the-musical-alchemist:

Hello! This is another one shot in @pahndah and I’s Hunger Games AU. This one is essentially somewhat of a re-telling of this scene from Catching Fire (with some slight divergences). For those not familiar with the Hunger Games canon, the characters are currently in the third Quarter Quell, wherein the tributes for the Games were reaped from the existing pool of victors. (So not everyone is between 12 and 18). Ed and Winry are from District 12, Roy and Christmas  from District 4, and Maria from 7. Hope you dig it ❤

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Everything about the arena is so much denser to Ed. Grief hangs in the air, molding around his body as if it’s trying to keep him in place. Every step forward, he wrestles through it, but it doesn’t get any easier. It only exhausts him.

Winry’s hand brushes his as they walk, but neither of them speaks. Right now, all of their mental and physical focus is concentrated on moving forward. Making it just one more hour so that they can strive for another hour after that. That’s all there is.

The one to suggest a break is Maria who presses her back to a tree, draping her forearm across her eyes. No one objects. Perhaps they all lack the energy to.

“Are you alright?”

Ed’s attention flickers to Winry. She watches Roy with furrowed eyebrows as he absently scrapes dried blood away from his neck with his fingernail. He sighs, letting his hands drop to his sides. They’ve long stopped shaking, but his knuckles have paled from how hard he’d been gripping the hilt of his sword that now lies against the tree beside Maria.

“She…” Roy swallows, and then his voice steadies. “She knew this was one way. I’d resigned to it the moment she volunteered.”

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