Deep in the meadow, under the willow...

[etcircenses]

Who| All those on the liberation mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 12.
Where| District 12.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

It doesn't take long to get to District 12, the closest district to the rebel district. It's one of the smallest districts, and you only know you reach it when rolling hills grow and grow until they become large, fertile green mountains. The environment looks green and lush, beautiful, really--That is, until you reach the part of the District where people actually live. The weather is chillier than the Capitol, though the wind bares the worst of it. Anyone planning on spending any time outside should definitely get a coat.

The town is smaller than any of the others, and more worn down. Everything seems to have a thin layer of cole settled over it, no matter how much cleaning is done. The center of the town isn't too shabby, and there are a few things that stand new and shining--A metal whipping post and stocks. The latter occasionally has an unfortunate person in it, though most people have learned to buckle down and accept the new rules.

In the merchant part of town, there's some signs of wildlife, knobby trees and green enough yards. The merchants used to ply their trades here, though for now, everything's locked down. As you get farther, it gets shabbier, poorer. Into the Seam, where the poorest of the poor live. Here, the houses are barely more than shacks. Trees grow wild, and what animal life exists is quick to run from any humans, no doubt having survived at least one attempt by the people of the Seam to capture them for the supper pot.

One thing in common with all the sections of the District is a feeling of hopelessness. The mood is dour, as heavy and permanent as the cole dust that seeps into everything. The only sign of anything even resembling any rebellion is a few chalk scratchings on the sides of abandoned buildings, a few zodiac symbols--Anyone who knows the trolls can recognize the symbols of Karkat, Terezi, Psiioniic, and even the Initiate. That, and the grand pictures of Sam Wilson and Joan Watson, and the bold words stating NOT ALONE and WE ALL DESERVE BETTER.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

Comments

The Battlefield

[etcircenses]

The entire city where the citizens of District 12 will be utilized, as rebels run through the twisting and turning streets, in and out of buildings, attempting to evacuate the citizens. The Capitol wouldn't let this be easy, though. On the rooftops and in side alleyways, Capitol-aligned soldiers are assigned to lurk, and bring down the rebels and their wards.

Those who successfully herd the citizens away will bring them through to the edge of the district. The fence still has its newly reinstated electricity coursing through it, but some enterprising rebels have managed to use the District 13 tools to tear open a large opening in the fence, large enough to get people through. In the meadow, people are gathered, nervous to be away from the safety of their district.

The meadow has also had a section of it converted into a makeshift hospital. Rebel soldiers and citizens who have been injured by the efforts of the Capitol lay on scavenged pillows, blankets, and sometimes just the ground, with healers darting between them, attempting to get them on their feet for the long journey ahead.

The Capitol has their own stronghold in the square where Reapings were once held. The place is set up with tents, including a large one that's also been utilized as a makeshift hospital. In one of the tents, in locked crates, are a great deal of explosives. From here, teams are sent out, moving quietly through the streets and alleyways, ducking into buildings of important note. They actively try to avoid the rebels, and their teammates on the rooftops will occasionally whistle and signal areas to avoid, when rebels and citizens are spotted.

But the fight hasn't been entirely drained out of the civilians of District 12. If there's one thing they know, it's what a danger coal dust can be. And years of trying to keep it safe makes them skilled at utilizing the dust for dangerous purposes. People coming into buildings can find little traps, where stepping in will throw coal dust into the air, hurting visibility and breathing ability. But worse, the trap will also start a spark--Not a guarantee of an explosion, but do you want to risk it?

Even buildings that aren't trapped carry some risk, with the coal dust that coats everything. Watch yourself when you start fires or use your guns. And speaking of coal, you can't forget the mines. If you thought the coal dust was thick above ground, wait until you get down to here. The entire place is dark and gloomy, and even the brightest lights can't seem to penetrate the dissolute fog of soot.

Just make sure that you don't have trouble breathing, with a potentially hazardous build up of carbon monoxide. Don't you wish you had a canary?

Murder Party Version 2.0

[pythianjudgment]

[General catch-all subheader for the mayhem planned around Terezi dying and Initiate flipping out.]

For Derek and eventually Initiate

[pythianjudgment]

There's something to be said about not bringing a knife to a gunfight. Terezi has never been very skilled in firearms. Her forte has always lain in swords and staves and the ability to outwit or outmaneuver her opponent. Thus, when lots are being pulled for different teams of the mission, Terezi volunteers to scout for the Capitol explosives. It's dangerous work, but this is a war. What isn't dangerous at this point?

