least it's something to pretend to stab with. He'll be shocked if he manages to even scratch someone these Games. There's only one real option he has in his arsenal and it is far from the stab first ask questions later approach.  His thoughts though are broken by the sound of voices, familiar ones at that. Which says a lot considering his whole pre Games strategy was stay the fuck away from anyone and everyone. Yet, here he is walking towards an entire band of careers. Once again, maybe he should have shut his mouth.

"Different is an edge word, Dyno." Duke's voice floats more softly than his persona per usual. Although the Three doesn't push the One much further than that. Edging, in the non-blush inducing sense and within this case scenario, refers to Dyno's lack of overall description of the obviously notable encounter. If they were closer maybe Duke would have dug deeper, but for now he's trying to avoid the previously mentioned stab first career classic approach to confrontation. "To be transparent: I screamed at a bunch of bushes. So at least your day has been more productive than mine."