We Looked Like Giants [Hiccups vs Hyords] {Day 2}

Lemon tree very pretty
And the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon
Is impossible to eat.

As the days progressed my twitched got more and more on my nerves. Then I started to shiver. No. Not because I was cold. I think you can figure out for yourself why I was shivering. For some reason, I wanted to hoard up all the socks I could get. I wrapped one pair around the hands and the other pair were on my feet. I have one extra pair that I stuffed into my pocket.

I pay no attention to my allies' doings. I don't trust them at all, but I don't really care what they're doing in the first place, so.... It doesn't matter? I sat there hugging my knees to my chest and thinking of lemons.

Luyu breaks my train of thought and tells everyone in general that the liquids are safe to drink. "Lemonade?" I ask in a scared voice. It takes me a moment to realize it isn't made with lemons and I relax a bit. I'm seeing lemons everywhere, but I don't want to drink essence of lemons. Seeing is different than tasting. In that case, feeling counts too.

I'm busy singing to myself to notice anything really. But as I'm starting the last chorus (...Under the Sea...) My paranoid ears pick something up and I spring to my feet, my knife in hand. There were animals sprinting towards us. At first my dazed eyes saw them with necklaces of lemon peels and crowns of lemon flowers, but the delusion ened as suddenly as it had started.

Beneath my skin I feel my monster sniff, and raise his head. The same monster that made me try and strangle the head gamemaker. In fear I shrink away from the ugly thing, but I know immediately that that's the wrong move. The monster growls and takes over.

In the monster's mind this is just another play fight.

Joshua had made it out of what was probably one of the gorier first days on record miraculously unscathed, and the cuckoos that were his allies had done the same. That should have offered him a measure of comfort, but all together he couldn't have slept more than four hours last night, jumping at the slightest crackle in the underbrush or whenever one of the others had barely moved. Once, he fell asleep only to snap back to consciousness an hour later, disoriented and terrified; the teenager had never been a vivid dreamer, but not being able to put a face to the murky nightmare was surely just as frightening as recognizing it.

And so, during the course of his restless night, he had had far too much time to think - his family, his impending death, any topic that could distract him for a few seconds until every topic had been exhausted. His family would be fine without him, of course; he could only hope that that idiot Roman didn't mess up his eulogy. His mentor might notice his absence, but there were several other apprentices that would fill in the gap. It wasn't as if he had a girlfriend who would miss him back home. After a few hours, his thoughts had unwilling drifted to the scene he'd unwittingly stumbled upon earlier - Luyu with her broadsword bloodied, the girl from District 10, and Ocean Jones. He'd barely known the deaf girl's name, and yet that death was the one that stood out in sharp relief - not Trace Rowgan, the teenager that half the Capitol had seemed to swoon over, not the beheaded body that he'd passed as he left the Bloodbath... Joshua had tried to convince himself that the District 10 girl had killed Ocean, and then Luyu had slain her, but that of course didn't make sense - there hadn't been a singl e arrow in Jones' body, and that was all that that one girl had been armed with... so Luyu had killed both of them. That was that, and he was going to force it out of his mind. What was the big deal, anyway? That was the point of the entire game, after all...

When Luyu had cheerily dropped a water jug by his side early that morning, he'd just started to doze off; Joshua had grunted something that might have been an unconvincing 'thanks' and rolled over, though that was a pointless move. There wasn't going to be any sleep now, not when they needed to start moving; other tributes would soon be poking around the creek, looking for water and opponents. Joshua sat up quickly, rubbing at his bleary eyes and glancing at the other three in his alliance before draining the water bottle. He was half-surprised to see that no one had killed another in their sleep, though Ember seemed to have grabbed all of the extra socks and Mercury still wasn't fully clothed. He averted his eyes from the District 5 girl, pale face blotchy with embarrassment as he pulled his glasses off and started to polish the scratched lenses. Would it kill her to put a shirt on? Just being around these nuts was enough to drive anyone insane, but it was certainly better than the alternative.

