you painted me golden [little bill v tamarin, day2]

this was worth the cages.

you are lonely still, lonely always, with something you weren't given the dexterity of thought or tongue to give voice to crying out for a family you were not placed here with and are barred by shifting invisible walls from finding. (you live to fight. you do not know this, have no context for it in your world defined by warmth and its lack, but you were placed here to put on a show of bright color and bared teeth and high screams. all of you were, and there are others in this place living in groups as they should, trading grooming and napping pressed together while the babies learn the strength of their tails and fingers by chasing each other through the canopy—but you are alone because sometimes tributes are alone, and you live to fight, not to be a healthy member of your own species. you do not live for yourself at all.) and the cages weren't so bad, when you lived in them; your claws sunk comfortably enough into the climbing posts provided for you, and if often bored you were at least never hungry. but here you have sun to turn your flowers toward as you bask, and no mesh ceilings stop you from testing your limits for the joy of it, and no humans come to chase and prod you until you bare your teeth and scream.

snakes come instead, and sharp-beaked birds, and bright cats you learn to listen for by the rustling of branches instead of their steps; but often they fail to see you at all, and you fight off or dodge the rest easily enough, sharp-toothed yourself and sure-footed in the trees. but not humans, not for anything at all, not for days and days—not until one snaps a twig beneath you.

your eyes shoot open from your nap and you look to the noise, stiffening when you see what wandered beneath you while you dozed—but you don't run, not yet. after a moment you even come closer, stiff with caution but too curious to resist; you're used to humans who move in with purpose, pointing tools and jabbering at each other, but this one is quiet and still and simply looks back as you stare.

the jungle is never silent, but under the buzzing of insects and rustling of leaves and distant animals' calls, it's silent between the two of you.

the human holds out a hand.

this, you know.

back arched and fangs forward, you scuttle to the side from whatever the human holds out, lean your face all the way into the intruder's, crack your tail behind you in warning, and scream like your life depends on it.

the human doesn't respond right. they always vanish beyond the mesh when you give them what they want, even if they haven't hurt you yet, satisfied by noise and teeth, but not this one. this one makes noise back at you and reaches for you again, further than before, and you do as bid by instinct and training alike: you crack your tail again and, missing the reaching hand as you try to bite forward and lean back at once but coming close enough that you flinch at the brush of your fur against fingers, show that your teeth are for more than display.



Rosa [Brush Maned Tamarin] does not attack.

this close, you can smell the blood. the smell of the jungle remains heavier and deeper around you—sweet green growth, damp rich earth, the lingering evidence of other creatures' passage—but the blood cuts through it easily, and you know that scent all the way down in the darkest recesses of your mind. (you were, though you do not know this either, bred for it, first by millennia and then by human hands that fancied themselves more powerful than time and were not always wrong. but the process is not relevant; only the result is relevant.)

you were a fool, to think a quiet human could be a safe human.

you watch each other, you with your fur spiking ever higher and the human bloodied by whatever fight came before your meeting. he doesn't reach out again for long enough that you begin to think you might be fast enough to get away, if you try now; you back up a step as he picks up a pointed stick and makes noises full of meaning you can't interpret, and you chip back at him a few times, a warning call that even to your own ears sounds halfhearted at best without the troupe who should make it with you, together at the edge of your collective territory—and then he moves again, and so do you, trying to lunge before he can.

failing.

it's not quiet anymore, as you hit dead wood and writhe; you're screaming at the pain across your arm, worse than any of what now seem like gentle trials back in the cages, and the human is screaming for reasons you don't care about because all you have room to care about is that it hurts. tantalizingly close just moments ago, escape is out of reach now, with the limbs you clambered down from looking impossibly far away and the pointed stick feeling all too close—but that means the human is still close, too. close enough, if you can move quickly, to be a springboard to safety; still close enough, if you can't, to put your teeth into. so you scream at the top of your lungs once more, get your scrambling feet under you, and try again.



Rosa [Brush Maned Tamarin] attacks Little Bill Cubs, teeth/knife
JHD|D6i5SHknife
[Block -- 0.0]

you barely feel your leg tear open. your body knows it happened; your body, already unbalanced from compensating for the arm you can't put weight on, staggers and scrambles as the human's stick pulls leaves from your skin and blood from your veins. but the leg can still hold you, and as long as it hurts less than your wounded arm, the new pain vanishes under a cacophony of rattled ribs and a screaming heartbeat. survive, insists the nebulous, abiding thing that has kept alive countless generations of family you never knew and can barely imagine—the thing that has brought roots through seed shells and coaxed babies to draw breath. survive, agrees your heartbeat, agrees your adrenaline, agree your feet already in motion. you simply do not have space in your mind to acknowledge anything that tells you that doing so is no longer an option.

at the end of the day, you—lone little monkey with your deep eyes and pretty flowers and durable but tiny tegulae—were never meant to have a chance. you were meant to sound threatening enough to make viewers lean forward but not to pose a true threat; deaths by mutt are dull, a waste of the time and money spent marketing tribute dynamics and teasing matchups. you were meant to look pretty and bleed out prettier.

but you don't know that.

nothing can be free here is a string of noise as meaningless to you as a bird's courting song or the rustle of a beetle's wings. however lonely and melancholy your life may have been, you have known freedom now, and inside it the first hesitant whispers of contentment. however desperate and terrified you may be, you still trust your clever fingers and strong heart. the gamemakers never meant to give you a chance; you believe you can fight for one anyway.

(survive.)

getting close has only gotten you hurt, so you stay low, dancing lightly over the flat dead wood, and bring your tail around.



Rosa [Golden Lion Tamarin] attacks Little Bill Cubs, tail/whip
B06WCgvqa|whip
[result]