eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 25, 2020 23:54:10 GMT -5

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Post by fireflyz on Jul 25, 2020 23:54:10 GMT -5

The night started to improve once Dominic had put his arm into a makeshift sling and his anger at Callum and the girl from Ten (mostly the latter when it logically should have been the former) had begun to simmer down. The anthem came and went, with Pisces pointing out the tribute he had killed in the catacombs, and Zenia deciding it was too much of a downer to discuss.

Glowing dagger tucked beneath her chin, she launched into a story from back home, about some murderous doll that killed a girl’s entire family. Dominic quirked an eyebrow at the doll being named Meredith, especially after they had just watched the real Meredith’s face fade away into stardust, but didn’t question it. If Zenia was trying to scare him, she hadn’t done a great job - although he did eye Jade’s dragon with additional skepticism.

Pisces painted the picture of how he decided to become an artist, and Dominic imagined an alternate universe where they both got to live and he would get to watch Pisces reimagine their world in brilliant brush strokes. He then told the story of how he tried to learn to surf and woke up in a different part of the district after wiping out. He didn’t tell them how much he missed Madelyn and wished he could be surfing with her instead. He didn’t say that he had been surfing with Paisley the day she died. They had plenty of time to ruminate over what they had lost, but that was not right now.

Zenia fell into slumber relatively quickly, but sleep evaded Dominic despite the weariness that sunk into every inch of his body. A quick glance to the side told him Pisces was awake as well, and he decided to break the silence. "Hey."

He was quiet for a moment, absorbing the miracle that was just being able to say hello to someone and having them react. He sat up slightly, resting his head against the wall of the mausoleum.

"I’m happy you’re back. I… I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come back."

The words didn’t hang in the air long before more followed, the culmination of a chaotic twenty-four hours without Pisces.

"It’s selfish of me," he said softly, "But I just want to keep waking up beside you every day. I want to be with you every day, even though I know what it would mean if it ended up being just us."

Dominic glanced up at Pisces again, and he felt a sudden pang in his chest. What the hell had he gotten himself into? It was one thing to befriend your ally, but it was another to be completely consumed by them, to wish that they were there for every breath you took. He was in deep.

He took a shaky breath, almost afraid to let the words spill out.

"If it were down to you and me, I would choose you. Every time," he said.

Dominic reached up to cup the side of Pisces’ head, fingers tracing along his jawline. "I love you," he breathed out.

Saying it felt freeing, especially when not on the brink of death. Pisces had told him the same before he died, and tonight he said it again, and Dominic could not feel more relief.

A gentle smile crossed his face, and he pulled Pisces closer to plant soft kisses on his face and under his jaw.

"I know you said you’d choose me, but I’d choose you."

Dominic silently vowed to never let him do that.

He assumed it was morning because he was awake, but the sky was hidden behind walls of gray and gave no indication of the true time of day.

A figure had materialized within the dense fog, dark hair stirring in the wind. The belt around their waist glittered on a white backdrop, the same attire that his friends wore now. Dominic blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the apparition did not fade. It merely came closer, allowing him to finally take in the features of the person standing before him.

"Jade?" he called.

As if the sound of her own name had frightened her, she turned and walked back into the fog as quickly as she had come. Stunned, Dominic wiggled out of Pisces’ arms and climbed to his feet.

As he began to step towards her, she only retreated further, her form becoming a misty blur. Dominic glanced back at where his allies slept, before continuing to hurry after Jade, who seemed abnormally averse to human interaction. "Hey. Where are you go-"

His foot found air rather than earth and he crumpled forward, jaw seizing as his chin banged against one of the headstones. "Ow. What the-"

Dominic placed a free hand against the cool slab, pushing against it so he stood up straight. The stone was mostly smooth, save for the crude ridges beneath his palm. He moved his hand to the side, heart leaping once he realized that the ridges spelled out his own name. He glanced down at where he had fallen - a gaping hole in the ground filled with nothing but dirt. He was standing in his own grave.

