Howard Bassem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2013-11-26 02:48 am
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thearena2013-11-26 02:48 am
Entry tags:
Oh Play Me, In My Game You Lose
WHO| Howard and Iskierka, Howard and Eponine and Katniss
WHAT| Iskierka, Howard and Eponine all die
WHEN| Middle of week 6, forward-dated to after the plot with Aunamee
WHERE| Out in the jungle
WARNINGS| Death.
For Iskierka
It seems a cruelty to send Wyatt out looking for food, so Howard doesn't. He can tell Wyatt's mourning, and no amount of 'he'll be alive again back in the Capitol' can really be any sort of salve to it. Howard can't blame him; after all, he's grieved for people he might see again plenty of times, because there still is that uncertainty, still is that feeling of failing to look after them well enough.
Maybe the marshal would prefer to go out on his patrol to look after his charges, the two scrawny, straggly teenagers following him around like goslings, but to actually ask for it would be a step too far. So Howard doesn't, and while Wyatt's resting and Eponine's keeping watch, Howard goes out hunting. He sets traps, simple snares on the ground that people's feet can get caught in. And he sits in a tree with his knife, watching for anyone to cross through this area.
A selfish part of Howard has contributed to his self-imposed ventures into the jungle. Being around people is difficult, right now. Every word is like sandpaper. He jerks and twitches, feeling Aunamee's phantom fingers on his skin. He closes his eyes and hears his torturer's whispers in his ears. He blinks too much and breathes too fast and the last time he slept, he woke up screaming loudly enough that he could have gotten the three of them killed. Two teeth-marks underline his lower lip from chewing at himself, and they bleed and ooze clear pus. His eyes are red from rubbing enough that a rash has swollen up underneath them down to his cheeks.
In some small way, he wonders if he's hunting food or just looking for Aunamee again. Maybe facing his fear will allow him to kill it. Or, more likely, it'll kill him, and leave him even more sick and neurotic to start with.
Something moves through the woods beneath him, and he folds his hand around his knife and waits.
For Eponine and Katniss
Desperation has come flooding in and washed the flesh from their bones with it. Eponine's looking as gaunt as Howard has ever seen her. Howard's fairly certain that he's undone all the hard work he put into Watson's weight-gain diet. They spend most of their days sleeping and hiding, baking their lethargy in the hot, wet air, marinating in sweat that robs them of their last vestiges of hydration.
But when they get moving, they put all their effort into it. They need to bring home enough food for three - they can tell Wyatt's as weary and hungry as they are, although he won't complain about it - and with the jungle off-limits, that means finding other Tributes and stealing from them. The counts in the sky have indicated that there are still a few people left, and every once in a while they hear the ding of a parachute, although the haven't been able to find one in action yet.
Howard tries not to let Eponine's words dig deeper into him than the hunger, which is easy, because the hunger's reached places he forgot were accessible to mere feelings. Their misfortune has made them clumsy, and though they try to hide their footsteps it seems that every twig that snaps beneath them is some sort of fire alarm. Howard finds a relatively covered place to rest in a bush, finding himself feeling lightheaded as he breathes strange-tasting air in.
Dimly, he wonders if it's poison, but it doesn't feel bad, and his lungs seem to be opening up as much as ever, so he dismisses the idea. He rests against a rock, waiting for Eponine to join him.
WHAT| Iskierka, Howard and Eponine all die
WHEN| Middle of week 6, forward-dated to after the plot with Aunamee
WHERE| Out in the jungle
WARNINGS| Death.
For Iskierka
It seems a cruelty to send Wyatt out looking for food, so Howard doesn't. He can tell Wyatt's mourning, and no amount of 'he'll be alive again back in the Capitol' can really be any sort of salve to it. Howard can't blame him; after all, he's grieved for people he might see again plenty of times, because there still is that uncertainty, still is that feeling of failing to look after them well enough.
Maybe the marshal would prefer to go out on his patrol to look after his charges, the two scrawny, straggly teenagers following him around like goslings, but to actually ask for it would be a step too far. So Howard doesn't, and while Wyatt's resting and Eponine's keeping watch, Howard goes out hunting. He sets traps, simple snares on the ground that people's feet can get caught in. And he sits in a tree with his knife, watching for anyone to cross through this area.
A selfish part of Howard has contributed to his self-imposed ventures into the jungle. Being around people is difficult, right now. Every word is like sandpaper. He jerks and twitches, feeling Aunamee's phantom fingers on his skin. He closes his eyes and hears his torturer's whispers in his ears. He blinks too much and breathes too fast and the last time he slept, he woke up screaming loudly enough that he could have gotten the three of them killed. Two teeth-marks underline his lower lip from chewing at himself, and they bleed and ooze clear pus. His eyes are red from rubbing enough that a rash has swollen up underneath them down to his cheeks.
In some small way, he wonders if he's hunting food or just looking for Aunamee again. Maybe facing his fear will allow him to kill it. Or, more likely, it'll kill him, and leave him even more sick and neurotic to start with.
Something moves through the woods beneath him, and he folds his hand around his knife and waits.
