the ferryman has come | day 5 fight

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eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris
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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 22, 2019 17:30:20 GMT -5

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Post by eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris on Mar 22, 2019 17:30:20 GMT -5

And so she enters the playing field — her, in all her gentle fury and cautious pride. Beatrix Alfray has grown tired of the background noise, of hiding within herself and quelling the flames of her own ambition. The bonfire has long burned away to embers, the spilled liquor has dried from the grass; and the music and the laughter is gone from the arena. All is silent. For now. Zaya gives her a sharp nod to begin, and Josie distracts himself with a flute of champagne. He had his day of peace, but now the sun has risen once more and the time has come for blood.

She runs her hands across the board in front of her, watching in awe as a simulation of the arena comes to life beneath her fingertips. Despite herself, she feels a rush of power. Control suits her in a way that seems foreign, unsteady like the legs of a spring fawn, but she stands her ground. If she turned to look over her shoulder, she's sure that Reine would have all their hunger and satisfaction proudly on display. Just the same, she's certain that Layton wouldn't meet her gaze. But there comes a time when all gods must wring out their morality, and she is no different.

All that is left is divinity.

In the shelter of their dreams, the tributes are unaware of their surroundings taking on a new shape. Hours of travel, of setting up their camps in new locations, are rewritten as their bodies and their belongings are transported to the same lonely place: the Tattered Big Top. It seems the group activities have not yet reached their end, as broken glass flies back up to sky and reforms shattered lights — as a melody pours from the open flap and puppets and shadows begin to dance.

With only a flurry of her fingers, a twirl of her wrist, Beatrix has brought the circus back to life. And now it has an audience, eyes fluttering awake and expressions of confusion giving way to wonder. The sun is still low in the sky, still new and uncertain, and the stars have not yet fled. But all they can focus on is that inviting tent, the song within and the promise of fun. And as they enter, one big crowd of broken youths, joy gives way to dread. Many things are coming to life on the walls, teeth and wolves and clawed hands, but so are faces. So are memories of those they have lost.

Their distraction is enough for Bea to complete the task at hand, putting Hades' work to test and activating the hidden terror of the 81st Annual Hunger Games. Don't you remember that pile of bones? Can't you recall how massive they are, the sharpness of the two blades at their front? It's easy to identify what they belonged to as the marrow reconnects itself, as it rises from the dusty ground and regains its form. This is the star attraction of the festival, the remnants of something spectacular. The skeleton of an elephant brings its feet down with a loud and mighty crash, rattling and shrieking as it moves. The flap closes.

The time has come to do three things;
to fight, to survive, and to die.
For five of you, one of those is not guaranteed.

Bea takes the reins without hesitation, not just there to watch. This beast is under her command, ready for her orders. Still, her heart has not yet stopped its bleeding — even if just barely — so she looks to those tributes most guarded. Let the strongest feel her wrath first. A wave of her hand is all it takes, Kharon charges forward.

What is dead has no remorse.

table: kaitlin

KHARON'S FILE —
HP: 145
ATTACKS: 2 tusks (2 spears), front and back legs (2 spiked blunts)
NOTES: he may be attacked four times each round, the same as the amount he attacks; he will count for one of the 5 required deaths if he falls; he is immune to instas, however they will count for 10 damage against him

[Kharon attacks Aurora with left tusk; spear]
MNqzfSUjZTspear
[Deep Gash on Right Calf -- 8.0 damage]

[Kharon attacks Francisco with right tusk; spear]
spear
[Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage]

[Kharon attacks Saturn with front legs; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
[Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage]

[Kharon attacks Raven with back legs; spiked blunt]
spiked blunt
[Broken Right Wrist -- 6.5 damage]

spear·spear·spiked blunt·spiked blunt

Last Edit: Mar 22, 2019 17:32:36 GMT -5 by eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris

all my girls got their lace and their crimes.

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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 22, 2019 23:42:00 GMT -5

Quote

Post by gamemaker kelsier on Mar 22, 2019 23:42:00 GMT -5

a m b r o s i a .

"I'm insane but
on my toes
I had a slumber party
wit' all my foes"

The night is over and day brings so much colour that it brings tears to Ambrosia's eyes. He slept staring up at the stars and each one left their mark on his skin, burning holes where they touched him and he's woken up holy, pain stitched into a hide well-worn. Oh how far the mighty fall when the grass is soft and cushiony. Last night there was no passage of faces in the sky above his head and Ambrosia had slept peacefully.

But the sky has turned into a pinwheel. He blinks up at the billowing kaleidoscope of colour but doesn't bother wondering how he's come to be here. There's no point in asking that, he's seen a game or two and knows that those that make it can do whatever the fuck they want. Ambrosia sits and stretches his arms over his head, taking note of other awakening tributes around him. He's spoken to maybe half of them and that's being generous. "One of you has got to have a cigarette, yeah?" he grumbles.

His skin is still bloodstained, still marked by the throes of a lightening strike spun like tree roots from the top of his head down his body. People say that it's lucky to survive being struck by lightening but Ambrosia doesn't really expect to survive it still. He can smell his death in the way that the arena keeps grouping them together into a jumble. The Gamemakers want blood and they've all got plenty of it.

That's when the bones start to dance.

The ground rumbles and Ambrosia scrambles up, eyes searching for a friendly face and seeing only milling tributes intent on getting out of the way. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is one of those big mutt fights. He can't help being hopeful about it; maybe it'll be slayed in no time like that legend about the kid and the dragon. Something tells him it's not going to be like that this time.

The bones finish pulling themselves together and a massive creature stands before them, tusks longer than Ambrosia's arms. It stamps it's front feet and bellows drawing a low whistle from Ambrosia's throat. "Cool," he whispers, eyes on those long tusks, "Guess this is it, huh, Cickle?" He feels his sister's breath on his neck.

"Go on, Ams."

So he does.

[ambrosia attacks leticia with flaming throwing axe]
3RPLz1yvV_throwing axe
1-50
[10009 -- Broken Jaw -- 7 damage + 1 rivalry]

throwing axe·1-50

Last Edit: Mar 22, 2019 23:44:06 GMT -5 by gamemaker kelsier

compendium / avriel
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2022 tracker / 2023 tracker / 2024 tracker

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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 23, 2019 1:54:02 GMT -5

Quote

Post by kap on Mar 23, 2019 1:54:02 GMT -5

No one died on the fourth day in the arena. It had been a peaceful day. Leticia and I had spent it talking with one another and I’d played some music on a guitar. On the fifth day in the arena, bloodshed started pretty quick. A giant creature with tusks, clearly angry and agitated, attacked four tributes at once, and fighting broke out. The boy from Nine hit Leticia and more blood spilled. It was chaos already, and I was about to join in on it all, weapon drawn.

I didn’t want to kill, and honestly, it was hard enough to get myself to fight again after the third day when I had helped kill Alja. I didn’t have any other choice, though. It was fight or die, and I really didn’t want to die. This meant that I had to fight. It’s what everyone back home would want me to do, and it’s what I had to do. I was turning into one of the Capitol’s pawns, at least a little bit, but I’d still fight like the knight of this chess board that the Capitol had us on, manipulating us to play their own little game.

Spear at the ready, I held it tight. I had to be ready to strike at the right moment. It was hard to know exactly which moment was right, but surely I would figure it out. I had to find the opportunity to hit something when it showed itself to me. What or who should I possibly hit, though? Making more enemies wasn’t really the way I wanted to go with things.

I looked to the giant creature standing before us. Surely this had to be my target, at least for now, until it was dead. I didn’t want to hit another person. Not again. Not yet. My spear ready, I struck the beast.

”Raaagh!” I yelled as I hit it, adrenaline pumping through me.

Jayne attacks Kharon with spear
7VBt0HMRrwspear
[3162 - shallow cut on right thigh - 3.5 damage]spear

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2019 1:55:10 GMT -5 by kap

D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]
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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 23, 2019 7:52:24 GMT -5

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Post by D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] on Mar 23, 2019 7:52:24 GMT -5

The open arms of the night confirm the truth: nobody died today. Even if it was only for a moment, let alone a day, we had all managed to find peace hidden between power. Those of us that remain were able to live, just as we did before, without having to worry about each other, without having to cherish the moments in between each breath we take with all of our emotion.

A peace parade—but a parade nonetheless, and a parade for someone to rain on.

I lie staring up at the sky. The sound of a cannon seems far away, yet the echo still resonates in my ear. A drumming that reminds me of how the world can be so cruel; how it can bleed my heart dry of love and still expect more. It had taken Zion and Berlin so softly, as if it was nothing at all, and as if to stick two fingers up to my heart. I tell myself that my heart still has a place, and that it will always have a place despite the world continuing to take when I endlessly give—my love is my only healer. Even if life itself does not listen to the utterances of devotion and warmth, it can still fight away the cold that grows ever closer to my chest.

But I am still convinced that love, just like life, is an echo. And I'm becoming more persuaded by the day, too; the world is a big and wide place, of course it will take time for love to come back around. It has to travel to very edge of the earth before bouncing back. It has to be seen by every pair of eyes, it has to be heard by every open ear before looping, and leading the way back to my heart. I close my eyes and think of how wide the world could be.

