LIVING GHOST.

laurel had wandered off after wilder’s — well, after he’d gone. tears still welled up in her eyes when she thought about him, about the way he’d… she shook her head. she had to focus. this was the hunger games, after all. 

she was wandering around the jungle, half-stumbling in the dim light, when she saw another tribute. laurel stilled, almost on instinct, and let out a small sigh of relief when he didn’t seem to have seen her. he kept walking, steps purposeful. he didn’t seem to be attempting to mask the sounds he was making as he walked. curious, laurel followed him, a few steps behind, until they reached the beach, and it was then that laurel realized he was following the soft song emanating from the creatures hovering near the docks. she would have said singing, but they weren’t singing, not really. they seemed to be crawling their way up onto the deck, their slick, wet arms bulging with muscles. their hair fell in thick waves, somehow looking just off enough that laurel shuddered slightly. and it was then that she realized that the tribute was going to walk right into their clutches. 

you should save him, a small part of her whispered, but a much, much larger, more selfish part of her said, kill him. why should he live when wilder is dead? and it was that part, that much larger part of her that she listened to as she rushed forward and shoved the other tribute off the docks, watching as the hair of the mermaid creatures reached up to grab him.

he didn’t even realize someone else was following him until there were hands on his back. he was so encapsulated by the music that overtook every inch of his being that he couldn’t bring himself to ready his sword, to catch his balance, to stop himself from falling into the vile creatures that awaited him.

as the hair of the beast snaked out to trap him, he wanted to fight back, wanted to draw himself out of the situation, to figure out a way to get out of here alive, but his body was weak and fighting back seemed futile and it was so much easier to stay still, stay silent, letting the creature pull him off the dock and start to move him to the sea.

in his final moments, there were many things that ember thought about.

he thought about the reason why he was in this situation in the first place, the fact that he thought he could be so much more than he was destined to always be, how that had tremendously backfired. he thought about the people who had believed in him to do better than this, dorian, wiress, royce.

royce.

if he could speak, he would have said something ironic about how this had been the path he was always meant to be on, how this was what was decided for him from the start. he would say it was all worth it if he meant he got to meet someone as incredible as royce. he would say that he loved him, he would say that he was sorry.

but as the water entered ember’s lungs and he became unable to breathe, he could not speak. instead, he cried. 

when november lowell finally passed away, there was no one waiting to take him to the other side. there were no chariots, no visions of perfection. there was only peace. and for ember, that was enough for him.

he had been trying to find royce and dem again, if he could find them, then everything would be okay, if he could find them, then he could ground himself once more in a real life purpose, protecting them from the dangers that lurked in the arena.

and then music played, and it was the sweetest song ember had ever heard.

it had been the first time ember had heard music since entering the arena, and it beckoned him to walk further away from where he suspected his two allies were, to walk closer and closer to the source of the sound.

he was captivated, hypnotized, overtaken by the melody, that he lost complete sense of where he was and what he was doing. all that existed was him, and the music, and nothing else. // @laurelscrowned

as the third parachute floated down, ember stared it down incredulously. really? there were that many people who wanted to send him gifts? that concept was hard for him to wrap his head around, but as the new capsule landed near him, he smiled.

ember would have been content with just the backpack. knowing that someone, anyone was rooting for him and hoping that he would make it out of the arena alive was the encouragement he needed to remember what he was capable of. 

and then another parachute came.

his eyes floated up to the sky again, this time with a sort of confidence that he didn’t have before. this time, he knew that was whatever in that capsule was something meant for him, and the thought made him grin from ear to ear.

ft. @vxctxrx and @oberoned

royce

his back was pressed against a tree that overlooked the lagoon. he watched the sun rise into the sky at an unnatural speed -- his thoughts instantly went to a lustful high as the culprit, but they corrected themselves once his body reminded them that their master was skin, bones, and sickly. because of this, royce watched as the first of three bottles fell out of the sky. "um, guys? a bottle just fell from the sky."

ember had seen tributes receive gifts before on his television. it seemed weird to now, all of a sudden, be in the middle of it, a parachute floating down to him as he stared up at the sky. there was a part of him that thought it was a trap, that no one would want to send a gift to him, but he had to let himself believe that there was someone who wanted him to win.