Once on the ground, Terezi sets out to keep track of the Capitol troop movement. Top priority for her is finding those bombs, not necessarily engaging the enemy. As such, she sticks to any tight spaces between houses, foliage, empty structures, and whatever other cover she can find. She has to keep track of both the ground and the rooftops for Capitol lookouts, but she uncovers a handful of explosives to report back to the Rebels. Most of the time, there's a team nearby to take care of it, but on this particular occasion, no one is close enough to help.

Steeling herself, Terezi slips out of her cover and over to the place where she observed the bomb being set. It's concealed by tall grass, pressed up against the back of a building. She goes to one knee next to it, resting her personalized staff-sword against the house. She might not be a natural bomb expert, but her fingers are small and slim for delicate work, and she's been briefed on how to handle these.

[sociopathicwolf]

There's few places that Derek belongs more than the battlefield. The Peacekeepers keep a wary eye on him, sometimes, like they expect him to start slaughtering rebels left and right and give away their position if they don't, but Derek ignores it. He knows how to stay silent and hidden, on constant alert for the enemy, probably better than they do.

They prowl throughout the district, taking out any rebels they see, primarily focusing their efforts on the places that the bombs are being set but zigzagging around enough that it's not obvious that they're protecting certain locations.

Not that that stops rebels from locating them anyway, but at least it means they can take most of them out before they get to them.

Like the one approaching the bomb now, and Derek crouches down low, waiting for her like the animal he's named for - until she sets her weapon down. Then he launches himself forward, aiming to tackle her to the ground and away from the bomb.

For Derek, Clint, Albert, then Sam (and Albert returning with Jet) CW:Death, extreme violence + MORE

[carnagecarnival]

She don't breathe. Ticker in her chest bits ain't got its motherfucking tock. He knew this day would come, but not this early. Not this fucking soon. Eventuality as with the dawn but not an eye's blink. His whole life stretches out like empty horizon and he would give anything now for the scream just to fill it so there'd be something fucking there. His jaws open wide with the want of it but he ain't got nothing, just a building ache in his chest and clawing at back of his throat and the noise about him don't motherfucking stop.

There's blood on his hands. It's cool and sticky and it coats his fingers. The light shines open it to make it bright and make it dark, narrowing down the pretty day-sky color into one or the other and only one side is going at to win.

He hears the desperate cry of another fucker taken down, followed quick by more silencing noise.

He shakes her. He shakes her and begs wordless, he can't do this, he can't do this alone, he can't do this without her, he needs her, he can't, he can't. Please come back, come back, come back, come back, please. No, no, no. It's a whole bunch of noiseless howl from him. All howl and no fucking how for the making happenstance of. She's gone. She's... she's motherfucking gone.

The gun shots and shouts and clash of weaponry keeps raining on.

No. No, not gone, right here, right motherfucking here and his girl, his sweet and precious little Pyrope, bitty sister's all done and perished but that don't mean no overness. He lifts her little body up and he finds his shaking hand can steady some when they're holding onto her. He sets her up and cups her jaw, staring into them eyes so blind, so FULL with the knowings of things and the knowing of him. He pulls her close and he kisses her then, hard and desperate, claws poking for first and for once cause she owned his gentle and she gone to take it with her. It is such a brief sweet thing. Just as she. Just as his little teal.

Her fear-tinged words keep echoing in his head. She was so scared. His best girl, she didn't want to go.

He lets her down and lifts his blood soaked hands up into his hair, pulling and digging claws in, awaiting revelation. They'd been quiet, the Messiahs. So so so quiet as to leave him without paltry whispering though even that from them would have been worth a million treasures. They'd been quiet but he is never, not ever alone. So the scripture said. So the angels themselves spoke into his pan when they gave his paint, his duty, and then some. He stares down with trembling form and he prays again, please, please, please, please, fix this, he ain't want this no more, please. Bring it to end.

Bring them to end.

His eyes start to shift, soft gold going deeper and deeper into the red what's wanted for. Oh Messiahs, he asks as he rocks and weeps and his breath pulls in fast and so he recieves. He is their voice. He is their hand. He is their blood descended. Even the best of angels exist for justice.

