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

[pythianjudgment]

As soon as the man rolls away from her, Terezi rolls the other way, scrambling to her feet. Her weapon is a dozen feet away from her, and she only has a split second to decide whether to go for it or not.

There's no chance in hell for her to disarm that bomb now. The best course of action she could take is to get away and inform another team to either engage or evacuate the area. But she is in an active warzone. Trying to navigate her way back to the rebel camp without a weapon would be tricky at best. Most likely, she would run into another situation like this, except without a means to defend herself.

She makes a run for her staff, lying a few feet from the side of the building that she found the bomb nestled against. She only needs to get close enough to stoop and grab the weapon, then she can beat a hasty retreat.

[sociopathicwolf]

He's bracing himself for another attack, but one doesn't come. Instead she runs, and Derek would have called that good enough, except for the direction she's running in. He honestly can't be sure if she's going for her weapon or if she's heading back to the bomb again, but it doesn't really matter. He can't let her reach either one.

There's no time for him to lunge at her again, though, and he's already wasted too much of it. There's gotta be more rebels looking for her.

So he doesn't hesitate - as soon as she starts running, he pulls his gun from his hip and shoots her.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi isn't sure which one hits her first: the sharp crack of sound or the tearing pain that punches her in the back and spikes through her chest. Her legs freeze up immediately from the shock, and momentum carries her forward as she collapses, sending her tumbling for a few feet before stopping on her side. Dampness spreads quickly down both her back and front. Eyes wide and mouth partly open, she struggles to get a breath past the searing pain in her chest, but only manages something closer to a whimper. One hand comes up to grasp as the wound, quickly stained teal by the blood seeping through her uniform.

The pain makes it difficult to move, but even more so to think. Her thoughts keep hiccuping over the same line: Shot. I've been shot. I'm bleeding. I need to stop it. But the how escapes her. Her world focuses down smaller and smaller until all she can think about is the hole in her chest and the steady flow of blood draining out of her.

[carnagecarnival]

He's never been on a battlefield in which he hasn't fought. Arenas, yes, but not like this. Not a war. He doesn't want to kill nobody, which leaves a great motherfucking problem for him here-- what does he do? So far, the answer to that is being to defend those he can, protect the rebels, guards the Districts.

He's got his clubs moving to defend. He's pulling on everything he knows of his laughsassin training, incapacitating where he won't kill. He's directed fleeing districts out and away where he can. He goes to find those who need him. He goes to find Terezi.

The shot rings out no different than any other. In a chorus of gunfire, it is just one voice. But he sees fall from between the cracks of the building. He can feel the sudden terror so sharp its a pain through his heart.

He runs. It's not fast enough, he ain't fast enough, he ain't strong enough, no. He's on his knees at her side, skidding with his drop into the gravel and wreckage. No.

His hand goes to the side of her head, eyes going to lock with hers. The other hand goes on top the one she's using to stop the blood. TEREZI! He mouths, in such a way in should be a scream.

[sociopathicwolf]

When his first shot doesn't immediately kill her, he's already gearing up for a second one. He doubts she'll survive the first one, not with where he hit her - but he doesn't want to leave her to bleed out. Whatever the Capitol thinks of him, Derek has never been purposefully cruel.

But then he hears the sound of someone running, and his attention is split towards the new threat. Another troll, one who only has eyes for the one that Derek just shot, and he ruins Derek's clean line of sight as he skids to a stop at her side.

There's no reason for him to be here anymore. He'd taken out the immediate threat, he should go back to the other soldiers and report that the location of the bomb may be compromised and they need to either up security or move it. He backs away, using the other troll's distraction to make his escape.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi doesn't notice her attacker's departure. She only notices that there's someone hovering over her, a hand being placed over hers. For a single moment, she's terrified that he's come to finish her off--but then she smells the familiar scent of blackberries. She doesn't know when he showed up or how much he saw, but he's here now.

The hand not clutching her wound is lifted. She grabs onto his arm, the one touching her face. Her eyes are a little too wide and her grip a little too tight. Her breathing is ragged and pained, punctuated by a wheezing noise that indicates the bullet must have punctured a lung.

"Kurloz..." His presence should bring her relief, but the scent of his expression only curls the terror tighter in her chest. She knows her situation is bad, but this confirms it for her. She's dying. No, no, no, no... There's no arena to bring her back this time. There's no Capitol to save her. If she dies here and now, that's it for her time in Panem.

"Help... Please..." she rasps up at him, her hand shaking from her vice grip as she tries to hold on. She feels like a child, begging for him to save her.

[carnagecarnival]

He barely gets a look at her assailant, only a passing glance to the man's back as he retreats when he went to look for some manner of assistance what ain't there. It's a look he regrets because he's losing time, he's losing chances. He needs to think, to figure something out, he needs to do it now.

She holds him so tight, so very fucking tight he can imagine it to bruise. Her eyes are like to try and capture the world in ways they can't. He hears that wheeze and it sounds like raking injury over his pan, his heart. No, no, no, no... please no, Terezi, Messiahs help, please!

She echoes his thought. She speaks aloud, begs him. A thousand times has he been begged for some mercy and not once, not even now, has he had any to give. He tries. He tries to stop it, to lift her somehow without letting her wound flow free. In his head are words like a poem.

