❨ uproot the stars | day 5 | fayre&oblivion&cyril&orion ❩

Anxiety holds authority over every inch of Orion's existence. Red runs in a constant ring around him and all he can do is build up one bandage after another. Each scene seemed to only come swifter than the last. A speeding attack, a body between sword and ally, a district partner in disarray, and a new fallen tribute all in a sudden surge of sequential violence. Now Orion exists as its most wounded warrior, its luckiest survivor. But Orion doesn't believe in luck, nor does he hold it in any place over facts and numbers. He's in bad shape and he needs to sleep, even if his dreams are filled with phantom faces and constant cruelty.

Night falls and further the Game Makers' plot thickens. An abnormality immediately acquires Orion's attention. The temperature of the facility seems to be sinking. Normally this could be tied to night and the sun's absence, but considering they are inside of a world without either, every constant should be meticulously controlled. Something within the systems of operations is starting to alter, starting to edge closer towards error. If Orion had any hope of uncovering any issues within the Control Room's computers, he would have tried by now to reveal them. However, whatever damaged the arena initially appears to only have increasing impact. An impact that Orion fears may result in crisis sooner than the others may expect.

He drifts from rampant worry into unstable sleep, the normal night of a tribute.

Oblivion and Cyril are nearly ready to travel by the time Orion is even able to sit up. Soreness hangs heavy on every one of his limbs while  bubbles of blue and purple have popped into bright bruises across his skin. Orion can barely breathe none the less concentrate on the day that's dawning. He sees now why it's so incredible that Larceny and Auto are alive. To have to undergo this much pain, even more than this, and to still have a will to live is impressive. Maybe another piece to the puzzle of why he's here instead.

The cry of beautifully built technology halts both Orion's head and heart. In a single scream of surging mechanical malfunction, the world wanes into darkness and silence is born from the death of the machines. Amid the sudden shift to shadow, where does Orion's thoughts go? Straight to attempting to solve the source of a situation he most likely cannot fully comprehend. Perhaps the system is resetting, requiring an entire reboot? Whatever it is, it's enough to draw Orion's attention just enough to lose track of Oblivion and Cyril. His eyes scan the dark without even spying the outline of a shape.

He moves nervously forward.

Judging on the things Orion can see and what his hands continue to crawl over, they're in a garden. It's probably breath taking when the lights are activated, Orion thinks as his fingers furl between the fronds of a small tree.

He stops suddenly.

There's a kiss of cold on the end of his nose, then there's water.

Orion holds his hands out open as he begins to feel more cool kisses trickle across his palms. Through the darkness he can see them, the spinning frozen fractals of freshly falling snow. Without the electricity, clearly the climate isn't being controlled. But what is even more odd is the grim green glow Orion can just spot bending beyond the mouth of an open airlock. He takes only a single step towards it when the sounds of fighting start. 

"Guys?!?!"

Out of the dark, Oblivion's voice matches the confusion of another girl's while Cyril clearly makes the connection that there are others present too. But how many? Orion wants to wield his mace, but even trying to hold that much weight anywhere other than his back is beyond burdensome. Instead he resorts to his blaster, almost screaming as steel scrapes across his skin. He has to shoot, but it can't be entirely blind. His eyes might be useless, but his ears sure as hell aren't. 

Someone steps nearby.

His finger squeezes. 

Distortion breathes in the delirium of darkness. Societal structures shatter as all rules become broken chains on a blood stained floor. When freed from the compression of control, humans are a vicious species. Orion has seen it time after time, slit throat after severed head. Tributes turned to killers by the potential of pain and the sound of canon fire. A microcosm of the mere madness which exists in every entity alive. He has seen it, planned for it, yet when the bonds break and the anarchy emerges, it still surprises him.

Already logic has been exchanged for the adrenaline of emotions. All within the shroud of snow sewn shadows, the sounds of suffering are all too quiet. But Orion's attention is angled elsewhere, towards the tiny specks of soft illumination lulling through the air overhead. Like the lingering hopes of dying dreams, they beam just barely enough to be seen by searching stares. It's a scene of absolute opposites, white on black and light dancing within darkness. It brings about an odd sense of longing for home inside of Orion's mind.

Could Adromeda see him now? See the fractured features of his face as they are touched lightly by such small sources of sun? Does she think he'll survive this night? Hell, does it even matter?

Orion's eyes slide shut, there is even a false tranquility in the surrounding silence. He wants to wait here forever, frozen in thoughts of ease instead of horror. He wants for just a second to feel like anything other than a dying boy. He wants...

Another shadow, another new piece of pain.

Orion's fingers flow over the small edges of the new scratch. His period of pensive passiveness perishes to the call of survival. Orion can feel the freedom of his hands from the same shackles the others surely must have shed, and it frightens him. Could he continue now to fire at the urge of his ears when Cyril or Oblivion could be waiting on the other side of his blast? They're somewhere in the same space, wandering without certainty in the snow. They could be hurt, bleeding. But still Orion's finger never leaves the trigger. His calculations are clear, despite the risk factors.

There's another sound.

Orion's mind activates.

Step speed, potential weight, potential height.

His hands aim. He fires. 

"Do you ever just stare at the stars and wonder why our little lives matter so much?"

Her blue eyes were swimming in the rings of Saturn and the smooth curls of her hair were crafted by the tails of comets. Her soul was searching through the spacial seas for something her hands could no longer reach. Her touch was warm and laced with lilac perfume, but beneath the facade of her face there was only ice. A princess as cold as the Queen of Snow who had stolen her brother from the palms of her hands. Diamond Nixton was beautifully broken, and she soared through space to run from world that had wronged her. Orion couldn't comprehend experiencing such a sense of overwhelming emotion.

"No. To question the root of existence is only to create existential crisis."

She had laughed then, a cold corrupt churning from the hollow husk of her heart. In a hushed voice, she spoke back to the mechanical mind of her Father's fortune. 

"You know Orion, you're always so easy to talk to."

Her sentence had stopped there for a second as though it was being slung around the circumference of the solar system. But following the properties of a circle, sound again forged the foundation of the rest of her words.

"It's like talking to a wall, only better because I look less crazy doing so. And just like a wall or a robot, telling you this won't even phase you."

She left after that, leaving the younger boy to sit in silence. But he was not bereft or pained, for he had heard such things countless times before. And she was entirely accurate, he didn't spend a single second in sorrow. His pencil went back to his paper and his mind back to the mathematics.

Orion's eyes blink away the furling kiss of another fallen flake of snow slipping onto his face. He's surprised by the presence of a such a memory now. Perhaps it is the darkness' delirium or the frantic forte of Oblivion's demands. All around him the area seems ignited in an energy of emotion, but he is steady. At first he felt panic, but such senses died quickly to logic. Now he seems off, the one point of perpetual calmness despite the stinging stench of metallic blood burning the edges of his nose.

He's doing what he always does, preserving his core within a fierce firewall.

Royce had broken through, an error in the extent of his emotional coding. But this is different. Although danger breathes in the heat of this shadow's brawl, Orion is activated entirely. Instead of allowing himself to be stunned by the scenario, he enables himself to assess and react to such a situation. He's using an alteration of the same equation he has had from the beginning. It's kept him breathing up to this point, therefore he has no means for its removal or revision. He has to place himself back inside his firewall, repair the code damaged by death.

Already Orion feels more confident within the bleak, his hands not hesitating in following the sounds of steps. All he can do now is hope that the one on the other end of his blaster is friend and not foe. It's a probability he accepts in another burst of light.