thearena | Swallowed Waist Deep in the Gore of the Forest [Closed]

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Swallowed Waist Deep in the Gore of the Forest [Closed]

Who| Eponine, Sigma, Eva, R
What| Eva gets allies and finds a zombie.
When| First day, then later that week.
Where| Near the Cornucopia, then near the labs.
Warnings| Zombies.

Some part of her never left the Arena. It's that part of her that slips into survival mode like a lamprey over the rocks of a brook - fast, barely-seen, but there and deadly. It's in the way her head tilts at a natural angle to hear best, the way she doesn't much smile in the Arena. The way the tips of her fingers itch.

She's made a quick bandage for Eponine's wound out of part of the girl's shirt, and, after lumbering around like some three-legged monster a while, found a large tree where the roots make a natural cave. Eponine's exhausted by then, and Eva decides it's better she sleeps now than later, when Eva needs to take a sleeping shift, so she lets Eponine rest and camouflages the entrance of the shelter with fronds of ferns and leaves.

Her hands aren't clammy when wrapped around her spear. It's only humidity, the same thickness in the air that makes her hair twist and coil like damp reeds in flame. She stalks through the tall grass near the Cornucopia, hunched low as she finds the food that some people missed. She stoops over a crate of apples and, tucking in her shirt and pulling the belt as tight as she can, begins to stash apples down her front.

She pauses as she hears something, a rustle in the grass a few yards from her. She stays still, nothing moving except the breath over her lower teeth, except a bead of sweat snailing its way down her temple.

Point forward, ready to lunge, she parts the reeds with her spear.

And she stumbles onto Sigma.

--

With her allies guarding her considerable haul of supplies, Eva feels more comfortable fanning out over the Arena and learning the terrain. She makes a mental map of landmarks, of trees, but she doesn't trust the sun when the Gamemakers are involved.

It rains, and when the storm ends her clothes don't dry. She leans her spear against a tree only to wring out her hair.

She sees a series of buildings, and she doesn't trust them. The odds of someone else being in there is high; the odds of it being a trap is higher. She passes, melting back into the jungle.

She pauses when she hears a gurgle, a rattle. She changes how she holds the spear, using it to lead - if someone's dying, their murderer may be near.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sigma had fled the Cornucopia in search of water and shelter, expecting to eventually find game and scavenge for food as he felt up to it - but for all the lush greenery and rainforest of the Arena, there was not a scrap to be seen, no flora he could trust not to be poisonous nor game to hunt. He quickly realized if he didn't return to the Cornucopia to pick over the remains, he would surely starve, immobilized, before the flu killed him. There would be no sponsors for a sick old man who could not fight.

After resting to regain whatever strength his body had left, Sigma stumbled through the jungle wearily, slowly, quietly. He had hoped most of the action had dissipated, but was braced to fight to the death if need be. Though never a violent person, Sigma was at the limit of his considerable tolerance - his metal arms had never felt heavier and his back and shoulders ached under the stress, already throbbing with myalgia from the flu. For the first time in years, he felt his age.

He had not been aware he had been making noise when Eva struck. Sigma saw the point of the spear and raised his arm so the blow might go through it and spare his life - until he saw the wielder and drew back. It was a sight so unexpected, he waited for the fog in his head to clear, for Eva to vanish. The Doctor blinked uncertainly when she did not.

He had been asleep through almost all of their transport. And if it had been announced that the Victors were to return to The Games, he had not heard it, spending his time before the round in bed, waiting for the infection to clear unsuccessfully.

"Ev..a?"

She may have been pointing a spear at him, but he would not take action against her nor move to defend himself. Exhausted, he reaches to balance himself on a tree, hoping the movement would not spook her.

Eva's eyes are wide; her mouth is parted to breathe deep, to slightly bare her teeth. Hair wreaths her cheekbones like the gate to hell. The face that stares back at him is wild.

And young. There's something about postponing death that makes someone simultaneously ancient and so youthful. It's the earliest, basest instinct, to lean towards life, the impulse we have as babies squalling up our air.

She considers running him through, going through his clothing and running. The dances at the date auction and the chess match are nothing, really. As her eyes skitter over him she takes in the stoop, the wheeze, the pallor. He won't last long anyway. He's not even a threat to her, except in that he could lend a set of extra eyes to someone else.

But she has someone to protect, and she and Sigma are married in their strange relationship with Eponine. It's her love for Eponine, not her friendship with Sigma, that stills her hand.

"I have Eponine," she whispers. "She's safe, for now, but she needs care."

He watches the decision of whether or not to kill him run through her eyes, and the taste is bitter, as used to betrayal as he has become. Sigma does not know her circumstance, does not know what it is that motivates her to stay alive above all else, but he had believed he may have come to have a friend in someone about his age at last. And though he should know better, it stings.

Her message more than makes up for it. Of the few precious things Sigma has had in his life, Eponine is one of the last, and news of her terrifies and relieves him at once. His eyes come alight and his exhaustion is briefly extinguished.

"Thank you," he wheezes quietly. He realizes how selfish he was to run from the Cornucopia without considering the trouble she'd seek out. Sigma pushes against the bark of the tree to regain his footing: teetering on weak legs one moment, ceasing to breathe to suppress a cough the next, and then stands straight. He has no medical supplies or knowledge to speak of, but what can provide is his support, a human shield. "Where is she? What happened?"

As she did for Eponine towards the end of that rescue, Eva finds a hard place to set the end of the spear on and reaches out to let Sigma use her as a crutch, to help carry him to safety. The spear is a good enough walking stick, yet she finds it perturbing that it's found more use as that than as a weapon.

Back in her own Arena, she was one of the worst threats, but here she's far less of a contender.

"Some legless bitch slashed her thigh," Eva says, somehow retaining a bit of the dignity she usually carries even as her language betrays her lower-class upbringing. The apples swing in her makeshift pocket like a heavy belly. "Did you eat anything or did you bring this cold in?"

Though he is loathe to admit to weakness at such a time, Sigma gratefully accepts Eva's assistance. As he draws close her skin is cool to the touch and like water in the desert for a dying man - Sigma coughs hoarsely into his arm, facing as away from Eva as he can manage, before resting his weight on her.

Then his face twitches into a scowl and his eyes ignite with tranquil fury, but this wild and suppressed anger is quickly drowned in reason. There was nothing he could do about it now but hope Eva had given her her dues. When he shakes his head to deny her question, his rage may have never been there at all. "Brought it in. Caught it from... someone," in his exhaustion unnecessary details almost slip through, but it was an assurance, at least, that no poison of the Arena could make them as lastingly ill as this.

