OPEN POST pt III

[wunderkind]

-1-
pick a character

-2-
leave me a comment. maybe a scenario, maybe an AU scenario, maybe a picture, maybe a word,
maybe a request to resume old game canon, maybe just a comment.
i don't care. do your worst.

-2a-
helpful note: i am currently obsessed with the Walking Dead, coffee, summertime, AUs, and vampires. can you combine those into one tag?

-3-
let's get it on, like we did last summer



disclaimer: we probably won't get it on
+ there are no promises i will take this seriously

Comments

i hope the victor that year thigh-strangled some people

[alsohawkeye]

There isn't a Victor in the room who isn't thinking about their time in the Arena at least a little bit - and if there is it's only because they're too drunk or high or naturally addled to think of anything at all. Kate's been all three in her time but tonight she just sips at her wine, letting nails click against the bowl as it warms.

Red wine's better at room temperature, anyway, it goes down more slowly, coating the inside of her mouth. She wonders if it makes the diamond in her tongue look like a ruby. She'd probably have to hold it in her mouth for that, but that makes her think of a boy with a knife in his throat, blood bubbling up so when he fell back and his mouth fell shut he looked like he was wearing bright red lipstick. They've put her in a more muted tone tonight, something subtle.

"I guess you don't think much of your chances, then," is a dry retort, "You're going to have to work on your salesmanship." Or more accurately, Seven is just going to have to hope Johanna isn't the only Mentor handling PR for the district. It must be easier to be able to write them off that way, to know from the start there's almost no chance of victory and just spend the few weeks avoiding real contact. The Victor's Village in One isn't just crowded with winners but with students, too. Perk isn't the word she'd use. "I'll be right here when you reconsider that approach."

i would expect no less

[axeyou]

Capitol fashions change on the hour. The fashionable decor for rooms changes just as frequently. The rooms where they have their parties look different every year. One year the room has pillars filled with water and marine life and you have to try and maneuver around them--and the next year the pillars are gone, and all of the Avoxes have been painted gold and they knock out one whole wall so the fresh air from the garden comes in with every gust of wind. That means a Mentor can go back her second year and forget: that last year, she was standing right here, maybe in this exact place, only on a slick tile floor instead of a patch of grass. That second year, it can feel a little like you're being given a second chance.

But your Tributes are two different kids, and they die, too. And it's stupid to have any hope, because no matter what a Mentor says, everything is different in the Arena. Johanna had gone in without help from her Mentor--Girls usually cry, Comandra had said, the day of her Reaping, and then he'd been all about helping Cypress. Johanna's scores in training had been shit--and it was maddening, pretending to deliberate between the sword and the knife, when there were two throwing axes just an arm's length away--but she'd kept playing dumb, she'd let herself be ignored by sponsors.

Because in the end, the only person that wins is you. That's the only tactic Johanna knows, the best advice she can give to anyone, a summary of the cold lesson she had learned all by herself.

What's funny is, Kate probably knows it too. No one good wins the Hunger Games. Johanna still hates the Careers, as a pack, but she hates everyone a little. They might pretend like their training and their viciousness gives them an edge, but their wins just mean they're colored a little darker from the start.

And all of that means that Johanna can just smile at Kate, right in her face. Go ahead and underestimate them, wouldn't you like to know, blah blah blah. Fuck all of that. She doesn't bother with taunts, or rejoinders. She just smiles, like they're just two girls at a party, not talking about the impending deaths of their Tributes.

"Hey, remind me--how long have you been a Mentor for? District 1 is used to more wins than you've had in the last few years, right? That's so disappointing." Such sympathy; she even gives Kate a little pout. "But don't worry. I'll remember. You'll be right here. What are you going to be here for, exactly? To give me advice? Or do I have something better to look forward to?"

[alsohawkeye]

It's stupid to have any hope. Kate knows it. It doesn't matter. Try as she might, Kate Bishop always hopes. She'd never tell Johanna that; she does her best to play it as casually as most of the mentors, as resigned to everything as she knows she probably should be by now. One hasn't had a victory since her, that's ten kids she's known and trained and counseled and watched die. It's gotten easier to avoid actually making friends, since Cassie, but she's constitutionally incapable of not caring, of not trying every god damn thing that might help even the slightest bit.

