Innocence is burning away Day 7 [Leon vs Potato]

Seein' ther faces 'a Miss Sonja an' Miss Ingrid in ther sky weren' no picnic. I tried not ter look, ter focus on a tuft er grass tryin' ter grow in ther desert, 'atween thr kernels 'er san' rather than look at ther faces in ther sky but somethin' in me made me watch as their faces flashed up there. An' then I was rememmerin' my numbers an' what Miss Sonja taught me an' if I think real hard I reckon that there are only four 'a us lef'. Ou' of two dozen 'a us, we're all tha's it. A though' like tha' jiters them bones it does.

I ain't wantin' ter thin' 'bou' ther fac' that there are only three people 'atween Opal an' I, three lives holdin' me back from wrappin' my arms 'roun' her an' fallin' inter ther sweet scen' 'a her embrace. Tha's three whole lives righ' there. Three people who woul' gotter be dyin' firs'. The idea of liftin' my sword agin' ter kill makes me ache on ther inside an' on ther ou' but there ain't not a thing I kin do now, there ain't no other way bu' this ter git myself back ter her. If I wanna see her, I gotter figh' an' I will figh' too. I will do this thing, I will become ther monster agin', fer her.

Las' night I were prayin' ter Ripred, wonderin' if she could hear me righ' now, if she could be listenin'. It ain't that I reckon that i'm all tha' importan' in ther grand scheme 'a things, but I'm importan' ter me an' she has me righ' in ther palm 'a her han'. I wonner if she knows it, tha' each tremor in her han' makes my worl' shake. I wonner if she cares 'bout me, ther boy who said he couldn't kill an' has now killed many.

There ain't no reason ter hold back no more. Miss Sonja an' Miss ingrid are dead an' gone from this worl', probably havin' tea up in ther sky with Ma an' laughin' over the foolishness of mortals 'er somethin'. I slep' las' night, long an' well. I am rested, bone weary an' soul weary but willin' ter fight agin', jus' so's I kin git my han's tangled up in her hair one las' time, jus' so's I kin buil' her that picket fence. Today I ain't holdin' back, I will give it my all, even if it is my las' day ter live, it's an awful one fer dyin', an' I refuse ter go down willin'. I won' be goin' down easy.

I'm gonner figh' an' I'm gonner live as har' as I kin do it, fer my wife who is 'awaitin' fer me, fer the fiels 'a green I gotter git home ter plan'. I got me all these promises I made fer myself an' I ain't fulfilled any 'a them, it's about time I star'.

When mornin' comes 'roun', I pull my bag on, an' I go lookin' fer ther danger that's surely seekin' me as well. It won' take long I know. There's that feller from yes'erday tha' did Miss Ingrid in, he's gotter be 'roun' still, jus' waitin; fer me ter make my stupid move.

I do it too easily this time, not even needin' ther trauma 'a blood ter sen' me away. I give myself over ter ther hunter, ther man who figh's 'cause I ain't thinkin' I'm much 'a figh'er myself, but ther other one in here, ther hunter, I reckon tha' he knows wha' he's 'doin. He knows where we are goin' nex'.

Ter hell, we both reckon.

He straightens with a sigh, pressing his shoulders back as if trying to force them to stay in place. His eyes are keen, cold, calculating. They are not the eyes Sonja asked for him to have as he carried her to the river, but they aren't the eyes of the man who killed one of his best friends either. These eyes are colder than that, brutal. He does not care for suffering, whether he is the one inflicting pain or receiving it. This version of him, this other boy is here for one thing only and that is for blood, a lot of blood. If it is his or his enemies, he does not care.

He releases his sword with a pull, the metal sliding against the leather casing filling the stagnant air. He does not need a reason for this, he does not need to catcall. He is a natural force, nature taking it's course. He will fight, he will tear and claw. There is nothing that can stop him here, not in this but perhaps death.

He lunges, divine comedy stuck fast between his teeth.

