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Death and Discontent
updated 10 years, 6 months ago
15 Members
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50
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Blood was everywhere in the arena. That couldn’t be helped. Neither could all the inevitable deaths that followed. Sarion didn’t blink an eye as he watched combatants fall one after the other, like dominoes. He almost smiled at that. Once it began all one could do was let the dominoes fall. He was never one to fight tings he couldn’t control, so thinking of the arena as a massive game of dominoes put his mind at ease. Soon his domino would be stood up and he would be forced to fight in the arena.
Fighting always made his stomach twist. A pained cry dealt by his hand always made him cringe. Worse yet was his insatiable hunger. The flesh of the fallen always tasted so delicious, but he couldn’t help feeling disgusted at himself afterward. It was a strange circumstance that he couldn’t explain. Sarion was a demon, born to fight and to kill. They were the only two things he was good at, though he never got the chance to try other things, but he assumed he would fail at them. He was always told a demon couldn’t feel compassion. However, he always hated the cruel nature of being a demon. When he fought it was his mind shut down. He acted on only instinct. He always told himself it was like that for all his kind, but he always wondered if it was because he simply couldn’t handle the carnage if his mind was awake to process it. No, it had to be the former. That was the way of things and that couldn’t be changed. Could it?
The warlocks began walking by the group of awaiting fighters, inspecting which they were going to throw to the wolves next. In some cases, literally. One of the warlocks stopped in front of Sarion and roughly pulled the young demon to his feet. It was time to enter the arena once more, to find out if he was the next domino in the chain.
“Let the blood fall where it may,” he muttered to himself, void of all emotion.
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A warlock shook Kel’s shoulder, much more violently than he could have, Kel thought. “Come on,” snapped the warlock, and practically dragged Kel out of his cell and into the arena. Kel had barely any time to react before he was placed in front of a boy with literally spiky hair, blue skin, and slit-pupil grey-blue eyes.
“H-hello -” he stammered before the guard hit him with a sharp blow to the back of the head that left him seeing stars. “No time for pleasantries, boy. You end up just hugging it out, the crowd sure won’t be pleased. Get on with it.”
I wasn’t built for this, Kel thought desperately, the reality of the situation hitting him like a twenty-foot boulder. He hadn’t even watched the other fighters’ tactics, too caught up in their bloodlust, their complete lack of aversion to murder. Heck, he hadn’t even fought a single battle yet. Staring up at his enemy, who was at least half a foot taller than him, Kel wondered how, even back on the streets, he had ever expected to survive.
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((Can I post in a new area, like elsewhere while it was going on or does it have to be arena related?))
{{ Admin speaking: I’ll make a new chapter for the aftermath of the fights and for everyone to go their sesperate ways in a little while. Sit tight. }} -
((Hello and welcome to: “tartarus tries desperately to segue all of the running plots together into one scene”))
((Also, ice demon guy, i guess that the lion you’re fighting is a NPC now, so you can describe his actions and fate in the fight))
So they really were going to wait until someone was sent out from the audience. The warlocks guarding the dragon girl in the main field stood watching the audience like hawks, ready to grab anyone that happened to be pushed forward. Not a human of course, but everyone knew that plenty of feral strangers came to these events. The humans would definitely give them away if they knew it would mean a death match, and it would.
The battles were continuing in the other fields of the arena, a brutal girl slaughtered an equally brutal man, much to Anna’s amusement, and was led away. A bigger, stronger looking lion was dragged in once the man’s corpse was removed, accompanied by some sort of demon, and that fight began.
But the warlocks made no move to bring out a new opponent for the dragon. That girl who ran in might have saved her, actually. By mercy killing that lion, she’d more or less guaranteed that some untrained street rat would take it’s place. The people a few rows below the royal were trying to push an older man down into the field, accompanied by a few shouts of “move it vampire!”
“Is that man a vampire?” Anna asked, looking at Toby. “Well, I guess he is… Or he just looks like one.” He was adamantly denying his vampirism right now, but Toby guessed that he was probably lying. “You should go down.” The princess said cheerfully, as if it wasn’t a clear death sentence. Toby shook his head “I… Um. Are you sure, princess? I’m not really built for that…” He couldn’t argue with royalty, but a dragon against a doll? He’d be dead in half a second and the guards wouldn’t even have any blood to mop up. Fortunately the audience seemed to have several other strangers lined up for the sacrifice already. -
Selena knelt in her cage, legs folded neatly under her, hands in her lap as she watched the fights quietly. Her tears had stopped now, and she didn’t regret taking the dragon woman’s prey-better that Etak be killed by a cousin of his people than by someone else, after all. His bracelet was now wrapped around her wrist, hidden by the thick, double layered fur.
She’d briefly taken the chance to examine it-it was literally just a piece of wood with his name scratched onto it, attached to a few pieces of thread that had been knotted into a fairly pretty pattern. Selena already knew that she would prize the bracelet for the rest of her life, as a memorial for the child that had been unfairly killed by her hand that day. His name, like so many others, was now engraved on her soul, and she would never forget him-of that she was sure.
The Warlocks glared at her as they passed her cage-as she had fought that day, she had earned her keep for a few more days at least, and there was nothing they could do unless the crowd demanded she fight again. Her sword had been retrieved, then taken to the armory with the other weapons. Unknown to them, she could summon it whenever she wanted to-her gift over air was just strong enough to bring it to her in the cage, not that she would. She valued her life too much for that.
