run till the land ends [AV vs. CoA]

In the early morning when the sun hasn’t risen and my head is too full of thoughts, the joy of the previous night leaves my heart aching, images beautiful and painful swirling behind my eyelids:

a campfire,

ghost stories,

photographs,

poses,

smiles,

company.

Last night, we all briefly ignored our own impending doom, or else we forgot about it. We looked beyond all the cruelty and took hold of the present, and it felt good.

I’m not used to that. Maybe the two girls we met are always living like that, all vivacity and spontaneity, but it wasn’t-- me. That kind of feeling has never happened to me before, and I don’t know how to describe it. It sits somewhere on a line between uncomfortable and deeply enjoyable, and I don’t have a word for that.

.Still, I felt like I belonged.

Problem is, the good things melt away with a new morning, and I can’t hold on tight to comfortable dreams when I’m painfully awake.

I hear Wander move around, tucking away vis bedroll,

and I think vis footsteps are awfully heavy,

and then my brain registers something wrong.

It’s not Wander’s footsteps,

but the world shaking, agitated, unsteady.

In a split second, I make the decision to move, eyes meeting the treetops as leaves fall to the earth. I register a snap of wood and the groan of roots ripping out of the dirt where they’ve nestled for a long time, and the ground rolls beneath my feet. I look to Bette for guidance, but Bette’s looking to Wander as if her muscles have all but given out. Wander takes Bette’s hand to move her, so I look to Temple.

Someone has to guide me away from this--

I don’t know where to go.

(Is there anywhere we can escape the earth’s disquiet?)

I don’t follow Temple so much as flee with her side-by-side, surging away from an enemy that isn’t behind us, but below us. The grand trees snap like twigs, and if not for the fear and my inability to look back, I might mourn them.

Beautiful things, tall things, powerful things-- felled within seconds.

.(I don’t stand a chance.)

Fog reaches out to greet us as the shaking and the forest end. My pulse hasn’t quite settled back to normal, and it doesn’t help that Wander looks so panicked by the sight of water.

“We need to go back, or south, I don’t know, just away fr--”

Vis words are cut off by an aftershock, and I’m not expecting it. I stumble a few feet to my left, right into--

I gasp,

right into--

right into the path of my District partner.

Wander reacts in a split second, aiming vis javelin.

I try to reach out, try to say ”No!”, but there’s no time.

The damage is done, and the hurt--

the hurt behind Shy’s eyes,

the fear for his friends,

I know, I know, this violence born of fear is too powerful for me to stop.

I feel it too, I feel it too, when Shy aims his weapon at Wander.

When Wander’s armor crumbles,

when the blood is drawn,

when the chaos erupts,

I’m pulled along with it.

.I do the brave thing, or the stupid thing, for once.

I throw myself forward and try to put distance between Wander and Temple and Bette and the people who would retaliate.

Perhaps because I belonged--

perhaps because I was happy--

”Don’t hurt them,” I whisper to everyone and no one,

so quiet and so violent as I strike.

We are all so young.

I realize it when one of the girls says little kids, and it takes me a moment to register what she’s saying.

I forgot, somehow.

I forgot that there are others just like me-- small and young and mostly helpless. Some of the faces in this Arena, they seem like they’ve lived whole lives.

Just a couple years more, maybe, but still older. They won more years than I’ll ever get, and I think the loss of those years made me think that everyone I face--

everyone I face has won more time than me,

but it’s not true.

Not with Shy, who’s staring at me like I’m a predator.

And I don’t-- I don’t know the name of this other girl, but she’s young too. I might have won more time than her.

(In this mental image, we’re all doomed to lose.)

But still I hold my weapon high, trying to stand steadfast between these people and my allies.

Because Wander understands-- "I'm looking out for her too, though, hey."

For a moment, I belong again, and those words are enough to keep my feet grounded.

Wander moves forward swiftly, aiming vis javelin--

.this time, I flinch,

and I gasp again when I see the tip of vis javelin do its irreparable damage,

and I close my eyes.

.I try to remember: I am small, but I am worthy of life,

oh, they are small, they are worthy of life--

I want to live,

they want to live,

I want to live,

they want to live

Wander wants to live,

Bette wants to live,

Temple wants to live,

-- so maybe I’m wrong.

I don’t want to live,

I am going to die,

(but I don’t move)

I am going to die,

I know it,

because in order to live, I’ll have to admit that my life is worth more than someone else’s.

.I am small in stature and in heart,

beaten down by a world that tells me

.I am nothing,

And the only reason I am standing right now?

Bette, Temple, Wander.

They have given me the only strength I have.

So I turn,

I turn and see the girl crumbled in the dirt, with Wander’s javelin in her eye.

I turn and face Shy, who asks ”How could you let someone kill an innocent being like you?”

And I tell him the sad truth:

“Because I want them all to live."