It's not even just her own Tributes, either. Maybe if she were just your average Mentor, if she were smarter, Kate could at least restrict herself, at least just focus on her district's two and know that was really all she could do. But before she was ever a Victor, Kate was an heiress. Her (scumbag) father is tied closely enough to the Capitol that her family's fortune is immense, for the Districts, enough to quietly make her something of a Sponsor in her own right. She doesn't advertise it, makes sure the money moves through friends and intermediaries or anonymous donations, but what she can do to make the arena a little less horrifying - for anyone in it, for however brief a moment - she does.

It doesn't make her feel better, but what does.

All this to say that when Johanna digs at her, it hurts. It doesn't do a damn thing to her expression, but it hurts, and she looks down at this sharp-faced, sharp-tongued, sharp-elbowed girl and she wonders if they'd been in the arena together if all those edges would've cut her hand when it wrapped around her throat, if her ribs would've been razors at Kate's knuckles when she drove in the blade. She hates when she finds herself imagining exactly how she'd kill someone.

She smiles like she's unflappable, like she cares as little about all of this as Johanna seems to. Two girls at a party. No murderers here. "At least mine have made better ends. When you get tired of watching yours die so badly, you let me know."

[axeyou]

And Johanna laughs. It isn't nice, but she has never been a nice girl. When she won the Games, she won on her own, of her own volition--but she won because she was nasty, and heartless, and willing to do what she had to do to come out on top. What's one cruel laugh in the face of her fellow Mentor? It doesn't escape her that they're talking about kids--but two killers, two girls, talking about kids that will fight to the death in just a matter of time--they can be all smiles, but there's no dressing it up. Putting ribbons on a corpse doesn't make it any more alive.

"Better ends," she repeats, with a sneer. "Is that really something to brag about? You can pretend like it is, if you have to. I won't tell a soul."

Like Johanna has anyone to tell--except Finnick, who probably already knows. Johanna cocks her right hip and plants a hand on it, a deliberately casual stance.

"And when I do let you know, what are you going to do, exactly? Are you going to show me how to be a better mentor? Give me some tips? Just what," and she leans in a little, drops her tone, to a murmur, "do you have to teach me, Kate?"

The velocity of that mood swing is enough to give anyone whiplash--from mocking to flirting in under twenty seconds. Always keep them guessing. Johanna thinks, for a moment, of the rumors about Kate Bishop. All those whispered little secrets. She doesn't have time for that kind of thing, but she still knows.

[alsohawkeye]

When death is all you have left, of course how it comes makes a difference. But Kate's not going to explain that, not here, not now, not to Johanna fucking Mason. Staying alive and choosing the manner of your death aren't really the same thing and she's still got that half-feral air that says she isn't ready to think past survival as the sole and ultimate goal. It makes Kate feel old.

So she leans in closer still, far enough into Johanna's space that skin prickles with that sense of imminent contact, palpable anticipation. But not so close that she can't very obviously drag her gaze down Johanna from eyes to breasts and back. She matches Johanna's volume, and lets her voice drift low and rich and full of suggestion. "Teach you?"

Her lips curve, just at one corner, the most minute suggestion of a smirk. One cost/benefit of playing at being made of ice: the slightest hint of reaction is like a full on show from anyone else. Her head cants, almost close enough to bring them cheek to cheek but not quite. To anyone else it will look like they're whispering secrets, probably trading information, plotting an alliance. But Johanna can feel Kate's breath curling warm and soft around her ear, down her neck.

"Where do I even start?"

The angle of head and shoulders naturally becomes a turn, and she slides smoothly past Johanna and back into the crowd.

[axeyou]

She doesn't shiver at the light touch of Kate's breath. Gooseflesh breaks out on her skin, and the close contact makes everything in her prickle, braced for contact--and in her head, there is still Johanna Mason of two years ago, her face streaked with blood and her fingers tight on the shaft of her axe, where close contact meant only that she's going to kill you. That complicated set of instincts will never die, will always be her first reaction.

