echo chamber ♔ [ ss vs dg, day six ]

Francisco Bloom, with his hands grasping the ivory mane of Ms. Turnip and his heart ravaged, feels like a mere echo of himself. He reverberates, and reverberates, living on the same frequency, the rhythm of his heart the same broken and discordant one. This is how a flower must feel when it wilts. Even the cold wind’s kisses on his cheekbones couldn’t rejuvenate Francis’s despair, but looking at Nico Thorne does in the slightest. The other gallops ahead of him and all he could glimpse from here, are the chiseled and tensed muscles of his shoulders that rival his horse’s.

He envies the other sometimes, because he knows Nico Thorne could hold the enormity of the world within his rib-cage. He is what Francis is not – a warrior, all parts of him somehow tied to war and courage. The only things Francis’s ribs could endure are flowers, blue lilies splayed out and trellised upon their edges. But, somehow, he’s eaten the world raw and now it sits in the small of his chest – a jagged stone, a sharp boulder, an exhausting burden. It spins on an axis sculpted out of Francis’s bones and stirs nausea up to his throat.

     He wants to spew the world
     out like rotten slices of fruit.

They pull the reins of the horses when the heart of the arena looms in the distance. He recognizes the cornucopia – a worn house that looks as if it could collapse in on itself – because of Myrcella Hudson. And the thought of her further branches out to the thought of Jessica Braun, whose dead body he regrets to had left in the circus tent. It was a paralyzing phenomenon to watch the light escape someone’s eyes and now that Francis has, he has become numb from head to toe, synapses frozen in cold shock.

He could effortlessly recall the weight of her head on his arms, the tingling of her skin against his wrist, and the dying of her heart as it spurted its last beat. The death of a heart is simply the death of a fire; it ends with bright embers and a gradual darkness. Jessica’s would have been the brightest, and the most destructive. But, it was extinguished now and all that remains, is a mountain of ashes that would be carried away by the night wind. It scares him, how the death of a heart can be so spontaneous and brisk.

The cornucopia is washed with unnerving serenity, the sort that dwells before a battle. But, so much blood has been spilled, the mandatory count of sacrifices have been reached; the Gods’ hunger must be sated, for now. “Let’s make camp here,” He says to Nico before dismounting from Ms. Turnip’s back. Quiet and old stones make the building’s innards; as they pass over the threshold, the air becomes suddenly cool on his cheeks and the warmth from the summer outside seems to have faded. Nevertheless, he could trace out the bloodbath in the ragged, overturned boxes and the fury of wanted posters that seems to dance with the evening wind.

     The place’s loneliness could be tasted on the tongue
     and heard in the old song creaked by rickety bricks.

A finger reaches out to touch the stone wall and the first sensation he’s flooded by, is a coolness that feels as lovely as it is odd.  It’s the same coolness he should feel in a cemetery’s soil, Francis muses with distaste, one that runs deep down to the cold bowels of the earth. This glorious summer-land is all but a vast graveyard, hidden under the guise of yellow sunflowers and sun-dried grass plains.

     The thought exhausts him even more.

Time exists in fragments afterwards as this exhaustion overtakes Francisco. Sleep ushers him into a wicked dreamland moments after him and Nico settle together in the house, body propped up against another body. The dreams are like thunder and forked lightning, loud and electric, searing Francis’s head and shifting from one to another in mere dream seconds. He sees Myrcella, her auburn hair patched with blood, and he sees Jessica, ablaze. The world is painted blood red and there’s blood on his hands too, everything bleeding, bleeding and bleeding. The blood overflows. It’s summer – but a monstrous version of it, with heat so harsh it burns his skin and scorches his innards. The flowers in his rib-cage wither and along with them, his heart does too.

     This is his purgatory;
     an endless summer.

He wants to stir awake, but the fatigue in his bones keeps him under and it feels like drowning, saltwater in his lungs, gasping for air, screaming at the surface from down under the dream tides.

