lived unbruised, we are friends. peria

"Would you bloody hold still?" Aria Wolfe sat squirming beneath me, cut and bruised, mauled by two boys who were now dead. How funny it must be to think that the boy who took your thumb was completely taken by you, oh little girl, how funny you must feel right now. This was their fourth day by river side, the intertwining streams flowing harshly throughout the entire arena without a single care. This was the first day since we'd lost Kiera Dempsey, it was the day Aria had gotten her first kill, it'd been five days since they'd entered this hell hole, and it wouldn't be long until only one of them left. Counting made things easier in a way, counting off the things in your head that you knew, at least I found it that way. Keeping a strict time line in my mind only seemed to help keep a sense of order, I don't know how much longer that would last.

Yesterday, I thought I'd lost my mind.

It'd been years since the constant mockery, the shaming, the every day struggle to keep on walking down the streets of One without returning home with a black eye - but yesterday it'd happened again. Never had I ever believed I would return to a place like that in my life, Peridot Myler was a career, a respected career, not someone to make jokes out of. But none of that seemed to matter in the arena, there were only two careers left, and I was one of them. This year, we weren't as strong as we'd been - not as strong as we could of been, how quickly they all seemed to fall, Atlas, the boy from four, Little Libertine, Kiera, we were only five (five, five, five, keep that counting going) days into the games, and already the careers were done. Were there even careers to begin with? There were Argonauts, there were Gods, and Goddesses, and Little Girls, and Little Boys, but were there ever careers?

Wes had completely shut himself off from me since yesterday, it was a sad day when Wednesdae Drummond talked to Aria more than me. His original reluctance to let her into the group only seemed to come back full swing as soon as Kiera died, Wes was alone for the first time in the arena, didn't have someone to keep him sane, someone to keep him perfect. And it was killing him, or so it seemed. Perhaps he was just jealous that both Aria and I had gotten kills today, but he'd gotten Little Libertine. Every so often it seemed that he'd bark out an order, but besides that he was off by himself, moping. He'd done what he could on Aria, Wes was a thousand times better than I was at any sort of first aid, but I was trying my best. I always tried my best (eleven, I had once scored an eleven, seven days ago, eight? Was I losing track of days before this arena?) but my best was not always the greatest job.

Aria had been cut up, that was for sure, her thumb sliced clean off, a nice gash too. This was really the first time she'd ever been mauled since the beginning of the Games, and the fear was clear in her face. Even brave Little Girls got scared too. How long had it been since I'd learned to use a needle and thread, ten, eleven, twelve days? Useless, I was positively useless at using a needle, but I tried, oh I tried for that Little Girl. Needleboy, the teasing voice of a girl who didn't know harm flooded my mind, oh if Aria and I had met outside of this place, I'm sure our friendship could have been so much greater. Little Girl and Little Boy, trying their best to make friendship work in a place that didn't want it.

"I-I think I got it." I laughed as I snapped the last bit of thread off and the needle came loose - it was a sloppy job, that was for sure but it'd gotten the job done. With five feet of bandages from my bag, I wrapped it around her chest as tight as I could, almost restricting, but just enough to keep her from losing too much blood. "Not a bad job, if I do say so myself."