MAKE THEM PAY.

He rises up. His fingers trail over his paint, painting over top with a miracle color as almost as holy. His hands fall down and back, fingers spreading as he readies his claws. He's got voice, not tongue what to speak with, but he's got all the fang what tear with. He stalks forward, starting slow, letting his claws rake on the metal of the building's wall so it snarls for him. The wall ends. The war really motherfucking starts.

And it starts with the resounding scream as Peacekeeper is ripped out of a run and thrown back, leapt upon clawed. The limbs rip off easy as breathing, just like he remembers. Arm, head, guts. The flesh shreds so smooth and beautiful under his claws and the howls don't mean nothing to him except a call for what his name used to mean. He darts, leaps, and ploughs through the next just as quick. He stops only to make a club of that heavy gun, spinning it once in the air bringing it around with a violence at another. Like lightening, he moves until he reaches his... inquisition quest.

He doesn't see the people he shreds through for who or what they are. As far as he's concerned, anyone in the way of his mission is in the way of him. He deals accordingly.

[sociopathicwolf]

The job of a Capitol soldier on the battlefield is never done, and as soon as Derek takes out the rebel offworlder trying to disable the bomb, another rebel attacks nearby. Derek moves, leaving her for dead, going after the next one.

Until he hears the sound of screams and gunfire and tearing flesh. It's the tearing flesh that catches his attention the most; he knows that sound intimately, and he snaps the neck of the last rebel in the tiny group they'd run into before making his way towards the sounds of chaos. And spots another offworlder rebel, one similar to the one Derek'd just killed, ripping his way through Peacekeepers in a way that Derek can't help but find familiar. Only far more out of control than Derek ever lets himself be, not since his own arena.

Derek waits, standing his ground while the rebel - Initiate, he remembers him, the one who had Kurloz's name as though he had any right to it - charges at him. He'll wait until the last minute before dodging aside, hoping the rebel's momentum will carry him forward enough that Derek can snap his own heavy gun around and slam it into his back.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

The screams don't necessarily draw Sam's attention. They might if he was acting as a medic, but as it is - there's a lot of screams on a battlefield. He notices them, absently, enough to get a handle on their location and track if they're moving, in case they're headed his way.

Unluckily for him, it sounds like the screaming and violence is getting closer. He curses under his breath, double checking his ammo as he circles around to try to get a better idea of what the hell is going on, only to freeze when he gets close enough to see the troll at the center of it.

There's a moment where he freezes, where all he can think is 'oh fuck', but then Sam's moving before he really thinks about it.

"Kurloz!"

Maybe he should be afraid here, striding up to put himself in between a troll with death in his eyes and the path he's set himself on - and it's not like he doesn't feel any fear, but it's not of Kurloz. It's for Kurloz, maybe, for whatever the hell happened to get Kurloz like this, for what might happen if Sam can't talk him down this time.

But Sam's far from a stranger to fear - his whole damn life has been about doing shit that should be terrifying, it seems like - and it sure as hell isn't going to stop him from doing whatever he needs to here.

He promised.

"Look at me, brother, you know who I am?"

[silberfuchs]

The firing goes quiet.

It's not uncommon in a warzone for there to be lulls in suppressing fire or a moment where troops are moving here and there to get a better line of sight, but this is broken not by distant shots or shells but by blood curdling screams from a block over cut short by crunching or ripping, sickening noises that Albert's heard before only on missions with his team, not on a normal battlefield.

A moment later, he rounds the corner of an alley shortcut between two blocks and sees why.

It's not the Initiate Fraysong mauling his way through friend and foe alike but the hulking form of the Grand Highblood, painted in red and teal and indigo and grey, blood and sweat and tears mingling into a slurry of color and pain, cutting a chillingly silent swath through anything and anyone in his path.

It only takes another half a moment for Albert to realize why.

Terezi's body lays gently placed behind the chaos, unmoving and limp and Albert wishes for just a moment that he could join Kurloz in his rampage, sorrow turning to ashes in his mouth as the fury he feels towards the ones responsible burns it white and bitter. But he can't. Not like this. Not when allies are getting hurt too.

"Kurloz!" He knows he wasn't heard over the carnage. Eerily silent as the Troll is in his violent fugue, the bone-chilling screams and rattles of enemy fire are loud enough to drown him out even to a Troll's senses.

