dreams of dust, crumble [d'arcy.vs.andres.vs.sk] day 2 12pm

It was perhaps the strangest night D'Arcy had ever slept through. After the embarrassment of calling out for mercy, hearing the noise of a predator lurking in the shadows that had turned out to be nothing but her imagination running wild, she had felt the weight of the day bearing down on her, the sweet call of sleep singing its siren tune. She laid down in a corner of the ruined building and let sleep blanket itself around her.

She hadn't expected to dream, not the first night here. Back home her dreams were vivid and welcoming, here she worried any dreams would be uninvited, horrific, haunting. If any dreams were to visit her at all, that is. So as she awoke to the first rays of sunlight pouring down through the holes of the roof above, she was surprised to feel the story of her dream lingering on, a sizeable puddle that never reached the drainpipe of wakefulness.

D'Arcy could still hear the sounds. The metal scraping the stone, the aged voice of the king, the weary voice of the knight, the collapse of burning logs in the fireplace. It felt as if she were still there, had been there the whole time, in a different time. She glanced over at the grand throne room, not far from her nighttime sanctuary, and could make out the holes in the stained glass windows. The same ones that had once been whole in her dream.

She didn't know why she had dreamt such a scene. Perhaps she had spent too much time in the library reading up on books of fantasies, of knights and kingdoms and princesses. Maybe it was mixing with her awe of the arena, the wonder of its magic, the fear of the context in which she was here in the first place.

There was not much time to stop and wonder about it, though. The fact that D'Arcy was alive to be awake at this moment was a miracle in and of itself, and she needed to work hard to keep it that way. She vaguely remembered the anthem playing, the absence of faces lighting up the sky in its wake. It seemed the forest hadn't been the reason she hadn't heard the fire of any cannons, after all. She had lived, and so had everyone else. Undoubtedly this would change today.

D'Arcy spent the morning exploring the field of ruined buildings further, finding very little. The only significant and pleasant find had come from her checking over the contents of her rusty bucket, finding a frog had turned it into a home. Tiny and green with big goofy eyes, D'Arcy found it to be cute. Cute for a frog, at the very least. She remembered reading in one of the books back in District Six of a prince who had turned into a frog, who could only turn back with the kiss of a princess. D'Arcy wondered if her little frog was one of these poor princes in search of the kiss that will set them free. It didn't seem wise, and as it stood she was in no rush to find out, but she found the presence of a companion to be comforting, and she allowed Prince Froggington (a name she coined for him) to continue his rule over the contents of her bucket.

With Prince Frogginton in toe she began to trek out away from the center of the ruined village, in the direction away from the woods she had already explored. As the ruined buildings became more spread out and the nature beckoned with its first tendrils of wilderness, D'Arcy heard another sound of rock grinding against stone under heavy foot. Last time it had been nothing, this time she wasn't so sure. She spun around in time to see the movement of the huge figure, coated in stone that had done so well at camouflaging it against the ruins.

D'Arcy had expected danger from her fellow tributes, prepared for it. She had never expected this. She quickly darted to the right, narrowly missing the stone warrior's sword as it sliced down on the spot she had been standing in just moments before. Her heart raced, her adrenaline pumped. Death was looking for a princess, and this knight was its courier.

The crash of the weapon on stone seemed to have alerted another tribute to the commotion, as D'Arcy watched the boy from District 10 pop into view not too far away, eyes locked onto the giant knight. D'Arcy reached for her weapon, hoping maybe she'd have an ally in this fight. "Help, please!" She called out to the boy, hoping that he'd recognize the danger and fight alongside her.

If not, well, she would be dead either way.

For daunting moments, the stone knight only stands before them, resolute in the face of newfound danger. Step after step though, he presses in, does not slow or halt. That thread of gold pulls him in, demanding his blade; he is nothing before the yawning promise of fate.

As the harsh light of midday cuts open the greenery of this place, beginning to burn away the dense fog that has permeated the spaces in between trees all morning. He lifts his blade in a meeting of metal on stone, allows the sound to ring into the sun and encourage it to spread, to cleanse this place of the cool mist. Despite her small size, the girl proves herself a threat between one breath and the next as she levels a spear taller than her towards the stone knight's wielding arm. Flecks of dust scrape away from his forearm, but the strength never leaves him; his grip on his sword only grows, the fabric of his being coiling tight. 

There is no raw panic that triggers when the boy emerges from between the dense forest surrounding. Not even when he swings, hard, buries the sharp end of his lance into the top of the knight's stone boot.  He can see it in both souls before him, the sharp weakness of panic as they attempt to dart away from his swings, protect their blood and bone. The weight of things unseen presses on the stone. Swift as a tempest, the knight's blade arcs down, quick and sharp, striking the ground before the feet of the girl. A spray of shorn grass, still wet with dew, before he is pressing in even closer, blade trained on the intruding boy.