[potato attacks Leon]
SivCOsiAsword
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

He knows that this is the boy that killed Ingrid. There is no one else in the area, no one else could have done it. He should feel anger about this, divine righteousness. He doesn't feel anything. His insides are empty and bottomless, devoid of emotion. He feels nothing as his sword makes contact with the other boy's skin, just how he has felt nothing before, each time he has killed a person. When he cut off that Tiger's head, or pushed his sword through Jem's skin. There was nothing to be felt, simply an absence of a problem. He isn't a human being anymore, he is a robot, a mechanical man built out of sand and hollow bits.

He feels like with every step he takes, he is holding a red flag out to the side, waiting for the bull to charge, waiting for the hand on his chest, pushing him into and past the dirt, telling him that it is done. Maybe he could have survived once, maybe he might have made it to his final third. To swing the Muleta just one last time. However, he is no longer a boy but a rag doll held together with needle and thread, badly made stitches. No one now can save him from this fight, no one now can tame the bull that is running for him. He is surely in Ripred's hands.

Nobody covers for the matador.

He will die here today, on the sands of this desert, barely half a day's walk from where he and Sonja turned the sand red only hours ago. It is his fate to do so maybe. It was his fate to suffer for so long and then get given unto him an angel. Now he will suffer for that too, those few moments of purity he held in his fist when he was able to hold Opal in his arms. If a life in hell is what he earned for daring to love the stars out of the sky then he was complacent. It was a fair trade.

Yea, though I walk in the valley of Death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me.

He was not afraid to die. He would walk calmly into death if he was asked to by this boy. However, he was not the type to walk alone. If he could, he would try to take him with him. He feels the cut open up across the back of his leg where there are already so many wounds that he might as well be a leather worker's practice piece. The pain is sharp, spicy, entertaining to think about but nothing more than that. He barely stumbles as fresh blood wells and starts to fall down the back of his leg.

He is a machine with only one mission, to get back to her. He will move tirelessly forwards until he can no longer stand on his own two legs and when that moment comes he will crawl and if he can no longer crawl he will roll. He will see her again. He will love her again.

He swings the sword with gusto, no anger involved, simply a quiet calm that enfolds his love.

[potato attacks Leon]
yAN3I5Hpsword
[Miss -- 0.0 damage]

He does not have the strength that he once did. perhaps once upon a time he might have been able to swing the sword in his hands as easily as if it was a blade of grass. There were days when nothing was too hard, when he could accomplish anything he set his mind on. He remembers the harvest times, when he would swing the scythe high above his head and cut down the blades of wheat that the family down the clouding dirt road had grown. The feeling of the dry grasses giving underneath the slick sharpness of the scythe had always made a satisfactory feeling bloom beneath his rib cage. There was a sense of community in those times, when everyone would gather together to help with the harvest.

During those times the prayers at church were less about the usual things and more about the harvest being bountiful. People wonder why District Eleven is so invested in Ripred, why the people there bend in prayer to a God so unmoved. It is because they have no one else to turn to. They cannot control the weather or how well a harvest will do. They cannot control how many bugs will eat the much needed plants, they can only pray that Ripred will see them through, that Ripred will help them reach their quota so that they may live happily for another year.

For most districts, it is the reaping that they have to look towards in fear, but for District Eleven, the reaping is almost a secondary fear in comparison to the stress that is collection day. Punishments are harsh for those that do not fill their designated quota. Many a man or woman have disappeared with the meager harvests, human slaves taken in payment for the amount unable to be given. A bad harvest does not only mean starvation for the inhabitants of the District, but it also can mean saying goodbye to loved ones. The people in Eleven live in a constant state of fear and that fear is held by all, shared. The people place it and themselves in the hand of Ripred and they pray to Ripred, asking for safety, for love.

But Ripred never loved a District less.

