Round Two: Northern Feast

Little girl gone, got a gun from a gangster
Run little girl, run little girl, bang ha

The night was cold and chilly and the thin layer of cloth the capitol called clothing really was not cutting it. Totally not practical for killing spree either. That night was the first night in my life I spent knowing that I would not wake up to the sound of Kaiden complaining about something. A sound so annoying yet so reassuring. A strange thought that the person I despised the most was the thing that offered me the most reassurance and now it was all just and echo in my mind. The gashing pain in my back, literally, was a parting gift from my, once again literally, better half.

Between the growls of my stomach, the cold, and my mind reliving Kaiden’s last moments again and again, I could not really sleep. The second the sun was up I made my way to wander the maze looking for just about anything. All I saw were hedges filled with rustles.

"Good morning Panem! It is another glorious day here at the Hunger Games arena as we embark on the first ever Day Two! Days ago, you were introduced to our lovely batch of tributes. Yesterday, you watched each of them prove themselves and show you all that any one of them could have what it takes to be Panem's next Victor!”

Oh, fuck off Harlan, you and your stupid voice and stupid optimism. There really is not much fun in any kind of criminal activity when you are running on an empty stomach. There really is not much fun in any kind of criminal behavior when you are forced to do it. How am I supposed to get that feeling of power, of being in control when my hand was forced.

"Tributes, I do hope you enjoyed your rest last night! You will need it. But, don't stress, you have something to look forward to! It's finally meal time! Who is hungry?

Now you are speaking my language Harlan baby.

The news of food introduces a whole new rush of adrenaline to my body and all of a sudden, I do not feel like sitting down and throwing giant hissy fit. I grab my sword still stained with my brother’s blood and follow the path the maze takes me on, skipping with joy. Fuck that was painful.

The promise of food keeps me going, with each step a bit of pain surges through back and spreads throughout my body but I ignore it. Pain is in your head. Don’t be a wimp. You will be fine. If you were right and everyone had to fight, there district partner till death then there was only twelve of you left. Eleven more deaths until you could go home and finally have that home cooked meal you were supposed to have after the reaping and guess what, with brother dearest dead and gone, you could have double the portion.

Finally, up ahead of me there is an open gate, and open gate that led to a table of food. I could not care less what was stacked up on that table, I just knew that I wanted it all, every last bit. The now dried up blood cracked along my face as I smiled out of pure joy thanks to the feast in front of me. Only one little issue…More people. Oh goodie.

I skipped my way onto the dinning grounds. My long dark hair that was previously tied up into an elaborate bun was falling into shambles with strands poking out in every which direction adding to my already delusional ambience. There were people between me and my food. Not just here but my food back home. Eleven must go, now seemed like a good enough time to start plowing
down those numbers.

Kaiden was kill number one.

Who would be number two?

Eenie, meenie, miney, gotcha.


I like your blood on my teeth just a little too much



Table credits to rave <3
Lyrics: Little girl gone by chinchilla

My mind is racing, and it's almost impossible to enjoy the night to rest and recover. Ember is dead because of me. She trusted me, and I betrayed her. She thought I would help her, and maybe I did by taking her out of the world before it shattered the heart of gold she wore so proudly just after being reaped. It hurts. She begged me to stop, she asked me to just leave her alone, and I wouldn't do it because I had no other option. She would've killed me, and I don't know what the gamemakers would've done had I just thrown the sword down with her. Death called for her. But I killed her. She was twelve years old, and I killed her. I can still see her pleading with me, I can see the tears, I hear her agony, and I don't think it will ever leave my mind. She didn't deserve it, but neither did I. I did what I had to do, and I cannot be faulted for it.

Throughout the night, I move around through this maze, and I don't even know where I'm going. So many times I feel as though I enter the same place again and again. It doesn't matter though. I'm currently safe, currently not under attack. And then I find a place to rest. I lean against the hedge maze, and I look at what feels like a very fake sky. I hold the sword close to me knowing I may need it at any given moment. Life is hard, but I'm prepared for almost anything. I barely managed to drift away when someone stupidly turns on the microphone to tell us about a meal time. My stomach rumbles. It's been so long since I've had anything to eat, but I know it's likely a trap. Everything has to be a trap. Nothing good can ever happen in the midst of the arena.

I look around and keep wandering through the arena, and then I find myself moving through a door, and then to an opening. I see the table sitting in the middle of it. I see other tributes standing around, and I see a couple of them fighting. I have no interest in giving them what they want. I have no interest in fighting with anyone. I just want some food, yet it isn't fully trustworthy. It's so easy to poison us all and to see who is smart enough to die of hunger. But it still makes me anxious. I look closer at the food, and it all looks so amazing, and it makes me sad. My family doesn't have much. They never have, and all I can do is sit here and hope I some how manage to make it home. I'm sure Ember would've loved this.

