Petaline Tiller volunteers as tribute (nofortunateone) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-02-16 10:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 56th games, - arena, tribute: 56th sephora kohl |
WHO: Sephora Kohl [D1]
WHEN: Night 7
WHERE: The trees behind the Joy of the Toy
WHAT: Sephora Kohl can handle a lot of things - failure is not one of them. Set after this.
STATUS: log complete
WARNING: mentions of child abuse
She was still alive. Reaper hadn't punctured the lethal artery or vein or whatever, he'd just hooked into her, ripping a bit of muscle and the skin above it. The wound was deep enough to need stitches, deep enough to be a problem when she walked, but it wasn't fatal. Sephora didn't care what show she was giving the Capitol audience with her sitting there, pantsless, trying to clean the wound with the remains of her bottle of water. Her box of matches sat off to one side next to the small brush fire she'd built, the wrench she'd carried heating up in the flame. Everything about her shook with frustration. She was so volatile, tears were shaking loose. This wasn't what it was supposed to be like here. She was supposed to be Victory incarnate, a hurricane of death, silent-sharp-precise. Instead, she was here, curled up alone with her small fire, cleaning her wounds. 3 fights in 3 days. Fruitless. Aramis had a second kill, Miranda had a second kill, and all she had was injuries. Slice on her arm from Patsy. Scrape from Alex. This from Reaper. Every chase left her empty-handed. Every fight left her cold. Sephora wiped the back of her hands over her eyes so she could see what she was doing. She peeled off her jacket and then her shirt - once white, now definitely less-white - so that she could take off her bra. It was a band of cloth, still in decent shape, and it's not like she had much to support there. She set it off to one side and put her shirt and jacket back on. She ate the sobs that wanted to come out, her uselessness, the futility of this mission, this fucking place. Other tributes must want to go home, go back to their families and heir lives, but that was not Sephora's choice of destination. The shame of her performance weighed so heavily on her, even before she'd come here. Be faster. Be stronger. Be better. Work, Sephora, work. She dreamed of solitude in the outreaches, far beyond the district gates, the ether of their world. Nothing but infinite sky and infinite space and infinite time. Forever motion. She just wanted to run. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the steel wrench that had been heating at the fire and rested it on the wound. A small sound choked her throat as the heat burned the small capillaries still pumping out thin trails of blood closed and, she hoped as she breathed solemnly through the pain, any infection Reaper's hook might have carried. Although why she did any of this, she didn't know. Practice. Habit. Some hidden core of desire to win still. Something kept her bandaging her leg with her bra, tying a tight knot to keep it supported. She gingerly pulled her pants back on and did up her shoelaces. Then she tucked the wrench and the matches back into the pocket of the backpack. Leaning up against the tree, she stared at the small fire crackling as the kindling popped and spat out trapped water. She begged it silently to empty out her mind, to burn out all her feelings of total, heart-wrenching, shameful failure and leave something unfeeling in its wake. It did, but only to clear the way for her father's voice in her head again. "Worthless. Worthless. Get up and do it again. Worthless. Weak. Get up and do it again." Strike. "Again." Passionless. "Get up." Strike. "No mercy. Say it." Strike. "Pity is for the weak, tears are for the weak. Get up and do it again, or so help me--" Sephora flinched at the last memory and a sound escaped her throat. A sob. She caught it with her hand and tried to force it back down her throat, her eyes winding up to stem the tide that threatened to spill out of her. The words echoed in her head as she tried not to cry, tried not to scream in frustration and sadness and inconsolable failure. Get up. Do it again. She didn't know how many more times she could. |