run till the land ends [AV vs. CoA]

The first time was half intent and half an accident, a prayer gone ugly in the shifting firelight.

The second time, Wander leans in.

It's still no sure thing; ve's not Annie with her poise and training, or Denali with her long-practiced aim. But Wander's always been a quick study when ve cares to pay attention (no, give me the knife—you cut here. no—better.), and the javelin sits solid and steady if never comfortable in vis hands, and Fiona stands shorter than Parson did.

That doesn't mean it's easier.

One rapid heartbeat after another: There's a bat, suspended, no longer flapping. There's Parson, last words gurgling. There's a girl who said not a word about herself in favor of protecting Carmen, a misplaced demand that she thought she needed to defend with life and death and did—a girl barely older than Wander, who wishes fleetingly that ve was a good enough person to want to die right now.

But Wander would, after all, die for three people, and none of them took the train here with ver.

Ve pulls the spear free.

"You just bought yourself a ticket to the bottom."

"Carmen," Wander says, strangled, "take me off the damn list already." Why do you still have a list in the Arena, ve means, but can't bring verself to ask. She keeps friends for the same reasons, more or less, that Wander and Bette and Temple and Eve take turns keeping watch and never slice each other's throats in their sleep, that Denali took photos instead of throwing knives, that Annie accepted a hug: you have to hold on to something, even here. Especially here.

Carmen's morning star drives into ver and oh, yeah, she knows how to use that thing, all right. The tattered armor folds in under the pressure and Wander feels more than hears, under the music blaring from Quest's machine, the snap. Gasping, ve pushes back—but doesn't retaliate, not yet. Planning on it. Planning on it, Fiona, at least for now, I promise. Carmen is already moving to Fiona's side, anyway—and Ripred, it's all so painfully arbitrary. Wander could have met Carmen first, could stand on the other side of this invisible line with a spear fresh with Temple's blood, could be the one on the ground she calls to, could have died the first day. Any of them could have died the first day. Or Wander could have held vis tongue the one time it actually fucking counted, and ve could wrap Cadenza in one arm and Nate in the other and hold Teresa's hand and say something to distract them from crying over the deaths of people they never knew.

Maybe that's not so different from hiding in the mines and waiting for a mutt or someone braver to pick everyone off, either, but right now ve doesn't have the luxury of deciding. Shy is hacking, fruitlessly, at Eve—also arbitrary, what the hell, the only one here who's killed someone is Wander and the only one with Career training is Shy himself, what did Eve do to anyone?—while Quest moves in. New music blasts out, still drowning out the waves that had panicked Wander and that ve suddenly misses as viscerally as the feeling of not having broken ribs.

It's funny, the things you take for granted, safe at home.

"My mom used to say," Quest calls over the noise, "sometimes when you do the clownery, the clown comes back to bite."

Wander blinks, distracted. "Your mom said what?"

She answers with a scream and her spear.

For half a second Wander's life flashes in front of vis eyes. Ve's alive when ve ducks away, but dripping from somewhere new and burning as Quest's spear clears the ragged gash Shy made in the vest.

Three on four isn't fair play, but nothing has been, not since the day all their names were called and maybe not for a long time before that, not for eighty years now.

Wander would die for three people, but ve would kill for a few more. Three of those stand in vis periphery, and one rests right there in vis own skin.

Ve points vis spear home, praying it's the last time today and knowing ve can't afford for it to be the last time this week, and pushes.

[Wander attacks Quest, spear]
H_uhhiHObspear
[Shallow Cut on Left Thigh -- 3.5]