He's reminded suddenly that he had failed to listen to her advice, outside of the Arena, and lifts his robotic hand to his forehead to temper his building fever. "But I still can help her," he insists. "Do what you must once I am unable, but for now, I can handle it." He's been through much worse.

"Well, don't give it to me," she says, and though she's definitely in business mode there is something gentle in the way she helps Sigma along. She alternately uses her spear as a walking stick and to clear the reeds in front of them. He's heavy - she suspects it's from the metal - but she knows her center of gravity well and her legs are strong. It's a minor hindrance.

That's the end of her speaking to Sigma for the travel. Anything more than that may draw attention. The mugginess of the air and the occasional cries from foreign birds don't really help to hide their voices from people who may be hunting them.

When she reaches the natural root cave, she helps Sigma in and makes sure he's resting comfortably and the apples are set away before checking on Eponine. She hesitates for just a moment, brushing Eponine's hair out of her face with a tenderness she knows is out of place for the Games. Eponine smells vaguely of liquor and mucus, having come in drunk and sick.

In the cave a change comes over Eva, not entirely but partially, like dawn on an overcast day. That she is both a scrapper and a parent exists in tandem, rather than one element of herself overcoming the other. She is, rather than a predator outside the cave or a milk sow inside, a combination of the two - a protective mother wolf who hasn't set her spear down yet. The protection extends to Sigma as well, for now.

"Eponine," she whispers. "Wake up, dear."

Eponine had slept in a feverish, drunken fit since Eva had carried her away from the battlefield, and had woken on and off since she had been left in the root cave. But, between the flu and her drunkenness, Eponine didn't have a clue where she was, how she had got there and even what to do next.

She did remember Eva, Eva picking her up, soothing her. And R. R was there, shoving food at her as she begged to die. But they had been hallucinations, hadn't they? Eva especially couldn't be here. There was no way. Eponine sobbed to herself in the dark of the cave. She wanted Eva. She wanted to cuddle up to her at her house in Panem and never leave her embrace again. She wanted to go home to Paris and die in the street. She wanted out.

She had dozed off again, awaking later to see a face peeping in at her - Marius. He had called to her, and she had cried out to him, trying to crawl - but no. Her legs refused to work and her shout turned to a sob as Marius was joined by Howard and the two embraced and disappeared into the darkness. They were hallucinations, created by the Capitol. Just a little more entertainment for the citizens following her story of heartbreak. Her two loves. Gone.

She had sobbed herself to sleep, screaming out in agony as her legs burned, bled through. But eventually, she had stilled, her forehead damp with perspiration, and fallen back into a deep sleep.

It's Eva's whisper that rouses her now, and she moans a little.

"Mama? Mama, I feel sick." Her voice is still laced with sleep, her eyes still closed. "Please -" But she has to force herself to sit up, so she can turn her head and vomit over her shoulder.

But the vomit wakes her up a little, and she blinks, and rubs her eyes with her dirty, bloody hands. But the sight of Eva, still crouched over her, makes her pale even more than the blood loss has already made her, and begin to cry.

"Please. Please don't." She's not talking to Eva. "Please don't - make it go away. I've had enough. I would rather you kill me. Don't make me cry for her here. Please. I will do as you say. I'll fight next time. Please - just let me be."

Sigma enters the shelter as though it were a glass castle, minding his space cautiously as to not trample supplies or wake its resting inhabitant. He observes Eva unwaveringly from his metal eye, noting the change that ripples over her with silent surprise. Her actions are genuine, unstilted, and she is not at all who Akane had been, the ghost who merely wore human skin to feign likeness and had fooled him successfully until this moment. As irreplaceable the esper had been, for Eva to do what Akane had done- to tell their child that there was a relationship she valued much more than theirs to which she wished to return when their game of house was finished- seemed unfathomable and was what set the women apart. Eva was not an imitation of Eponine's mother, but had become her, and to Dr. Klim there was no one more admirable in that moment than she.

Sigma felt his soul twist when he saw Eponine's wound, like something inside him had been damaged as well, and the sensation worsens tenfold when she gets sick. He throws Eva a wholly distressed glance, his eye widening fearfully and his hands clenched nervously at his sides. He has nothing to help Eva clean up with and feels overwhelmingly useless, though he would give the clothes off his back if demanded. And though his reason tells him Eva has everything under control, to take a step back and allow her to do what mothers did best, he cannot hold back an attempt to comfort the girl, as well. "Shhh. Eponine, my dear, everything is going to be fine," he whispers, sliding over to her around the mess. He tentatively reaches for her arm. "We're both here. Quiet, now. We've got you."

Edited 2013-11-08 17:39 (UTC)

It's only then that Eva lays the spear down, although her shank is within easy reach. She pulls off her overshirt and wipes at Eponine's face with it, the trail of vomit from the corner of her mouth and the sweat on her brow. She rests on her knees and pulls Eponine to her - once the makeshift towel is put away, she replaces the stroking with her hands for a moment, allowing herself, almost selfishly, to lose herself in this act of comforting.

Her upper lip twitches in the shadow of an appreciative smile at Sigma as he moves in and helps comfort their sick girl. It frees her up for the more practical parts of caretaking. "No more tears, guagua. You're alright. We're here."

And more quietly to Sigma, "I found a first aid kit out there." She pulls it from the back of her pants. It's not a large kit, but it has antiseptic, bandages, a few pills for hydration and nutrition, a thermometer. Nylon suture with a needle. She looks to Sigma, as if to ask if he knows how to sew up a wound.

She covers the vomit on the ground with dirt like an animal burying its scat, then pulls ferns from the outside to help cover the entrance. The dim light makes the inside of the cave look, to Eva, like the interior of an infected throat, all hot tonsils and inflammation. She sits back down next to Eponine and pulls the girl's torso into her lap, resuming smoothing her tangled hair.

"Monsieur? Sigma? Is it truly you?" Eponine turns her head a little, searching for the source of Sigma's voice.

But as the shirt against her hot head is replaced by cool, rough hands. Hands she knows instantly as Eva's. But how? How is it so? She tilts her head up to look at Eva in the twilight of the cave. "Why are you here, Eva? How do you come to me?"
She reaches, pulling herself up with the neck of Eva's t-shirt. "Where am I? What has happened? Oh, Madame. My legs! Eva, my legs cannot move. I do not know what happened; I thought I was dead. Will you kill me? Monsieur, please. Help me. I cannot win now!"

