ill met by moonlight /reece vs avriel
Aug 10, 2021 1:27:40 GMT -5
Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Aug 10, 2021 1:27:40 GMT -5
a v r i e l .
"Tender is the night
For a broken heart
Who will dry your eyes
When it falls apart?"
He's got thousands of reasons why he should leave areto but he chooses to stay there anyway, long after the others have gone. It could be minutes or hours, he doesn't know, it's hard to tell with no sun.
His arms ache, sand trickles through his veins, collecting at his elbows and it's easier to hold Areto like this than to let her see his face. It's easier to stare at the lake than Ariel's body, broken and wrong because she's not moving, she's usually always moving, but not now. She's still.
It was always going to end, but it wasn't supposed to be like this with Areto and him standing so close to the finish line without Blade and Ariel. It was meant to be them, he remembers that conversation on day one just a little ways down the beach from here, the only reason Areto let him stick around is because she wanted help protecting those two.
They lost.
Areto isn't trying to leave anymore because Love is gone so Avriel lets go of her, wordless as he then takes her hand and pulls her down to the water. The Lake is still, dreamy in the moonlight and Avriel tries not to think about how the sun still isn't there. He wonders if he'll ever see the sun again at this point, it doesn't seem fair that Ariel had to die in the dark.
Areto hardly looks at him as he pulls her down to her knees and starts cleaning her off. There's blood all over her, it isn't just hers. Mauve's and Ariel's too. It clouds the water as it runs off into the lake and Avriel lets his mind wander for a moment. He isn't religious, never has been and probably never will be, but he asks for Ariel to be at peace anyway.
"Reto, ask your gods to keep them safe, yeah?" he whispers as he thumbs droplets of blood off of her face. She hasn't said a word in a long time.
Emptiness persists.
He's sitting beside her on the sand when the first explosion lights up the night sky. Avriel jumps a little at the first whistling cry but he remembers fireworks from Nine. Kids used to make them by getting gunpowder from the floor sweeps at Adroxis Ammunitions and rigging them together. Avriel himself started making them when he was a kid and he'd set them off with Duke in the back alleys. They were never anything like this though, he sits in awe watching the way the different colours light the sky up.
He wishes Ariel was here to see them.
"Areto-"
The mighty warrior sits with her head between her knees, shaking.
He touches her shoulder lightly. He's never seen her like this but Avriel knows that feeling, the way your centre of gravity shifts and the fear tugs you down.
"Areto, it's just fireworks, it's okay" he tells her, but wherever she is, it's no longer on the beach with him. She grabs his shirt and pulls herself into him, pressing her face into his chest to his herself and it's in that moment that Avriel remembers– she's just a kid too.
He wraps his arms around her because he doesn't know how else to help her. Avriel isn't equipped to deal with grief, he never was. He doesn't know what to do from here. The hole from missing Blade was already so big before they let Ariel get killed too.
He thinks about Love, about how his blow was the last.
"Gonna get that friendship bracelet back," he murmurs into Areto's hair, "He's gonna pay."
It's hard to keep track of now, how many of the others he can hate.
Maybe it's stupid to feel so much anger over the loss of friends destined to fall but if he doesn't let himself feel that pain, then how is he supposed to justify killing someone else?
The fireworks end and but Avriel doesn't let go of Areto and Areto doesn't seem to want to move anyway. They just sit there in silence like that, his legs falling asleep beneath her weight, as the anthem plays. It's painful to see Ariel's face up there but it's nice to see that smile again, nice to have that as his last look at her instead of that emptiness.
He never learned how to grieve.
When his parents died, the electricity bill came that next monday. The only thing he could do was start working, there wasn't time to process or let himself feel, he's been putting that off for a year.
But now, it's just quiet but for the lapping of the water at the shore and the gentle sounds of Areto finally asleep in his lap.
A tear trickles down his cheek, slow and too hot and he can't move his arms to wipe it away.
