blood and unmarked graves (wnn vs ugg vs callum)

It feels far too early when she wakes.

For the first time since she'd set eyes on the graveyard, Kahinta had slept soundly through the night, curled tight into a ball at Oberon's back. One arm had been tucked up under her head, hand brushing the invisible wall. The other had been curled into her chest protectively, wrapped around their last remaining goose word as if it was a child, or a wish she could gather up in her hands and speak life into.

It's a goose.

Kahinta Jones is most definitely hungover, and she knows this as soon as she wakes, blinking at the sky that is already painted in lighter shades than the darkness she has grown used to seeing on her watch. She didn't even take watch. Blinking heavily, she keeps her eyes squinted against the sudden onslaught, unwilling to move for a few moments as she hears Oberon snoring behind her and feels the gentle fluttering against her head and arms.

"Fluttering?" she murmurs, brain catching up to the sensation, and opening her eyes fully, she finds both herself and the area swarmed with butterflies.

She wants to vomit immediately.

"Oberon, butterflies," she grumbles, sitting up slowly as the ones crawling across her cloak and half-tangled in her hair either take flight or hold on a little tighter for the ride. "There are so many butterflies… Oberon, wake up. What the fuck is going on?"

Their campfire is out, and the cookies are all gone, and the word squawks in her arms as she readjusts to sit up fully, rubbing one hand across her face to try and assuage her headache a little, but it does next to nothing.

"Get up. We have to move, now," she says, voice thick with sleep and a night of too much in every way. Kahinta kicks a foot out to collide with Oberon's as she stands, jostling him a little more. Her stomach twists at the motions, and she has to close her eyes for a moment to make sure she doesn't throw up over Oberon's back. It passes, but the unease and nausea linger. "I'll send the smoke bomb and then we've got to get back to the graveyard to meet Daemon."

"Ow!"

She hears mumbling as she turns away to start gathering her things, squinting at a partially blurry polaroid and shoving it into her bag without fully registering what it is or when she'd managed to take it. The night previous is a blur.

"I'm awake- Shit! We could have gotten ambushed."

The thought makes her stomach twist again, and this time Kahinta can't keep it down. She does manage to make it a few steps away from camp towards a tree, and gets sick at the base for a couple of minutes, eyes shut tight and tears clinging to her lashes.

It's all cookies and mistakes.

By the time she's finished getting sick, Oberon's packed up and ready to go, and Kahinta returns with all the dignity she can muster after having puked in front of a boy she can hardly stand after getting drunk and baking cookies with him. Very little dignity. She makes it work.

"Let's get out of here."

"Daemon, here we come."

---

They back amongst the graveyard, the Cornucopia, before long, and Kahinta walks ahead, weaving between the tombstones back in the direction where the mausoleum sits. They're not far in, only a little while's walking, when she sees figures in the distance that aren't their blurry shadows that walk alongside them, but other tributes. Four. She waves an arm behind her, drawing Oberon closer as she sidles up beside one of the larger gravestones, trying to make out who's there. Three figures in black and-

That's a new one. One person is wearing white instead.

She doesn't recognize the person in white, but the other two are Careers, and one of them is the girl from One. They're only watching for a few seconds, Kahinta turning her head slightly to strategize with Oberon, when the girl from One- Jade- springs forward on the fourth person, and her stomach sinks again.

"Fuck, it's Callum," she mutters, tugging at Oberon's arm and sprint forward to join the fray. Oberon's got history with Callum at this point, and as she races forward to aim at Jade, she wonders for a moment which way Oberon is going to turn.

Always wondering which way they're going to turn and when. It feels closer by the day.

She swings her morning star down hard at Jade, but is blocked in the process, her arm wheeling back to try and use the momentum to land a strike while she has the energy.

At least Oberon seems to have a brain today.

Kahinta draws her arm back, hearing the sick slide of bones broken as she withdraws, feet hovering slightly as she clicks her boots together and moves back several paces to reevaluate how to attack. The most important target still seems to be Jade, all cool confidence and direction. Off the leader, and the rest will scatter. AT least, she hopes. The other two have taken to going after Oberon, and Kahinta barely stops herself from whipping her head in his direction when she hears a distinct crack of his chest when the boy from four- Dominic, she thinks, though she still can't remember his district partner's name- swings hard and lands a blow direct center that takes some of the air from his lungs.

A familiar sound. Her eyes turn to search out the distant mausoleum, but there's no figure standing by the door. Tense alliance with Oberon aside, she needs him alive, at least until Daemon can get back to her. Maybe then Oberon can take his turn wherever the Gamemakers send the first-deaths among them.

