army dreamers / andromache, day 1

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Night stretches on, and I still have a few minutes left before I have to retrace my steps and sit at my spot in mine and the girls' makeshift camp, as if I'd been there the whole time, alert at my post. Back from the ponds and its enchanted glow, and through what we're supposed to think of as the remains of some place. I squint at the graves as I pass by them, and even stop to trace the faded, aged letters to try and make out the names etched in the stone, but I come up blank. It's too dark to get a proper look. I'm going to assume they all reference various things, and that the Gamemakers and their team had fun workshopping names to carve onto each of them. The empty market square is too still, and yet a gust of wind passing through as I stand there, dead in the middle, would feel far too cliché. The only inhabitants here are made of stone. Their cold lips tell me nothing. 

The thought hits me all of a sudden that this whole area is set up like some sort of historical reenactment, or one of those interactive museums with wax figures of famous people. Maybe it'd be fun, stepping over the tree roots that burst from the path below my feet, if it meant I got to meet a dummy replica of Paris Van Buren or something, but as it stands, all I can think about is all of the effort they've put in to make such an uncanny setting. I want to like it. I want to enjoy it, the way I'm supposed to, but I feel little more than insulted. The high of my Bloodbath performance has worn off, and although I've not fallen back yet into my training centre despair, I am altogether put off by the blanket of chicanery pulled across the entire arena. 

Eventually I pass through to what I think must be a training field. They've got a whole bunch of tripping hazards lodged in the ground. Free weaponry for anybody too cowardly to stick around for the Bloodbath, huh? This junk is all they deserve. The statues here aren't so storybook. They're in pain, and feel less uncanny to me than the townspeople in the market square. After all, I know firsthand how difficult it is to endure being picked out of stone by an uncaring hand. 

They're less uncanny, but ten times more familiar. I look at my feet and the path ahead rather than at them as I hurry back to Florentine and Eulalie. I suddenly want nothing more than to see their faces, peaceful in sleep. 

_{[ DARS ]}