the waters of march | xov vs maggie

m a r g u e r i t e

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I'm so much older than I can take
And my affection, well, it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no

Ines wasn’t in the sky when the anthem came.

Maggie watched Felicity’s face with a smirk. She hadn’t been too keen on the blond. It hadn’t been a particularly fair assessment, but sometimes, Maggie couldn’t explain why she didn’t like someone. Maybe it was just that she was a mousy blond that had gotten too close to Ines. Maybe it had been the sound of her voice. Sometimes you couldn’t explain why you didn’t like someone, but it was easier separating oil from water than coming around on them.

Marceline came next.

She gave a short salute to the girl. She’d fought about as well as she could have, in between facing off with five other people and not having spent most of her life training for this.

In the cool of the evening air, Maggie stayed numb to what she’d done.

At least she’d avenged Azure, after all.

No one could accuse her of being overkind, but the girl from two didn’t dwell on having killed someone. They were all trying - desperately - to survive, and yesterday had been Marceline’s turn to be sent back home. It could just as easily have been Maggie’s day (just as sure as it could be that day, too). If she wasted what little energy she had left crying about some girl she’d hardly said two words to, she’d be too tired to put up the fight needed to get out of here.

Seven other people stood between her and getting back to district two.

The boy from four that in the few times she’d met, had been proficient with his blade but deficient in humility. Five, who had impressed Marguerite most - he had a certain sense of himself that would protect him from the madness of the final days that often broke other tributes. Axyl, who’s empty head and sloppy hands would likely cost him his life. Seven, who Maggie couldn’t make heads or tails of. Eight, who’d given her a scrape or two, but wasn’t much to write home about. Ines, who, having survived without her, proved she had what it took to go it alone. And Twelve - another one who drew a blank from Marguerite.

Who would they interview for Maggie’s top eight video?

She hadn’t thought of it before the games, but figured now that they’d schlep around Harvard house. Her old classmates would likely try to get camera time, spilling all they could to the capitolites. She liked to smoke a lot. She wasn’t very nice to me. She played her music loud late at night. I don’t know who she was really friends with.

Borrowing a phrase from her dearly departed mother (who was not dead, but had left her all the same): fuck them kids.

Maggie awoke to the purring of Sierra, her familiar, and the slow and steady gust of wind.

She wiped the drool from her chin and peeked out from the set of rocks she’d covered herself in to take cover.

The trees in the distance swayed, and along the water’s surface, ripples from the wind spread.

Maggie tugged her knapsack over her should and edged along the cliff face. The heavy wind pressed her body down, and, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she determined the best place out of the wind would be to take real shelter. Considering her fear of the dark, that meant the mines were out of the question.

She’d returned to the cornucopia like a shrine. Careful to bow her head after pulling the front door open with a creak, lest she disturb the ghosts of Harley and Azure.

The wood had cracked and splintered through the short winter, and now with the heat seemed dried out and ready to collapse. She was careful to tread through the living room, and didn’t dare head back up toward the stairs which threatened to give way on the first step.

The floorboards groaned while she was in the kitchen, admiring the rusted oven and cracked glass containers once containing cereals. She stepped to the living room and stood in the doorway.

‘You’re Maggie?’ Twelve’s voice carried through the darkness. Timid. Unsure.

‘Ines told me yesterday that you saved her life. Is it true?’ Twelve was too kind. Why hadn’t she tried to attack her yet? Why did she care about Ines?

Maggie pulled at the handle of her glaive and slowly took it out of her belt loop.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ Did this girl want to go home, or did she want to lay down and die?

Maggie took a step forward and the wood underneath her feet groaned.

“Ines and I spent almost six days together. She carried her weight. I did what I had to do. That’s it.” Maggie kept her voice firm as she searched the girl’s eyes. “We’re not friends.”

Maggie held out her glaive and watched the flecks of dust in the air around them.