He tries another tact, retreating at top speed just for a moment to grab a stricken sergeant on the block he'd come from. He's at the mouth of the street, fingers numbly holding a com control for the small but powerful loudspeaker they'd been using to try and evacuate citizens en masse. It lets out a brief, high pitched squeal of feedback when he shouts into it, prompting the sergeant to find his wits and get the hell out of dodge.

"Kurloz!"

[cognitived]

Clint is no stranger to war. It is in his blood, chaos gilding his bones, an easy response for one who has spent a lifetime causing and reacting to it. But he has nothing on the Initiate. Clint's still nothing more than a regular guy, no matter how intent his vision is, no matter how impossible his aim. He's still one guy in the middle of a firestorm, and Clint doesn't know if they'll let them come back.

So he doesn't focus on it.

He has a bow -- not his, not his girl. But one balanced well enough anyway, arrows gleaming metal and plastic fletching. They fit well enough in his hand, and that's all he can ask for. So he draws, he aims, he shoots. Knocks guns out of hands, kills rebel soldiers pinning down his fellow Tributes, guns aimed high. It makes him sick to fight for the very same people who put him in Arenas, to fight against the people his friends are among. But he has his self ordained role, and that means fighting.

Luckily, Clint's good at it. Only, only, the building he's perched upon crumbles, and he's forced to dodge, to move. He jumps and runs and swings down, hitting the ground hard. Throws himself back into the fray because no where is safe. No where.

Which really just means Clint's in prime position to watch a Peacekeeper get ripped to shreds, discarded easy, easy. Then the next, claws and teeth and club, all painted red. And he recognizes the guy, remembers sparing with him, remembers the way Sam's face had crumbled, the way Clint had curled around him tight to prevent him from going after Steve, after Initiate.

In the Arena, Clint would have slipped away, secret, quiet, hiding from sight. But maybe the Arena's also made him a bit more reckless, a bit more unafraid of the ache of death.

He draws, quiet as can be, and aims, statue still and steady. Looses. The arrow sings sweet as any crooning war song can be, cutting through the air, ready for blood. But Clint already knows it was a mistake.

[ka_sera_sera]

A. [open]

Perhaps it shouldn't feel good, having a gun hanging heavy by his side again. Perhaps he shouldn't be feeling that familiar blank, bleak eagerness all settled through him as it hasn't since long before he'd set foot in this world. He should be feeling sick, sick at choosing to fight for this cause, thinking of ways to sabotage something.

He hates the Capitol, aye. But he's got no particular love for the rebellion or for this district's people, either. Not enough to risk the Signless' safety for them.

It's about as organized as it can be, this move into their field of battle. As organized as it can be when the peacekeepers move in tandem only with each other, and seem to leave him to do whatever he likes. But they're close, they are always close, and he has no illusions here that he is free.

Roland flattens himself against a house, and spies someone who definitely isn't on their side. 'Their' side. Nevermind. The time for thinking on that is over. He raises his gun, shoots, and does not expect that the bullet'll miss its target.

(ooc: Whether Roland shot to kill the person beside your character or whether he just shot something close to them to intimidate them is up to you. Capitol people welcome, too, let's kill us some npc's.)


B. [closed to Signless]

All that comes later. First, there is that feeling which comes before a battle. The waiting. It can not really be described, that waiting - maybe it's the same thing some people feel when they're being lowered into the arenas. So far as Roland's concerned it's similar, but in the way a strong wind and a gale are similar. He looks down, stares for a second at the holster which hangs over his waist. It isn't leather, isn't heavy or familiar.

He turns his mind from that, looking up and reaching out to tug at the straps holding the Signless' weapons on instead. "Stay back if you can," he says, because a reminder won't hurt, will it. "They'll think nothing of you letting someone else take point. Oughtn't be you in front, anyway, ought to be someone with a great deal more experience in shooting."

[69problems]

Much as Signless hates being coddled, he understands that this is very real advice that Roland is giving him. A battlefield is not an arena where he can run and hide until it's over, and he has a sneaking suspicion their captors won't take kindly to that anyway.

"I don't plan to try the gun," he affirms. Not unless he has absolutely no other choice, but he hopes it never comes to that. "If I need a weapon the knife will do better. No running out of bullets, no need to reload."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Aye, but let someone else do your killing for you, much as you can. Someone who knows a gun can take a man out from a distance before he becomes a threat. Yours is best used up close - aim matters less, then. And keep close to walls, makes distance shots a little trickier."