She sneezes, and wipes away the tears and the mucus flowing freely down her face. She's so confused, so bewildered as to where she is and what's happened.

"Am I dead already? Are we home?"

As his gaze connects with Eva's Sigma silently understands, swallowing, red cheeks paling in the dim light. He can sew. He can repair shredded clothes and stitch toy rabbits. Decades ago he'd applied each fine layer of artificial tissue to his metal skeleton, opening the stub on his shoulder and meeting faux muscle with long severed nerves and bone, stitching new dark skin to old pale white- it should be more or less the same... or rather it would be, if the wound didn't belong to Eponine.

The Doctor's heart flutters as the child looks for him, only to drop into his stomach at her despair. The brief hope the two of them could give her from their presence has died on arrival and now they could only combat her pain. Not even Sigma knew why Eva was here, and though he could hazard a guess he does not give one, countering Eponine's delusions instead.

"We are going to help you, Eponine, and it's not going to hurt anymore. See..? That's why Eva has come." He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

Making as little noise as he can manage, he retrieves the kit, washes his hands in antiseptic, keeps the needle and thread low to the ground and out of Eponine's sight as his eye zooms close. His machinelike precision is a blessing as his hurting heart races out of control, but he knows this is not about him. "You will be back in bed before you know it," the suture slips through the eye of the needle without clumsiness.

He raises his head suddenly to signal to Eva that he is ready, a plea to prepare her.

"You're still here. You're in the Arena. And I'm here with you, to protect you." She cradles Eponine's head as if it's that of an infant, then gives Sigma a tight nod. "This will pinch a bit, but it's nothing you can't survive."

She wants to promise Eponine that she will make her win. That if Eva has to, she will personally kill the rest of the competition to get this sad girl out. But as consummate a liar Eva is, she can't dredge up the capability to say these things to a sick girl who barely even believes in the person holding her right now. So she starts, with one hand, to braid Eponine's hair. It's lank and greasy from sweat, from the fact that they must not have had much time to get Eponine camera-ready before shoving her out here.

How strange, that she so loves a girl so helpless and weak, pleading for her own death. Eva isn't sure when it was that Eponine captured her heart, isn't sure when Eponine caught the right light and suddenly was Marco. No, not Marco. A certain note Eponine's voice hits, a singular expression, chains of words that echo in Eva's head.

I will not play their Games! I will not! I will not!

A wick inside Eponine that burns brightly despite the grime, despite the tears, despite Eponine's insistence that it isn't there. It that which Eva so loves, and she has come to care deeply for the wax around it.

"I'll need you to grit your teeth and not scream. You can do that for me." It's not a question - she doesn't want Eponine to think for even a second that Eva doubts her, nor does she want to add another worry to Sigma's load. He looks near collapse. She would give him a pat on the shoulder, but that would mean letting Eponine go for the moment.

Edited 2013-11-11 06:03 (UTC)

Eponine simply clings to Eva, hugging her about the arms, pulling at the neck of her shirt, probably hindering Eva herself in her methodical braiding.

But Eponine has never before had someone to hug when she has felt unwell. She's never, ever had that loving embrace, not even as a child, for her mama was never really the type to properly hug like Eva does.

"I won't scream." It's about all she can promise. Her head is spinning, through fever and alcohol.

"I saw them together, you know? Marius and Howard. He is only an ado,a gos, MAUDIT MOMME! but he knows how to break my heart already. He is a bastard, a fagot. I HATE HIM. They are together and they're laughing at me - I won't have it and you must promise me to kill me - please, please, Madame."

She dissolves into Argot as she babbles, half incoherent, still clutching at Eva. But she twists to Sigma too, crying out at the pain in her legs.

"Please- Sir, I will be quiet. But please - I do not ask for much. Only, I do not want to play any more. I will not be laughed at. He has made me love him, Maudit boy! Just as Marius has - and now they laugh at me together. Well, no. I shan't have it! I will NOT!"

Her outbursts are loud in the crowded, hot cave, her rage,her sadness boiling over, tears spilling as water down the sides of a pan filled too much. But she forces herself to sit, though it makes her dizzy to do so. And she nods her head. "No more words. Monsieur, kill me so this nightmare is over for today."

(tr: he is only a teenager, a child, HORRID BOY!...He is a bastard, a criminal...)

Edited 2013-11-13 23:50 (UTC)

Sigma nearly dropped the needle as Eponine launched into her rant, almost instinctively pressing his fingers to his lips but thinking better of it before completing the gesture - the antiseptic could not be wasted cleaning his hands again. Holy shit! He now understood why his advice had been entirely useless to the boy, the reason Howard had felt a discomfort with Eponine he could not identify. The Doctor had yet to experience the projections, and aside from her illness had no reason to doubt Eponine's story, though he was suspicious they had mocked her: at the very least, he was relieved Howard was no longer confused. Sigma went from pale to pink, embarrassed on Howard's behalf that he and the audience had learned of this in such an indelicate way, Eponine's expletives not helping matters. The girl had an unexpected mouth on her.

But despite his disappointment with the girl's tantrum he said not a word, deciding it would not help to scold her. He hated equally how she valued her own life so little, measured her self-worth in the amount of attention she got from men her age... Sigma was loving, but firm, placing the back of his hand on her forehead briefly to calm her before he started. He could not wipe her tears away to risk an infection, leaving that to Eva. "No, my dear."

It was the only moment he spared. Eager to get it over with for both their sakes, Sigma moved quickly to her leg and cleaned it down. Immediately after wiping the wound it spilled over again with blood, soaking her thigh and his fingers red. Thankful his stomach was empty, Sigma bit his tongue and pinched the sides of the wound together, piercing the curved needle through delicate flesh as quickly and precisely as he could.

Eva does indeed believe Eponine's been used. It doesn't matter if this Howard boy was the one doing it - people like her and Eponine are used in such ways that it becomes impossible to form a human connection that is not a matter of what worth they can give to the other person. It took Eva years and a particular cocktail of arrogance and manipulativeness to overcome it.

She wonders if it would be prudent to foster the same sort of ego in Eponine, and at the moment thinks it unwise. Eva would be a hypocrite to say revenge is a degrading goal, but no one ever said she was consistent.

