creature from the black lagoon || feast 3v4vmutt

Areto is in ruins when she returns, vines of blood trickling down her skin, cracks in her marble and a brow furrowed in pain. She stands tall anyway, looking for wounds on the other two and looking Avriel up and down quickly too when she thinks he's not looking.

But out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way she wilts when she thinks no one is looking at her.

"Fuckin' careers," he mutters as he finishes hammering in one last peg. He can't lie and say that he doesn't get it though. It's terrible enough to be weak let alone in front of anyone else. As someone whose lived their life against the wall at the back of the crowd, it's a nightmare to be seen like that.

To be seen at all, actually.

He pushes the peg in the rest of the way with his foot and wipes his hands off on his shorts before heading over to where Areto is standing guard. There's a roll of bandages in his pocket and some left over thread from earlier. It's slow getting over to her still but the wounds in his legs won't heal before his death anyway. Aggravating them is fine.

"Hey you, sit," he commands as he approaches, "And don't argue for once, alright?"

He owes her this, she's got to see that at least. He's not stupid, even half out of it, Avriel knew who was taking care of him a couple nights ago. Areto can pretend not to care about him, and maybe she doesn't, maybe she just didn't want to be down an able body too early in the games, whatever, Avriel can't help but care for her.

Like with Avriel and Blade, he always will.

Avriel starts by cleaning her wounds with the water from his canteen as best as he can. Getting the dirt out is the only thing he can do, there's nothing to sanitize with here. It looks worse than he thought and he can't help but pause when he sees the gash on her stomach.

"I care if you're in pain," he says after a moment, "So next time just fucking say something."

When night hits, Avriel sleeps through the anthem and takes second watch propped up against a tree. Blade is asleep beside him and when she rolls over, she's half on his leg. He doesn't move, he doesn't want to wake her up. The night drags on in silence and Avriel is left to his thoughts. There are so many of those, aching things, memories stitching themselves back together from the things that he's forgotten.

He'd forgotten about how happy he used to be before the ache set in, how he used to build forts with Duke and spend afternoons listening to him read stories beneath the blankets. Billie had been his best friend for so long that this year, he took that for granted. He doesn't even know what she's been doing since their parents were gone.

He misses them, so much, and it should hurt bad but it's a nice sort of ache, a regretful feeling. After months of feeling almost nothing at all, it's so good. He's thawing out a little.

The sun rises here still, golden rays pushing through the tree-lined path gently and Avriel watches in silence. He didn't know before this that he the idea of never seeing another sunrise could hurt too. He used to wish for time to stop, to hold everything in place so it'd stop falling apart all around him, but now he sees what a pity that would be and that's a pity in itself.

He looks down at Blade, still asleep, and he thinks about shaking her awake so that she doesn't miss it. He's always been good at watching, always noticed tiny pretty things but he's never felt like sharing them with anybody before now.

He doesn't do it, he doesn't wake her because it wouldn't be fair to pull her out of sleep so early. Instead, Avriel just feels the weight of her on his leg and keeps the moment for himself.

For a split second, his life is perfect.

Then the sun finishes rising and he's shaking her shoulder gently to wake her.

They walk for what must be only an hour or two before they come out at the lake again. It feels strange to be back here, strange to look at those pristine waters and not feel the same way that he did then. If anything, he should be feeling more hopeless now but there's only this quiet settled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sort of feels like acceptance.

Or maybe that's the prickling on the back of his neck, the feeling of being watched, of being seen, of the lake surface suddenly rippling, of the first long, clawed arm rising out of the depths, high above their heads and coming down fast towards them.

The knife embedding itself in Blade's arm.

Avriel turns away from the sea creature to see that girl from the district below his, Waverly, arm still raised from the release of the knife.

Blade and him don't need to speak anymore, they don't even need to make eye contact, as he steps forward so does she. They move together, flowing like two people who have known each other for years instead of mere days. He's no longer terrified of losing her because he knows that he can't.

