carnagecarnival: (I wish I’d just stood and let.)
The Initiate Fraysong ♑ (Young GHB) ([personal profile] carnagecarnival) wrote in [community profile] thearena2014-06-18 02:12 pm

Don't fret precious my dear, step away from the window, go back to sleep

Who| Initiate and Kain, Justin & Sigma, Elsa, Orc, and Di (all separate times and threads). ALSO OPEN.
What| DEATH AND MURDER ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Also zombie-family.
Where| The forest/orchard, the amusement park, wherever
When| Week Four! And maybe onward???
WARNINGS| Gore, violence, death, desecration of corpses, language, Initiate, so on

When the people start emerging from the fog, wandering, lost, he doesn't think much of it at first. Sometimes they brought motherfuckers in part way through these things. New blood, new faces. He watches a few pass, keeping low. Maybe "thinking nothing of it" is understating. It's hard not to grow a little suspicious when person after person passes with that same blank-faced, glassy-eyed look. He finds himself gripping his weapon a little tighter than before, eyes narrowed.

But then, just as easy, just as quick, he forgets all that. From the fog emerges a new form, this one with horns. He knows those horns. He would know them if all he were a motherfucker struck blind.

His descendant emerges, looking lost, but it ain't that different than how all he'd been, it ain't that different at all. Just like there were harsh administrations done painful is all just--

He's rolled off the food stand roof he'd been perched on and is landing hard on his feet before he even gets the thought in pan to get such actions done. He's pulled like a fish on a hook, feet picking up speed and carrying him along and then he's there, before him, the descendant he'd never meet without the Capitol (and never have with it).

"Gamzee!" He shouts at the kid. "GAMZEE!" His hands are on the kid's shoulders, shaking him. Gamzee doesn't respond. He stares blankly up at the Initiate, like he doesn't recognize him.

"Motherfucker, speak!" He doesn't. Gamzee doesn't make a sound. He just continues staring blankly right on through. There's a strange hollow feeling in him that the Initiate is only half sure he recognizes. His expression makes to twist but he stops it and hardens it all, making himself colder. He slides the pack off his shoulders and slips it on Gamzee easy, kneeling as he does so. He makes sure it's on good, gives Gamzee's shoulders one more pat as he stares into the kid's unseeing eyes. Then, in a few awkward but quick motions, he gets his descendant's bone thin arms wrapped up around his neck and hoists up the kid's legs, carrying the boy on his back. Gamzee's head rests on his shoulder, his curly hair getting up in front of his eyes and in his paint, but not a thing is evinced, no change in expression at all, just a mere blinking.

He knows a place he can keep the boy safe, deep in the Not-Carnival. Safe in a place where all he can make to come back to. For the first time in any arena, he gets the thought in him to try and beat all everyone. But not for his own self. It'll be easy. Just a quick raking of claws along his own throat. Then, maybe, it could work.

In the back of his mind still cries the Alternian rule; he's a detriment, it's dangerous, he's been made invalid, he's just wiggler bratt, he should be culled, it is duty, It's his duty as subjugglator. He should be culled.

Alternia could get pailed.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (but we carry on our backs the burden)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-26 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
Things blurred when he lifted her leg. It hurts, still bleeding and still a bright sharp pain where his fingers touch nerves too close to the area for comfort. She doesn't watch, doesn't want to see the thing happen. Doesn't want to see flesh boil, bubble, burn.

So the searing pain is surprising and immediate. It's like nothing else in her life, a burn so intense she can't think, can't breathe. Nostrils flare, her mouth bites down on cloth not made to handle sharp fangs tearing into it. Her whole body jerks, spasms, kicks and arches out in an attempt to be free of this horror. She has to force herself to take a breath, one, two, three.

The pain is so intense that she doesn't realize what a mistake she's made until she feels tears threaten to fall.

She can't breathe properly and the smell is settling in her hair, her nose, all parts of her smell like death and terror and she can't breathe.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (but we carry on our backs the burden)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-26 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
She can't, she can't focus, because when she does, she just smells death and destruction and her life falling into pieces. She doesn't want to be here, she doesn't want to be doing this and selfishly, she doesn't want it to be him. She doesn't want to admit this pain or this trauma to him. It's too close, cutting into things she doesn't think he knows and things she doesn't care to tell.

She screams around her gag, tears streaming down her face as she tries. Tries not to move, tries not to think. Her gut turns over, unhappy, but she can't do that right now. She'll choke, die. She doesn't want to die but she doesn't want to live, not with this searing pain. Not with the smell in the air and her matesprit dying in her minds eye, over and over.

And as abruptly as it started, it stops. Oh the pain doesn't really stop, never really ends, but the intensity fades and she can breath again. Before he can protest, she pulls the gag free and coughs, taking deep shuddering breaths. She feels like she must look terrible. Tearstreaked and trembling, she buries her face in her hands and shakes her head.