But it's two years later, and Johanna can bite back the urge to bury an axe in Kate's head. She can feel, mixed in with the brutality and paranoia, the little thrill of anticipation that comes of being stood so close to Kate, to have her eyes on her just like that, and the murmur of her voice tickling in her ear. It's all caught up in the impulse to hurt Kate before she does the hurting, a tangle of violence and sex. Johanna's fingers tighten on her glass, and her breath catches, just a little--not in any noticeable way; if Kate is made of ice, then she is carved of wood, has taught herself to be immovable. It's the same sort of catch that she feels before she throws an axe, the same dizzying swoop, the anticipation of action.

But Kate turns away before there's any action, and the grip of that feeling releases Johanna all at once. Standing there so suddenly alone, she feels only the tingle of irritation--and that quickly changes to anger, as she watches Kate Bishop saunter away through the crowd. Who the fuck does she think she is, with that smug act? They're the same. All of them here are the same, and there is no one that Johanna needs to teach her anything.

She doesn't give chase. She refuses. She stands planted, her drink still clutched in her hand. She's more likely to snap the slender stem of the glass and drive it into someone's throat, but instead, she calls out:

"Hey. Kate."

It's not a shout, but Kate will be able to hear it, even over the low murmur of the crowd.

[alsohawkeye]

The threat, the uncertainty, the anticipation: that complicated frisson is exactly what Kate was going for. If Johanna's stock-still beside her that's a tell all its own, or she's at least going to read one into it. If Johanna were unaffected it wouldn't take her so long to form a deliberate reaction; the only reason not to move, not to retort, is if she doesn't trust herself to. Exactly what urge might be moving her Kate doesn't really care. It'd be funnier if Johanna were actually turned on but needling her to violence would be alright, too. The Capitol's trained her well for both.

She doesn't really expect either as she glides away, noting that she sort of misses the click of heels that would accompany her exit if the floor were still tiled. She still doesn't expect either sort of attack as she hears her name, but she sets a thumb on the clasp of her bracelet anyway, in case the blade disguised inside becomes necessary. She takes her time stopping, like she almost doesn't hear (untrue) or doesn't care (half-true). The look she turns over her shoulder is bored, and she parrots back the tone.

"Johanna."

[axeyou]

Johanna has metaphorically bitten off heads for tones less bitchy than Kate's. She does not appreciate the mimicry, or the look that Kate gives her--or the fact that it took Kate so long to give her either of those things. Disrespect does not sit well with Johanna and she thinks, again: who the fuck does she think she is.

She is not going to lose. She is not going to let Kate just walk away from her like her parting comments were enough to get her a win, like she can get away with teasing Johanna. She meets Kate's look directly, her arms tense at her sides.

And then she smiles, a quick, spare lift of her lips. This is no interview simper or studied smile worn at parades. It's very small, and a little dark.

"How about tomorrow," she suggests, almost conversational. "I think I can be free to be taught a thing or two. That is, if you actually have something to teach."

[alsohawkeye]

She's Kate Bishop, that's who.

Johanna's all tension and Kate's as at ease as any of them get at one of these things sober. If she tensed Johanna could probably see it - Kate's dress is essentially backless, the better to show off the nebula-spray of stars when the lights change later in the night. Right now it's all flawless pale skin and sculpted muscle, slack except where she twists to look.

For a moment she just looks at Johanna, and there's a sense that she might refuse. She looks bored and derisive and this time most definitely down her nose. This little bitch thinks because she's been here a year that she knows anything at all. That she knows who Kate is or what she's capable of. The desire to write her off wars with the urge to teach her that lesson, and when the teaching wins it's less about Johanna and more about the Games; she always needs an extra outlet for the weeks she's stuck in that building.

"Six AM, the second basement training area. Don't drink too much tonight. If you vomit on me you'll regret it." She smiles, and it's hard to say whether it's real or fake but it certainly isn't kind. Bye.

[axeyou]

Tomorrow is probably a bad idea. Not because Johanna will be so hungover--she won't be, she gave herself a strict limit after her first year; being that out of control was fucking terrifying, she hated it, she hated what she saw when she shut her eyes--the same as always, but in lurid detail, like being drunk carried over into dreams--and she'd hated having an escort, she really hated being touched that first year, and she'd practically torn off the arm of the Capitol man they'd sent her home with, crazy with her own fear and drunkenness and paranoia. What a fucking scene she'd made, behind closed doors.