She might lose him, but he won't lose her, he won't let it happen.

"I've got you," he murmurs, and he pulls the knife out of Blade's arm.

"Lose something, Eight?" he asks before sending the knife back from whence it came.

[avriel attacks waverly with throwing knife]
euNUPRH6C4throwing knife
Shallow Cut on Bicep -- 3.5 damage

The winds howl, they tug at his shirt, rake through his hair and move on again, indiscriminate about who they touch. Avriel glances up at the sky, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He's never seen weather like this before, nine stays pretty temperate but for the odd storm here and there. There's nothing like this.

For a moment, everything is too overwhelming. Waverly and Julian's voices are almost drowned out by the howling wind and there's Love and Areto, attacking a monster that stands almost as tall as the house he was raised in. Avriel looks behind him for just a moment, seeking out Ariel but she seems frozen in fear. He can't blame her, not really, but if Blade dies here then he might.

She's bleeding again.

He focuses on Waverly again, watching for the knife to leave her hand so that he can push Blade out of the way, but the cracking sound of a whip comes first and a burning, hot-white feeling opens the wounds on Avriel's thigh in seconds. His eyes widen in surprise, he was so focused that he didn't realize how close the monster from the lake had gotten. A blooming of red spreads across the leg of his shorts and Avriel holds back a gasp of pain.

It doesn't hurt.

The lie is easy, even as the pain spreads through him like a wildfire, it's easier to hold on to the lie than to buckle here and just let Blade die beside him. He grimaces, braces himself by placing a hand on Blade's shoulder and pushes himself upwards again. He's always relying on her these days.

Waverly throws her knife and Avriel pushes himself forward on the wrong leg. "Fuck!" leaves his mouth in frustrated anger as the knife sinks itself neatly into Blade's stomach. Panic starts to settle in and it frays at his vision, little white lines brushing themselves across his sight, drawing wooden floorboards, blood-spatters drapes. It smells like cherry pie, always burning.

He squeezes his eyes shut briefly and pulls Blade into his chest even as she falls against him, a hand on the back of her head to keep her in place, as if he could holding her tightly was enough not to lose her. "This is me saying something," she murmurs against his neck and even though the winds howl, he still hears her. Even in darkness, a thousand miles apart, he'd hear her.

He can't protect anyone, even right there with her, he's too weak to help her. Blade isn't the first person, she won't be the last. His parents, his fault, maybe his siblings soon too and he won't even be there to help them. With blade it should be easy, like clockwork. All of his stupid little traps he'd been making, the late nights spent watching the woods in case a tribute showed up while they were asleep, useless.

It's all been useless if she's just going to die here.

"Stay back, with Ariel," he mutters into her ear and pushes her behind him, "I'm not ready to lose you."

And he has no plan, no course of action other than offering himself instead of Blade. Avriel doesn't know much about her other than her last name and district. He doesn't have her favourite colour, if she likes the fall over the summer or what she wants to be when she grows up. He doesn't even know why she's fighting, none of that even matters.

Julian is waxing pretty stories, wishes and regrets, something only someone with the confidence that they're going to win can say. Avriel gazes at him, eyes on that pretty face and wonders if he's ever gone hungry a day in his life before now. Does he know what it's like to sit at the kitchen table until three in the morning, trying to figure out just how he's going to pay the electricity bills?

Has he fought for life before this or has it always been pastoral poetry that spews from his lips?

"I was kinda hoping I'd never see you again," he tells the other boy, "You're kinda rough to look at, you know?"

Desperation laces his words as Avriel clumsily paints a target on himself, hoping the cruel words are enough to avert their attention to him. From what he understands about careers, they're egotistical dickheads.

"I think it's the chin."

He leaves the knife in Blade's stomach this time because he's not sure about what will happen if he tries to take that one out and throws one of his own at Waverly this time.

[avriel attacks waverly with throwing knife]
euNUPRH6C4throwing knife
Shallow Cut on Bicep -- 3.5 damage