Kíli } son of Dís, daughter of Thrain (
emptytrousers) wrote in
thearena2014-03-02 01:27 pm
Entry tags:
At night I can't sleep when I try;
Who| Kili and Mindy
What| IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWWWWN aka Kili can't hide anymore and they both know one of them has to die
Where| Fifth floor
When| Week 7, forward-dated to after the explosion on Monday
Warnings/Notes | Character death, descriptions of starvation; will update if needed.
Empty. That was the word Kili had been searching for the past hour or day or however long it had been since he settled down back in the hovel of dinosaur bones he had declared home since that blinding flash of light and the collapse of the third floor. His skin smoldered with what felt like hundreds of tiny rivers of fire, but no long could he bring himself to care. After all, when the pains of hunger left him, so did any desire to drink from the strange devices called water fountains or fight. The bones that surrounded him had become a place he could sit and listen as friend after friend died, their name announced too loud in a strange metallic voice. Ellie, Hawkeye, R. They had all been killed and somehow he had survived, perhaps by sheer luck, but he can no longer ignore the heavy silence that weighed him down more and more every day as he no longer cared about the bits of dusty leather from his boots that lost their taste around the same time the pain in his stomach did.
If he hated the silence, then he should have been grateful for the explosion, for the brilliant flash of fire and smoke that woke him from the stupor that had taken hold not long after he stopped eating. Trying to stand, however, proved more trying than he ever expected, the armor too heavy on his thinned arms. Smoke clouded the hall before he could wrench the chain mail off and the alarms overhead could never give enough warning for the hideous rain that followed. Within the first few seconds, he could no longer stand the burning, not for the safety of his bone nest, not for his sword with armor and he scurried across the floor with little more than the pajamas he originally arrived in, even the smallest bit of sprinting winding him.
The steel carriage was little better, but it was at least free of stinging rain and the smoke that made every breath stick in his throat. Water. He needed water. He needed food. He needed a million things that he could never get and for the first time in what felt like weeks, he wanted something, anything, to fill the void that had swallowed up his insides and stretched him so thin he didn't know if he could still cast a shadow.
As soon as he exited on the first floor, he thought he heard footsteps, someone moving in the darkness around him and before he could breathe, he nocked an arrow to his bow and swallowed down Hawkeye's words. He had to kill or be killed, that was the game, and his legs could only hold him up for a little longer; he was dying, he knew, in the back of his mind, even if he refused to think about it.
And then he turned to face the footsteps, his chest heaving with the pain of the burns freezing his pajamas to his skin and the sheer exhaustion that ate into his bones.
What| IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWWWWN aka Kili can't hide anymore and they both know one of them has to die
Where| Fifth floor
When| Week 7, forward-dated to after the explosion on Monday
Warnings/Notes | Character death, descriptions of starvation; will update if needed.
Empty. That was the word Kili had been searching for the past hour or day or however long it had been since he settled down back in the hovel of dinosaur bones he had declared home since that blinding flash of light and the collapse of the third floor. His skin smoldered with what felt like hundreds of tiny rivers of fire, but no long could he bring himself to care. After all, when the pains of hunger left him, so did any desire to drink from the strange devices called water fountains or fight. The bones that surrounded him had become a place he could sit and listen as friend after friend died, their name announced too loud in a strange metallic voice. Ellie, Hawkeye, R. They had all been killed and somehow he had survived, perhaps by sheer luck, but he can no longer ignore the heavy silence that weighed him down more and more every day as he no longer cared about the bits of dusty leather from his boots that lost their taste around the same time the pain in his stomach did.
If he hated the silence, then he should have been grateful for the explosion, for the brilliant flash of fire and smoke that woke him from the stupor that had taken hold not long after he stopped eating. Trying to stand, however, proved more trying than he ever expected, the armor too heavy on his thinned arms. Smoke clouded the hall before he could wrench the chain mail off and the alarms overhead could never give enough warning for the hideous rain that followed. Within the first few seconds, he could no longer stand the burning, not for the safety of his bone nest, not for his sword with armor and he scurried across the floor with little more than the pajamas he originally arrived in, even the smallest bit of sprinting winding him.
The steel carriage was little better, but it was at least free of stinging rain and the smoke that made every breath stick in his throat. Water. He needed water. He needed food. He needed a million things that he could never get and for the first time in what felt like weeks, he wanted something, anything, to fill the void that had swallowed up his insides and stretched him so thin he didn't know if he could still cast a shadow.
As soon as he exited on the first floor, he thought he heard footsteps, someone moving in the darkness around him and before he could breathe, he nocked an arrow to his bow and swallowed down Hawkeye's words. He had to kill or be killed, that was the game, and his legs could only hold him up for a little longer; he was dying, he knew, in the back of his mind, even if he refused to think about it.