For Eponine and Katniss
Desperation has come flooding in and washed the flesh from their bones with it. Eponine's looking as gaunt as Howard has ever seen her. Howard's fairly certain that he's undone all the hard work he put into Watson's weight-gain diet. They spend most of their days sleeping and hiding, baking their lethargy in the hot, wet air, marinating in sweat that robs them of their last vestiges of hydration.
But when they get moving, they put all their effort into it. They need to bring home enough food for three - they can tell Wyatt's as weary and hungry as they are, although he won't complain about it - and with the jungle off-limits, that means finding other Tributes and stealing from them. The counts in the sky have indicated that there are still a few people left, and every once in a while they hear the ding of a parachute, although the haven't been able to find one in action yet.
Howard tries not to let Eponine's words dig deeper into him than the hunger, which is easy, because the hunger's reached places he forgot were accessible to mere feelings. Their misfortune has made them clumsy, and though they try to hide their footsteps it seems that every twig that snaps beneath them is some sort of fire alarm. Howard finds a relatively covered place to rest in a bush, finding himself feeling lightheaded as he breathes strange-tasting air in.
Dimly, he wonders if it's poison, but it doesn't feel bad, and his lungs seem to be opening up as much as ever, so he dismisses the idea. He rests against a rock, waiting for Eponine to join him.
Iskierka
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As she can't, she simply stalks her way through the undergrowth, not caring who she might run across in the process.
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For a moment, he considers calling out to warn her that she's about to step into one of his snares. He opens his mouth and the slightest flicker of a sounds exits his throat.
And then he pictures how skinny Eponine is. How well a dragon might feed her. How at least it isn't human flesh.
And he says nothing.
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Naturally, this means that she steps right into Howard's snare, and inevitability promptly occurs. Not even she is capable of getting out of it, as much as she might like to be able to, and by the irate hissing of escaping steam, she is none too happy about be trapping like an animal.
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So instead he finds a long, strong stick and ties his knife to it in a makeshift spear, and rounds the tree.
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Or at least, it will just as soon as Howard gets into range, and she starts lunging for him as best she can as soon as rounds the tree.
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Yes, swats. Because combat is not his forte, at all.
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Nor is she going to give up simply for that and she snaps her teeth dangerously close to his hands as he tries to score a hit.
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Eponine and Katniss
Re: Eponine and Katniss
She HATES being there with him. She hates that she still longs to take his hand and stroke those tight curls on his head. She hates that she wishes he'd still hold her close at night. And she hates him for making her feel so. She wants to lash out at him constantly, and call him names. But Wyatt is already cross with her. And she has nobody else. Probably Howard prefers Wyatt to her. All alone. Again.
She wanders quite aimlessly. She's not particularly interested in food or water. If they don't have it, they'll die and they'll be safe. Why prolong the agony?
But they're still counting on her, and there's a woman in the distance with her back to her. It would be child's play to pick this girl's pocket... if Eponine was not relyuing on her crutches to get about.
But still, she makes to move as silently as she can behind Katniss.
Re: Eponine and Katniss
"I can go for the food," he whispers. It's easier if they only talk about practical things. If they talk about their feelings at all, Howard's sure they'll start screaming at each other and never stop. They'll create a black hole of screaming, and all the rest of the world will be sucked up in it.
"I'm faster than you are right now."
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Suicide, at least blatant suicide, was too dangerous for her. The thin ice she always stood on would collapse under her if anyone caught drift of her attempting suicide.
With that option out, she'd been trying to figure out ways to have it happen that wouldn't do too much damage, too out of control. Her finger ran over her arrow as she considered the options. She needed to end this before it ended out of her control.
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"I can do it. Go away, Monsieur. I do not want you. Go and sit with your horrible lover-man."
She shakes her head in disgust, and as quietly as she can, with the crutches, she shuffles towards Katniss, and stops at a short distance, so that she can assess how she might have the best chance of relieving Katniss of at least a little of her supplies.
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He sees Katniss start to turn.
"Eponine!" he hisses, reaching to grab her wrist and pull her to safety.
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She felt her breath catch even as she was releasing the arrow, straight at the small, dark haired girl, practically a mirror of herself from this distance.
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Howard sees the arrow and moves, too fast to make a conscious decision, out of an instinct born from the vow he made in his head to Eponine months ago. Friends protect friends. He lunges from the bushes and into Eponine like a tackle. A shout leaps from his throat and taking flight.
The vapor in the air prevents him from feeling it when he collides with Eponine's bony body with his own, just like it spares him from pain when the arrow goes through his neck. It would have hit Eponine square in the chest, but he's a head shorter than her. They both fall to the ground in an ersatz embrace, him hitting the ground and spread-eagling on his back, and numbed down, he tries to sit up before he realizes he's dying.
Blood spills and pools into the grass as he falls back to the ground, and its red fingers climb up his clothing. He tries to breathe and feels his lungs block up with something, but there's no pain. He tries to speak, but it only results in his throat jerking and a bubble of blood filling and popping on his lips. Dumbly, one hand reaches over to the arrowhead jutting from his neck like one of Frankenstein's bolts. His memory of his first aid book is flipped to a page about anatomy, about the jugular, about exsanguination, about a hundred and twenty seconds. His other hand grabs Eponine's shirt and curls it in his fingers.