The initial shock eventually gave way to irritation, and he dug his good elbow into the ground to lift himself out of the grave. The last thing anyone would do was send him to a premature death, at least not before he made sure the people he cared about were alive and well. Once he had clawed himself above ground, he stumbled along behind the girl from One.

The further Dominic headed into the fog, the less certain he was of where he was headed. There was no sun overhead, no familiar glint of emeralds that seemed to litter every corner, no petals or thorns to embed themselves in his hair. There was only nothingness, and Dominic, and the ghost he was chasing after.

After some time, the consistency of the ground became softer, and the crunching under his boots and echoing of waves told him that he was at the beach again. Dominic closed his eyes, nostrils taking in salt and wood and the metallic scent he had come to dread over the past week. He had taken someone’s life here in a fit of rage. He knew he had not been the one to end it for good, but if he had kept himself in check there would’ve been no for good in the first place.

You did it for Jade, Pisces and Zenia, he reminded himself, opening his eyes. The former had stopped some yards ahead, arms crossed in front of her as she stared off at the invisible horizon.

Dominic took prudent steps forward, approaching the girl in the same way that one would a wild animal. This time, Jade swung her head around to acknowledge him, flashing the same smile he often caught her directing at the cameras. It was almost unreal.

"Jade," he said. She blinked.

"Say something." She did not.

He reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, but just as his fingers tightened around bone, her image disintegrated. She was gone as soon as she appeared. He opened and closed his hand, adjusting to losing her again.

The sand rustled ahead of him, and he instinctively reached for his mace. "Jade?"

You know it’s not her.

"Zenia? Pisces?"

The boy who eventually appeared before Dominic was not a ghost. He was real, and he was one of the last people Dominic wanted to see.

"Callum," he said. "I guess you were the one that carved my name on a headstone?"

Dominic swung his mace by his side, stomach knotting with unease. He didn’t want to fight the boy from Twelve. He never had. But Callum’s choice yesterday was clear, and Jade was now gone because of it.

"I think you’ll be the one going under," he remarked, taking aim.

[dominic attacks callum with geode morning star]
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Last Edit: Jul 25, 2020 23:54:47 GMT -5 by fireflyz

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 26, 2020 22:07:31 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jul 26, 2020 22:07:31 GMT -5

Like every other night, sleep so easily taunts him, toying with his mind like cat and mouse. His decision to stay with Kahinta and Oberon had been a sickly mixture of multiple different things: necessity, survival, instinct, fear, they'd culminated into a deal struck between unread lines of half-told tales, of blood-soaked steel and the snuffing of light from the eyes. Now, with his back to his two new allies he feels the soft thump, thump thu- of his heart in his chest, buried beneath years of isolation and blood-soaked cloth. It's the only thing he can use to remind himself he's still living, that the way fear and venom course through his veins isn't just some sickly Capitol creation. After all, it'd been proven that death was a fallacy from both this Quell and the last, a constant reminder that only the Districts would ever experience truly it. He wonders how many lives a Capitol resident can live, and how many they're willing to take to make that happen.

A silence hung over the group, with sharpened claws and bloody fangs it carved itself into their bones, howling in between the broken breaths they all shared on the cold ground. He hadn't been able to feel anything when Daemon's face had graced the skies, resting on a bed of clouds and staring coldly at the arena below, but he'd recognized the heartbreak that had come with it when he'd cast wary glances to both Oberon and Kahinta, too paranoid to trust them but too human to not understand. He'd known what they were feeling from both Kestrel and Bird's deaths, the way one's chest tightens and presses inwards, the weight of a world one would never get to experience pressing into them. He'd known the way that their hearts would feel heavier for a moment that seems too long to bear, as if it were falling further into their chest and letting ice sprinkle amongst its surface.

Where his experience differs is that, in the brief moment between heartbeats and shaking breath, his heart had suddenly felt lighter. After all, their deaths had meant it was two less stories he'd have to end, two less lives to take and call his own.

