never say goodbye {f.o.h vs. lost boys} Day III

It's sometime after your second attack fails to do any lasting damage that you realized that you're drenched in your own sweat.

Theoretically, it makes sense despite your rather obvious state of undress. Clothes were ripped off above the waist, partially by the worm from yesterday and the rest by yourself this morning. Chest bandaged and back bare to the elements, it nevertheless provided little relief to the humidity of midday. Add to that the exertion of combat and the waves of adrenaline pulsing through your veins, and it's no wonder you didn't realize it sooner.

Or maybe it wasn't as obvious as you might have guessed, given that in the span of a few minutes, your numbers had dropped from four to three and you'd gone from peace, if a little tenuous in nature, to a desperate war for survival. You figured that between watching one of your allies die in a matter of seconds and chopping off someone's ear in retaliation, you were excused from not noticing the minor details in life at the moment.

This one might have escaped your notice entirely had it not been for Andy's spear finding a new home in Two's gut. But it wasn't that action that caused your blood to run cold, it was the fact that despite that, Two wouldn't die.

You know you shouldn't be surprised - there had been tributes with less fortitude behind their eyes that had survived worse - and yet, as you kept finding yourself repeating within your head, there is a very stark contrast between watching something on television and living it with your own two hands.

Such is the ferocity that Two rips the spear out of his stomach and lashes back at Andy, so terrifying in nature that you find yourself taking one, two steps back before rationality returns to take the controls. There's a familiar glint in his eyes that you've seen all too many times on the television before, and yet like many of his ilk, Two seems intent on resisting the call of death till his last breath.

After the fire comes words, and yet you cannot make out the finer details of the voice of the little girl through the pounding of blood in your ears. You can't imagine that your target can either, having no such ears to have blood pound through, and yet you can't help but empathize with her fear, just a little.

What you can't empathize with was the sound of a second loud crack of metal on metal, as this time Andy's chest plate crumbled beneath the force of the blow. He staggers, panic clear in his eyes, and though he lives, you know that is only through luck alone. Slightly different placement of the blows, a couple more years on the girl of merely twelve, and you'd have two dead allies in the place of one.

You think he realizes that too, somewhere deep down.

You hear the shouts and curses of metal on metal and metal on flesh behind you as Bella faces down Volkner's killers with nothing but her wits and her sword, and you can't help but be thankful that both of them can hold their own against unfavorable odds. Curse it might be in the long run, right now it is crystal clear that it is the only thing that has enabled you to live this long in the first place.

But even skill can succumb to numbers in the end. Two versus one is no favorable engagement in the best of circumstances, and what made this worse was that this was not a fight that your group had initiated. Left to their own devices, Bella and Andy both would die - you were the variable that could make or break life and death at your whim, and the sudden realization sends another wave of nausea through your empty stomach.

You look at the boy from Two, and behind the Career persona, you see just another scared boy like yourself, fighting for the privilege of life, even just for a few more moments. Someone just like Volkner. Someone just like you.

You've seen the glint of death before. You know what follows it, nine times out of ten.

For just a second, you hesitate, knowing full well what the implications of your intent will be.

But like a breeze in the wind, it passes. For if you were to escape here with your life anyway, then that very burden would have to fall on your shoulders sooner or later.

You figure that now is as good a time as any.

When your blade flashes out towards its target, there is not a single ounce of hesitation slowing its descent.

inspired by briar

Despite the fearsome flames felling the forest with their beautiful brilliance, from his apex in the sky our dragon falls. Extinguished smoke spills from his opened mouth, a molten core cooling inside his center. The knights relish in their conquest of our beast, but do not cherish celebration long before vanishing into the brush. With sullen and sunken eyes our band stands in the silence of the settling ashes. For a moment, nothing moves. All life in the verdant forest hangs in an instant scene of grief. But then a scream scarred cry of a child cracks the crystallized land. 

Ollie's small soul shrivels to the side of Cesare. In an image so similar to the day before, she begs for breath inside his hardened lunges. Where yesterday I ran to her and enclosed her in comfort, today I am struck into paralysis by my own onslaught of emotions. I felt fear once for the beast from district two, but now the songs of my shuddering heart strings tell a different tale. It is not love that has been lost by his fall, but a sense of commitment and safety. There is no way to know if one day he would have turned his sword against our skin, but for the time that we knew him as an ally harm never came from him towards us. 

A slight step stems attention towards the stranger still stirring on the edge of our scene of sorrow. His face becomes forever engraved in my mind by the dying embers of Cesare's fire. I drop the spear from the grip of my fingers and instead just stare. I search the seas of his eyes for a story, for a figure behind the label of murderer. Zeke is killer yet comes from a place of healing now tarnished by his actions. This boy has a history and background, he is something more than just Cesare's final moment. I should want to hate him, but all I wish for is to forgive him. 

"Can you tell me your name?" 

My question is soft, riding on the surface of the heaviness of this aftermath. I need something out of the nothingness I feel beneath these trees and under the scope of a thousand watching eyes. This teenager from district three has to be anything other than just that. I can't let myself look at anyone in this place as something other than human. Tributes loose themselves in the idea of survival. They overlook the important fact that although their opponents, the others in the arena, are still humans too. 

"Please."

I ask again my voice on the verge of splintering. 

"Akira."

My head drops heavily back with my face turning towards the branch framed sky. Akira, my lips repeat its formation before I look back towards his presence. 

"Thank you."

I begin taking steps towards Ollie and her place crying over Cesare's chilling corpse, when I suddenly stop. 

"Oh," I begin without looking away from dilapidated girl. "I'm Dove."

I start walking again without wondering where Akira ventures off to. I am nearly by the Capitol's perfect spectacle of sadness when the adrenaline of the battle retires from my body. Pain in excruciating amounts reminds me of the damage to my arm. Blood bellows from the deep wound and my strength to stand drains with it. I crumble to forest's floor sending leaves scuttling around me in a circle. 

On the floor, my eyes find an ant rummaging on top of a nearby pebble. Its skeleton so small and its being so unaware of the tragedy far bigger around its home. It crawls onto an offered finger and I somehow smile amid the pain and the loss at its tickling track across my skin. Its so small, so gentle, and it has no idea of the horrible home it lives in. 

Arms anchored in strength help heave me from ground. Zeke offers me aid but I push off his offer. I  set my miniature friend on a nearby tree trunk. 

"Go help Ollie, she needs one of us right now."

Concern cripples Zeke's eyes and I sigh before saying again with more force. 

"Go."

He does. 

I'm grateful for his compliance, but angry with myself. I've never let anyone in before. Never let anyone take any of the weight off of my shoulders. I am structured to be solid on my own. To function without aid. It's a flaw I need to learn to erase. But for now I wrap some bandages around my arm. For now at least with two working legs I can walk to a place safer than this forest of death. 

Akira.

The name again warps my lips. It brings me comfort. Its something more than just murderer.