laurel lyndon: ball destroyer (laurells) wrote in colosseum, @ 2013-12-05 22:06:00 |
|
|||
After her run-in with the tall boy from District Four, Laurel had managed to grab the backpack and run. Luckily for her she’d been stowing things in it before Marlin had found her, and she swung it onto her back with some difficulty before running to the exit at the east of the meadow. Running while cradling her injured hand in her other arm and letting out heaving sobs of pain was a difficult task, and it was probably pure adrenaline that got her so far. As soon as there was some kind of cover she stopped, bloodstained and tearstained, and doubled over trying to breathe. Blind panic had driven her from the cornucopia, and she sobbed loudly as she finally concentrated on the pain that was coming from her hand. What about the others? Laurel had seen a girl kill Briscoe, but she hadn’t seen Buck or Tallow in the chaos. She slumped to the floor, still cradling her arm, hoping desperately that she could find them but unable to find the strength to move just yet. There was light brush coverage at the edge of the meadow, and that was what Buck’s eyes had zeroed in on, in the end. It helped keep them from seeing the destruction around him. He didn’t bother to look. Tallow was dead. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t even badly injured. That was the wind under his feet right now. He reached the cover to the east of the Cornucopia without being encountered again. The girl he found on the ground jolted him back to where he actually was, beyond the simple need to flee. He raised his spear, prepared to defend himself once again. But he realized who it was a second later, and brought the weapon back to his side. “Laurel?” He knelt next to her, looking her over. She was wounded. Badly, it seemed. Her hand was a mess of blood. He looked for the first time into his bag, but there weren’t any medical supplies in it. Just a sweater and some food. He put it aside, scrambling around. “Do you have any bandages? Do you know?” He didn’t need to lose another ally in these first moments. Laurel’s sobs rose into a crescendo as she saw through her tears that someone else was coming towards her. “No!” Laurel started to protest shrilly, not even noticing that it was Buck. Shaking, she didn’t even get to her feet to try and back away. Laurel looked up at him as he knelt by her, crying still as he started to speak. It sounded reassuring and she shook her head quickly. “I don’t know, I took the b-bag,” her words were shaky through her crying. She’d never felt pain quite like this. “Buck?” She looked up again, unable to quite believe that it was him. He’d seemed so friendly. “Help me look in my bag,” she told him, “I have to cover it - have to stop it b-bleeding so much.” She ducked her head, dizzy with the pain and the crying. She was probably in shock, even more than he was. That helped center Buck and kept him on task. “Yeah, it’s me. You’ll be okay. One minute” He looked in her bag, but there wasn’t anything any more useful than what he had. He remembered vaguely that he was supposed to apply pressure to the area, cut off the bleeding. People had to do that at home, sometimes, when they were out with the cattle and far from any medical attention. He’d seen it, but he’d never had to do anything. Wool wasn’t a good fabric for bandages. He knew that. But he had a whole shirt worth of soft cotton fabric, and he tore off a good-sized chunk of it now. He wrapped it tightly around the whole hand, several times, and tied it tight around her wrist, picking up a stick from the ground to create a base for the tourniquet. Rough, maybe, but it’d have to do. “I don’t really know how to do this.” He confessed, finally, trying to sound a lot less panicked than he felt. Laurel nodded, trying to steady her hand even as she was shaking and breathless. She winced with pain, biting down another cry of agony as he started to bandage it. Having someone there to help her was something, at least, and she nodded again. “Real tight, please,” she whimpered the words. She just had to stop crying and think about something else, and then the pain would lessen. Like the time she’d broken her wrist, perhaps. Laurel tried to think about that, stifling her cries as best as she could. She wasn’t very good at first aid, not like some of the other tributes. The girl from District Three came to mind, and Laurel finally remembered what Juniper had said. “Real tight, thank you thank you,” her words were still shaky. “We gotta find the kids from Three. My mentor said I could m-maybe stick with them if Briscoe-” Laurel gulped back another choking sob. “We gotta find them.” Buck nodded and fidgeted with his knots some more, trying to make it as tight as possible. He cut a length of fishing line and wrapped it around the base of the bandage, reinforcing the fabric. That would be better. He hoped so. As he worked, Buck tried to absorb the changes to their plan. The threes had never been part of the deal with his district, but maybe they would take himself and Laurel on. They were smart. They could be great. “We will.” He decided both to himself and outloud. “We’ll find them. Tallow’s…” he pulled on the knot to mask the fact he was choking up from the thought of it alone. “Tallow’s gone too. One got her. The boy One. I was too late.” But there was no use thinking about that any more. “That better?” He eyed his work a little skeptically. There hadn’t even been anything to clean the wound with. Just the sports drinks in Laurel’s backpack, and that seemed suspect. He pulled one out now, anyway, tilting the bottle in her direction. “Drink something.” He told her, calm and steady as he could. “You’ll feel better.” She nodded again and again, taking the drink from him with her uninjured right hand. She was trying desperately to quell the sobs and ignore the pain, and hoping that maybe it’d go away when the bleeding stopped. Maybe she’d be lucky enough to find something to clean the wound and the mess of blood where her fingers had once been. Tallow was gone too, and it was just them. Determination rose and Laurel knew that she had to find those other tributes. They could all help each other. “Thank you,” she breathed the words after she’d stopped drinking, barely remembering to be sparing with their resources. “Thank you thank you,” she ducked her head once again, unable to look at her bandaged hand just yet. “Thank you.” |