Even if Potato were to make it out of this alive, he would be returning home to a half-starved district containing a little less than half of the population that it boasted just under three years ago. No matter how often or fervently the people in his district prayed, Ripred either would not listen or could not hear them. Many were dead and Potato was meant to die as well but he didn't. He might of, if it hadn't been for the girl he was so earnestly trying to return to now. He might have given up then if it weren't for the way she'd pleaded for him to stay with her, for the way she lay with him in the darkness and whispered her life to him.

He had thought he loved her before then but he could only love her better after the death of his innocent thoughts of her. When she told him during those dark weeks that she was not the champion of gardening but of something else, she'd expected him to flinch away in the darkness. He could feel her flinching as she lay on top of the covers and he lay underneath them. He hadn't done anything to show that the idea of killing someone else disgusted him. he also hadn't admitted that he was glad that she had murdered her best friend. He didn't want to say that he was happy she had been through so much, that she had survived so many horrors, because no one would wish a hell like theirs on anyone.

He was glad though.

He was glad to know her.

He thinks about the sun, high above his head. He thinks about how much he used to love to chart it's route across the sky, how often he nodded to it's departure as he wiped his brow and stood tall in a field that he had spent the day working on with gusto. He wonders what the point of it all was. He was eighteen years old and this was where he was destined to meet his end? After years of toiling like an ant in the field, he was going to die here, after only having tasted the fruits of his labor.

He had made love to Opal the moment they had left their quiet wedding. He'd laid her out on the bed and he had unbuttoned her dress and shivered as she'd pulled his shirt off. He had kissed her neck and kissed other spots as well. He wasn't going to die a virgin, he wasn't going to be a martyr either. He wasn't here to prove that District Eleven could get far as well, he was here for entirely selfish reasons as shown in the way that he had taken down one of the best people he had ever had the privilege of knowing.

He was here because he loved a girl so intensely that he was very much willing to kill for that love. Maybe that was the reason that Ripred seemed to have forgotten about him now. Maybe she had cast him aside for the darkness that was taking control of his body in this very moment. He couldn't recall ever selling his soul to a demon but perhaps he had. This was what love was, wasn't it? Defeating odds that seemed stacked against you in a strange feat of power. Love was stepping forwards in an effort to conquer the enemy, striving to beat the foe so that he could go home to her.

If he sold his soul to a couple of demons in the process, then so be it.

The clouds cut slowly overhead in an almost unrealistic fashion as he feels the blade scrape across his cheek. It is odd to feel the line drawn there, the instantaneous bloom of pain. It is not easy to describe without having felt it one's self. It's similar to the smell of a morning frost come too early, destroying hundreds upon hundreds of plants, making discord and panic bloom in the hearts and heads of handfuls of people. It is the long, drawn out pain of reaching for a mother who is being taken as payment for the crops that have died. It is reaching with all your strength and not even being able to touch her fingertips before the doors shut and she is lost from you for an eternity and a half.

They send her tongue home to you in a little wooden box, a note from the President himself attached, telling you to plant the tongue in hopes of growing something more useful of air.

It is hopeless, to grow up in a society such as this. It is hopeless to love, to care. To want for anything is silly, and ridiculous. they brought this punishment upon themselves. No one knows how anymore, but they did, sure as day. Sure as the sun rises, they deserve this, to kill each other on the playing field instead of walking off of it, arm in arm, to go home to loving families and ice boxes full of food. It is all they've ever known at least, there surely isn't anyone left who could recall the days before any of this.

Ripred does not know what she has done in leaving him to his doom. A god does not know about the small humanity of people, nor does she care. A god is a god is a god and a mere mortal, well. A mere mortal can only hope to live as long as she wishes it.

Potato was not going to make it until tomorrow. The dice had been thrown and it did not look good for him. He could remember the satisfaction of the wheat stalks falling beneath his blade, how unsatisfactory this all was, how cutting human flesh was not what he had been crafted to do. He had been made with loving hands to make green grow from the Earth and in eliciting blood, he had thrown the gift of the Mother away. Whatever happened now, he had wrought upon himself.

For a moment, he looked upwards, as if searching for a camera. She was watching. It did not matter which she it was at this point, all the Shes that were important to him most likely were. They were few and far between. He would not make her watch him be cut down without fighting for it.