Roland sighs. If the situation weren't what it is he'd say he was acting like a fretting mother, her children heading off to the training for the first and last time. He gives up hiding that feeling in any more practical movements - the straps and weapons on the man in front of him are as well fitted as they're ever going to be - and lets his hands move up to that thick hair instead, starting the familiar motions of trying to sort it all out into something sensible. The action's almost comfortable, almost familiar. The humming inside of Roland, that red curtain in his thoughts waiting for the right moment to drop, keeps anything done here from being either of those things, but that is where his hands want to be and he lets them to it.

"Are you ready?" he asks, because that is the heart of his worry, isn't it. A matter potentially as dangerous to the man in front of him as any bullet. "Once this ends, are you ready to've killed?"

[69problems]

A. OPEN

It's not a battlefield like Signless was expecting, and for that he is glad. The lack of an open are and a crush of people meant he could avoid fighting at least for a little while and stick to his usual battle plan of staying swift and quiet. He doesn't want to hurt the people of 12, the people who made him one of their own, the people who he's held in his heart as one of the reasons he couldn't let Panem beat him down.

The problem is that other people are, after a point, unavoidable. To his horror he finds that no matter his own feelings on killing, his hands have other plans. And so he can be found with the knife he hadn't wanted to use wet with rebel blood. The way he looks at any other rebellion-affiliated characters who approach him says that they may very well meet the same fate as the dead soldier slumped before him.

B. Closed to Psii

He looks like shit. He's covered in blood and sweat and coal dust, with a knife clutched in one hand as one might clutch an angry electric eel and an expression that vacillates wildly between horror and anger. He didn't want to do any of that. He couldn't stop himself. He couldn't stop himself for Karkat and he can't stop himself for the Psiioniic either. He doesn't want to hurt the other troll. He has to hurt the other troll.

"Psii--"

It's not a warning, precisely, but it's the best he can do. Combined with his appearance it should clearly say 'keep away from me'.

[biiowiired]

Psii coughed, spitting black dust. That's probably what gave him away. He knew how to be quiet, but he was never a miner, never choked down enough black lung to completely ignore it. He clung to a wall, trying to hide until the stinging left his eyes, but he could hear someone behind him. He put his hand on one knife and turned.

The Capitol uniform and Signless's strange way of moving confused him at first, but as he crept closer, he knew the shape of his friend. The blood and dirt unattended to, sclerae darkened to angry red-orange, posture and face cracking at the edges with lack of control—everything told Psii that something was deeply wrong with Signless. Psii wasn't sure what, but it made his digestion sac turn and his blood pusher hammer.

Signless should know by now that Psii tended to do the opposite of what he should when it came to people he cared about. Instead of running screaming for the hills, Psii took his hand off his knife and crossed into the eye of his own fear storm. He was shitting himself, but his voice was deadly calm.

"Come on, Kankri. I'm taking you home."

The cold bunker of District Thirteen was hardly "home." But, just like on Alternia, home was wherever they could make it, wherever they felt safe enough to curl up next to one another and talk into the day. Psii had never really had a home until he joined Signless.

[69problems]

For fuck's sake.

This was how it always went. Signless would say one thing, and the Psiioniic would do the exact opposite. That was all well and good when it was friendly teasing, but this was a matter of life and death. Signless's mind, already at war with itself and scrabbling for anything to hold on to, flashed him an image of the bunker in Arena 12. Yes, this was just like that, wasn't it? The Psiioniic was yet again stubbornly walking toward death with the stated intent of saving his best friend.

He found his feet carrying him forward, though all he wanted to do was run. The Psiioniic's face swam in his vision. One moment it was the face of his best friend, the troll he both pitied and hated, and the next it was a stranger. He raised the knife.

A

[crabmunicator]

As soon as he learned Signless was stuck back with the Capitol, that the Psiioniic hadn't been able to save him, Karkat wanted to change it. It wasn't anger that he felt, not really. Psii didn't deserve it when he'd surely done all he could, and Karkat knew at least that Signless wouldn't want them divided over it. And though he would have picked his safety if given a choice in it, this helped in giving him another reason to fight.