And then he turned to face the footsteps, his chest heaving with the pain of the burns freezing his pajamas to his skin and the sheer exhaustion that ate into his bones.

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And then they killed him, the fucks. Him, the guy with a joke who shouldn't be here too good to be here. Amusement probably. She wanted to at least take him out of there but they'd be coming for him soon enough. In the meantime, she still was walking. There was too much at stake to let this go.
She was moving as quietly as she could on the first floor (had seen better days) when she heard something stirring in the dark. Her hand was on her holster, and she slunk low. Nope. She would not get snipered so easily.
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At the end of his patience, Kili called out to the darkness, "Is anyone there? I won't hurt you!"
He had said it to each and every person he'd met, with the exception of Iskierka, but now he wondered if he could uphold his words with the way his fingers shook against the fletching of the arrow. Something had to give, this all had to end, and he could not say for sure that he would not take a life before it did.
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She hated this though. She had killed mercilessly, killed one on one and then killed with best intentions but she was pretty close to exhausting her good form. This needed to be over, and it needed an end, but how badly did she want that to be the case?
One way to find out.
Mindy moved quietly to where she was sure her voice would echo, and said, loudly enough, "Prove it!"
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"I've put down my bow," he called back, unsure if that would be enough to ease any fear of hers of his aggression.
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When she laid eyes on the voice, she found he was...shorter than expected. A bow, his size...wait a minute.
"You're the dwarf that was friends with Ellie?"
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"Unless there's another dwarf walking around," he admitted with a weak smile. No, he had not seen any of his kin here and he supposed now that so many had died he was quietly glad for it, too. He didn't want to see his family and friends perish in such a way as this.
"I'm Kíli," he added on, almost as an afterthought. Introductions were probably best if he wanted to get out of this without a slice to his throat.
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"Haven't seen another myself," she said, shifting from one leg to the other. They were both pretty bad, and now that she knew she wasn't going to have to go and kill all crazed, she was a little relaxed
"You look pretty bad, Kili, don't mind me saying. I've got this one last piece of cheese. This place is gonna go down pretty soon. Want a piece?"
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No reassurances, though, could ever make up for what must have been weeks without food now, and he found that his stomach didn't even growl at the mention of cheese. Of course, he did want the cheese, but the fact of the matter was that he had stopped feeling hungry long ago. What would his brother do in a situation like this? What would Thorin do? Would they accept the cheese offered by a girl who likely needed it more than him?
He wanted the cheese, there was no doubt, he wanted it more than sunlight or the breeze on his face and if she offered it freely then there was no reason to turn her down, right?
"I could do with a small bite." He didn't comment on her observation as to his state of being, for if he looked half as bad as he felt he must be something out of a nightmare, really. "Since you're offering."
But could he really take the last piece of cheese Mindy had? Regardless of the questions in his mind, he slowly approached, hands well away from any potential weapon on his person.
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No, this was pretty much where all of this was going to end. She'd fought, been stabbed, thrown, seen people die she never wanted to see again. Right about now all that was left was this: she was going to find a way out or die. Food was something she didn't consider now: little bit here and there and strangely enough, her stomach was starting to adjust.
This meeting would end with one of them dying, she knew that. He might, but was buying time. That was all right for now. Death was coming, would come, but until it flat out danced around them she could take a moment.
"Know who set off the rest of the museum, by chance?"
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"There's no animals to hunt here," he grumbled openly as he neared her. "Was told there'd be more camping under the stars."
Clearly what he imagined the arena to be and what he had been stuck in were two very different things. With what Venus had told him, he'd almost looked forward to it and getting to hunt and camp as if he were still on his quest with the company.
"No, but it's up on the fourth floor, whatever it was," Kili grunted. "Lots of fire and smoke."
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She chuckled. "Thought that from the last Arena too, since they stiffed us. Near;y starved to death in it though. Potatoes never tasted so damn good in my life, let me tell you."
She took a drink of water, then sighed. "You get anybody in this one?"
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"Get anybody?" Kili replied, puzzled for her wording before realizing she meant kill. "No. I..."
His face fell, expression heavy with the sheer exhaustion of the short walk from his bow to her. "I couldn't."
He couldn't save anyone either, which is the more important matter. Every friend he made had been killed until now he stood alone, as a coward who had hid, afraid of his own shadow.
