source of redemption | excalibros vs light brigade | day 2

She tried to wince the pain away, diverted the aching to her teeth as she bit the fabric that draped around her shoulders as a sweater. The boy had a gentle caress, he mended her wounds with a caring, nurturing touch, whispering at times - 'Please, don't move.' In return, she sobbed with words that had tried to form, though only mumbling and heavy heaves were her response. Reese hadn't gotten frustrated with her as he attempted to stitch her back together in all her shattered places of glory. 'Thank yo-', 'Sh', he softly hushed her through fixed concentration, finishing the final stitch and wrapping the remaining bandage before grabbing her hand, then pulling her up to her feet.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled the feather from where it laid. Mangled, squished, and beyond recognizable, she twirled it by the quill. Staring at it for a few moments, she could vision the uproar brought to the Capitol by her own cousin. If Saffron hadn't wanted to kill her herself, for practically beckoning death to grab her by the hand and play a risky game, then she damn well knew she wanted to kill every person who laid a finger on Myara. 'If any one of the lays a finger on you, then they're dead either way.', Saffron assured her. Myara could still feel the warmth of the victors hands placed on the sides of her cold temple. 'You're freezing to the touch', 'It's just really cold in here', 'Hun, but the temp is 80 -', and she was lost in the conversation. Unwilling of putting two and two together, forming faces and voices with unspoken words. Myara couldn't tell it was a conversation in her dreams between a personified death and herself. Day One had only passed, and it seems for a week now she had been on the brink of death everyday.

Child of the sun. Her once ginger hair sun bleached to a pale blonde, and she hadn't thought of herself as holy anymore. She felt the warmth of Saffron's guardian light from where she rested above her. A pale sky covered in fog and clouds, though there was a break in the force field which allowed light to shine and pass through, beating onto her endangered body. 'It's God's light right there, and it's shining upon you.' She turned her head, eyes blinded by the ray, and she no longer considered herself as deserving. She stopped twirling the feather, she placed the remains of it within her dirty hair, and she felt Saffron's touch. It was the day of the Reaping, Saffron fishtail braided her hair, placing the petals and flowers within it messily, finishing it off with the feather kept inside a treasure box. The working fingers of a girl who spent her life stitching her tapestry, and all Myara wished to do was let Saffron fix hers - there remained a stitch or two out of line.

The ghost of a living girl whispered into her hair, she sat composed and comforted, letting the voice be her release. "We're made of something better than all of them.", she felt the breath on her ear, she closed her eyes and expected what was to come next. "We're made of light, you and I.", Myara bit her tongue, closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

Awoken by the feeling of a hand grip against hers, she looked groggily to the only boy in their alliance wishing upon the stars and gazing at the anthem. Reese threaded his fingers between hers, laying his warm body next to hers, the combining of warm and cold became soothing. Removing his attention from the sky, realizing that he'd awaken her, she pressed her head into his lap, gripping his hand tighter and pulling the back of his to her lips, before closing her eyes once more and thanking him. She knew Saffron had sent the three of them down to stick with her, and she didn't know why they'd stayed with all the trouble brought by her last name within these walls, but she was grateful.

Awoken by the feeling of a boy with anxiety rushing her to wake up. She knew it wasn't a drill, and although groggy, she grabbed her weapon as a first response. Although sleeping in her armor, it only saved her by a fraction of the damage. Immediately, she felt the blade slice cleanly through her knee, and ultimately she stumbled back to the ground with a scream. A hesitation to look down and see the condition, she begged quietly to Saffron and Mace to fix everything - to wake her up from this night terror and tell her she'll be fine. Although, she knew it wouldn't happen, and in here she has to fight for herself.

It was her metaphor coming true - 'they' trapped the bird in a cage, and the only thing 'Saffron' and 'Mace' could do was watch her struggle. She wished she hadn't left the session too early, then maybe she would've seen if the lone bird had found a way to escape.

I awake in spasms.

