lucetilogs | TERRACE Draft

Clove hears the singing. That's what draws her closer at night, when she's hunting any stragglers. During the day, she's been as vicious as anyone. Today, she was with Cato most of the day. Tomorrow, they're going their separate ways. Just for a time. The plan's to meet up again in after about eight hours. But she knows how those plans tend to work out for them.

But she knows Sharpe's voice, so she follows the sound until she finds him.

"Hey." Just a single, quiet word, so he doesn't take the approaching form for an enemy. What Clove doesn't know, of course, is that Sharpe knows more about her now than he did when last they spoke...

The song died on his lips and the spoken word was enough to draw him to his feet, hauling back the rifle's heavy hammer. Its thud and click reverberated through the emptied fitness facility, and Sharpe slid smoothly behind a pile of blue mats. He had no idea what they were good for, but they made excellent cover.

Of course, the voice had sounded familiar. But it took Sharpe a moment or two before he matched it with the girl's face. And oh, how conflicted he felt when he realized who had walked in on his moment of solitude.

"Clove!" The name was almost snarled. But he stepped out from behind cover, holding his rifle at the ready but not yet raising it to his shoulder.

If she'd known, Clove wouldn't have come over at all. Or, hell, if she could've figure it out even right then, she'd have slipped away, used the darkness as cover and ducked low. But she didn't have even the faintest idea. So, she stepped a bit closer, almost smiling. It wasn't quite there, not really, but she was more at ease than in Luceti.

Battle might not fill her with joy, not really, but it took everything else away. It gave her a sort of numbness that, to her, felt like it bordered on happiness. Because it made her useful.

Every knife was sheathed, and she held up her hands, just to reassure someone she took for an ally. "Just me." A few injuries on her and a lot of blood that wasn't hers. She hadn't really had time to sit down, find water to spare, and wash up. His tone of voice, she told herself, was just from the tension in the air, from the constant battles.

Katniss had insisted he shouldn't blame Clove. Begged, nearly. Or as close as the girl ever got to begging. So Sharpe did nothing immediately foolish, choosing instead to lay his finger lightly across his rifle's dark brown wood. No need to touch the trigger unless he had a real desire to fire. Discipline was key. Besides, he could always leave the thing cocked.

His boots sounded on the gym floor and he stepped into a shaft of moonlight that streamed in from a skylight. Every muscle remained tense. Every nerve screamed out to remind him that this one killed the other. Or -- worse -- allowed the other to kill herself.

"You alone?"

"Yeah. Cato and I decided to go our separate ways for a bit." She smiled a little more, approaching him by a few steps when he came into the moonlight. She saw the signs of tension, but they were mistaken for another cause. She had no idea that it was her presence making things at least a bit worse.

"Heard you, so I figured I'd check in. See how you were getting along so far."

And because the girl is a social creature. She can hunt and fight on her own, but she's used to the Career pack and to the Academy and to not really being alone, even if it was her idea to separate from her District partner.

"Well enough," he answered -- brief. Clipped. "You shouldn't be travelling without him, lass. These streets are dangerous tonight."

Sharpe could not even honestly untangle where one warning ended and a threat began. Indeed, he felt foolish for even this much ill-will, given how beholden he was to Katniss and how little she wanted him to behave this way. But he'd been slicing open bellies all bloody day long and it was hard to wash away the mood it left on his very shoulders.

Clove shrugged. "I can take care of myself."

She wouldn't admit she'd parted with Cato because then only she was to blame if something happened. Then she wouldn't be looking for him if she got cornered. She wouldn't be relying on him to save her.

She'd done that once. He hadn't come. Not in time.

So she'd prefer not to offer a second chance. Not to know that empty terror of screaming for someone who wasn't coming. Who couldn't help. Even though they'd promised.

"So can I, lass. But I still fight with men I trust."

Of course, he was woefully on his own tonight. No Harper. No Hagman. No Harris. No Perkins. No Cooper. Lossow; Vicente; Chase. Some dead and some simply absent.

"You two didn't quarrel, did you?" He asked -- curious, in spite of all his distaste.

"No," she replied. That was honest. She hadn't argued with Cato, for once. But the other part... She shrugged her shoulders. "But I don't trust him."

How could she? They were both from Panem, both understood the Games. They were Career tributes, ready to kill one another if it seemed in their best interests. She had no reason to doubt that.

"...You don't, do you?"

His voice was cool and devoid of much emotion. He wondered -- darkly -- whether Cato trusted her.

"Of course not."

She feels cold even as she says it. She's stated it a hundred times since her arrival here, but she feels the truth of it now, especially. In her mind especially, she is alone. She doesn't trust, and she isn't trusted. Because she's a Career, and trust either way is a dangerous, stupid thing.

"I pity the trustless soldier. For she--" he altered the pronoun at the last second "--is defeated before she even begins."

Cruel words, he concluded, for a girl already dead. But it only angered him further that Clove could have killed Katniss while possessing whatever knowledge she already had of being dead.

Christ! He wondered whether he'd kill differently, should he ever die in this awful place. The thought gave him a shiver.

"You don't win the Games by trusting your fellow tributes. There's only one Victor."

She knows she isn't in the Games now, and the Malnosso aren't the Gamemakers, but there are too many similarities, and she was raised to go to the Games. She was taught not to trust, to take pleasure in the hunt and the kill. Cooperation was a means to an end, a way to thin the numbers before the pack turned on itself and you fought to be the last one alive.

A year in this place hasn't undone eleven years of training.

...Is that why she'd done it? Sharpe desperately wanted to know why. How. Even though the answers were readily available to them should he only stop a moment and think the problem through. Nah, it was easier just to be angry.

"And you're lookin' to win now where you couldn't before, eh?"

Clove shrugs. She's endured worse questioning from other people, and she still held to the fact that he understood. Somewhat. He'd seen battle. They'd talked about that, that too few other people here understood what that was like.

"I want to survive, and the best way to do that," as far as she was able to function with, "is to kill what would kill me."

His rifle's nose raised by only inches. He still didn't dare bring it to his shoulder, but its temperamental twitching betrayed some unease in his very soul.

"Is that why you did it, eh? Was that all it was? Survival." He spat the word.

Clove sensed the danger. The movement of the rifle, the way he spoke. Predator and prey instincts alike chorused that she had to be careful. Yet, she couldn't fully understand, couldn't bring all the pieces together. Not yet.

"Why I did what?" He couldn't be talking about the cultists she'd killed today. But other than that... she wasn't sure. The Games? Possibly.

"...She tells me she once sang." Sharpe's voice grew -- in volume and in feeling. He didn't dare take a step forward, but simply stood in the moonlight. His soul was all a-tatters, for it wasn't only Katniss's plea that stayed his hand. He was never one to abide by murdering women and children; however, it was hard to think of Clove as anything but another soldier. Her duality troubled him. It kept him reserved and cautious.

And his tone turned so very sad. "Never even had the bloody chance to hear it. But I bet she sings like a pretty little bird. You took that from her."

She sang. Who? What did singing have to do with it? What was he talking about? She knew about death penalties, technically, but they'd never been something she thought about, and she and Katniss had never discussed that day in the forest. She'd never found out what the other girl lost.

So, she's genuinely lost. And all the more nervous for her ignorance. "From who? What are you talking about?"

Had it meant so little to her--? Sharpe growled. He thought of all the murderers he'd ever known, and all the murders he had himself committed. And he knew it was wrong to hold this girl above the absolution he'd given to others. But dammit...

"Katniss, lass. She used to sing before you killed her."

Katniss.

The change was immediate. Whatever color and humor had been in Clove's face vanished at once. Her eyes widened, and her breathing became shallow. Every muscle tensed, her eyes flicked to his gun, and her fingers touched the hilt of the hunting knife at her side.

She saw it again, somewhere past him. The arrow grazing her face, felt the blood run down it. Registered the threat and lunged, taking Twelve down with her. They'd fought, brutal and hard, in the dirt and the leaves. And then, for an impossible moment, they'd both gone still, and Twelve was under her. Then a stab. Two. Three. On and on even after the girl was dead. Because it was her or Twelve. Because if she stopped or hesitated or spoke, Thresh would be there to grab her, to kill her.

Clove took a slow step back. To break into a run now might make that gun fire, and she didn't trust her chances. But, oh, she was ready to run. There was nothing in those eyes but fear. Because someone knew. Someone who wasn't bound by their truce, who was a friend of Katniss. Someone who wouldn't care if she lived or died.

"Katniss."

It didn't manage to be empty. Mostly, she was afraid. But there was a bit of anger and even a bit of hurt. Had she trusted Katniss? She realized now, staring at this man who knew, that she had. That she'd trusted it to be their secret. Even Cato didn't know. But someone knew now.

Well. She tried to steel herself. If he was going to kill her... she'd meet it like a tribute. She wouldn't scream, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't surrender. She'd fight.

"Katniss."

The name had no been said three times. And each one drove the belated grief deeper into his heart. It was difficult to mourn a person you met only after they had died. Even more difficult still to mourn two -- for Clove deserved some portion of his sadness. Didn't she? Sharpe watched the Career retreat by a step and he restrained himself from advancing. But -- dammit -- he wanted to claim that uncontested ground between the pair of them.

Violence bubbled in his veins, but it found itself without an outlet. For Clove sounded just a little frightened. Little enough to check his primal thirst for vengeance. Little enough to remind him of honour and of forgiveness. He dragged in a deep and ragged breath.

And then something clicked. Snapped. Broke and shuddered through his concentration. Without a second's loss, he hauled the rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked familiarly back into his shoulder and the barrel cracked hot smoke and quick death. And although the bullet spun past Clove's head, he hadn't missed. For he hadn't been aiming for the girl. Instead, a Cultist footsoldier was thrown back from the shot's impact. Brains and blood sprayed a gruesome mess on the gymnasium wall.

The enemy had infiltrated his paltry shelter as he and she had stared each other down, not quite arguing. Sharpe amazed himself with how quick he'd responded to a threat he hadn't been watching for. Ganondorf's magic, he supposed.

"There could be others," he growled -- practically ordering the girl to his side. A girl he thought he might in fact now despise

The crack of the gun has Clove sink down and shift forward, an instinctive posture of prey and predator combined, ready to run or fight. But the target wasn't her, and that somehow frightens her more. Because something had been coming from behind. Because she's been distracted. Something that easily might have killed her. Something large, and--

Sharpe's voice brought her out of the Games, out of the lingering fear of Thresh, but it also doused her again with her very new, very real fear -- him.

There could be others. There could be a lot more. Coming this way. Drawn by the noise. One, two steps back, then a quick turn and she's bolted, moving as fast as she can and with as jagged a pattern as she can to put as much distance as she's able to between herself and that building. Between her and the man who might have decided to kill her.

He had a similar thought, aware that the rifle's report would bring chaos down on his head. He slung the longarm over his shoulder and instead rewarded his surroundings with the sound of metal dragging 'gainst his sword's scabbard's throat. Out came the blade like some great cleaver in the dark: a sword made for heavy cavalry and not for infantrymen, but someone so tall as Sharpe could wield it with aggressive ease. It did not exist for fine swordsmanship; it was a killer's instrument.

But he was not in a killing mindset when he gave chase to the retreating Clove. Rather, he had half a mind to keep an eye out for the girl. She must be spooked, now. And it didn't matter how bloody good a soldier was, Sharpe believed they all made mistakes when they were spooked.

And with any luck, he could cut down some enemies as he chased.

Clove heard the footsteps behind her, and she couldn't shake them. She wasn't able to climb like Twelve, to vanish like the girl from Eleven. She wasn't as clever as Five had been. She wasn't even as fast as some of them. She could sprint, yes, but of even the Careers... Glimmer had been the fast one. Long legs, longer than Clove's. Not that she was slow, no. She'd been taught speed and stamina, but it didn't feel like enough, especially in an environment that wasn't forest and land. She couldn't run here like she did in the forest.

So, at some point, the flight instinct... It didn't even die. It just stopped. Maybe it coincided with her deciding to be a tribute from a Career district. If he was going to kill her... Why die running?

That's when she stops, grabs a knife from her vest and turns to throw it. This one isn't supposed to hit. It's the same as she did for Katniss in the forest, when she fired her first arrow. A warning throw. Close enough to be noticed. Controlled enough to make it clear the next one won't miss.

The next one she already has in her hand, while her other touches the large knife at her hip. One throw, maybe two, she thinks. Then a charge. Or reaction if he keeps charging. Get the knife out, go for the chest and throat.

Just like Katniss.

She steels herself, watching, her fingers adjusting their grip to be ready to throw the second knife. The fear's still in her eyes, but it's been replaced by something else. Something more dangerous. In fear for her life, she'll fight to the death for it.

TERRACE Draft - Remaining Days

Night 2

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