But tomorrow is a bad idea because they're meant to be focused on their Tributes. The thought occurs to Johanna, distantly, and then she shuts it away, because whatever. She could talk to those two kids for a year and could never actually prepare them for anything--especially not for what they'll find in the Arena.

She doesn't return that smile, beyond the one she's already wearing, and she doesn't answer Kate. Silence is answer enough in this case. Instead, she watches her walk off, watches the lines of her back and the marks of her tattoos. Oh, they love to talk about those tattoos, when they talk about Kate Bishop. Johanna thinks of the needles that they must have used to mark out those designs, like a thousand tiny knives.

She throws her glass onto the nearest table and stalks out of the party entirely.

But at 6 AM the next day, she's there. Second basement, training area. This is a familiar venue. When she's forced to be in the Capitol, Johanna's caginess can sometimes threaten to get the better of her. She's found that to be truest when she's here for the newest Games. Her Tributes she's left back in their suite of rooms. Probably neither of them are asleep. But they'll have time with the stylists today, time to plan another disappointing showing. Whatever. Better them than Johanna, who is happy to stride off of the elevator with her axe strapped to her back. She's dressed in light comfortable clothing--tightly fitted, of course, the better for the ease of movement. Her short hair is spiky around her ears, just barely brushing at her shoulders--too short to be tied back. Without her costumes, she looks a little smaller, but simple dress shows off the sinewy muscles of her short frame.

She strides into the training area like she owns the place, not gaping around to see if Kate's beat her here. She probably has. Johanna feels the prickle of wariness, but does not show it. She drops her bag onto the mat floor instead, with a loud thud.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate stays and makes the rounds, puts in the hours saying the right things to the right people, touching the right elbows, hinting at the right smiles, and occasionally even getting a chance to catch up with people she actually likes. She stays until the music gets loud and the black lights come on, spends a couple hours dancing with Garnet and Finnick and Cashmere and the rest so the guests can admire the way the galaxy picked out across her skin moves in the dark. It's not exactly onerous, but sometimes Kate thinks this is the worst part, the way it starts to feel normal, the way just for a moment here and there she's almost lulled into enjoying herself. They're not all bad company, the other Victors, and after three carefully-measured drinks, she's just light enough that in the dark, in the crowd, pressed between people she'd almost call friends with the thump of the music in her bones--.

But she never really forgets they're there to help children kill each other and one too many sponsors tries to cop a feel and she leaves before she breaks someone's hand and hurts someone's chances. It's still a late night, but who sleeps at the Hunger Games besides President Snow?

She's at the training area by five, time for a comprehensive warm-up before Johanna arrives. Kate's Tributes can handle themselves for a couple hours. There are stylists to meet with and news to watch this morning: previews for Flickerman's show that night, a hastily-prepared news story about a high-ranking official from Five in town for the games who died during the night. A sudden heart attack, they say. (Caused by an arrow in the throat, whisper others.)

The pair from 1 have had longer than Johanna's, longer to prepare, longer to learn what Kate has to teach. For whatever it's worth. Careers start training so early that most of those Kate's worked with have been hand-picked, hand-groomed by other Victors from birth. Half the time she's hated them, as much as it's possible to hate a stupid kid who doesn't really understand what they're getting into, who's only doing what they've been taught. She molds where she can, mostly in subtle ways, teaching then cleaner ways to kill, pushing for alliances. It's funny, she's probably more famous and influential outside of 1 than in it, where champions are thick on the ground. Nobody's going to miss her for the time it takes to kick Johanna's ass.

Dressed in similar gear they look more alike than the night before, both of them pale and dark and angular, leanly muscled. But Kate's hair is tightly braided, a coil woven back onto itself at the back of her head, leaving no tail to pull. She has a bow in her hands when her competition arrives but she sets it down, walking away from a target bristling with arrows in a half-dozen tight groupings. She stretches shoulders with hands linked behind her back, and crosses the room toward Johanna.

