#lacuna chapter eleven | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ilguna · 3 years

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Lacuna - Chapters 9-12 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 12.1k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

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-- CHAPTER NINE --

Most tributes would trade off with one of the others when they get tired. But there’s three problems when it comes to that, and they’re all very valid in your situation.

The first one is that you aren’t tired. At all. You feel like if you got up right now, you’d be able to run around the entire arena twice before you’d feel tired. Sure, you’d break a sweat but besides that, you’re wide awake. The adrenaline is pumping, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop anytime soon.

The second reason why you won’t wake any of them up, is because you don’t trust them. Mainly Trink, Eytelle, Allio and Lennox. Thyme is absolutely loyal, you know that. She would have survived just fine on her own had you not convinced the others to let her in. But she’s under some sort of safety net for the meantime. If you wanted to run off, you’re sure that she’d stick along, because you had offered her this chance at safety.

You’re not too entirely sure about Finnick anymore, which is a disappointment in itself. The fact that you can’t trust the one person that you were hoping to count on during this entire event. You two would lean on each other, and you would support him as best as possible. Keep each other from dying in case one of you get hurt, want to kill one of the careers or get sick. All the possibilities of being together through the tough shit and it’ll never happen.

There is a partial chance that Finnick is playing it up with his friends already, but he hadn’t mentioned it to you. He didn’t bring it up to you in the chance that he had, when the both of you were talking a couple of hours ago. To be fair, you hadn’t mentioned the same, but with Trink and Eytelle. But he’s always been honest with you, you just thought that he would go first.

Maybe you’re relying on him too much. You’re forgetting how to stand on your own feet because you’re thinking he’s going to support you. Is that why he’s keeping things from you?

The third reason is that you’re wide awake because you’re worried about three. When three will show up, what their intentions will be. If you’ll be allowed to wake up and take Finnick and Thyme before he tries to kill all of you. If he’ll think that two others is too much, since all you did was spare his own life. Unless there was more with him, but you had only seen him.

It’s hard to fall asleep, you’ve tried, but there’s always sounds going on in the woods. Branches snap, leaves get turned up out of nowhere. Birds will chirp, even though you’re sure that they should be sleeping like the rest of the forest. But it seems to have come alive in the nighttime, exactly what you don’t need. You hope that the gamemakers won’t send anything towards you guys. They have a reputation of sending things during the night when the tributes have fallen asleep.

You need the sleep as much as the others do. It’s been a couple of hours, you’ll force yourself to fall asleep, it doesn’t take very long. As much as you hate to say it, Finnick will probably be comforting enough to soothe the mind. You’ll be out like a baby in less than thirty minutes.

Of course, with that thought, you yawn. You struggle to keep your eyes open, and then you succumb to the yawn entirely. When you’re done, you freeze almost immediately with the pair of blue eyes that stare back at you in the forest. Mouth still hanging open, your arm locked around Finnick’s shoulder.

Suddenly, there’s another pair of eyes just beside it, and when you see that they’re glowing a little bit--you would not be able to see human eyes that clearly in the dark--you begin to worry what they are. Because there’s only one species so flexible to make the fantasy to come to life.

Muttations. Mutts.

You pinch Finnick’s upper arm as hard as you can, and then slap your hand over his mouth. He jolts awake, and you hold him down. From the very bottom of your eye, you can faintly see his own eyes look up to you. Confused, probably frustrated by the hand. But when you don’t move from where you’re looking, he follows the stare.

The eyes keep multiplying. From two to four to eight to sixteen.

How are you going to tell the others?

You slowly remove your hand, and Finnick slides up next to you. Your left hand grabs the nearest knife, and you clutch it in your hand like your life depends on it. Finnick grabs his sword, since he still doesn’t have his trident or spear. Those are left in the middle, because you thought to be going back for them pretty soon.

Finnick inches forward, his hand on your chest briefly to hold you back as he shakes Lennox awake. Lennox squints at Finnick, unsure of who he is almost, and then Lennox’s eyes widen. He turns to see the eyes, which are beginning to light up the area on all their own.

And just like that, it’s a chain. Lennox gets Trink awake, Trink gets Allio, who reaches over just barely to touch Eytelle, earning a snarl because of it. Finnick is very slow when he gets Thyme, and pulls her back to where you are.

“What do we do?” Trink whispers.

Another growl from in front of you. You slowly inch around the tree to see only one opening. You slide on your backpack, the others following.

“The path.” you don’t point, but they seem to get it. You’re the first to get to your feet, and once they’ve all followed, slowly turning their bodies in the direction that you’ll be going, you count down.

Once it hits one, you grab Finnick’s hand tightly, and then bolt off. Finnick has a hard time keeping up with you for a second, but the screams behind you are enough to inspire him to go faster. All you can hear from Eytelle is how they’re getting faster, that they’re giant, the size of bears.

“They are bears!” She shrieks.

The branches easily whip at your face, leaving little cuts wherever they hit. They begin to sting for a moment, but the second the next one hits, you forget about it. At least the blood going down any exposed skin and under the clothes--if they hit hard enough--is your own blood.

Finnick sees that you’re taking it after a while, and he goes just fast enough to take most of the hits after that. There are a few you still have to cover your face for, but for the big ones, he holds them long enough for you to slip through. Everyone behind you, it’s every man for themselves.

The adrenaline is still pumping just fine. You felt this coming, you knew that they would release something like that, because they can’t just let you guys have one simple, happy night. It could very well be a punishment for not creating drama between you guys and the boy from district three, but what do they know? Who’s to say that he won’t come in later and cause just as many problems?

You and Finnick have just made it to the bushes that touch the field in the middle, when a scream cuts off the panting and rapid feet. You fall, trying to catch your breath back, knife still in your hand tightly, Finnick leans over, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

You watch as they come out of the forest. Thyme, Trink, and Lennox.

“Where’s the other two?” Finnick asks, out of breath as he motions towards the woods.

“Get off her!” Allio screams, Finnick helps you to your feet, and you point at Thyme and Trink.

“Stay here.”

You feel stupid for running back in, But you’re pulling knives out of your waistband before you even know what you’re up against. The first one flies from your fingers, and you watch as the bear falls, feeling the ground shake beneath your boots from his weight.

Eytelle is a goner. She’s stretched out, and they’re still attacking her. Her screams are loud, garbled with tear-filled sobs as she pleads for it to end. And then the mutt will take another bite, and she screams again.

Allio is in Lennox and Finnick’s hands.

You try to get around the bears, wasting your knives on them. And the second you get a big enough clear to kill Eytelle, she looks directly at you. You have the pleasure of watching the knife getting lodged in her head, as it hits the dead leaves on the ground again. Listening as the cannon goes off.

Your third one, already. So early in the morning.

You turn, taking off towards the boys, two hands on Finnick, you shove. He tumbles with the others, bringing them down. You’re about to jump yourself, since it would be much easier to fall than to run, when a red hot, searing pain goes over your back.

You falter, trying to collect yourself just enough to get past the bushes. Tears are brimming your eyes when you get on the other side. And then, your legs buckle, and you find yourself with a face full of grass.

“(Y/n)!” Finnick gasps, all he does is barely touch your back and the tears spill over. A cry of pain leaves your mouth, and you're shaking your head against the grass.

“Stop! Please,” You sob, clenching your teeth.

“We need to get her under the cornucopia.” Trink says softly, coming over to help Finnick out. They get you up the same way they did to Allio, but instead of holding you back, they’re trying to support you so you don’t fall.

You’re trying to hold back the moans of pain. But each time one of them jerks by accident, the hot pain comes back, and it’s burning. Licking up every inch of your back.

They’ve just laid you across one of the boxes full of clothes, beginning to dig through the others. Thyme is very carefully helping you peel off your jacket, and then the shirt. When the shirt proves difficult, you raise it to your neck, since it doesn’t need to come off completely, just expose your back so she can get a look at it.

“We need water.” Thyme says, “to clean this out.”

Finnick is immediately offering up his water, uncapping the bottle, when Allio mutters, “Why should we? She killed Eytelle.”

The others have their heads screwed on right though, because they all look at him like he’s insane, “She stopped her from suffering, you would have wanted her to die slowly?”

“Maybe I did.” Allio mutters, turning away from you guys.

You’re not sure if he’s embarrassed now, since they make a pretty good point. It’s the entire reason why you stuck back. She may be a bitch but she needs to die a quick death like the rest of you. To draw it out would be an asshole move.

Which means that the others might not think how you thought. They might make the tribute plead but you’re thinking that they won’t drag it out. Of course, Eytelle was a friend, so they probably wouldn’t want her to die a slow death.

You’re hoping that you didn’t piss off the gamemakers. Because they’re all about shows, and so you fighting would have made a great experience, raised the stakes. But then killing Eytelle would have ruined all of it, since she had plenty of time left. Where she was being mauled and where the middle sits, isn’t that far from each other.

You guys would have been forced to listen to her agonized screaming for so many hours. Because that’s what the games are about, a show. There’s no better way to have one than torturing a poor teenager until they die an unnatural death. Not like this entire thing isn’t unnatural in the first place.

“Don’t move,” Thyme is quiet, and you can feel Finnick hold you down a little bit, even Lennox comes into help to make sure that you don’t jerk.

Clenching your teeth, you close your eyes as tightly as possible. With hands enclosed into fists, you try not to scream the second that the cool water is poured over your back. She does it fairly close so it’s not hitting your back like a bag of rocks. A low moan leaves your mouth, and you can’t help but to hate yourself for going to kill Eytelle for them.

If you had let her die like they wanted, you wouldn’t have to go through this pain. But here you are, a handful of claw marks down your body. Burning like the red sun, like the heat continues to go up with each passing second. You feel like your entire back has been doused in gasoline and lit on fire.

It burns.

You get used to the water after a while. Trink offers to get more, Allio says that he’ll go with her, and then they leave you, Finnick, Lennox, and Thyme.

“This fucking sucks,” you complain, huffing a little bit.

“Thank you.” Lennox doesn’t elaborate, but you can guess what it’s about.

He gets up and moves to the back of the little building, digging through what’s back there. You watch when he grabs something, and then comes out, dropping it in front of you on the ground. There, sits a spear covered in gold. Or, since the Capitol is rich and they love to make luxury items, it could very well be made out of gold, the entire thing from handle to blade tip.

Lennox doesn’t bother to say anything as he goes back to digging, you know exactly what he’s looking for, and he’s not going to find it. Finnick will have to do with a spear just like you. On the same goddamn playing field once again but it seems like you guys aren’t as open as you’d hoped the both of you would be.

You’re not saying anything because you’re hoping that he will first. Tell you of the little alliance going on between the boys, so you can tell him of the one going on between the girls. Especially now since there’s one less member, it just makes a tighter circle, easier to open up and reveal true personalities. They’re not stupid, they’re going to find out that you’re not as dumb as you play it out to be.

Maybe Finnick will come open about the fact that the entire love thing was a joke too. That he was doing it for sponsors, because the interview was a perfect time to set it up, and kissing out here will be a beautiful way to execute it. He’s buttering you up so you won’t be able to kill him when the time comes. But you’ve gained three, as he’s still stuck at zero.

As far as you’re concerned, no damage has come up just yet. You’re as clean as a whistle, and it plays just fine. Your brain still functions like it has before, you’re just slowly adjusting to how it needs to be. You’re wide awake still, and you’re sure that you’ll crash as soon as you feel safe--an adjustment since you’d sleep heavily on most days--and you haven’t been hungry since you ate, which was hours ago. You should be hungry, even if it were just a little bit.

If you have to kill Finnick, you’ll be able to do it. It only gets easier with time, right? Like swallowing a hard pill, just learn how much water you need to take it down with, and go from there. You’re ahead of the game.

You’re going to go home.

Your eyes drag to where Lennox is. You can see his back is turned, no more hands are on you as far as you can tell. Finnick is standing off to the side, staring off into the night. Thyme, you’re not sure where she is.

“Allio and Trink on their way back?” you ask, reach down to the spear slowly, eyes glued to Lennox.

“Year, pretty far off though.” Finnick mutters, “Your back hurts?”