Sunflowers with evil twins sewing them into the ground, and grass that dances to mask its deadliness, how the blades of grass are sharper than any sword and can cut a person out of the world like there is no tomorrow. The wooden shack filled with browning wanted posters, branded with the faces of fallen tributes who dared to do so well but ultimately were forced to give in, or gave up. I can still taste the iron of the bloodbath on my tongue, and though my own wounds were easily patched up with the endless thread of love and my heart as the needle, nothing can erase moments like that from one's own memory.

The world extends beyond this arena, I need to keep remembering that, too. It expands so openly to include all the districts, to include Seven, and Seven alone is such a big and bright place. There are countless eyes waiting to feel the love I have given out, ears waiting to hear words from my tongue that deliver them the promises I made to them in my head when I saved Lenox Lachance from history repeating itself. My own eyes are like jewels on the silver screen, and I wish I knew where the cameras were so that I could look straight into them and give a knowing smile, an understanding nod, just something to make sure that they know that I know.

I know that they need saving just as much as Lenox Lachance. Love saved her, swift and sweet as it was, and I am convinced my love can save Seven too. I am a champion for them, their only hope now that Zion has—gone. I hope that they know I am doing my best, even if it looks like the least, and that Seven is always pushed to the forefront of my mind in every fight, through every facade and fake smile.

I roll over, staring out to the horizon. Dewdrops forming like glitter on the grass, and the smell of the sunflowers pressed into my diary lifting me delicately from one day to the next.

When my eyes open—there is no dew, and the scent of the sunflowers is dulled. I can smell sweat and I can hear murmurs of other tributes being contained within the dusty remains of a circus big top. I lie frozen, staring out to the edge of the world again, but this time the edge is populated by the grim's own soldiers: twisted shadows roam the walls. There are boys and girls fighting, a scene that hits far too close to home for comfort, and there are gaps in their bodies that can only be explained with a sharp blade and lots of blood. They blink slowly as the walls twitch under the faded illumination of gas lamps, their dance becoming more broken by the second.

The ground roars underneath us, and it sends a sly shiver down my spine that ensures I am wide awake, and am in fact living a nightmare. I lean on my shoulders, eyes pinned forwards as old bones crust through the dirt, the tremors making me lose track of my heartbeat. Small bones and large ones, sharp and pointy ones, blunt ones; they continue to rise through the dirt like they are the dead who have come to live again.

The dead decides to take the form of something far worse than a human skeleton—it is big and it is brutal. An elephant from the undergrowth walks among us, tusks like fangs protruding magnificently from the beast's bones, created with the sole intention of murder. This is not like how I imagined the monsters would be in my head; it is bright and the bones catch the light from the lamps to give them an eerie glow. There is something rather beautiful about the bones on their own, but come together and they turn brutal. It is far worse than any tribute that has ever lived and died.

This is the rain on yesterday's parade.

I pull myself from the ground and there are already tributes fighting around me; I make out Ambrosia Sin from District Nine leaping after a silhouette in the light, and the girl from Twelve, Jayne, seemingly trying to tackle the beast alone. I take a breath—there is life in this room, and there is death. What is already dead cannot die again, but these other tributes can still hurt, they can still ache and feel the same pain that Zion and Berlin felt. I do not want to replace a hopeful glint in someone's eyes with the darkness of my own destruction.

Weight of my weapon in my hand, I move to stand beside Jayne. "There must be no more room in Hell. The dead don't belong here," I say, standing small as the bones tower over the two of us.

I would usually mourn the dead, perhaps create an unmarked grave just as I did for Myrcella Hudson when her cannon sounded and tattooed itself onto my heart. But this type of dead have already had tears cried for them, goodbyes have been said and any acts of love now would fall on empty ears, and dried up hearts.

My love does not extend to monsters. I look around at the other tributes—I do not fight the living, I fight for the living—and right now, that is them.

[ diana attacks kharon ; spiked blunt ]

3SUVWA7ZHnspiked blunt

[ miss ]

[ accuracy reroll ]

spiked blunt

[ 14200 -- broken left arm -- 6.5 damage + 1 strength ]

spiked blunt·spiked blunt

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2019 7:58:08 GMT -5 by D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]

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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 23, 2019 19:16:10 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Tom on Mar 23, 2019 19:16:10 GMT -5

Morning comes with the pounding of his head, regretting the night before.

Flashes of the night fill his eyes as he remembers pieces of it. A hum of his own throat as he rises to his feet, hating the morning breath upon his tongue. Groaning with the beat of his heart and head, he covers his eyes with the hat on his head. First one up is never fun, especially after the hangover that Rory and him were certainly going to share. If there's anything he would tell someone else about himself, it would be to not match him in drinks. Despite his softer interiors, he still had a rough exterior. Alcohol was an addiction to his suffering, just like smoking, it eases the pain of blows to his insides.

The boy of ruin stands in the bright light of the arena, letting himself wake up fully before the others start waking. Ex flashes across his vision as the words of their exchange filter in his mind. Hell would have a seat waiting for him. Savior Powermaker may be dead, but her words still carry weight in his chest. A grimace on the tip of his tongue is kept down as he remembers her last words. Desperation in something more. Something that he didn't understand. Something he probably will never understand.

The groan that carries from Rory is worse than his own. Almost as if the sound is grating at the edge of his head, he ignores the pain. "Ronan, I'm going to kill you." A laugh escapes his throat as he looks at the empty moonshine bottle in his hand. Placing it back in his bag, he focuses back at the scene of Rory groaning and suffering from a pretty bad hangover. First timers, never knowing their limits. Ronan could tease her more, but instead he leaves it with a joking wink and the best words that he can come up with right now.

"Get in line with the others!" Exaggerating the words into almost a shout, just to make Rory suffer a bit more from his addiction. A chuckle on his lips before he focuses back inside of himself. The conversation still there in his mind, hopefully Rory would remember one of the most important things he's ever discussed in the arena. Even if she didn't, he could live with it. The words were out there for everyone. His mother wouldn't survive the payback of a secret being exposed. A smile fills his lips at the thought of it.

His friend would be proud of him for that moment.

As the morning comes, they prepare for the journey across wherever to the place that would hold their next performance. Their next big show of bloodshed, tears, and anger. A fire bubbling at the thought of it. Adrenaline in his veins, until he clambers up and onto his horse. Pestilence, Death, War, and Famine, ready for their next journey. Blooming in an arena filled with heat and nothingness, flowers born into a place where they didn't belong. Big blossoms to take in all of the sun and catch any rain showers that might come. They bloom bright with the red blood that soaks each of their hands as if ruin could bring life.

Luckily, his thoughts were interrupted by none other than Severus. The boy who was going to quit on his dreams. Ronan's still unsure of what to say. Dreams weren't meant to be cut down. Ripred, he didn't want the kid to suffer like he had. No one deserves that pain. The disappointment on their faces as he ruined everything. The years spent in a mental ward with tears in his eyes as other patients, nurses, and doctors claimed him to be wrong. A wrong human being born to be nothing more than a fire blazing across the best things and turning them to ash.

"Hey Ronan, this is probably stupid but, how do you know if you like... like someone?" The question is simple enough. Severus' age is beginning to show, despite them all feeling like he was just as old as they were at times. The guy was years beyond his actual age in intelligence. A laugh escapes Ronan's throat. The struggle was that Ronan's never really liked anyone that way. It's always been about something else, other than actual love. Heartbreaker is what he had been called, but he was in pain. Still doesn't make up for the hearts he's played. Ex is right. He's really going to hell.

"That's a tough one. Usually I just like the prettiest of people because I want something else from them." A smirk on his lips as he feels both proud and not proud. "Usually, it's like you can't stop thinking about them. They're always in your dreams. Stuff like that." A moment of awkwardness as this is just what he remembers from the shows his cousin used to have. Dreams and thoughts of others with big love ballads in their voices that carried through the entire audience. The beauty of it was hard to look away from.

Fuck, he misses it.

The joking laugh makes him feel less awkward about it. "Very wise." Wise. A new word for him. Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Ronan pulls out another cigarette, smoking his emotions away. A pause to let it sit between them. "I think there is a boy back home I like. I think about him a lot here." A choked cough from inhaling too fast out of surprise escapes his throat. Young kids having crushes weren't unheard of, but this was different. Despite everything, he couldn't imagine who would be enough for anyone to deserve Severus' heart. A smile on his lips as the thought of his own childhood days where he would think he had a crush, but it would be nothing more than physical.

"Awwww our little Sev's got a crush." The joking laugh escapes from his throat. "Wanna get it off your chest?" A smile on his lips as he pats the neck of his beautiful horse. It's been a long time since he's had a conversation like this. Crushes weren't unheard of in the mental ward or from his childhood friend. He hoped that she was doing well. Wherever she had disappeared to.

The eye roll is an immediate response to his own words. "You’re such an ass." The smirk on his lips gives way, until the nerves in Severus' body show and Ronan lets his guard down into a more serious way. The sound of hooves leaving a silence between them, until Severus finally breaks it. "He’s the boy from last year," A moment to let the information process. "Larceny."