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He could not resist visiting. The warlocks roam about the cages, but Xienex manages to lower himself down into the cages, and crawl below the eyesight of the warlocks. He reaches the cage with a small skull surrounded with white feathers. This cage, one stuck in a corner, was deemed unusable, for all you were kept there died in the cage, and not in the battlefield. Xienex slips inside, and goes to the skull, muttering his respects to it before placing his hand on the skull, looking at it for a moment, sadness brimming in his eyes for a small second before they turn back into their previous, emotionless state. He sits in the cage, eyes closed, knowing no warlock will look here, for this cage is dead. Things fly through his mind as he sits, letting the feeling of death surround him, letting himself remember.
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((Given the rather scattered-ness of the the RP would it be better to hold off, sorta retract, the action occurring between my character and the lion shifter boy? Just until this becomes a little more concrete. I really only posted to try and bring some interaction between the characters. I’m a little lost in this current plot to be honest.))
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Selena blinked when she felt the disturbance in the air nearby-there was only one person she knew who would go anywhere near that particular cage. Standing, she moved over to the bars, peering through them towards the area in question. Sure enough, he was there, and she smiled sadly before making her breeze tug lightly at his pale yellow hair.
“Xienex. I’d say it’s good to see you again, but you’re risking your freedom by being here-Borin would never have wanted that.” Her voice was quiet, carried to his ears by her breeze, soft with sadness over memories of the friend that they had shared. Borin had been the one to teach her not to hate the humans, to show her how pitiful they really were-and the one that had helped her gain control over the small amount of power she had been allowed to keep.
She never liked to see Xienex here-every time he visited the cage, he risked capture, and that was the last thing either she or Borin had wanted. As Borin once said, better that one of the three of us be free than all of us caged.
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“…” He opens his eyes, and looks over towards Selena. “It matters little, Selena. Even if I was caught, would it really matter? Outside, there is nothing but pain, but a different sort of pain. Pain is pain, still, and pain will reach me either way, so I fail to care.” He looks down at the skull. “How I do miss him. He inspired me to go on in this horrid city, but now, what have I?”
He sighs lightly, and slumps back down. He stares at the skull, his eyes glinting with sadness once more. “Have you seen the humans lately? Borin told us not to resent them, but how could a good being throw itself to join a mob that cheers at creatures tearing each other apart?”
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((Yeah I’m lost too. But if you don’t mind just killing him real quick then We’ll be able to clean this up a bit without backtracking))
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Selena sighed sadly. She missed Borin, too, but there was nothing that could be done about it. “Not all the humans enjoy the fighting, Xienex. Every day I go out there, I see at least one that looks green, as if they were about to be sick. My belief is that someday, those same humans may help those of us in here to escape-and maybe even help us to get out of this city completely. I still dream of the mountains I was born in, of the winds there that held my people safe…”
Her voice trailed off, her fingers finding the bracelet around her wrist. “And where no one is forced to kill another for mere amusement… I have no love for the humans, you know that, but neither do I hate them. It is not the fault of this generation that they are the way they are, but that of their predecessors for teaching them that it is a good thing to treat others the way they do.”
She rarely spoke this much with anyone, really, but with Xienex-well, he was one of the few that could get more than a sentence or so out of her.
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Xienex sighs. “They are too easily manipulated…” He shakes his head, electricity buzzing a bit in his hair. “I cannot speak about such things, you know what happens when…” He trails off. Xienex doesn’t talk much, but when he does, he reveals deep thoughts and analysis, but this always leads him to feel. And when he feels, he loses control. Control is something that was very important to him. “Selena, perhaps I should free you, so you may see the mob of powerless flesh that holds so much over those with the true power, for sheer reasons of numbers.” He pauses. “I shall free you, Selena, I swear by it.”
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“Where would we go, Xie? What would we do?” She shook her head, her hands falling from the bars. There was too much that could go wrong during an escape-not to mention the fact that the Warlocks could track her and completely suppress her powers through her collar.
Her collar. That permanent necklace that prevented her from taking on human shape and walking among them unnoticed, that kept her from using her gift when she wished to. As much as she disliked wearing it, in some ways the engraved words were almost pretty-it had been made to be strong, of course, but that didn’t mean that the spells on it were any less well made.
“I’m better off here, for now. And besides, if you tried to free me, it would alert the humans to your existence-and I don’t want that. They could do to you what they did to me and Borin, then.”
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He closes his eyes, calming himself once more. He knew that an escape wouldn’t work, that his power could never break the binds on that collar. He hated this life, he hated everything. Why does this happen to good people? Why? Selena may not blame humans for their mob mentality, but Xienex did. He knew what being an individual was, and the choice you could make. But these people, these INSECTS…
A few bolts erupt from him, and strike the metal bars. He quickly curls up into a ball, trying to contain himself. “Sorry.. Sorry.” He whispers.
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Selena withdrew quickly from the bars, her eyes wide as the bolts struck them. She was lucky she’d let go when she had-if she hadn’t, she could have been fried. Seeing how upset he was, however, had her returning to them, a small smile on her lips. “It’s all right, Xie. Just take a deep breath and let it go. No-one’s been hurt, you’re all right.”
She wished she could reach out and touch him, but he was too far away-but she was, at least, able to make a small, cooling breeze for him, in hopes that it would help distract him from the emotions he was clearly feeling.