death and all of his friends: spots ellison (deathand) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-02-04 16:03:00 |
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The gong sounded. It was louder than it had ever been on the faded, crackling television screens of District 4; blaring and powerful, Miranda could feel the reverberations in her bones as the sound rang out through the arena. In that moment, all she could process was that this absolutely was not a water arena. But she had never expected that kind of blessing from the Gamemakers after last year's win, and at least the ground was the kind of grassy, dirty mixture that she wouldn't slip in easily. A fraction of a second passed and Miranda launched herself off of the pedestal, scooping up the backpack at her feet -- it was disappointingly light -- and narrowing her eyes, quickly scanned the area for weapons. As if a gift from the Gamemakers, it materialized in front of her: the gleaming silver of a mace. Where the fuck were daggers? The Arena always had daggers. The unfairness of it all: her only choice being a heavy, unwieldy weapon she had no experience using, an arena that seemed very dry, and a loosely empty backpack were all things she would whine about later, she told herself firmly. She didn't bother looking for Ariel. The advice of her mentors -- kill, protect the supplies, kill, kill, kill -- echoed in her head, and ears roaring, she spun and began to run with the wide stride of a trained runner, hefting the mace and searching for a target. She found the target. In his hands, she saw a silver gleam that was almost comfortingly familiar. Daggers. Those that entered the Arena stunned were far less suited to survival than Adam: two feet planted itself firmly into the ground (the seconds before, wasted to nothing but quick placement of his too far district partner) pointed in the direction of the Cornucopia’s tail, and as if to guide his path laid the starry constellation of a pair of daggers, sharpened and metallic in the grass. For a man of his build the arc of the lean and the grab was surprisingly smooth -- it painted itself silver with the blades, but the price for its aesthetic and ineffective battle against inertia was the small District 4 tribute steadily advancing behind him. (Behind his eyes he remembered her, the girl so moodily Reaped was a free-formed beauty in the water: she blew him kisses to imprint on the shame of a boy distracted by hormones in training.) At least, for now, she did not imprint again: he ducked to narrowly miss her first swing, the heavy mace aimed for his head barely grazing his hair. But, as it appeared, all things had its price: he tumbled forward, the body, an unnatural sphere. "Give - me - the fucking - daggers," Miranda snarled, slightly out of breath. She was used to lighter weapons; filleting and gutting were precision tasks. She paused, catching her balance, observing Six Boy (Alex? Adam?) stumble as if from a great distance, and then threw herself at him (unromantically), slamming the mace into his shoulder. -- which lodged itself uncomfortably (to say the least) into the space between his ego and his clavicle; whatever sympathy manifested by being more than double her size was quickly thrown into damaging as much of her as possible -- whatever guilt at being a man overpowering a girl two years his junior was lost to the true predator that was the Games. A shoulder for a shoulder, and his right fist crossed to collide with her left arm, the satisfying crunch his only required indication of its success. Miranda let out a horrified shriek as the fist slammed into her arm (that, she realized furiously, must have been why his score was unacceptably high for an outlier). Thankfully, she didn't drop the mace. The smell of blood was overpowering, but Adam's shoulder was at least a mangled mess. Trying to ignore the now stabbing pains coming from her arm, she swerved another punch, wrapping her legs around his and slamming them both down into the dust and grass. Their builds, well suited for an unidirectional battle with a clear winner (him), were equalized by the presence of the mace, and her unassisted attacks scarcely stung on his skin. But she had indeed taken advantage of his little command over his center of gravity, and it, as well as he, tumbled forwards again (gracefully, and with sparkle, perhaps). Adrenaline carried no pain receptors to the brain; instead, the blood from his arm formed a red mask on Miranda’s face as slammed the back of the daggers into her chin, a scornful if she wanted the daggers so badly, have it went unspoken (though it would have surely made for a good show). Her head snapped backwards from the impact of the dagger, but in a fraction of a second the stars had cleared from her eyes, and she hefted the mace upwards with her right arm, one more time, left arm now hanging limp and useless. Adam was pinned down at the ground, her bony knees digging into the sides of his chest and for a moment that seemed longer than it was, their eyes met. (She had once seen a seagull, dead on the beach, head smashed in from a boy's rocks. Bones, whether skull or arm, were delicate, fragile things.) Miranda wondered what Mags or Ondine or Peregrine would have said in that second -- undoubtedly, all of Panem was watching her. Mags would have been wise, Ondine fiery, Peregrine clever. But when she opened her mouth, it was really and truly just Miranda. "Sucks to suck," she told him, and slammed the mace down one last time. His last, cloying flirt with reality was relatively tame. Did one experience spiritual awakenings during this moment? Wisened peace? Profound regret? Or nothing: not even the faces of parents who would not miss a nomadic son, not even the scent of a District he could scarcely consider a member of. Not even the very visceral feeling of a girl’s knees by a teenager; not even the gently cooling pool of blood by his head. Nothing was a gentle fear that death was no better than life, that his name and memory was etched into this dirt (hole), and soon to be buried. Dying was as simple as breathing. |