"I can't do this. I can't."
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (And hold me fast)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-26 07:00 am (UTC)(link)
She doesn't reply, staring at a spot on the wall like it's all that matters. He's right. It won't last forever. She's drawing beasts with every scream, with every pump of blood on the floor. She's faced down beasts many times her size, lived through the death or destruction of the people she cared for, watched her matesprit die before her more than once. Died herself. She can do this.

She looks at the candle and hesitantly at the burned mass at the end of her leg. It hurts. It hurts on more levels than he probably understands. Seeing it only makes it worse and she tosses her head back, hits it hard against the wall and can't even make herself wince. Voices are probably telling the story of his execution with relish, telling them why she's in such a panic. She swallows hard. She's not a tragic wounded thing.

"Just--just do it then." She grabs the jacket back close, finding a fresh spot and biting down hard. This time she watches his horns, not him, not what he's doing, but having something to focus on keeps her locked in reality at least.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (And we will hang hang hang)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-26 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
She watches the curve of his horns tilt and dip as he moves and the pain is back, as abrupt and terrible as she remembered, only worse somehow. Somehow it never gets easier, she never acclimates, it's always a burning bright pain. It's bright and fierce and she can feel her whole body ache with the tension of holding herself together.

She's trembling, trying her best not to scream, not to cry. Her nails dig into the floor, pulling up splinters. It doesn't work, she still screams, but she refuses to cry. She's better, stronger, tougher than this. She's a better troll than the Capitol makes her out to be. She's a tougher troll. The smell in the air makes her want to claw herself free, curl in, wait for death to come, but she's stronger than her fears and her anguish. Than the nausea boiling up inside of her.

Afterwards, she promises herself. Afterwards, when the pain is over. Will the pain ever be over? Will he ever stop. A thought--kill him for the pain, murder--and she shakes her head hard. It's just the pain, just the horror, just her old hatred welling up. Stronger than her base instincts. Stronger.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (And a heavy heart)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-27 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
Stronger than this. Her mantra. Repeating over and over in her mind, a whisper against the storm, but she can still cling to it. Her eyes close, head falling back to the wall. In her minds eye, he's there. Dying and watching her refuse to, to cling to life. They're burning, burning up, both of them turning to ash and dust and then pain sparks, brings her back to herself and she screams at the betrayal. Let her go, let her burn up into nothing.

For several long moments in the midst of this, she's forgotten he's alive and the memories are all there is. In those moments, she's waiting for death, waiting to burn alive too. Ash and dust and pain.

But he moves on to somewhere new. Her eyes flash open, a noise tearing from her throat--and she focuses back on his horns. No, don't get lost in that again. Stronger.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (And hold me fast)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-30 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
He meets her eye and she doesn't know how she might look to him, worlds away and in a time she put past and he doesn't even know yet. Dazed, she wonders what he's thinking, what he actually feels about this shit he's doing. About trying to save her from death in a futile gesture that will only prolong this.

Then the pain stops--and he panics. As if she'd move. As if the pain would let her. She drops her head back again, eyes closed and shakes her head.

"Stop, it's not going to help. Can't you tell...?"

Can't he tell how pale she is under a layer of grim from this horrible arena. How she drifts from reality to dream, it can't last. Maybe if she could have clean clothes, some way to fix her leg, water and food--a bed, the things a person needs to recover. If maybe, she was somewhere else entirely, this would have worked.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (Hold me fast; Cause)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-06-30 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
"Make it quick?"

This is the second time she's had to ask for death. She keeps dying due to dumb mistakes, rain that burns, a beast that snaps off legs without a pause.

"Or I can do it. If you have a knife. You did all you could."

Because it seems cruel to ask the person who's been trying to save you to kill you. Because he's trying so earnestly and it's bizarre and strange and she doesn't know if it's some strange obligation to another that brings them both here in this moment or...or something.

"It wasn't a waste."

It's okay. It's okay to try and not succeed. She doesn't say that, doesn't think it's her place. Some bizarre part of her wants to pap him, shoosh, something, to help. Also not her place--and it'd be weird. Strange. She doesn't pity him, not really. She just wants to help.
disciplewhomsignlessloves: (We are Greeks in the age of Rome)

[personal profile] disciplewhomsignlessloves 2014-07-01 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
"I know you're probably blaming yourself for trying. Or something stupid."

She doesn't have long to really speak before his hands are on her face and she knows what's coming. It'll be quick, it'll be painless. She'll be dead before she can blink, before she knows what's happened. She's quiet for a breath as he speaks.

And when it seems like the time is almost there, she raises her hand and pats his cheek. A thank you perhaps or a dumb impulse like all her dumb impulses the last day or so, with her brain all muddled.

A twist and her hand falls limp to her leg.