let me bleed until the blackened afternoon [Day 5; J vs R]

Death sits upon the top of his lopsided crown, skeleton hand waving at them all.

Someone was going to die.

Death just knocking on their door.

Wings ready to burn up into ash.

Violence was in their blood. Riordan didn't know why he was fighting. It was for himself and others, but at the same time. He never liked violence as a kid. No confrontations with anyone meant he couldn't get hurt. Heart couldn't shatter to millions of pieces if he never went and did some of the things he had done. As a kid, bloody noses sent him into a panic. Bullies used to beat him up and terrify the hell out of him, but now. He's become the person he used to fear. Revenge was a dish best served cold, but not with a cold dead body. Death was so close and yet so far. Elettra was fighting just as much as Riordan. The numbers were dropping, lower and lower. One day soon, they may have to fight. They may have to fight for their lives.

A fight for the crown upon his head that would crown the winner the king or queen of the arena. Who ever survives will be the one to push themselves all the way. Riordan Einfallen was a king of fools, who was brandishing a baseball bat with barbed wire. Violence wasn't something that he thought he would stoop low to, but in the arena, it was either fight or die. Riordan wasn't dying, not today. Someone else would have to. Someone else would have to fall from their pedestal and hit the ground, shattering like the vases his mother used to buy and that he would break.

Years locked away never changed him. A shattered soul who was locked up in his room for protection. The bullying got so bad that he wasn't able to do anything more than just cry in his room some nights. Parents locked him up after the first tears that came off of his eyes. Never letting him out of his room. They'd feed him like a caged animal, never able to come down. He'd scream for them to not do this, but it had been for his own good like his mother said. It was to protect him, but in the end it broke him. Running away to find a place where he could be someone else. Someone who wasn't so weak. Someone who wasn't so broken. He had found that place, but he also found more shattered glass and burned wings.

There's no escape from the pain that was death.

Sand that almost moves like water gets in his boots. Spurs moving along on the ground creating lines that turn into waves. A fake ocean lies underneath them and they fight like they deserved to sink with the fish, or well birds in this case. At least from what he can see. They all fight for a reason of their own. They volunteered for this. They volunteered to fight the strong or the weak. There's no getting past it. They chose to kill others for the fame and the glory. Riordan had volunteered to die, but learned that death isn't what he wanted. Jequirity would want him to fight for himself. That's what he was going to do.

Though, there's a twist that he hadn't expected.

Elettra, Elvania, and Iris had followed him.

Failure stuck to his skin, just like he could barely feel Iris' small hand in his own. Elvania's words stuck in his mind. Elettra was the only Eckhart still left and he hoped it would stay like that. He hoped that Elettra would stay around for as long as she could. Riordan Einfallen only wanted one thing in life and that was to be proud of himself, but he's breaking. The true look of a sinister man that lies within himself. All he was doing was finally letting that person out. ALl of the frustration of years of bullying, breaking, and injuries led him to this moment.

The last Eckhart speaks to Sage breaking his own thoughts.

"I have stories and histories to tell. Sisters' to remember, Twelve. You know nothing of loss of family, do you? I'm not ready to say goodbye to my memories just yet, kid. Riordan is more likely to feed you to the mutts than let you take me out."

It was both true and not true.

Sage didn't know what it was like to lose a piece of you to something so awful. Riordan wouldn't feed Sage to the mutts though. Not now, not ever if he could avoid it. Death already looms over Sage like a cloud above his head. Bones creak and ache with the exhaustion of the fight. He doesn't speak out loud, but eyes catch Elettra's as he begs her that he's sorry in every way. He didn't deserve her caring eye. He didn't deserve to be apart of Elettra Eckhart's life. He didn't deserve to be another familiar face among the living who have to fight to survive.

They all hit each other like the bullies from before used to do.

They are all falling into the pit of darkness. The darkness consuming what little good they have left. There's no returning back to the good. They had reached the point of no return. The line that he's read so many times out loud like it was second nature to him. All he could do was look at Eszter whose legs were both broken by Cassie and himself. There's nothing more than death begging her to go over the edge. A king of fools who was scared to give in to this side of himself. All he could do was speak out.

"I'm sorry Elettra. I have to do this."

He doesn't connect to her eyes anymore. Fearful of how she would look at him now. Castor's words hit his ear now. The mysterious girl telling him something that he can't imagine. There's a thin line between fantasy and reality. He coexists along that line, walking it like a wire above the descent to the bottom of the pit. All he can do is continue to walk it blindly. Her words connect to him so quickly that it's frightening. Castor Karmichael was frightening.

”I’m not chasing fantasies,”

"Then what are you chasing Castor?"

Something bubbles up in his chest. A fear of something more than just the weakened form of Riordan Einfallen. There's a king of fools in there. He has no palace that he deserves. There's nothing that he deserves, only what he can chase. There's nothing more, but skulls and memories of the dead that lie with him. All he can do is remember them and keep fighting for as long as he can. Eszter Summit was close to death. He could see it in her. Exhaustion was catching up with them all, but it was fight or die. There would be a body that falls to the sand on the ground. Blood seeping from them as the cannon roars to life.

All he can do is swing.

"You piss me off, Summit."