He did this for her, and for himself.

Despite the nature of what he had become, he did so want to live.

[potato attacks Leon]
UKJxuh3Nsword
[miss????]

He can't cheat death for a girl, it's too cliche and the universe knows it. The writers are frantic, attempting to get the train that is his story line back on it's tracks but sometimes life cannot be written, in specifics, his. Not everyone can have the chance to win. Not everyone can be the hero of the story. His mistake was in thinking that he was the main character of his, but only now is he beginning to realize that sentiment might not be true. He might be just a supporting character in Leon's.

He remembers being ten years old and laying in the dark, listening to the stories his sister liked to weave. There was always hundreds of explosions and peasants getting eaten by dragons before the knight in shining armor rode in to save the day. When he was young, he liked to imagine that he was the night his sister spoke of, that he was the awesome power that could fix anything. Maybe he was, back home. Here he was the peasant about to be burned to a crisp by a being more powerful than himself, the dragon at the end of his story.

He'd wanted to be the one to rescue the princess, not die trying, not being one of the many failures that were referenced in their scorch patterns against the cold mortar of the castle walls. He thought that he could do it for her, that he could become something powerful, unbreakable, but maybe he had been wrong. Maybe just all along he had been wrong and it would have been smarter to die in the first few minutes of this long, tiring struggle called a game. He could have saved himself the trip to hell.

He would do it all again if he had to, he would kill Sonja a thousand times in her name. He would become something so very cold and distant that mountains would shrink when he came near and he would love her so fiercely that she wouldn't ever be able to deny him. He would love her so much that she might forget what he had become in order to get back into her arms.

He was going to die here.

He didn't want to think about that.

He was letting it happen after all.

He felt it as the blade bit into his skin and sliced across his forehead, sweat instantly mixing with the open wound making it sting worse. Blood thankfully pooled at the corners and ran down the side of his face so that he was not blinded by his own self. He could ignore the sting of these fresh pains if he paid close attention to his older wounds. Then he could take a turn ignoring his old hurts by paying attention to the fresh cuts in his skin. It was the same as shifting from one foot to the other after standing still for a long period of time.

The only thing that he wasn't entirely pleased with was this boy's lack of speech. He wasn't a talker during fights himself. If Sonja were here or even Ingrid they could both attest to that. It was horrid going down like this without a word from his killer, without a reason. There was no rhyme to this, the fact of the matter being that this Leon wouldn't be killing him if they weren't here. The only reason this fight was happening was because if it wasn't, there would just be a longer wait until one of them got home. It was better to end it here rather than drag it out.

His body felt cold and meek, his arms were tired and he was exhausted with it, all the constant fighting that was dragging at his body. He wasn't a machine at all, even if he wished it of himself. He was an eighteen year old boy and truth be told, he wanted his mother, he wanted to bury his head in her arms and never come back out of that embrace. He might achieve that wish soon if this other boy was to get his way.

Some part of him wished that he could lay down his sword and topple over into the sand but he couldn't give up and so he worked on, relentless as stone, insufficient as foam. He was doing no damage here, not landing any attacks. All of the fight had seemed to vanish from him. He was barely anything now, least of all a boy. He wasn't a husband, nor a man. He was a small thing, a broken thing, a tired thing.

He wanted to shut his eyes, to rest. He couldn't. Not yet. Never yet. He would swing his sword again and again, no matter how many times he missed, to the very last.

So be it.

He swung.

[potato attacks Leon]
ftDEJvDFsword
[Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]

He grunts in the instant his arm disconnects with his body and falls to the ground. His fingers twitch in surprise as they find themselves laying in the sand, unsuspecting of this new development. He didn't know that it was possible to feel so much pain in one instant and if he were the type to have a scientific mind, he might be willing to catalog that pain in the moment. It is more like the pain rips him in two, sending him stumbling backwards, the heat of it spreading up his arm and through his body.