Selfish, he'd called himself somewhere deep in his mind, burying the thought heavy in his soul. Selfish, he tries to tell himself as he hopes Jade Morin's face will follow Daemon, but it doesn't, and he doesn't feel quite as bad for wishing it would have.

Clutching his sword to his chest, he feels the icy breath caught on the edge of the blade seep softly through his cloak and into his skin, marking his chest with the same sin he'd left on Jade's body. He doesn't need her face to appear above him because it is etched deep into the recesses of his brain, the absence of her face in the nights darkness supplemented by her face appearing in the darkness of his own eyes every time he blinks. So real, so tangible, he can still feel the way the hilt of his sword had twisting in his palm as he'd thrust the point of his sword forward, that even in that moment the metal had felt so cold, so lifeless. When he breathes, he can feel the same heaviness laced within the poison that slips between his lips that he had when that broken gasp had forced itself out of his lungs as his blade had pressed into and through Jade Morin's chest, tearing loose the pages of a story constructed of muscle and skin and bones and blood alike.

The cannon had cheered him on as she'd fallen, begging him to drive his morning star into her head and make sure she could not come back. Kahinta had pulled him back from that edge, with bloodied fist and demanding voice. Selfish, he whispers to himself for wishing that she hadn't, and he doesn't feel bad for it any more.

He had not known Jade Morin's story, had not been able to ask her what was written in the blood of her veins and what was hidden in between the lines. But, he had known what sort of legacies rested heavy on her shoulders, scribed deep into the skin of a word with just as much blood attached to it as it was bound to bring - career. Like laughter to the jester and bravery to the knight, he'd known that with Jade Morin had come a lifetime of expectation, that a crown would adorn her and blood would be spilled to maintain it. Something inside of his mind tells him that he should feel guilt for taking that away from her, but it disintegrates with one heavy breath and the thump thump thump of a heartbeat heavy in chest.

He doesn't know when sleep finally takes him, but it is with its softened touch that the darkness finally collides with his own exhaustion, and his mind slips into numbness.

Verbal war awaits him in the morning, following on the heels of a sigh and a groan and sore muscles as he gently awakens, the same silence that had accompanied them the night prior still threading itself between their forms as they began to walk. It wasn't until Oberon had brought up Eleven and their rebellious nature that the war had started, and it hadn't been long before poison had leaked into their voices, the alliance that he'd struck with them the day prior dissipating into the aggressive fog that had suddenly struck up around them.

When Kahinta storms off into the mist, he grabs his sword and hoists it to his side, casting one final glance to the boy with the lobster on his head, the one he'd tried to kill just days ago.

"If I see you again, Oberon, I'm going to kill you."

The words slip familiar from his lips, the echoes of his fight against Steel and Kenji running through his mind. Like a curse, Steel had died after he'd said it to her. With all the selfishness he can muster, he hopes it to be true for Oberon as well.

The fog consumes him easily, swarming his body and wrapping gentle tendrils across his skin. It takes only a few heartbeats for the realization that he is, once again, truly alone to set in, and as he looks around at the endless expanse of sky around him he feels the sting of an ice-cold sadness embed and blossom on the surface of his heart. In response, he tightens his grip around the iridescent sword that is laced within his fingers, glancing down and watching the fog ebb and flow across the once shining steel of the blade. Now, it is stained with the blood of human and mutt alike, blended smeared and dried into the surface like some sin-filled reminder of everything he had done, of everything he had lost.

It starts soft at first, hardly noticeable between the shaking breaths that slip from between his lips, but it doesn't take long until he hears the soft echoes of the music between the clouds that rise and sink around him.

Music, soft and forlorn.

And, in an arena where nothing is meant to feel familiar, he recognizes it.

"Kestrel?" He says, a ragged whisper at first as he stares out into the endless sea of white around him, "Kes?".