Callum speaks quick between attacks, word decisive to address a quick alliance in the midst of the fight. Circling, Kahinta can't help the upturn of her lips as she casts her eyes over Oberon when Callum says he holds no ill-regard for them, wondering if it's all the same on their side. She doesn't care. Help certainly helps, however brief it is. The numbers are against them otherwise. Callum won't make it long anyway, and if he goes in the process, it's another name, another face. He's still wearing his blacks regardless. Another shot's still in his cards if he's struck out.

"But they killed my other ally, way back on day two. Help me kill them. Please."

"Hmph. We'll help you for now, but you try any more funny business and -"

And she's right back to where she was with Oberon all over again, brows furrowing as he makes a blatant threat against someone who could be of aid to them in the short term instead of sitting on it until it's actually actionable. Stupid. Her fingers tighten around her morning star, and she has half a mind to whirl it on him, to knock some sense into his idiot brain. Still usefull, still usefull, she thinks instead, looking for an opening as Jade darts in to strike at Callum again.

"I couldn't care less about your allies, Callum," she says, voice rough against the sound of broken bone and spilled blood, of fluttering all around them. The words feel half caught in her throat, truths too bare and too cold to be entirely true. They shouldn't have had to die, she doesn't say, but she remembers Kenji's eyes all the same when she'd brought him to the ground, sees Temple's vacant stare projected on the wall. They should matter, she doesn't say, hearing Niko's disfigured cry in the rain, and Bette's last breaths through a speaker. They deserved better, and she feels the resolve settle in her more clearly than it has since they'd been brought up into the Arena for the first time.

There's movement in her hair, but Kahinta doesn't have the heart left in her to brush away the butterflies that cling amidst the chaos. She's sure she makes a pretty picture for them, dressed in black and glittering crystal ribs, a butterfly crown on her head as she holds her morning star out in front of her, pointing directly at Jade. "I want her down."

Kahinta doesn't hesitate anymore.

Between one breath and the next, Kahinta is struck by how unreal everything feels.

Her morning star makes contact with a sickening sound, and it hardly registers after hearing the splintering of bone so often in recent days. It doesn't turn her stomach like it once had, despite how easy it should be to turn her stomach after the night prior. Instead, she steels against it, feeling the reverberation in her wrist, up her arm, settling across her chest. Kahinta takes the blow she's dealt to Jade with her feet firmly planted, only moving once she knows it's rung true against the hollow of her chest.

It should feel worse than this. Surely, it should feel worse than this.

Then, Kahinta had never been one to howl her emotions at the sky. No, she'd whispered her fears into the dark of the trees, or taste it tense behind her teeth, tonguing the gap but never spilling into word. Her sister had died before her eyes, before the world, and she'd only been able to curl her arms tight around herself and swallow down the anger and the wish that she could see her murderer die as horrible a death as she could imagine at twelve years old. It had been cold, and bitter, and consuming, but she'd never imagined that feeling nothing could have been worse than feeling everything.

It should feel worse than this, but she has to get home, and she doesn't waste her time wishing she could keep her hands clean when she knows how many before her have bathed in blood without a choice.

"But we don't all get what we want, do we?" says the girl in white, and Kahinta intends to make that a promise.

Jade's screams feel like nothing, and she breathes deep, remembering anguished cries in the rain and a kitten adrift on an arm, and Daemon- Daemon. She doesn't know when he'll be out- if, and her heart stutters in a way she doesn't expect, no promises granted to any of them in the Arena. We'll meet you at the doors, she had yelled. No promises, but she'd stick by her word until she couldn't any longer.

Her head shakes, just barely, clearing the rush of uncertainty that fills her at the thought, before she clenches her hand tight around the handle of her morning star and moves forward again, only to be met instead by Dominic stepping in front of her after dealing a hard blow against Oberon that send him reeling backward. She only barely sees him falter, leaning back against a gravestone with a heavy rasping breath, and that tide of discomfort rises again, tinged with anger that only Oberon seems to be able to manifest in her as he misses an opening to get back up and strike. It's not the first time she feels the urge to turn and get rid of him while she can.

"Fuck you, Twelve. Fuck all three of you. If you want her dead, you'll have to get through us."

A breathy laugh escapes her before she can stop it, hissing through her teeth as she clenches her jaw, teeth visible only for a moment before they're tucked back behind a scowl again.

"Sounds like a stupid choice to me, but if you insist," she replies, stepping up as she wheels her arm around to strike him out of the way.