Larceny Theft. Interesting choice for Severus. Not that he doesn't see it, but more that he expected the kid to be into someone different. Larceny Theft wasn't a bad choice, but it's not the person he saw their little Severus with. A hum of content into the air before he speaks. "Huh. Not exactly who I would expect you too like." A sigh from his throat as he looks at Severus, letting himself be honest. Honesty brought them together. "Figured you were into those nerdy, quiet types, not someone like Larceny Theft." Riding closer to Severus, Ronan elbows him gently with a jokey smile. The laugh makes him feel at ease.

"So you thought I would like myself?"

"No one better than yourself."

As if Ronan needed anything more to put him on the edge, the horses are spooked for a moment. Severus' is more spooked than his own. Ronan begins soothing his own with a gentle stroke to the neck. A soothing hum of a ballad that he had heard from his cousin coming to sound. A moment to calm down his horse from whatever is spooking them. As if they needed anything else, the area is given way to a circus tent, with walls of fabric. Sounds seem to echo off of his ears, as shadows dance along the edges. Tributes in shadowy forms show along these walls. Spears, swords, tridents, all in their hands. For a moment, he swears that he can see Riordan's dance with Lucas come into the scene along the walls. The sound of craziness in their tongues in his ears once more as the memory comes back to him.

Death still stares in that image, until it stops. The ground shakes and his horse is even more spooked than before. The moment the ground rumbles, his scythe is extended out in a defensive position. Never can trust the arena. No more time for stories and alcohol and bonfires. This time, hell was going to blur into the existence of the arena. Despite that, he is excited. The big tent reminds him of long performances in Tempus. The way the shadows dance along the walls gives him memories of the beautiful people who sang and danced and told stories.

The capitol wanted a performance for the ages.

Instead of moving, he can see the giant skeleton monster grow and grow. Almost like an elephant, it seems to rise with a loud crash of a hellish performance. The beast would be the main show. This is what they had been waiting for. When he had told Rory it would be a helluva day, he didn't expect this. The sound of others surrounds him. They were all here. Every single living tribute was in this circus tent. The climax was coming. No more time for a build up. This was the descent into the final act.

"Ronan, what the hell is that?"

Severus' voice carries, but he doesn't look back at him.

"The biggest performance of the Eighty First."

Seriousness in his voice, but excitement in his veins as the adrenaline begins to fire.

"Our own version of hell"

The sound of Severus cursing rings in his ear, until the chaos begins.

The creature is the first to strike. It's movements are hefty, but strong. He knew that any of it's hit would do massive damage to anyone. The creature moves with the sound of bones creaking against one another that makes his head pound. Instead of focusing on his own self, he can see it charging through them. The crowd of tributes wasn't ready for it. They all knew that some of them would die this day. Ronan's already shouting to his allies.

"The fucker is charging! Watch out!"

He's too late. Rory and Raven are hit and he hears the sound of armor breaking. A grimace in his face as he can see Saturn and Francisco also hit. Francisco had sent him that message days ago. He would burn in hell like a moth. Rushing over to Rory and Raven, he holds his scythe out protectively over them.

Savior's partner is the first one to speak out of the rest of them. A guy who he didn't know personally, except that his name was Ambrosia. "One of you has got to have a cigarette, yeah?" The cigarette still burning between Ronan's lips as he thinks about it. He's the only one with cigarettes in this hellhole of an arena. A smirk on his lips, until the guy throws an ax that's burning. The ax rotates in the air, until it hits Leticia hard. The sound of bones breaking rings in his ears.

Leticia was home. District Six was counting on them to not let the other die. They were no Aeson Kite and Vesper Daisy. They were no Ansel Khiev and Serena Fennel. His blood is boiling as he move closer to them. Scythe shining with the silver of the blade. The glittering feels unusual in this place. If they wanted a bad guy, he could be a bad guy. Stanley had told him he was. Instead of attacking, Ronan makes a proposition.

"If you want a damn cigarette, fucker, don't hit my district partner."

Before he can move again, Jayne shouts and strikes the creature. Diana is next as she says something about hell and the dead, but his blood is pumping too much. As the anger is still fresh, he notices her. A new anger bubbling up in his chest. Finley O'Hara was someone he wanted to see suffer. Exover didn't deserve anymore pain, but this is what was needed. Karma was going to come back to get her. Moving away from Leticia and Ambrosia, he holds his scythe with a smirk on his lips. He speaks to Ex before he even thinks of striking.

"I'm sorry, Ex, but your friend has a one way ticket to hell from Karma."

A moment of remembering where he was gonna be going. Hell was waiting for him. The capitol wanted a show. This would come to a bitter head right now. The scythe glitters with his desires. He wasn't weak. He wasn't pathetic. He wasn't a bitch. He was whatever the fuck he wanted to be and no one would be able to tell him otherwise. A smirk on his head as he charges. The blade glitters as he strikes with smoke in his lungs and beauty in his memories.

He was gonna be beautiful like those women in the shows.

"You'll regret ever laying a fucking hand on Severus."

A smirk.

"Karma's here to bite you in the fucking ass, bitch."

(Ronan Keeni-Einfallen attacks Finley O'Hara; Scythe)
SVHtOl5_iHsword
(Severed right hand at wrist 9.0)

sword

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2019 19:16:40 GMT -5 by Tom

Made by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]

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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 23, 2019 20:59:23 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Arrows on Mar 23, 2019 20:59:23 GMT -5

I didn't mean to make you cry,
if I'm not back again this time tomorrow,
carry on, carry on,
as if nothing really matters

The world is encased in a shell of shadows and he is at its center. Figures fade into phantoms drowning in night's veil. The songs of civility turn to tarnish as the rose of peace wilts its petals. The fire of companionship smolders into the ashes of anarchy. Even reality returns to truth, any hope at reconciliation bound to the death of the fourth day.

The Hunger Games resume their normally scheduled slaughter.

Morning presents a dizzy facade of the fourth day now forgotten surely by some. The remnants of toxic indulgence remain still swirling in the mists of some tired eyes. Three of those taking the spherical form of Raven, Ronan, and Rory's stares. As for Severus, his gaze is pristine untapped by unnatural pollution. Alas his heart continues in confusion, his aspirations remaining unclear. The day of no death has not come and gone with no repercussions, everyone has been altered. The games, the killing, will all become more personal. Severus' teeth grit.

A clever move by the Game Makers.

Both Ronan and Rory are awake prepping to leave when Severus finally chooses to stir Raven from the caress of her drunken dreams. In the folds of slumber she seems almost at ease, a gentleness resembling her twin resting within her face. Worry for what beast will awake shutters Severus' stomach as his fingers poke her side. Icy eyes appear aimed at the young boy in response to his beckoning.

"Keep poking me and I'll have to kill you. A shame too considering I'm starting to like you punk."

There is never any end to Raven's dark humor as she jokes about murder in a place where it is the governing law. Severus chooses to maintain his attention on the part where she gave what he imagines is the closest thing to a compliment. He gives a soft smile.

"We're leaving, come on."

The ride is quiet as Severus hones in to the constant clicking pattern of Percy's gallop. Just days ago riding an animal as brilliant as this seemed far beyond Severus' abilities, now it seems almost second nature with the saddle growing comfier with each journey. He runs a hand slowly down Percy's neck feeling the softness of his fur ripple through the gaps of his fingers. A small smirk settles on the fourteen year old's lips. It's strange how even in a time of lost identity, endless tragedy, and overall darkness that light still manages to bloom in the smallest of spaces. Severus' mind turns towards his dreams, a constant area of conflict since entering this new world.

As a younger boy he found his euphoria in the faded pages of old music books. While his fingers felt tranquility in the tunes of old guitar strings his mind thought of a life surrounded in song.

Severus shakes his head softly at the memory.

He remembers the sketches born from the boundless fields of his imagination and of the lives he thought he could change with them. Even in front of the Game Makers he let this piece of himself shine, but now even this looks clouded behind the demands of survival. He doesn't know what he should be dreaming of, what life can possibly look like after this. Of course this brings Severus' mind to him.

He rides up alongside the boy who over the course of several days has become the closest thing to a brother that Severus knows. A soft shade of red tints the curves of Severus' cheeks.

"Hey Ronan, this is probably stupid but, how do you know if you like... like someone?"

The response that comes from the older boy is one that Severus should have expected.

"That's a tough one. Usually I just like the prettiest of people because I want something else from them." Severus can just spot a dash of deviousness enter Ronan's eyes before he continues on saying, "Usually, it's like you can't stop thinking about them. They're always in your dreams. Stuff like that."

Severus wonders whether a face is flashing in Ronan's mind like the one in his own. If he sees his own version of brilliant blue eyes framed in hair darker than the bark of the oldest oak tree. There is a moment of pause that Severus breaks with the lightest laughter he has been able to find in a few days.

“Very wise.” Severus pauses for a moment almost afraid of the listening world witnessing his confession. “I think there is a boy back home I like. I think about him a lot here.”

"Awwww our little Sev's got a crush."

Ronan's voice finds the wings of laughter now.

"Wanna get it off your chest?"

Severus rolls his eyes in an attempt to mask the quickening of his heart.

