for this bonus round, the theme is competition! pretty open-ended, prompts that are about some sort of competition! this round will end on july 31st!
Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.
You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want! To participate, reply to this Dreamwidth post!
for your prompt post title, please use the following format:
PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
for your fill post title, please use the following format:
FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
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PROMPT: TEAM OC MOON
Date: 2024-07-17 04:13 am (UTC)FILL: Team Anime/Manga
Date: 2024-07-20 07:46 pm (UTC)Cinder has never been one to hesitate before. First District girls with flashy white hair and swords generally don’t elicit her sympathy; she’s pounced on two or three kids just like her before, dyed hair and bright eyes and weapons that seem ill-fitting for a competition like this — and she’s killed them all quickly, so why —
“Stop,” the girl underneath her repeats, hands raised, “stop, wait. Please.”
Okay, yep, there it is. Cinder raises her axe again, angling for the kill, and nearly drops it when the girl kicks her leg and sends her sprawling sideways into the grass.
“I told you to stop,” the girl says over the sound of her ears ringing, rising to her feet. Her hands are still raised, her sword still in its sheath at her side. She doesn’t seem like a threat, which is good. It gives Cinder time to come back to her senses. “I was trying to say — I have food, and you seem hungry.”
Cinder has never not known how to be hungry. She spits out a mouthful of dirt and lifts her head off the ground, clenching her fist around the hilt of her axe. “That’s the point, Schnee.”
The girl startles a little, blue eyes widening in the dim light of the undergrowth. “You know who I am?”
“Oh, come on, it’s obvious,” Cinder mutters. “How many white-haired sword users are there in the whole of Remnant?”
She looks at her strangely, stiffly. “Quite a few, if I had to guess. Everyone in the First District is trained in swordplay.”
Cinder glares at her. “Everyone?”
“Everyone,” she echoes. “My younger sister was drawn, I volunteered. I’m the eldest. My name is Winter. People keep sending me food, and I have more than I know what to do with. If I leave it it’ll rot before it can be of use to anyone. Stick with me?”
She eyes her, rubs at the spot on her jaw where it hit the ground. “How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?”
“How do I know you won’t?” Winter challenges. She’s still looking at her weirdly; it makes Cinder want to squirm uncomfortably in the mud and grass, makes her want to blind her so she’ll never look at her that way again.
They regard each other for a moment. Cinder thinks, and then realises that she doesn’t need to — or rather, that she isn’t in the first place; that she’s letting the break from all the fighting and the desperation to live wash over her.
“Fine,” she spits out, when it’s dragged on long enough. “Fine. Food for protection.”
Winter smiles, pats the sword at her hip. “I don’t need protecting, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
//
“What will you do if you win?”
Cinder looks at her over the campfire, finds her patient, expectant. There’s a clearly rehearsed response there, a ploy for attention from the Capitol. She must have been coached in what to do, what to say.
Cinder has never really thought about surviving beyond the first few days.
“Uh,” she says eloquently, “live?”
Winter’s lips quirk up, like that was the response she was expecting. “Yes, I suppose.”
They look at each other over the campfire for a little while longer before Cinder realises she’s supposed to ask the question back. “So. What about you, Atlas?”
Winter hums (rehearsed), turns her head up to the stars (rehearsed), sighs. “I don’t actually know, but I’d like to figure it out.” She pauses, fingers lingering on the hilt of her sword. “Sacrificing myself was always the plan. If either of my siblings were chosen, I’d take their place. And I couldn’t —” genuine emotion leaks through, drips through the cracks. She pauses a second time, breath hitching. “I can’t leave them alone. So that’s — what I’m doing, when I win. I’m going back and I’m keeping them safe.”
“How old are they?” Cinder asks without thinking.
Winter looks down, looks away. “Twelve and eight. Kids.”
“We’re kids,” she says.
“We are.”
They don’t talk for the rest of the night after that.