{ bird in a cage } | emberly vs. walherich, day 7
Aug 20, 2017 10:13:33 GMT -5
Post by я𝑜𝓈𝑒 on Aug 20, 2017 10:13:33 GMT -5
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der innerer reichtum der leute ist
wie licht bunt, durch farbglas hereinzuscheinen
the inner wealth of the people is
colourful as light, to shine inside through coloured glass
She wakes to a watercolor sky and she knows what must be done. Ree begins to stir shortly after her but she wishes that he would have stayed asleep so he wouldn't have to leave so soon, because she knows with a sinking feeling that the moment he walks away, Emberly may never see him again and she would be imprisoned in solitude. (She doesn't want to be truly alone, she won't, she can't, she's too weak —)
The night before, their last night together as allies, Ree trembled as he tried to slip into sleep. She had cradled his head like how her mother would cradle hers after she woke up from a nightmare and said, "Close your eyes, Ree. I'll keep watch for a while." As he drifted off into a peaceful slumber, she wondered when those eyes would finally close forever. Emberly could only hope that it would not be her to deal the final blow.
She had promised herself that she would do what was necessary — she had killed Lace and Wendell, she could do it again. (Could she?)
As her gaze swept across the jungle, its fringes illuminated by the golden firelight, her eye caught a glint of a knife hanging out of her bag. She could end it right here, right now, she thought. It could be painless, just like he fell asleep and never woke up. One slash of a blade on his artery and it would be one more tally on her photograph —
No, she told herself. Emberly couldn't bring herself to end him like that, to drench herself in another one of her friends' blood. McCarthy, Clementina, Raquel — she had enough. She wouldn't, couldn't do it again. Not then.
"You're not my adversary until you have to be," she had said; that night, she was still responsible for Ree. She couldn't just kill him like it meant nothing because in that moment, Ree was all she had left. Until the day he raised his blade against her, Ree was still her ally.
("Until the end.")
And when the sun spilled gold and amber into the sky, it marked the end. Despite the fissure slowly breaking a rift into her heart, she gathers her things in silence as Ree slowly awakens.
Emberly turns to him. He is darkened by the shadows of the forest fringe, but she is drenched golden by the sunlight that pours into the clearing, reflecting off of the crystal spring water and tinging her hair sunset orange. Her eyes look even brighter as she squints against the harsh glare of the sun, that fiery copper with amber flecks — they are her father's eyes, Saffron's eyes.
"We have to leave each other now," she says, more to herself because she can see in Ree's eyes that he already knows that. Emberly sighs and pulls her family photograph with the tallies on the back. Sixteen tallies — three of which are her friends, and another two that she killed. She hopes to herself with a wrenching feeling in her heart that Ree will never become one of her tallies. Emberly has already marked too many of her friends down.
But if she is to live —
Her sisters' faces flicker before her eyes in a stream of memory, like a roll of film. Kiara's is smiling, dimples dotting her cherubic face; Clementa's is scowling in that sarcastic way like she always does, Myara's is dead, and still, and lifeless. She does not want to become that, nothing but pieces in someone else's mind, nothing but ashes scattered in the wind or a shell buried in the ground.
Sixteen tallies — she has come so far. Emberly isn't sure how much strength she has left, if she is too beaten down to go on. But she had promised, never stop fighting, and she has come so far, killed to much, to give up on herself. And if she can't do it for herself, then she has to do it for her family. Kiara can't grow up without another sister, Ment can't lose her other half, Paige can't have her heart broken or it may never be fixed, Saffron can't blame herself more than she already does.
"We promised until the end, but I just wish that the end was something else," she continues. Happy endings don't exist the way they do in her mother's fairy tales. Sometimes endings are just a sunrise and a begrudging goodbye. "But I suppose we decided a long time ago that this couldn't last — doesn't make it any easier, though." Things had been much simpler then, on the deck of the yacht, staring up into the stars and the campfire smoke, before Emberly had killed and before Clem and Raquel had died. But her statement from that first night still holds true: nothing is meant to last in the Arena.
"Thank you," he says. Tears begin to gather in those copper eyes of hers as she feels the bond of their friendship strain and fray, as if there is a fragile thread between the two of them connected by their hearts. She begins to walk away, pocket whales nestled into her bag and koalas on her shoulders, but then Ree grabs her hand and she turns back to face him one last time as allies.