"You're such an ass." Severus' hands grow sweater holding Percy's leads as he imagines him watching now back in Three, listening about to hear his name from a boy he surely never truly noticed. "He's the boy from last year. Larceny."

"Huh. Not exactly who I would expect you too like." Ronan admits before explaining, "Figured you were into those nerdy, quiet types, not someone like Larceny Theft."

Suddenly the boy's elbow is jokingly jabbing Severus' side who laughs before returning the jab. "So you thought I would like myself?"

Percy ends the conversation pulling Severus' attention into trying to settle the spooking horse. There is only a moment of confusion before Severus' own fear joins that of Percy's. Severus' face runs white as the bones of hell exposed before him.

"Ronan, what the hell is that?"

There is almost a tinge of excitement in his response.

"Our own versions of hell."

Severus swallows hard.

"Fuck."

Ronan rushes off of his horse and towards the growing feast's fields of blood far faster than Severus. The blonde boy's hands rattle in sync with the walking skeleton. In the spinning shadows of hell's arrival he can see Kiena forever lost in time. The scene sends him retreating to the safety of his anchor, to his district partner's side.

"Rory, I'm scared."

She doesn't hide her own fear joining in his voice, but merges it with strength as well.

"I'm scared, too. But I've got your back, okay? As long as I'm breathing, I've got your back."

Severus nods almost too quickly, too nervously. He tries to take breaths and control of his fear. He tries to match her strength.

"Sometimes it's okay to be afraid," his hand holds her's releasing a small squeeze, "but you're right, as long as we aren't alone."

She returns his squeeze with her own, she's right here with him.

"I'm really proud to know you, Severus Ward."

He finds a soft smile at her praise.

"And I'm proud to know you, Aurora LaChance."

His hand lets go.

Nearby Severus follows the shouts of Ronan who's sword is removing the leg of the girl who had attacked Severus just days ago. Severus' hands are still shaking as he grows closer but he keeps slowing his breathing to stop him from completely panicking. He remembers the cold numbing of acceptance from the other day when his scythe dug deep into the boy from Eight, he welcomes it back again. His fear remains inside the ice but he can hear Kiena's voice so clearly.

Be brave little brother.

He will try.

Little high, little low,
anyway the wind blows,
doesn't really matter,
to me, to me

Lyrics -- Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Severus attacks Finely with his Scythe{Sword}
Nd1T10Geqgsword
{Severed Left Foot at Ankle -- 9.0 damage + 1 Blades}

sword

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2019 21:00:21 GMT -5 by Arrows

Graphic by the Breathtakingly Talented Stare

lance
Head Librarian

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Pronouns: He/Him/His
last seen Nov 12, 2024 4:20:34 GMT -5

gay and chaotic? call it gayos

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 23, 2019 22:33:17 GMT -5

Quote

Post by lance on Mar 23, 2019 22:33:17 GMT -5

It's a nightmare.

Not in the literal sense, perhaps, given that she is fully awake and conscious throughout the entire thing, but Ripred, is it stupid.

She can't even remember the last time - no, she can, with the hallucinogenic tea in the games that Cricket had run six years ago. To this day, she still found it laughably ironic that the most successful job that Antoinette had ever done when it came to bringing new Twos home had been when she had been actively trying to kill them as part of whatever deal the Capitol had made her.

No matter. If the alcohol is meant to confuse, then she will touch as little of it as she can. Even if it comes in pretty little packages complete with a handwritten note claiming superiority. She wouldn't fall for tricks and trinkets and the like - claim that it was superior all you want, call the shit in the canteens dishwater, it didn't change the fact that the very man who preached sweetness had been instrumental in placing the so-called dishwater abound in the first place.

No, she'd sit and watch, even as only the annoying fuck that was Myrcella's district partner took her bait. Everyone else split into groups or solos, went off in their own direction - and perhaps she couldn't really blame them. It wasn't as if she had made the choice to step forward into the middle of fifteen hostile faces without some sort of plan in mind in place of a lack of willingness.

But one was better than none. And it was the one who was probably her biggest threat still left alive going forward - though more of a threat like Berlin had been as opposed to the kind of threat that Myrcella would be. Big, beefy, brawny, a meathead who probably breathed going to the gym in place of oxygen. The sort of fuckboy who'd made her life hell before she'd taken the swan dive into the next level herself.

She'd beaten their type many times before. One more would be no different.

But it seemed that there was a mutual unspoken agreement that had been spawned by her attempts at piece in place of war, that no weapon would be raised during this time of truce. And she wasn't particularly moved to change that, either - wounds from the fuck from Four still stung even with the Games' equivalent to modern medicine sitting fresh from them, and besides, the boys were most likely busy trying to see if each other's face was edible.

She wasn't about to get in the middle of that. Even if death was on the line.

It's a relief when the sun sets and each party returns to their respective camp, but less so of one when she closes her eyes.

Her subconscious is fraught with flashing colors and jump scares aplenty. And throughout it all comes the overlay of crashing waves and ripped biceps, of the frown of Berlin morphing into the face of the fuck from One and back again.

She remembers none of it when light seeps into her eyes the next morning, yet she remains disturbed all the same.

But there's a fire in her chest that's burning brighter than ever. Day five, the make or break for many a powerful tribute before her. It's the pinnacle, the symbolic halfway point, usually the day when fuckery and death becomes abundant and, quite frankly, shit hits the fan.

But she has proven thus far that it will take more than that for her to break. She can bend, she can sway, she can adapt with the changes and land the kiss of death when it matters. And as other warm bodies stir around her, there's already a tension in the air that was absent from the previous night.

One thing is clear - any weapon that isn't drawn today will find itself painted red by their owner's blood.

And that, she almost greets with open arms. Almost.

Huge group fights unnerve her. The bloodbath and Myrcella's sudden death from an unlikely source still lay fresh on her mind, and she knows from many an hour watching film how even the most structured of battles can turn into mosh pits when it comes to the arena.

But it is not a tribute that makes the first blow. Or, to her knowledge, anything living, breathing, and bleeding.

Rather, it is the accumulation of hundreds of bones, Gamemaker magic forming a shape she realizes the significance of by reputation more than actual recognition, and she watches with steely eyes as the megamutt comes to life.

And strike it does. Armor is shredded and bones are cracked as it roars to life, One and Three and Five taking blows of varying effects - and then her heart leaps into her throat as one series of bones smacks Francisco right in the chest, knocking him backward.

And a breath she had not realized she had been holding is exhaled in something almost akin to relief as the boy sits up, dazed but unharmed. It is no matter to return her expression to one of steely indifference as she beckons the boy to get up. "Come on, fucker," she says, though for once there is no malice in her tone. "We have blood to spill."

She turns her eyes from her boys to the targets around her. First to catch her vision is the girl from Seven, Hisidro and Berlin's ally, the one that had savaged Nico two days ago, swinging her weapon in the direction of the great beast. But no, as tempting as it would be to stab her in the back and claim another kill for herself, the last thing she wants is to attract the ire of the great boney beast - and besides, striking uselessly at something many times her size isn't going to do anything to get her home.

So her gaze travels, landing instead on Berlin's district partner. And that one is more tempting right from the start - so much so that she draws her polearm and readies a charge at the girl. For one, she's another one of her great Career rivals, and for second, she's from the district of the reigning champion - and being the girl to kill both tributes from there would no doubt do much to raise her worth in the eyes of the sponsors. Not to mention it would give her personal pride as well - no repeat for you as long as I'm around, fuckers.

But unfortunately, she was too slow, as the fuckboy Ronan from Six and the quiet fuck Ward from Three beat her to the punch. And the damage right off the bat is brutal - a hand and a foot gone, just like that, in a style eerily reminiscent of Nico's own maiming from the very beginning.

No, she won't get anywhere in the middle of that.

Next comes the girl from Three, the one who had taken advantage of the chaos and had slain Myrcella in her own right way back in the bloodbath. That was one she wanted to cross blades with at least once before it became impossible, if only to see what sort of hidden strength or luck had led her to overcoming the girl from One. But she's allied to Ronan and Severus and the girl from Five all at once - and she is not willing nor ready to fight four at once even on the back of some whim. So she's off the list.

That leaves two that she can think of. The girl that the boy from Nine had smacked across the jaw with a throwing axe, Ronan's district partner, or the last great threat to her victory in the arena - the boy from One.

The former would no doubt draw Ronan out himself, maybe piss himself off enough for him to get sloppy - and then boom, Teddy Ursa would find himself down two mentees in mere seconds. The latter would be a harder fight, more akin to Berlin, no doubt, but taking him out here and now in the midst of the chaos would leave her in a better position overall.

She looks from one to the other, little girl to meatheaded guy, and makes the decision with a metaphorical flip of a coin.

She never did like doing things the easy way, she decided, as she turns and makes her way to the boy from One.

"What was it you said to me yesterday?" she asked, somewhat metaphorically, as she drew near, polearm over one shoulder. "'Cheers to life' or something like that?"

She hefts the blade back into both arms, and narrows her eyes to slits.

"Well, let's see if your grip on it is any better than your district partner's was."