He stays the cull for none. His levity shall heed Messiahs call alone. As it is motherfucking writ, so shall you be seen to the Dark Carnival.

He can't stop it, not teal nor indigo as slips of his eyes. His mouth opens to scream and he cannot. His entire reality slips and slides and he can hear it drag enough so that he would sink his claws into the gravel were he not so desperately holding on to her.

She can't go, he needs her, he needs her, there ain't nothing for her to go back to. Messiahs please, have mercy, please, let him serve eternal but spare her, save her, Messiahs, please hear him, please be still close enough as to hear his prayer...

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi can't hear the thoughts that are flying through his head. She can barely hear the sounds of battle around them throughout the district. It's harder and harder to concentrate on any one thing, though she's only faintly aware of the diminishing control over her senses. She focuses on him, on her promise not to leave. Everything else fades further away, but she holds onto him in every way that she knows how.

That focus nearly breaks when he tries to move her. A jolt of pain shoots through her chest and she gasps, choking on the blood already leaking into her lungs. A whimper follows after, despair finally settling into her thoughts. She doesn't want this. Why is this happening? She wants to scream, but they're both lacking what they need to do so. Tears spring to her eyes. It isn't fair. Her life had stretched out in front of her, so full of promise that it took her breath away to think on it--and now it was being snatched away from her.

"I'm scared," she whispers to him. She doesn't notice the way that her grip on his arm has weakened, or the way that her eyelids droop. "Please... I want..." Him. This world. To live. She doesn't know how to finish that plea. Too many things swirl together in her fading thoughts, and she feels too sluggish to catch any of them.

[carnagecarnival]

Her gasp is expected, but still a terrible thing. He has to move her, she can't be saved if he doesn't move her. There had to be someone to heal her, there needed to be a way. Messiahs please, PLEASE, I NEED YOU, save her...

But she's so weak. Teal is all made for the leaking of her, going as to flee before it can be stopped forever. He can feel her pulse like its his own but it's soft, so slow, and its halting brings all things to break. She promised. They made a promise.

Her words make him gasp. They make all in his head as to ring and fizzle out. I know, I'm here, I'm with you, he thinks. But what his mouth forms all worldless again is stay, please stay. She can have all those things if she only stays.

His hand goes to touch her face. If she goes, they will never have each other again. If she goes, she's gone. He's gone. For what happens to one happens to the other. This he was promised also. Even as he sees the future spread on and on ahead, he knows well that it's possible to die and still carry on.

[pythianjudgment]

The hand on her face is gentle and cool. She feels like she might shiver, but her body doesn't react. She's colder, too--or at least she feels that way. She focuses on what she can still smell of him between her shallows gasps for air. Her mind wanders.

She remembers the Race Arena. She had been stabbed through the stomach in that one, but he found her. Just like he did now. He carried her to the finish line, at the cost of his own life. She remembers turning around in that last moment and smelling a flash of green come down around him.

Green like the paint that they used in the training center. Greens and purples and blues and reds... There were so many colors, and she loved them all. She loved the way that he blended them and the emotion found in their depths. It was breath-taking and inspiring all in one. She remember the paint fight--her and Initiate and Signless. The way they laughed, even amid his makeshift Carnival.

She remembers his laugh the best, and the way that he would smile at her. She remembers winding braids into his hair, tucking them around a crown of flowers. Her chest had been so full back then, she thought she would burst. She could have kissed him right there. She should have. Then maybe she would have had more time together with him.

He mouths words at her, and all she manages to catch is the word stay. Such a simple word, and yet it's defined so much of their time together. She remembers the first time she said that to him. She hadn't expected the look on his face to be so surprised. Did she ever ask him why? She doesn't remember if she did or not, and suddenly she wants to know, even if she distantly knows that there's no time for him to tell her. Even so, the words that come to her are different.

"Pity you," she tries to say, but she's not sure if the words make it past her lips. She doesn't hear the sound of her own voice, and she's too tired to try again. Her grip on him loosens completely. Darkness folds over her like a wave, sweeping her consciousness away.

She exhales, but there's no inhale that follows this time. Her chest is still and silent; her eyes remain half-lidded, staring blindly out at the world that she tried to cling to. Blood still coats her front and back, but the pace of the flow has slowed considerably. It only oozes now, creeping slowly across the fabric of her shirt without any force behind it.

[carnagecarnival]

If he could go back, relive every moment he'd been beaten down, broken in body or spirit, every moment he'd been tortured, just to stop this there'd be no question. Something has pinned him down, cut him open in a clean slice, and then gone to carve out his insides slow. Digging and scraping and clawing and he can't scream, there's no torturer to beg to.

He ain't know if he imagines it, the way her words wind around him, lifting him. Choking him. A beautiful noose, the most perfect of punishment. Justice for all his sins.

He does not die with dignity. He does not die with grace. It's a slow drawn out death, one that will go for two thousand years and two thousand more, dragging on, until the final mercy ain't even fucking noticed no more.

This is how he pays; weeping for his rebel matesprit, dead and gone from him in the break of war. At least he'd had the mercy of hiring and executioner. What's he to do? What's he to do but be that motherfucking executioner...