WAR GAMES

[shinsengumi]

10...

9...

This year, you will be participating in teams. Your teams, as sponsored, are as follows:

Aeva and Ystelle; Ashleigh and Larsen; Aubrey and Kieran; Brigitte and Ellias; Cabel and Joss; Cyrel and Hollingworth; D'Ivann and Helene; Drael and Kristopher; Griffith and Xian; Fila and Lisette; Indra and Zacharius; Ivy and Reece; Kol and Laurence; Leonel and Solus; Lucinde and Visvaldis; Malis and Vox; Oberin and Odette; Shryke and Siegfried; Talbot and Thane.

Should both members of a team survive, you will both be permitted to leave the arena alive. May the odds be ever in your favour...

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Comments

[enforcehiswill]

[The green-haired boy with red eyes. Fine. Better than some. He's sure he recognised the other name, but Larsen speaks again, looking for that confirmation and apparently blanking Ashleigh's advice.]

What about D'Ivann?

[evanesce]

He's the angel... [She's spent several of the past nights wondering about him, and finds her fingers tracing lightly over the scar on her face as her thoughts drift again. A strange creature, that one, and she wonders why he's been involved in this game at all... She mumbles next, slowing her pace enough to leave several steps between herself and Larsen.]

S-someone's going to h-hear you...

[enforcehiswill]

[The angel, right. Larsen files the knowledge away, her answer correlating with his own, and only then does he respond to her repeated concern, strides not faltering for an instant.]

I don't have time to be cautious. [She would be able to defend herself, but Kol...] Every second I'm not with them is a second I'm not defending them. There is nothing I value more than seeing myself to their protection. Anybody who tries to come between us will soon learn the error of such a choice.

[But her concern for herself isn't wrong, and so he says it again;] You can go any way you wish, miss.

[evanesce]

Y-you can't protect anyone if you're dead... [She speaks ever softly, slowing to a cautious halt. She does not expect Larsen to wait for her explanation, but she offers it anyone, quick and quiet.] I'll f-find something. A weapon. A-and watch your back. I-I'll follow you from a distance...

[And, hopefully, if he attracted to much attention, vanish into the woods before it could come her way. She catches herself glancing over her shoulder for fear of Thane's presence, and starts to move again, away from Larsen on a perpendicular route.]

[enforcehiswill]

[He doesn't pause, though he does spare a look behind in her direction, and listens attentive enough to understand the gist of her words even despite her soft-spoken manner. One raised hand is all the indication he gives of acceptance, but it's acceptance all the same.

If she chooses to disappear, that's accepted too - his plans are only his own, and she is free to do as she pleases so long as she doesn't come between him and his goal.]

[evanesce]

[She has no need of his motion to turn her attention away from him, but upon seeing it, she refocuses on the ground beneath her feet, peering carefully at it for any indication of other creatures. Players or otherwise, she wants nothing to come upon her unaware, especially not before she acquires a weapon of some sort.

She is unpracticed, but she trusts herself with metal in her hands more than she trusts her unworthy strength.]