Always get the first move in, she had been taught. And she wastes no time in making that long-repeated piece of advice reality in one clean swing.

jessica attacks saturn; glaive

ZUyEmwEVVcglaive

13020 -- Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage

glaive

Last Edit: Mar 23, 2019 22:33:52 GMT -5 by lance

credit to darsypoo uwu

credit to fireflyz!

credit to stare!

goat
Retired Staff

977 POSTS
Pronouns: they/them
last seen Jan 8, 2023 15:16:05 GMT -5

kindness, kindness prevails.

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 11:19:46 GMT -5

Quote

Post by goat on Mar 24, 2019 11:19:46 GMT -5

damaris hope

I read the note that Saturn had left me, but I didn’t want to talk to him about it. I figured it would upset him. I think talking about it would have upset me too. I gave him space while we both tried to rest. There was no anthem that night, why would there have been? This single day of respite wasn’t bound to happen again, and we were all alive, still breathing, for now.

“I’m sorry,” Saturn says in the morning, the first words we’ve exchanged in a while. “Sometimes it feels like too much, and it’s still here, but I don’t want to leave you. Not yet.”

“I just...” He pauses. “Sometimes I get messed up and make mistakes, and I hurt people. Myself. And I don’t know how to fix that. Don’t know if I will... before...”

“You don’t have to apologize. I was just—” I look at the ground. “Scared.”

A moment passes, and I force myself to look back at my friend. I want to be brave for him. “I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to fix ourselves completely, Saturn. I think we just have to focus on trying to be okay in the now, for as long as we can.”

“Thank you Damaris. I just want you to know... you matter to me, a lot.”

I smile at him, no teeth but a smile all the same. “You matter to me too.”

Being able to give him some semblance of advice made me feel useful, like all of the bad things I’d gone through were finally good for something. Now I’m here, standing amongst the old circus tent and all the other tributes, staring down a skeletal monster that looks like it was pulled from the depths of somebody’s nightmares. It lunges forward with tusks and limbs and all hell breaks loose. Some tributes go for the elephant while others go for another tribute, and I don’t know which is the better option. Either way, I know I will have to kill, or else I will be killed.

The girl from Two steps forward and turns her weapon on Saturn. It catches on his arm, a more shallow wound than the one left by the elephant, but a wound all the same. I grip my weapon tight, no longer afraid of what swinging my blade means for the person on the receiving end. I tell myself this doesn’t make me a bad person. This is what I have to do to survive.

[damaris attacks jessica braun; scythe]
cVOLux9QpBsword
1094 -- Shallow Cut on Left Hip -- 3.5 damage

sword

Last Edit: Mar 24, 2019 11:20:34 GMT -5 by goat

turn soft and lovely any time you have a chance.

cameron
Retired Staff

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MY SHIT IS TOGETHER - Shy Aubergine

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 14:44:50 GMT -5

Quote

Post by cameron on Mar 24, 2019 14:44:50 GMT -5

When he was six he told his mom he wanted to fly.

She laughed and encouraged him, as she always had, guaranteed he could do it if he really set his mind on it. “My baby can do anything,” she said, kissing his cheek and squeezing his arms into his body. “I can do anything,” he replied, a sing-song response to her most repeated affirmation, and she returned to scrubbing the grease from the stovetop, humming a lullaby she long forgot the words of without another thought about her son's dreams. Exover, however, took her wholly to heart, as he always did and she never intended, and he climbed onto the tin roof of their home and breathed in the sky. He could almost taste the impending flight, airy and fresh, as he stretched his arms wide and ran the length of the tin until his foot landed on a loose sheet and he slid down with the metal, his right leg overcompensating and toppling him sideways, his waist slamming into the top of the roof and his body sliding down to the gutter, hands scrambling to hold on and succeeding only in ripping the gutter down with him as all fifty pounds of terrified child plummeted to the dirt below.

When he was six he told his mom he never wanted to fly again. She said, “thank fuck,” and kissed his cheek, leaving her son bloodied and bandaged in his bed, tears and snot mixing in the dip above his lip, his right foot propped up on pillows with a still-bleeding hole in his lower calf where a chunk of tin wedged itself in his descent.

That morning when he stirred, he found his fingers picking at the skin around the scar on his leg, just above where it ended and the ghost of his foot lingered. His hand was damp. Iron filled his nose. He thought of Stanley setting it three days before and he wanted to thank him for everything, but especially for that, for putting his olfactory organ on the track back to normalcy, because a day before he couldn't have identified blood by its scent. Another sniff and he knew something was wrong. There was death in the air, but not drifting on the breeze of the Plains. The decay was still. It was unmoving, before him and not carried elsewhere in the arena.

“Where the hell,” he mumbled, turning on his side to address Finley, but she wasn't there. Beside him laid Francis Bloom, the swirling of daisies and the sun kissing his nose with their unending waltz. Did I sleep here? No, he couldn't have. There was a hammock somewhere he'd climbed, pulling up on the Sheriff's arm. He slept beside his partner in crime, Beverly and Cactus Friend cradled in their individual warmth, and he knew that for certain until a hammer smashed into his skull and the stinging memory of moonshine and smoke drove nails into his brain from every angle. There was nothing he knew comparable; Ex never experienced an internal pain he hadn't forged with his own flesh and steel beyond hunger, wasn't familiar with the ringing echoes between his ears, the sound of his mother banging pots and pans before the fall.

Tulip Boy's breath remained steady and calm, and Ex reached out a tentative hand to the boy that frustrated his heart and excited his senses. The letter sent two days before only served to conflict him more. Had he truly waited on Ex's arrival despite Nico's assertions, Nico's interference, Nico's blessed sight and ability to communicate without uncontrollable paranoia and self-doubt? Had Francisco meant well all along, despite the storm he'd wound in the blind boy's sea? Bloodied fingertips brushed Bloom’s cheek, and as their skin met thoughts of Saturn flooded the caves drained by the storm. Flinching and retracting his hand, he cradled it against his chest, a flash of the night before playing in his mind, of the boy from One pressing into him and speaking sweet empty words into his drunk ears. Unaware of the tender way the boy laid him down and kissed him like his mother, I can do anything drowned with “I'm sorry”, and he'd drifted to sleep feeling like he could fly all over again. Hot breath left Francisco's mouth and Ex set upright and rubbed the back of his head.

Saturn was there. Finley and Ronan too, close-by, and the patter of tributes waking and throwing themselves at each other broke out in seconds, the total stillness broken by the roar of death herself, and it was wrong. It was all wrong.

Ronan called an apology out to him, and he almost regretted the day before with him, regretted not smashing his head in with the chunk of stone he'd taken from the thumb. They found themselves chummy, leaned against a hay bale bruised and laughing at their own stupidity, downing their moonshine together and moving on as if old pals, but that day was gone and a new day meant new rules in the games. He'd never been quick to adapt; five years in and Exover had yet to accept his blindness and grow into it, had only just begun to find himself once his head was on a slab of wood and the executioner stood above. But he would adapt and he would grow and he would stand above the world, blade in hand and prepared for reckoning.

Flinging himself off the ground, he hopped toward Finley as Smokey and his bandit tore into her body. He was tired of being second-rate, tired of being apologized to for other people's pain, tired of being unable to take care of the ones who looked out for him, and tired of being tired. He wanted to wake up next to Finley on the hammock with the sun on their faces and the sounds of washboard percussion and blown glass filling the air. One hand on the pitchfork, he hoisted his ally up, an arm around her shoulder. He thanked Stanley again, and he could taste the impending fight. Stale and rotting. Angry and unending.

Ex kissed the Sheriff on the cheek. “Deputy Endor reporting for duty,” he whispered into her ear, pushing his good foot into the ground hard and his ghost foot resting atop his boot. Then, louder for the assholes to hear, too, he said, “karma's a bitch, remember? Ask Savvy when you see her later.” A smile slithered across his face as an energy burst in his gut, and he jabbed the pitchfork forward at Ronan's pet, the boy who maimed him and claimed his foot.

Ex attacks severus with pitchfork (spear)
tC9|scqHTespear
Shallow cut left forearm 3.5

spear

Last Edit: Mar 24, 2019 14:46:06 GMT -5 by cameron

gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.
Graphics

2,803 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 12, 2024 21:26:44 GMT -5

aspiring beam of light

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 14:51:55 GMT -5

Quote

Post by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. on Mar 24, 2019 14:51:55 GMT -5

The night is dark, but waking up alone feels worse.

Maybe after the day before, Nico should have expected it, should have seen the terror coming, should have know that nothing good in his life ever lasts and what is bright must always die. It had always been that way for him, after all; any light and beautiful thing that had ever come into his life had left him or burned itself into embers trying to pull him into the sun. He'd watched it happen to his mother; slowly, year after year, week after week, Nico watched as time took from her the sharpness that she had always been known for, watched as Twelve leeched the life from her eyes and from her bones and from the golden sheer of her blonde hair, turning it an unforgiving grey long before its time.

He'd watched it happening to Reggie for years, had watched and watched as the boy tried time and again to show him how to smile, to show him love, using his own quota of happiness in this life to try and bring some into Nico's. He had watched on for years, as if from a great distance, as he bled the other boy dry, let him love him right up until the moment he was leaving him for good.

