dig your own grave [UGG night 6 / morning 7]
Jul 25, 2020 0:03:29 GMT -5
Post by wimdy on Jul 25, 2020 0:03:29 GMT -5
The figure is too slight, shoulders too narrow to be his.
Kahinta doesn't waste her time looking at him any longer than she has to. Without a word, she turns and walks away, Oberon and Callum at her back, and Daemon six feet under.---Her fingers twitch around her urn, and she has to take a deep breath, closing her eyes to try and center herself. It's growing dark, and they've kept their fire as low as possible to avoid eyes. She's sure Dom and the other girl are still lurking around, and whoever came out of the-
Kahinta cuts off the thought, tightening her grip and lifting the container to her mouth so she can drink. There's no use in thinking about it, about him. It doesn't matter anymore.
There's a beeping from above, faint against the wind and flutter of the butterflies that still swirl around them in their flight from whatever had driven them across the arena. Across her arms, and in her hair, and perched on the edge of her urn. She dips a finger into the water and holds it out, one of the butterflies sucking the droplet little by little from her skin. Her eyes remain down until the beeping grows closer, twin sounds, until there are two packages dropping nearby.
"I got it," she mutters, voice low as she stands, jostling some of the butterflies from her body as she goes to pick up the packages and bring them back over. One gets tossed toward Oberon, and she opens the other quickly, pulling out what seems like several tubes that could interlock, and then the head of a shovel. A shovel? She blinks, face screwed up in confusion as she lifts the final piece out from the package and hefts it up for the others to see, her own eyes turning outward to the expanse of graves that stretch around them at all sides.
"You're joking," she breathes, shoulder slumping as she drops the head of the tool back down into the earth between her knees. Oberon's own package has a chisel and small hammer. An ask, if she ever saw one. Yesterday, bakers. Today?
She stares at the grave off behind them, blank slate stone and undisturbed plot, all dirt and grass and time long past. It's just the arena. It's not real. And yet... How many bodies had she seen fall, and how many remained? What would they find, if anything, beneath the earth?
With a sigh, Kahinta pushes up to her feet, still crouched as she pushes the pieces of the collapsible shovel together until it's complete. She scoops once, twice, smelling fresh turned earth so clear it settles something deep in her stomach, reminds her of hours in the yard building castles from crumbling clay, but she's not at home. All around her, death, spreading it's gossamer threads over them and obscuring them from sight, taking everything from them in the space between breaths and leaving them alone in the dark. Her eyes find Oberon and Callum once again, frown set heavy across her face.
"I hate this fucking place."---Hours later, a grave dug and names carved into stones all around them, Kahinta sits by the embers of their fire, fingers twisting around and around and around but never finding purchase. She's already popped the blisters that had formed while digging through the earth, sores spread wide in the cradles of her thumbs, in the palms of her hands.
She hardly feels it.
Callum and Oberon sleep, heavy in the thrall of their dreams, but Kahinta cannot bring herself to shut her eyes. Each blink feels like sandpaper scratched mercilessly across her cornea, but every time she closes them, she cannot bear to keep them closed. A wet gasp breathed against the dirt, a threat to send her somewhere after death, a hope dashed against the rocks and scattered amongst the butterflies.
Daemon is gone.
All night, she's been avoiding the thought, but she's felt it lingering at her back like the hazy shadow that skulks on the edge of her vision. Digging had let her focus, if only for a while. Taking the night watch helps her focus, if only for the second between the boys waking and sleeping. Her eyes fix on the sky, trying to wash the projection of his face from the record, but she still sees it etched into the stars far after the anthem has ended.
Daemon is gone.
Kahinta stands, quiet as possible, careful to walk around the deep pit in the ground, feet carrying her far enough away that the embers disappear from sight. Her hands shake where they're clutched against her upper arms under her cloak, the sharp reminder of her sores little comfort. Despite everything, she's still alive. Her hands hurt, and her head buzzes with thoughts, and her foot is sore from where it had driven into traps, but she is alive and she can feel it thrumming in her veins as sure as the sun rising, and he-
It's a quick, mindless move, to shove her fist into her teeth to muffle her sob, her lungs seizing with the force of it as she hurriedly ducks close to the ground. She tastes copper, but the sting isn't enough to tug her into the present, not when she opens her mouth to let go of her skin, and instead keens into her palm. He's gone; Daemon is gone, and she feels he loss settle heavy behind her ribs, a bubble she cannot burst, even as she sobs and feels the saliva pool in her mouth, the mucus in her nose. Tears sting at her eyes, and she can do nothing to stop them as she blinks once, twice, and shuts her eyes tight, twisting over her knees and curling into a ball on the ground, entirely exposed, entirely unaware of the arena around her.
Daemon is gone, and Kahinta knew it would happen, she did. She knew it, because with some level of certainty, she had known she'd have to make the choice in the end. If it had come down to getting home to Temple, or saving Daemon, she would choose her sister without fail every time. She just hadn't expected it to hurt. He is nothing to her. He was nothing to her, but the lie burns the back of her throat as she muffles her crying against her knees, one hand lifting to press against the back of her head, feeling the rough shave and stitches at the base, feeling fingers pass through her hair gently, easing the panic and anger after a fight with Oberon by a pond. His hands had wrought horror on others, but he'd been so kind and so stupid and she had wanted to shove his face into the dirt when he had flirted with her. He wasn't supposed to matter. None of them were supposed to matter.
He does.