{manu propria} 62nd Finale

{ w e d n e s d a e d r u m m o n d }

"maybe I am mad, obsessive and sadistic… but I am oh-so perfect..."

the sound of iron shots is stuck in my head
the thunder of the drums dictates
the rhythm of the falls
the number of deaths
the rising of the horns ahead

This is it, boys, this is war
What are we waiting for?
Why don't we break the rules already?
Some nights, I wish that this all would end
Some nights, I always win

{ w e d n e s d a e d r u m m o n d }

"maybe I am mad, obsessive and sadistic… but I am oh-so perfect..."

the sound of iron shots is stuck in my head
the thunder of the drums dictates
the rhythm of the falls
the number of deaths
the rising of the horns ahead

"the world where you will go

hand in hand with the flower maiden has neither perfect happiness, nor joy, nor life. this is because it also does not contain perfect sadness, nor misery, nor death. what lies in waiting is a paradise for wolves alone, the unclean humans are no more. come with

me; it is time."

They call for me, whisper across the sky. 

Sleep now, little girl, your time is up now. Sleep, under your stars, under the one that shines so bright and rains tears down on you because he doesn't want to fulfil his promise. But you know what that feels like, don't you Little Girl? It doesn't matter though, does it? None of it matters. How you wish you could cling onto the stars above you, stretch your fingers around their points and cling, cling onto them and scream "Not yet, my brother, it's not time to say goodbye." But you must, little girl. It's time to say goodnight.

But I don't want to die. Little girl, little girl, oh you must child. We all die eventually, do we not? Even us, singing from above, we all had to die to get here. Even victors must die some day. But child, let us take you up and you can howl like the wind in wintertime. I don't want to howl, I want to sing. Sing then, child. Join us, join Heather Elliot and sing, sing, sing to your hearts content. Come with us, take our hands and see your father again. My father? Your father, he is waiting with us. You have fought well, Little Girl, and you have been ever so brave. Move on, child. Pass through, move forward. What do you say?

I say not yet. Not yet, not yet, there is something I must do. We will wait, Little Girl, but not for long. If there is something you must say, say it, child - but quickly. Hurry, hurry child, your time is slipping away. The whispers of Death treat time very carefully, Little Girl. Do not waste what you have left. Fifteen years, fifteen years was all you were allowed. Fifteen years and however many months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds. Time cannot be rewritten in death, only in life and destiny and fate and future. And I'm terribly sorry to say that this was the fate written for you, child. It's ok. It's ok. I have to tell him it's ok. Go, child. Run like the wind, but remember - time waits for no-one. 

Two minutes is all I have.

"Aria!" 

I don't feel it. What causes my demise, that is. My body burns, so incandescently painful, that I feel nothing except the ground hit the back of my head in defeat. You won, you won, you won. I lost, I lost, I lost. But it's ok, it's ok to loose if someone you love wins. Because that's what family does, isn't it? They die for each other. For the others to be better-off. I didn't belong here, I never did. I was fake, I was not real. I've torn one brother down for another, and only now I know that that was a mistake. Does this make it better? God knows. Perhaps I'll be told when I slip off into sleep, whispered to me in dreams I conjure up not from the darkness here, but from the light inside of me that won't ever stop burning. 

"Aria!" 

There's something I must say. Something I was supposed to say. My time ticks down, down, down. Remember when I wanted to go home? How I wished for my Coldhouse filled with the warmth of my family, a place where I was loved by more than just fanatical viewers of these Games who will forget me in a year. I wished for arms to fall into, arms of my own to wrap around the ones I love so dearly, and arms of forgiveness by the inhabitants within the stone walls. Please forgive me, my family, my friends, even though I do not deserve any of it. Remember when I knew that I no longer had a home outside of this arena, the night I took off into the night because I could not stand the idea of watching my brother die. I made a new one amongst strangers and a boy who couldn't tell the pointy end of a needle if it stabbed him in the finger. And when they fell, one by one, I was left with no place to call home, no house I could take shelter in. Only Peri was left, only Peri - who I thought had left me like I had left Bran - but no, he was so much more than I was. He came back, he came back when I asked and we took on the world. Peri was my home. Peri is my home. All I regret is how long it took me to realise that I am home.

"ARIA!" 

I think they're calling for me again, calling to tell me my time is up - but it is not a new life that is calling me, but my home. Home is wherever I'm with you. I wish this could have been written out differently, I wish upon my shining star that we could have been friends for longer. Peri cries over me like I cried over Bran, sobbing uncontrollably as I held my brother in his dying moments. Oh Bran, this is awful, I am so sorry I did this to you. I am in a state of perfect balance - half in excruciating pain, half in peaceful harmony. I slip across that line, leaning to and fro occasionally with the looming knowledge that I must submerge away from everything sooner or later. Two minutes, Little Girl. Two minutes that tick down faster than my pulse, faster than my ragged heaves of oxygen. Two minutes. 

"H-hey Needleboy" I tease, longing to go back to the Training Centre all those hours ago. I wouldn't change a thing, Peri. I'd keep it all the same. "You kept your pr-promise!" You're going home, I want to say. You're going home, my brother - but time is short and words are sparse. Two minutes. 