"What's in the bag?" She directs her chin at it, not wary but skeptical.

[axeyou]

Johanna takes in the sight of that target and the bow in Kate's hand with just one quick glance. It's all she needs. It's not like Kate Bishop filling a target with arrows is something new and exciting and different. Bows are her thing. And she's well-known for being a killer shot, they still use that image of her, standing on the edge of the ruined skyscraper, an arrow notched on the string and the wind in her hair, her eyes narrowed in deadly focus.

"A surprise," she answers, dryly, her mouth hitched in a little smirk. She pulls the axe off and drops it, too, with more deadly aim. One side of the blade bites into the mat with a shorter, sharper thud.

Really, it's nothing. More weapons, if the clank of the settling bag is anything to go off of. But a little mystery is always good. And, shed of her carry-ons, Johanna mirrors Kate in her stretch, knits her fingers together behind her back and lets her arm stretch out behind her.

"You should have said you were going to be here earlier. It's not everyone that gets the chance to see Kate Bishop practicing archery. You look like you had a good time. I hope you saved some room for more fun."

[alsohawkeye]

"I'll have my people send you a copy of my highlight reel," is Kate's dry response, "Last year's retrospective had a whole hour of behind the scenes footage."

She doesn't like surprises very much anymore, but acting like she might be concerned about anything that could be in the bag is a weak move and getting near enough to bend and open it herself is a stupid one. They may not be in the arena but they're here to fight and she's not going to make the mistake of expecting Johanna to follow anything like rules or common decency. She cracks her neck, sinuous curve at odds with the harsh pop. She smiles, thin and false.

"Plenty of room. Preferences?" She gestures at the mats, the various arrangements, the racks of weapons and gear. She doesn't care, see? Pick anything you want, Johanna. Such is Kate's confidence. Arrogance, maybe. Part of her pre-Games persona was idiotic boasting about apparently non-existent skills, an empty certainty in victory. It hasn't come up much since. She'd say it isn't now, she'd say she's watched enough of Johanna, read enough, learned enough that she's making an informed assessment of their relative abilities. But Tributes with high aptitude scores die every Games and anyone can lose one fight. At least this one isn't life or death.

[axeyou]

But it isn't the highlight reel that Johanna is thinking of. She's seen the footage of Kate's games, just like everyone else has. But every other Tribute featured in that highlight reel is dead. Of course they are, they have to be, so Kate can stand here today, a Victor. That's the way that it works.

It's just funny sometimes. The people you killed, they're the only ones who really know how lethal you are, and that goes for Kate and Johanna both. Those people, the dead ones, you got to see them in those last seconds. You end up knowing them pretty well, even if you only see them for a few short days. And then you see them all the time. No matter who Kate is, or what cool expression she wears, it's true for her, too.

But Johanna leaves it unsaid. She smirks, instead, and grabs hold of the shaft of her axe, jerks it out of its spot in the floor.

"Axes," she suggests, as she hefts hers. The head catches in the light of the training room, winks and gleams.

[alsohawkeye]

"Predictable," Kate replies. She sounds a little disappointed. She sounds like she'd sound more disappointed except she can't be bothered to care. It's partly true - she doesn't like surprises but sort of hoped for one anyway, hoped she'd get shown something she couldn't see on a highlight reel herself. Victors aren't really exempt from the monotony of life in Panem. Partly it's just calculated to piss Johanna off. Angry people fight more viciously, but that's Johanna all the time anyway. Pushing her over that edge from seething discontent to actual rage has a better chance of making her sloppy, making her overreach. Control isn't Johanna Mason's strongest suit, or so Kate's analysis has determined.

She doesn't wait to see how that assessment plays out once Johanna's picked up her axe, heading across the room to a rack of chopping weapons. Her shoes are thin and light but the soles are rubberized and tacky for traction, they make an odd sticky noise on the metal flooring as she goes. She bypasses the axe that's almost twin to Johanna's and takes up something more like a machete, single-edged with a curve. She turns it over in her hand, tossing and catching it once, getting a feel for the weight before she holds it up, dark brows inched upwards. "Any objection?"

[axeyou]

"None whatsoever."