Eternities seem to have passed before Francis awakens with a jolt, quivering in the cool air.

It’s dawn, he notes; the sky outside is a waning, austere blue and no matter how alert his ears try to be, there are no birdsongs for him to listen to. But, it isn’t an absolute quietness either, as Nico’s heart is loud and unwavering beneath his fingertips. It beats so closely to the surface; Francis, if he dares, could reach out and caress its red edges. He could dig softly, enough for its coronary arteries to show, and kiss them for all the pain it’s endured and for all the love it is capable of holding. “I am sorry I fell asleep on you,” Francis whispers into his chest, not caring whether the other is awake or not. “And, I am sorry I didn’t greet Jessica in the skies.”

     I greeted her in my dreams.

The rest of the morning is quiet and mundane, which Francis is thankful for. He cleans his knives by scraping the dried blood upon them against a rock and shrieks when he sees his tattered reflection upon the length of one. He sorts through his supplies and reaches out his hands as more falls from the skies. The first thing he notices, is the two knives, flower-accents glistening on cool bronze, to replace the two he’s lost.

Then, another flint of gold catches his eyes. Packed delicately in the container, is a golden armor that shines far more gloriously than his last. Engraved upon its surface, are furies and furies of flower-stems and petals, vines entwined with each other, and flowers growing from flowers. He could name a few of them; the protea buds near the shoulders say courage, the gladiolus below near the torso say strength, and the sunflowers over his breastplate and heart say ‘you can endure this, the organ here isn’t dead.’ Softly, his arms embrace the armor first before assembling it upon himself.

The wind blows – and carries along with its current, a distant melody that resembles a birdsong at first but turns jagged and cruel midway. The wanted posters flutter from one place to another, and he mistakes one of the faces painted across it for his father’s.

A second wind runs astray and this time, it brings along with it two silhouettes. He feels his heart wrench but is relieved to discover that, at least, the organ is still alive. Francisco believes that destinies can be interlinked together, like bright key-chains that can become stuck in it each other’s coils. So, not much surprise fills Francis’s chest when the silhouettes become the girl and the boy from two days before.

They’ve killed one of theirs before, he realizes foully, the boy from Four. He was a powerful force, all robust movements and sharp teeth, but in the end, he succumbed to Francisco’s gentleness and knives.

     This would be no different.

He knows what to do when the spikes of the girl’s club rises to gash Nico in his arm. “Don’t you dare hurt him,” Francis hisses, after he’s loosened his knife from the belt. It’s become almost like a choreographed dance: to detach his knives, delicately, and to wish aim before flicking his wrist. Francis has almost gotten used to the violence, the bloodshed, but he would never entirely adapt to it. This is what it means to teeter on the edge between wanting to survive and wanting to murder. He wants the former for him and Nico so, no matter the pain, no matter the lives, he would reach for it.

     This has forever been a race;
     the starting pistol rings loud.

Nico remembers the first time he watched someone die.

The first time Death comes into Nico's life, he is not there to see it, and the second time he comes to make Nico wonder if he might be his only true friend.

Not death on a screen, like everyone else in the country had watched as tribute after tribute had died, but the first time he stood breathing as another person's life bled out all over the cold, hard earth. Everyone across Panem had seen people die, had watched on as children slaughtered each other year after year. The tube is life, that tiny box of life that makes emotion feel a world away, that screen between human and humanity that separates people from feeling anything about the deaths they are witnessing. The tube is life. The tube is death. The tube is everything and nothing and it puts people into comas.

No, not the death that everyone was familiar with—not everyone knew what it what it felt like to be alive while another lay dying. The first time Nico had seen someone die, it had been of old age, an unkind woman in her bed spitting cruelties at him about what a useless woman his mother was, and about how she had poisoned her son. His grandmother had never been kind, had never been particularly invested in having him be a part of her life, but family was hard to come by, and harder still to keep, so he clung to her until her dying breaths. When he was nothing but a child, he used to show up on her doorstep with the things he had plucked from the grove just beyond the fence, eyes wide and hopeful, desperate from approval and attention. She had always taken what he offered up, and never told him to stop coming back, and for Nico—that had been more than enough. Up until the very last moment, Nico had stayed by his grandmother's bed, in the house that she had refused to share with her son after he married that merchant's daughter with too much fire in her blood.

