What's Owed // [Badder Bitches]

d10f ekta ram // [earthling]
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What's Owed // [Badder Bitches] Jul 2, 2020 16:30:15 GMT -5

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Post by d10f ekta ram // [earthling] on Jul 2, 2020 16:30:15 GMT -5

H E L L E

Helle fell.

Surrounded by beauty and brilliance, she lay, one eye gazing skyward. A raven circled, cawing lazily. Waiting.

Red blood welled, spilling over the shattered gemstones.

"I knew it was coming," she said to Terra, her throat thick with fluid. "It was owed."

It. Her life. Her small, strange life, divided first by her twin and then by their sister. Three Cauchemars, Three Fates, Three Witches.

Carefully, painfully, Hellemine reaches past the knife lodged in her skull and lets two fingers rest on her intact third eye. At least she would not be blind in the afterlife.

"...the rites," Terra sobs.

It is not so very painful to move now.

Hell draws both arms across her chest, all ten fingers resting comfortably over the pentagram. She is cold. "I walk the three-way crossroads," she whispers to the beyond. Then, gathering the last of her strength, she tilts her head just a little to look one-eyed at her three allies: Will the strong, JJ the steady, Terra the bold. "Do not mourn me."

The pentagram is a worthless token.

Metal is much better.

Shaking, she wraps both hands around the hilt of the knife.

"Avenge me," she hisses, pulls the knife from her skull, and clutches it to her chest.

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What's Owed // [Badder Bitches] Jul 3, 2020 22:42:35 GMT -5

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Post by gm bourgeois decadence [aya] on Jul 3, 2020 22:42:35 GMT -5

W I L L

"...the rites," he hears over the howls of the earth. Will shuffles to the side, cleaning the blood off of his bone-hilted dagger on the hem of his cloak, for once unsure of himself. He knows his place in battle, but where does the Johnwayne belong in grief? He's a bystander here.

Sheathing his knife, he finds his bottle of vodka to occupy his hands. One-handed, he uncaps it and takes a swig. The smoke burns his eyes, his nose; the liquor burns his mouth, his throat. Something else in his chest burns too. He's never been good at any of this.

Helle's last testament bequeaths vengeance alone, but he has the weakest claim to the allotment. He wishes, almost, he could muster the humanity for it. For a stronger feeling than unsettled. But the truth is he barely knew the witch any better than the kids he's been hurling daggers at, and it was always going to end like this for one of them sooner or later. And sure, given another chance Will Johnwayne won't hesitate to drain Mer Strauss's troupe, but when that day comes it ain't gonna be for Helle's sake.

He tips the bottle over, a splash of vodka dousing the emeralds at his feet. For a moment everything smells fresh and new — verdant and springlike, laundry and his mother's perfume — until the acrid air overwhelms the moment. Will pours one out for Hellemine Cauchemar, and even if these rites are wrongs, it's the only funerary ritual the Johnwayne knows.

"I'll keep watch," he mumbles to himself, too uncomfortable in the weight of the moment to be useful in any other way. Will sets his vodka on the ground. "Take your time."

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What's Owed // [Badder Bitches] Jul 3, 2020 23:12:50 GMT -5

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Post by 🌱 kaitlin. on Jul 3, 2020 23:12:50 GMT -5

T E R R A

"No!" I say, voice fierce. Your life isn't owed to anyone but yourself, I think in the back of my head, hands trembling as I hold Helle's between them. For so long, I have been alone, in a cage I always thought was never of my own making, trapped by a man who trained me to believe that I was free, that I was invaluable. He made my life a thing for him to own, a thing for him to command, and here, as Helle lays herself to rest and crosses her arms across her chest and tells herself that this is what was meant to happen—it's too much, and I want to snap.

"I will, Helle," I say, every part of me trembling with untapped rage. "I swear, I will. I'll slaughter all of them."

I scramble backward when the chopper comes, claw reaching down towards the earth to carry her body away, and—I think about Helle shrieking about that girl we killed, her face not being in the sky. I think about how there hasn't been anyone's face up in the clouds yet

A sharp pang of hope settles in me.

I pull my legs up and into my chest, fold myself together until I am as small as I have ever been and finally, after days of not wanting to read the letter that Bacchus tucked into my pocket, not wanting to feel the things that I knew it would make me feel, I pull out the already distressed bit of paper and let my eyes run over the words.

Terra,
You are about to face one of the hardest things you'll ever face in your life. The Hunger Games are no joke, but I believe in you. Hell, Six believes in you. All that I ask is for you to do whatever you can to survive, except don't be the one to kill Daemon. I don't know how much I can truly give you, but I am going to try my best to get you or Daemon home. In the arena, I went through a lot of pain, but knowing I had other others helped me through the first half, but you need to believe in yourself. You have to believe that it's going to be you coming home. Don't lose yourself to the pain you'll soon experience.
Don't lean into vengeance.
Karma will do the work for you.
I want to thank you for everything, Terra. You helped me through more than you'll ever know. My life can be drowning, but being able to show you how to fight with my own two hands helped me stay afloat. Life is full of pain and struggling, but that's what keeps us alive. We stay determined to not drown. I'm going through a lot, but none of that matters. You are stronger than many of the tributes. You can be stronger than all of them. Survive and come home to Six.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in your heart.
I know you can do this.
Don't ever stop fighting for home.
From,
Ex-Victor of the year, Teddy Ursa

Teddy's words turn me raw, make me feel like I have been twisted inside out and I know that they should probably calm me down, tamp down on the fire of grief in my body, but somehow it only gets brighter. I am struck, very suddenly, by just how much I miss the victor, by how quickly I had grown attached to him. Reading it now, I wish that I had read it sooner, absently. Maybe if I had read it earlier then I wouldn't have gotten attached to Helle, wouldn't be attached to JJ, wouldn't have this uncomfortable feeling of betrayal settling in my chest every time I look at Will and hear again and again and again him telling Meredith that he wasn't going to kill her. Maybe I would have left them, my allies, gone out onto my own in this god-forsaken glittering place.

He tells me that I'm strong, tells me to come home to Six—but Six has never felt like a home, not really, and that's the scariest part. Home feels like sparring on the mats with Teddy, curling into Helle while she slept, learning about plants with JJ and collecting them together here in the arena, laughing and drinking and playing dice with Will. I don't—I don't even know what I would be going back to in Six if I made it out of here.

Maybe I care about surviving.

But only just enough so that I might kill the girl from Eleven and every one of her allies. Only just enough so that when they sleep at night, it's my face in their nightmares.

I uncurl myself and go to sit near JJ, not quite touching, not saying anything, just—needing him.