It's true that there is a certain lack of control to Johanna. Part of her strength lies in that crazy edge that she's got, an unpredictability that makes her an unknown in a fight. But she's holding pretty still right now, her sweet little smile at odds with the wicked gleam of the axe in her hand. She has more confidence when she's armed; she stands a little taller, stares a little steadier. The choice was predictable, Kate is right about that, too. So what.

"I hope you're not expecting to use guards." She throws her axe up and lets it flip over, fall back into her hand--an easy, natural movement. "I only like real edges when I fight, even if it's for fun."

Another flip of her axe, and she glances at Kate, still wearing that little smile. "What are you going to teach me?"

Having an axe in her hand doesn't make Johanna forgetful. She hasn't forgotten Kate's look from last night, that heft of that superiority. But with an axe in her hand, Johanna can make them even. Cut her down to size.

[alsohawkeye]

Kate's strength is control and always has been. From maintaining that insipid exterior for the better part of a year to every shot she's taken with a bow before or since, the ability to hold herself in check and make deliberate choices has been an invaluable asset. Mental discipline is coupled with relentless training, until muscle memory and reflex can take over even on the rare (but not unprecedented) occasion that she struggles with focus.

Which isn't to say she doesn't still make impulsive choices, she's not actually perfect no matter how well she plays the part. Johanna got under her skin if only for a moment and here she is, shrugging as the other girl flips her axe, lifting the blade of her weapon to the light so she can test the edge against her thumb. It bleeds, and she smiles. "That's fine with me."

As for what she's going to teach, she just keeps smiling. Her teeth are perfect, canines sharp without need for filing. She sucks the pad of her thumb against them, lips closing around it until the worst of the blood is gone. She lets it go with a little pop, and flips the machete in her hand so the blade sends reflected light flashing around the room like a strobe. She's ready. "Come find out."

[axeyou]

Johanna watches Kate lift her hand, watches the flash of her teeth and the tuck of her thumb between her lips--and the pressure, then, of sucking at that digit. There's a pinch to her mouth, her lips gathered at the end of her thumb, concentrated. Blood and fighting and sex, all mixed together. Fine with me.

She keeps up her smile, sickly sweet. Her fingers are tight on the axe handle, her palms dry, her legs planted, steady. She stares at Kate for another few beats, and in her head, Johanna hears the echo of a countdown: Three. Two. One. Happy fucking Hunger Games.

Her launch forward is immediate. She takes Kate at a run, silent at first, and her other hand goes to grip at the axe, too, picking up a grip at the handle as she swings it back behind her--momentum doubled by the half -turn that she does, and just before she reaches Kate, she jumps, so when she swings down, the strength of that arc with be even greater. The blade of the axe bound right for Kate, and all that strength behind it--too much at once, maybe; maybe she should have feinted. Too late now.

[alsohawkeye]

Fighting and sex, all mixed together. It's not the thrill that links them for Kate, it's that they're both skills, tools, weapons to deploy against others. She learned the one before the Games and the other after but now they're both arrows in her more metaphorical quiver. (All the terrible jokes there have already been made by the press, you can be sure.) She knows how her lips around her thumb look from Johanna's perspective and she caught just enough of a hint of a something off her last night to make it worth a try. Maybe it distracts, maybe it annoys or otherwise unbalances, maybe it does nothing at all. Whatever.

When Johanna comes at her, she's ready to move on to the fighting. With the twist and the jump that strike has too much power behind it for Kate to catch it on her blade and push it aside like she'd planned, so instead she pivots and steps of of the way, lets all Johanna's force go slamming into the mat and strikes out with a foot where her head should be ending up.

[axeyou]

The blow doesn't land home, but Johanna hadn't expected it to, not the first one. It was too broad a gesture, telegraphed too directly--but Kate doesn't get a strike in against her, either. And the brutality of the move has a second meaning, like opening remarks: this isn't going to be a fun lighthearted thing between friends. It's not even really sparring for show.