She struggles for words at first but somehow finds them in the pit of her heart. "I suppose if we ever see each other again, it'll be on the battlefield. Good luck, Ree." Emberly can hear the cracks in her voice, but she has never been ashamed to let her guard down in front of Ree. He is still her friend — even after the day their hearts stop.
"Or in the sky," he responds. By tomorrow, one, or both of them, may be dead. She doesn't know how she is supposed to live with that, but perhaps she won't have to. Perhaps she won't live to see him in the sky at all.
Before he turns away, Ree places his pack of cards in the palm of her hand. And just like that, without another word, they walk away from each other. Although they are leaving each other behind, Emberly will never let go of their friendship or their memories together — of Clementina and Raquel, laughing on the deck of the yacht before everything came crashing down.
The thread between them finally splits in two, and Emberly feels the heat of tears dribble down her cheeks and tastes salt in her mouth as if her tears are ocean drops.
Once Ree has disappeared into the jungle, for the first time, Emberly is completely alone. In that moment, she finally realizes what she truly is in this place — a bird in a cage. She feels more trapped than she ever has, and not just because she is locked inside of the Arena. Her sorrow becomes bars around her and she has never felt more like a prisoner. She is not just a prisoner to the Capitol, but a prisoner to herself and the people she killed and the pain that rips and tears at her heart with canine teeth.
A bird in a cage — Emberly wonders if that is the life she will live if she makes it out of here.
She takes shelter in the trees like she did on the first day when her collarbone was cracked. Emberly is more battered now, with bloody bandages all across her gashed and bruised flesh. Her tailbone still ached from Lux Pelotte's blunt, and as she climbed through the trees, sometimes she stopped to quietly wince in pain. She is used to it now — she has felt true suffering during her seven days in the Arena. A broken tailbone seemed so small now, and it was certainly the least of her problems.
That didn't stop the pain, of course, ripping through her nerves. No one could truly ignore something that demands to be felt.
For an hour, the springs are completely silent. She holds the three of her remaining koalas to her and scratches behind their ears, wondering if this will be her last day with them. Finally, when the silence is broken by a crunching of leaves and twigs, Emberly and the koalas go completely rigid. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest as she slowly peers down onto the ground, where a boy walks beneath her. Mocha skin and dark hair, smooth features — Walherich, the boy from Eleven. She bristles as she remembers crossing swords with him before, and the scars he had left on her skin.
She turns to her koalas, who have gathered at the trunk of the tree. Emberly points a finger at them, a silent command to stay. She leaves her bag in the tree but grips The Queen in her hand as she crouches on the branch, readying herself to leap down and strike.
As she falls to the ground, Emberly tries to slash Walherich on the way down. She has watched the Games enough times to know that having the first attack is worth something.[Emberly attacks Walherich; The Queen (sword)]
4IULLkNqsword
[1008 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]
She feels it again — that white hot fire in her blood, the acidic bite of fear at her core. Terror and adrenaline feverishly dance together in Emberly's body as she braces herself for battle. Kiara, Clementa, Saffron, Paige, Mom, Dad — their names are between every beat of her heart.
"And so we meet again," Emberly says upon landing. "I hope you remember what I said about last words."
("Words are important, you know. You never know which ones will be your last.") Emberly speaks to Walherich for that very reason. She could kill him silently, without ever knowing who he truly is and he would become just a blank slate with an empty face in the sky. And if she is to die by his hand instead, she would want her family to remember that she died fighting. She would want them to remember that no matter how much she bled, pain would never silence her.
(It's what McCarthy would want, too.)
"I went out of my way to get to know the all of the tributes, but I think I know you the least." A week ago, she and Walherich were gathering flowers together by the waterfall. But today, they meet once again as adversaries. Times of peace have ended for good now — even the peace between she and Ree, if she ever sees him again.
"So tell me," she requests, "what do you have at home to fight for?" She has already killed someone whose story she does not know — Lace, Lace Eon. "Tell . . . tell West —" but Emberly may never know who West is. She doesn't want to repeat that, to take a life without knowing exactly what the world is missing.
If she must kill Walherich, she wants to know who she is taking away.das angenehme tägliche leben ist
wie ein warmes kerzenlicht
the comfortable daily life
is like warm candle light