Still, he didn't expect to see him like this. His ancestor's blade is freshly bloodied, and it's only by luck of his unmistakable face that he doesn't flash back to how he found Sheen. He has a sickle in his own hand, plain of form this time, and he holds it down and away even as he drops into a defensive stance.

He doesn't want to fight. He's been evacuating the citizens, pointedly avoiding combat as much as he can, even against those whose faces he doesn't recognize.

He swallows thickly. "Signless, what are you doing?"

[69problems]

"I don't know," he says, his voice hoarse with fear and exertion both. "I didn't mean to, I--"

He looks up and his eyes seem to slide right over Karkat's face. He recognized the voice, of course he did, and he should recognize a face that's so distinctive, but it's blurred and hazy as though his brain is trying to block it out. What he sees in stark relief is the uniform that isn't Capitol-made, and the weapon. His brain says fight, kill, now! and he raises the hand holding the knife. His motions are jerky.

"You should go."

OTA

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy hadn't wanted to come back here. She hadn't wanted any of this.

Despite not having grown up here, despite only visiting once for a short time, she loved District 12 and all it's people. The video she'd found in her room after the last arena had emotionally wrecked her for a week. She forced herself to watch it over and over again as a sort of punishment for not having protected Char better and not having won in the end.

But none of that mattered. As soon as her feet touched the ground, it was like she was a passenger in her own body. She was picking up a gun, she was running, following commands and darting between buildings faster then any of the adults.

She had only one mission. Find the rebels, find those who would resist and end them.

Her eyes were glassy, her expression blank and in the back of her mind she was screaming, begging herself to wake up.

But with every passing moment the world became blurrier. Foggy like she was in a dream.

A nightmare that was impossible to stop. Just another miserable day in Panem for her.

Behind the lines

[hollowvictor]

Everything was a blur of activity. The Initiate had gone crazy, they'd lost a handful of their forces and a chunk of the volunteer forces from 12, some of their number had been captured. He didn't let himself think about it. A whirlwind of reports came in and he listened to them all without letting anything sink in. The peacekeepers in the mines escaped, but the citizens were being evacuated and it seemed things were turning in their favor. For now. He had to concentrate on that. He turned his attention from the reports to the injured coming in, there were so many it made him wonder how this was considered a win, but it didn't stop him from helping where he could. He was no healer, but he could patch people up well enough to get them to travel.

The reports continued coming in and even while his hands were busy, his mind was listening for names and statuses. There were still people he hadn't heard about yet and all he could do was hope they'd come back in one piece.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Bucky might not be a healer, but Sam is, and once his part on the battlefield is done, he gravitates to helping the injured. It's easier to keep going when he has something to do, it's easier to be calm and collected and professional under pressure. When they're done, when the adrenaline wears off and they have time to relax until the next fight - that's what he doesn't want to think about.

So he moves around, stabilizing the people he can before he starts helping to carry them back behind the lines. He'd meant to go back out, to find more if he could, but he stops when he sees Bucky. He doesn't go to him like he'd like to, yank him in for a kiss or hold him as close as he can, but he doesn't go back out onto the battlefield, either.

Instead he catches Bucky's eyes, quirks a small smile at him as he reaches out to tangle their fingers together and give Bucky's hand a brief squeeze. Then he's off working, patching people up, even though he stays close. Sam keeps going, and keeps going, and nobody who didn't know him would be able to tell that there's a wall of grief right under the surface.

It's only after the mission is done, after they're safe in thirteen and back in their room, that Sam starts to crack a little. That he realizes his hands are clenching, and the only reason he hasn't tried to put his fist through the wall is because it'd probably just break his fingers.

"I think I should go to the gym for a little bit." It's not too hard to keep his voice steady, but even he can tell it's off, and he carefully doesn't look at Bucky's face so he won't have to see his expression.

[hollowvictor]

When Sam catches Bucky's eyes, relief visibly runs through him as a sigh and his returned squeeze is tight, but lets go as soon as Sam does. He wants more, he wants to check Sam over for every single scratch or bruise, but there's still work to be done.

But he feels better enough when Sam doesn't go back out and instead stays nearby, always within sight, and it's that much easier to stay in his working mindset. Right now he had to be a rebel leader, later he could be the overprotective lover.