She ruined him, she had said, voice hoarse but her grip on her grandson's wrist still strong. She'll ruin you, too. Nico had spent his entire life angry with her for those last words, unable to leave her but desperate to go. He was only six years old, the only family that this woman had left, and their relationship had always been fraught with this tension, the one between nature and nurture; she hated him for what he was, and loved him for it in the same breath.

Leaving Jess behind there, there's a single thought in his head.

She already had.

He has his arm slung around Francis's shoulders, and all Nico can think is that he doesn't deserve the support, that Francis should leave him behind to keep fighting against the other tributes still there. He thinks, as they step foot further and further away from Jessica's dead body, that Nico should just push Francis away make him realize that he's not worth saving, that he's not worth clinging onto. When they step outside the tent and Francis helps him up and onto Honey's back, he only pauses to wait for the other boy before trotting away from the scene of this crime because he cannot bear to leave him alone, cannot bear the thought that one of those tributes they had fled from would come barreling out of the tent and run their weapon across Francis's throat.

The ride is silent save for the sounds of their horses hooves beating into the ground, and Nico keeps Francis a few paces behind him. He can't look at him, can't bring himself to look at the boy who was completely changed his outlook on how life should be lived. If Nico looks at him, he knows that he will feel the softness creep in, knows that with it will come pain and agony and that he will be able to do nothing but feel the lost of Jessica, like a severed limb or an organ ripped from his chest. His entire life, he has been able to put aside his emotions, and it is this ability that he channels now, squares his shoulders and lets every muscle in his back tense. If he looks at Francis, he will let Death in and ruin him, so instead Nico just rides on and lets the sound of Francis's tears suffocate him.

The sight of the cornucopia nearly undoes him.

“Let’s make camp here,” Francis says, dismounting before Nico can begin to protest.

It feels like the beginning of the end, staying here, feels like they have come full circle and that they are just asking for history to repeat itself. This is where Myrcella died, he thinks to himself over and over again, remembering the sight of her crushed skull, her blonde hair turned brown by all that blood. He stays astride Honey for longer than Francis does, just watches as the other boy walks past him leading Ms. Turnip along. He feels like he's looking on from a thousand miles away, like he has already forced himself to leave his body, like he has already accepted his fate. She'll ruin you, too, he remembers again.

He should have listened sooner.

He doesn't know how to comfort Francis through this, does not even know how to get himself through this agony of pain except to deny that it is there, to push it away from himself and pretend that his heart does not feel broken. When Nico finally begins trails behind Francis into the house, a gust of wind and water scatters the papers on the ground and one whips itself right into Nico's face. He barely has time to snatch it before it whips away again, but the sight there makes him wish he had let it blow away. He clings to the sheet of paper as tightly as he can and can almost feel that agony he's denying himself come bursting out of his bones—Melody Thorne's photo is there, the word WANTED fat across the top of the page. His jaw quivers and his entire body shakes at the sight of her, and it's nearly enough to make him come undone, but there's a catharsis in crumpling up the sheet and closing his eyes to the image.

Nico pushes her away again, throws the ball of paper to the ground.

He clenches his jaw and denies himself this again.

When Francis first falls asleep slumped against him, Nico can't stay. He is too jittery, too on edge, too afraid that he is going to crumble and wake Francis from his sleep, even if it has been a fitful one. So, he leaves him, goes and sits just outside of the entrance into the building and sits on the ground, leans his head against the wooden door. He can't see stars, and the clouds forming above him are ominous—tomorrow will not be easy.

But Nico already knows that.

This, after all, is history repeating itself.