The axe head bites into the mat with a deep thunk. It's wedged in pretty well, leaving Johanna sort of bent forward, her grip still on its shaft. But Kate is already moving, and she twists away--keeps her grip on the axe but leans back, uses that grip to swing herself toward Kate, a pivot into her pivot. Kate is still standing, so Johanna's shoulder ends up somewhere around her knee, but she drives into her all the same, trying to knock her off-balance--buy enough time to pull the axe out of the mat and go for her again--

[alsohawkeye]

Kate hears the axe sink in, sees it stick, and when Johanna doesn't immediately pull it free again she anticipates that need to buy time. So she's ready to get rushed, but Johanna comes lower than she'd counted on and she stumbles back some steps, on her heels and unbalanced, struggling to keep her feet. She strikes down with the butt of her weapon, the angle better and faster than trying to swing the blade (safer than trying to take off her arm - she could do it but would risk getting her own leg too), handle punched at Johanna's back, jabbed at her ribs.

She brings a knee up at the same time. It sacrifices balance, almost ensuring that she'll go down, but if she can drive it up into Johanna's chin it will be worth it.

[axeyou]

Both strikes hit home--first to her back, winding her, driving her forward--and then to her chin, a dizzying crack that sends her back again. It puts her briefly out of Kate's reach, only by a little--she'll close that distance soon enough, she's too good to leave a chance like this--but Johanna can't gather her wits for a second. She lays, dizzy from the force, no breath in her lungs--

Move, she orders herself, move move move, and with an angry exhale she rolls, sharply, to the side, shoves herself to her feet and goes for Kate again. This is with more intent than her first go--either a punch or a lock, depending on where Kate is and what she's doing--and she will have to stay clear of her weapon, she will have to disarm her if she can--but her primary intent is to get Kate by the hair, drive the heel of her hand into her eye, or up, sharp, at her nose, break it--

[alsohawkeye]

Kate lands on her ass as Johanna tumbles back, but she's quicker to return to her feet, springing upright, weapon still in hand. As expected, she advances, looking to take advantage of the stunning her blows have dealt while she can. But Johanna's tough and she gets up quicker than Kate had hoped (it's a moment of disappointment, but no surprise. She's seen all the footage, she watched those games live. She knows better than to expect Johanna to stay down long.).

She comes swinging and Kate dodges it, taking the blow on her cheek instead of her nose. It still rocks her head back and will leave a pretty bruise but there's no crunch of bone. She leans into the grip on her hair instead of trying to pull away, letting it keep Johanna close and lashing out with her weapon, slashing at her side and ribs in a hooked strike.

[axeyou]

Getting a hit on her is a success, no matter that it's off-target. She twists the grip in Kate's hair, ready to wrench her back, to hit her again--better this time, it will be better--but that twists her into Kate's strike, too, makes her an easy open target. Johanna rethinks as she sees the movement telegraphed--in the bunch of muscles and the heft of the weapon--but the realization comes too late for her to get away properly. At best she has time to try and twist aside, her fingers unknitting from their grip--

The blade catches at her side, bites in, slices--enough that Johanna's breath lets out in a hiss--but she turns so the full brunt of it skims off of her, pulls loose of Kate and steps away without a stumble. The cut is shallow but there is still blood; already her side feels a little sticky. She doesn't let it slow her--her turn has put her a little closer to her axe and she throws herself for it, rocks her weight against it to yank it out of its place in the mat.

[alsohawkeye]

The blade catches on Johanna's top as much as her flesh and it tears so when blood wells there's a flash of red against pale skin before it turns to just a dark stain adhering cloth to side. For a moment Kate's reminded of a different set of ribs, a fall of blood as slow as this one, slower than she'd expected when she'd stuck the blade in, after the sick pop she felt against her hand as it punched through. She shakes it off before she starts seeing his eyes instead of Johanna's, his stumble back instead of her race for her axe.

It's a struggle to divorce this from all the fights for her life, to find some middle ground between the blunt-bladed sparring she does with her trainers and fighting to kill. This isn't either - she doesn't want to kill Johanna no matter how annoying she is - but it's easy to forget that.

So here they are back where they started, on their feet, blades in hand. Kate is patient, poised, none the worse for wear than when they started except her hair come a bit loose. She makes a little gesture, a little waggle of her machete at Johanna. It should come with a smirk but there's none of it in her face. Bring it.