A violin and its melody, slicing through the fog like blade through flesh and that same heavy sadness he had heard when he'd first met the girl from Nine. The realization comes in the form of a chill down his spine and a shake of his hand, the point of his sword swirling soft circles into the air as he struggles to make sense of what he was hearing. He opens his mouth to call to her again, desperation gripping on the tip of his tongue before he forces himself to swallow it back down, the blood that is now laced into the fabric of his cloak reminding him of the danger that constantly lurks in every broken shadow of the arena.

A boy who had made a fairytale out of life had lost it to the arena, yet with the music that pierces his ears every strained heartstring wants so desperately to slip back into the same fantasy he'd constructed.

Perhaps that is why he follows the sound, even though he knows that Kestrel is dead, even though he knows that ghosts do not play the same melodies as the living.

He swears he feels the shadows press into him as he walks, desperately swiping at the air as the occasional ethereal form grazes claws softly against his skin. He has to look panicked, with the way he so eagerly follows the music of the damned and listens to it grow louder before suddenly disappearing completely, toying with both mind and heart until it would suddenly appear in a different location entirely. It's not until he feels the ground soften beneath his feet that the music suddenly fades softly up into the sky, wrapping bloody fingertips around whatever small sliver of hope he'd had to see his ally again and fleeing with it. It's a hollow feeling, to know that it had been nothing but the same shadows as the ones pressed into the walls of the training center playing tricks on him.

Not heavy, not sadness, just hollow. Perhaps it's easier to be hollow.

The music is replaced with the soft whispers of crashing waves as he walks, the smell of salt piercing his nostrils and he realizes that, after getting sidetracked by tribute and mutt fights the two days prior he has finally made it to the ominous red beach that he had avoided for so long. He presses his palm into the water as it swirls beneath his feet, feeling it ice cold on his skin before it suddenly retreats back into the abyss. He wonders what it is running from, if the ocean has anything to fear in this arena.

His question is answered as a figure makes its way into his view, blurry at first but quickly materializing. He gulps once, before pressing his teeth together and steeling his gaze. Dominic. He wraps his hand around the bloody sword that had been laying in the dirt, feels the granules of sand press softly into the palm of his hand as they nestle between flesh and the metal hilt.

"Callum. I guess you were the one that carved my name on a headstone?"

For a brief moment, confusion dances across his face, the mention of the tombstones a brief memory crammed deep into his mind. Just as it appears it is gone, and he narrows his gaze as he stands up from his crouched position, red sand falling from the folds in his cloak.

"I don't give enough of a shit about you to make sure you actually have a resting place, Dominic."

-and the words feel hollow, selfish, cold. He doesn't feel bad for it.

He hardly hears the boys next threat before he feels the breath rip itself from his chest, knocked cold and bloody as Dominic's hammer suddenly swings into his torso, crashing through the weakened chest plate he'd made and marking him with the same sin he'd used to kill Jade Morin. He stumbles backwards, feeling the warm sensation of his own blood spill from his chest and soak into his cloak and, instinctively, tries helplessly to quell the sudden flow of bleeding, pain erupting from the gash as soon as his fingertips brush against the open wound.

I think you'll be the one going under. Perhaps Dominic was right, he thinks, as the blood red words of his own story pour from his chest. An eye for an eye and a life for a life was how the old saying went, he thinks. But the dead die twice in this arena, for better or for worse. He does not know if that will help or hurt him.

Nearly falling backwards, he orients himself and presses his feet firmly into the blood red sand beneath them, voice shaking yet cold as he regains the breath that had been knocked from his chest just moments prior, ice dancing in his irises as he looks Dominic in the eyes.

"I thought-"
One last breath, shaking and heavy before he speaks again.

"I thought killing Jade Morin would bring some sort of satisfaction. Revenge and all that shit."

Ice, it pricks at his heart and drips venom from the heartstrings.

"But y'know what it felt like, Dominic? It felt like I was killing a girl who just wanted to go home. Felt selfish."

Tightened grip, until it feels as if his palms will split against the hilt.