Finnick turns, and you shake your head at him, pushing yourself up to sit. It does hurt, it feels like a bitch. You can’t move any of the muscles back there without a stabbing pain going with it. At least the water helped, even if it was just a little bit.

You try to play off you sitting up, with the spear in your hand as like you’re just testing it out. You pretend to move it around in your hand, getting a feel for it. But when you do stand up, wandering around the boxes what looks like aimlessly--but you’re really starting to move your way to Lennox--you see something.

The person jumps, a scream leaving their throat, which makes Lennox turn immediately. You draw your arm back, right hand on the spear, which sends the pain spiraling in your upper back. Reaching over with the left, your hold onto it tightly. Soon, you’re going for a stab.

It’s successful, and the cannon goes off. The kid, who must be from twelve, falls dead onto the ground, golden spear sticking out of them. You can see the blood gathering in their stomach, and spilling onto the blood around them. With a tilt of your head, your eyebrows draw in when you look over them a little more.

“He’s--he’s twelve.” you choke out, stumbling back.

A faint feeling comes over you, and you reach back to grab something to hold yourself up with. You come across a whole lot of nothing, and before you can fall, Finnick catches you in his arms.

And the world turns black for good.

-- CHAPTER TEN --

If you’re going to kill anyone first, by your own hands--besides the four other people you have already killed--inside of the alliance, you think that it should be the girls first. Or girl, you’re not too fond of knocking Thyme out just yet. She would be easiest though. You take her down somewhere nice, like the waterfall that you think is hidden somewhere in the water, and you drown her or something.

Spear her to death, even though that’ll be painful unless you get her in the head the first time. Really, anything that might take her out, that includes you not being anywhere near the others, Finnick included. You might have suggested her to the group but the longer she sticks around, the more she learns. The more Trink and the others grow attached, the harder it’ll be to cut her off without the others pitching a bitching fit.

You know Finnick likes her. With the way that he talks to her and all of that. They like to share a certain look sometimes. One that you’re not sure how to decipher, but you do know that you don’t like the looks of it at all. It’s like they’re holding secrets that they won’t let you in on, much less let you know that they have them in the first place.

Actually, scratch that, they’ve basically let you know. You’ve asked several times to know what they’re giggling about, and they give you some fucking glance. The type you use to brush someone off if they’re babbling about something incoherent. It’s like if a drunk family friend--you have experience with your dad’s old friends that liked to come around when he was home--that tries to give you advice on fashion even though they’re wearing some old ass rags. It’s a look of you being under them.

Trink, Lennox and Allio don’t treat you like that at least. It’s like the more that time passes between all of you, you’re drawn more to the career pack. As Finnick ostracizes himself and finds more of a friend in Thyme than you.

You’re tired of the giggling and the glances and so you’ve taken a walk all the way down the lake. Which is where you’ll sit and watch the water, because you can’t fucking stand whatever the hell is going on back there.

During the time that you were out, medicine was sent in from one of your sponsors. Thyme lathered it on, Finnick did bedside and sat by you the entire time basically. It’s healed everything on your back nicely, Finnick says all that’s left are pink scars, but it still stings if you move the wrong way. You’ll put on another thin layer tonight, but that’ll be it. You guys can save the rest for later or something.

Eytelle, the boy from twelve and the girl from nine showed up in the sky last night, three more down. The total dead is eleven, and there’s still six of you in the alliance. Seventeen minus twenty-four is seven. Six if you’re not including yourself. Six more people until the alliance breaks off. Probably less.

Besides that, everything is as it was before. Lennox snuggles up to Trink. Allio is bitter, looking for a fight in everything that you do. Because he wants to believe that you did it out of pleasure. You were satisfied a little bit because it lessened one person in the group. One more person until you get to go home. But that’s it. You hated everything about it.

And had you known that you would get hurt because of it, you would have let her be there in pain and saved your own ass. Those couple of hours with it healing felt like an absolute bitch, and you would give anything not to go through that pain again. It’s as simple as that.

The arena has been unusually quiet, but it’s like that always. Everyone is hiding, and trying to find food to eat. Getting set up where they want to stay for the next couple of weeks. If you guys work quickly, it can just be a singular week, but that’s not going to happen. Five days have passed and only eleven people are dead. You have a feeling that this is going to be dragged out a lot longer.

You hate it here. You hate it more than you thought you would, because it’s not going how you planned.

Pushing yourself up, you swipe your backpack and spear from the sand, before wading into the water, using the spear to see how deep the water gets. You’re sure that it’s going to get to your chest, but it never goes above the waist. The water is fairly cold, but all it does is wake you up more, keeping you on your toes.

You’re being careful as to make sure that you’re not disturbing anything in the water. If something grabs your ankle and drags you under, you’ll be fine for the most part. You can hold your breath for a good while, but the problem would be fighting and trying not to lose all your air while doing it. When people are thrown around underwater, they have a tendency to lose the air that they’re holding.

You’ve seen it before with the neighborhood boys your brothers used to wrestle back when you were younger. Caspian was there most of the time, and they’d tackle each other, go underwater and you’d just watch the bubbles go to the surface. Worried about if they’ll be able to know that the other person doesn’t have anymore air left over.

Eventually they’d pop up to the surface, take in a huge gasp of air, and then do it all over again.

You never joined in because of these fears, but thinking back on it now, it would have helped. Had you been in the situation yourself, you would know how to take care of it, if you were dragged under.

The sound of the waterfall isn’t that far off, and in fact, you can see exactly where it is. It’s off to the left, with a pile of rocks, which makes up the waterfall in the first place. You go ahead with going inside when you’re close enough. If you weren’t wet before, you are now.

Inside of the waterfall is fairly lit up, but at night it has to be pitch black. As far as you can tell, no one has been inside of here yet. There’s no sign of footprints in the moss, which means that maybe no one has thought of coming in here yet.

It really sucks that you had suggested this to the other two. Had you not, you could really disappear off into here and they would have no goddamn clue. They’d think you ran off, maybe died if they heard a random cannon, only to see you’re alive when you don’t appear in the night sky.

It’s also got to be really fucking cold at night with the water and the rocks. Like living in a basement, the cold tends to settle a lot better. It’d be impossible to sleep at night if you didn’t have a sleeping back. You’d end up shivering and then dying of hypothermia. Trying to get a fire started in here?

Not only stupid, but also useless. They’d see the fire clearly through the waterfall, a random ass light source would draw anyone with the right mind. You know you’d head for it, take out anyone who thought that they’d be able to get away with it. It would be their own damn fault. Then again, the cold will do shit to people. And then, it would be useless because the wood would be wet the second you go through the waterfall.

It’s a really sucky spot to be, but it’s better than nothing you suppose.

Sitting down, you dig through the backpack, drinking some of the water, and then nibbling on whatever your hands find first.

Twelve people left in the games, excluding yourself. Five that you’re sticking around and seven that are spread out somewhere in the arena. Some of those seven aren’t any good, like the boy from ten, the girl from twelve, and so on. The useless districts, they’ve only survived this long because they’ve gotten lucky. They run into the wrong person once, and they’ll be dead meat.

You need to find a way to wipe out Trink, Lennox or Allio. As you were saying earlier, it would probably be easiest to go with Trink, but the boys are the stronger ones. Allio already is paranoid about all the shit you do. Simply you walking off rose suspicious which you not-so-kindly told him to go fuck himself in reponse. You don’t need him on your back for jack shit.

It should be him, you should wipe out him. But he won’t go anywhere with you in private. It will have to be either Trink or Lennox. However, the more you think about Thyme and Finnick, you’re starting to think that it wouldn’t be so bad killing her after all. The others won’t care that much, she’s not a career. They need you and Finnick, she’s just an accessory.

Then again, you really would like to take out Lennox. Even the playing field a little bit. The three boys could wipe you, Trink and Thyme out with the blink of an eye. If you’re quick enough, you’ll be able to get away, but it won’t be unscathed. Even having two of them alive is still risky business.

You were already going to go for Lennox, so why not?

Kill Lennox, draw Trink in closer to you, and try to convince Allio that you’re not doing anything wrong. Maybe you can try to pin it on Thyme, have the job done for you, and Finnick will have to turn back to you.

Allio was the one that was worried about Thyme, right? Because she let her district mate run off?

It’s not a bad idea. The only problem is that you’ll be creating mass suspicion and it’ll create tension sooner than it needs to be. The faster you guys split up, the less you have to worry about. If no one trusts each other, then there is no alliance to have.

Sneaking out of the waterfall, you’re drenched in water again, feeling like a drowned cat for a little as you have to go all the way back to the middle by walking through the water. Then the sand sticks to your shoes like mud, a couple of pieces do get into your shoe entirely, and you have to pull the shoes off.

Then, you find yourself stripping off the jacket, your socks, and your shirt. The pants you can deal with, but everything else is squishy and it feels gross. By the time you’ve reached the cornucopia, you’ve successfully rung out your shirt and socks, the shirt being back on your body while the socks are hidden somewhere on the backpack for further drying. The jacket seems to have a never ending flow of water.

Trink looks up at you. She’s sitting on the ground, holding her arm. Her face twists angrily for a second, “What the fuck do you want?”

“What?” you ask, surprised by the hostility. Had you said something before you left that pissed her off?

“Don’t play pretend. You and your fucking boyfriend planned this,”

“Planned what?” you ask, looking to see that Lennox and Allio don’t look too thrilled to see you standing in front of them either. You take a step back, worried that they’re going to attack you like a pack of angry dogs.

“Attacking us and then leaving.” Lennox favors his left leg more than his right, “So you can get a head start.”

“That is--” you turn to look behind you, all you see is a short amount of field and then the trees, “They left?”

“You really have no clue?” Trink sounds nicer now.

They left you out of this? They attacked and then left you to deal with them? Finnick took Thyme over you and just… went?

“I didn’t fucking--” you can feel the anger swelling, and now do you know what you were feeling earlier. It was jealousy, you were jealous over the fact that Finnick was talking to her more than you, was acting like you knew nothing anymore.

But now it’s anger.

“I didn’t know.” you tell them, sitting down on the nearest chest, shaking your head, elbows on your knees and you place your face in your hands, “I can’t fucking believe that they would do this.”

“Glad to know that we’re in the same boat.” Allio mutters, but it’s not that harsh, maybe he trusts you now.

They’re so fucking dead the second you get your hands on them. Dead.

-- CHAPTER ELEVEN --

You wonder how agonizingly painful it is to watch two of what looks like the best tributes you’ve gotten in a long time, turn their backs on each other and not even bother to find the other. If Mags is pulling her hair out right alongside Elysia, because you can picture it now. Fistfuls of Mag’s white hair and blonde hair from Elysia’s stupid synthetic wig.

They have to have sponsors lined up the wazoo, and the further that time goes on, the more expensive shit is going to start being. So if you’re going to do anything of significance, you’re sure that you have to hurry the fuck up. Just so that they all don’t go to waste and you’ll be able to use their money a little bit.

Although, you’re sure that no news is good news at this point. You’ve reached a week and a half already, but no one is dropping like flies, as you’re sure that the Capitol is hoping for. The only person that has died is the girl from district twelve, and that’s about it. No one even killed her, you’re sure.

You, Trink, Allio and Lennox are having trouble coming across people as it is. You haven’t seen a goddamned person since the boy from district twelve was inside the cornucopia, and that’s really saying something about how the games have been structured so far. The poor girl probably starved to death because she had no skill whatsoever.

That must have been boring as hell. You’re not sure how the girl did it though, going so long without food and water. Each time you and Trink take up the woods, all it seems is like there is food and water. Which was there before the girl had dropped dead, they didn’t just up the production just because she died.

Actually, there have been more deaths. The boys from eight and ten, no clue what got to them either. None of you had gotten your hands on them at all. It’s been serene since Finnick and Thyme left. And speaking of that, you haven’t heard a goddamn thing about them either.

You have a feeling where they might be, but you flat out refuse to go to the waterfall. It’s not just you being stubborn anymore, it’s genuine betrayal that they would do that. If they had thought that you disappeared for a few hours because you were running away, they’re stupid. You wouldn’t have done it without getting a few licks in on the pack, and you would have told them.

Well, maybe you wouldn’t have told them with all that has been happening lately. They can believe that they did the right thing, even with the week that has passed, and they can also believe that you’re coming, but it’s not going to happen. You’re hoping that they don’t come across you at all, because you’re not making friends anymore. The boy from three got his pass, but former friends? Betrayal really is a bitch, isn’t she?

Continuing off of that, you’re not really looking forward for what the gamemakers have in mind for people who don’t spice shit up. Which is why you’re going to kill Allio tonight. Take first watch, wait till the others are asleep and then stab him when the time comes. Pretend like Finnick or one of the others came and attacked you, and play it from there.

You’ve built up trust. You’ve got them relying on you for food as if you’re some personal chef. You go down to the lake, pond, whatever and fish up whatever you can get. Normally you stick to four, on days that you’ve had to skip the entire day without eating, you bring back more. You’re getting them to shrink their stomachs. They complain but they know that you’re right.

Sadly, this only means that the future generations coming from the rich districts will know the tactic in being able to starve yourselves and live on longer, and still have that much energy. This will only help out them, but as for the kids back home in the poor districts, you’ll wander around inside of the arena and point out the berries and leaves that you do know. As if you’re giving a lesson in herbal remedies or some shit.

You’re hoping that the Capitol is allowing them to tune in to those parts, and that the sponsors are seeing just how capable you are. You feel like some villian from a book that your mother used to read to you before bed. The types that walk around their little lair after they kidnapped the hero, as they give away every single detail of their plan. Because you’ve done it once, speaking to yourself to work out the details. It’s much easier to do it that way than in your head because you’re mapping it out. Like visualizing it.

Anyway, Trink looks at you like a best friend now. You’re not sure if it’s because you’re acting as a replacement for Eytelle, or she’s just lonely, but it’s working out on your part too. A distraction for all the things going inside your head constantly. Finnick, Thyme, your brothers and sister, Mags, Elysia, your parents, the cycle repeats itself almost a hundred times a day. Like an addiction. Like clockwork.

She’ll just gossip about meaningless things that happened before the games--trink, you’re talking about. She’ll sit on the chest while Lennox will cook up the fish, or on days she’s bored, she’ll go with you down to the pond-lake or around the arena to find extra food or any unlucky tributes that manage to cross your paths. She’ll talk about the girls that she thought were pretty.

She’ll bitch about how everyone that’s thrown into the arena with them has these automatic assumptions that she wants to kill everyone. That she doesn’t want to have a normal life and just be at home with her family. Because of this, she’s cried twice and you’re not really looking forward to anymore times in the future. You’ve tried to do the pat-on-the-back technique but she had the pleasure of informing you that they know your dumb damsel act, was an act.

Apparently they knew from the beginning, but they thought taking you in was smart anyway. They were guessing that you playing damsel was to win sponsors, and you didn’t tell her it was so that they would take you in. You have a feeling that Trink was lying about all of this, and she just wanted to take it out of you. Unfortunately for her, you said nothing and you just watched as she scrambled to apologize as if you’d forgive her and tell her it was all true.

She said that having you around is nice. That you’re nice to her, and it gives her a chance to feel human again. And then after that, not even a few hours later, she was down at the pond-lake, scrubbing grime from your skin and fixing your hair like a couple of grade school friends. Again, this could all be a tactic to get you to like them so you won’t kill them, because you had gotten the ten after all, but you’re not so sure about it.

Trink seems broken, but she was just waiting for someone to open up about it to. Lennox is there to support her, but he looks like he’d rather be distancing himself, getting ready to take out the rest of the tributes. And you’ve just begun to get Allio to like you in the first place. Which is the exact reason why he’s got to go in the first place. If you were to kill Trink or Lennox, you’d be the first they’d point fingers to, and then you’d be fucked.

Two against one? Not the odds you like. If Finnick and Thyme were here, it would be a little different. But even then, Thyme is like dead weight and you’re not even sure if Finnick knows how to fight anymore. You can’t remember his number at the bloodbath, but all you know is that it was a small number. Nothing above a two, but it couldn’t even have been that high. A one, maybe.

Everything that you had built up to before the games was useless. You had made an alliance, a friend, a lover, a person you could trust out of Finnick only for it to fall apart the second a week passes. You introduced Thyme to the group for her safety, but the only safety she could find was in your cold-hearted, nasty-ass, two-timing, son-of-a-bitch boyfriend!

“It wasn’t even official!” you laugh, throwing the stick in your hand, “He didn’t even ask me to be his girlfriend!’

You swing your foot into the trunk of the tree, ignoring the spike of pain that goes up your foot, it’ll go away in a minute's notice. The tears that collect in your eyes are completely unrelated to the pain in your foot. It’s related to the fact that you counted on someone from home that turned out to be an asshole. All in it for himself.

You take a moment to sit in the dead leaves, wiping away the tears as you rip your backpack apart to place the fish inside of it. However, you’re stopped with the snap of the branch. You think it’s another bear muttation, this time coming to take you out, but three stands in front of you.

He’s skinnier than he was the last time he saw you. His cheeks are starting to sink in, giving you a perfect outline of where the bones on his face lie. He’s been starving this entire time, it’s obvious.

“Please.” three asks, “Please, I know you don’t--”

“Get down before one of the others see you.” you tell him, watching as he drops his makeshift knife onto the ground, falling to his knees as he holds his hands out eagerly.

This should definitely be against the rules, but you could care less anymore. What you considered to be your boyfriend had ran off with some girl he had just met. The people you trust now are a bunch of assholes that wouldn’t last two days without you there. And everyone else is either starving or waiting it out, wanting the gamemakers to take matters into their own hands.

“Here, take it all.” you shove the fish into his hands, “I’ll just go get more.”

“Thank you.” he tells you, it looks like he’s about to get up, but then he waits, “What were you saying about Finnick?”

“Off on his own with the girl from eleven.”

“Thyme? Thought you were friends.”

“Me too.” you mutter bitterly, getting to your feet, reaching for the golden spear. You left the fishing rod at the cornucopia, thinking that the spear would be easier. It’s somewhat, you caught the same amount of fish. The only problem is that you’re out of practice with standing still. You can’t help but to sway.

You shuffle through the woods, listening as three follows behind you, “So, who’s left?”

“Really not into you attacking us during the night so I’ll keep that info to myself.”

“There’s what, four? Five, of you? I wouldn’t stand a chance.” he sighs, “It would be a faster way out.”

“Not too keen on killing you either.”

“Why not?” he asks, and you shrug.

“You’ve grown on me.”

“Why’s that?” three trips over his feet for a moment, trying to catch up with you.

You wish he would go away, but talking to someone other than the three musketeers back at the cornucopia is refreshing, “Saved you during the first day. Saw you in the training center. Wouldn’t want you as an enemy.”

“Not much I can do with what I make.” he holds up the flimsy knife, “These rocks are nothing like what they have in the center.”

“But they do what they’re intended for.” you tilt your head slightly.

“I guess. How many have you killed?”

You’re not looking forward to this part of the conversation. At all.

“I don’t know, three to five by now. Girl from ten, boy from eleven, Eytelle.” Shit fuck, you just gave away--good job, idiot.

You have no clue if he picks up on this or not, “Oh, so three?”

“Boy from twelve.” you mutter, still not happy that you had to kill a twelve year old. Fresh out of the womb in your opinion, and you’re only three years older than him. Finnick being two.

Hey! Why the fuck are you thinking of Finnick as a lover when he’s--you two are so goddamn young and here you are, moping over the fact that some teenage boy broke your heart. This is the part in the villain story when the girl rises up and becomes her true self, huh?

Doesn’t matter, you’re still taking out Allio tonight, whether you like it or not.

“You killed--”

“Listen, I wasn’t happy about it either. Back to back kills with Eytelle.” you stop at the water, looking to him, “if you’re going to stick around, don’t throw shit and don’t come in.”

“Got it,” he sits in the sand, picking apart the fish as he eats it raw. He must be hungry, because you would never. Even if it is safe or whatever, you’d still cook it. Raw fish does something to your stomach that you’re not too fond of, every single time.

“What’s your name anyway?” you ask, spearing the first fish. When you pull it out of the water, you see that there’s two. Less work for you to do in the end.

“Blaire.” he tells you, brushing his hair out of his face, “You’re (Y/n)?”

“Yup.” you waddle into the water a bit more, which finally brings the waterfall into sight.

Those motherfuckers.

The light shines through the water crystal clear, exactly like you had thought. Unwanted visitors will be drawn in, and those fuckers will pay the price for it. Not your problem, and quite frankly, for once you’re excited that Finnick might die alongside Thyme. Maybe not quick and easy.

What would be the ultimate betrayal was if you’d bring Lennox, Allio and Trink back here. Introduce them to Blaire here, and go create some fucking problems, starting with that stupid waterfall and your ex alliance. The one you made, the one that belongs to you. The one that you had busted your ass to make sure that everyone would have a place in.

The light is gone quickly, and for a second you think you see a hand. But the sun starts to fall a little quicker than you thought possible. You find yourself stabbing fish endlessly, until you’ve made a pile to make up for a couple of days. You tell Blaire to ration his out carefully, and if he’s lucky enough, you’ll start putting extras under a bush for him around the pond-lake.

You part ways, heading straight for the cornucopia. The walk is fairly quiet, the animals in the forest are acting like they normally do, but a feeling creeps up in your stomach, so you start jogging a little bit. Which sets off the snarl, and then the barking of wild dogs.

“Fuck!” you yell, gripping the spear tightly as you take off running, using the weight of the backpack as momentum to go faster. The ground is a blur beneath your feet as you pick up the speed. They’re right on your heels when you just barely slide underneath the building.

There, Lennox and the others are already on their feet, weapons in hand as they swing. You don’t even take time to catch your breath before you’re up and helping them. Gasping for air, stabbing whatever you can see because the sweat is dripping into your eyes. It stings, but you blink it away as fast as possible.

“What the fuck?” Lennox finally yells, you watch as he swings the sword faster than you can stab. He’s taking down the dogs left and right. Allio is just behind him in number.

By the time you’ve gotten through ten to fifteen, they begin to realize that they’re not going to win the fight. Slowly they back off, allowing you to catch your breath. By the time the last one has retreated, you’re on your knees, hand in the grass as you gasp for air. Your sides are aching painfully, arms and legs burning.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that you were just set on fire.

“God damn it.” Allio pushes himself up, hand on his side. When he pulls it away, there’s a clear set of teeth marks and enough blood to prove it.

“Medicine for that?” You ask, and Trink shrugs, going to dig immediately through the medicine box.

“We can have dog for dinner.” Lennox picks one of them up by its back leg. It’s fairly big, and it’ll probably feel all of you.

You grab an empty box and dump all of your fix into there. Inside it just has water. The fish may be long dead and you guys might not have ice but it’s better than nothing. Keeping it in the back corner of the building in the shadiest spot keeps it cold for the most part.

“Yum,” Trink doesn’t sound too thrilled and you don’t blame her.

“One night only specialty.” You point to Lennox, falling back into your butt as you try to breathe without hurting your throat, “We don’t want the fish to go to waste.”

“We can have both?” Trink suggests.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” Lennox chirps, before working away at the dog.

It’s a mutt, it’s not an actual dog. Dogs like that… they have a superior intelligence, how else did they know to back off? Others would just keep attacking until none of them were left. It’s just what happens when you’re starving and it’s better than nothing.

You’ve just started the fire, when the first cannon goes off. You turn to look at the others, who are still very alive--you’re not sure if Allio had just tipped over due to blood loss or something--and they look just as confused as you feel. Trink shrugs slightly, trying to go back to searching through the medicine.

And then the second cannon goes off.

“A fight?” Allio asks.

“Has to be,” Lennox tells him, you get off of the ground and wander out of the building a little bit to see if they’re nearby.

You nearly get a heart attack when you see a hand stick out of a bush by the lake. It’s blurry, since it’s so far, but it’s a thumbs up, and it disappears as quickly as it had appeared. It’s probably Blaire, letting you know that he’s very much alive. What an idiot, he could have just killed himself if it had been one of the others.

“The fallen will play soon,” you mutter, wandering back inside, throwing a few more sticks into the fire, “We’ll be able to see who’s fallen by then.”

Two down. Must mean that it was a fight of three people or more. There’s no way that it was just two people, the first killed the second, and the first had managed to get hurt badly enough to die immediately after. It had to be a group of three, an alliance. Two people working together against one, and the one prevails or only one of the alliance people die…

Finnick.

Finnick!

You struggle to keep your mouth from opening, because you’ve told yourself that you’re not going to be tripping over your own feet for Finnick anymore. But that doesn’t stop you from worrying about what’s happened. If he did die, you bet it’s because of that stupid waterfall. It had brought people in, a death trap.

How did they even get the water to stay dry? They must be bringing it in by the bucket load, hanging it up to dry in some sanctioned spot and using whatever dry wood that had made the night before. A complicated, but smart system. However, you’re not sure if either of them art smart enough for that technique.

Lennox offers you a leg of the dog, but you turn it down because you’d rather try to keep down that small portion you’d choked down, than force anything else down. It’s disgusting enough that it was a dog, and thinking about Finnick has got your stomach wanting you to empty whatever is left.

The anthem stars, you look to the sky. The anticipation builds in your stomach to the point where you’re actually pressing a fist to your mouth to keep it down. Leaning forward subconsciously as you await the news.

And then just like that, the girl from district six shows up, her picture is a little wonky, as if she didn’t know what she was doing when she took it. But it’s good news, because it’s not Finnick. It had skipped straight to district six, he’s somewhere inside of the arena, alive.

For a moment you forget that there were two cannons. Then it switches to Thyme, and you jump to your feet, mouth falling open, “Oh my god.”

Lennox claps a little bit, “Finnick is alone--”

“Serves him right!” Trink shakes your right leg a little bit, and you slowly go back down to your feet.

Nine in the games left, eight if you’re not including yourself. The number will be down to seven tonight after you kill Allio. You’re surviving, you’re doing it. You’re going to live. You have a chance at making it home! Twenty-four to eight? That’s sixteen down!

The odds are surely in your favor.

You let your temporary group of friends know that you’ll be taking first watch. Helping them package up the nasty dog meat and placing it into another empty box to get it out of the way. Allio and Lennox throw the rest of the bodies off into the edge of the woods, and then they come back to lay down.

Lennox lays down first, Trink right beside him. Allio lays somewhere near the back, where the fish is at. Curled up with a fleece blanket that he found at the bottom of one of the chests. You wonder if the gamemakers threw it in for shits and giggles, because the thing is basically useless. Allio says it makes him feel like he’s back at home.

You sit with your back to the wall, one hand on the golden spear, that you can’t help but rub your thumb over. Hoping that it’ll reveal it’s true nature of being brass. The color hasn’t come off just yet, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be off any time soon. You’ll keep trying for as long as you have it though.

Your eyes flicker to the others each time they’ll toss and turn. You spend most of the night zoned-out, thinking about Finnick. Wondering if you could afford a quick run to the waterfall and be back before the others wake. The reminder of the frigid waters and the possibility of something being in the pond-lake stops you from doing it. Doesn’t mean you don’t consider it.

It’s a while before you feel like you can move without the others waking. Being very careful on your feet. You tip-toe to the back of the building, where you also happen to like to sleep. The difference is that you don’t bother sleeping anywhere near where Allio is.

Throwing the spear into the grass, you then turn to Allio. Slowly pulling out your knife, eyes dragging back to the couple off to the side. Lucky enough for you, their backs are turned, there’s no way they’ll be spying on you tonight.

You’re very careful when you crouch down next to Allio, breathing deeply. You’re about to kill someone, and you know this. You’re very aware of your actions when you hover your hand over his hair, and have the knife prepared behind his head. Once the knife goes through, you have to act fast.

One deep breath, a fistful of hair, a gasp of air, a knife through the back of the head, a jump to your feet, the sound of a cannon, your body hitting the grass behind a chest, a knife shoved under that same chest, your eyes closing.

Trink and Lennox gasp, and by the time they’re getting up, going to wake you, the dizziness and the out-of-body experience is finally subsiding.

“Who died?” Lennox’s voice is gruff, he’s rubbing his eyes, but he has his hand on the sword.

Trink is hovering above you, and you play the act of just waking up as well as you can, not sure if she’s buying it. But she apologizes, looking sorry as she then looks back to Allio.

“Is he awake?” Lennox asks.

You yawn, it’s easier than you thought it would be. You’re exhausted, “He took watch a couple hours ago.”

You refrain from wiping your face, knowing that there has to be blood on your body somewhere. Instead, you take your hands and shove them inside of your pants, wiping them on your legs and underwear. Not the cleanest thing, but you can’t afford them knowing that you just killed one of the career members.

Trink tries to wake up Allio, but when she sees the blood pooling behind his head, she screams, “Someone was here?!”

“What?” you ask, still not getting up from your spot, heart pumping in your ears.

“He’s dead.” Trink turns to Lennox, “One of the others snuck in here and--and they killed Allio!”

“Who would do that? After we just lost two today?” you ask.

“They weren’t our two.” Trink whines, and then her face falls, “They don’t know that Thyme and Finnick left our alliance. They thought we were weak.”

As long as she takes up any and every theory that has nothing to do with you.

“You’re right.” you nod eagerly, and she looks grim, like she isn’t happy that you think she’s right in the first place.

“They won’t know that we’re down two until tomorrow night.” Lennox tells you two, “Until then, we got time to prepare.”

“I’ll take watch--”

“No, I’ve got it.” Lennox hoists Allio up into his arms, struggling a little bit. But you watch with Trink as he drops Allio off somewhere nearby, far enough so the gamemakers will take him, though still in sight.

Lennox tells you to go to sleep, and you do as you’re told, Trink doing the same. However, the second that you’re hidden behind the box, you’re taking deep breaths and trying to calm yourself down. You’ll have a panic attack behind the chest if you’re not careful, and it’s the last thing that you need.

You can’t fall apart now.

-- CHAPTER TWELVE --

To you, it’s a mystery on why Blaire has stuck around this long, and why you continue to insist on feeding him. He can do it all on his own, you’ve taught him a couple of things he needs to know if he wants to do it. But you always come back around, burying a fish in the one designated bush just to keep him alive. Like a distant companion that you’re really getting too attached to.

In return for all of you teaching him, he’s begun to give you a few tricks when it comes to making your own things. You brought up the one idea that you had, with no way to execute it. And he went out of his way to go and get the materials and sat down with you for an hour or two just to make sure you’ve got it down.

A net. The holes are too big for fishing, unless you were to find a big ass fish somewhere in the pond-lake. It’s more of something to catch people, holes to big for fish to pass through but too small for someone to wiggle out of. It would take a lot of sawing the knife to get the person free. And by then, they might have drowned.

Blaire took the time of finding a place where there were vines, and gave you simple directions on how to get to the area when you need to make a new one. Since it’s a little flimsy, you’re sure it’s a one-person use only since it is vines and not rope. And you can’t really take it back to the middle for the others to see, since you can’t give them the whole truth about it.

Listen, you’re not bad at lying. You could do that all day, it’s the acting part. Acting like your clueless. If they were to approach you and demand you remake it because they’re suspicious or whatever—you hardly doubt they’re that interested in your net-making—you wouldn’t able to do it and you’d have to act or lie your way about it. Acting would be you bullshitting through the entire thing and lying would be that you got lucky enough to make it.

Anyway, Blaire had taught you the process, but it turns out that he doesn’t know how to tie as many knots as you, much less the ones that are needed to keep the vines where they’re supposed to be. So, he weaved and you tied the knots, every now and then you’d switch off to weave it yourself, trying not to fuck up the somewhat complicated pattern.

It turned out pretty good for the most part, you’re proud that it doesn’t look like total ass. And you’re sure that the technique will offer new insights to everyone back home and prove helpful to the future of being in this arena.

Speaking of which, death rates have dropped off completely. You guess that everyone left right now are the smart type, they’ve got their skills on lock or they’ve found a way to live it out. Starving until the very last person has died off. But it looks like everyone can provide for themselves somehow—with the exception of your idiot friend Blaire.

The weak have been picked off or died of their own accords so now it’s left to the rest of you to hunt. It’s been two weeks since the games have started. You’re really hoping that it doesn’t go on for a month. Your poor brothers watching you run around betraying and befriending like it’s going to save your life when it’s really going to kill you.

At least Reed has had a chance to watch you exercise everything that he had taught you. He might not be happy that you’re sharing that information with Blaire, but you can’t just leave him. You’ve saved his life three times now—the pack, the food and yesterday he nearly drowned when he got his foot tangled in a root. If it weren’t for you, he’d be dead by now. Many different ways for it to have happened.

Guess that you’re really skipping from friend to friend. Finnick, Thyme, Trink, and now Blaire? You’re really getting around, aren’t you? If you were to come across anyone that’s left that you haven’t met just yet—the girl from five, boy from eight, and boy from ten—you’d make friends out of them two. It’s only a matter of time. Hell, you briefly talked to Mac, the boy from seven, but he’s a friend to you too.

You’ve really screwed yourself over. As long as you don’t run across the three outsiders and Mac, you’ll be able to survive this. You can kill Trink and Lennox, Allio was easy enough. The problems are Blaire and Finnick now. You’ve nursed Blaire to the point where it feels like leaving him is like a mother deer leaving it’s baby.

He’ll learn to stand on his own but how plausible is that? Killing him will be near to impossible.

You are dumb. Maybe just not a damsel.

“My fingers are beginning to hurt.” Blaire mutters, and you look over to see that his fingertips are turning red. Like they’ve been pricked and sliced over and over.

You pull the jacket sleeves over your hands as you take the vines away from him, bringing them closer to your face. You’re not too thrilled when you see that there are thorns and razors or whatever. They’re just too small to see initially.

“Take a break. They’ve got spikes.” You tell him, shoving the project beneath a bush.

“Great.”

“Pretty sure you’ll be fine. Unless they’re poisonous.”

“With my luck, they are.” Blaire mutters, shoving his hands into the water and you grimace. His fingers have got to be stinging like a bitch right. It’s salt water, you know that for sure.

It was a distinct smell when you had first come above the ground from the moldy smelling tunnels. Fresh air, unpolluted, filling your lungs. It was a change from what you had been inhaling in the Capitol. The trees, the pollen, the chirping of birds. The rustle of the leaves when you had felt the wind for the first time in a while.

And with that wind, it carried a familiar scent. The one that had provided hope, opened your senses to a whole new level. If you had been standing in front of a mirror, your eyes would have dilated. Smelling the salty lake was like feeding chocolate to a baby.

“Nice knowing you.” You snort, and he cracks a smile.

“The sun is going down already.” Blaire tells you, knowing that you’re going to have to head back, “When are you killing the other two, anyway?”

“It would have to be a two-in-one.” You tell him, “Like killing two birds with one stone. Maybe while they’re sleeping. Lennox hasn’t allowed me to take night watch since Allio died. They’re onto me.”

“Be careful,” Blaire tells you.

“If I don’t show, don’t worry about it okay? You can hunt for yourself.” You punch his shoulder, getting up.

“Yes I can. Good luck.”

“Thanks, you too.” You throw your bag over your shoulder, using the spear like a walking stick on your way to the middle.

You toss the bag into the cornucopia, as well as the spear. Rounding the corner like you normally do, since it’s going to be just you and them in the middle. No need to hide what you’re doing at all, hoarding your stuff will make it look like you have contraband. Which really isn’t the case. The bag has what it normally does when you come back.

A pair of hands grab your shoulders immediately, spinning you around and slamming your back against the wall. The air leaves your lungs, and before you can take in air again, his forearm presses into your throat, stopping any sort of airflow.

Lennox is a lot more deadly than you took him for. You thought that he would know the baby's way of choking people to death—squeeze and shake until they’re no longer moving. But here he is, one arm against your throat, while the other has his fist drawn back.

Your eyes widen significantly, because you’re choking and you’re about to get punched. You’re going to die in his hands. But you want to know one thing; is this betrayal or revenge?

His fist single handedly breaks your nose, the snap filling the air, the pain slamming into the middle of your face as the blood begins to flow. From your nose, to your lips, and downwards.

“Bitch!” Lennox yells, removing his arm.

You take in the air immediately, trying to make up for lost time. It doesn’t last long, he slams his boot straight into your chest, ignoring your stomach. He’s going to break ribs if he’s lucky, do some sort of damage up top rather than down bottom. In your opinion, he should be breaking every single bone in your miserable body.

“Lennox!” the words leave your mouth before you’re able to catch them. Like pleading his name is going to do you any good. Like he’s going to lesson the punishment.

You can picture your brothers back home now, watching as Lennox delivers blow after blow. Chest, stomach, legs, back, anything he can kick he’s doing it. They’re watching you, hissing in pain, groaning out when the hit was particularly hard, and they keep going up. He’ll draw his foot back, and then hit you again.

“You killed him!” Lennox yells, and then he draws his foot back again, and slams it right into your cheek.

Static in your brain.

The kick had rattled you enough to conjure ringing in your ears. Lennox is yelling something at you, but you can’t hear at all. You watch his mouth move, and all you can make out is traitor, which probably sums the entire thing up. Screaming at you for being a dirty traitor.

He then slams his entire body on top of yours, breath leaving you from the weight. You watch in agony as he draws his hand back, prepared to send it flying forward, probably into your mouth or your nose. Any place that would do a significant amount of damage.

Unfortunately, your hearing begins to come back when he says something about messing up your ‘pretty’ face. Mangling your body and making you unrecognizable so when you go home, you’ll have to have surgery to restore. He says that he hopes they won’t even be able to.

You reach for the knife in your pocket, prepared to flip your body on top of him as momentum when he punches you. That way you’d be able to pull out your knives and stab him the best you can. Anywhere on the upper body will do, it’ll throw him off long enough for you to get the spear, or run.

You don’t get the chance, a cannon goes off, distracting Lennox from punching you. At least you thought. He looks up for a moment, surprised as you are, because that’s another person down. And considering that there’s nine people, it lowers it to eight.

Lennox turns to you with a grin, “Let’s make that two?”

The punch breaks your nose, but you still go to flip your body on top of his. Only for a certain makeshift knife to break you off, making you press your body to the ground as hard as possible. Like Blaire will accidentally miss and hit you instead.

Looking over, Blaire has a grin on his face, he winks, and then he takes out another knife, throwing it. But this time, it hits Lennox in the arm.

Lennox yells, and for the final goddamn time, you flip yourself on top of the fucker. It works, but you’re weak, and you’re working slowly to take out the knife. He sees this, he’s not stupid and through whatever pain he’s feeling, he grabs the knife from you, and turns to stab you in the stomach instead.

“No!” Blaire’s voice is distinct, and you can hear him running forward.

You take in a breath from your chest, not your stomach as you slowly slide off the blonde, hands finding their ways to the knife.

It has to stay in. It needs to stay in until you find a bandage.

You take it out, you’ll start bleeding out like a goddamn faucet. Blood will be pouring out of places in your body that you didn’t know you had. It’s in your stomach, pull it out and a lot of blood will come with it. Your heart will keep pumping, more blood will come out.

Keep it in, you live. It’s like the cap on a water bottle, blood won’t come if you don’t give it a reason to run.

But every time you move it tabs into another thousands nerves, if you could only take it out--

The world has split into two during your little dilemma. Take the damn knife out or not, you’re bleeding just the same. It’s painful, tears join your eyes gleefully, you have to keep yourself from hiccuping because you’re about to cry for real, for the first time. Your nose will start running, your stomach will move, permitting more blood loss. And worst of all, your brothers, your sponsors, and everyone else back home and at the Capitol will see it. They’ll see just how weak you are.

Just another girl who thought that they could make it.

Blaire tackles Lennox before he can make the jump at you. Blaire is on top, punching Lennox and dodging when Lennox tries to get him back.

Despite the fact that you’re dizzy as hell and the world seems to be going the opposite of your way, you get onto your feet.

“Go!” Blaire yells, “Quickly!”

You turn to the spear on the ground, your only choice of a makeshift cane. You lean over a little, fingers barely bringing it into your hands, and you take off just like that.

You force yourself to focus on getting to the woods. Disappear into them, no matter what it takes. You go to the lake, being near water will do you better than if you were to go into the woods directly. If you collapse from the pain then you’ll be able to drag your feeble body over.

Plus, Lennox won’t see what direction you’ve gone, but Blaire will probably take the guess.

You slow down when you hit the sad, since you have to lift your feet more, rather than drag them like you’ve been doing through the grass. You barely manage to get somewhere behind a log in the woods when you collapse. Blood, sweat and tears pouring from your body at once.

At the yelling of your name, you push yourself closer to the log, wrapping one hand around the knife, like you’re going to pull it out. But really, you’re keeping steady as you try to figure out if it’s Blaire or Lennox’s voice.

No chance, because the world goes from spinning to being eaten up by black spots in the matter of seconds.

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//

#ilguna #finnick odair #lacuna chapter nine #lacuna chapter ten #lacuna chapter eleven #lacuna chapter twelve #lacuna

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kteabug · 3 years

Text

just out of reach - m.list

Summary: Iwaizumi and Oikawa were always within arms reach of the other, but what happens when misunderstandings and unspoken emotions drive them apart? What happens when everything they thought they knew about the other ceases to be true and they are left to pick the pieces of their friendship up…alone?

Pairings: Alpha!Iwaizumi x Omega!Oikawa

Warnings: Angst, Slow-burn, Friends to strangers, Strangers to friends, Occasional smut, Mentions of depression, manipulation, gaslighting, anxiety, toxic behaviors.

Rating: 18+ Tag list: Open (send an ask to be added)

Word Count: 65,660 (as of latest chapter)

Updates: Irregular Last Updated: May 22, 2022

JOOR Headcanons

JOOR Playlist

JOOR - OC profile 1

JOOR - OC profile 2

JOOR - OC profile 3

JOOR - OC profile 4

Prologue: latibule

Chapter One: habromania

Chapter Two: eccedentesiast

Chapter Three: induratize

Chapter Four: eshajōri

Chapter Five: whelve

Chapter Six: waldosia

Bonus Chapter One: nepenthe

Bonus Chapter Two: acquiesce

Chapter Seven: setsunai

Chapter Eight: anaziphilla

Chapter Eight.Five: lacuna

Chapter Nine: rubatosis

Chapter Ten: retrouvailles

Chapter Eleven: sillage

Chapter Twelve: resfeber

Chapter Thirteen: kairos

Chapter Fourteen: selcouth

Chapter Fifteen: metanoia

Chapter Sixteen: petrichor

Chapter Seventeen: natsukashii

Chapter Eighteen: ephialtes

Chapter Nineteen: sciamachy

Chapter Twenty: saudade

Epilogue: ikigai

hq m.list

#haikyuu #haikyuu omegaverse #iwaoi omegaverse #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu iwaoi #hq iwaoi #haikyuu oikawa #haikyuu iwaizumi #oikawa x iwaizumi #iwaizumi x oikawa #omega oikawa #alpha iwaizumi #iwaoi slow burn #haikyuu oiiwa #hq oiiwa #omegaverse au #kteabug joor

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anghraine · 4 years

Text

“the jedi and the sith lord” - chapter twenty

o_O

Last chapter:

If she’d know she could do that back on Tatooine—

Of course, she couldn’t do it back on Tatooine. Or now, for that matter.

Lucy scowled at the book. The thing she still didn’t understand was how you went around sacrificing your life force at all.

This chapter:

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

“It’s not like there’s a lot of wildlife around here,” said Lucy. “I’ve tried to read the book and figure out the diagrams, but I don’t think I’ll be able to really understand unless I try to do it.”

chapters: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven, chapter twelve, chapter thirteen, chapter fourteen, chapter fifteen, chapter sixteen, chapter seventeen, chapter eighteen, chapter nineteen

Vader had just stepped out of his ventilation pod when he found LX-3, of all people, waiting for him. Already annoyed with his foggy visions while in the pod, he glowered at her through his lenses.

“What are you doing here?”

Doctor Izahay, who had assisted him through today’s time in the tank, glanced from droid to cyborg, plainly perplexed.

“I came to report on an unexpected occurrence,” Ellex said, and turned her head to stare at Izahay.

“Return to the medical bay, doctor,” said Vader.

“Yes, sir,” Izahay said, with another suspicious glance at Ellex. She gave her a wide berth as she exited the room. Izahay was efficient and loyal, but not one to hide her judgment of any given situation.

Vader returned his gaze to Ellex. “What is it?”

“It concerns Miss Skywalker,” said Ellex.

Some small part of Vader felt a flare of satisfaction at the name, as he did always did. His name, no matter what Palpatine might pretend, even if it had lost all meaning for him personally. Someone, somewhere, had wanted her to know whose daughter she was. Owen and Beru Lars, he was inclined to think, and rather regretted that they had—obliviously—stood in the way of the Empire.

A larger part of him was already alarmed.

“What about her?” he demanded.

Ellex said, “She requested that I harm her.”

“What?”

Anakin Skywalker had, despite his long-ago nickname, felt many moments of fear, dread, horror. But this nearly surpassed them all. Lucy had seemed relatively content for weeks, eager if impulsive in her training, no more than annoyed at the worst of times. That was the reason he’d lowered the guard on her. Was she trying to escape, after all, in a different way? Was it—

Recovering some fragment of his composure, Vader said, “In what way?”

“She said that it did not matter,” replied Ellex.

Vader considered that. He didn’t know whether to take it as a good sign or an even more terrible one. Only Lucy, he thought, could answer that question.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I preferred to keep my processor and circuits intact,” Ellex said. “I did not suppose that you would tolerate such an action, sir.”

“No,” said Vader tightly. “I would not have.”

He found that he could extract no further information out of her, so he dismissed her, and headed towards the training room. It was only a little before Lucy’s appointed arrival, and sure enough, she showed up shortly thereafter, her omnipresent book tucked under her arm. She seemed hurried but no worse.

“What’s on the schedule for today?” she asked.

For a moment, even that seemed unanswerable. He simply looked at her, trying to think of some way to introduce the subject. Nothing came to mind.

“LX-3 told me you asked her to hurt you,” he said.

At that, Lucy actually wrinkled her nose.

“I should have known she’d tell.”

“Yes,” said Vader. “You should have. What possessed you to request such a thing?”

“I need to practice healing,” she said artlessly.

Behind his mask, he blinked. “What?”

His dread dwindled; he couldn’t sense any deceit from her directly, or in the Force. She’d actually concocted this asinine plan.

“You thought you could sacrifice your life force to yourself?”

Surprise radiated through her. Then she looked sheepish.

“I suppose that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No,” said Vader, “it does not.”

“I just didn’t think it through that far,” she admitted.

“Clearly.”

“I wasn’t going to have her really hurt me,” she said. “I just needed some scratches. Well, I thought I did. Now, I can’t see any way to try at all.”

She withdrew into a brooding silence, frowning at the floor as her mind jumped from thought to thought faster than he could follow it. For himself, Vader once again had no idea what to say. He had a vague idea that she should be disciplined for such idiocy—and for the alarm she’d given him—but he couldn’t see how. He didn’t want to alienate her just when he’d started making progress, and he could think of nothing but tightening the restrictions on her again. But what would that do? It was Ellex she’d gone to in the first place, and in any case, she was something like an adult.

“Show me what is confusing you,” he said at last.

Lucy brightened and pulled out the book, opening to an early page. On one side, he saw a diagram of a human or humanoid body with lines that might be veins tracing through it. On the other was a long block of text, which he scanned quickly. The lacuna must be adumbrated in concept prior to any supplementary action.

What? No wonder she’d wanted to try a direct effort, even if the method she’d attempted was incredibly foolish.

“Now you see the Jedi Order in practice,” said Vader.

“Oh?”

“Clarity was often not their strong suit,” he said.

She sighed—sometimes he wished he could still do that—and closed the book.

“I guess not.” Then she looked up at him. “So you can’t heal yourself with the Force? It has to be others?”

“As far as I understand,” said Vader. “At least, if you use the Light Side. I have … heard that some measure is possible with the Dark Side, but I don’t know the details.”

“Hm,” said Lucy. “Can you heal?”

“No,” he said.

If he had any affinity for the power that kept Palpatine upright, he’d have used it on himself long ago. And if something happened to Lucy, saving her would likewise be beyond his powers, however great they might be otherwise.

He asked, “Did you never considering going to the medical bay?”

“The med-bay?” For a moment, she seemed baffled. Then her eyes widened. “For practice, you mean?”

“You should have seen other patients when you were there,” he said. All the more after the battle, however quickly it had occurred.

“I was a little preoccupied,” said Lucy. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have thought that Doctor Izahay would let me.”

“Doctor Izahay,” Vader said, “will do whatever I tell her to do.”

“Right.” She dropped her eyes to the cover of the book. “You’ll tell her, then?”

“That depends on you,” he said.

To Lucy’s surprise, her—admittedly foolish—misstep of the morning seemed to pass without consequence. The dread Darth Vader, who was also the fierce hero Anakin Skywalker, just looked at her, then walked over to the table.

“Put down the book,” he said, and picked up a long wire before turning back to face Lucy. “Focus on this.”

She raised her brows. Moving a wire around didn’t seem particularly challenging, but he usually had some other end in mind, obscure to her as so much was. Even though they were psychically linked or whatnot, which seemed unfair. She listened to him in the Force, but felt nothing other than methodical purpose above the subterranean anger and pain. She didn’t think he was angry at her, though, just … always angry to some extent or another. Maybe because of the pain, or some Dark Side thing.

“I am waiting,” said Anakin, a familiar impatience touching his tone.

Dutifully, Lucy focused on the wire. She could feel it clearly in her mind, the length and narrow breadth and metallic sheen. Okay.

“Now,” he said, “bend it.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Bend it? How?”

“You can move the whole, can you not?” he said. “Why not just half?”

But it was harder, like the precision work. Minutes ticked by, the wire vibrating in his grip as she tried to move it without moving the whole thing. The grip of his mind was even stronger than that of his hand, and certainly stronger than hers; the wire wasn’t going anywhere. And when she finally succeeded, only a generous person could call it success at all; the wire snapped right in half.

Lucy stared at the pieces.

“Uh,” she said.

“Interesting,” said Anakin. “I had not intended that yet.”

“Yet?”

“I did intend you to learn to crush and break items from a distance,” he said, which sounded a little horrifying. “If you were, for instance, trapped in a cell—”

“A cell?” she said. “How exactly is that supposed to happen?”

“—then bending and snapping metal bars would be useful,” he went on, unperturbed. “But control is important. Bend this half”—he floated one of the pieces back into the air—“without damaging it further.”

All in all, she spent an hour that day trying to figure out how to move various parts of things without moving the whole, bending and stretching and crumpling them or hitting switches and pulling levers. It was at all points difficult, but she could see the why more easily than most of what she did, even if she couldn’t see the opportunity to use most of it here. By the time it ended, she felt wrung dry, but she still beamed when he handed his lightsaber over.

It got a little easier over the next few days, though not by much. She thought it would always take more of an effort than most things. Her progress must have adequately satisfied her father, however, because on the fourth day, he took her to the medical bay.

Doctor Izahay glanced up as he entered, her expression shifting from preoccupied professionalism to alarm. Immediately, she hurried over, her gaze briefly flicking from Anakin to Lucy before returning to him.

“What has she done now?” she asked. “Or is it you, sir?”

“Nobody has done anything, doctor,” said Anakin. “Yet.”

Izahay frowned. “Then—”

“Miss Skywalker,” he said, slightly emphasizing the name (our name, Lucy thought), “is my apprentice.”

Izahay looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“She may, perhaps, have found a technique that can aid you,” he went on. “You are to give her full access to the patients.”

“Full access, my lord?” Izahay was already shaking her head. “But what if—is the technique validated by—”

“That is an order, doctor,” said Anakin.

Privately, Lucy insisted on thinking of him by his true name. But she acknowledged to herself that his tone sounded very much Vader in that moment.

Izahay swallowed. “Very well. But she will need to follow all hygiene procedures and limit interference to this … technique.”

“I’m right here,” Lucy said.

Izahay deigned to look at her again. “I see that. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to harm anyone.”

“See that you don’t,” Izahay replied, then sent a slightly nervous glance in Anakin’s direction. “When should I expect these visits?”

“They will start tomorrow,” he told her, and that was that.

By the time Lucy arrived at the med-bay the next day, she was a little tired from the training with her father, but mostly eager to try to do something, and something on her own, at that. She ignored Izahay’s obvious reluctance, submitted to a change from Padmé’s clothes to white medical get-up, coiled her hair into a net and washed her hands with something that turned them red and stinging. Then Izahay gestured towards a line of patient beds.

“Take your pick,” she said.

Lucy scanned the beds; the patients were nearly all humans, and about half of them asleep, or at least unconscious. She didn’t really feel up to talking to anyone, with so much unspeakable, so she walked towards the furthest of the unconscious soldiers. She couldn’t deny that it seemed strange to be thinking about helping Imperial soldiers, but—well, she had to try to figure this out. And she’d rather not experiment on Rebels, even if it were possible.

She pulled a nearby stool over and studied one of the boards hanging on the wall, which listed each soldier’s injuries with scrupulous exactness. Okay, this one had only been shot in the shoulder—it looked just that bit too deep for bacta to reach.

Feeling a little silly, Lucy reached a hand out and held it above the man’s shoulder. But her theory that it might simply come out of her if the situation called for it was immediately proven false; nothing happened. Conscious of Izahay’s glower, she closed her eyes. How did you just go about giving up part of your life force?

It’d help if she could feel it. She tried to meditate, ignoring the sharp medical scents around her, straining to feel the energy behind her breaths and pumping blood. But she didn’t feel anything except the Force, and for once, that wasn’t what she wanted—not wholly, at least. She had to give something up. How, though?

After an hour of nothing, Izahay showed up to shoo her away.

“But—”

“Lord Vader gave me clear instructions,” said Izahay. “You are not to spend above an hour here, and at any sign of weakness your technique is to be immediately halted.”

Lucy nearly wrinkled her nose again. She didn’t see how much progress she’d make in an hour each day. But considering the whole death-if-you-do-it-wrong angle, she could understand why he’d be careful. She was probably lucky he’d allowed this much.

“All right,” Lucy said. “If he says so.”

“He does.” Izahay glanced down at the patient, someone called Lan Grenath. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Lucy.

The next day yielded no better when she tried to push some part of her spirit into Grenath. The Force swirled about her, easy to grasp at the moment, but it didn’t help her do anything. After that, Lucy tried reading the book again, focusing on the sections on the life force itself rather than healing, which she’d previously been more interested in. As far as she could tell, she needed to withdraw into her body (?) to attune herself to the energies within her (???), which she could then manipulate. At least, she thought it meant that.

The following day, she didn’t even try to heal Grenath or any of the others, instead just folding her hands in her lap and trying to meditate deeply enough to banish everything beyond the limits of her own body. She even had to do her best to block her sense of her father, though she could still feel that he was out there, somewhere. And the day after that, Lucy managed to narrow the world down to her body, tuning out everything else and feeling something beat away within her, beyond the thump of her heart. Was that it?

The sensation quickly faded. But Lucy practiced it even after Izahay kicked her out, and between her training sessions with her father, determined to hang onto it. Yes, controlling objects from a distance and defending herself from blaster bolts were important, but this felt more important still, if she could only get it right.

On her fifth day in the med-bay, Lucy managed to retreat into herself in the way she’d practiced, this strange other reality enclosing her in a comfortable pulsing darkness. Half-dazed, she reached her hand out again, not quite touching Grenath, and strained to find some way of passing that energy on. She couldn’t push it; she’d tried. But this form of healing used the Light Side, didn’t it? The Light Side didn’t like being pushed.

Lucy hung onto the energy within her and reached for the Force, struggling to let both flow through her. For a moment, she just felt dizzy and confused, her mind tugging against itself—and in the next moment, it felt like something swung around, everything pouring through her body as if she were nothing but a vessel of the Force. As quickly as it had happened, the sensation stopped.

She looked down at his shoulder. The discolouration of his skin was gone. The tear left by the blaster was gone without so much as a mark left behind. Even an old scar several inches away was gone.

Lucy didn’t dare risk Izahay’s ire by raising her voice, so she strangled the impulse and instead pulled her hand back. Walking over to Tisix, she quietly asked the droid to evaluate the injury to Grenath’s shoulder.

Tisix grumbled but complied, stalking after her and then stopping at the man’s side and giving a low whirr.

“There is no injury,” Tisix announced. “Is that quite all?”

Lucy smiled at nothing in particular. “Yes. I think it is.”

She raced into the training room that day, heedless of anything but not tripping over her own boots. Inside, she found Anakin methodically chopping a pipe into segments for no apparent reason, the red lightsaber flashing.

“Father,” she said breathlessly. “I did it!”

He extinguished the lightsaber before turning to look at her. “You did what?”

“I healed someone! One of the soldiers in the bay!”

She felt his attention sharpen, narrowing in on her.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “A little tired, but that’s all.”

“Good,” said Anakin. She wasn’t exactly sure which statement he was responding to, but felt too ecstatic to bother trying to figure it out.

“I did it, though! There’s not even a scar now.”

“Very impressive,” he said.

Lucy grinned.

“All the more,” he said, “as you required no training in it.”

She thought about that. “It felt like I did, but I guess not. It didn’t come as naturally as some other things, though. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow—”

“Absolutely not,” said Anakin. “You’ll need to take several days to recover and replenish your life force.”

“But I don’t feel like—”

The mask seemed particularly relentless. She exhaled, but couldn’t feel too much disappointment in this moment. Instead, she smoothly transitioned from an explanation of how she’d finally managed to heal to her training of the day—which was mostly the same as the previous few days, except that Anakin had Ellex shoot her with two blasters at once, from varying directions. That way, she didn’t do nearly as well as usual at deflecting them, even with the Force flowing through her, though she was never completely stunned. As usual, however, she improved over the next several days, and Anakin let her return to the med-bay.

Now, Lucy tried a patient with a more severe injury, one that had perforated his lungs. She wouldn’t be able to get her hand as near the injury as before, though she didn’t know if that actually mattered or just helped her direct the energies. It took multiple tries, but on the fifth, he seemed to breathe more easily, his features smoothing over, and on the seventh, a machine beside the bed started beeping. Izahay came running over.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll see,” said Lucy.

Izahay scanned the readings, her brow furrowing. “That’s impossible!”

Lucy, perched on her stool, just swung her legs back and forth, smiling as Izahay turned to her.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll have to ask Lord Vader about that,” Lucy told her. She did feel a little light-headed this time, but no worse than that.

Izahay evidently did ask Anakin about what had happened, because he quietly congratulated Lucy again when she showed up for her formal training that day. She’d taken a nap and felt fine again, thankfully. She managed to deflect the blaster bolts from all directions and when he set the blue lightsaber on the table and told her to activate it without touching it, she managed it after several tries—it seemed to resist the tug of her mind somehow, but not indefinitely.

Anakin took the lightsaber and turned it over in his hands, seeming almost lost in thought.

“The time has come,” he said.

Lucy blinked up at him. “The time for what? Are you going to teach me something else?”

“Not at the moment,” said Anakin. He slung the lightsaber back on his belt. “I have seen the location of Jerjerrod’s and Varti’s private fleet. Meanwhile, Jerjerrod is preoccupied with the Emperor’s project. Varti has returned to Naboo.”

Something in him recoiled from the mention of that particular planet, though Lucy didn’t know why.

“Oh,” she said. “So it’s a good time to check things out?”

“Precisely,” he replied. “However, if I were to appear there in person, it would immediately raise alarms. I go nowhere unnoticed.”

“True,” said Lucy. “Well, you’ll have to send an agent.”

“Yes, I will,” he said slowly. “In a matter of this much importance, it would have to be an agent of extraordinary capabilities and dedication. One who could communicate their observations and actions without any possibility of detection, and respond to my thoughts and plans in an instant.”

She drew a sharp breath.

Back in the Rebellion, quite a few people had dismissed Lucy as a skilled soldier but not much else—good at flying and shooting, not thinking and plans. But she was by no means a stupid woman.

Lucy met his gaze as directly as she could.

“You’re talking about me,” she said.

#anghraine's fic #the jedi and the sith lord #rule 63 #genderbending #izahay #ellex #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #lucy skywalker #star wars #long post #istg sixty percent of this fic is 'i promise this is going somewhere'

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katedoesfics · 4 years

Text

Lacuna | Chapter 1

At first glance, the town of Portia was easy to miss. The landscape was not unlike what Kahli had known at home; ancient, battered skyscrapers stood tall, nothing more than a memory of what the world had been like three hundred and thirty years ago. But below them, a small town rose from the rubble. The land around it was vast and green and lush, rolling away in every direction.

“We’re coming up on Portia!”

Kahli was leaning over the edge of the boat, her arm hanging down. The water splashed up the sides of the boat and cooled her arm. She straightened when Wuwa spoke and watched as the harbor neared. She wasn’t used to seeing so much greenery; Barnarock was hot and dry all year round.

“It’s beautiful,” she said conversationally, though she really didn’t feel up for talking.

“What are ya gonna do there?” Wuwa asked. “Ruin divin’?”

“Something like that,” she muttered.

Kahli had never been much of an adventurer. Ruins and the mysteries of the world, while fascinating, never appealed to her before. She thought it ironic considering how passionate her father was for those sorts of things. Maybe that was what turned her off to it all. It was because of his curiosities and thirst for knowledge that made him absent in her life. After her mother’s death, her father took off, leaving her, his own daughter, in the care of an aunt. And Kahli had always resented him for that. He was gone, just when she needed him the most. And all she ever got from him was a quickly written letter once every few years.

In fact, that was what brought her to Portia. A hastily written letter from her father stated that he had left his old workshop to her. She knew very little about her father, but he never mentioned being a builder in Portia. She wasn’t sure what he expected of her - to follow in his footsteps? Start a family and run off on them, too?

At first, she wanted nothing to do with the house. But the letter stayed on her dresser in her bedroom, half open and taunting her. She couldn’t help but to wonder why he would reach out to her now, or why he wanted her to go to Portia. Was there something more there for her? A reason that explained everything? Would he be there waiting for her to make amends?

Her aunt tried to convince her to go to Portia. And in the end, she made the decision to leave Barnarock. But it wasn’t to appease her aunt or her father. In truth, a part of her envied her father. He was out living some lavish life of adventure, chasing his dreams, and even though she resented him for that, she couldn’t help but reflect on her own, boring, meaningless life.

And what did she have going for her in Barnarock, anyway? She never made much of a life for herself. She wasn’t a builder, a ruin diver, an adventurer. She had no real goals or dreams. Maybe Portia was a chance for her to start over; reinvent herself. She didn’t know the first thing about being a builder, or even the world, but everyone had to start somewhere, right?

“We get someone like you once in a while, always seeking that adventure,” Wuwa said, interrupting her thoughts. “Good to be young!”

Adventure. Just like her father. Maybe that was what he wanted afterall; a father-daughter duo team.

The boat pulled up to the dock and Kahli hopped out.

“Good luck to ya!” Wuwa called to her.

Kahli waved, then turned when she heard her name. She smiled as a gentleman approached her. She didn’t know the people of Portia personally, but had seen Presley a few times over the years.

“Good to see you again,” Presley said warmly. “Hope you had a pleasant journey. From Baranock, right? That’s quite far. Let me show you to your workshop. It’s not far from here.”

Kahli followed him away from the harbor.

“I didn’t know my father very well,” she said. “I didn’t even know he had a place here.”

“No one’s occupied it since your father left Portia years ago. He was a good friend.”

It only took a few minutes walk from the harbor to get to the house.

“Here we are,” Presley said with a sigh. “This place has sure seen some wear and tear.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. The house was certainly rundown, but it showed potential.

“Looks homey.”

Presley turned to her. “I’ve got a letter from your father here. He asked me to give it to you when you got here.”

Kahli took the letter from him. “Oh.”

“Well, I’ll leave you be, now. Get some rest. You’ll have a lot of work ahead of you fixing up this place. And maybe you can do some work for us around town. Come to the commerce guild when you’re ready. I’ll be happy to give you a builder license if you choose to follow in your father’s footsteps.”

“Sure. See you tomorrow.”

Presley bid her goodnight and Kahli watched as he made his way into town. When he was gone, she opened the letter from her father.

When you read this letter, I’ll already be on the other side of the world. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I’m not able to be the father that you want. This was all so sudden, I didn’t have much time to tell you or figure out how to take care of you. Then I thought about this workshop. It might not look like much, but it will brace you from the wind and cover you from the rain. I leave you with my handbooks, but the rest is up to you. Do your best and live a wonderful life! You’ll always be my pride and joy!

An old, rundown house and some notebooks; that was all that waited for here in Portia. All that her father had left behind for her. He was not here with an apology or an explanation. He wasn’t here to whisk her away on an adventure with him. Just as he had been for the last eleven years, he was still absent from her life.

Kahli crumpled the letter angrily in her hand and threw it to the ground. She left the only home she had ever known - the only family she had left - to start over from nothing in some no name town where she didn’t know a single soul. She stupidly chased some idea that she could have a new life - or even make amends with her long lost father - only to be left with nothing. All he wanted for her was to live the life he left behind.

But at least she wasn’t alone. He left Portia and his friends just as he had left her. Though, it didn’t seem that Presley shared in her anger towards him. She couldn’t be sure how well they knew each other, but she was certain Presley probably knew her father better than she did. Maybe he would have some answers for her, but she didn’t hold her breath.

Kahli made her way inside the house. It was a good sized home, clearly built with intention for a family with a few large, empty rooms and a second floor. She put her bags down on the floor, then took a moment to inspect each room. There were a few broken windows that would need fixing soon, and she was sure that would fix the draft she felt. There was a table in the center of the main room and a single bed in one of the rooms on the second floor.

Kahli wasn’t a builder, but she thought it unlikely that she would have help fixing up the rundown house her father left her. It seemed maybe she would be a builder like her father once was after all.

#lacuna #mtap #my time at portia #fic #fanfic #lacuna1

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ilguna · 4 years

Text

Lacuna - Redemption (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

Word Count; 4k

Warnings; swearing, DEATH MENTION

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

! Listen, if you want to re-read the chapter that would come before this, it’s chapter twelve !

–

“I don’t know where she went! After he tackled me, I couldn’t get to her! He let her go, Trink!”

“She can’t be far, can she?”

“I looked for her all day yesterday at that beach and only found footprints in the sand.” Lennox sighs, “She’ll be dead soon, anyway. We should just wait it out and focus on that boyfriend of hers.”

“From what I heard, he wasn’t much of a boyfriend in the first place. That’s what she told me.”

Finnick’s face scrunches up, eyebrows drawing together. He carefully stops leaning against the outside wall of the cornucopia, watching where he steps as he begins to retreat back to the trees.

“It doesn’t really matter. I bet he’s taking out tributes left and right. He might even think to attack us again.”

“By himself?”

“Didn’t stop him the first time. The girl from eleven was basically useless, I’m glad she’s dead. Just one less person to worry about.”

Finnick turns around, ducking behind the nearest tree as he tip-toes through the sticks. Just one snap and they’ll be on his back. Finnick could definitely fight them off, but it’ll be a matter of time before the both of them can do some real damage together. They have years of experience from being illegally trained for the hunger games.

They might be able to fool everyone else into making them think that they have hearts, but they don’t. They don’t care about anyone inside of this arena except for themselves. Their whole purpose is to win and go home to a victor house to provide for their family.

Finnick starts to head to the beach, being sure to keep behind bushes and trees. The cornucopia is fairly close to the trees, but not so much for the beach. A couple of the starting pedestals actually allowed the tributes to have their backs turned towards the beach. Finnick wasn’t one of those people, he was basically backed up against a tree branch.

Once he’s sure enough that they’re not going to hear anything, Finnick begins to walk normally. He’s still sure to avoid the sticks that look like they’ll create a ton of noise, as for the most part, he allows his feet to drag through the leaves.

Finnick knew that something was up when you hadn’t gone to the beach like you do everyday. It’s always around the same time in the afternoon, and when you get there, you’ll talk to someone. He can normally see the shadow of them in the bushes off to the left of where you sit, but Finnick can never be sure of who it is exactly.

And it’s not like he watches you the entire time either, Finnick spends a good amount of his time inside of the cave. He’ll come out in the morning to collect water, fish and some vines for his nets, but that’s about it. It’s always a small glimpse of you to make sure that you’re alive.

He heard the cannon yesterday, an hour before sunset, but you never showed up in the sky. It was just the guy from District Three that you and him had run into on the first day. And then the person that came after him was the guy from ten, that Finnick would end up killing a few hours after the first cannon.

Finnick had just thought that you were fine, and you were with the other two inside of the cornucopia. He wasn’t actually able to watch a fight go down, so he had to rely on his thoughts and who was in the sky, only.

Then this morning came around, and he went outside of the waterfall like he does every afternoon to gather his things, and you weren’t there. No spear, no backpack, no footprints in the sand. It was weird to see you break a pattern that you had been keeping up for a while.

But he knew better than to go looking immediately, so he just waited a couple of hours to see if you’d even peek your head around the corner. Of course, you didn’t, and he got impatient, which is why he went up to the cornucopia a few minutes ago.

He was hoping that he would hear your voice, but what he got was so much worse. Finnick basically got the entire fill of what had happened yesterday, since it was all that Trink and Lennox could talk about for ten minutes. Trink’s worried that you’ll show up out of nowhere, but Lennox is sure that you won’t.

Finnick could only get bits and pieces, clearly they had talked about what had happened already. So that means that they don’t have to recite everything over when they start a new conversation.

But from what Finnick does understand, is that Lennox was suspicious of you. He didn’t trust you for whatever reason, and so he attacked you when you came back. Lennox briefly mentioned breaking your nose--which he knows definitely--but he’s unsure if he did any actual damage to your ribs or not.

This was all in the context of you not being able to go back for them. Because if the broken nose, and the potentially broken ribs won’t slow you down, then the stab wound to your stomach definitely will.

Finnick had gotten sick listening to Lennox say how proud he was of it. Unfortunately, this was the part where Finnick got things in great detail. How shocked you had looked, the way you grabbed the knife and got off of him. And Lennox would have been able to finish you off too, until ‘he’ came in.

From what Finnick understood, it was the boy from three that came in to save you. It couldn’t have been the guy from ten, because Finnick obviously killed him later in the day. But still, Finnick can’t wrap his head around why three would bother to save you. If it was because you spared him the first day, it still doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t really matter much anymore, he supposes. Either way, the guys from three and ten are dead, and Lennox had stabbed you in the stomach. You’re somewhere out here, near the beach. And this is all under the assumption that you had stopped moving after a while.

Finnick makes it to the sand, creeping as far as he can to see if there are any footprints left in the sand from where you had walked. While he looks, he runs some sand through his fingers, trying to think.

If Finnick were in your shoes, he would find a place to ride it out as much as possible. Someplace that’s hidden clearly, bushes, behind fallen trees…

Finnick moves parallel to the sand, looking for some sign of an unnatural dip in the sand. Or some indication that you were dragging your feet, maybe some blood. It’ll be a bigger hint.

He knows that if it were him, he’d try to get as close to water as possible without actually being inside of it… Because if you can’t get up and move around, then you can definitely drag your body over.

You would probably do the same.

Finnick moves in deeper, still trying to keep low to the ground. He sticks relatively close to the sand, until it turns into water. Then, he moves out of the way for the bushes and trees that hug the waterline. Each one he comes across, he takes a look inside of.

“(Y/n)?” Finnick whispers, looking over his shoulder to see how far he is from the cornucopia.

It’s far, but that’s not the newfound problem. It looks like Trink and Lennox are leaving again, weapons and supplies in hand. They’re coming out to look for you again. Or they’re just beginning to look for him, he has to move faster.

Finnick reaches a log, and he’s about to dodge it, when he just barely catches the sound of shallow breathing. He allows himself to get himself to look over the log, trident prepared in his hand in case it’s not you. If someone were to jump out from behind the log, then he’d have to act fast.

It takes a second before Finnick trusts himself enough to get up fully.

And just as he thought, you’re on the other side. Finnick doesn’t get a good enough look at you just yet, since he gets over the log and then ducks down so he can assess you up close, rather than a few feet away.

Taking you in as one whole picture, his stomach twists. It’s like a spike of fear strikes his heart in the second that he sees you. You’re so very clearly on the brink of death, that it might be better to just leave you here, rather than attempt to save you.

He has to at least try.

You’re pale, and sweating profusely. Some of your hair sticks to your forehead, your nose is crooked, and there’s dried blood that runs from your nose, down your lips and just barely ends at your chin. The knife is still sticking out of your stomach--which is the good news--but you’ve lost a ton of blood.

Finnick attaches the trident to his belt, heavy-side facing downwards. He reaches over, and does the same thing with your spear. After that, he stares for a second.

He needs to get you out of here and to the cave. Which is quite possibly going to be the greatest challenge of them all. He’s found you, still alive, but getting you there… he has to stay out of sight of the careers, bring you through the water without getting you too wet, and then get you through the waterfall.

Finnick stands up a little bit, looking through the trees and straight at the cornucopia. It looks like Lennox and Trink are heading to the far left, which is around the place where Eytelle had died to the bears. The trees should be able to conceal him pretty well, but he still has to move fast.

No matter what happens, it’s going to be a challenge. He better not fuck around.

“I’m sorry.” Finnick whispers, pulling your knees up a little bit to slide his arm under them.

Your face twists in pain, but you don’t make a sound. Finnick then slides his arm under your back, which ultimately folds you in somewhat. For this, you moan, clenching your teeth and turning your head to the side.

In one quick movement, Finnick gets to his feet and readjusts you in his arms. He starts walking towards the waterfall, hoping that this route will be easiest. It’s mostly walking on land, rather than wading through the water. When the waterfall gets louder, he’ll have to take a right, and then get you through the water.

Finnick doesn’t know how deep it is over here, though. He doesn’t know if it’s mostly shallow, or if it’s slippery because of the moss.

It’s all one big risk.

Every now and then, he’ll spare a look over his shoulder in the direction that Lennox and Trink should be. He’s so worried about them showing up out of nowhere. He’d need a couple of seconds in advance. If they were running at him right now, he’d have to lower you to the ground, and then get the trident free from the belt.

It’ll take a lot more than a couple of seconds, for him to do all of that, actually.

Finnick slips into the water, shuffling his feet, and feeling out in front of him for any sudden drops. He’s sure to pull you a little tighter to his chest, lifting you up as well. His eyes will dart to your face to check up on you, and sometimes his eyes are glued to your chest, making sure that you’re still breathing.

The water reaches Finnick’s hips, but he’s able to see the waterfall. Because of this, he moves a lot faster, feeling the water rise from his pelvis to his stomach, and then higher to his lower ribs. The deeper it gets, the higher Finnick holds you up, even though his arms are trembling from the weight.

Water just barely touches your lower back when Finnick reaches the deepest part. It’s a couple more steps before the ground begins to incline again, which allows Finnick to lower you, and figure out a plan when it comes to getting you inside of the cave. The waterfall’s water is going to do too much damage if it lands on the stab wound.

It’ll also no doubtedly wake you up, and maybe even put you into a little bit of shock. What he wants to do is keep you out. Your body has you unconscious for a reason, and he wants to preserve that.

He stops in front of the water, taking in a deep breath, lowering your body a little bit. Finnick takes one more glance towards where the careers should be--because the other tributes clearly don’t pose as much of a threat--before he folds you in a little more. Another groan leaves you, and you squirm.

Finnick hunches over your head and stomach, turning his back to the waterfall. Then, he quickly backs in.

It’s a couple of seconds of water, and then he’s gotten through and inside of the cave. Finnick is soaking wet, but it’s worth it. You haven’t woken up necessarily, and he hasn’t done any damage to your body.

Finnick goes ahead and sets you down on his sleeping bag carefully. Then, he begins taking off your shoes. He unlaces them carefully, and sets them off to the side and out of reach of the water that flies inside rather than out. On top of that, he takes off your wet socks and reaches for his dry ones, that he hasn’t used since he got to the cave.

He places his hands behind his head, shaking it a little bit while taking in the entire situation. There’s not much he can do for your nose, besides cleaning up the blood. The only thing he can do is try to clean and bandage the stab wound. Only, he doesn’t have anything to clean or bandage it with.

“Don’t kill me, please.” your voice is almost absent, eyes not even half-open but you’re looking at Finnick.

“I’m not, I’m going to help you, (Y/n).” Finnick reaches for your hand, squeezing it.

“Leave the knife.” you tilt your head to the side, looking to the water, “I’ll bleed.”

“I know. I have to get a sponsorship first with medicine.”

“Cornucopia has things.” you look at him for a moment, “Box all the way in the back in the middle. There should be a knife underneath it, has everything.”

Finnick nods, “Do you need anything?”

You shake your head, closing your eyes, “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be back soon, okay? I’ll leave your spear right here in case Lennox and Trink come.”

Finnick sets it in your arm span, and he watches as you grab to check where it is. You nod a little, “Thank you.”

“Just don’t die on me.”

You don’t say anything in return. Finnick takes this as a chance to leave, going out the same way that he came in. When he’s through the water, he slicks his wet hair back, keeping an eye off to the right.

He doesn’t go through the land again, instead he swims as fast and as quietly as he can to the sand. To keep quiet, he swims beneath the water, being sure that his feet aren’t kicking the water at the surface. The last thing he’d need is to draw attention to himself.

When he gets to the sand, he takes a moment to check his surroundings. Double-checking as always, because it’s risky as hell to be out here right now. He heard what they said, about wanting to go after him. If they can kill him, they gain another foot towards winning.

And you’ll end up dying in that cave alone.

Finnick takes off running without a moment of hesitation. One foot in front of the other, as he pushes himself forward. It’s a quick sprint, it won’t last long. He just needs to get into the cornucopia as quickly as he can. As for getting back to the water, there’s a ton of ways he can do it.

The lucky part about the cornucopia, is that the mouth of it is actually facing away from the water. Trink and Lennox won’t be able to see him digging through the boxes like a madman. And they won’t even know that he’s been here, unless he completely fucks shit up.

Which is exactly what he intends to do.

But first, he heads straight to the back, picking up one of the many backpacks on the way. When he unzips it, he can see that there’s already supplies inside, the very basic stuff. Canteens to hold water, iodine to clean it. Some crackers, sunglasses, another sleeping bag is attached to the outside.

Finnick is smart, he doesn’t dump any of it out, and continues to the middle chest. He crouches down, tipping it over a little bit to check and make sure that there is a knife underneath it. And just as you had promised, it’s there. However, when he brings it out--because curiosity has gotten the best of him--he sees the dried blood. Just by judging how dark it is, it’s old. So, Finnick throws it back under in case he needs to make another trip in the future, and he gets to it.

The lid pops off easily, and Finnick takes a moment to breathe it all in. Everything that he could possibly wish for, is inside of here. He reaches in timidly, pulling out a bandage, and then he turns it over in his hand.

“She’ll be fine.”

He begins throwing in the things that he’s sure she’ll need. The medical tape, the single-use bandages, hydrogen peroxide. Finnick even finds a stitch kit, way at the bottom of the tub. Unfortunately, there’s nothing for fevers or painkilling. For that, he’ll have to ask for a sponsor.

After the trident he got sponsored, he’s not sure if there’s anyone left that could give him something. The trident was surely expensive, Finnick could see it the moment that he held it in his hands for the first time. It was perfectly made, like he had gotten it right from District Four itself.

Finnick zips up the backpack, securing it around his shoulders. He stares at the setup that belongs to Trink and Lennox, trying to think of where to start first.

He throws open every possible lid, and tosses things around and into the grass. As he goes through another medical bin, he realizes just how much bandage there is. In the next trunk he gets into, matches.

A lightbulb goes off in his head, big and bright.

Finnick makes a giant pile of everything flammable that he can get his hands on. The bandages, the gauze and bandaids. The sleeping bags, the extra clothes, backpacks, all the food that will burn. He lights a couple of matches, focusing them on the things that will light easily.

He waits to make sure that they’ve caught fire, knowing that this will be a perfect picture moment for the Capitol. Just for them, he turns around, back to the fire. Then, he takes off towards where he had headed to save you. This time, he doesn’t wait to make sure that Lennox and Trink are around.

He knows that in a few minutes, they’re going to see the black smoke coming from the cornucopia, and they’re going to go running. Even if they do spot Finnick, they won't want to risk their gear over killing him. Finnick knows he wouldn’t risk it.

He secures the trident to his belt again, and then slides off the backpack, holding it above his head as he gets back into the water. Everything inside of the backpack needs to stay dry to ensure the best outcome. He knows that the chances of getting it through the waterfall without getting it wet will be feeble, but he has to try.

It’s much quicker getting through the water when you’re not holding onto a body. It cut down the time by a lot, and Finnick’s hunching over the backpack before he knows it.

Inside, he can see that nothing has changed with you.

Finnick strips free of all his clothing, hanging them up on the green vines that line the very back wall so they can at least drip-dry. He places the trident in arms reach, but moves your spear out of the way entirely. After that, he sits down next to you, and starts digging through the backpack.

He found a single rag while he was going through that medical bin, and from the looks of it, it’s clean. No one had used it before he had grabbed it.

Finnick turns back to look at you. You’re completely knocked out, there’s no way that you’re going to be able to intervene with what he does. You might wake up in the middle of it and make some noise, but that's the best case scenario. Worst is that you make enough noise for both Trink and Lennox to find you guys, and you do something to the knife while he pulls it out.

“Okay, take the knife out, clean it, bandage it.” he can feel his hands shaking, “Take the knife out, clean it, bandage it.”

He reaches over to the knife, grabbing onto the hilt of it tightly, being sure not to jerk his hand at all. He takes in a deep breath, clenches his teeth, and then yanks it out.

The rag is placed over the open wound directly after, it’s neatly folded into a square. Finnick is almost entranced while he watches the white rag turn a bright red as it seeps through the feeble fabric.

Finnick looks to your face, hoping that you’re still passed out, because it’ll make everything so much easier. But you’re not, you’ve got a big bubble of air in your mouth, and there’s tears gathering at the corner of your eyes. You look like you don’t know what to do with your hands besides form them into a tight fist.

Finnick removes the rag for a moment, trying to get a look at how bad the wound is. It makes a wave of nausea come over him, and he has to cover it up almost immediately after, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead.

“Water?”

“Yes, of course.” Finnick agrees, applying minimal pressure to the wound as he grabs the small bowl he made out of leaves, and then carefully helps you drink.

When you’re done, he sets it right back to where it was before. You close your eyes, resting your head back onto the sleeping bag, “You got it all?”

“And more, but it won’t last long. You’re bleeding pretty badly, and even if I can stitch it up--”

“Do what you can with what you have. Don’t go back there.”

Finnick smiles a little to himself, since he knows the exact state of that awful place. Most of their stuff is burnt by now, everything that was ever valuable to them, is now gone. They’re going to have to get creative like the rest of you.

He also knows that the second they see him, he’s a deadman. Because there’s not a doubt in his mind, that they know it was him who set their place on fire.

“I don’t plan on it.” Finnick says, “Just… hang on for me, alright?”

“I won’t go anywhere.” you say.

‘Good,’ Finnick thinks to himself, ‘because I don’t know what I would do without you.’

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair lacuna #lacuna #lacuna redemption

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