This hurts more than any ear being displaced. This is a red hot poker under the coals of his indifference, stirring him up and filling him with fire from the ground up. He grips his sword tightly still in his left hand, where it has always been. His right hand was always the useless one, but not the unloved one. With that hand he did many things. He planted the fields and watered them, he made things that might be useful to his mother, he held his wife in that hand. Now it was on the ground, no longer even twitching in the dirt.

How could he pray in church now, with no left hand?

He'd seen Old Ben praying by pressing his stump against the palm of his other hand and it had always filled him with a touch of fear. He was disfigured and maybe it was right to fear that because it was unnatural. There was an absence that was sorely noted. Opal was missing a leg but she was still beautiful. It didn't matter, she didn't need that leg for praying. He'd kissed the place where her leg ended and the absence began because he didn't understand just how much pain it was, he'd been foolish.

He was angry.

He'd liked that arm.

He had the decency not to cut off Sonja's arm before killing her and Sonja had the decency to at least speak to him as she'd been attempting his murder in return but as of yet this Leon was silent. Maybe that's just how the reaper came though, silent as the grave.

His arm hurts like hell, it's no small thing to lose one. However, Potato is not entirely here and to the man who holds his body steady now, it is simply a flesh wound, nothing more. He didn't need that arm anyway, not here. All he needs is to fight and nothing else matters. Nothing else in this Ripredforsaken place is important other than the need to keep breathing, to stride forward.

So he does not drop his sword and run away to lick his wounds like any sane person might. He turns his sword in the air, lazily flicking the droplets of blood off like he has so many times this week and then he charges forwards.

[potato attacks Leon]
t7AQndc4sword
[Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage]

He'd wanted to love her until they were old and grey. He'd wanted to wrap himself up in her scent to keep himself warm at night before leaving the house to tend to the plants that grew in their garden. He'd wanted to plant her one of those, filled with roses and lilacs and tulips. He'd wanted to give her so much in return for the hope that she'd always given him in shipments of pounds of it. She'd been the doorstop between him and death, the safety net for so long that he'd forgotten what it was to know that he was dying.

As he felt the blade enter his leg he began to remember it, the feeling that washed over him once before already. It had been hopelessness then, as he'd crouched in the dirt and held fistfuls of dry earth in his hands. His father had just breathed his last and he didn't know if Nightshade was even still alive. His mother was long gone and everyone around him, the people he had been raised with had been dropping like flies. He'd been ready then, to die. He'd begged for it with hands bent out of shape in prayer, with tears in his eyes, he'd asked to die. The knowledge that he was useless and on the verge of it yesterday had sent his seventeen year old brain over the edge.

Everything had seemed so dark then.

She'd come, like an answer from Ripred herself, an angel descending from the heavens. She'd come and held him in her arms and she'd told him that it would be alright, everything would be okay. She'd promised him then that he wasn't going to hurt anymore because she was there to fix him, to pour so much love in him that he nearly forgot how he was broken in the first place. She'd washed the desperation and sadness out with peace and healing, she'd reminded him that it was alright to be broken but it was good to stand up again, to keep going, to live.

The sword slipped out of his left hand as his fingers uncurled and fell into the sand with a muted thud. It rested there, silent as his grave and he wondered why it had come to him in the first place, why she had sent it at all. It was so he could live. He knew that. It was given unto him by his wife, the love of his life because she had wanted his survival. Instead he had only managed to condemn himself to the furthest pits of Hell. If he'd been able to make it back to her, the killing might have been somehow worth it. He wouldn't be, going home to her that is. This was his rest that he had been seeking.

He followed the sword, knees hitting the sand with a painful judder through his body, highlighting every single cut that was made upon his skin and into his flesh. The blade shined in the weak sunlight, he did not. He was a patchwork thing, sewn together so many times that some might refer to him as Frankenstein's monster, a being made for aggression but not well known for his beauty. He wasn't what he had set out to be, he wasn't the peaceful boy that his parents had raised. He was crafted by the hands of the Capitol and like all terrible things, he'd had to become an ending.

