katniss everdeen is a survivor (unwillingmartyr) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-12-08 14:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, katniss everdeen, pansy malfoy |
"Move Faster!"
Who: Pansy Malfoy and Katniss Everdeen
When: Saturday, Dec 8, mid-morning
Where: Starting at the park
What: Girl Talk, an example of magic, and other... things. Epic things.
Rating: Mature for violence and language.
Status: Complete!
Pansy showed up to the park after a couple of messages back and forth with Katnis to plan out meeting. She was glad that she had a girl friend to talk about these sorts of things. She knew a couple of girls from school, but it was weird to talk about these things with them, because they weren’t having those strange dreams. Katniss was pretty cool.
She sat on a stone bench, fiddling with the wand, flipping it around between her fingers, waiting for Katniss to show up.
Katniss jogged up, and plopped down on the bench. "Sorry I'm late, I had to get my sister settled, and then she wanted me to help her with her greenhouse."
It had been an early christmas present for Prim. Katniss had some things to go with it, but that would wait for Christmas itself. She'd gotten them at an incredible discount a work, because it was broken. But she'd fixed it up, and hopefully they'd have their own vegetable garden soon. Prim was excited about coaxing life from the soil.
She was nervous about the magic thing. And because she didn't have many friends outside of Peeta.
“Greenhouse?” Pansy asked, breaking into a smile. She was glad to see her new friend. It’d be nice to get a girl’s perspective on all of this.
"Yes. Prim likes to grow things. It's too cold outside for a window box and the landlord made her take it down last year anyway." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and exhaling. She felt oddly paranoid, but whenever dreams came up, she did.
“Wow, growing your own plants in a greenhouse?” Pansy asked. “That sounds pretty amazing. I dunno if I could do that. I don’t have the patience for it. Maybe you’ll have to give me a lesson someday.” She said, then stilled the wand in her hand.
“All right, you wanted to see some magic?”
"Oh, don't look at me. I could identify them but my sister has the green thumb!" Adorable little Prim. "She's good with animals too."
Shifting forward, Katniss nodded. "Yes, show me!"
Pansy nodded. She glanced around, looking for something on the ground, then pulled her phone out of her pocket and set it down on the ground in front of them. She moved back to the bench beside Katniss, and swished her wand. With a flick, she said, “Wingardium Leviosa.”
The phone lifted up off the ground as if it weighed nothing, and floated upward.
Katniss gaped. She reached over, looking for strings, or some kind of air pressure or anything to explain how it was hovering, but there wasn't. "Oh my god..." She wished she'd had something like that in the Arena. Before the arena. She'd show the Capitol....
“Accio, phone.” Pansy said, her wand pointed at the phone. It came zooming over and she caught it easily from the air, then held it out to Katniss as if for inspection. The other girl could see it was just a plain, old phone. No strings, no funky magnets, nothing.
"Holy crap.." Katniss looked over the phone. "How did you do that? Did you really do that? Are you kidding me?" Why was life so unfair? Why couldn't she dream about this instead of starvation and death matches?
She was so jealous.
Pansy shrugged. “I dunno, it’s just... I’m studying it in my dreams at school. Hogwarts,” She added the name of her school as an afterthought. “I can do a few other things, too.” She really wanted to try flying on a broomstick.
"Like what? Can you teach me magic? Or do you have to be born with it?" She remembered something about being able to conjure things like bread with it, or cook. She wanted that, so badly...
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think you have to be a witch or a wizard to do magic. You can try, though,” Pansy offered, holding out her wand to Katniss to try it out. “Swish and flick,” she said, giving a motion with her hand. “And say the words, ‘wingardium leviosa.’”
She took the wand, inspecting it carefully, then swished and flicked her wrist and said the magic words. Naturally, nothing happened, and she couldn't mask her disappointment. "Damn.."