When the first package comes down from the sky, Nico cannot believe he has once again been saved by Stella. With a strange, sharp ache, he misses her, that girl who had tried only to be kind when Nico deserved anything but. He hadn't wanted a mentor, had wanted to walk into the arena and meet his fate headfirst on his own terms. He hadn't wanted to hear her plans, hadn't wanted to listen to a things that she said. You're barely older than I am, he had spit at her once, cruelty in his blood. He still doesn't fully understand why, doesn't know why he denied her respect until that very last night. You walked in one of twenty four and came out the last standing, slaughtered that boy Raven and turned yourself into a victor. That's, perhaps, what he should have said, what he thinks about her now at least. He unwraps the package and sees the medical supplies and smiles, despite all of the pain that he feels. He does his own healing, stitches together the wound that he can and uses more of the medical plants he's collected the other day. It's almost peaceful there, with the wind blowing through the night, and he sits there for what feels like a long time, trying to keep his breathing even, and when the second package comes down, there is nothing but respect in his heart for the girl he had denied. He unwraps it carefully and runs his hand over the black armored vest there before slipping it on. In the dark, he almost can't see it, an all black thing, metal coated in a thin layer of leather, and when he fastens it around himself he almost can't breathe under the weight of his gratitude.

He looks for the hidden stars again, even knowing that she isn't looking at the same ones.

"Thank you, he says to the sky. "For everything."

He has a sinking feeling that it will be the last chance he gets to say so.

He goes back inside shortly after, settles in beside Francis after slipping out of the armored vest, and when the other boy shifts towards him in his sleep, Nico can't help but wrap his arm around the other's shoulders again. They lay like that for awhile longer, and Nico wishes that he could fall asleep, but every time he closes his eyes he thinks about how this could be the last chance he gets to be here, wrapped up in Francis, and he can't bring his heart to slow. He sees Jessica, with a blade in her and flames dancing across her skin after he sees Myrcella falling to the ground after a horseshoe steals the life from her eyes, and Nico can't help but wonder what fate Francis will have to watch him meet. He imagines moment after moment, fate after fate, remembers his conversation with Saturn about his alliance turning on him and wonders if it would be best or worst to die at Francis's hand.

Both, he thinks.

Both.

Dawn comes quietly, soft light filtering through the windows as he feels Francis begin to stretch awake. Nico knows every movement of this boy already, knows that little noise he makes in the back of his throat when he is waking up, knows what his face looks like just as he's about to come to. “I am sorry I fell asleep on you,” Francis says. “And, I am sorry I didn’t greet Jessica in the skies.”

Nico stays silent a moment, and instead of replying immediately just pulls Francis in tighter, lifts his hand to thread through the back of his hair and then presses a kiss to his forehead.

"I'd forgive you anything."

He gets up then, slips his arm out from underneath Francis and gets up before strapping back on the armor that he had taken off before putting his black cowboy hat back on again. He feels dark and ominous, like a bring of death and other terrible things, like Death is his master and what life he has given him, he can also take.

Nico is starting to accept this.

The morning passes in a blur, the only moment that stands out being the one where Francis screamed, sending Nico into a blind panic before realizing it was only the sight of his own reflection that had startled him. "Don't scare me like that," he had said, breathless from trying to run with his one good leg and the pitchfork as his walking stick. I can't lose you, he's thought to himself. Not you, too.

The glove comes, and Nico looks to the skies one more times as he slips it over the one hand he has left, another item covered in black leather. Stella knows him well, he realizes as he swings up onto Honey's back. It's not easy with Francis's help, but he's trying to learn, trying to be better—history is repeating itself, but Nico has no intention of blindly accepting his fate; he will fight until his last breath.


