Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me.

[etcircenses]

Who| All those on the breakout mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 4.
Where| District 4.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

The ocean is a calm clear beauty only for a short while. Storm clouds loom on the horizon, dark and massive beasts prowl quickly forward and growing size. The waves grow higher and higher over time, crashing violent upon rock, dock, and shore alike. One wrong slip, and the ocean may very will claim you for its own, war be damned.

The once bright and friendly tourist city and pier is on total lockdown. The businesses (curios shops, restaurants, and even games and rides) have closed their doors and barred them with wood. One of the hotels has been turned into the Capitol-soldier boarding and war room, a refuge for Peacekeepers in the new uprising.

Said Peacekeepers are struggling here, quicker to react due to the nature of the District's people. There is an overwhelming amount of rebels here, perhaps even the entirety of the District. Many of them, as comes from being a former career District, know how to fight, make traps, and generally outlast their opponents. Capitol soldiers will be stretched thin trying to help the Peacekeepers settle this District's ire. The people of District four want vengeance.

Everywhere beyond the tourist's city is rebel territory. Propoganda is rampant here. It's greatest control is the weather washing it away. Yet still words can be seen such as in the face of adversity; stand together! and TO BRAVERY! and Time's up, Capitol.

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

Comments

[furgood]

Dark lingers in his eyes, in hands that clutch the weapon like a treasure. Slow she eases up beside him. It'd be easy to be afraid of him, if she let herself be. He reminds her of the Chuck in the arenas, only one thing to live for, only one thing to fight. And that thing, that person, isn't here. But he's never turned something on her. Nothing more than his anger. How often had that been justified? So much.

Ages ago, only months ago, she might have leaned her head on his shoulder and made some silly remark. He might have teased her and laughed. Instead, she stands close but not too close. She watches his lips move, nods. Everything has changed. But they'll make it through. The District. Him. Her. She hopes. All she has is hope.

"That's District Four. Surviving."

[theyoungperish]

She's wary, cautious, little lamb come to slaughter, come to the side of the wolf. Delicate and trembling with her own loss, aching, aching, and once he might have held her, helped her. Once, he mightn't have been the creature she's scared off, deep down in the dark she doesn't let surface.

But he has one thing left. The Arena settles about his shoulders like a well worn cloak, Kaiju blue poisoning from the inside out. He knows what he must do.

"Surviving." He echoes, echoes, hollow pointed, something like laughter curling around the edges. Yes, yes. Surviving, that is what makes up the bones of District Four, the flesh and blood and gristle.

Surviving, as he is. Surviving, as they will.

Yes. Here, now, these past weeks, he's been more Striker than Chuck. More Wolf than Striker. Teeth and fury and sharp bitten off words. Once he might have teased her, once he might have laughed. Now, he bares his teeth in what might have been a grin, vengeance reborn within the mortal coil. She holds hope tight between her fists, the gleaming light of it slipping between her desperate fingers. But Chuck -- he has no hope left to him. They slaughtered it.

[furgood]

Surviving isn't living. Don't they both know that. She doesn't speak the ugly truth aloud. Surviving is just clinging on, just staying despite it all. Hope clenched in her fingertips is all that keeps her going, hope for a future and her family, her pack by her side. He's motivated by revenge, by something she can't quite see. By Derek. The question of how he ended up in District Thirteen had never been asked. She'd never allowed herself all those questions burning up her throat. The answer, the revelations he might bring, might be more than she could bear.

Dipping into a crouch, she takes up a handful of sand. Sifts it through her fingertips to find a piece of shell curled in the palm. It's worn soft at the edges but it would take only a single crack to bring sharpness all anew. Like Chuck. Or Derek. She drops the shell. Stands. Wipes the sand from her hands.

"Are you going to come back to Thirteen?"

[theyoungperish]

Maybe surviving isn't living. But Chuck doesn't want to live. Can't, not with this wound cut deeply into the very core of him. Slow, agonizing, bleeding drop by drop, infection set into his veins, into his nerves, eating him from the inside. Chuck doesn't want to live, not when Derek isn't here at his side, not when the only thing that's every made it good and real has been torn asunder, left to molder in some mass grave somewhere. Like he never won, like he never mattered.