Earlier, when the girl from One found me on the ground painted red and white and gold, I thought she was an angel. As she went to touch me I flinched - broken girl afraid of what being put together might feel like.

"D-d-don't touch m-me."

Eyes to the sky and back down again, skillful hands stitching up my skin, I laid there until my limbs became still and I found the strength to speak.

"What's your name?" Needle piercing my flesh - I should have winced. I should have felt that. Instead I felt nothing.

I hate myself for it.

"Pillar" was all she replied.

Poppy, Paisley, Pillar.

I decided she could stay.

Blooming from my mix of dreams and memories and a dead girl ringing in my ears, the world blurs and tumbles and I remember. Hell. Green and blue and red underneath my fingertips, stuck to my sides, the colour of her hair as I struck her down.

Oh.

I wait for it to hurt.

I should feel dead, like I should have more regrets than a frail boy from Seven against my lips. Perhaps I need to steal his feelings from his mouth, to turn around and run back to him to feel something more than empty. Taste death as it dances through his body. Gamble, my life a bargaining chip, because surely death has to win sooner or later. Fingers twitch, aftershocks the new norm. I stumble through the afternoon and think of Reese, the girl I killed, and nothing but self-loathing.

No canon-fire yet, save for the explosions underneath my chest at every snap, fluster, footstep. Mess of a girl following after the warrior, falling in to place by nightfall. Head ringing, hands shaking, I hide them at my sides and grit my teeth - weakness exposes you. Weakness gets you killed.

Fighter and a survivor. I don't know which one I am anymore.

As if he had fallen out of my thoughts and into reality, Reese. I cannot bear to look at him - weakness, regret, all the same, one in the other. I find myself thinking that the same boy who held me so lightly on the roof will be the one to kill me, weakness growing into strength, to steel, to victory. I don't think I'd mind that much, if he killed me. At least I'd die dancing in his arms.

"It's good to see you."

Yes, I think softly. Alive.

And death comes knocking at the sound of my thoughts.

Boy from Eight brings a violence in the form of Career Boy and company, a marching band of destruction in our wake. Reese cries out and the Lowe girl falls and I don't have time to think because he is here, a dark reckoning, and I have no light inside of me to cast away his presence.

"Samira," he snarls, and I don't have time to spit out corrections before I am blinded, silenced, deafened by white-hot pain. The light comes - and it is not my friend.

"Does the world want you dead yet?"

I scream - there's a hole in my head.

I see red. In his eyes. On my fingertips.

Scarlet fists, I grit my teeth and snarl back.

"Let's see."

She had watched from a distance as the girls from Ten and Five were targeted by a swarm of clawing hands and gnashing teeth -- she chose to divert from her path and ran for shelter by ducking behind the cabin that stood silent on the bridge, taking the time to pry wood for fire from its surface while the attention of the other tributes was elsewhere. She routinely peeked out from her hiding spot to check on the commotion, looking on as a war was being waged over the bodies of two dead girls. The boy from Seven was screaming in the background, pleading for mercy over two souls that weren't his to bargain for.

Pillar's satchel was nearly full of all space when the tributes who launched the attack finally left -- leaving behind a shaking Reese who was mending the body of a beaten and bloody Myara, while Samira was left lying on her own, motionless. The girl clutched the strip of her bag tighter, looking around and considering fleeing on her own, but then she felt the weight of the first aid kit in her bag -- it was like she was a child hefting a mountain on her shoulders. She couldn't justify leaving them to ache and die on their own, so she swallowed her selfish instincts and went to meet up with the ragtag group of tributes, walking quietly and making sure the coast was clear as she did. 

"Take her away," she said to Reese as she passed him and knelt down beside Sam's form. She didn't take the time to look over her shoulder to monitor his expression, instead just speaking again with a firmer voice. "Take Myara and get somewhere safe -- I'll help Sam. Go." And then she got to work, flipping the girl over and starting to work on what she could, resisting the struggles of the young woman that squirmed beneath her.