"We will be having none of that," Eva says, stern and unyielding yet still warm, only able to be such because she's backing up Sigma rather than giving the order herself. She wipes Eponine's face between plaiting the stringy, sweat-damp hair, giving Sigma a grateful and tired smile. For all that Eponine has the body of an adult, has the experiences of someone both many times her age and deeply unfortunate, the skills Eva's drawing on now are from tending to a toddler. And it's similarly tiring.

She hums a lullaby to Eponine, a song from District 9, earthy and much too simple to be like the overwrought melismatics of a Capitol voice.

Eponine gasps as Sigma douses her leg with alcohol,as the liquid bites into the wounds with her leg. It feels likes it's eating away at the very flesh inside - so painful she could quite happily scream out her hurt and her frustration.

But - no. She keeps her word, and not a sound does she make. Her hand reaches for Eva's, and she squeezes tight as Sigma begins to stitch her legs. Her whole body shakes with the effort to remain silent, but it at least stops her tears for the most part. Instead, she stares straight ahead into the darkness of the cave, choosing to see nothing, rather than her companions. Eva's song wraps around her, the simple melody cradling her, and Eva's fingers, playing in her hair, become a part of it, indistinguishable from the hum of the music. She prefers this - it's familiar, the stern orders, the pain. She can understand this over the flounces and the frivolities the Capitol has allowed her to engage in. It makes sense. And she can do as she's told without having to think. It's a relief - and between that, and Eva's song, Eponine's posture slackens, her grip on Eva loosens, and even her body stops shaking so violently.

"I wish you wouldn't help me."

At her insistence in having the last word, Sigma growled. He knew too well how rage and love were tangled in his world, and for all her effort Eponine's stubborn comment had stirred in some anger with his worry and despair. Perhaps a part of him had regressed to the Rhizome, where his son's disagreements could become fatally serious if he did not defuse them quickly with parental authority. He and Eva were trying so hard to help Eponine and beyond not screaming she failed to give them her cooperation.

"That is too bad for you," Sigma snaps at the benign comment, buckling under the weight of their situation. He regrets it immediately - biting his tongue, the Doctor tries to think only of sewing the wound. It was true neither of them were giving the girl a choice nor respecting her wishes, but it sometimes had to be done, with children.

"Almost there," he reassures with a sigh, and in the same breath, "you're doing well." Zero hated to apologize outright.

Edited 2013-11-28 19:06 (UTC)

So far the Arena is off to a better start than the last couple from what R remembers: he hasn't eaten anyone, for starters, and he's even helped a few people at the Cornucopia hopefully live another day. It's something. Still no clue where Julie is, which sucks, and he's pretty sure he now officially has some new maggots crashing in his corpse, but overall it's going...okay. Surprisingly okay, he realizes the next day or three after he's wandered away from the Cornucopia.

If you ask him, there's too many trees. Zombies aren't built for forests because generally that isn't where the food is - if you want food, you go urban. Follow the Living. The modern Living prefers ruined skyscrapers and looted gas stations over moss and trees. R wears he spends more time bumping into trunks and tripping on roots and vines he suspects wasn't there a minute ago than actually shuffling in a straight line. The humidity falls like a blanket and even if he can't sweat, R can tell that somewhere inside him those maggots are happy campers. His hair clings to his head, beaded with dew, as he pauses to sniff again out of habit.

He sees what looks like a collection of buildings in the distance. Buildings are a good sign. People gravitate toward them and for all he knows, Julie might already be there. R pauses only a few yards away from Eva's been stalking him, his back to her, his posture slumped over even though in his head, he's standing up on his tip toes and trying to peer through the tree-line as if he could already see Julie from here. The vines find him easy prey as they creep forward and wind around his ankles now that he's stopped moving.

Zombies have terrible situational awareness, unfortunately.

Edited 2013-10-31 16:13 (UTC)

The rasping sounds almost like breathing, Eva realizes. She decides to investigate, trusting that if someone's just done some mortal wounding she'd rather get the jump on them now, while they're winded, than later. She presses forwards towards the sound, feet making soft gasps in the mud as her heels pull free from the ground with each step.

As she passes around a tree, she finds not her quarry, but a familiar slouch and hair-plastered face. Something about the movement of dead and how jerky it is, like mannequins reconstructing themselves, is unmistakeable.

Her eyes widen and a gasp bolts between her lips as she sees the plants twisting up his calves.

She remembers the plants from an earlier Arena, one twenty years ago. They were wildly popular, but for some reason retired (rumor had it that they were released poison spores in captivity, but Eva doubts that). They never wormed their way into her nightmares like some of the other 'events' throughout the years, but they left an imprint nonetheless.

Noting the path the vines take - how they avoid movement until they've twined around something, then resist struggling away - she takes steps forward towards R.

Edited 2013-11-01 23:13 (UTC)

It takes awhile for R to notice the vines trying to squeeze the circulation out of his legs.

He's too busy trying to pinpoint where that gasp came from. All he has is it's female, it's close, alive because zombies girls don't gasp any more than the guys do. It's only when he turns that he notices he can't move his feet and he's already pitching over before he can complete the thought. R slams sideways into the ground, his fingers trying to claw for purchase as the vines slither further up his legs.

He spots Eva through a gap in the trees, partially visible through an overhang of moss. Her hair's tangled instead of tastefully done up in the Capitol, but it's undeniably her, right down to the scars twisting her mouth.

R doesn't even think about it: she's his friend, so naturally he'll go to her for help.

"E...va. Help...me?" R groans. He looks across those meters separating them expectantly, with this kind of blind trust that should've gotten him killed at the Cornucopia if he'd been your run-of-the-mill Living. It'd be innocent if it wasn't on a dead boy's face. "Can't..."

Well, it's pretty obvious what's going on here. Why bother spelling it out? R waits for Eva to step forward. With her faster walk and reflexes, he's confident he'll be out of here and back on his feet in no time at all.

The woman who looks back at R has the same features, and yet seems a paltry imitation of the one who gave him dating advice and who so tenderly touches flowers in the garden. The jungle has morphed her cheekbones into razors, her twisted mouth from a smirk to a perpetual snarl. It's the face of a teenage girl who garrotted a boy just hitting puberty with her belt, who felt no guilt at the body twitching and jerking beneath her.

It's a face that can walk away even from her own name, even from a plea for help.

But it's also the face of a woman who strategizes. She's well aware by now that the wildlife here is poisonous, as she suspected when she saw the spoils of the Cornucopia. She wouldn't dare feed it to Eponine or Sigma in their states, or test it on herself when she's the only one among the three of them fit to travel.

"Alright," she says, taking another step forward, flipping her grip on the spear over. She figures R owes a lot of people favors - for the relative invulnerability of death, it comes with its handicaps. She stands over him and doesn't hesitate.

She slams the spear down on his stomach, pinning him from his abdomen to the ground - and leveraging him against the vines tugging at him. Black blood oozes rather than spurts, with no heartbeat to push it through the veins. R's like a grotesque butterfly under glass, Eva the curator as she pulls the broken-off head from her second spear. It's pointier than it is edged, but it's all she has at the moment. She starts to saw through a vine before another tries to catch her ankle, at which point she jumps back.

He can't pin down what it is about Eva that makes her almost look like someone else. All he knows is this...something passes across her face as she stares at him. Was his groaning not clear? Did he slur too much? He assumes she's just thinking about how she'll get him out. Maybe she's wondering how to do it without getting bit which, to be fair, is an honest thing to be concerned about around him. R opens his mouth to promise she's (almost) muzzle-safe with him when she suddenly moves.

The spear running him through doesn't hurt. He doesn't scream.

It reminds R of Hyperion gutting him as he squirmed on the shaft, unable to even claw his face out to protect his friends and seeing that realization crossing his face. A feeling of something sizzles through R like a lightning bolt. It takes him a second to realize it's helplessness. It's not...pleasant. It's nauseating in a different way than eating rabbit and dog and horse, this feeling oozing out from his muscles and the back of his throat instead of just surging up from his stomach. It's not something he can just cough up. He imagines the feeling like black tar coagulating, reeking.

"Ughhh..." R groans. He claws uselessly at the vines and the mud, more for something to do with his hands than because of the spear punching a hole in his back and out the other side.

He trusts Eva knows what she's doing. This is probably the quickest way and she'd won her own Arena before, so clearly she's more qualified here than he is. R resist the urge to snap at her hands. Remember Julie's humming and all those days of training. Best behavior here. No burning bridges this Arena. R keeps surprisingly still for a zombie who's used to biting at anything that comes within range, his head turning to stare up at Eva. Her face is lined with sweat and dirt as she saws away. A vine gives. Then another, almost reluctantly.

He's almost freed when she leaps back. R takes that as a sign he should probably try to get up. He squirms with more life this time, anxious to get back to his feet and talk eye-to-eye.

"Stay down," she says. Outside the Arena, she'd coat that sentence in the warmth of a school nurse coaxing a child to let her remove a splinter. Inside the Arena, it's the sharp bark of a drill sergeant that doesn't even dare someone to refuse her. It demands to be obeyed without question or struggle.

She waits until the plant that was trying to capture her ankle wraps instead around a root nearby, then steps over it and drops back to R's side. For a moment she ponders fire, but it's far too wet for that, and she doesn't know what that would do to R. That just leaves cutting away at the vines, which may end up taking too long.

So she gets back up and moves past R, following the trail of vines and hop-skipping out of their reach until she finds the source. It's a disgusting, bulbous plant that reeks like human flesh and stands about the size of a pumpkin. A cavern at its base belches vines. The smaller ones wrap around her wrist, and the larger ones go for her ankle, but as she's aware of their attacks she pulls each limb away before they get a good hold. They seem more interested in R anyway; he moves around less.

She stabs the core, a squishy gourd, and it spurts some vile-smelling liquid at her. The vines around R tighten, and when she looks back she realizes that the zombie is getting dragged closer, the spear having come dislodged from the Earth. She yanks the shiv out (slick with rank orange-tinted juice) and starts to dig at the base, huffing and snarling at the plant as if she's a truffle pig uprooting prey.

Why's he staying down? More importantly, why doesn't he argue? R obediently does as he told because Eva has that sharp something in her voice that no Dead has. It's conviction or feeling or maybe she's just having a bad day. It gets the job done. R immediately stops trying to drag himself free as Eva stalks past him.

He's starting to turn when he's suddenly jerked backward. R groans in surprise as his fingers catch on roots and moist ground. The spear's tugged out of the ground with a squelch as he slithers back, inch by inch. From the sounds behind him he's going out on a limb and guessing Eva's having a hell of a time back there with...whatever it is. He wonders if he should turn and look. The still-human part, the part that might've had a hand in his death, is tempted to take a quick peek. The Dead part, though, is resigned. Why bother? So what if he has a few chunks taken out?

The plant has other ideas. It might not have a brain, but it's still trying to discourage Eva with its rank sap oozing out and the vines it curls around her ankles even as she rips at the roots. With each root she cuts, a vine twitches and goes slack.

"Hold on, almost there," is the only fully-formed sentence that manages to escape the mesh of grunting and panting as she uproots an entire dangerous plant. Her knuckles start to bleed as she scrapes them against the earth to jab through a particularly thick root. A vine whips past her face and leaves a welt on her lower eyelid that weeps blood.

But this is taking too long, and she's making too much noise. She slices her way away from the vines again and retreats for the moment, breathing heavy. Her chest inflates and collapses like an accordion as she sucks in breath.

She yanks the spear out of R - it makes a schliff! sound as she does - and stabs it back through him again, this time deeper, this time putting both arms and her shoulders into it. The point goes a good half foot into the earth. Then she grabs one of the poisonous fruits off a nearby try and squeezes it over the point of her shiv, hoping that the toxins that pervade this Arena aren't uniform.

She rushes back in to stab the oozing gourd at the center of the mess, the core radiating botanical sunbeams. And she tries to poison the damn thing.

Is that spear coming or going? Like seriously, R can't tell at this point because Eva's getting stab happy with the thing and he wonders if it's easier on the conscience to impale someone when they can't die. All he knows is now he's really stuck to the ground, unable to twist around to see what she's doing..

Whatever it is, it seems to work.

The gourd starts to wilt at contact from the poisonous juice, almost instantaneously and far too fast to be natural. The vines twitch and flutter and give a final convulsion before they go limp and slide to the ground. It's quiet, aside from the harsh sounds of Eva's panting cutting through the humidity.

"Gh...good...job," R groans once it seems like it's safe to start speaking again. "Get...spear...out?"

He'd fidget, if he could. Or squirm. But all he can do with the spear impaling him is inhale the damp smell of the earth in his face and try to ignore that fresh life-scent radiating off Eva between the adrenaline and the blood which must've been drawn in the scuffle. Is this something she's done before? R's never made it a point to watch the Games she was in. He's never seen her outside the Capitol. It occurs to him for a second that hey, he actually doesn't know anything about her or what she's capable of. All he has is the gut feeling that he likes her.

In his mind, that's good enough.

Eva wipes her hands on her pants and tucks her shiv between her waist and her belt. She wraps both hands around the spear and, with only a grunted 'sorry', puts her foot on R's chest to leverage yanking it back out.

"Messy work." She runs her hands through the locks of hair that have come loose in the attack. The juice isn't entirely gone, so she leaves orange and red streaks across her forehead like rust ringing her brow. She reaches down to help R up with her hand-

-and ends up collapsing forward onto her knees, kneeling, too exhausted to be as much help as she wishes she were. Age and general unfitness has been catching up to her. She isn't the wiry teenager she was the last time she had to fight for her life. Palms to knees, she takes a few deep breaths and looks around, hoping no one heard the fight with the plant.

"You owe me," she wheezes, tugging R's shirt so some of the fabric covers the oozing holes in his guts. She hates to admit that that was necessary, but feels some lingering pride that she managed it without hesitation.

Does he help her up? Is she hurt? R scans her for obvious injuries and doesn't see anything as in your face as big splashes of red or ragged stumps. He sniffs tentatively her way as he starts to sit up. Life comes back at him, life and sweat and that scent that may or may not be an adrenaline rush still ebbing away that he tastes on the roof is mouth. It's one of those undead sixth senses most likely.

"Owe..." R shrugs. Fine by him. Friends help friends. He presumably lived by that motto and turning it over in his head, he thinks it sounds reasonable even if he's Dead. "Help...you...now?"

Maybe it's Eva showing motherly affection by straightening his shirt - he remembers it happening before but no clue if it's from his memories or someone he ate - or maybe he's just happy not to be pinned to the floor anymore. He starts to lean toward her before he realizes he better abort the Creepy Train while he still can. Right, right. Priorities. Paying attention to his surroundings that apparently includes looking down for plants. Focus on getting Eva to her feet.

Staggering to his feet sends a trail of black ooze down the entry wound from her spear, R staring down at the top of Eva's head and feeling the hunger perking up as it sends up flashes of want. Daydreams of cracking her head open like a walnut. Gorging on Essence of Eva Salazar right here and now. Swallowing, R waits until he's sure he won't jump her while she'd down.

Grunting, he stoops to help her up, his hands gentle but cold against her skin. There's a distinct lack of distrust in his touch that doesn't belong in the Arena. A few thick drops of what passes for his blood plops against the back of her hand.

She nearly brushes his hands away, but instead takes them, the skin in her hands cool and strangely feeling clammy despite its dryness. She gives them a grateful squeeze, ignoring the glob of slime that's now dribbling down her wrist. She gets up and wipes dirt first from her knees, then reaches up and brushes a leaf from R's hair with a tenderness that seems out of place given her recent actions.

"Have you eaten?" It's an important question for a variety of reasons, and to clarify, Eva appends "anything?" to the back of the sentence.

Slowly, the air seems to come back to her, filling her lungs like balloons that have had their skin distended. And not for the first time since this Arena started, fear spread along her veins and rests at the base of her skull. She's not capable like she once was. If winning her Arena was a long shot, this is nearly impossible.

And if she dies, her life will have been worth nothing at all.

"Thank you," she says, gesturing to her knees. "For helping me up."

R's happy to say he can shake his head for a change. "No. But...little hhggh...hungry," he admits, truthful to a fault. "Heads...up."

For now, at least, he thinks he's surprisingly good. Maybe it's a sign he really can change if he learns how to commit instead of zoning out and wishing things could be different, too little too late, while he shuffles behind the others with his head hanging down. Something that might be a smile fighting its way to the surface twitches across his face as he nods at Eva. No problem. Glad he can help.

He doesn't move out of the way as Eva plucks the leaf out of his hair. Who she's trying to straighten him out for is beyond him but he guesses maybe it's a reflex. Considering R doesn't get much voluntary close-contact, he'll take it. His eyes wander to some unknown point over her shoulder. The jungle plus even more jungle if you didn't get your fix yet. He'd never seen so much green in his life, even back home. His eyes slide back to Eva's face, lined with dirt and blood from the cut near her eye.

"Help you...home?" R says, chivalry suddenly lighting up the dark recesses of his skull. "Es...cort."

He'd hold the door open for her but seeing as there's no doors, the best he can offer is another meat shield if anyone guns for her from the trees. Considering how Eva handled herself with that plant, he doubts that'll happen.

"Have you eaten any of the plants here?" Eva's eyes are dark, hooded in thought. They aren't open and ravenous like they are when she's learning, not soft and deep like when she's listening. They're an opaque black wall, behind which she sorts and sifts through three decades of Games, finds the ones with poisons.

She realizes, there in the back of her head, that locked away inside herself is probably the safest place to be. And that's the moment when she makes certain that her heart is shut down to R, if not her mind.

With a false jocularity, she loops her arm around his, as if they were just about to step onto a red carpet and not wandering through the woods where both flora and fauna have reasons to want them dead. That twisted smile opens up like a flower on her face, scar on her upper lip like a leaf around the base.

"I could stand to have a handsome young corpse take me home. I have allies. We'll be making good on that favor soon enough."

"Don't...eat...greens," R shrugs. He would've said do I look like a vegetarian to you? but he knows without even trying he'll never get that one killer of a word out. Not with his stiff lips. The rigor mortis simply won't allow it.

After that plant trying to turn him into dinner, he's not sure he wants to. Seems like it's more trouble than it's worth and anyway, Eva smells so much better that his near miss is already fading into a distant memory in comparison. He shuffles along, telling himself he won't sneak little greedy sniffs her way every now and then and failing. She makes working on his limited control...difficult. Very, very difficult.

He shuffles wherever Eva seems to be going, reacting to any changes in direction by following along with his chin bobbing against his chest. It's both touching and a little too far for Eva to insist he's "handsome". If he was, he isn't anymore, R thinks. Death kinda does that to you.

"Will...do," R's groan starts to sound pleased. Doesn't seem so bad. He should - in theory - be able to get from Point A to Point B assuming there aren't any roadblocks like ladders or cliffs. "Hggh...happy...help."

For Eva, he thinks he'd do anything. It beats daydreaming about her blood pulsing hot and fresh into his mouth.