Derek was all that ever mattered, all that he had.

Now, Chuck has sorrow, though it is tempered by revenge, horror, a desperate, aching need. He has vengeance, bloodlust, a predator lying in wait beneath his skin. She dips down, elegant and liquid, gentle as sand slips through her fingertips, a memory -- and comes up with a shell. Imperfect, shattered and spiraling, delicate with the promise of broken beauty. Worthless. It drops into the sand as she stands, face turning to him like a flower to the sun.

"Are you?" He queries, instead. An evasive answer, maybe. But he doesn't know. Will he return? Maybe, if he survives this battle and the streets he'd once lived. Maybe, if he doesn't succumb to the agony that eats him. Maybe, maybe.

[furgood]

"Maybe."

Staying here might have been tempting if she wasn't more aware. The gaze on her, the traitor, the one who spoke for the Capitol, the one who left for the rebellion. They must judge her. They must wonder where her loyalty truly lies. She's never sure herself. With her friends? With her family? With one of those two monolithic sides?

Staying here among all these people who have seen her say things they so bitterly disagree with...would that be safe? Would that be anything worth doing? Does she want to stay where she's not wanted, alone, without her friends or family?

"This is home. And it's not. At least I have friends in Thirteen who..." She realizes then she never told him. Never told him. Not about why she was there. Not about what Kurloz did. Her breath escapes her in a sigh that might be more frustration than weariness. She doesn't want to admit it. Doesn't want to tell him. Her lips part only to admit the barest things.

"Who understand."

[theyoungperish]

There's a wordless little noise of agreement, muted and muddled, idle. He's not really paying attention, caught in the faint sound of fighting in the distance. It rises, crests, muted by the crash of wave upon shore. Waves and screams and the beat of his heart, calling, calling.

But her words trail off, caught in the back of her throat, and Chuck's attention flits back. Brow furrowed, frowning, catching something written in her features he doesn't know how to handle.

"Understand?"

A question, but only just. He thinks he knows, traitor, her mind says. He knows this, this unknowing, this unsure dance. Rebellion fits him oddly, after a life shaped to take his father's place, watered with the blood of children he slaughtered. He's too District, too Capitol, to fit in with this Rebellion that is neither and both in an odd way. Maybe she's stuck there too, lost even more without the trappings of soldier to fall back on.

Yes, yes, this is it. Blood under nails and lies snapping between teeth. The tense line of his spine doesn't ease, but Chuck's laser point gaze flickers, away and back. The war calls him, beckoning, beckoning, but he stays. Pack, pack, he waits even under the baying of the hounds of war.

[furgood]

Her hands curl around each other, gripping tight. He's family, right? Friends but basically family. Their odd little codependent mess, them against the world, wrapped up in each other, in their house and their relationships, a refuge in a sea of people who don't understand. They understand each other.

Maybe he already knows. Maybe he can guess it or guess parts of it, like that troll who knew her half as well but guessed the whole of things. Her shoulders are tense.

"Understand what happened, I mean."

Her gaze travels up to him and flinches away. If he says anything now, she misses it, eyes on hands that are set to squeeze the life from each other. It's a grip on reality, a grip on something tangible when her head is full of thoughts that war more often than they agree.

"I was a rebel. Not like Thirteen. For Four. But--but Kurloz, he..." She trails off, trying to find the words. They come in fits and starts, her hands trembling and finger lacing, unlacing, digging nails into palms and the backs of her hands. "He fixed me--I mean he took me some place and they changed--made me better? Made me different. Think different. He was trying to keep me safe. He did, I mean. Or didn't. They know, my friends, they know."

Her words hang in the air. She said too much. Not enough. Will he blame Kurloz? Will he be upset? Will he care at all, without Derek? Was Derek the glue? Was she? Were they all relying on each other? Or were some hands gripped tighter? Her head swims, dizzying in its whirl of thoughts. The next words slip out soft, unsure.

"I don't fit anywhere now. But they get that. So I might go back to them."