Birds always flap their broken wings frantically when someone tries to save them, some even snapping their own necks in an attempt to be free -- so Pillar didn't fault Sam for wanting freedom. "Calm down," she said in the gentlest tone that she could muster, dismissing the girl's order to stop touching her. "Just let me do this for you." Then they sat in broken silence, a little girl and her bird -- needle rising and falling, with a series of raspy inhales forming a symphony that rang in Pillar's ears.

"What's your name?"

"Pillar."

Sam's breathing finally relaxed in that moment -- and all was quiet and calm as night began to kiss the sky, who blushed with the light of stars.

---

She found her way to Reese and Myara when the sun started to rise, a waterfall of orange pouring down through the rift's cracks when she rounded the corner and saw them resting. Sam's arm around her shoulders, she wasted no time in sitting her down before turning to address Reese, accepting his hug. "Don't be," she reassured him, dismissing his worry. "I got Sam all patched up -- she's going to be fine. Looks like Myara will be, too."

She looked over the area, feeling a warmth that came from the three bodies around her, not from the cold walls that surrounded them at every turn. Reese's gaze asked an unspoken question, wondering if the flighty girl would stay with them -- and against all odds, she chose to. She slid down on the rocky surface across from Sam, resting her forehead against her knees as she tried to relax.

And it was peaceful;

one,
two,
three,
four,
five,
six,
seven,
eight,
nine, 

ten minutes of feeling safe and sheltered were shared between the makeshift army.

And then they came -- those who had ambushed them just the night before. Seconds of startled glances were shared, the sound of scuffling feet as those resting rose up to greet their intruders.  She could hear every inhale as the first launch of attacks hit them; a blur of a sliced leg and a falling ear and Reese's screaming. 

She readied her sword, feeling the metal against her hands and singling out a target as freshly sitched wounds were split open by those who wanted to finish what they had started

--  she could smell the heavy scent of salt and rust with every breath, and she wanted it to the end.

The girl wanted to fly alongside the dying birds.

---

[ pillar attacks desi with her sword ]
6uEG1lztsword
[ 1159 -- Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5 ]

VOID

VOID

VOID

[reese attacks asha, throwing knife]
Vvt|52Ezthrowing knife
***

Myara was falling apart.

And he could not breathe.

"Don't go into shock. Don't go into shock."

He said the words out loud so that maybe he would hear them better, since his mind was a sea of terror and fight or flight and what if I am about to die and please, please don't make my next breath the last one i'll take. He was sure Myara thought they were for her.

The knife was sticking out of the career from One's back, blood now shimmering black in his clothes. He was not sorry. He should have been sorry. He should have hated himself for hurting someone. If Asha survived this arena, he would have lived with that scar for the rest of his life.

But, to be fair, Reese had already had to live his with too many to count. And twice now, these people had thirsted for the blood of his allies-- Myara and Samira. Myara and Samira. He cared about both of them. He cared about Pillar. He cared about too many people that probably did not care about him in return, but that was an old story he had been reading about himself in the infirmary since he could spell the word loneliness.

"Stay strong." He said, his heartbeat in his throat.

"Keep-- Keep fighting, Myara. Keep..." His heart was raging within him, a storm of fire and ice and storm wind and sand. Agony, for his wretched behavior, for this awful place, and for these slowly evil-turning people. Agony for all of it. But more importantly, shame.

"Keep--" he tried again. His throat kept closing as he backed the two of them up. He couldn't risk Myara being hit again-- she was already walking on the knife's edge: tiptoeing and ballerina dancing on a tightrope and trying not to fall into death's clutches only seconds below her. He had to do what he could for her, because it would make up for what he was doing to the others, right?

He took in a deep breath and steeled his nerves.

"Keep--" he started "Going."

And then the fire in his chest exploded through his fingertips, and for a brief moment, Reese became remorseless and hoped for the kill.

[reese attacks asha, throwing knife (for real this time)]
VBjqhCAkthrowing knife
[miss]

accuracy, day two
throwing knife
[result]