Phantom of the Desert [Saturn & Damaris vs Akerbeltz] Day 2

Saturn lived his life in little rituals back in district one. He wore the same baseball cap on the day of his wrestling matches for good luck – the same orange and black stitched hat that he’d taken as his token. As the fire crackled red and orange before them and he turned the thing forwards and backwards, watching the flames dance. He didn’t look over to the girl he’d taken in as his ally. He hadn’t said a word to her since she’d freaked over seeing his dick and getting bitten by the snake (and had spent the afternoon parsing which might’ve been worse for the ‘moody lesbian’ as he had taken to calling her in his head).

“I’m sorry if you’re still upset about earlier,” He says at last.

I don’t want you to feel like you’re just dragging me around. The last thing I want to be is a burden on anybody. She looks to him like a set of balloons left out too long, sagging and ready to empty at any moment.

He stands up from his spot in the grass and moves to throw another log onto the fire. He watches the sparks catch and climb into the air, dancing embers licking at the night sky. There’s a constellation or two that even he knows (he doesn’t remember which of the faint white lights is supposed to be Saturn on a clear night, or if it’s even possible with the naked eye). He presses his fingers together in a bridge and cracks them. He likes the silence she affords him, the space that builds like great expanses of desert between them.

“I didn’t pick you because I needed someone else to put up a good fight.” He looks over at her now, the long brown hair and plain brown eyes. He sees the weight she carries on her shoulders and he thinks, they weren’t made to carry whatever it is they’re holding. And he doesn’t see weakness in her, not one that she can control. He sees a fight against something that few will understand, until the world has forced it upon them. Even then he imagines most will only know a faded and temporary weight, a sadness that does not cripple so much as annoy. “I picked you because you have a good head. Someone that I could talk to. If you were a burden I’d have left your ass a long time ago.”

She laughs and he smiles. This was what it meant for her to be with him. He had never quantified what friendship should’ve been – but he supposed it was to laugh even through sadness, and to know that pain was a burden shared. Whether he deemed him worthy to know it came only with time.

I’m glad you’re honest with me. People usually aren’t.

“I tell people exactly how I feel all the time,” He smiles, even if he knows it isn’t the whole truth. “Makes things easier.”

I suppose it does.

When they settle in for the night, he doesn’t sleep much.

He takes note of the anthem, and that his district partner is dead and gone (and they are still here).

He thinks how nice it would be to have Exover beside him, the curl of his arm around the boy’s waist. How good it would feel for his lips to travel down the length of his body. He didn’t much care for whether the boy loved him – just that he wanted him, here, and now.

He listens to the chirp of crickets, and the wind through the grass.

His eyelids flutter and he starts to think that at sixteen, he learned love meant –

Being wanted.

Sixteen, and what had he known?

He was handsome enough, and strong enough that he had taken notice. They sparred over the months and he had taken him on as his mentee; the best in the class, as he liked to say. True promise, he used to say – because it’s all that a boy like Saturn wanted to hear, because it meant he was higher than the rest of his peers, that they would all be jealous of his praise.

And Saturn sees the smile on his face the night they celebrated. He’d won some match, and used some advanced holds he’d been working on. There was champagne and music, laughing and talking, a quiet morning when the rest had gone to bed and it was just them.

And he thinks about how much he doesn’t know, when the moment comes, and how –

He wishes that he wouldn’t, that maybe he doesn’t know himself but –

Wasn’t that what he had wanted?

Isn’t this what you want, Saturn?

Temerity, he had learned, was a willful ignorance of danger. To leap without knowing the distance, or the fall. In moments of danger, temerity carries those that cannot know the consequences.

Audacity, he would learn far later, was knowing the danger, the risk, and, in spite of all the odds, going forth anyway.

He wakes with sunrise and watches Damaris in her sleep. Courage, he thinks, goes beyond strength and willingness to fight against long odds. There is a humanity within her that has not yet been broken, that wills to cling on.

When they pack, they head southwest, out through the grass and onto the dry cracked expanse of the lake bed. Mid-morning brings heat, and lines of humidity across the horizon. And the sound of hoofbeats.

He’s two steps ahead of Damaris when she tells him they should go – not before the black figure of the Akerbeltz breaks across. He is tall as Saturn, perhaps as big, too. His red eyes focus on the boy from one as he strikes with a set of chains, snapping across his thigh. Saturn staggers back and pulls the morning star from his pack, but not before Damaris rushes forward.

She slips under the creature and with her sword, stabs hard into his stomach.

“God damn Damaris, you been holding out on me?” Saturn grins. They could underestimate her. Think that she’s weak. He’d never thought so. Within a moment, he rushes to her side, pulling back his morning star and swinging hard at the thing’s head. “Hrraaaarhhhhh!”

[Saturn Rhodon attacks Akerbeltz with his spiked blunt]
oPM0YqXhO4spiked blunt
[result:14085 -- BROKEN TAILBONE -- 6.0 damage (Spiked Blunt) + 1 for strength]

My weapon goes right into the creature’s stomach. This time, I let myself scream, yanking the blade out and stumbling backwards. Beside me, Saturn grins wildly. “God damn Damaris, you been holding out on me?” he says.

“I don’t know!” I say, trying not to let myself feel too hopeful about this.

Saturn swings at the creature and hits it in the back. There’s the sound of a crack and it stumbles, then screeches, an unholy noise that radiates throughout the dry land. Something churns in my stomach, fear or terror or despair. I can’t name it. I don’t know if I want to name it. The creature attacks again, chains rattling, and I’m not quick enough to dodge its scythe completely. The blade catches on my sleeve and cuts through my skin. I press my hand to it and it comes back bloody, just barely. It’s just a scratch, it’s nothing, but it could have been something. If I’d reacted slower, it could have cut deep. It could have even cut my arm straight off.

Of all the places I could start to overthink, this just might be one of the worst places to do it.

I scrub all the thoughts out of my mind and readjust my grip on my scythe, turning it over in my hands once, twice. I’ve got this, I think to myself. I have to have this.


[damaris attacks the akerbeltz; scythe]
KHu10Ku2E8sword
1076 -- Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage

Saturn’s weapon smashes right into the creature’s chest. It crumbles to the ground, unmoving. Is it dead? I hope it’s dead. I stand back and stare at it, wait for it to stir and jump back out at us, but it doesn’t.

“It’s dead,” I say, feeling awfully stupid almost as soon as I say it. Of course it’s dead. I don’t need to point that out. I don’t need to fixate on every instance of death I come across like some weird morbid little girl. It’ll happen to me soon enough, I’m sure. I can waste time obsessing over it when I’m not so lucky dodging away from another blade.


[damaris flees the fight.]