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Pfft. Right. Yeah. That was exactly what was wrong with people's thinking. You could just pretend it wasn't happening, just avoid the deaths of people around you because you knew they'd be back, right? Except you DIDN'T, there was no way of knowing that, who would sponsor you, who would leave you to die. It was a game of chance you played because you didn't have a choice. What was more, it was not a choice Mindy could make. She wasn't passive enough for it. Her worth in the games, when people looked at her, needed, like anything else, to be shown. In the end, it was what it came down to.
"I could." She said it loud enough that he heard her. Three already, and enough injuries to think long and hard about it. "There's more at stake than just killing someone. You have sponsors. The things you get can help someone out later if that's how you think. You might come back to life, but it keeps asking you the same shitty question: how do you want your death to be remembered?"
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What Venus told him on the very first day he arrived hit him in a flash.
He could be remembered as any of those other things, or he could be known as Kili the Killer, a fearsome warrior and not one to be taken lightly. How they would speak his name with such reverence in the Capitol if he could do something now. He hadn't thought of the next Arena if he lost this one, how sponsors may be less likely to help a dwarf who hid and cowed while his friends died. But would he have any friends to defend if he did kill? Oh Mahal, it all made his head hurt. Why couldn't things be simple? Why couldn't he go back home where he had but one purpose in life? Slaying a dragon seemed much easier then figuring out what to do with himself here.
Still, Mindy gave him an idea and he tried to remember exactly how many paces his bow lay behind him, but he hadn't been thinking about that when he walked away from it. Was it 20? 25? How fast was she? Could he truly bring himself to shoot at her?
"Didn't think about that," he replied sheepishly as he swallowed. Above anything, he had to get back to his bow. A piece of cheese was not worth it. "I'll pass on that cheese."
His body tensed, his heart pumping fervently in his chest as he prepared to dive back for his bow if he needed to.
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She kicked herself up "Ok, so here's how we'll do this. I'm gonna head into the darkness. Cont to fifty, and after that, we go at each other like we're supposed to. I shouldn't have to tell you to care that I'm a little kid: I'm trying to end your life, and you wanna live, right? So if you get me, I'm your first kill, and you can at least have that after this. If not, well, I go on, do my thing. Go get yoir bow. I'll be after you soon."
With that the girl retreated back to where the light didn't show her: all was silent now.
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If he wanted to win, if he wanted to live, he had to be memorable, and not just for hiding and starving. His blood rushed in his ears as he nodded, swallowing once more. Fifty seconds. He backed away from her and scooped up his bow with surprising skill for a dwarf nearly dead of starvation. His eyes searched for the best vantage point, for high ground if he could find it, but the meteor and the statue were hardly scaleable, especially in his current condition. If he wanted to win, he'd have to shoot from the shadows.
So he found the darkest ones he could, his arrow re-nocked and his fingers trembling against the fletching. What if he ran instead? What if he went up the stairwells or the elevator and got out of there before the fifty seconds ended? No. No, that would make him truly a coward. He had to face her, had to kill if he wanted to live. That was the only way out of this. Less than twenty seconds now and he focused his thoughts, trying to imagine her with ashen skin and black eyes, like an orc who had come to kill him or his family.
But no matter how much he tried, he couldn't make it stick. He couldn't apply enough mental paint to obscure the girl underneath. Before he could think of any other way to rationalize this, the fifty seconds were up and the silence suddenly felt so overbearing.
This had to end, now. If it truly were just the two of them remaining, he had to put on a good show for any sponsors, not continue standing here in the dark. So he stepped out, bow raised, string drawn back, and eyes focused on any potential movement.
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She moved with quiet ease, keeping her ears open to hear him give anything away. All she needed was one noise, one ruffle and she would be quick in that direction. She was so intent on this though that she missed her hat coming undone and in the most stomach twisting moments, fell to the floor with a light plop.
Mindy swallowed a swear, hoping Kili didn't hear.
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Before waiting to hear if it made contact, he drew out another, and hoped this would at least be quick. Neither of them should suffer any longer for Sponsors or anyone else. And, if he died, he would at least go down fighting.
That didn't soothe the panicked beat of his heart as he stepped out from the safety of the shadows to aim a second arrow.
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She was so young, his mind kept screaming at him through every survival instinct. He couldn't kill her, he couldn't.
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One stop to think about the arrow and she would be in for it. For now, attacking would have to stay on her mind. They'd have this fight now, and see what became of it.
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She really wished this would be over. Under any circumstances, she would likely have gotten along with the guy, but there was just too much for her to lose right now, and she needed this to end so she could regroup.
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Her knife swung down and he had a heartbeat's worth to move, but he didn't. He hesitated once more and steel plunged into his chest in an answering gush of red.
