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

[carnagecarnival]

There's that too long moment where's dangled airborne, bracing to be caught by the next pair of hands on the grief trapeze wire and not being sure he will. Maybe he'll plummet down, crash and splatter upon the earth below. Maybe he won't be the only one what goes. Maybe their bones will mix pretty, no one able to tell them apart, even as the blood spreads all red and purple up around. That sick sense of falling making on the last thing they know, feeling eternal and quick all the same.

He can't stop his looking down from so high. He thinks he almost misses them hands. But he's caught. Sam's here and they feel that sharp downswing togetherlike. Whole and full up of motherfucking holes cause everything is wrong.

What he didn't expect was how hard it would be to see Sam cry. What he didn't up and realise was how that sound would bring him undone all over again. He's amazed there's anything left of him what to up and undo.

Sam pulls him back in and he doesn't try to fight. He doesn't make no protest, no, he is all in for wrapping close as he can too, zeroing the void by filling it together. Sam can't tell which of them is shaking but the answer to that comes easy for him. It's both. It's always both.

He can't think nothing but her. Her name, her voice, her smile, her tears, her words, her motherfucking silencing. He keeps thinking those last words in his head. He keeps thinking how he can't bear it, they will etch themselves into his ears. His sweet girl. His good girl. Teasing and taunting all everbody but still all heart just the same, a heart she forgot was allowed to ache and want for of what things was out of reach cause she worked too hard, tried so hard, but she always came out the other side, she was always there fore him, even all those times he didn't deserve. She was something beautiful.

She was gonna be something beautiful, he didn't know what, but she was his miracle, his savior, his heart beating still. He doesn't know how that is but to taunt him. She said it herself, showed him clear with a little doll. What does he do now? How can he...

He can't. He just can't. He can't do five more minutes all of this. He can't do two thousand years. He can't stop the muted cries coming from his mouth, he can't stop the blood. He can't stop holding on to Sam, not now, not this time, no, they'll have to pry him up off, they'll have to rip off his head. They'd better kill him. He'd have to die before he let go.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

In the distance Sam can see flashes of his own picture, bright and bold, the words we all deserve better scrawled across it and for a moment he hears the echo of himself saying them and he's just angry. He didn't start this war, but he sure as hell threw himself into it and jumped on making himself as big a part of it as he could when he already knows damn well what the outcome of war always is. It's always pain and loss and it's not that he forgot that, it's just that he did it anyway.

But he lets that thought go, pulling in a slow, deep breath and letting it out. It's not like him sitting out this war would have meant it didn't happen, and it wouldn't have saved Terezi.

And he remembers the reasons he got into it. He's still fighting for Bucky, for Porrim, for the world they're from that they want to see made a better place. Fighting to get Clint back, fighting alongside Jet and Albert, fighting to keep Bucky and Steve safe, fighting to give Kurloz and Ter - to give Kurloz a better future. He doesn't let himself get tripped up over almost thinking her name, he can't.

Whatever his complicated feelings towards war are, Sam can't lie to himself, not even like this. He knows as long as he can see a good reason, he'll always make the same choice, the choice to fight.

So he keeps holding Kurloz, focusing on his breathing as it evens out, chest rising and falling nice and slow, calming himself down and trying to give Kurloz something to focus on. Maybe even encourage him to match it, given how close they're pressed together, as he murmurs that he's still here, that he's still got him, that he's not gonna let go.

But they don't have as much time as he'd like. Before long he remembers that they're sitting in the middle of a battlefield, and maybe the Peacekeepers are giving them a wide berth now thanks to the destruction that Kurloz's rage had brought on them, but sooner or later someone's going to get brave or stupid and try to take him out while he's distracted.

"We gotta get moving."

[carnagecarnival]

He tries to force it, tries to split himself off from reality. Let Sam's breath be his breath, let that heartbeat be his, but everything else? He doesn't want the care for it no more. He doesn't give a damn.

Sam's words come through though. He growls, but it's more a whine than anything. He doesn't want to. He doesn't care. Why do they have to motherfucking move? He casts a glare around and over, eyes going darker again. He then looks at Sam, questioning and protesting but underneath just wanting to not. Somewhere between a child stomping their foot and a desperate plea is it to be.

He holds Sam tighter.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Yeah, Sam pretty much expected that response. There's a part of him that doesn't want to move either, that just wants to stay here holding on to Kurloz, giving them both a chance to grieve.

But they don't have that luxury, not in the middle of a battle. And Sam's already started itching a little, being out in the open for so long. Especially being out in the open like this, all but pinned down and not really able to get to any weapons without prying a troll off of him. And yeah, he knows that if anyone actually came after them it'd probably set Kurloz off again - but that's not a comfort.