"I think it'll feel that way when I kill you, too...

and I'm okay with that."

[ Callum attacks Dominic with falcata ]

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Last Edit: Jul 26, 2020 22:23:55 GMT -5 by pogue

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 27, 2020 16:56:00 GMT -5

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Post by fireflyz on Jul 27, 2020 16:56:00 GMT -5

By all accounts, this was the same person he knew two weeks ago. Same hair even though it had lost its shine, same mannerisms albeit more calculated, same boy but now lethal. Dominic recognized all of this even while he avoided connecting eyes with Callum as he stood.

"I don't give enough of a shit about you to make sure you actually have a resting place, Dominic."

He laughed. It was loud, abrupt, more like cannon than expression of joy, and he supposed that was fitting. They were well past the point of camaraderie, and to pretend otherwise would be inviting his own death. Yet, that realization didn't stop the hurt from creeping into Dominic's chest.

"That's harsh," he said honestly, moments before driving his mace into Callum's chest. Hit him where it hurts, just like he hurt you. The boy stumbled back, clawing at his own chest, and Dominic knew that if he had any sense he would take advantage of the opportunity, but sense and sentiment had not been on the same page for weeks now.

If he had any sense he'd walk away, Dominic thought, but as Callum regained his footing he realized that it was merely his desire to run talking. He met the boy's eyes for a moment before turning his head to the side again.

"I thought -"

Dominic's broken arm itched under the shredded black fabric of his cloak. His feet felt heavy. If he shot up into the sky really fast, would Callum be able to catch him?

"I thought killing Jade Morin would bring some sort of satisfaction. Revenge and all that shit."

He wanted to bite back, as it shouldn't.

"But y'know what it felt like, Dominic?" He forced himself to look up, look into the eyes of the person who stole his friend from him. "It felt like I was killing a girl who just wanted to go home. Felt selfish."

His arm continued to itch. He crossed his arms over his chest, absently rubbing at the spot. He was never good at witty retorts.

"I think it'll feel that way when I kill you, too. And I'm okay with that."

The same sword that had split their alliance the day prior scraped against Dominic's lower leg, and he recoiled as if one cut were a thousand. "It's a good thing I'm not okay with that," he growled, lashing out again.

[dominic attacks callum with geode morning star]
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Last Edit: Jul 27, 2020 16:56:39 GMT -5 by fireflyz

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 27, 2020 20:19:16 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jul 27, 2020 20:19:16 GMT -5

His sword hardly grazes Dominic's leg, the boy stepping backwards and easily avoiding what could have been a fatal blow. He mutters curses into the recesses of his mind as his sword softly grazes skin before cutting through the air, a heavy wave of pain erupting from his chest at the sudden movement and lack of payoff.

He'd been fortunate enough to not be dealt much heavy damage within the arena, at least not on a purely physical level. As he stumbles backwards from the boy from Four, burying his feet into the ground to regain his footing he thinks about the way the tree mutts had carved into his flesh in an attempt to gut him. That had been physical pain, torn through flesh and muscle seeing the sun and spilled blood coating the ground. When Bird died, that had been mental pain, shot through his heartstrings and buried deep in every dark corner of his mind.

He feels both as his chest opens up and red pours from a hollow abyss, warm at first yet ice cold before it hits the ground. He waits for his words to fall into place, the soft lapping of the ocean waves the only thing that fills his ears as Dominic speaks back to him, his words heavy in the air between them.

"It's a good thing I'm not okay with that."

He doesn't get the chance to respond before Dominic's hammer finds its way to his arm, and he feels his flesh rip open once more as the gemstone is dragged vertically down his bicep. A primal gasp erupts from his throat, garbled and raspy and sharp enough to pierce the sky as he stumbles backwards from the career from Four, his body radiating pain once more. "FUCK!"

He brings his left arm over across his body and switches his sword to his opposite hand, the awkwardness of his non-dominant hand wrapping around the hilt immediately setting in. As he looks at Dominic he brings his teeth together, grinding them into each other to try and distract from the shooting pain that's erupting from both his arm and chest.