“Sorry,” Pansy said. She’d half expected it to do something. Pansy didn’t really know how magic worked in this world. She reached over and took the wand back, then gave it a twist and sent some gold sparks up into the air to rain down on them like cool, harmless fireworks.
There was a buzzing sound, and the stone bench exploded behind them. Katniss flew forward, tumbling and rolling and smacking her head against the pavement. She got to her knees, holding her head. There was blood on her back from a piece of stone. Her ears were ringing.
Pansy knew that wasn’t part of her spell. She could hear the buzzing, then the explosion threw her, too, flying off where she was seated and landing hard on the ground. The wind was knocked out of her, and she rolled a couple more feet onto the sidewalk. Her shoulder, where she’d landed, was throbbing and she’d bit her lip.
She lifted her head and winced as the pain in her shoulder doubled. Her wand was still clenched tightly in her hand.
A machine approached them. A little bigger than a person, it looked as though it were made from an amaglamation of parts. There didn't seem to be an obvious signs of propulsion, and it's one red eye glowed ominously. Katniss looked up, staring at the thing. Had Pansy summoned that? What was it? It looked like something from the Arena, something the Game Masters would have come up with. And here she was without a bow.
Pansy managed to climb to her feet, terror moving her now. Her shoulder was in an odd angle from where she landed on it. She clutched her arm against her chest, still clutching her wand in her good hand. “What is that??” She cried out, looking to Katniss.
If only she knew that Katniss needed a bow. She could attempt to conjure one, or transfigure one for her.
"I don't know!" Katniss shouted, scrambling towards Pansy as another blast shook the ground near them. "We need to get out of here! God I wish I had a bow." She grabbed Pansy's hand. If there was one thing she'd learned from the dreams, it was how to run.
Just...where would they go?
Pansy gave a yelp when Katniss took hold of her hand, but held on tight. Her shoulder was seriously banged up. She turned to run with Katniss holding her wand behind her. She called out “Protego!” hoping that might stop or slow down whatever it was that was coming after them.
“A bow?” She asked, panting hard from running and pain. “I might... be able... to help with that...” She said, then motioned with her wand into an alley between buildings.
Katniss hoped 'Protego' was magic slang for 'fireball'. She was probably going to be disappointed. Couldn't she case fireball at the darkness or something?! She pulled Pansy into the alley. Behind them, the Sentinel approached cautiously, scanning the area.
Pansy looked around. Her shoulder was killing her, she was out of breath and aching, but she found a piece of pipe and some broken boards leaning up against the wall next to the dumpster. She stepped over to them, closed her eyes and focused. She’d never done anything like this in her dreams or in her waking life, but they had to act now. She was desperate.
“Archerifors,” she mumbled, hoping that the word wasn’t all that important. Archery, right? And she needed something that sounded magical... she swished her wand over the pipe and the boards, hoping to transfigure them into a bow and arrows.
It miraculously worked! Katniss snatched up the bow, testing the draw strength then stringing an arrow. The thing appeared at the end of the alleyway, and she drew the string back. The red 'eye' was like a huge target, but she'd never fired a bow in this life.
She missed, badly, and picked up the rest of the arrows. "Run run run, we need more room!"
Pansy started backing up in the alley. There was a chain link fence at the end--wasn’t that always the case?--and pansy backed up against it as the thing, whatever it was, came closer.
“No room, no room!” She was forcibly and inappropriately reminded of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. “Protego!” She cried out, throwing up another shielding charm around them. Hopefully Katniss’ arrows could fly through it, but that thing couldn’t get through the other way.
The chain link fence gave a clatter when she backed into it. She nearly screamed at the pain that shot through her shoulder, and she doubled over, clutching her arm. After a split second of agony, Pansy turned to see that it was a gate. There was a rusty chain with a pad lock keeping it closed. “Alohamora!” She cried out, and the lock opened. She frantically tried to get the chain undone so they could escape through.
Katniss lined up another shot, struggling to control her breathing. On her third exhale, she fired, striking the sentinel in the eye. There was a shower of sparks, and it fell to the ground, skidding into a dumpster.