The pain of missing the dead is so sharp that it's almost hard to breathe, his breath hitches in his throat and Avriel bites back a sob to keep from waking Areto. He looks up at the stars, trying to blink the tears away but it only calls them out faster.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my fault."
And it feels good to admit it finally, good to know that someone's heard it even if they might not get it. He wishes he could do more, that he could be the great protector he was supposed to be, but Avriel's always known that's not who he is.
He's just a survivor, that's all.
Sleep comes slowly for him but Avriel does sleep; it's been a long day even in endless night and the days are starting to rack up. It's hard to remember the last time he ate properly, let alone slept for more than a few hours. It's heavy when it finally settles over him and he's vaguely aware of tipping backwards and taking Areto with him. His head hits sand and he should be cold but he isn't. Areto's like a weighted blanket.
"Hello?" he calls out as he drops his school bag at the front door.
Sunlight filters in through the windows, mom has them all wide open because it's a late spring day and she's baking a cherry pie, probably the one Duke prepared last night.
But the cherry pie is burning.
"Mom?" he shouts up the stairs. He's meant to be at school still but it's easy enough to fake sick with a headache when he doesn't want to be there.
And lately, it feels like he doesn't want to be anywhere at all.
Avriel opens the fridge, there's still a pint of cherries left untouched. He pulls a pair out and pops them both into his mouth and then spits the pits out into his palm. The little brown pits hold remnants still of the fruit but Avriel drops them into the garbage beneath the sink anyway.
Then he smells iron.
Avriel sits up fast, breathing short and panicked. It's hard to breathe, hard to think– caged, he's caged, there's something on his face. He touches it all over quickly and all he feels is this leather sort of rubber and then on top, pointed ears folded downwards and long, greasy strands of hair–
"ARETO?" he calls out.
His voice is so loud in the night that it seems to pierce through the silence, the sound of the waves is gone.
Avriel isn't at the lake front anymore.
He pauses, fingers hooked on the mask, trying to tug it off of his head, but he can't seem to get it. It's hard to see through the little eyeholes, hard to breathe at all, he's still panicking.
"'m gonna throw up," he mumbles, "Fuck lemme out, please, just let me out."
The speakers crackle to life with a sharp squeal for the morning announcement, it's another day without a sunrise and Avriel groans as one of the gamemakers speaks– he forgets which one, doesn't matter. He hates them either way.
He doesn't want to die like this, without the sun it feels dark, like nothing good can ever happen again.
"Fuck," he whispers as he tugs at the edges, kids are dying but it's all a joke to them, just a silly game where they make them play dress up as they stab each other.
There's still that voice in the back of his head, always so loud that says Maybe you deserve this.
"Maybe," he answers.
The gamemnaker's instructions were cut off but it isn't hard to finish her sentence. If he wants the mask off, he's going to have to kill someone first. Avriel's survived until now not having killed anyone, they must be getting bored of him.
He stands, fingers grabbing at the grass around him for purchase. He can't even remember whose all left at this point but since he hasn't heard a cannon boom, Areto has to still be out there.
Seeing as an arena is just a giant trap, there's a good chance that they've pushed him towards someone else. Avriel walks forward, his breathing loud in his own ears. He hasn't been here before, he knows that. A shed stands solitary in the path in front of him and Avriel stops.
Was that a twig snapping?
It's hard to hear past the mask.
Then, there's someone else in front of him. Avriel can't tell who though, the other tribute wears a mask too. The only thing he can tell is that it isn't Areto.
He stares at them for a long moment and then slips his hand around the handle of one of the knives that Blade gave him on the at first day. There's nothing to say here, nowhere to go because if they want to keep moving forwards one of them has to die.
He doesn't waste his time on words, what can he even say to someone he's about to try and kill? Sorry? There's no high or low road to take here, just separate longing.
"One more sunrise," he whispers.
Avriel pulls a knife from his bag and throws it at the other tribute, knowing he's starting something he can't necessarily finish but he has no other choice.
[avriel attacks reece with throwing knife]
YrO18Z7ysjthrowing knife
Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage + 1tg