With every bit of blood that he feels soak into his cloak, the ice cold realization that he would most likely die here, for the first time, sets in.

If he's lucky, maybe Dominic would finish him off like he'd wanted to finish off Jade. When he thinks of the note he'd left in his journal, he doesn't think the career has the heart (or lack thereof).

"You reminded me to be kind, in that notebook I had you sign." He grunts in pain as he brings his right hand to the outside of his cloak, patting softly against the notebook that is tucked in the pocket, the outline of it hardly visible from the still hanging fog.

"I was kind to them, Dominic. Look where it got me." He thinks of the way Kestrel's blood had felt as it wrapped around his skin on the first day, the way her breaths slowed, the way she never came out of those catacombs. He thinks of the way Bird had looked at him before he'd ran from her, too selfish to watch her die for a second time.

"Where did it get you?"

He doesn't wait for an answer.

[ Callum attacks Dominic with falcata ]

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 27, 2020 22:01:06 GMT -5

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Post by fireflyz on Jul 27, 2020 22:01:06 GMT -5

Callum's blade nicked his stomach, snagging on the scar tissue that already lay there, and he nearly hiccuped from how much air he drew into his lungs. He told himself that he wasn't afraid of Callum, but his body said otherwise. It was easy to be angry at Kahinta - she was a stranger. She and Dominic knew nothing about each other besides where they came from and the pain they would inevitably enact on others. But he knew Callum, even if it was merely a polished version of him. Callum had seen who Dominic was - ungraceful, cordial, not lionhearted in the slightest.

"Where did it get you?"

The words he had written in Callum's notebook were not his own, but a trainer's. They were painfully ironic, considering that in practice they were to show no mercy. It was kinder to end it quickly than to watch someone suffer, they said, but there was a space between the two filled with fog and he was occupying it then. He had occupied it for days. Blood already pooled under his fingers where he gripped his mace, droplets accumulating on his boots. Where had he ended up if not here?

"I was never good at following my own advice," Dominic confessed. "I trust, I love, I let my guard down. There hasn't been a single death that I don't regret."

He thought of Jade, struggling with someone or something in the catacombs, Pisces and Zenia scrambling to hold onto the lives they had already saved once.

"I did this... to be kind to them," he said, voice airy. "For the people that I care about. I want to see them meet a better fate than me."

His mother wanted to meet who he had become. He didn't know if she ever would. But even if she never met him, Dominic wanted her to remember him as someone that laid down his life for others.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, Callum. But if being against you wasn't saving my tail right now, I would be rooting for you."

[dominic attacks callum with geode morning star]
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Last Edit: Jul 27, 2020 22:07:02 GMT -5 by fireflyz: fun fact puppy did NOT make this table contrary to what my last edit said

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 27, 2020 23:27:26 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jul 27, 2020 23:27:26 GMT -5

He’s going to die here.

He knows it as his sword slides easily across Dominic’s chest only managing to tear through the boys cloak and graze soft against his skin. It takes a split second for Dominic to remind him that he is hopelessly outmatched, the weight of Twelve pressing into his shoulders as Dominic swings his hammer into his chest once more, driving it into the same wound he’d torn open just moments and, for a brief moment, the dim light that dances and twirls through the fog around him goes dark, flickering as his body tries to make sense of the freshly widened gash on his body.

In whispers and half-spoken conversations from the District Square he’d once heard that pain was said to be indescribable, and in the naivety of childhood he’d never been forced to believe it, too concerned with the pages of his fairytales to experience every bumped head gashed knee and bruised bone that the outside world could bring. Yet, as Dominic rips the gemstone from his chest with a stray bit of flesh clinging to it, the gemstone now stained with the red of his own story, his mind races to try and find the words to make sense of the way the fire spreads from his chest.

