Stone faces, haunted places {Stars vs. Argos}

It was fragile. The tissue contracting, expanding, contracting, feeding the channels with an endless source of life until something ripped the channels apart. The chambers overflowing to the outside - this was her aim, to sever the strings that kept little Learna’s heart pumping and retaining the precious substance that was slowly seeping from her system and leaking to the soil like droplets of red ink. It was supposed to be swift, clean, and graceful, to tear the tissue and end a tortured animal’s time before the dogs could feed on her flesh and bone. Unfortunately, the girl was to quick for her own good and slipped away from the tip of her soul-stealer before it could puncture the tender target. Instead, a slit appeared upon the girl’s chest, soiling her chances of survival further and only increasing the magnitude of her suffering. Ailis, too, caught on to the abrupt change in course of action and lashed out with her weapon, but only to graze the girl’s arm as she desperately attempted to battle her way out of the mess of murderers. And then, the wolves pounced again. The pretty boy from one - Perwinkle? Period? Peridot - continued to torment his prey, aiming for a kill but failing to strike the proper target. Kiera - the mightiest of the careers - spat wrath at the bleeding red-head before feeding her to the true dog; the nutcase from nine, a boy Demeter knew very little about. Nor cared.

”Find a way to say goodbye, Libertine. This is goodnight!” The last battle cry Learna’s ears would ever absorb. His spear lunged, her skin split - one final wound to end them all. Her skin seemed dyed with scarlet ink like a painted sculpture in the garden;

perhaps she will join these stone faces. Another forgotten face amongst hundreds. A nobody. Where is your sister, little Libertine? There she was, posed amongst the statues of the fallen with Stark’s gaff protruding gruesomely from her eye - another innocent girl slain by a beast. Learna would join her, perhaps erected as a statue herself, her soul captured within a stone shell and imprisoned for eternity for doomed eyes to see. In the end, however, they would fade into the dark depths of oblivion and lay forgotten to those who witnessed their few moments of fame. Whether the two Libertines were cursed by their surname or merely too weak to withstand the hardships of the arena, it no longer mattered the district two dragoness. In her mind, they were human beings of lost status, falling and falling until they would vanish forever. Learna who? She was a nobody. A nobody…

The stench of alcohol lingered like an invisible cloud of moisture tickling her neck, a pair of lips and a bearded chin pressed against her temple. “You’re just like them, little girl.” His speech is slurred, his lips tender, but his voice pierced by icicles and tainted by the venom of contempt and madness. An arm wrapped around her waist, and with hallow eyes she stared at the wall as his seductive words hypnotized her further until she was tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down to the lowest crevice where the unforgivable lived and breathed the lies that became truth. “You’re a nobody. A nobody..”

Not anymore.

Jade eyes focused on the girl that was now a corpse. There was no pitying the dead in a hopeless land where twenty-three would fall and only one claim the glory, so instead of dwelling upon her fallen ally she paused and assessed the situation from a distance. Ailis was injured - not seriously, to her relief - in event she had processed unconsciously during the midst of the chaotic storm. Heather would certainly be chastised the moment Demeter found her voice again (if she ever would, damn bugs), but at the moment there were more important matters to attend to. Take for instance the pack of bloodthirsty careers that were still loitering by with their stained weapons withdrawn and ready for anything. ”Hey, District Two.” Demeter’s head snapped in the direction of the voice she was not accustomed to hearing. ”You get tired of hanging around with this riffraff, you give us a call. You’ve got potential.” An intriguing proposal to consider. Riffraff, eh? It was quite an accurate description, and with her voice unfortunately stolen she could only answer the infamous prodigy with a gentle upturn of the lips - a smirk that revealed her acceptance to a consideration of the idea. Ailis and Heather were not the most favorable burdens to carry, but they had at least earned themselves a little worth for possessing the ability to actually land a hit on an object in motion - or in Ailis’ case, killing one of them. She was not quite finished with them yet. This was only day two of the games, after all. There was still a labyrinth up ahead with victory at its center, and many footsteps to take before she would reach it with outstretched arms. Now was not the time to make anymore impulsive and potentially troublesome decisions. Now was the time to kick into high gear, because tributes were falling and cannons were sounding. Boom. One tribute dead. But who? Boom. The explosion of her ally’s cannon.

And the sound of Learna Libertine's last heartbeat.

[Demeter flees, makes a fire, boils her jug of water, and uses first aid on herself for -3]