"Please don't go. I didn't mean -" 

"It's ok" I croak out, forcing a smile under the agony to illustrate my point. It's ok Peri, it's ok. Damion Winters told me that it wasn't, it wasn't ok - but Peri, he was wrong. It's ok, my brother. I will greet the God of Death, if there is one, as an old friend. I've kept him waiting a long time, Peridot Myler. You kept me waiting, too. I was waiting for this, Peri. We all knew I could not go home, for I had no home to return to. I hadn't even left yet. I will die with you, with my home all around me, and another somewhere, lost in my past, who I hope will welcome you into their lives as their own brother as I did for you. We're Fitz and Klaus, Peri. The way it should have been. If somebody re-wrote time for them, a little girl, brothers and sisters, who have lost so much and so many - we would not be Mahlah, Fitz and Klaus, but Peri and Aria. Aria and Peri. It's ok.

"I didn't mean my promise, stay Aria. Please." 

And that, that hits me hard. Because every time I asked, he helped. Every time he asked, I was there. Pain does not burn in me - it is light. I am exploding, shining brighter and brighter until I become a star in the night sky, shining down as a diamond in twilight. I'll be right next to the moon, Peri. I'll be there, watching over everyone. And its ok, Peri. It's ok. It's my own funeral, it's ok. As I burn, the world becomes brighter, fuzzier, and Peridot Myler begins to turn into a yellow haze. All I can say is "It's ok, Peri. It's ok. We beat them, Peri. You beat them all. It's ok..." in weak whispers, feeling their voices tug at me. Time is up, Little Girl.

"You're more than a diamond, Peri" I sigh, closing my eyes for the last time as I drift off to sleep. "You're a star."

I do not fear death. The world ceases to exist around me, and I fall gracefully into forever.

They pull me up into the sky with them, and I become a whisper.

I am floating, in the sky and on the wind and through trees and winter snow, everywhere and anywhere at once. Little girl, little girl, you did so well. Little girl, little girl, look down on them all. Little boy, little boy, how small you are against the Earth. Like a pinprick, not even that. Yet you're still tall to me, Peridot Myler. You're still the world, the sky, a skyscraper that towered over me when I was too small, too cowardly to act. You're the moon and I'm a star, Peri. So insignificant compared to you, so far away that nobody could see me. Go back home, Peri. There's so much world to see. I can see it all from up here, it's waiting for you, Peri. It's waiting to be found.

I can see them all. I watch - though I feel no body against me as I slip upwards, away from Peri and Wednesdae. May we meet again, my brother - I am sorry that your courage got the better of you. My mother howls for me, for Bran, for her lost children who were stolen away far before her time. Mother, mother, I'm sorry we could not come home to you, but my time was up. It tick, tick, ticks away at all of us. Father didn't get more time like I did, Mother. I was lucky. They scooped us away, one by one, as our hourglasses ran dry. Let it be known to you that my death was peaceful, easy. I was ready, in the end. I will always be your little firebrand. Always.

Jon, Jon, my Jon. You're all alone now Jon, I know I was supposed to be your anchor. Nobody thought it would turn out like this, not even me. Live, Jon. Love. Never forget that I love you, I have always loved you, and always will. Find a girl who makes you happy, who listens, who understands (or at least tries to.) You must try to fight through it, Jon. I know that it will hurt, and I know that it will feel as if the whole world is against you, as if nobody in the world could ever know how it feels. But there are people out there that care, Jon. There are people who understand. I will always watch over you. You'll never be alone, I promise.

Sarita, my sister, you will always be the envy of me. Know that I fought hard for you, sister. Perhaps you'll sing of me, of Bran, of how the 62nd Games rocked through our family. I'll sing your song back to you, like a Mockingjay sings in the trees and flowerbeds. Sing to Ricky as he drifts off to sleep, sing of a magic Wall where boys and girls go to live in a warmer place, a happier place, until he is old enough to understand that we're never coming back. Sing of two children stolen away to a death they were not ready for. I didn't belong here, not really. I wasn't noble, or brave, or anything worth a crown on my head. But I fought hard, Sarita, for you. May you never face what we did, my sister.

Rajas, you stand so cold, so quiet now - just as you did with Bran in the waiting room, preparing ourselves for the oncoming hellfire. Everyone knows how Bran adored you, how you were his rock, his brother. I wish that I could have been more like you, brother. Loyal, noble, devoted, honourable. You are everything that I wish I was to Bran, and now that I've aged what seems to be a lifetime in a few short days, do I only see what I should have become. Stay strong for them, my brother. You are all that they have left now.

I whisper, through rain and ice and snow. I whisper through cracks in ceilings, through locks in doors, through creaking floorboards and the draft sneaking in through windows. My last goodbye to the Coldhouse, to my family in it's walls. And with a final sigh, I am lifted once more from existence into an oblivion by familiar syllables. Aria, Aria, Aria.

It's time to leave, Little Girl. Father is waiting.

(I arrive.)