Iced over heart begins to thaw, slow at first and then, with a heavy thump of his heartbeat it is on fire, fresh with the pain of his now opened chest. No words escape his lips as Dominic steps back defensively, instead only a sickly mixture of gasp and scream, catching in his throat for a brief moment before it’s forcibly expelled into the fog that surrounds them. His body’s instinctive reaction is desperately try and cover the wound as if it will help, his right arm crossing over the gash in his chest and pressing into it, but he yelps out as pain erupts from his bicep, another mark of Dominic’s career training.

Turning his back to the boy from Four, he tries desperately to put some distance between the two of them, stumbling forward and feeling the bloody lines of his own story drip into the red sands below, fading into the earth within seconds. If his mind wasn’t going numb from the fire and pain that gripped his body, he’d find it fitting of his own impact in the arena. The fog wraps and swirls around him as he carves his own grave through footsteps in the red sand, tears welling up in his eyes and shattered breaths falling heavy from his lips.He doesn’t know of the tears are from sadness or pain. He supposed it doesn’t matter anymore.

Laced somewhere between the numbness that’s spreading through his mind and the dancing black dots that swirl at the edges of his vision, he finds his grip tighten on the metal hilt of his sword.

He wishes he could hold his older brothers hand one more time.

It’s only when he stops to turn back towards Dominic that his body reminds him that reality is just as cold as the burdens he carries, and he’s forced to drive the sword down into the sand to stabilize himself as his legs nearly buckle, waves of adrenaline ebbing and flowing through his veins and threatening to knock him backwards into oblivion.

Dominic confesses to a boy who never asked to be forced to listen, detailing every little thing that Callum had never been able to grasp in eighteen years of ignorance: trust, love, a broken guard. A dribble of bloody spit drips down his chin as he stares at Dominic’s form, blurring and sharpening as the fog snakes and swirls around him.

”I did this... to be kind to them.”

A broken laugh escapes from his lips, cut off quickly by the pain that clashes against it from his chest, a bloody dribble of spit dripping from his lip and streaking down his chin. Kindness, this was Dominic’s kindness, bloody and bruised and torn and shredded, a lie scrawled into the yellowed pages of his notebook.

”B- ... bullshit”. He chokes out in between gasps for breath, rolling up the entirety of Dominic’s savior complex speech and spitting it back at him, dripping with blood and venom. Why he’d ever chosen to believe the words Dominic had written in his notebook he did not know, and he would not get the chance to learn.

”You careers and your kindness.” He continues mockingly, feeling the blood drip heavy from his chest as he levels his gaze with Dominic, sadness flashing across his face before it gives way to the same broken ice cold anger that he’d worn before.

”This isn’t kindness, Dominic. None of what we’ve done is.” His breaths are ragged and shaking, lungs desperate to keep his body afloat as he drowns in his own red sins.

”Don’t lie to me, and... and don’t lie to yourself, either.”

[ Callum attacks Dominic with throwing knife ]

UuUuRkBMHAthrowing knife

[ Result ]

throwing knife

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 28, 2020 0:09:16 GMT -5

Quote

Post by fireflyz on Jul 28, 2020 0:09:16 GMT -5

e wasn’t surprised when Callum called his explanation bullshit. "You careers and your kindness." He had arrived with a preconceived notion about people like Dominic and he would defend it to his grave, it seemed.

Yet, as he watched Callum turn away, the reality that he had been running from suddenly crept up on him. It sent a chill down his spine, such that he almost believed one of the apparitions had materialized behind him. Dominic knew exactly who he was. He had always known.

He was a coward, putting his own fear - fear of disappointing others, of looking foolish, of losing the people he adored most - ahead of his conscience. It didn’t matter that he had hurt others to protect his allies. He still hurt them. It did not matter that he never laid a finger on Kestrel - it only mattered that he went after Callum so he couldn’t save her. And here he was, beating the boy down again because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

Trembling, Dominic twisted around so he didn’t have to face Callum, only to yelp in shock when a blade embedded itself in his back.

"Don’t lie to me. And don’t lie to yourself either."