As darkness ate into the edges of his vision, Kili tried to find his breath, to say anything, to apologize for the arrow, to say he wanted to still be remembered in some way but that he was a coward and died like one too. More than ever, he wanted to be in the safety of the Blue Mountains, curled up by his mother's hearth with his brother beside him, soothing away his worries with a song or joke. The cold tile of the first floor was nothing like home and, despite Mindy's presence, Kili had never felt so truly alone in the world.
Perhaps Hawkeye was wrong about choosing to not kill. It would do him no good to not fight back, to cower and hide, but the doctor had also given him advice about dying.
Kili stared up at Mindy, still not quite dead but certainly fading fast.
"There's knives in my boots," he barely managed around a mouthful of blood and oh how even those few words hurt so much. Every part of him began to grow cold and fear stole over him just as quickly. "Take them."
Had he made the right choice? Would he wake up again back in his room like he'd been told? Was this all just some strange nightmare? People were supposed to wake up when they died in dreams, perhaps that would be what happened to him.
That he took as a small comfort, believing that when he opened his eyes next, he would find that he had drank too much in Rivendell and ended up dreaming half an adventure and half a strange new world. He would be beside his brother again, wrapped up in his bedroll amongst the finest company of dwarves ever seen. There would certainly be many hugs and quite a lot of telling of this strange tale.
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But the games brought them back. She had to remember that. The illusion of permanent death stopped most people, the REAL version of the Hunger Games that had ended with Katniss. Whatever hang ups, whatever moral fiber, it was all to allow others to go on, move through the throng and get to the prize. It was brutal and mind fuckery at best, and she had to separate herself from that. She killed, but only the murderous, and this game had undone her very tenants.
Him saying that made this worse. She narrowed her eyes, and closed them. For a moment that doubt washed over her: the boy, his mate, Pruna, Sandy and now Kili. The arrow in her shoulder: it at least reminded her that she was not getting out of this easy and free, and she deserved that.
"I'm taking the armor too," she said quietly. "You'll wake up again, in the Capitol. Friendly advice: don't hold back because we're children. They use to be the only competitors here, and they are brutal. You shouldn't have hesitated, you fucked up there. You're better than that."
She paused. "I'll look you up, Kili. If it wasn't for this, we'd have better shit to talk about."
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Swallowing down a mouthful of blood, he watched her as she spoke those last few words, his lip trembling. Hawkeye had told him that the best they could do here was to have a friend when they died, to not be alone, suffering horribly. If not for the explosion, he supposed he would be doing just that: starving to death in a shelter of bones. He wasn't sure exactly if Mindy could exactly be counted as a friend, considering she just stabbed him three times, but it would have to make due for now.
The cold of before stretched deeper into him, robbing him of his ability to breathe deeply and he could hardly see her through the darkness in his vision. He wanted desperately to believe that he would wake up but not here, not here, Mahal not here. If he thought of home, if he wished it enough, he would simply be there again, he told himself as feeling quickly disappeared from his limbs. Fili would be worried about such a nightmare he'd had, offer him extra breakfast, and perhaps even sing him a song. Everything would be alright if he just believed it would be so. Sheer willpower had not failed him yet on the journey.
"Stay," he gasped up at her. Kili didn't know if she was about to get up or not, but he didn't want to be alone. Not for this. "Just for—"
And then it was over.
He sagged down against the tile, eyes still wide open, mouth ajar with what had been another word that would never be spoken.
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It jolted her and there was a look on Mindy's face now: one of surprise and, clearly, pain. She could stand Pruna's defiant stare, Sandy's confusion and anger and even the boy's look of surprise when she slit his throat: that would only haunt her at night, she knew, in the time she had no control over her subconscious mind.
But stay? Her? She killed him. She told him quickly and quietly, and then killed him. Why would he want her to stay?
When Guy had killed her, it was out of mercy. Legless she knew blood wouldn't clot fast enough, that she would die of either loss or shock, and it meant something that he stayed for her and mercy killed her. But she had caused this to Kili and he wanted her company.
Either way, he passed now, right before her. Mindy sank to the floor now, sighing, moving for the knives. She'd need them. Next, the armor. She would need that too but she would be careful, because the arrow was there and she knew enough that it had to stay there or the wound would get worse. She only needed to last a little longer, hopefully.
Once she took the items, she dragged his body with her back in the darkness. Staying in the light was stupid: they would get killed. In the dark, no one could see her, and she could at least let a few tears go. He died slow, quiet, with a dignity the others hadn't. It reminded her of the death that had always lingered on her mind, before the games: dad, burned, accepting his fate and saying goodbye. This was too much like that for her to get anything but pan from this.
"I would have stayed," she mumbled quietly, answering no one but the dark. "But I'm shitty company these days. You were better off with Ellie."