She takes her arm back. His discomfort may only slowly register on his face, but it registers nonetheless. Smart boy; he can tell when he's being buttered up. It stands to believe that she should stop underestimating him so much. She starts to recall that 'slow' may have a very different meaning than 'stupid'.

"Well, now you do." Eva walks back over to where the once-murderous plant is laying on the ground, like some kind of limp, deflated balloon oozing jelly and trailing tentacles of vines. She prods at it with her spear. "This can, presumably, digest us. We have a better chance of being able to digest it than anything else around here."

She stabs it and hoists it up, looping it over her shoulder like some traveler's sack. It drips orange liquid. The vines trail like some hideous wedding train.

"And if not, at least it smells awful enough to keep people away from us."

-timeskip-

Traveling at R's pace, it takes the better part of the evening to return to the cave with Sigma and Eponine. Eva has to say she's somewhat grateful for the enforced reprieve. She pushes sticks and fronds away that block the entrance - the rancid stench of sweat and vomit wafts out. She hunkers down.

"Eponine, Dr. Klim? We have a visitor."

Whilst Eva had been gone, Eponine had fallen once more into her fitful dose. Still half drunk, she dreamed lucidly. Or perhaps they were the hallucinations that this arena seemed to project to her - Eponine couldn't tell. But whilst she had held Sigma's hand, brushing the soft wrinkles on the one side, and the metal on the other. He had sewn her leg. She could touch him. In this world where Howard peeped in at her, and Alex opened his mouth to silently condemn her for leaving him to the sandworm, and Cosette and Marius kissed passionately in front of her, Eponine concluded that Eva too, had not been real. She couldn't have been real. It was just a hallucination, or a dream.

So Eponine didn't immediately place Eva's voice when she heard it. Rather, she doesn't try to move from where she lies in the cave amidst vomit and bloodied rags. She doesn't try to waken Sigma. Instead, she just calls out.

"Leave us alone. GO AWAY! You're not real!"

Unable to keep his illness at bay, Sigma too had fallen into the sleep he had direly needed, though his fever only worsened as evening fell. Despite his suffering Eponine's hand around his had soothed him into unconsciousness - it had been a very long time since he had slept next to a child of his and so long as she stroked his hand, he could sleep the whole night.

He had heard Eva's voice somewhere far away, an echo through his dream loud enough to be heard, nudging him gently awake - then Eponine's shout wakes him like a cattle prod and he leaps up, remembering his duty, almost hitting his head on the base of the tree. His hands sink into the dirt on either side of Eponine's body and he shields her with his own, bracing himself for a sword against the back, turning his neck to snarl at whoever had appeared and startled her. Then his vision focuses to reveal Eva, and Sigma blinks twice, overwhelmingly confused. He does not yet notice R.

Putting the pieces together, his expression sinks apologetically - he withdraws back to his spot with a thud, exhausted from the overreaction, blood beating in his ears from his strained heart working harder than it can handle. He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes with a low moan.

"Eponine, my dear, it's just Eva," he drawls, equal parts sympathetic and annoyed, like scolding a child who would invent imaginary monsters under their bed late at night. If this flu didn't kill him, Eponine would. His eye still closed, and his cybernetic one shut down to save energy, he speaks to Eva now. "Who did you bring?" Their hiding place was already cramped, but he supposed another Tribute who could fight would take the pressure off of his partner.

He hears the voices of the last two people he wanted to run into: Eponine, the girl who thinks her life isn't worth anything at all, and Sigma, the man who couldn't protect her any better than he could protect himself from a Victor and a zombie. R feels his insides curdle. Even the maggots infesting his guts go still.

He should turn around and shuffle away before he makes it worse by opening his mouth and groaning. Maybe it's his imagination or maybe Eva senses he's getting cold feet - her arm tightens around his. Unable to put together the brain cells to extricate himself, R resigns himself to facing two of his victims. Eponine sounds like crap and the old man doesn't sound much better.

"Rrggh - " he pauses, tries again, trying to enunciate that one syllable. "Rrrr. Help-ing...Eva."

The stench of illness, dried and fresh puke, and blood fills the air, wafting out as he peers in. Does Eva not know their gory little history together?

R struggles to hold his breath, that urge to inhale the scent that tells him that these two would be easy prey, a red signal pulsing in his frontal lobe. He's here to help, he reminds himself. Helping doesn't involve lurching in there and biting out Eponine's neck.

She reaches a hand out and cradles Eponine's cheek and chin, strokes her hair. She glances at Sigma, irate that he's fallen asleep.

"I've brought us a taste-tester," she says calmly, watching to see how Sigma and Eponine respond to the intruder. Eva's well-aware of the grim history between the three of them, but similarly, she trusts in her ability to control the situation - or at least it's participants. She's in charge, and she won't let any of the three forget it.

She flumps the dead vine plant in between them all like it's a trophy. It lays there like a partially-filled organ, orange stinking fluid pooling around the edges and crusting at the wounds.

She crawls into the cave and sits, ankles crossed, palms up. "I'm sure we're all aware by now that the flora here is predominantly toxic. From what I gathered, no one's been able to find plant life that's edible here yet. This is our best chance here, but I imagine neither of you are in a state to experiment and if I were to, you'd be without someone to take watch."

She gestures to R, and the plant.

He owes her, and she won't let him forget that while she still has use for him. Her goal in this Arena is to survive, and then if it comes to the end reckon with whether or not she can kill Eponine. She refuses to plan that far ahead, although she's worked out everything up until that point.

"Eva?"
Eponine reaches to touch Eva's hand, to hold it to her hot head.

"Are you truly, truly real? I didn't dream you, did I? I dreamed Marius - I dream that the zombie is stood outside. Madame, it is but a dream, is it not? Say it is a dream - only, I do not want to die in such a manner."

Tears begin to seep from her eyes again, cooling her flushed cheeks, and once more, she turns her head and vomits.

"Please - I'll try it. I will try it - I want to die. Let me die, or let me grow strong with it's nourishment, Madame. Do not leave me to die so."

Sigma recognizes the intruder's voice and regrets backing down on his aggression. Lifting himself from the cavern floor, he forces his electric eye online to keep a close watch on R, disgust plain on his red face. Unfortunately he cannot struggle for power nor contest Eva's judgment in his condition, for it would be a short and fatal disagreement; his stubborn silence signals his resignation to R's company and he turns his face away from them in a tranquil fury. A buried and festering inclination towards vengeance is fed as R's role is explained to him... Sigma is starving, short of temper, and consumed by fever. Childishly he hopes the branch is poisonous. Could a zombie suffer?