Dominic’s voice came out in a ragged whisper. "Fine."

He turned and swung.

[dom attacks callum w geode morning star]
9HFfVIHcmcspiked blunt
14081 - broken right hand - 6 + 1 strength

table by tom

spiked blunt

Last Edit: Jul 28, 2020 0:10:16 GMT -5 by fireflyz

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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 28, 2020 6:20:15 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Jul 28, 2020 6:20:15 GMT -5

It’s only when Dominic turns his back to him that he throws the knife, the sudden exertion of energy sending a jolt of pain throughout his body as his body begins to sway. It hits it’s mark - a rarity for him against the career - but he can’t feel much satisfaction from the way the blood seeps from the wound, toxic adrenaline that had once coursed through his veins beginning to dull and blur.

Ice. It begins to wraps itself around every limb of his body and press deep into his veins, replacing the painful burn of fire from his wounds as his body slowly begins to lower deeper and deeper into the darkness he’d run from all his life. His mind runs on overdrive, trying to rationalize the fact that deaths fingertip is brushing up against the lines of his story, rapidly approaching an ending he’d never read and never saw coming.

His heartbeat grows heavier in his chest, the soft thump thump thump- as he knocks on deaths door, and even as Dominic’s form rapidly materializes from the fog as he approaches, it feels as if his body reacts too slowly to bear, hardly managing to raise his right arm in an effort to block that which had already been written.

A crunch, like the way he used to press hole-ridden boots into the snow outside his home in Twelve, just to hear the way the ground would flatten and crush under his weight with a creak. Fee, fi, fo, fum, he’d yell to the world as he did it, tales of giants and boys and knights and men whispered to him by his brother, beneath tattered blankets and accompanied by a fire too soft to help them stay warm.

He’s no giant anymore, and the primal yelp that whispers from his lips takes with it the same pieces of blood filled spit that had been dribbling from his mouth, splattering into the red sand as he falls backwards into the ground, sword left upright in the sand as a monument to the damned. It’s all he can do to prevent himself from crying in pain, ragged breaths heavy and painful as they’re pulled from his chest like loose string on a piece of clothing, and he can feel the tears burning into ice cold skin as he glances at his hand, now bent backwards into an ungodly position, bones splintering in fragments out from the skin.

He turns his gaze back towards Dominic as the boy approaches to finish him off, his vision dull and spotty as the shock takes over.

”G- go ahead.” He sputters, blood dribbling from his chin and onto his neck as he chokes the words out, a pitiful site.

”Show me how kind you are.”

[ Callum attacks Dominic with throwing knife ]

qHos1lq6fZthrowing knife

[ Result ]

throwing knife

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eye for an eye | dominic v callum, day 7 Jul 28, 2020 9:15:41 GMT -5

Quote

Post by fireflyz on Jul 28, 2020 9:15:41 GMT -5

Was this the moment he was supposed to be coveting? The final blow? An end to suffering, like he had been taught for years?

At least with the guy he had killed on this very beach days prior, Dominic could pretend he didn't know what was coming when his mace made contact with bone. Here, there was no escaping it. Callum lay gasping on the sand, skin bruised and bleeding, unable or unwilling to fight back. Even in training, where they learned no mercy, someone would intervene when things got too out of hand. Who would intervene for them?

"Show me how kind you are."

That was the kicker, wasn't it? There was no true way to be kind to others here. That had gone out the window on day one, when Zenia had died and they had lived without even being there for her final moments. Even if he gave Callum the resting place that he'd been so disinclined to give Dominic, that wouldn't change the fact that someone who was alive, who hadn't been killed, wouldn't need a resting place at all.

There was no getting around it. But he'd still try.

"This is... for Jade."

He knew that it was the only way he'd be able to look at himself afterwards.

[dominic attacks callum with geode morning star]
_89FuZvEVgspiked blunt
accuracy, day 7
spiked blunt
broken sternum - 7.5 + 1 strength