His vision fills with red and pink halos, everything a silhouette against a soft, warm sky. He stares up at a canopy of branches and sunlight and only belatedly realizes that those aren't trees but, in fact, the shadows of his own blood vessels. His eyes, already going glassy, cast around in decelerating speed for Eponine, and when he meets hers he isn't sure if he wants her to stay or run.
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What is that warm, wet, sticky stuff that's coating her face?
She opens her eyes as Howard tries to sit up; for a moment, she wonders why he falls again. But then she realises. The arrow in his neck. His blood on her face and her neck. The arrow meant for her. He's dying to protect her.
"Howard!" Her voice is strangled. She tries to sit up, but the world spins and goes black before her eyes. She closes her eyes, but even as she does, she rolls onto her poor, broken knees and forces herself to Howard.
"Howard. No, NO - Howard. Don't die. DO NOT DIE - I forbid it! HOWARD, DO YOU LISTEN?"
She looks back up at Katniss, pure and absolute loathing in her eyes. "GO - MADAME - MADAME, GET OUT OF HERE. GO - LEAVE US. LEAVE HIM NOW. LEAVE ME. PLEASE."
But then, as Howard coughs and blood begins to bubble, Eponine forgets Katniss, and turns her gaze, instead to Howard. "Howard... I will press here, yes? I press on your neck and take out the arrow and here - my bandage. Howard, you will live, you hear me?"
Without waiting another moment, she forces herself to kneel, and roughly drags Howard's head so that it is supported on her knees. Then she presses her right hand below the arrow even as she uses her left to unknot the bandage about her waist.
"Howard, please. Please do not leave me. Please don't leave me alone. I'm sorry. Howard I'm sorry. Love me - I love you, Howard. Do not leave me."
In her complete and utter desperation, she doesn't realise that her own blood from the rather large gash on the back of her head, ripped by the jutting rock that she hit her head on as Howard pushed her, drips down her hair, matting it, and stains the back of her shirt.
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She watched this scene...one she had acted out herself, in this same arena, and she felt like she wasn't in her body. It had grown roots, and she was locked out of it, forced to watch this.
How could she have?
Eponine's words finally reach something, shock her back into motion as the young man bleed out at her feet. From her arrow. Her mind kicked in, racing and trying to find something, anything she could do. But there was nothing. Even if they could somehow stop the bleeding, how long would he last, this close to the arena.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."
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Death always brings out the basest of instincts. The way Howard's hand grips the corner of Eponine's ragged shirt could be the clench of nerves misfiring, or it could be that he wants her here with him, just for this moment, to ease him into the dark. The way his body curls towards hers could be him drawing towards warmth or to one of the few people he trusts to love him. Love in spite of violence, love forged by violence.
Blood froths in his mouth and drips over the edge of his cheek into Eponine's lap; it bubbles from the wound and makes Eponine's fingers slick; it spreads through the bandage like fog through the woods. He's stopped breathing, not because of anything wrong with his lungs, but because of the futility of trying to pass the blockade of blood, of the pressure of Eponine's hand. His chest makes little jerking motions, having not gotten the message to desist.
His eyes tilt back in his head. In spite of everything shutting down, he manages to carry one thought with him into unconsciousness: someone, Eponine, is holding him as he dies. He isn't alone.
The cannon cracks across the sky.
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"Wake up." She slaps his cheek. "Howard! DO YOU HEAR ME? WAKE UP NOW!" She slaps him again, but his head simply jerks to the side, and flops on her knee. Her bloody handprints stain his cheeks, but he doesn't move. He just doesn't move, and Eponine sobs.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Howard." She strokes his face, before leaning over to kiss his bloody lips. But as she sits up properly again, to face Howard's murderer, the world seems to swim around her and almost fuzz at the sides, and for the upteenth time in this arena, she retches stomach acid all over poor Howard.
She retches, but she forces herself to sit up anyway, forces her eyes to open, to focus. She sways as she kneels, so dizzy. And what is she going to tell Wyatt? He won't believe that she didn't kill Howard, not after her threats. She's on her own now, or... or -
"Madame, shoot me. Kill me."
She's not going to win this arena. She wants Eva. She wants to go home and sleep. She wants - and that girl is still here.
"Madame, please. I - do it."
She doesn't let go of Howard's hand. She needs him now.
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She cuts her own protest short as she looks down at the woman. Obviously sick, obviously on her way out. Like a deer in the woods, loosing blond, but not quite gone. Katniss would never walk away from an animal and leave it to suffer like that. So how could she even consider doing it to a human?
This woman would not be able to last more than a few hours, maybe a day if she was lucky. And how long did the arena have left? There hadn't been nearly enough canons to mean the end was near. She wouldn't win, and Katniss could make it fast and clean.
"Forgive me. For him, and you." She said softly, lifting her bow and aiming for Eponine's eye. It would be fast, and quick. Closing her eye for a moment, she took a deep breath, before opening them and letting her arrow fly.