He pulls back a little, just enough to cup Kurloz's cheek and give it a pat. "Can't keep sitting here in the middle of the dirt, brother. Come back with me."

[carnagecarnival]

Now that he's had time to slow, if not settle, his breath rasps from all the holes in him. Sam pulls back and that rasp makes his growl something low and ugly what clicks along insectile. It's a little more threat than someone going no, no, no over and fucking over.

He still doesn't care about any of that noise. He ain't care for dirt. But Sam paps him again and the growls silence. His head droops, heavy and morose. He doesn't know where "back" is. He can't recall having a home on this wretched planet.

Except he can.

He starts up sudden, separating from Sam, and he runs. His destination is set, and he does not wait for Sam to follow. He finds her. His matesprit. His Terezi. He kneels to her, bringing her again up in his arms. Her form dangles limply but he ain't care.

He kisses her hard. He feels her lack of pulse and the ways his own struggles through the pain of that. He feels the cold of her what's so much cooler than even she should be. Cold as him. Cold like a corpse.

He pays no mind when Sam shows up. He pays no mind even as his hands crush about her neck and split.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's not completely a surprise when Kurloz pushes away from him like that and runs - but only because after all that, Sam's geared up for damn near anything. If it's disappointing - well, Sam doesn't have time to feel that, and he pushes up onto his feet and takes off after Kurloz.

He can't catch up to him, but he can at least keep him in his sights - and Sam doesn't slow even when he realizes he's getting closer, that Kurloz must have stopped.

But he does skid to a halt when he gets close enough to be able to see what Kurloz is doing. Just in time to watch Kurloz rip Terezi's head free from her body, and any kind of higher thinking he might have been planning on attempting just completely shorts out.

"...what the fuck, Kurloz?"

[carnagecarnival]

Terezi's head lifts up and off in his hands. Teal spills out on the undeserving earth and ruin, it spreads all over his sinner's hands and seeks to reach up and coat his arms, all of him, one last motherfuckin embrace. It drips down his front and over his stone cold heart as he lifts her higher to his kiss.

The crunch of bone and tear of flesh sounds too loudly in his ears to register that of Sam. At least not yet.

He pulls from her slow, indigo left on her and teal all upon him. The day and night skies come to meet with no violence of red in the middle, parting them. None but her eyes, brilliant and burned, never a light put out but suns set in and contained. That red seeps and bleeds into the color of his, bringing ocular orange to when he finally turns fast to Sam, eyes blazing again, face torn open to bear his teeth, but an off-done calm what settles clear as he can make it go.

At least so long as Terezi is held in his arms. He rises like that, cradling her to his chest. He sees no need to reply to Sam's exclamation. He's home now. They can go where all ever.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam swallows back bile at the sound of tearing flesh, at the sight of blood dripping down from his little sister's body, mangled and torn and Sam can't even figure out what it was that killed her, not with her head sitting in Kurloz's hands. He's pretty sure the only reason he isn't throwing up is because he's seen - well, no, not worse. It's worse now because it's his sister, because he can't even bring himself to think her name when she's ripped up like that.

But just because two tours of pararescue and more after left him desensitized to this level of violence doesn't mean he wants to look at it, and he keeps his eyes firmly on Kurloz's.

He opens his mouth, but closes it again, because he's still stuck in what the fuck. There's no way he can come around the slightest bit to thinking that there's anything about this that's at all okay right now, and he ain't even gonna try. The best he can do is keep going with what he'd been trying to do in the first place.

"You gonna come back with me off the battlefield now?"

[carnagecarnival]

He's home. As he tells himself. But what has home ever felt like but splinters? Splinters up in his hive, shatterings in his own self. It would not surprise him the least to find himself in a universe made all of glass with the glimmering spider-webs of fractured parts. One day a wind would knock that last piece out of place and all everything would rain down broken.

He feels fragile. He feels as like his inner self has gone to shake but on the outs he does not tremble. At least, not to his notice.

He brings himself forward, spattered with blood in that eternal trifecta; red, teal, indigo. He's half gone. More than half. But he's still here enough as all to slowly, rigidly, give a nod. Yeah, he'll come with Sam.

He's done here. Whatever the Messiahs willed, he will be here no more. He doesn't know what to think of them. He can only assume he's let them down. They will his soul to ruin... Maybe that's for the best. He's never done anything good with it. So if he can't follow them, he'll follow Sam alone for now, on to whatever awaits him.