They had always known it would end like this, with Nico's blood on the ground and a crown of bones wrung around his skull. He had come into this world alone, and he had always known that's how he would die, with blood staining his future and his legacy all in the same breath.

He had never expected that he would let someone in, that he would let more than one person see his heart for the thrashing thing that it is. He had never expected Myrcella to walk into his life and see right through the walls of stone he had built around himself, to see him in all his jagged-edged glory and call him a marvel in spite of it. He had never thought someone like Jessica Braun would keep him around, that she would shake her head at him and then smile that smile of hers—the one that said I'm better than you and you love me for it.

He had never expected her to be right.

And not in his wildest dreams could he have dreamt Francisco Bloom, the flower to Nico's thorns. With all of them, there had been the immediate camaraderie of friends that had known each other all their lives, a kind of unabashed comfort and trust that Nico would never be able to explain, that he doubts he will ever get the chance to try to. Together, they would fight Death and bring her cold hands to the other tributes throats.

Death as the greatest divider and the greatest unifier.

He should have seen it coming.

Death had torn his life apart and been the single thread through everything he had ever been taught, through everything he had ever dreamed. Death had taught him everything he knew and everything that he would become; he should have known that upon his imminent death he would find the singular place he had always belonged.

At his pack's side.

He had fallen asleep the way that he wanted to spend the rest of his life, curled around Francis, his good arm slung around the other boys shoulders as the fire died a slow and beautiful death, turning from flame into embers until all that was left was a quiet, crackling glow. With Francis at his side again, he had felt all that nervous energy that had been building through the day slowly dissipate, a comfort in knowing his place at Francis's side was still there soothing him into sleep.

But he wakes up, disoriented and alone.

He thinks this must be the day he dies, must be the moment where everything shifts. He had come into this world alone, and he's sure that he will leave it in the same way, that death will knock at his chest and steal away his life while he rests so far from where he has left his heart. It only makes sense.

The tattered walls of the big top rise around him and a creature made of bones rushes at the other tributes while all Nico can do is look on in unabashed horror and anger. It starts with that girl from District 3, the one who was all barbed wire and pretty eyes, the one who had stolen the life from Myrcella's eyes before Nico got the chance to tell her to look out. Nothing in him wants to call out to this girl now, and a sick part of his heart twists with pleasure as he watches the bone-creature's tusk spill blood from the girl's leg. It's enough of a distraction for a moment, this horror-laden pleasure, that he doesn't realize that the other victim is the very boy Nico left his heart with. "No!" he shouts, every part of his body suddenly on fire as he tries to get to him. "Don't fuckingtouch him." He watches on as the tusk drives itself through Francis's armor, twisting the golden thing into something terrible, into something jagged and broken.

Into something useless.

Nico hates that it reminds him of himself.

He is all rage as he charges forward, tipping his head down and diving into the battle with his own crown of bones at the ready. There's something poetic there, about the way only death can meet death on the battlefield. He's too far away, can't get there fast enough before he watches Jess strike out at Saturn just after the terrible creature does, shredding the other boys armor the same way that it had shredded Francis's own. "Let him fight his own battles, Eight," he spits, thrusting his pitchfork at the girl who had allied herself with Saturn. He misses, unsurprisingly, but it distracts her away from Jess and that's all that he wanted.

[ nico attacks damaris hope, pitchfork (spear) ]

mxdrsDWq_ispear

[ 3120 -- Block -- 0.0 damage (Spear) ]

[ accuracy ]

spear

[ 3106 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage (Spear) ]

spear·spear

Last Edit: Mar 27, 2019 22:10:24 GMT -5 by gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.

what are men to rocks and mountains?

a haunted house.

jess
Career Tribute

594 POSTS
Pronouns: they/he/she
last seen Oct 6, 2024 10:12:52 GMT -5

still here!! (kinda)

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 15:14:07 GMT -5

Quote

Post by jess on Mar 24, 2019 15:14:07 GMT -5

l e t i c i a
♆

As soon as Jayne is gone and the empty anthem plays, the peace is broken.

Huddling the mail sack to her chest, Leticia Neptune wonders if she will ever see home again. Even in her thoughts, her images of home seem blurry, nebulous. All she seems to be able to think about is the darkness of the arena and her soul pulling her back to the place she began. Somewhere in between consciousness and slumber, her brain formulates the idea to find her way back to the big top as soon as she wakes up.

When she does wake up, she realises that there’s no need.

~

The cold, serrated metal of the knife presses against the back of her hand, contrasting against soft skin coloured with vitality. She’s always been warned of the dangers of handling such tools, but it’s part of her daily life – she slices bread for those who are too lazy to do it themselves, she bakes and deals with (pests?) customers all day long. Yet she’s never taken any time to admire what she does, sit back and revel in all she’s accomplished.

Somehow, a lifetime spent baking bread doesn’t feel like a lifetime she can be proud of. Once again, the hollow feeling of dissatisfaction swells within her heart. She feels empty, and it’s on nights like these, when Delia goes to bed early and leaves her to her own thoughts, that she truly thinks about running away.

She fancies herself as a circus performer – the main act, the star of the show, commanding lions and standing on horses and walking tightropes as crowds gasp in awe. She’s so used to being in the background, just another of the Neptune children, that she just wants a spotlight above her head and all the eyes on her as she performs. It’s a beautiful dream, until she remembers her lack of talent, and reality comes crashing back on her and she slumps back, letting the knife fall from her grasp and releasing an over-dramatic but much needed sigh.

That’s circus performer ruled out. She’s not even sure if there are any circuses in Six. Perhaps she could start her own, and be a ringmaster-

A ringmaster?

Her heart pounds with excitement. She may not have any particular talent, but if there’s one thing she can do surprisingly well for someone of her age and size, it’s bossing people around. Seizing the control she lacks in her everyday life, being howled at by stressed parents and living in the shadow of her older siblings. She imagines the circus now, a spectacle not to be missed, an evening of frivolous enjoyment and… and what?

Maybe she isn’t cut out to be a ringmaster after all.

~

When she opens her eyes, it feels like home. The big top is reminiscent of her time after the bloodbath, where even though blood spilled from her chest as if it was a broken pipe, she maintained her spirit. Her innocence. A time before her scythe brought down two mutts, a time before her dehydration and before the winged horse carved crimson patterns in her skin with its hooves. She remembers marking it mentally as her own territory. She wonders if anyone has been here aside from her – the idea of it makes her uneasy, in some strange way. This is her home.

As she slowly comes to terms with her surroundings, she realises that her territory is under threat.

She snaps to attention when she sees the other tributes, scrambling to her feet and seizing the scythe. The previous day’s events have been put to rest. She doesn’t bother looking for Jayne; although the two shared a conversation the previous day, the first one she’s had in the arena, she can’t bear to look at her knowing that, deep down, the two are enemies. All of them are enemies here, even all the faux friendships that appear to have been made between the other tributes.

The big top changes. Discomfort fills her being as she watches the silhouettes of young tributes like her parade around them. The ground comes to life in one quick flurry, the bones that had disturbed her so greatly on the first day forming together until – oh shit.

Another beast, forged by the Capitol, emerges from nullity.

In the few seconds it takes for her to realise the implications of this scene, a nearby boy is already in motion. An axe swings towards her, somehow cloaked in fire, and her eyes close by reflex and prepares for impact and she feels a crack before her face goes numb. She reaches a trembling hand to her jaw, feeling around, and it feels wrong and she knows that the boy has hurt her but she can’t feel anything in her face anymore and why is he attacking me when that monstrosity is right there-

Out of the corner of her eye, Jayne swings at the mutt. Seeing her makes Leticia remember the previous day, the tranquillity of the guitar music and how good it felt to just relax-

It’s a completely different world to this one.

The Leticia that existed on the first day is gone now, she thinks. That Leticia would turn away from the boy from Nine, instead focusing all her attention on the mutt, what she perceived to be the biggest threat. But the current Leticia knows that the mutt isn’t the real enemy here. If she wants to survive, it’s the humans who have to go. The fact that the boy attacked her, when all she was doing was standing stationary, fills her with an anger that she’s not sure she’s ever felt before, despite her feisty nature. So she pulls her hand away from her jaw, scowling at the boy from Nine.

“Fuck you, Nine,” she spits through numbed lips. “I’m not dying today.”

She remembers her promise to Ronan to survive. She can’t break it, not yet.

Her survival in mind, she makes her choice as quickly as the boy made his, and lunges towards him with a fire to rival the axe he threw at her.

♆

leticia attacks ambrosia with scythe
2cOMFS2sEcsword
block -- 0.0 damage

[accuracy]

sword
miss -- 0.0 damage

sword·sword

Last Edit: Mar 24, 2019 15:15:49 GMT -5 by jess

Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]
Retired Staff

6,346 POSTS
Pronouns: He/Him
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cozy, queer af

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 16:21:13 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy] on Mar 24, 2019 16:21:13 GMT -5

"I'm sorry, Ex, but your friend has a one way ticket to hell from Karma."

Ah, Karma again.

