lilac soot #d12tribute #yolo (soots) wrote in colosseum, @ 2013-12-09 16:19:00 |
|
|||
Fuck, Lilac thought, as she continued to scramble up the mountain. How was she supposed to take on two Career boys with a sharpened stick? Still, she was climbing as quickly as she could while considering death as a strong possibility for the first time. She didn’t even have a chance to look back, to see if they had slowed or what kind of weapons that they had. What did, eventually, bring her to a halt was the ground rumbling from beneath her. She felt the snow loosen from under her boots and instead of stopping and running back down, Lilac used her wooden spear as a walking stick to propel her as far up onto the mountain as possible. Grabbing onto a tree that was further up, Lilac looked back down as the crown of the minor avalanche began to form just a stone’s throw away. After what had happened to Dory, Marlin felt a thirst to prove that District 4 really had what it took, and he needed another kill. The last tribute's blood he had felt on his hands had been his own partner's, and he burned with the need to spill someone else's. The District 12 girl had seemed like the perfect opportunity (after all, what were the odds that Twelve could put up a fight?), but she hadn't been so weighted down with gear, and she had pulled ahead up the mountain. Basil lagged even further behind. He continued to chase Lilac, spear in hand, even after she stopped running. "What are you waiting for?" he called out, taunting. His focus had been so completely calibrated on catching and killing Twelve that he hadn't noticed the stirrings of the earth under his feet. Only too late did he glance to the top of the mountain ridge, to see what was coming. Seeing the debris come rumbling down, he too stopped dead in his tracks. Marlin had nowhere to go, and no idea what he could do to save himself. Tidal waves, he could handle. Hurricanes, sure. But an avalanche? How could the Gamemakers send another trap after a District 4 tribute so soon? This arena seemed as rigged against them as the last one had been in their favor. Marlin toppled like a bowling pin under a blanket of rocks and snow. Girl 12 was no match for the two boys and Basil knew it. He hadn’t been in a hurry to get her because after all, she would die. Soon. 12s were pathetic trash, it was amazing they had won as recently as they had. Besides, the Capitol liked it when the deaths were dragged out. But there was a loud noise after Marlin shouted out to the girl and then Basil started running. He had never seen an avalanche before, not in 1, so he had no idea if he was doing the right thing, but he found himself at the bottom unharmed. Shit Marlin he thought before he headed up the hill to save yet another 4 from a gamemaker trap. He hoped if one of those assholes won, they would at least tell his parents good things about him. “Marlin!” he shouted. Marlin couldn't hear Basil call out his name. In fact, he couldn't hear much of anything, the world around him completely muffled with white. He felt disoriented, isolated. He'd heard death was white. Like this? No, it couldn't be. He ached all over, and pain should go away with death. The snow on top of him was so cold and heavy that he couldn't breathe. He tried to flail, kick his way to the surface like in water. That was what you were supposed to do when you were drowning, but he could barely move. Basil headed up towards the last place he had seen Marlin and looked around. When he had Volunteered for the Reaping this was not what he had expected. This was the opposite actually. “MARLIN!” he shouted before. What were you supposed to do in these situations? Dig them out? Would that cause more snow to fall? He wasn’t 100% sure, but he started digging anyway, wishing he had a shovel. Even with his thick gloves on, his hands were getting cold. He dug and dug and eventually found the pocket where Marlin was. After living in District 4 all of his life, Marlin could stay underwater a long time, but the avalanche had knocked the air out of his lungs. He sucked in a deep breath when the snow above him disappeared. For now, it seemed that the Capitol was spared the irony of a District 4 tribute being killed by frozen water, but Marlin couldn't quite remember what had happened. His head thrummed in pain. "Basil?" he asked in a daze. It didn't even cross his addled mind to beg the other tribute not to kill him. "What happened?" “The mountain fell on your head,” Basil said exasperatedly pulling him out of the ground. “The next time one of you almost dies, I’m just going to let the gamemakers finish you off.” This was just getting ridiculous, it was like the gamemakers didn’t want 4 winning two years in a row again. No cannon for Four, but a minute ago, Lilac had imagined a cannon going off for her. Breathing a sigh of relief, she pried her hands from the tree which she had been clinging so tightly to. For a brief moment, watching One digging furiously at the snow, Lilac considered fighting, with one of them incapacitated. Still, she knew better than to push luck, even if another opportunity like this may not present itself to her. Five had her encounter with a Career, and with their luck today, it’d be best that Lilac find another way down. It didn’t stop her from letting out a laugh as she saw One pull Four from the ground though. “What’re you waiting for?” she taunted back, the same words he had said to her moments ago echoing down the mountain. Lilac didn’t wait to hear their response. Between calling the Two girl a coward and then this, she smugly smiled to herself as she disappeared further off into the snow. |