As Eponine vomits, Sigma takes care of it this time, burying her sick quickly and unflinchingly. Eva is holding her ground, their strong and stubborn matriarch that would keep Eponine alive at any cost, and it is apparent to Sigma that she will not back down - and so the Doctor is the one who rushes to comfort Eponine from R.

"Shh, my dear. I've made it here, remember?" Equally offended, he is not afraid to tell her what he thinks she wants to hear this time. Even a veteran to suffering did not come away from that battle unscathed. "He cannot do anything. I will not let him." While he lifts a hand to trace the tears on Eponine's cheek, his words are accusatory. He bounced back and forth on his opinion on R as the situation warranted, and right now Sigma believed saving his life had meant very little if it only changed whose jaws ended up ripping him apart postmortem.

R watches the scene play out with a dull, slack-jawed interest.

He probably shouldn't groan that aside from Eva and her spear, realistically he wouldn't have trouble shuffling in and eating the two of them if he really wanted to.

(Which he did. It was a small miracle he hadn't).

The hunger gnashing its teeth at the sight of easy prey and howling in the back of his head, R stares forward. The smell of vomit, new and old, should be eye-watering. He has the idea that his gag reflex should be going into over time. Dry-heave. But his corpse refuses even that much, leaning forward slightly instead of rocking back on his heels. Eponine would probably go down easiest because she's not riddle with...parts like the old man is.

R bites down on the side of his cheek, clenching his jaw. He'd made it this far without killing anyone. If he can make it past today, past this cave with the weak and ill, then he can make it the rest of the Arena, right? Somehow he has to show them he's a monster, but he's not always a monster. Not a lost cause.

"Not...kill. Not...eat." A disappointed shudder runs up his spine. R guiltily squashes it down. "E-va's right. Want...to...help."

She winces as Eponine vomits, both in sympathy and frustration that she's been so unable to help the girl combat her flu here. Secretly, she wonders if Eponine has been sneaking bites of the wildlife here. It would make sense for someone as hungry and sick as she is to try to unthinkingly settle her stomach with poison. She reaches over and gives the bony hand a squeeze, nodding to Sigma.

"He won't hurt anyone here. He has his head about him." She holds a palm out. She wonders how much Eponine and Sigma know about R's humanity, about the rather intelligent boy seemingly crippled by the body he's in, and all those nerves that don't seem to line up right post-mortem. "He's a friend."

Maybe he'll apologize for having eaten them last time.

She looks at her motley crew and feels her guts sink. They're worse than a ragtag bunch; they're hopeless. Sigma is clearly still sick and only barely cooperative with her; Eponine, on her best days, is somewhat difficult to control, and R is a matter unto himself. For a moment she wonders if it would be better to try and win this Arena on her own, like she did so long ago.

But times have changed. There are more than twice the number of Tributes in this Arena.

"Madame, he ate me alive."

Eponine's tired - no, exhausted. And she can't fight Eva on this, verbally nor physically. She can't even get up and run. She will simply have to deal with R and Eva and Sigma and anyone else who wants to join possibly the most hopeless group in the arena.

"Fine. Fine - do as you will. But I still do not trust him to not nibble at my toes whilst you sleep, Madame. And if he is a friend, why do you risk trying to poison him. I do not care, but it seems an odd thing to do. Most everything seems peculiar today."

"Because he's already dead, in a sense," Sigma answers her. He'd seen R's type before in films and a real-life variant during his youth. "The toxin will kill us, but not him. At least, it shouldn't."

Exhausted as well, Sigma gives up on moderating the spectacle and curls up beside Eponine, ready to fall back to sleep guiltlessly now that Eva was around. "Well, good luck. We'll see how long it takes him to get hungry for Tribute," he retorts bitterly. If R went a few days without chomping down on Eponine's leg, perhaps he'd think to forgive him. Sigma suddenly turns away from Eponine and coughs hackingly into his arm, making a point of doing so as away from Eva as he can in their small space. He was furious with her for bringing R here, but he still respected her and wanted her to stay healthy. With a groan, Sigma rolls back into his depression in the dirt and closes his eye... tellingly, however, his bionic eye whirs to life and begins to watch what happens next.

Sigma has a good point - short of starvation or trauma to the brain, R's pretty sure he'll live through anything, if you can call existing as a walking corpse "life".

R bites back the urge to groan again. By the time he gets anything out, they'll probably be rendered obsolete. He sways next to Eva, aware of that odd glow from Sigma's direction and the way Eponine didn't even sound accusing: she sounded resigned, which, in a way, was worse. It reminds him too much of his memories of Perry. Being Perry.

"Won't," R says, his groan weak. He shifts - wobbles - his body half toward Eva, as if she'll vouch for him. A Living shield against the two people he's already murdered, because must've died a coward and there's still shreds of that boy somehow. "Start...now? Helping...you guys..."

He tries to ignore that little niggling feeling in the botom of his guts at what Eponine said. Actually, it is a little weird. R assumes Eva just knows what she's doing and she's a good woman, she'll get everyone out of this and back on their feet. She's looking out after these two, isn't she?

"Do you really think so little of my ability to keep things under control, Sigma?" Eva's voice is harsh as a bear trap as it cuts through the air at the old doctor. Here, in the Arena, looking like she's lost control is invitation for an attack, even in front of her allies. That it's her own personality defect doesn't really occur to her.

She hopes Sigma's explanation of her logic suffices. She doesn't want the calculation of strategy and debt out in the air, poisoning their already noxious space.

"If it doesn't work, then I'll have to go further each day looking for any natural source of food here - but the plenty at the Cornucopia tells me they're going to try and starve us out. It's how they force us together when they're being especially uncreative."

"Don't fight. Don't. I can't bear it. Mama, don't fight. If you do I shall scream, and I shall leave and never come back. Is that what you want?" Eponine half sits up, pointing at Eva. There's a pleain her voice, but she's shouting too. She is quite determined that her chosen mother and father will get on with one another.

(If she had her way, then Eva and Sigma would be married and that would be that. Happy families forever more.)

"Mama, I don't want you to go away. I want you to stay here with me. I don't want you to die. You have to win, Eva. You have to win for us so they don't send you back. You have to win so you can send me presents."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Swallowed Waist Deep in the Gore of the Forest [Closed]

Sigma, then Eponine

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ooh heck- forgot the translations!

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R

Re: R

Re: R

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Do I need to timeskip or anything?

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