“No one wants to hurt anyone in here unless they’re some empty headed sociopath that gets their rocks off torturing other people,” Maggie was matter-of-fact. “But what we’re not gonna do is pretend like we don’t have to kill each other. You really think you just happened to find me here, and now we’re gonna ride out the storm together? Get real.”

She didn’t know who twelve was, but she had to at least have been good enough to make it this far. She’d go for twelve’s legs first, then maybe she could make quick work of her. Or, if she did put up a fight, Maggie would get a clue from how she defended herself.

The house groaned.

The ghosts were alive here.

And she was determined not to be one of them.

[Maggie also does not attack]

m a r g u e r i t e

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I'm so much older than I can take
And my affection, well, it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no

It had to be difficult growing up without the constant focus of a soldier. To be somewhere that death was more a fear than a mission - Maggie couldn’t wrap her head around it. The trepidation in Xov’s voice dripped through, the indecision as to whether they could, in their final moments, be something less than friends but more than enemies had Maggie grinding her teeth.

She had avoided pleasantries with Ines, even if they talked about home. She hadn’t wanted to dredge up feelings that could weigh either of them down. Just as she wanted Xov to stop talking then and just hit her, because that would have been easier than thinking about how wild all of this really was.

They were two promising young women who needed to kill or be killed; they could’ve been anything else but murderers, and yet that was what they’d become. Maggie had already taken someone’s life. Had Xov? Or would Maggie be the first?

‘I met Ines on the beach yesterday. We fought with some of the others, and when we made it out of there, we were watching you fight from a cliff nearby. She spoke very highly of you. Seeing as though we’re here… I just thought you should know.’

“Shut up…” Maggie’s voice crept out from her throat, between the tiny space between her lips.

Ines didn’t need her and she didn’t need Ines. She didn’t need to be someone else’s memory. She wasn’t going to be a part of anyone’s legacy (her parents had seen to that). And perhaps most important, her life would have more meaning than just some girl who had been a part of the ninety-sixth hunger games.

‘If I win, I’ll be sure to light incense for your spirit.’ Xov seemed almost serene when she struck Maggie, who backed away but not fast enough.

Maggie staggered but did not fall.

“You sure about that?” Maggie twisted her glaive and spun around on her feet. She could picture Xov on her knees, wasting her tears on people who would’ve never done the same. Would she crumble under the grief, or would it make her strong?

And who was to say that they had souls, anyway? Maggie wouldn’t spit out her atheism, her belief that for all the pain and suffering, any god or higher power could only be unjust - why would a girl like her, or Xov, be here, if anyone truly cared.

“If I win,” Marguerite steadied, “I’m not wasting my time talking about all of this. I’m going back to being eighteen. You live, you die, life goes on.” She shrugged her shoulders and pushed back her braids.

Then, Maggie pressed forward and stabbed her glaive, forward and up.

[maggie uses self defense on xov's attack 11067]
bJzZ2cNy|V3-8

[marguerite harvard attacks xov thao with her glaive]
glaive
[result:13058 -- Stabbed in Bicep -- 8.5 damage + 1 blades]

m a r g u e r i t e

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I'm so much older than I can take
And my affection, well, it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no

This had been her first real fight in days.

As much as Harley had tried to stay alive, she hadn’t done much to defend herself against Maggie or Ines. It’d been more of a mercy kill than anything, trapped within the walls of this same space. Her cannon had sounded, and that was that. They’d crept away into the snow with blood on their hands and the first reminder that any day could be their last.

Marguerite had turned inward and reasoned - because that was how this could all be explained - that she did what had needed doing. She could either wear the scars on her heart or on her sleeves. And somehow it seemed as though wearing them on her heart was the only thing that could truly kill her. All that emotion would tie up her legs and bind up her mouth. Better to push it down between her toes and step right over it.

Xov couldn’t agree, and Maggie didn’t expect her to.

Whoever had raised the girl had shielded her enough from cruelty of the world that she still offered mercy over cruelty. If Maggie died today, she’d be a part of Xov’s story, a candle hanging up overhead to remind her of what she’d done.

