miranda tern (fins) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-03-04 18:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 56th games, - arena, tribute: 56th miranda tern |
WHO: Miranda Tern [D4]
WHAT: Finale, Part II
WHEN: Night 15
WHERE: House of Wax
[Part I] [Part II] [Part III]
The statues charged forward as one, but Miranda stood her ground, spear and dagger out. There were three tributes left, she thought with wild confusion -- so why were they all coming for her? Maybe, she postulated wildly, they would be picked off one by one. She couldn't even see Reaper and Halle -- her vision was suddenly blocked entirely by statues. With a snarl, she lunged forward, stabbing wildly at the solid masses. The tip of the spear snapped. She had always specialized in providing distraction. At home, it had always been Miranda: singing, telling jokes, imitating people from town. Now, she tried to distract the statues, turning to stab at Fawn's outstretched hands, pushing the butt of the broken spear into Miles' chest. (It wasn't working.) They were everywhere, surrounding her suddenly: Brutus and Lyme, Gemma and Vellum, Dory and Char, moving in, gleaming weapons aloft -- the very people she had watched and idolized for so many years, somewhere between swimming and training and sunning herself on the sand. She stumbled backwards, suddenly feeling the solid press of a wall against her back. She was stuck. The statues kept moving forward. (Does it matter that I didn't volunteer? she had asked, but it felt like months, even years ago, rather than a short fifteen days.) But it did matter, now. She was bleeding and battered, one arm out of commission -- and Miranda knew that more training, more muscle, more height, and more time would have made all the difference. The faces (moving closer, second by second) mocked her for presuming that it didn't matter, for her small, fierce hope to be one of them. "I can still win," she croaked, a desperate plea, and she could, if they would just move and give her a fair shot. Her mouth had gone paper-dry. And that was it: there were no more stories and jokes, no more words to fill the empty space. It wasn't the memories of her brothers and parents that came to her in a rush, or the vacant eyes of Machine and Adam, or even the calm swell of the waves. It was the faces of District 4 and their betrayal, the heavy silence that had stretched across the crowd when her name was called. (Things that haven't been done before are not impossible, only uncharted, Peregrine had replied.) But maybe in the Games, that wasn't true, Miranda thought to herself, the realization and the injustice sucking the air out of her lungs with a shuddering gasp. Her head whipped wildly from side to side, taking in the ring of frozen faces, eyes resting finally on Dory and Char. Just inches away now, the waxy faces of Four's two previous victors stared at her with frozen triumph, Dory's trident poised to strike. She lifted her chin, determined not to cry, but some things were impossible. |