But that mode doesn't break easily, even once they're back in their room and the door is closed, there's still reports to compile and run and there's so many numbers, so many names on so many lists. Injuries, casualties, captures. It's cacophonous in his head until Sam's quiet suggestion cuts through it all like a knife. Then it's only so much background noise in the face of something much more important: the man with him.

The tablet is left on his desk as he stands and crosses to Sam, standing between him and the door. He should let his friend go and blow off steam, all those names on so many lists and the important ones hadn't escaped his notice. But he couldn't.

Or, rather, he didn't want to.

Silently, Bucky's hands came up to gently cup behind Sam's head and pull it down to rest on Bucky's shoulder so he could curl his arms around Sam's shoulders and back. He held him close and so tight, it might seem as though he was trying to push them into one person where they touched.

"I'm sorry."

They hadn't been his friends but he liked Terezi and James...well, that was more complicated, but the idea the Capitol had him still tore into Bucky's insides. He could only imagine how much worse it was for Sam who'd cared for them ten times as much.

He only wished he could offer more than just this.

for Terezi

[crabmunicator]

The reality of war is strange. It makes sense that it would happen, because how could the Capitol keep up pretenses after the raid? The Victory Tour surely couldn't go on, and what of the Hunger Games with so many missing? Still, after so long caught in the oppressive atmosphere of the Capitol and the games themselves, it feels unreal.

Still, it's what he wanted. Here is a chance not just to prove himself, but to fix what's wrong with everything. How is he to ever claim a place for himself if he can't help tear down the old rot and build something solid in its place?

To that end it seems the people of District 12 believe in him. He saw it by chance, something out the corner of his eye that looked familiar, and only once he drew closer did he see clearly. Chalked on the side of a building are signs he knows well, symbols of trolls, including the one he calls his.

He has things to be doing - civilians to be evacuating - but for the moment he's caught. His hand touches lightly to the mark. He can scarcely believe it.

[pythianjudgment]

When Terezi had first caught scent of the symbols, she was moved in her own way. She hadn't thought to stop and stare, but there was an overwhelming determination that rushed through her. These people looked up to them. They were their hope and their salvation--and she couldn't let them down the way that she had let down District 3. They had to finish this war as quickly as possible with a little life lost. That was the important part. That people live.

But she does pause for the figure that stands beneath the symbols, reaching out with his hand to touch them like they might not be real. She pauses for Karkat, if only because there's another feeling that churns underneath that determination. A desperate want to fix everything the Capitol has ruined--including him.

There's a lot of tension between them that she wishes wasn't there. She knows it's not his fault, but that doesn't mean she can sweep everything under the rug, either. At least for now, the reason for their tension is nowhere around. Maybe she could do a little patching up in the meantime.

"Hey," she calls to him, hoping she's not amiss in trying to make small talk. "I didn't realize that sightseeing was part of this trip. I feel left out."

For Kousuke Nitou and (eventually) Albert Heinrich

[wizardplease]

The rebels need scouts to see what's being planned in town, and Haruto is a more than willing volunteer for the job. He's decent at being sneaky and perfectly fine in a fight, and has also proven to be very, very good at running away when the situation gets bad... though he's not very inclined to brag about that last one. Thus far, he's managed to get past the perimeter and through the better part of the Seam, keeping close to houses and whatever cover the place provides.

He's not here to disarm anything, just to see what he can see. Get in, get out. Report who's there, and with what, so they can make a better-educated advance later. And that's fine with him. Fighting and killing Peacekeepers, he's come to terms with. They know what they've signed up for. They're them. But he doesn't want to have to go toe to toe with any of the off-worlders. That's a step too far for him right now. So he holds still, waits for a patrol to pass, and then makes a dash for the next dilapidated house over that he can use to keep himself out of sight.

[infinitemayonnaise]

The thing about Nitou is that he's loud and difficult to deal with and makes no secret about that. And the thing about the Capitol is that they don't really tolerate being difficult to deal with well, not when they've got a use for the difficult person. Not when they can simply reprogram them.

Not that Nitou's aware of this. Not that he's aware of much of anything now. Sure, after it's all over with, he'll wake up in his bunk in the Capitol and wonder why he's sore in places, but for now, he's not really aware of much of anything. He's got a mission to do, and he's going to do it. The Capitol needs people to fight for it.

He spots someone dashing between houses. That could be a problem, couldn't it? He shoulders his rifle and trots in that direction, seeking to take any would-be rebels down.