Finley holds tight to her weapon and her cactus, sticking close to Exover. The weapon of the Gamemakers, the furious mutt made of bone, looms above all. Somehow, she does not feel threatened by it. She sees their monster and thinks it looks horrifically pathetic, tamer than the beasts who have plagued her life for too long.

This Ronan is a pest, no more, no less. Obsessed with karma, obsessed with a vision of retribution, obsessed with himself.

"You'll regret ever laying a fucking hand on Severus."

He smirks. She quirks an eyebrow.

"Karma's here to bite you in the fucking ass, bitch."

Karma for knocking a boy off of his high horse.

Truly, why would karma spite her for putting a boy in his place? If anything, karma should be knocking on her door and hollering the name Savior Powermaker at the top of her lungs. Finley’s got bigger wrongs to right in the grand scheme of her existence. In a game about fighting, who can fault her for throwing a few punches?

Oh well, she figures. Some egos are wounded more easily than others.

Karma is not the correct word to use as the boy’s blade slices through flesh and bone. Finley feels it from a world away, real and unreal, aware of the sharpness but detached from her senses.

Mr. Cactus Friend rests in the dirt, right next to her severed hand.

Finley “Death is nothing new” O’Hara doesn’t feel the pain. Something’s broken in her brain, or else the adrenaline picked up. She doesn’t hardly feel it when the other boy’s weapon takes off her foot.

Something is surely wrong with her brain.

There is numbness.

The greatest pain she feels is annoyance, and wrongness, and the sharp worry in her chest for Exover. She stumbles, but not all the way. Ex hoists her up, weapon and all.

”Deputy Endor reporting for duty,” he says, and she breaks out into a big smile.

”You’re the best, you know that?” she whispers into his ear as she holds tight to him. It’s true. None of them deserve to live so much as Ex.

It takes a second, but her head clears enough to keep fighting.

”Tell,” she begins, gripping her weapon in the one hand she’s got left. ”Which one of you lucky lads is Severus?”

Their eyes give away the answer, and she strikes.

Finley attacks Severus, spiked blunt

Vo7YhESSX6spiked blunt

Accuracy, Day 5

spiked blunt
14166 -- TWO BROKEN RIBS -- 7.5 damage
(Spiked Blunt)

[result]

spiked blunt·spiked blunt

Last Edit: Mar 24, 2019 16:22:36 GMT -5 by Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]

warehouse

Stare
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and i will hold you tight / like the moon in the arms of the sky

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 24, 2019 18:14:31 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Stare on Mar 24, 2019 18:14:31 GMT -5

[attr="id","roryBody"]

[attr="class","triangle"]

[googlefont="Noto Sans:400"]Rory wakes up to a distinct pounding, nauseous feeling pressing against the backs of her eyes.

The world tastes bitterly of regret as she rolls onto her back and groans loudly, trying to to block some of the morning light with her arm. It takes her a moment for images of the night before to resurface in her mind, slippery memories of the map and dancing and secrets. Somewhere nearby she hears someone else stirring and, remembering her partner in crime last night, she groans.

"Ronan, I'm going to kill you."

"Get in line with the others!" She cringes at his loud tone, no doubt trying to enhance her suffering, but then manages a soft chuckle. She can still feel the words from last night drifting between them, drunken but honest.

(I don’t really hate you.)

(I don’t hate you either.)

Rory groans again and drags herself up off the ground, pressing her palms into her eyes. It’s an effort just to think, but she eventually manages to assemble with the others (sheepishly avoiding Severus’s gaze) and take off. As the ride on, Severus and Ronan talking quietly a short distance away, she prays that they somehow miraculously avoid trouble today. But she’s hungover, not stupid.

They’re in for hell and they all know it.

So when trouble starts up ahead, Rory isn’t surprised. She is surprised, however, when Severus hangs back instead of lurching forward alongside Ronan. “Rory, I’m scared?”

Her heart breaks. How the hell did it come to pass that someone as strong as Ronan would confide in her? How is it that Severus allows himself to be so honest with her? She doesn’t deserve her allies and she’s sure that everyone in Panem can see that. For a moment she considers feigning strength and courage, charging off to battle like Ronan or keeping a level head like Raven, but she can’t.

"I'm scared, too.” Scared of being mauled by some freakish beast. Scared of being ripped apart by her fellow tributes. But the even sharper fear, the one that makes her hesitate, is the fear that she will emerge from this fight. Alone.

And even though she knows the rules, even though she knows that what she’s so desperately trying to put off today will eventually come to pass - she must die or be a sole survivor - she can’t let it happen today.

“But I've got your back, okay? As long as I'm breathing, I've got your back."

"Sometimes it's okay to be afraid," his hand finds hers, a lifeline, "but you're right, as long as we aren't alone."

Rory glances at him, the volunteer who will always be better than anything she could ever be. "I'm really proud to know you, Severus Ward."

"And I'm proud to know you, Aurora LaChance."

It isn’t long after he lets go of her hand that the first few hits land on him, and she screams because Severus Ward is the bravest person she knows and the world isn’t ready to lose him yet. She’s not ready to lose him.

“Leave him alone! He’s just a kid.” Her voice is audibly trembling, but she doesn’t care. She turns toward another target, desperate to direct their attention elsewhere and blind herself to the reality of the situation. “He’s just a kid.”

Aren’t they all?

this is gospel for the vagabonds
ne'er-do-wells and insufferable bastards
confessing their apostasies
led away by imperfect impostors

[newclass=#roryBody]width: 360px; background-image: url("https://i.imgur.com/pwhP1ET.png"); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-color: #000000; color: #cbcbcb; line-height: 14px; font-size: 11px; text-align: justify; padding-right: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 415px[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle"]float: right; clear: right; height: 14px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(1)"]width: 120px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(2)"]width: 120px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(3)"]width: 117px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(4)"]width: 114px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(5)"]width: 112px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(6)"]width: 110px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".triangle:nth-child(7)"]width: 100px;[/newclass]

(d3f aurora lachance attacks d8f damaris hope with holographic sword)
ixWRnyddlgsword
(stabbed in hand, 8.0 + 1 blades)

lyrics: this is gospel, panic! at the disco

sword

Last Edit: Mar 24, 2019 20:32:51 GMT -5 by Stare

Deleted

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last seen Nov 13, 2024 2:06:52 GMT -5

the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 25, 2019 20:27:01 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2019 20:27:01 GMT -5

(I'll bring thunder, I'll bring rain, oh
When I'm finished, they won't even know your name
You brought the flames and you put me through hell
I had to learn how to fight for myself
And we both know all the truth I could tell
I'll just say this is "I wish you farewell")

He can still feel the searing pain when he turns his neck left or right. He doesn’t have a mirror but if he did he’d see the blueish tint of his eyelids, or the broken red blood vessels along his face and cheeks. Reminders of how close he’d come to finishing himself yesterday.

Darkness has not come and gone, or even been erased. He still feels the aching sadness deep within his bones but it’s settled now. A resignation that he’s done something terrible that has hurt Damaris, and maybe others that had been watching him (he prays his littlest sister did not see but wonders if it matters, his coming home so unlikely).

“I’m sorry.”

He tries to make up what he’s done with the only words that seem strong enough. He’s not sure then who he’s apologizing to, even as he stares at Damaris. He was sorry for what she’d had to see, and sorry that she’d have him for another day. Sorry that he couldn’t be stronger, that he often gave in to thoughts that pierced through the back of his mind to tell him how unlovable and worthless he was. But most of all he was sorry that she’d never know how much he loved her, and who she was, before he died.

“Sometimes it feels like too much, and it’s still here, but I don’t want to leave you. Not yet.” He can’t say he’s that much better than he was after all the drunken revelry. His head throbs and he is watching the coming sunrise thinking that it may be the last he’d ever see. At least he has Damaris. The thought is a sprig of grass poking out through the steaming pile of dirt that is his mental state; she is a singular positive he can grasp onto and see, as though there is one thing that does not make him feel like he should be dead. A seed that has blossomed and grown, against the poor soil and harsh terrain, where no life should’ve been found.

“I just...” He pauses and closes his eyes, still painful, and watches the darkness. He waits a time to speak, because truth is often heavier, and he’s still so tired. “Sometimes I get messed up and make mistakes, and I hurt people. Myself. And I don’t know how to fix that. Don’t know if I will... before...”

The prospect of death is quite real – there are fourteen other souls in the arena besides the two of them. He’s studied the games enough to know that something terrible is coming for them both. He knows he doesn’t have the power to do anything to stop it, or that their narrative would be written in the blood spilled that morning, should either of them fall. He would be remembered (if at all) as the boy who’d been selfish enough that he wanted to end it all, and leave her quite alone.

“You don’t have to apologize. I was just—” she looks at the ground, then, away from Saturn as though she’s sifting through the dirt for something. “Scared.”

The word punches him in the gut because he knows all that it encompasses. There was pain, and fear – he’d gone and made her suffer for what she had to see. And still, here she was, coaxing him through his sadness, even in the midst of her own, onward.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to fix ourselves completely, Saturn. I think we just have to focus on trying to be okay in the now, for as long as we can.”

For her, he could try.