There is sand below your bare feet, tickling their souls. Sand, everywhere - have you fallen into your very own hourglass, Little Girl? Or is it just a dream, constructed from your final thoughts, the center of your very own star, where time is endless and unmoving all at the same time. We've been waiting for you, Aria they whisper to you. Waiting, waiting, 15 years and 5 months and 3 weeks and 2 days and 16 hours and 2 minutes. Then your hourglass stopped, Little Girl, and we knew it was time for you to go - and you did too, didn't you?

But not only have we been waiting, Little Girl, but somebody else, too. Look, Little Girl, with your grey eyes full of light once more - look across the sandy shores you once dreamed of. Am I dreaming now? No-one knows. But don't worry, you'll soon be as still as the waters ahead of you - yes, child, look! Water whispers against the shore line, crashes softly against the banks in rolls of white foam. My very own hourglass filled to the brink with the ocean. Run, child, run across the banks of beige, feel the wind whisper through your hair, run towards the figure standing on the rocks. He calls your name as we do.

"Aria, Aria, Aria!" he calls, arms outstretched for you and only you. How he has waited for you, Little Girl, how he has watched over you, watched your time tick away here for all this time. Death is bittersweet. Leaving a family to join a lost one is a large price to pay, but so worth it. So you run, as fast as your legs can carry you, until the spaces between you both stretch closer and closer until you're merely an arms-length away, a breadth as thin as paper. Crashing into him, you feel his arms wrap around you and lift you up, up, up like he used to - and you really do feel like a Little Girl after all.

"I missed you, I missed you so much" you breathe into your father, and if you had any tears left in you they would certainly fall into the ocean around you. Perhaps the ocean really is made of tears you lost through this turmoil, but for now, they bring only joy. He smiles at you, the same old crinkled-eye smile you thought you'd never see again. Little Girl, it was worth it all along. Worth killing for, worth sending your own brother to Death's doors? "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had to-"

"I understand," he simply says, silencing your words. We are whispers in the clouds, there is barely any room for words, for explanations or apologies. You've been through enough of those already, Little Girl. The need for those has run out with your time. There is only acceptance here, only forgiveness, can you forgive yourself, Little Girl? Can you wrench guilt from your chest and replace it with admission? I forgive you, you think, as if you have stepped out of your skin to say it aloud. It's hard to believe, and at first you don't - but can you not tell how desperately you need forgiveness from yourself, Aria? I forgive you. I forgive me.

"Where's-" you begin, but as always, Father is one step ahead. "This way. We've been waiting for you, both of us." You'll be together again, Aria - a family once more. You can build a home, a new home, from the stars in the sky and trace yourselves together, watching down on the world. On Peri, on Mother, on Sarita and Ricky and Jon and Rajas. "Come, Aria." An outstretched hand holds still in front of you, a gateway to your new home - but your heart sinks lower than it ever has when you realise you can't grasp hold of it.

"I can't," you say sorrowfully, mangled arms transfixed to your side. "I'm sorry, didn't you see?"

He chuckles again. "No, Aria - didn't you see?"

You raise your arms up to meet your face - and there they are, shining against the sunlight. As if they had never left. Counting, stretching, clenching and unclenching against the endless blue sky above you. One, two, three, four, five fingers on each hand. Now you can reach out and touch the stars with your hands, you can trace and connect and build a home for you and your family. You can reach down and touch their faces every once in a while, you can climb to the highest constellation and swim through the darkest night. I am free.

"So, after all this time, what do we say to the God of Death?"

I smile.

"Welcome home."

So I take my Father's hand, and we walk into forever.

thank you to kay, danny, sin, spesh, aya, cam, kale, luna, emmie, nofo and everyone else for answering my endless questions about games and rules in the cbox, much appreciated and i apologise for getting a little lot annoying.

thank you to sam and south for posting for me when i was sleeping/at school/whatever, and for the games advice and letting me rant my feelings when needed <3

thank you to my amazing allies: rosetta, charade, matta, south, sam and rook - you guys rock and i have loved threading with each and every one of you! also a big ty to all the writers these games - mutts and tribs alike!

another huuuuge thanks to sam for guiding me in the right direction because i honestly had no idea what i was doing these games and he helped me out so, so much. i would have been dead day 1 if it weren't for him and am forever in debt! love you gee <3

big thanks to that group of people who helped me out in my dumbass situation i put myself in on day 1 (i think?), without you guys aria'd be long gone. muchos gracias!

thanks to charade, for even letting me have aria in the first place <3 and all the other wolfe!writers, you guys rock and i have loved being part of this family.

thanks to south, onyx and anyone else who made graphics for aria these games, or wore support banners at any time

thanks a bunch to cam and kay for an awesome running of an awesome games, and to the rest of the staff for being wonderful in general <3

thank you sam and rook for being patient with me this finale, much appreciated you two c:

and a huge, huge, huge thank you to anyone and everyone who sponsored, rooted for or generally cheered on aria these games. the support has been overwhelming and i can't believe how far i've gotten (honestly thought i'd be dead by day 3!) and for getting aria as far as she got. third place is incredible and i'm really happy with the placings in the finale, i would have loved any argo to win. i love you all so much and am forever grateful that i got this opportunity and got this far, thank you so much <3

thank you everyone ♥