When the pair of riders come over the horizon, Nico knows every before he sees their faces who it going to be astride those horses. This is the day where everything goes backwards, the day where things that have happened once will happen again, and the sight of Jessica's district partner and the girl from Seven coming at him and him alone makes perfect sense. When Diana comes at him, Nico does not flinch, does his best to avoid her attack, but she catches the bottom of his bad arm and he has to grit his teeth to bear it. He hears from a distance Francis's anger, and mentally thanks the other boy for keeping out of the fray as best he can, using his throwing knives instead of trying to fight hand to hand. When Hisidrio strikes out at him, does not fall into a blind rage, does not let the red or rage that blinding him in his last fight take hold. There, it had failed him, had made him turn away from the fight Jessica was in, made him fail her in unforgivable ways, and he can't let it happen again, so he channels the pain the way that he had once channeled hunger and asks it to work for him this time rather than against him this time.

"Sorry. I'm-- sorry," the other boy says, and it makes Nico grind his teeth.

"I don't need your empty apologies, Hisidrio," he replies, blood spilling out from the wound the other boy has left behind. Nico knows this kind of wound, the slow kind, the kind that will kill him later rather than sooner, the kind of wound that Nico is riddled with. "They won't do anyone any good."

When he swings again, it is at the same girl he attacked those days ago.

This is history repeating itself.

( safety net don't hold me now
in this hole i've fallen down
secret home i've made and found
a new way to breathe )

Sweat clings onto the nape of his neck but Francisco Bloom feels as if he is six feet underneath the ground, his limbs webbed over with frost and ice. This is such a cruel thing to do, he muses as his knife tears a gash on the other girl’s beautiful countenance.

Perhaps he is the villain Denali Lyons mentioned, or perhaps all of them are villains in their own twisted ways. Heroes died so soon in the arena, such as Berlin, such as Myrcella. But this doesn’t mean the rascals are spared too; in the midst of a careless moment, he remembers Jessica’s blood-soaked neck and her lost eyes. Heroes and rascals—maybe they are the same, like two sides of one coin, like Berlin and Jessica.

It’s a dance they’re caught in and it’s a dance between parallels, between hearts that are as tattered as, but remains as exuberant as, each other. His knife clanks to the soil in the same moment the boy’s sword rises to drag a wound across Nico’s neck. He retaliates but the cut runs shallow, barely scratching the surface. Francis’s heart clenches like the scared bundle of muscles it is when the girl’s club meets Nico’s collarbone and a crack resonates into the air.

Broken bones sound akin to autumn leaves trampled and stepped underfoot. He remembers autumn, oh glorious autumn with the trees as aflame as Denali Lyons’ locks, where Death softly wades in but with beautiful colors that shift from clementine to auburn. Autumn is the decorations for the cold funeral ahead, embellishing the world in warm hues before winter’s cold breath of death comes to wilt everything.

     This is the false summer,
     hiding a winter beneath it.

“I am sorry,” The boy whispers, loud enough for Francis to hear; his fingertips clutch the hilt of his dagger even firmer. Apologies make no sense here and both him and Nico know it because words of apology do not halt swords from being drawn. There are the sacrificial grounds, not a park where children apologized to others for periwinkle, bruised knees and accidental shoves. Death exists here and Francis has acknowledged its presence long ago. Its delicate fingers tap against the earth as it watches them shed each other blood from behind the darkest lashes.

     Which one is it taking?

     Which one should it?

Its eyes rake through each heart and each soul; Francis could feel the cold gaze on his. But, he isn’t afraid. His rib-cage and lungs are lush with rosy orchids and sunflowers, all of which has to surrender to Death sometime soon. Francisco Bloom is no exception, but the selfish parts of him want Nico Thorne to be one.

He looks at the boy and sees bones fixed in stunted growth but Francis knows that within his green presence, those bones would flourish into a structure as dense as a cathedral, would become even stronger. Nico would become what he was born to be, not what he’d been shaped into.

Francisco Bloom has already grown – he is a garden perfumed with fresh cedarwood and diaphanous carnations of so many color, astir with roots and flowers and bark and everything in between.