“Thank you Damaris. I just want you to know... you matter to me, a lot.” He doesn’t think anyone had ever told him that, but he wants Damaris to know. He may have gone his whole life training, and becoming this war machine but no one had ever told him he mattered. He hopes Damaris knows that he wouldn’t have been have the person he was in the games if it wasn’t for her.

“You matter to me, too,” She says, and it’s the first time he feels something akin to happiness, albeit for a moment.

Morning comes, and they are together again with the rest of the fateful sixteen, carted to the tattered big top. He’s on pins and kneedles because he knows what this will mean for them – he knows that one or both of them could die, more real now than any of the last four days. When the giant elephant bones come alive, and the monstrous creature begins to rise Saturn steps forward, achy as his own body is (and his head’s hangover pounding) to greet the coming beast. He thinks of killing it first because of how it would look (that the boy from one slew a giant beast, and that perhaps they’d have greater odds avoiding the skirmish that was going to unfold).

“Come at me you son of a bitch,” He says as he presses forward, away and ahead with the girl from three, Bloom, and the one from five. Except he missteps and finds the leg of the giant creature come crashing into his breastplate, nearly tearing the thing apart. He’s on his back as fireworks come, the boy from nine going for the girl from six at his side as he tumbles.

He staggers to his feet, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Ronan slicing in the girl from four. He wants to shout at Ex but then the boy from three slices into her, and she’s too far from him.

"What was it you said to me yesterday? ‘Cheers to life' or something like that?

The girl from two calls out to him and he turns. The past evening was as much a blur as anything, he couldn’t remember what words he’d said to her. He didn’t think they would matter much, but it seems what he’d said stuck with her. And not in a way that would let him out unscathed.

"Well, let's see if your grip on it is any better than your district partner's was."

Saturn looks at Jessica Braun and sees her. The determination to win, the chaotic energy the bristles underneath her glaive, and the ferocity of her gait. She has the wind at her back, confident that in a battle with Saturn, there will be no draw.

Had they spoken yesterday, he would’ve told her that they were a lot alike. Fiercely competitive, strategic and dogged, they were careers through and through. Except he would have told her that whatever glory she sought by comparing herself to him, or to Myrcella, made her hollow, breakable. He almost felt sorry for her, even as she sliced across his shoulder.

He doesn’t have a chance to speak before Damaris swipes forward, lacing into the girl from two. He’s proud – to have her as a friend, and to know what someone so genuine looked like. Damaris ambles backward and it’s then the one from twelve slips forward, missing her by inches, and Saturn recoils. The girl from three finds her mark, and lays into Damaris, and it’s then he finds it, the disappearing sense of powerlessness that has boiled over and flamed into something else.

It is a rage that they cannot and will not tear the two them apart.

Not.

Today.

“I don’t have time for this, you petty bitch. Get the fuck out of my way!”

Saturn snarls, and sets his spear alight. He is heavy with sadness, and molded by suffering. But he is a storm, threatening and powerful. Had they forgotten?

He would make them remember.

“HNNNNNNNNG!”

[Saturn lights his spear with tar]

[Saturn Rhodon attacks Jessica Braun with his flaming spear]

V0bmKpx0ztspear

1-50spear·1-50

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
Retired Staff

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Pronouns: he/him
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the ferryman has come | day 5 fight Mar 25, 2019 21:27:06 GMT -5

Quote

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Mar 25, 2019 21:27:06 GMT -5

( start again, start again,
build a new world up instead
let the old one burn,
you get what you deserve )

Embers crackle and spray out from the bon-fire and they soar upwards to the skies, a bright flurry of fireflies. The bonfire never goes out, at least before Francis’s eyes flutter to a close. It seems to burn, against his hands, across his bones, behind his eyelids. Francisco Bloom is a bundle of agitated nerves, synapses caught in ecstatic motion, brimmed with worry and concern.

The serenity they are offered is like a ramshackle mansion that could collapse in on them at any given moment, a cruel illusion, and Francis cannot help but feel caged within its tattered walls. The rendezvous is as random as it is chaotic, tributes led astray with their guards down, that it feels like the calm before a storm. He discovers the markings of omens in how joyful most tributes seem, content with this small hiatus, with their guards held down and weapons nowhere to be found.

There can be laughter before a murder, clear skies before the dark clouds. Omens do not have to be black cats and dizzy ladders, he muses, they can effortlessly be the mellifluous sound of the Five boy’s guitar-strings and the warmth of the bonfire.

Francis curls into Nico Thorne’s sleeping form even more, as if bracing for what tomorrow holds for them. The latter bleeds vulnerability in his slumber, he notices. As Francis watches from under dark lashes, Nico is a mere boy lost to his dreams, a boy from Twelve with the comforting yet faint scent of coal near his collar, a pair of soft lips, and delicate features that are softened even more by the flames’ glow. His nostrils flare, breathing the other in as well as the aroma of the summer grass they are sprawled over.

“We’ll never die,” Francis had said the day before.

It was more of a promise than a string of words, he’d realized just seconds after, that he doesn’t quite know how to keep. Promises are made to be broken and this is the moment before the breakage, before the fracture, before the exhausted wards of their love could no longer keep Death's demented troops at bay. He decides to relish all of it in its entirety before it could break, fighting back the tears at the back of his eyelids and letting his head bury itself within Nico’s chest.

The wreath on Francis’s head is all sunflowers and hyacinths whereas the wreath on Nico’s head is a circle of jagged bones, each one cleaned and raw.

Flowers and bones;
they shall flourish
and break together.

He doesn’t know when the bonfire died.

He doesn’t know when the air became cooler, or when the music of the Five boy’s instrument is devoured by a haunting melody that tugs on his heart-strings. He doesn’t know when the grass below them disappeared and when they were teleported to the dirtied floor of the worn circus tent. He doesn’t know when or how the shadows become adance with strange creatures and shapes, making the innards of the tent seem dreamlike and scarily whimsical. He doesn't remember laying beside Exover Endor, but the thought reddens his cheeks.

He doesn’t know when the storm began.

It seems to have emerged out of a nowhere, clear skies to growling clouds in a split second, and Francis is left aghast at the electric flurry of actions around him. The drunken children from the night before are no more, the hedonism and the peace faded. But, he knows there is more when a tremor starts in the ground below and in his bones. Francis’s initial thought is a stampede, a horde of equine creatures akin to the one he’s encounter before rushing in to attack them, but then the piles of dusty bones at the center begins to rattle.

This isn’t a stampede;
this is so much worse.

The entire place regains its charm, it seems, as broken glass, as if caught in reverse, flies back to the lights and luminescence bathes the circus. He watches, startled, as the largest of the bones rise and the rest quickly trails behind, alive with what he could only assume to be old magic and necromancy. The ivories dance in a flawed rhythm with the tune in the air, reassembling themselves to a form, to a shape, to a creature. When the bones are sewed together, the creature they make is dreadful. Francis’s shock becomes a weakness when the skeletal elephant’s tusk rams itself into his chest and fractures the armor he wears to chunks of gold, leaving only a portion of it hanging from his shoulder blade.

He gasps, takes several cautious steps back, and tries to soothe the wild river his blood circulation has become. Jessica, in a sudden, is there by his side and he catches Nico through the faces, alive. Francis's pulse calms, for a second's worth, the storm growing tender.

He stands in the midst of sacrificial lambs, harming another so that one could live for another sordid hour.

Francisco Bloom understands their fervor to wound and to kill. The living works in strange ways – and often live through another’s death. He’s seen tumbleweeds choking a bush of flowers, daffodils poisoning roses. The dead is the currency of the ferryman and if him, Nico and Jessica could live for another sordid hour, another somber day, Francisco would gladly scavenge for coins to offer to the ferryman. The garden of thorns and blood-red roses in his rib-cage prick against its walls as Francis detaches a knife from the belt.

The roses and the thorns become him as his wrist flicks. Gold flashes as his knife disappears into the fray, but his gaze doesn't follow that. Eyes dance around, whirling, caught in a blur, before halting on Jessica Braun's face.

Francisco Bloom is not a stranger to death. He has lived beside it, seen thousand flowers die and reborn, blue lilies wilting as blood-red carnations conquer them. He has caressed dying trees as their last leaves fell to the cold ground before a wind swept them away. Death is the garden and they are the lovely blooms, hopelessly rooted to its soil. As he watches Jessica Braun get trampled underfoot, Francisco screams, drowning out the cannon that inevitably sounds seconds after.

It's a haunting noise, a thousand omens folded inside it.

Kneels softly fall beside Jessica and he cradles her, like clouds to a mountain peak, fingertips caressing the edges of her twisted face. There is anger and grief, growling inside Francisco Bloom as if it is a creature, and both are reflected in the snarl of words that he cannot bottle up. “No one deserves that name here, Saturn,” his voice is resolute, an apocalypse to the boy's storm. “Other than you.”

Francis is a nurturer, life-giving, but he can give as much as he can take away. He shall be ruthless, the grand apocalypse of roses and thorns. He envisages thorns, dark and red, splintering out of Saturn's chest.

“You won't have time at all.”

( go in exile, go in vain,
keep burning to the borderlands
we become all that we hate,
start again, start again )

Lyrics : Zola Jesus — Please