That's when I hear something roar. For a moment my heart leaps into my throat, but then I instantly calm back down. What is that? I remember a few games ago they had these creatures that attacked everyone. I don't think any one of them made a sound like this did though. I look around, and I'm very curious to see what it is. Maybe I can slay the beast and become a a pain in the ass for the higher ups. Maybe these other tributes will see I'm saving them, and they'll leave me alone. Whatever the case may be, I'm going to try to stay away and see what happens. Observing may work better, but taking a step back didn't work for Ember. I want to stop thinking about her and focus on my future and keeping myself alive, but I'll never forget the pain she expressed while trying to push me away. I don't want to kill anyone else, however, I am prepared to do what must be done so I can make it home alive.

credit to Rave

You lost count hours long ago.

That was Maestro’s duty. Her left hand dictated your movement, your tempo, your flow, but her right - ever graceful, ever fluent - controlled time. She could slow the orchestra if she wishes, calming the way it rushed, or she could quicken it if needed, work it to her will like the pulse of a single machine that drew blood from her to lived. All of you were a symbiotic relationship, the Swan String Orchestra. All of you were marionettes that had your strings tangled beyond help, and instruments to be played by powers that surpassed them. All of you were—

children of war, or rather of those who survived it.

You knew only grey skies of impending storms and winters that never thawed. Your house was the first to go when the cold arrived, an electric bill left unpaid that led to death of the lights and the heaters. Your father begged. Your father, part of the war effort and supplier of fine jewelry to the Capitol’s elite, sold everything he had and begged and begged on his knees, but even that could not save it. They wanted to let go of your family. All of you were, in their eyes, a stain that should have been cleaned long ago.

“Please, please, you have to understand, my wife and son, they—“

“—We’ve heard enough, Mr. Cai. The other families need as much your power does. Perhaps we could supply some if there was, uh, any incentive to do so, but—“

“—I’ve paid you everything I have.”

And not enough. This world was like the sore burning in your stomach now, eager to chew away at emptiness. Eager to eat. And if you gave it a chance, it would eat you alive, too.

That was why you needed out. That was why you need to win. Trembling softly as you lumber, you keep one hand trailing along the walls of thorns making your path, letting occasional thorn prick you to life at intervals with their sharp edges. Your throat feels full of briars - you had been singing for hours - but you do not stop the raspy, labored rendition of the Capitol’s anthem. Every word, every lyric, shoots up like tiny currents through a dying machine to power it until it accomplishes its given task.

The monotony of the hedge walls begins crumbling as the sky brightens. Indigo, lilac, and pink, all before a gate before you opens to daylight, so suddenly bright you wince and use an arm to shield your worn-out eyes. But you lower it quick. Your bones tense and your stomach turns as you eye what’s in front of you: a lavish feast, prepared to be dined on, and awfully reminiscent of the dinners you used to had when your father had the wealth.

No, you think, crushing your torn up hand into a fist, wait.

You eye others who have also found themselves here, hunger creasing their eyes as well, and let the pain hold you in place. There is quiet. You keep humming the anthem, eyes looking left and right, and it’s the expectant quiet before the beginning of a piece, the waiting, the readying—

Harlan’s voice booms. You do not hear, opting instead to race up to the feast and shove a piece of whatever in your mouth. You chew once, twice, and gulp. Once, twice, and gulp. After your second mouthful, you wipe your lips with the back of your arms and look back in time to see the doors swing close.

Your sword grows heavy. Your eyes, alive, scan the field and see the arc of the sword timely enough for a quick dodging movement, a fast backwards step, and her sword nicks instead of cut. You pick up your emptied plate of food, shatter it into pieces, and throw the sharpest one at her. That’s the introduction piece. The chorus, the body of this performance, is your body twirling with a practiced grace behind her to use the momentum and swing.

[ Larkin attacks BamBam | Sword ]

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In the role that won Harlan Godfrey his infamy, he played a young soldier fighting against the Districts to save the Capitol and greater Panem. There was a part in the crux of the movie where a huge battle was taking place. They did an excellent job of highlighting all the standard horrors for war- the bloodshed, the screams, the planes, and the bombs. Of course, we all know about how the leading reason muttations exist in the first place is as an assurance of victory in the war the Capitol has already won, but it wasn't until several minutes into the scene that they even introduced the mutts. And that was the trick to showcase how terrifying they were. To show everything else and then to throw them on top of it.

That's what he's decided to do here. Wait. Bide his time: show the world how ravenously hungry the tributes are, how battle-hardened and already desperate they were. Show them how quickly they succumb to the violence. Show them the darkest versions of themselves. Then, when the Capitol is sitting on the edge of their seats and the people at home have their eyes glued to the television screen, will the familiar roaring sound echo from somewhere within the maze again.

