Kahente avoided the water like the plague. Swimming was not something she was proficient in, and she wasn’t going to test it. Now with food in her stomach, she felt like she could stand up, look around, explore, but the moment she got up on her feet, something reached out of the water she was near and swallowed her whole.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, and even once they did, she could still barely see. She, once again, found herself in a situation in which she didn’t know where she was, and that terrified her in a new and different way.

Reaching around for a moment, her hand came into contact with something slimy and she realized that was the wall of whatever room she was in. It was quiet, too quiet, and dark, too dark, and it immediately filled her with the knowledge that she was not supposed to be here.

But then, after holding her hand almost directly in front of her face, the pungent and unmistakable smell of fish wafted into her nostrils, and she immediately began to gag, realizing where she was.

Inside the stomach of some sort of fish monster mutt thing.

How the fuck was she going to get out?

She began walking along the whale’s stomach lining, keeping her hand on the “wall” like if she was in some sort of maze. She had to get out, this she knew, but how was what she didn’t.

The walls seemed deceivingly thick, like she could break through them if she tried hard enough.

Glitter.

Of course, the hand to hand training she had done with Glitter, of course this would be the time to use it. She straightened out her stance as much as she possibly could, getting ready to punch through this wall. She knew she could, and believing was half the battle, so by the time her fist made contact with the whale’s flesh, she felt her hand sink further into the wall.

It sent a burning sensation through the injuries on her dominant arm from the girl the first day, but she knew she had to keep going, no matter how much it hurt her to do so.

She kept punching, exactly how Glitter had showed her, until she almost felt the outer lining of the whale.

Before placing the last throw, she took another deep breath, and threw the last punch, as water flooded into the whale from the whole she made.

Swimming was something she did not know how to do, but she knew she had to get out of here, so she jumped through the hole she made, into water that used to terrify her, and feeling like this might be the end.

She didn’t know what to do, and began to sink to the bottom of the body of water, flailing her arms to try and save herself. There was no direction here, no inkling of instruction, and she silently wished that she had spent more time with River so that he could have taught her.

Her feet made contact with the floor not long after, and she looked around her, trying to find something to hold on to to get her out of there. She could only hold her breath for so long, could only pretend this was all going to be okay for so long, before she knew that this would become her watery grave.

As much as she tried to stay calm, it didn’t work, and her plans all seemed not be able to work. She began to feel light headed, like she needed to breathe, like she was going to either pass out or get lungs full of water, when she saw a creature swimming next to her.

Instinctively, and with her last bit of energy, she reached out towards it, gripping firmly as it swam closer to the sky.

When it felt like she was not going to be able to take it anymore, she finally saw the sun again, and gasped for breath the minute she broke above the water, using her other arm to grab onto the shore and push herself onto it, before collapsing, unmoving, to the ground.

That morning, Kahente was already angry. 

Everything leading up to this moment had led her to just being flat out frustrated at her situation. Life wasn’t fair, she had known that for a long time now, but there was something about this situation that seemed even more fucked. Everything from the low score at training, to the uncomfortable interview; it seemed as if this entire city was rooting against her.

As much as she wanted to believe that, deep in her, she knew that wasn’t true. She had Satine, and River and Glitter, and maybe that would be enough to get her through.

The maze of hallways to get to where she was supposed to go seemed never ending, but when she finally entered the preparation room, it seemed cold and unforgiving, just like she found the majority of the city to be. It was an appropriate send-off.

The tracker implanted in her arm sent a sharp sting through her body, and she stared at the place it was implanted for a moment, amazed at how the wound seemed to heal almost instantly. This was what they used their medical tech for, apparently, tracking people in arenas of deaths as opposed to healing those who needed it in the outer districts.

She didn’t know if there was something else that was supposed to be happening, some sort of other task she was supposed to complete before being sent to her death, but before she even had the true opportunity to question that further, her eyes felt heavy, as if everything about her situation was telling her to close her eyes and sleep.

Fighting the urge to rest seemed pointless, the need to shut her eyes was overwhelming, so despite her every instinct telling her not to, her eyes fluttered closed and she fell asleep.

When she woke up, the first thing that she noticed was the way the wind felt on her bare skin. Where was she? Why did the ground beneath her that she was laying on feel so warm and inviting, like she could lay there forever? Thanks to some unknown urge in her head, she stood up, began walking around, her eyes settling on the people around her who seemed to be doing the same thing. 

Who were these people? Who was she?

And why did the seemingly never-ending view from the edge of her cloud seem to be calling for her to jump off of if like this was what she was always meant to do? Like her life, however long it has been, has led her right to this moment?

She stood at the edge of the cloud, the sound of a harp playing in her mind. She didn’t know what the instrument was, why it was playing, but it relaxed her to the point where she just didn’t care, smiling at the people on either side of her who stood at the edge too.

Her feet carried her without her mind telling her what to do, and without thinking about it for longer than a few seconds, she jumped off of the cloud, falling to the word below.

The burning sensation on her back was hard to ignore as her wings began to catch fire, and she swatted them out with her overly calloused hands, hands that she had never seen before, hands that were injured and beat up to the point where it made her sad that those were hers.

A couple burns was nothing compared to the lifetime of scratches and injuries her hands had endured, but none of that was at the forefront of her mind in this moment.

As she landed on her feet, she looked around, picking a leaf off of her skimpy outfit in an area when it could be picked from and placing it on the burn marks on her back, before wincing at the searing pain in her head that was causing her attention to shift. 

Kahente Eastwood - District Eight

Bow & Arrow/Hunting Small Animals (excellent) - Once her father fell ill, finding and killing animals to use for dinner became her responsibility. After a few years of having this responsibility, she has nearly perfected the skill.

Cooking (excellent) - As well as hunting the food, she is also responsible for cooking it. Kahente has been in love with cooking since a young age, but is now even better at cooking with a smaller amount of ingredients, and making do with what she finds.

Edibility (good) - Gathering spices and herbs from the woods often has resulted in Kahente figuring out a fair amount of which plants are edible and which are not in order to avoid making her father more sick than he already is.