if not, how was he going to make it through the next however long the games ended up taking?

so, when the parachute finally landed on the ground, he approached it cautiously, not wanting to regret his blind faith in the very people that created the games in the first place.

however, once he unattached the parachute and opened the capsule, he found the gift and the note inside and greeted both with a smile. the note from dorian was enough to fill him once again with the lust for victory that he had when he volunteered. if he was going to win, he was going to do it the right way. 

contrary to demelza’s reasoning, royce carter ix definitely had a reason to kill her. she was a threat – even though she might not appear to be one. only one tribute would emerge alive from this, and he obviously wanted it to be him. if it couldn’t be him, then it would have to be ember. so, as the two district partners exchanged slight pleasantries, the boy from six found himself inching closer to his lover and his lover’s friend. 

his mind – like his body – was weak. unlike the state of his being when he was under the influence, a sober, recovering royce was susceptible to all sorts of fears, doubts, and inner turmoils. he could see ember offering up his and royce’s bodies for companionship, he could see them falling asleep, he could see demelza revealing a hidden blade and plunging it into their throats. the sweat that coated his forehead came to a point and a single drop of salty water fell from his nose. 

“how do we know? i– like, how do we know you don’t have a reason to kill us?” he said quietly as he finally reached ember and placed an arm around him. he instantly felt warmth travel throughout that side of his body as he glared at demelza with cold, dilated pupils. “how do we know we can trust–”

it began to happen then. the nausea he felt as the bird screamed at him came to a boil – the boy quickly stumbled away with a hand over his mouth, but it wasn’t enough. he had just managed to make it to a nearby tree when bile erupted from his mouth.

ember barely had a chance to respond to either person, because as soon as royce began to throw up, he once again went into overprotective lover mode, moving to hold his dreads out of his face and to rub his back while he did. “we need to find some water, and we need to find it fast,” he said, looking at both royce and demelza as he did.

although there was no formal announcement made or agreement between the three, it was clear to ember what was going to happen. he wasn’t going to let demelza wander off by herself, that wasn’t in is nature, so instead, the three would be working together as a group and that was that.

their first task was to find water, and luckily, that happened the next day. as they were wandering through the forest, they stumbled upon a clear body of water, something that seemed too good to be true, but after testing it, it was clear that the water was completely and totally safe to drink.

seeing a human voice come out of a bird body was not something that royce had mentally prepared for – then again, what exactly had the boy mentally prepared himself for? already sitting when he called out ember’s name, the boy found himself stuck to the spot. his legs splayed out before the bird as it sat atop a nearby branch and continued to squawk at him. for some reason – perhaps because of the shock of the whole situation combined with his physical weakness – he couldn’t find the strength to get up.

it kept screaming that i love you at rising octaves, and by the time it had reached an impossibly high one, royce had snapped. with eyes as wide and expansive as the sky, he picked up a nearby rock and chucked it at the bird-beast’s beak. it tragically missed, but the effort was not lost on the not-so-little bird. it screamed again, flew off its twiggy perch, and it then began flying circles around royce. his screams caught in his throat, and all the boy could do was press his back against the tree-trunk and watch absent-mindedly as the bird continued to echo words of love at the boy from six. 

then, suddenly, as if by magic, ember appeared through the thicket and waved the bird away with a sword. it didn’t flee, however, and instead tread the sky with its beautiful wings. this time, however, it’s vocal box returned to a more pleasant, human-sounding sentence – “are you okay, royce?” 

“better now – but, uh…” he began as he forced himself up using the trunk as support. “is that the girl from your district?” he questioned simply as he pointed weakly to a girl – screaming at the top of her lungs, he might add – running near them with a flock of parrots following her. 

“wild.”

the bird mutts were weird, and if ember was being honest, he was extremely afraid of them. not only could they fly, which just wasn’t fair, but they also were throwing words at the two boys like projectiles, attacking them much more effectively and doing much more harm than true weapons ever could.

luckily, with a wag of a sword in its direction, the bird felt threatened enough to fly enough away to no longer be an immediate threat, and ember could take his eyes off of the engineered animal and bring his attention back to royce. 

he considered himself lucky that he hadn’t had to face the brute force of all that the bird mutts were capable of, of the mind games that they seemed willing and ready to play. however, royce seemed to have received a large amount of that fuckery, and ember didn’t know the best way to comfort him through that in this moment.

as royce’s voice rose, ember’s attention drifted once more to the sight of demelza running through the trees with more birds following after her. he readied his sword once more, waving it at the birds once they were close enough. he was sure he looked kind of stupid doing it, but it worked once again, and as the blade of the sword scraped one of the mutts’ wings, the rest learned from that bird’s sacrifice and scattered to the skies, the injured one remaining on the ground.

he took a breath.

“hi demelza, um, you’re not gonna kill us, right?” // @oberoned​

’royce went to wipe off the sweat from his forehead, but then stopped when he realized it wouldn’t accomplish anything. since entering the arena, he had been sweating profusely and there were no signs of it stopping. it wasn’t until the dawn of the third morning that he realized that the sweating might not be a direct result of the arena – it might be because he was running a fever (which he only assumed was because of the withdrawals. 

“hey, ember, dude, i don’t feel so good.” he said softly as he stared at a tiny line of ants traveling up the bark of a tree. they’re so mystifying, he thought. it’s amazing that they’re so strong. 

“royce, are you okay?” 

“yeah, dude, i’m fine. i don’t know, i think i just need some water? do we have any water yet? i don’t remember.”

the ants had since abandoned his line of sight, and had instead made theirselves at home in the trunk of the tree. he stared at nothing, then, just the leaves, dirty, and foliage that surrounded them both.

“i’m here. it’s going to be okay,” came ember’s reply. royce sighed slightly – not because he doubted ember’s sincerity, but because he realized that they really weren’t going to be okay in the end. “i know, yeah. it’s going to be okay.”

“i love you.”

“i love you, too,” came a swift reply from royce. there had been no shortage of ‘i love you’s’ since that fateful first. but, he didn’t mind. it wasn’t until ember repeated it for the fifth time in a row with the same inflection, however, that royce thought something was wrong. quietly, he turned and, to his horror, ember wasn’t there – all that he could see was a large, rainbow colored parrot.

he didn’t have to think – it came naturally… his call for help.

“ember!” 

// closed starter for @dolefvl & @oberoned

in a jungle as vast as this one, ember was sure there would be food somewhere, and so he set off, looking for something that he recognized as edible, or maybe a trace of some sort of potable water. he was sure that royce could fend for himself for a bit, and if he managed to find anything, he knew it would pay off in the long run.

the birds didn’t look suspicious at first, but as they opened their mouths, that’s when ember realized something was going on.

“hey, ember, dude, i don’t feel so good,” was the first thing he heard come from the mouth of one of the birds, and he immediately realized he needed to find royce. the scream of his own name shortly after made that need even more urgent.

he stared running back in the direction that he came from, following the pattern on the ground he had drawn with his sword, until he found royce again, running towards him away from one of these birds. he grabbed his sword and held it out towards the mutt.

“are you okay, royce? did this thing hurt you?” // @oberoned​

the boy was sweet, and for a moment she felt a bit bad about the whole situation. ingrid wished all tributes were volunteers, it’d make the guilt forming in her stomach go away.

“i’d really like a warm bath, but we can’t have anything we want to, can we?” he didn’t want to hurt her! comedic gold! “well, you can try i guess,” she said, tugging the sword towards herself. ingrid was in a good mood though, and she was more than happy with one bloodbath kill. she wasn’t greedy.

“you know, if you leave now i won’t even run after you. i’m nice like that.”

this girl didn’t seem to respond to niceties. and, now that he thought about it, he didn’t think really anyone was going to respond to him being nice. he thought if he could mind his own business and try his best not to piss any specific person off, then he could make it through relatively unscathed.

“you seem like a cool person, but i’d really like this sword,” he said, as he tugged even harder on the weapon, “and i’m not one to give up on things easily.”

royce’s body seemed to just carry itself as he ran from the ship and onto the docks. an abandoned, tiny civilization of some sort unfolded before him, but royce couldn’t afford to pay it any mind – or, rather, it was as if he physically couldn’t pay attention. the corner’s of his vision were starting to blur and the familiar headaches were returning. a ringing sound could be heard somewhere in the distance coupled with the feeling of dull aching in his chest.

he kept repeating the same words to himself (run, keep going, faster) as he ran farther, farther, and farther into what eventually turned into a jungle (he would piece that together later, too), he snapped back to reality. he blinked once, twice, then thrice as he took in his surroundings. strange foliage? check. the constant chitter of insects and unknown animals? check. ember? ch–

ember.

the blurred vision quickly faded as his resting heartbeat increased tenfold and a sweat separate from that caused by the air fell across his face. he tried to sound out the boy’s name, but found that the moisture in his lips had been leeched out by the environment. instead, all he could do was practically fall forward and envelop the boy in a hug.

“i’m alive. you’re alive. we’re alive. oh, my god. i– i don’t know what to do. where are we, ember?  i… i blacked out. i don’t remember. god, i’m so sweaty.” 

wrapping his arms around royce felt like home, holding the boy close to him felt familiar and warm and not at all like the arena that surrounded him. if they weren’t in plain sight of any other tribute on the path, he would’ve stayed right there for as long as he possibly could, holding royce close to him, taking the small piece of home that he could take and not letting it go.

he stepped back for a moment, putting both of his palms flat on royce’s cheeks. “i love you, i’m so glad you’re okay.” and in that moment, when all of panem was glued to their television screens, he softly pressed his lips against the other boy’s, before grabbing his hand and walking off the path, deeper into the jungle.

“talk to me about things that you remember, any bits and pieces that you have, and we can put the pieces together. i’m here, it’s all going to be okay.” he gave royce’s hand a tight squeeze and looked back at him with a smile. 

if he had to be strong, he would be strong, and although he was on the verge on an anxiety attack and throwing up again, focusing his energy on someone else felt like he was being useful.

he hated this feeling, this feeling of being alone and unfamiliar with his surroundings and still nauseous even though he he didn’t think there was anything left in him to come back up. he made his way towards the trail, hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone, but then he ran into the only person that he wanted to run into.

royce.

he began to tear up. “i-. i thought you might have been gone.” // starter for @vxctxrx

it was finally here. her time to shine. it’d be a lie to say ingrid wasn’t nervous, but she was also beyond excited. her family, her friends, the entire country really was watching her every move. it was now or never.

the moment she reached closer to the better weapons ( she didn’t want a bag, who was she? please ), there was already blood on her hands – some kid, she barely recognized his face, had gotten in her away, running wildly from side to side, so really she had done him a favor. her heart was still pounding though. it was her first death, a career’s landmark.

but while wiping the kid’s blood from her fist, ingrid noticed the cutlass, and she smiled. it was just what she needed to feel at home. ignoring the rumble around her, she ran towards the sword, cursing the amount of fabric around her legs. she bent down to reach for it, but when she raised her head she saw a boy on the other end of the sword. this one she recognized at least.

at ember’s words, ingrid just had to laugh. did he really say ‘excuse me’ and ‘please’? during the bloodbath? “no, but if you run fast enough i won’t stab you.”

at the girl’s words, ember wanted to drop the sword and give up the fight. in any other circumstance, he would, but this was the bloodbath, this was the hunger games, and he needed to be more aggressive than he normally was.

maybe asking politely if he could have the weapon wasn’t the right move to accomplish that goal.

he tugged a bit on the sword, making it clear that he was not planning on letting go. “i’d really like this sword, and i don’t want to hurt you, but if i have to in order to walk away with this sword i will.” he looked at his feet, barely able to meet the girl’s glance while he spoke. 

what made him think he could do this?

he looked around him, trying to distract himself from that awful feeling. he saw royce, demelza, finley, the people he had interacted with in the tribute tower now supposed to be his foes instead of his friends. he didn’t like that, he didn’t want to hurt someone he liked.

when the countdown stopped, he ran for something that happened to be right in front of him. it was a small sword, sort of like the one that cashmere had shown him how to use in training, not as small as a dagger but not big enough for him to feel uncomfortable. it was perfect, but there was someone else’s hands on it too.

“excuse me,” he asked, yelling over the sound of fighting. “could i have this, please?” // starter for @swntiwnt