These creatures are not like the robotic spiders. In truth, they're the main reason for bringing Link on board in the first place, because they wanted something that was truly a perfect blend of flesh and machinery. Something vividly alive, but with pieces that could be inherently controlled by Harlan and the other officials if and when it was necessary. Also unlike the robotic spiders, this pair of mutts does not function via group objective. Instead, each comes with its own controller. There are analog sticks to move the creatures around, buttons to make them jump or attack or scream, dials to control their speed. Harlan takes the first and then hands the second over to Link.

Ideally, he doesn't think he'd be controlling either creature at the moment. He needs to be able to focus on both fights at the same time. But he's got little choice. He's allowing himself to trust Link. Besides, if he fucks it all up then there's someone to blame. Harlan pushes the analog stick forward and one of the pair climbs the walls and reveals itself. The crowd sees it first from their vantage point as it begins skipping over the tops of the hedge maze, propelling itself around by the tail, metallic feet digging in and finding purchase against the perfectly vertical walls. It rushes with manic fury and excitement, possibly smelling all of the delicious human surrounding them.

The tributes aren't the only hungry things in this arena.

All ten or twelve feet of it appears at the top of the Northern feast's boarders like a treed cat, its tail swishing in the air nervously as it registers the tributes below. A horrible sight: an oversized piece of chewing gum, covered in brutal bits of sharp metallic weaponry and coarse white hair. It doesn't have any features, so much, pardon a pair of haunting glowing red eyes and a gaping, toothy mouth. It hangs itself so that its tail hangs down from the wall like an arm, the end with sharpened little pinchers that function like a hand and fingers, and grabs for its next meal.

Rolling for target! order:
1. Luja
2. Romeo
3. Ullr

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[Grief Eater attacks Ullr]
sword
[8.5]

Its tail wraps around the boy from 11 and lifts him entirely off his feet, the metallic finger-bards digging deeply into his skin as he rises up, up, up into the air until, he is face to face with the creature. It opens its mouth slowly, and then screams so loud that every tribute in a twenty foot radius cannot stop themselves from flinching.

Romeo’s rapier cuts into Mouse's neck — and for the briefest of moments, the sound of her panicked scream is all that he can focus on. It is the cruelest chord he has ever heard; resounding, shrill, aching. Separate from the living body, it stands as an entity all on its own. The kind of hurt and betrayal that remains long after a spirit has crossed over.

Once again, a girl clings to her life before him,

and once more he will cut her down.

But then, so strangely, feeling the warmth of blood trickling down his forearm, silence shrouds itself over the space. He wonders if his initial strike had actually been enough to finish the job, the mercy he has longed for in the place of his calamity, but glancing down, it unnerves his soul to see Mouse still gazing up at him with light shimmering in her eyes. Dying embers — just enough to start a forest fire.

She is quiet, welcoming the flames.

After his trick has been played, he is not as sure what to do. The only rational thought that runs across his mind is, 'all of them have to die.' Regardless of whether or not the task is carried out by his hand, he will see it done. He thinks of playing his guitar for Greer while on the train, trying to peel back her layers in the hours they had together. Foolish enough to long for a friend in a game where no one wins — and cruel enough to make the first strike when he realized that would never be an option.

When he pulled his sword out of Greer's throat, finally breaking his gaze from the siren perched above him on her throne, green eyes daring him to approach the glass — he ran into the labyrinth with nothing but ill intent. If he could murder his district partner, then what hope do true strangers have? He stares down at a person who deserves a far kinder end that he does, and then he glances at the rapier held in his grasp, dripping the exact shade of her fear onto the sand. So scarlet; roses picked only to wither in a glass vase.

Maybe he is a ruthless person.

He thinks of all the times he thought that his father deserved to die, how he used to sit in his bedroom and listen to the shouting and manifest terrible things to happen. As soon as he was old enough to flee, he turned his back on his siblings, his own flesh and blood, and he chose a life of his own over a life of slowly detonating inside a home that is nothing of the sort. Nothing close to his van, or his music, or the calm that smoking a joint provides him. What would he do to see another sunset by the cliffside?

Become this monster, it seems.

"Hey, Dollface!" Somehow, instinctively, he tilts his head to face the fearsome tribute he had noted upon first entering the area. His dark curls rest against his forehead, deep brown eyes brewing storms, his hands still holding down the second of what must be many sacrifices. Obviously, the ferocious girl isn't quite too pleased to see him getting in the way of her target. Most predators hate sharing their meals, after all.

"Back the fuck off! Go find your own tribute to kill." He holds Mouse in place, tight enough to ensure she will not make any sudden movements, but something about it feels like clutching a dead bird. Staring at its limp wings and wondering when it will take flight. "Didn't your parents teach you any manners, it's not nice to break other people's toys!" Perhaps she is speaking the deepest truth. All of them are playthings here.

Before he can even respond, her weapon lashes out, breezing just by him and cutting itself through Mouse's skin. His heart thuds into his stomach at the sight of this, at the knowledge that he is more than just an accomplice in it, but a willing participant. He maintains his cool expression, not at all wishing to invoke the ire of a girl like this one. If he shows his soft underbelly, she will only tear into it. "Don't you see?" he asks evenly, voice ever the honeyed sound. "One of us," he lifts his rapier and tilts it back and forth between them, "makes it out when all the others are dead."

Always, at least here, he will stand in his own corner. He is his own champion, his own ally — but above all, he is a boy of keen cleverness. "Now isn't the time to play with our food. The sooner everyone dies, the sooner they let the victor go home." He imagines himself on a throne of his own, circlet nestled in his curls. What he's about to do seems like a price worth paying for that future. He glances back to the quiet one, and he returns the silence she offers to him.

In this terrible act, there is something close to peace he has been missing.

He strikes with the intention to be quick, to be lethal, but he is startled by the sudden appearance of another foe. This one a true beast of sorts, crawling along the top of the nearest hedge and leering down at each of them in turn. As soon as he attacks, his attention shifts to the creature, to the swish of its tail and the form of a figure being lifted into the air in its grip. Even though he lifts his hands in time, the shriek it cries makes his ears ring a shrill note. His every nerve stands on end.

"You see that?" the ferocious one says.

"Unfortunately, yes." Ever the gambler, charming as much as he is cunning, he fixes his eyes on hers once more. "Still think I'm the biggest fish to fry here?"

Oh, c'mon, think I've never had shit thrown at me? I grew up in a fucking warzone. We played dodge-caltrops and dodge-shrapnel and dodge-bullet practically every other day growing up. I ride the world's shittiest bike (affectionate) down the world's worst hill daily for seven years. The old ladies at the bingo hall really don't like loitering. I think the dodging reflex is one of the ones that they test infants for in Shear Hill. I would've swung wide around that in my sleep.

A sword sings past me, either a warning strike or a miscalculation about how far I can dart away from projectiles, doesn't really matter. I should say something like "Missed me!" about it but then he'll probably crack my skull in half about it or something, so I bite back the impulse to shit-talk fate — lest I fuck around and find out. Wouldn't want that.

Speaking of don't want —

Look, sometimes you don't know you're in the middle of a fight while it's happening. I get it. We've all been there. It's like, a couple people start yelling about something trivial, someone flicks an ear, someone spits, someone throws a punch, and then suddenly the next thing you know it's like a flash mob of people beating the shit out of each other is happening all around you. It happens.

What you don't expect next is a ten-foot-tall biomechanical mutant white rabbit bunny spider to come clambering over the hedge and pick you up and scream like [TODO motorcycle metaphor] right in your face. My ears are ringing from all the way down here.

Can't say that's a normal experience. Poor guy. Don't want that either.

Seems to have got his attention on the meelee though — and damn, he nearly can-opened this guy.

I should be thinking strategically or something, but, nah, this shit's a full-on bar fight. I break a glass too, just for the hell of it — wanton acts of destruction are my idea of a good time. "Shear Hill!" I holler — wish I thought of a battlecry before just now so I'd come up with a better one — shit — "Death Trap!"

I swing my sword like a baseball bat, overhand strike, aimed at the two guys in my vicinity. His loss is my gain — doesn't really matter whose.

Mouse remembers-

No. That's not her name. Not her name from before. That's what she thinks about when she's thrown to the grass by the weight of their attacks - two swords, two performers, and one tired little Mouse.

Goodness, how long it has been. She looks up to the sky above - it's a beautiful day. Dawn just finished, the crispness of a new day and all its possibilities in their air she breathes. Wheezed breaths, but still. Everything hurts but at least she's warm, closing her eyes and basking in the light that gently wakes her torn, bloodied skin.

When she opens her eyes there he is - tall, dark, handsome. Right, somehow. He feels right, despite the blade in his hand and her blood all over it, she thinks this how it was supposed to be. What was it he had said to her? I'll find a way for us to get out of here. She, dead. He, alive.

Do it, she wants to say. How close she comes to saying it, words trapped between gritted teeth and all those years of almost, almost, almost. Mouse McCann is a survivor but she's tired now. Done, she thinks, of being that girl. Mouse McCann has survived for so long - in the shadow of a dead girl, in the shadow of a girl who stopped existing the moment her parents shut the front door of her home and never came back.

She wants to lay that girl to rest. Both of them: the girl who lived next door with shrapnel through her throat and the name McCann, Maverick's blood in her veins. The girl who was left behind in that house the rubble and the hurt.

So she looks to Romeo Wilder and smiles, blood in her teeth.

Thinks of her name. The last thing that is truly hers, the only thing that might ever have been.

Don't give them anything - don't worry, Claude, she will not.

It dies with her.