But as Maggie drew back her blade and furrowed her brow at the girl from twelve, she loathed the thought of giving someone such power. What did they owe the dead when surviving was so much harder? She wouldn’t want to be the weight that hung over anyone. She had never done this in life and she sure as shit wouldn’t be doing that in death, thank you very much.

‘What about the rest of us, then? Are we all doomed to be a skipped-over chapter in your story? That’s kind of cold, don’t you think?’ Xov prickled at the notion Maggie could forget any of this. That what they did here mattered. That any of them mattered, in the long and short of it.

‘If you’re going to kill me, at least show my ghost the courtesy of haunting you.’

She swung and Maggie saw stars, her blade not fast enough, and Xov a better swing that she gave her credit for - a rookie mistake.

“Oh, ho, ho,” Maggie felt the blood course down her side and over the gash on her leg, “You think I owe you a page in my book?”

Maggie stiffened. She measured up the distance between the wall and looked for cracks in the floorboards.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. Just things people can’t let go of.” Maggie put her good foot forward and held her glaive with both hands. “No one owes you a legacy. And this place? Is make believe. Aside from the death. That part is real.”

Marguerite had never needed a legacy. She’d never wanted to be remembered, never desired to have her name scrawled across the latest Victor’s View. What she wanted was to live (or die) on her own terms. Not because of what any person or ghost made her feel.

“Don’t spend the rest of your life letting other people tell you how to feel. Dead or not.” Marguerite narrowed her eyes. “They don’t deserve an ounce of your energy, no matter how bad you might feel.”

[marguerite harvard attacks xov thao with her glaive]
zwBMeN805pglaive
[result:13054 -- Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage]

[marguerite uses light-step on xov's attack 11171]
1-10
[result: attack dodged]

m a r g u e r i t e

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I'm so much older than I can take
And my affection, well, it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no

They would never see eye to eye, at least, not here.

And Marguerite was at peace with that.

People often thought the world needed everyone to agree. That when the fight was done, both sides had to walk away with some sort of epiphany. Or that there would be a winner and loser.

Here one would die and one would live, but that didn’t mean their argument would be settled.

‘We’ll be there whether you like it or not.’ Maggie smirked. She as counting on it, after all. But she understood what Xov meant. She couldn’t run from what she’d have done in here. That sort of thing would eat her alive no matter how she pushed it away.

Good thing her mother and father had taught her that the past could only hurt her as much as she let it.

‘Thanks for the advice, but I don’t need you to tell me how to feel, either.’

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Maggie arched an eyebrow and twisted her grip on the glaive. Better for Xov to hate her than not understand. She could deal with people who disliked her. She couldn’t stand people who weren’t willing to take in her point of view.

‘And it’s not that bad, having a wake for someone. Have you ever stayed up all night, feasting and drunk and wailing for the dead? Maybe you should try it. It’s not just about what they deserve. It’s for the living too.’ Xov swung then, and Maggie managed to throw her body backward, practically into the wall of the living room behind her. The rotted wood under her feet snapped as she struggled to find her balance.

“Crying might make you feel better but that doesn’t help everyone else,” Maggie snapped back. How presumptuous of Xov to guess she hadn’t ever known death.

Grief had always been a private, gentle thing. Something to be tucked away into a box and misplaced, until she remembered. And soon she’d have forgotten where it was at all - if she kept her focus on anything else.

Her father would’ve wanted it that way, too.

“I’ll grieve you if and how I want. But first,” Marguerite lifted her blade, “You have to die.”

[maggie harvard attacks xov thao with her glaive]
1KQKgKGwrRglaive
[result:13077 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]

m a r g u e r i t e

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I'm so much older than I can take
And my affection, well, it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no

Fillering for time.

-"So then act like it."

-"They didn't give us many choices as to what we do in here. So I chose to treat it like it's called, a game."

-"The sooner you realize you're the only one that can save you, the better."

[marguerite harvard attacks xov thao with glaive]
F_|72iezpZglaive
[result:13003 -- Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage]