#Zalea can take his job!

[wreywrites]

Tiger Shark

Part 5: The Net

Chapter 30

“We thought it was rain!” Johanna splutters as Finnick dunks her again, partly to wash her off, and partly to keep her and Katniss apart as Katniss helps scrub off Nuts and Volts.

Wiress keeps saying “Tick, tock. Tick, tock,” and it’s already driven Johanna up the mast, so we have separated them.

Johanna hauls in a breath as she pops above the surface. “You know, because of the lightning, and we were all so thirsty.”

This time Finnick lets her finish her sentence before dunking her.

She comes up again. She is looking cleaner. “But when it started coming down, it turned out to be blood.” She scratches her fingernails along her scalp, scrubbing more blood out of her hair. “Thick, hot blood.” Johanna takes a deep breath before Finnick pushes her under again. She comes back up and goes on without missing a beat. “You couldn’t see, you couldn’t speak without getting a mouthful.” She goes under again, then comes up again. “We just staggered around, trying to get out of it.” She pauses, staring off over my shoulder at the trees. “That’s when Blight hit the force field.”

“Johanna…” But I don’t know what else to say.

“I’m sorry, Johanna,” Finnick says.

“Yeah, well,” she blinks hard, “he wasn’t much, but he was from home.” She sucks in a huge breath and plunges back under water. She stays down there a long time. She finally emerges, gasping for air, but looking clean and determined, pushing back the hair that has come loose from her ponytail. “And he left me alone with these two.” She waves a dismissive hand at Nuts and Volts, but there is something else in her eyes.

Johanna knows. She knows what I don’t know. What Katniss doesn’t know she doesn’t know.

“I got them out.” Johanna turns to Finnick. “I did my job. I’m in the alliance—right?” She looks desperate.

Finnick nods. “Yeah. You’re in, Johanna. You’re with us.”

She looks at me and opens her mouth, but Finnick shakes his head.

“Come on,” he says, “let’s go get some food.”

Katniss has cleaned up Wiress while Alvan and Cecelia have patched up Beetee’s back. We all sit in the shade as the sun rises higher and higher, Finnick and Haymitch catching Johanna up on the last twenty-four hours of our lives.

“So that’s why you all look like lizards.” Johanna smiles a little.

I raise my eyebrows, but Alvan, who is relaxing in the sun, chuckles. “I’ll bet we do. All scaly ’n’ dappled ’n’ green. Start peelin’ soon with any luck.”

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

I must fall asleep again, because I am woken up by Katniss shaking me. If I look anything like her, I do look like a lizard.

“It’s a clock!” she keeps saying, over and over, while behind her Nuts repeats “Tick, tock. Tick, tock.”

When Katniss has roused us all, she starts talking a million miles a minute.

The arena is a clock. Lightning strikes at noon and midnight. Johanna’s blood rain in the next wedge from one o’clock to two, then the poison fog, then the monkeys, and at ten there is the wave that carried away our poor wretched jumpsuits.

The wave that carried away Zalea and Tychus. The wave that drowned the boy from Three. The wave that broke the boy from Twelve’s treehouse. The wave that swept me to victory.

The wave that washed away the old Annie, whose flippers I have never been able to fill. She left me a house and a father and friends, a closet full of green dresses, a picture frame that shows the laugh of a boy I will never see again, a nickname I can never live up to.

My foot scrapes against something that isn’t sand. I inhale sharply.

“Careful there,” comes Alvan’s easy voice from behind me.

Without really thinking, I nod, focusing on my feet. We are walking along one of the rocky spokes toward the cornucopia. Ahead of me, Cecelia is guiding Wiress forward, and beyond them is Johanna, then Haymitch, leading the way.

I don’t remember how we got here, or why we are going to the cornucopia. I’m not even sure we’re going to the cornucopia, but I don’t know what our destination might be if that’s not it.

I feel incredibly validated when we stop in the mouth of the cornucopia. At least I figured that out by myself. And I walked myself here. Those are achievements.

Katniss sets Nuts to cleaning the congealed blood off Volts’s coil of wire while the rest of us pick through the weapons that are still in the cornucopia. I notice Finnick and Haymitch making a conscious but subtle effort to keep Johanna and Katniss as far away from each other as possible.

I understand that. If Katniss is going to snap and kill any of us, it’ll be Johanna. They rub each other the wrong way, and yet Johanna went through all the work to bring Nuts and Volts to us, practically pleading to join the alliance. The unwelcome thought crosses my mind that, when this alliance breaks, as it will have to eventually, I will take Johanna’s side. We’ve been friends for three years now and I’m not about to let that go.

They are talking about canaries in coal mines and Wiress is singing while she scrubs the wire and Cecelia is checking Beetee’s back again. Haymitch and Alvan look around at the jungle, hilariously similar in their mannerisms, each with a hand on their waist as they use the other to point and gesture.

And then someone screams.

“Alvan!”

His head whips around.

My gaze follows, too slowly, only in time to see a knife thunk into Wiress’s chest. The boom of the cannon almost masks Beetee’s sorrowful groan, but there is no time to focus on Nuts’s death.

Cashmere is sprinting up the stony spoke in front of us, reaching for another knife. Behind her thunder Brutus, Gloss, and the woman from Nine, whose name escapes me but who I remember Beck telling me to stay away from.

Cashmere throws another knife, but Haymitch shoves Katniss to the side just in time. The knife grazes his shoulder but does no further damage.

Katniss has an arrow on the string and just as quickly it is gone, but Cashmere didn’t win by being stupid. She dives to the side, into the water, and the arrow hisses past where she was just a second ago and buries itself in Brutus’s thigh.

The cannon booms again and I have no idea who is dead. Before I can even puzzle out if another member of the alliance might have been killed, the ground jerks beneath my feet.

The arena is spinning like a merry-go-round. Or maybe just the cornucopia. I cling to the sand for dear life. Then, just as quickly as it started, the spinning stops. I have always hated merry-go-rounds. Laying on the ground, I hear the others sound off, get slowly to their feet, raise their voices in a panic.

“The wire! Where’s the wire?”

By the time I have eased myself upright, still a little dizzy, Katniss is climbing out of the water, hauling the coil of wire. Cecelia sits next to Alvan, whose head is between his knees, his shoulders shaking. Johanna helps me to my feet. Finnick is slapping Beetee’s back the best he can without hitting his wound. Beetee coughs up some water and Finnick nods.

Haymitch’s head looks like it’s on a swivel as he looks here and there, every which way. “Where the hell…?”

“Can we leave now?” Johanna says, that familiar bored annoyance creeping back into her voice.

“Sure thing.” Haymitch rolls his eyes. “Which wedge would you like to go to?”

“The lightning tree,” Katniss says. “That way we have plenty of time to rest up and plan while we know we’re safe.”

“Yeah, of course. Just tell me which way that is,” Haymitch drawls sarcastically.

Johanna, Finnick, and I start off in three different directions. I glance back to see Alvan pointing in a fourth, and Cecelia looking around in wild confusion. Katniss frowns, looking around at the identical wedges of the arena.

“Thought so,” Haymitch says.

“Twelve o’clock, right?” Alvan says, still pointing in the direction the tail of the cornucopia faces. “The tail points at twelve.”

“Before they spun us. I was judging by the sun,” Finnick tries to defend himself.

At least they were being logical about it. I had just gone with my gut.

“The sun only tells you it’s going on four, Finnick,” Katniss says.

“I think Katniss’s point is, knowing the time doesn’t mean you necessarily know where four is on the clock. You might have a general idea of the direction. Unless you consider that they may have shifted the outer ring of jungle as well,” Beetee says thoughtfully.

We have lost our advantage, and we can’t even follow the tracks that Cashmere, Gloss, Brutus, and Nine might have left, because they have either been blown or washed away. Which reminds me…

“The second cannon,” I say quietly.

Alvan slumps again.

Cecelia smiles sadly. “It was Kivvie. She must have seen them coming and yelled to warn us. Enobaria…” She trails off. “We owe her at least some of our lives.”

Haymitch nods.

“But we’re still lost.” Katniss’s question seems self-serving, almost crass, but on her face is a deep respect and something bordering on sorrow.

Beetee shakes his head. “Only temporarily. At ten, we’ll see the wave again and be back on track.”

“Unless we’re in the wave section. Then we’ll all be dead.” Katniss glances at me and then at Finnick. “Well, most of us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Johanna says impatiently. “We’ll stay right on the beach if that makes everyone feel better. Then we have a fighting chance, even with the wave.” She almost smiles at me. “You might just pull it off again. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”

“Something like that,” I say. “I don’t want to have to do it though.”

Johanna shrugs. “Well, I need water. What’s the plan?”

So we pick a random direction. By the time we reach the beach, we are fairly sure that it’s the monkey hour, and we don’t see any of them in the trees, so we decide to risk it. Katniss taps a tree while Alvan stands guard and Finnick weaves yet another water basket while I strip vines for him.

The work is mindless, and I find myself thinking over our time in the arena. Not in the way that usually happens, where I fade out and listen to the screams from my Games, but in a conscious, curious, confused way. Why do we have such a huge alliance? Why did Johanna risk her life just to bring Katniss Nuts and Volts? Why is Cecelia patching all of us up, making sure we are bandaged and our wounds clean and non-debilitating when she could get rid of half of us by leaving us to bleed out? Why have Finnick and I been catching enough shellfish to feed six to nine people instead of letting the others starve? Why did Kivvie condemn herself to death at Enobaria’s hands to warn us the Careers were coming when she could have been several people closer to victory by not shouting? Why did Haymitch put himself in the path of Cashmere’s knife to move Katniss-

Oh.

We are keeping Katniss alive.

We. Like I’m in on it. Everyone except me is keeping Katniss alive. I look at Finnick. He has that same look he always gets when he’s concentrating.

He glances up at me and grins, then goes back to work.

No. I know that smile. He might not know it yet, but everyone is keeping Katniss alive except for Finnick, who never lets me out of his sight. Who is going out of his way to make sure no one tells me what’s going on. Who is doing everything he can to keep me fed and watered and safe and well-rested. Who will jump ship the minute this plan puts me in too much danger.

But now I know, so I will fight all the harder. I will not let him jump ship. And I will stay with him.

Finnick has finished his basket and hands it to Katniss to fill with water. She takes it, and it is half-full when I hear the high, blood-curdling scream.

Katniss drops the basket, the water spilling everywhere, and runs.

“Wait, Katniss!” Finnick is after her like a shot, calling over his shoulder, “Stay there!” Then he disappears into the trees, still shouting, “Katniss, no! Come back!”

I stay by Alvan. He yanks the spile from the tree and hangs it around his neck.

The same scream echoes through the trees again but worse, so much worse, and Alvan bolts. But not before I can see the realization in his eyes. I run after him.

“No! No, wait!” Alvan shouts, sprinting through the trees down the trail of destruction the other two leave in their wake. “Katniss, come back, they’re-!”

I don’t find out what they are. The scream falls silent.

“Katniss?” Alvan calls cautiously.

There is another scream. Not the little girl. I recognize its beginnings from one day, many summers ago, swimming north of the pier, where sometimes there were jellyfish and we weren’t always careful enough, but now it grows far beyond that. This is worse. So much worse. It is a tortured scream I have never heard before, and one I will never hear again, but I am eighteen again and Mako’s head falls to the ground.

I am running, chasing the sound as it drags on and on. I slam into someone, scramble back to my feet, look wildly around for the source of the scream.

And then Mako’s scream is cut mercifully, horribly short.

“Annie!” Finnick has both hands on my shoulders. “Annie, it’s just a-”

Jade screams. And Coral. And Dad.

Finnick is still talking, trying to keep me here, explain what’s going on. But he has forgotten one thing: I can still take him in a fight. And they are hurting everyone I love.

I rip my arms away from him and run.

Somewhere Rizz is screaming. Mr. and Mrs. Silther. Beck. Mags.

A bird swoops by my head, Jade’s shrill wail of pain following it. An arrow strikes the bird. It falls to the ground, and the scream falls silent.

Other people are screaming. Little kids. A man I don’t know. Someone that sounds like Alvan but isn’t quite.

I look at the bird.

And then I notice the others. The trees are full of them. And every time they open their beaks, a piercing shriek comes out.

All four of us are running, crashing through the jungle, back the way we came. The birds follow. There are Johanna and Cecelia, their mouths moving in shouts we can’t hear over the birds, gesturing at us to stop.

Katniss and Finnick bounce off thin air like birds bouncing off a clean window. I have no time to stop, slamming into a clear wall and falling back onto the ground. The birds are everywhere. What I would give to fade out now. Anything would be better than the screams. I clamp my hands around my ears. I can still hear them. Dad and Coral and Jade and Rizz and I am screaming too.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

“And while we waited for Beck to come back with the ice, we tried to scare off the gulls.”

He sounds horrible.

If the audience didn’t know before, they do now. I am curled against Finnick, hands clamped over my ears, throat raw from my screams. He is sitting against a tree, both arms around me, talking quietly. Some story about catching a big swordfish and not having a good way to store it.

Slowly, I move my hands and look up at him.

His eyes are scared but he smiles anyway. “Hey,” he whispers.

“Finnick,” I rasp, barely holding back a sob. “They hurt them.”

“No.” It’s Johanna’s voice, quiet behind me.

Katniss is in hysterics not far away. The little kids must have been for her. I don’t know anyone younger than me who isn’t in the arena. And Finnick… I’m right here. For a horrible moment I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Mags was in the arena instead of me. But I don’t have to wonder from how tightly he’s holding me. They would have been my screams, not Coral and Jade and Dad. Not Mako. Just me.

Beetee is talking. Something about how easy it is to take any recording of a person’s voice and distort it into those pained screams. How the jabberjays were repeating sounds that have never been real, never been made by the people they were mimicking. But it’s too late. It did what it was supposed to.

Haymitch and Cecelia are sitting next to Alvan as he rocks back and forth on the sand.

“Finnick-”

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he whispers, voice hoarse, pulling me against his chest and kissing my forehead. “I’ve got you. Stay with me.”

I nod. Then it hits me, really hits me. They know now. Not just Snow and his inner circle whose job is to spy on victors and keep up on everything about us—but the audience. Not just Marius and Dalia. All of Panem. Does it matter? If this plan to keep Katniss alive hinged on no one knowing, he could have left me in Johanna’s care, or even with Haymitch. But he didn’t. He’s here.

“Stay with me.”

I shrink against him, tapping on his stomach. Thought they weren’t supposed to find out. Haymitch-

Doesn’t matter now. We’re getting out.

It takes focus to not react to that. I start to tap back, but he beats me to it. Can’t explain. Stay with me. I love you.

I love you too.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

There is a cannon later that afternoon, and the hovercraft has to pick up five separate pieces of whoever it was.

After the anthem plays, we find out it was Seeder. The other two deaths today were Wiress and Kivvie.

Are there really only seven of us dead? I can’t bring myself to voice the question, and before I can dwell on it too long, a parachute floats down. Haymitch, unprompted and unteased this time, grabs it and opens the basket to reveal lots of small rolls of bread. Sadly, they are not cream cheese rolls.

“They’re from my district,” Beetee says, looking up at the spot where they projected the dead tributes. No doubt he is mourning Wiress. No doubt all of Three is mourning her. Hence the rolls.

But there are a lot of them.

“Twenty-four,” Finnick says.

“Three each.” Johanna nods appreciatively.

So we each eat three of the rolls with our oysters and sit on the beach until the ten o’clock waves rolls down. Then we pack up and move to that slice of beach.

Alvan speaks for the first time since the jabberjays, but only to say quietly that he’ll take the watch.

The rest of us settle in for the night. I curl up on the sand, feet toward the water so I can see the length of the beach and trees sprawling in front of me until the curve of the shore takes it away. Sleep, however, evades me. I lay awake, staring blankly ahead, for a long time, listening to Haymitch and Beetee and Johanna talk about something. Their words are lost in the roar of the wave and the thunder of the buffalo herd.

There is a thump and a huff behind me.

I start to roll over, but an arm slips around my waist and Finnick says, ���Just me.”

I frown. “Wh-?”

“They already know,” he mumbles. He’s already falling asleep. “So I’m getting a good night’s sleep.”

Hard to argue with that logic.

****

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Tag List:

@avoxrising @snow-dragon-rider @anakins-ride-or-die

[wayfinderlegacy]

Sorrel: Scourge is too tall for me to kiss him on the lips. What should I do?

Zalea: Punch him in the stomach. Then, when he’s doubled over in pain, kiss him.

T7: Sorrel = Tackle // Lord Scourge = Kissed

Doc: Dump him.

Kira: Kick him in the shin!

Scourge: No to all of those! Just ask me to lean down!!

[wreywrites]

Tiger Shark

Part 2: The Sea

Chapter 9

It is cloudy when I wake up. The day is gray, and I wonder how late I have slept. Stitch is already awake, as is Elsie, who I suspect also got to sleep all night, given how long Zalea must have kept watch. I get up and move to their side of the fire so we can talk without disturbing the others.

Stitch quietly catches me up. “I was already awake when Mako went to get Elsie up, so I told him I would take over. She woke up not long after that anyway.”

“Was already gettin’ light,” Elsie says.

“How long ago was that?”

Stitch shrugs, but Elsie says, “Couple hours, probably.”

“The weather isn’t going to mess things up, is it?” I say. I don’t know anything about buffalo or causing stampedes, so I feel this is a valid concern.

Elsie shakes her head. “If the weather was bad I’d be worried, but it’s just cloudy. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

The others wake before long.

“Let me guess,” Zalea says, “Buffalo for breakfast?”

In response, a parachute floats down and lands in my lap. I open the basket and can’t help but smile at the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls. I pull one out and take a bite. They’re even warm. I owe Finnick and my sponsors big time if I get out of here alive. “Looks like it’s your turn to be Finnick’s favorite,” I grin at Mako, holding up the cinnamon roll with one hand and passing the basket to Stitch.

“About time,” Mako snorts.

“How do y’all do that?” Elsie says, taking her roll from the basket. “All we’ve gotten is some tablets for water ’cause our backpacks didn’t have any.”

Zalea snorts. “You’ve seen these two, right? Know their scores, watched their interviews, all that stuff? If I lived in the Capitol I’d sponsor them too. And I wouldn’t be complaining about just getting tablets if I were you-” Zalea takes a roll, “-without water you’re dead already.”

“Besides,” I say, “It’s not like we’re getting spoiled. He literally told us he would send us a little something every day to remember him by. He’s just taking care of the crew.”

“Something to remember him by?” Zalea is back to being her snippy self. “Sounds like Finnick Odair to me. Whose head didn’t you turn?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that? Last I checked, he’s my mentor and it’s his job to send us stuff.”

“Just that you’ve got Gloss all over you, and Finnick sending you desserts, and sponsors lined up because they’re in love with you, and your boyfriend has to sit here through it all because he had the misfortune of getting reaped with you-”

“Okay,” Merritt cuts her off. “Let’s just appreciate the breakfast ’n’ get on with our day.”

“Please,” Mako says.

“You’re right. The sooner we go, the sooner we get done, the sooner we can split up again,” Zalea snaps.

We finish breakfast in silence. Merritt divides up the rest of the jerky while Elsie buries what’s left of the fire.

Merritt walks us through the details as we dress in our buffalo hides.

“Everyone knows the bird whistle, right? Good. I’ll lead, ’n’ Elsie’ll take tail. We go single file, ’n’ when I whistle like this-” he gives a four-note call, “-the last person stops where they are. Stay low ’n’ wait for the signal. Elsie ’n’ Annie’ll be on the close flank, then Stitch ’n’ Mako in the back, ’n’ me ’n’ Zalea’ll take the far flank. Once we’re all in position, I’ll whistle like this-” he gives two sharp whistles, “-then we go. Lose the ponchos, shout, run at the herd, spook ’em into a stampede, ’n’ keep ’em runnin’ at the cornucopia. They’ll do all the hard work for us.”

Mako hides our one revealed backpack up a tree. None of the others know about the cave, or that this is where we’d made our camp and planned on staying for the foreseeable future, so I simply say, “We’ll come back this way after it’s done.”

No one argues. Stitch says something about forest, which doesn’t eliminate much of the arena, but I think that’s the point, and Zalea says she found a water hole on the other side of the arena.

“We’ve been wanderin’ since the beginning, ’n’ I think we’ll keep doin’ just that.” Merritt glances at Elsie. She nods.

We double-check the area to make sure we haven’t left anything valuable behind, but everyone has picked up their possessions and stowed them in their backpacks, which make the other four look even bulkier than the ponchos alone. Weapons in hand, we follow Merritt through the little tree patch and onto the plain.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

We walk in silence, not wanting to alert anything or anyone to our presence. I’m glad it’s cloudy, because I couldn’t imagine doing this walk in the hot sun wearing a furry poncho. The poncho’s making things uncomfortably warm enough.

I am just starting to wish I had brought one of our water bottles along when we crest a low hill and I see them. The hulking shapes of buffalo, spread in front of us, grazing peacefully. A few of them look up, but they must not perceive us as a threat; they go right back to grazing. Merritt leads us alongside the herd for a while before whistling. The next signal will be for me.

We walk another hundred yards and Merritt whistles again. I stop. Kneeling in the grass, I slowly turn so I am facing the glint of the cornucopia in the distance. I hear Merritt whistle again, this time leaving Stitch. I set my spear down. I can’t take the poncho off while holding it. Merritt whistles and Mako is in place. I lift up the bottom of the poncho as high as I dare without revealing myself. A breeze flutters through the gap, providing some relief from the heat. Another whistle. Zalea is ready. At the next signal, we run. I take a deep breath, let myself sink into the same mindset as I had at the cornucopia when the Games started.

Two sharp whistles cut through the quietly rustling grass. I let out a roar and throw off my poncho, grabbing my spear as I surge to my feet. In front of me, Elsie is whooping and shouting. The buffalo panic. For a horrible second, they run away from Elsie and me, but Merritt and Zalea turn them back and then we are all running.

I feel a surge of adrenaline as we race through the grass. The buffalo are not fast, but they are faster than us, and they are terrified. I can see it in their tossing heads and rolling eyes. We run with them, and there is something joyful about it. For a moment I feel truly free, the way I feel when we take the sailboat out and I climb up the mast and I can see forever. I am laughing and whooping and oddly I want this run to go on forever, to run until my legs just can’t anymore, to-

Something heavy slams into me, knocking me to the side, Dazed, I struggle to regain my balance. The buffalo are drifting to the side, toward Elsie and I, and one of them drifted right into me.

Elsie has noticed this as well. She is running faster now. I sprint after her, watching to see what she does. Then, she veers into the herd. The buffalo next to her throws its huge head and swerves away from her, pushing several others. Just as sharply, Elsie veers safely away from the stampede. After a few seconds, she does it again. I decide to copy her, and slowly, we turn them, just in time for the herd to slam into the cornucopia.

Just like the last time I was here, there is utter chaos. The buffalo tear through piles of supplies. I hear screaming somewhere. The dull clanging of massive, unstoppable creatures slamming into the metal sides of the cornucopia seems to come from everywhere at once. I hear the cannon sound once, then a second time. Someone is shouting. An arrow whistles by my cheek.

“Run! Run!” Zalea is shouting.

Someone grabs my arm. I whip around to see Mako pulling me away.

There is another scream.

“Elsie!” Merritt shouts.

I turn back toward the chaos. Most of the buffalo have scattered. Among the wreckage there is not a scrap of salvageable food. There are two bodies on the ground. Elsie joins them, the blade of Jilly’s scythe slicing her throat.

I barely hear the cannon. What I do hear is a wordless raging scream from Merritt. He throws himself at Jilly and we are all transfixed. Jilly is deadly, but Merritt is enraged. He has no fear. The pair exchange a flurry of blows before Merritt gets too close for the long scythe to be effective. He stabs Jilly, up under the ribs, just like Alvan and Cally. She drops. The cannon booms.

And then Merritt sinks to his knees, an arrow in his chest. The four of us who are left scatter. I sprint through the grass, going back the way we came, my only thought is that I can’t lead whoever is left of the Careers back to our camp.

The cannon sounds again. Mako is sprinting beside me. We do not slow down until we have gone up a low hill and down the other side. We are perhaps halfway back to where we started the stampede. Mako collapses into the grass. I drop to my knees beside him, sides heaving. I can only hope no one is chasing us, because there is no fight we could win.

It takes a long time to catch my breath. When I am finally breathing at a semi-normal pace, I creep back up the hill to see if anything is still happening. It is so quiet in the arena, I can almost make out the words that the four surviving members of the Career pack are shouting at each other. Almost, but not quite. I’m too far away to be able to tell who is still alive. I know Tychus is, but beyond him I have no way of knowing. I didn’t pay enough attention to the two bodies that were stampeded to death, I guess. Silly me.

I crawl back down the hill to Mako.

“Any idea?” he says quietly.

I shake my head. “Tychus. At least one girl, probably two, from the shouting, but I couldn’t tell which ones. And I could only see four of them, but who knows.”

He gets to his feet, slowly. “We should get back to the cave. They’ll be out for blood.”

“They got it,” I say hoarsely, “Elsie and Merritt…”

“They knew the risks. It was their plan. But we need to get somewhere safe, in case the pack tries to hunt down the rest of us. They saw us, Annie, they know who was in on it. We need to-”

The cannon stops him short.

We sit in silence for a long time.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

“Let’s go get the ponchos,” I say finally.

Mako nods, and as the sun creeps low toward the horizon, we walk through the trampled grass until we find the first discarded poncho. I trail my fingers through the rough hair, saying a silent goodbye to Elsie. We find my poncho a hundred yards beyond. I put it on. The sun is nearly down and already it is getting cold. We hurry to find Mako’s, then, cold and exhausted, we curl up under them and listen to the anthem play. Then they show the pictures. Andromeda from Two, the boys from Seven and Nine, Jilly, Merritt, and Elsie.

“That was worse than the bloodbath,” Mako says quietly.

I nod. “Do you think they’ll find us if we just sleep here for tonight?”

Mako looks around. There are already a handful of buffalo drifting in. “No. And if they do, we’ll have an early warning system.”

I take the first watch, staying up as long as I can. It doesn’t feel long enough, but I can barely keep my eyes open, so I wake Mako.

I dream that I am being chased by buffalo, but their faces are human. Farroe, Tychus, Andromeda, Jilly, Megary Fallon…

****

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[airheadandco]

Polysemy confusion

“You know what confuses me?”

The question had come from nowhere. 

Zalea tried to ignore it as she hid from the rubble elemental scanning the room, looking for the hidden equines. All Zalea wanted was for the kitchen to be useable again, as it was still half destroyed after that whole fire nation debacle. Of course Airhead had used his magic and of course, it had backfired.

On the bright side, the kitchen was now somewhat repaired. On the dark side, the former rubble wandered around looking for somepony to vent its frustration. Airhead telling it that its birth had been an accident may have made things worse. 

The situation was bad and Zalea was not in the mood for inane questions… There were at least a thousand different answers anyway.

“Dates confuse me. Why are they called like that?”

“Now’s not the time,” the Zebra said through gritted teeth, pulling Airhead out of their hideout to another, closer to the exit.

“Yes but how can you be sure?” he continued, unphased. “If I say, ‘it’s a nice date’, I may very well be talking about the fruit or the time…”

“Oh for the love of… You can pick up the sense from context! Now hush, the golem is coming this way…”

“No! This confusion will not stand!” the stallion shouted. 

If the golem had not heard the scream of indignation, it probably heard the sound of Zalea facehooving. The unicorn gathered his magic and Zalea instinctively went in front of him to protect him. The yellow glow of Airhead’s magic filled the room, more and more intense. Zalea closed her eyes as the light became blinding. When she opened them, the Golem was wearing a shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Behind it, there were two heavy-looking pieces of luggage, made of stone. It and Airhead were casually discussing its future and job prospects.

“What?” Zalea let out.

“Well, dad, mom…” the golem said with a hint of sadness in its voice, “I think it’s time for me to go… Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t mention it, Champion. You do us proud okay?”

“I will dad,” the rubble creature said, hugging the unicorn tightly. He turned toward the zebra and waved at her from afar. “Goodbye, mom. Take good care of dad.”

The golem took its luggage and left the room. Zalea said nothing, but she could clearly see the sand in its eyes.

“They grow up so fast…” the unicorn said, wiping away a teardrop.

“What happened?” Zalea asked tiredly, well aware that the answer would likely make her even more tired.

“Well, I apparently failed to get rid of dates and got rid of dates instead… So the golem moved directly to the point in time where its ready to move out of our house.”

“Wait you got rid of dates?”

“No! I told you I failed…”

The zebra sighed and massaged her temple, sensing a massive headache coming. “What type of date did you erase?”

“The convenient way to pinpoint your location in time relative to the planet you’re living on.”

“How did you even do that?” she screamed.

The unicorn shrugged.

She sighed again. “Okay. Okay. Let’s think… is it permanent?”

“Oh no don’t worry! Those dates are social constructs! They’re easily remade.. unlike fruit dates… “

“So what happens?”

“Nothing much I guess… People will be really confused about which day it is for a while, then they’ll probably just remake calendars or things like that.”

“You know what? I’ll accept it and I won’t ask questions.At least we have our kitchen again.”

At these words, she left the room, closely followed by a beaming Airhead.

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