And then there was shouting.

Joshua dropped his glasses and stumbled to his feet, glancing in Mercury's direction and catching sight of the current threat; his already-dry throat suddenly felt like it was cracking as he watched the three horselike creatures starting to surround Luyu. Their tan bodies moved with an eerie, unnatural grace, the sinewy muscles rippling beneath their striped pelts. It took him a few more bewildered seconds to catch sight of their lethal teeth, and then he was scrambling forward and grabbing the hunting knife that Mercury had dropped. Mutts already? There'd been plenty of death yesterday - wasn't that enough to keep the Capitol audience sated?

Apparently not. And having only a hunting knife to defend oneself against three lethal abominations wasn't particularly encouraging, but it was better than nothing.

She was dying.

She knew it, too. Every fiber of Echo's being screamed; the instincts that had led her to this had deserted her, leaving only blinding panic. Not so much for herself, but for her little herd- brave Bunny who tried even in the midst of battle to care for her, sweet Men who had just shown her own brand of bravery in leaping to Echo's defence- and for the babies she carried, which even now were kicking at her stomach. Did they know of their danger? Hopefully not- it wouldn't do for death to be the only part of the true world that her children would ever know, that wouldn't do at all...

Wounded legs trembled and started to give way; Bunny whickered and nuzzled her in obvious concern, and she forced them to stand straight again. Her mate nudged her away, and she attempted to oblige him by running, but the front leg gave way again and she had to fight just to stand. Even as she did so, the first pale-creature and the one that Men had attacked came at her, slicing open two new cuts in yet another leg. Echo screamed and fell, caught only at the last moment by Bunny, who jumped forward so that she fell into his side.

Slowly, painfully, with her mate helping her the whole way, she turned and bared her teeth. No matter what else happened, she would fight this to the end. To give her unborn foals a chance, to thank Echo for her efforts against the not-orange pale-creature, to honour her years with Bunny... Yes. Yes, without a doubt she would stand as long as she could and fight out her doom.


[[Echo attacks Mercury]]
[dice=200+2000]
(deep gash on right forearm; 8.0)

The concerned noises had long since given up; no sound Bunny could make could come close to expressing his anxiety or the pain that lanced through him every time Echo started to stumble. He wanted her out of here, her and the foals (and himself and Men, while he was at it)- but there was no way she'd make it. Not with two legs hampering her and a slightly-swollen stomach slowing her down further. Even with him and Men helping, they'd be far too slow, and the long, thin pale-creatures would follow with their long claws.

The best they could do, then, was fight- and fight he would, for Echo and their unborn children. With an angry cackle he thrust himself in front of his mate, and emulated the two females of his herd by striking out with teeth rather than hooves. Whatever punished this monster the best, he would use.

[[Bunny attacks Mercury]]
[dice=200+2000]
(shallow cut on left thigh; 3.5)

Never had Men known such fear. Despair, yes; the feeling that swept through her now, a sense of utter hopelessness paired with the knowledge that she had never been good enough for the one she loved, was easily akin to what she had felt when she first realized that Echo returned Bunny's affection for her, albeit much worse now than then. The fear, though, was new to her, and crashed down on her mind so harshly that she couldn't think right, couldn't see right. Every slip of Echo's legs, every drop of her leader's blood, ripped away a part of her as surely as she had ripped away a part of the strange thing's flesh. If Echo died, and her babies with her, what would life be?

She couldn't let that happen, she just couldn't. For once in her life fear spurred the young hyord on instead of holding her back, and she ran forward, falling into place with Bunny as he struck at the creature Men had damaged just moments before. If this thing wanted to take down Echo, they would make sure that they gave it all the hell it deserved, and more.

[[Men attacks Mercury]]
[dice=200+7000]
(gash/bruised right shin; 3.0)