Pansy spun around at the sound of the crash, giving another yelp and buckling down She very nearly dropped her wand as she lifted her wand hand to grab at her injured shoulder. The thing was down, skidded into a dumpster. “C’MON!” She cried out, turning to kick the fence door open, then burst through herself, praying to God that Katniss was on her heels.
Once they were through, Pansy turned to Katniss. She didn’t miss a beat, didn’t slow down her pace, but gave a half laugh. It hurt to laugh. “That was a fucking amazing shot!”
Katniss felt numb and buzzing at the same time. Dizzy. Giddy. Terrified. She might have peed a little. "Oh my god I made it! I made the shot!" She hugged onto Pansy, groaning a bit at her injuries. The sentinel twitched in the alley, and it's eye started to glow again.
Pansy gave another yelp of pain when Katniss hugged to her. She winced and hissed, shifting her arm. Her shoulder was seriously banged up, and would probably need... Pansy didn’t even know. To be popped back into socket? Something. Anything to make it stop hurting so bad.
“We should call the police. An ambulance. Something.” Pansy said, panting, still moving with Katniss down the latter half of the alleyway.
"The police?" Katniss laughed tiredly. Her back felt slick, and she didn't want to know what it looked like right now. She heard the sound of metal scraping and looked back. She wished she hadn't! "Move faster!"
A motherfrakking LASER BEAM shot from it's eye. Katniss shielded Pansy, and was struck in the leg. She tumbled to the ground, and tried to crawl into a position to take another shot.
Pansy nearly fell over when Katniss did. She turned to stare. “SINCE WHEN DOES IT HAVE LASERS?” she cried out, turning to duck behind a trash can and drag Katniss along with her. They had some shelter, and hopefully Katniss could get another shot.
“How... what...” Pansy drew her wand with her good hand and pointed it down the alley. “How do we stop it??” Running obviously wasn’t an option, and what would the cops do if they showed? Katniss had a point.
She hit it in the skull, but the arrow bounced off the metal. Katniss drew another arrow. If she could get another shot in the eye, maybe she could take out it's brain? It was worth a shot, and really, she wasn't ready to die. "God, I don't know!"
She loosed the arrow, but it was vaporized in mid air. She might have to have Pansy make her more. Then it hit her.
"Pansy, is there a limit to how big something has to be before you can't change it to something else?"
Pansy’s mind started racing. “I... I don’t know. So far it’s just been little things, like disappearing mice and turning small, woodland creatures into goblets and teapots.” She said, but she steeled herself. The throbbing, soul-wrenching pain her shoulder was actually working fairly well to sharpen her senses. She pointed her wand at the tangled mass of technology, and cried out, “Vera Verto!” It was the spell to transfigure a small creature into a goblet, but she figured that it might work to do... something else?
The magic streamed through her, out the tip of her wand. It was as if it somehow knew that they were in mortal peril. Pansy could see the force of her spell bursting through the air and slamming into the thing that was attacking them. She felt the power coming from the tips of her toes, draining her of energy as it moved through her wand.
As good as Katniss was with a bow, she was better at thinking things through. She knew that much. It, along with hunting, was her best advantage in the arena, and right now she felt like she was in the arena. She could feel the energy emitting from Pansy. See the spell shoot through the air.
She could see a red beam punch through the spell, heading towards them. It seemed to happen in slow motion. It struck the cement at their feet and lifted them into the air in a barrage of rocks and stone and rebar. She hit the ground hard, something crunching inside her leg and sending pain shooting through her.
The red beam cutting through the power of Pansy’s spell didn’t stop it entirely, but changed the magic. Perhaps amplified it slightly. But then the ground was quaking, then exploding under her feet. It sent her up into the air and crashing back down. She hit the side of the trash can with a soft, sickening crunch, then tumbled down to the ground.
When the smoke cleared, there was a mangled toaster where the sentinel had been.