His mouth was dry, filled with ash as if he were in the grave already. This was a slow death that he was condemned to however, he'd bleed out through these wounds. He was too tired now, so exhausted. He could barely raise his arm, let alone try to lift the sword again. His body burned all over, like he was being turned to stone incredibly slowly. He would become a gargoyle maybe, a creature. He was a creature already, a thing made of flesh and bone but lacking the boy who had once inhabited the body. He had possibly died already, long minutes ago, gone on to hell ahead of the rest of him.

He raised his head, shutting his eyes so he could feel the sun's warmth upon his skin, he was shivering from the cold. Before the drought he had loved sunlight, he had loved everything that there was to do with the world. Now he was dying, an embittered, twisted version of who he had once been. He was mutated by the demons and devils that had taken hold of him and plagued his district for these long years. All the purity, the innocence that his sister had loved him for was gone now. He was a shell.

The ring on his finger was heavy with collected sorrow. He shouldn't have married her. It was childish and silly to have hope that he might return to her. He was surprised that he even still had hope that Ripred might look after him. She'd probably foreseen what he would become and given up on him ages ago. It was silly of him to pray, to hope for anything. He shouldn't have married Opal. He'd made a widow out of her after only one week of marriage. He knew he was going to break her heart. He'd sinned the moment he saw her, coveting something so beautiful. He'd sinned when he'd married her, lying when he vowed to love and protect her for as long as they both would live.

He'd broken that promise.

He was dying here.

He knew it because his bones were so weak now that he couldn't feel the weight of the pain anymore, it was lifting away from him like a piece of clothing. The blood was leaving his body in streams and rivers, running down the plains and hills of him in an effort to get to the sea. It was odd to look at, like an evacuation of his body was occurring even as his heart was beating. He was heading for the hills, disintegrating like leaves shedding it's tree.

He was glad that he married her, he didn't regret it. He loved her so much that it burned him just to think about it. The only pain he could feel now was the hurting in his heart, weeping, sobbing for Opal to come to him, to wrap her arms around him, to tell him it was alright. If this was one of his sister's stories, maybe that would happen. Her tears would heal him and he'd heal over time, he'd garden again, he'd plant potatoes and other vegetables. There'd be no drought, no ailing health, only her and life.

This wasn't a fairy tale.

She couldn't save him, not here. She was far from him now, a sweet far thing, untouchable. He would never hold her in his arms again, he would never kiss her cheeks or have the scent of her hair ever again. He was dying. The last memory he had of her was when he'd left her that last morning. The covers had collected around her waist and her hair had spread it's self all over the pillow. He'd lain awake, watching her breath in and out, in and out, in and out for very long moments. He'd watched her eyelashes flutter and smiles tug at her lips as she dreamed. He hoped she'd remember to smile still, that she would love someone again.

Her loving someone else hurt unbearably so. He didn't want to think of her with anyone else. He didn't want to think of her alone either, old and grey all by herself with no one there to tell her how beautiful, how wonderful she still was. That thought was what kept him there, holding on as long as he could. He didn't want his wife to be alone. He didn't want her to cry, to feel hopeless with no one to hold her. He didn't want that for her. He couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't be the one to tell her it was alright when it felt like it wasn't. Someone else would have to.

"Don't....." he said, rolling his eyes to look at the sky, searching for a camera, "Don't." His mouth was having trouble forming the words, his phrasing was bound to be crooked but ignoring the dying wish of someone couldn't be done by those that watched, it was cruelty to kick the dog that was down already. So they'd listen. Someone would listen. "Don't," he tried again, "Let her be alone....." The effort of speaking sent him lurching forwards and he pushed his left hand out to catch himself, to steady himself. He wouldn't die laying down in the sand like a worm.

"I," he said, voice soft, forcing his eyes open even as he grit his teeth from the pain in his heart, "I love you, Opal Earnest. Always."

And he died then, there in the desert, beside the river, body empty and dry as dust.