He wants Nico to know what growth feels like and if Francis has to die for that, he wholeheartedly would.

Out of the many things Francis has sworn to protect and nurture, he is quietly astonished to discover that Nico is the most important one. Not Exover, with his doe eyes and gentle heart. Not Myrcella, with her auburn hair with stars caught within it. Not Jessica, with fire in her heart. Nico Thorne, who stands as tall as a tower ahead of him in order to shield Francis from everything.

There’s a quiet dread in his heart but the love he has for Nico is louder, overcoming all. His hands are trembling but his decision is resolute, as unwavering as old forests.

“I said,” hot breath is hissed through his nostrils, “don’t touch him.” Francisco Bloom may be slightly afraid, but his courage grows and grows until that is all that he feels underneath his skin, until that is all that exists inside the ivory of his marrows.

     “I mean it.”

Fingers tremble but they manage to clutch Nico's collar and he kisses him, mouth opening over his, before he steps in front of him. A knife is already held within Francis's grasp and it soars,

     a bird of hope,
     a sign of love.

( in the city, you find faith
in the people you see fear
that remind you of your own
let it go, skin come off )



Lyrics : Zola Jesus — Skin

The first thing he notices are the girls eyes.

It doesn't feel right, this fight, doesn't feel like the place he is meant to be, doesn't feel like this is the right thing for him to be doing. And yet—this day is history repeating itself, and was it not the boy from Seven who Nico had struck that fated morning soaked in blood? Was in not the girl from Seven herself who was the first person to cut into his flesh in this arena? She had swung out at him that morning under a scorching sun, back before he had both lost himself and found himself, back when he was still whole and healthy and still anything but. He remembers it too well, the sound of cannons still ringing in his ears as he had set off towards the cornucopia for the first time. He remembers feeling like he had been born for this place, like everything in his life had been leading him to that moment, that the world had turned him feral for a reason, that he was a wolf with the forest thick in his bones and that the world belonged between his blood-soaked muzzle.

He remembers what it felt like the first time he was struck, by the girl standing in front of him nonetheless, remembers feeling like it was the last thing he needed to feel in order to let go of his humanity, like it was the last thing he needed to endure before abandoning all that made him human and allow the wolf in his chest to tear him apart and build him back up into something terrible, something glorious.

He remembers realizing, blood slick in his mouth and running out of him from so many places on his body that it made him dizzy just to think about, that the violence done unto him had started long before anyone ever threw a weapon in his direction, that it had started the first evening his mother sung him a lullaby about a young boy born to avenge his father, about a young boy born to kill.

The girl from Seven had been the first to take from him.
She had been the first to set a part of him free.

Looking at her now feels like looking across the abyss back into hell, like striking at her, at the girl who had first showed him what real violence was is wrong, like it's a path back to the empty and feral thing that he had been when he first entered the arena, a hollow and broken thing who thought that he was owed blood because blood had been taken from him.

But he sees tears in her eyes, and Nico hesitates.

They're the first thing that gives her away, her eyes, the first things that gives away the fear and the absolute terror that is ravaging the places inside of her chest. The girl from Seven—Diana, he remembers, suddenly, absently, just as a gust of wind comes whistling around them. It makes Nico lose his balance for a half breath and then suddenly her weapon is coming at him again.

As it swings towards him, he wonders if he'll be set free again.

She strikes his chest, and he can feel where the metal of his armor curls in on itself, a jagged edged thing on its own now, metal and leather warping together and he can feel the place underneath that will be bruised later on if he survives this fight. He can hear her words still echoing in his head. Stop them, Hisidro, please, she had pleaded, and it's this that's echoing in his head over and over as he stumbles back from her blow.

But then—

Francis is in his line of sight again and he is all that Nico can see.

He comes from behind, like a shadow or a shining ray of hope, and Nico barely has time to get out a pleading "Francis," before the other is stepping in front of him and catching Nico's mouth with his own. Francis, no, stay back, he had wanted to say, had wanted to beg, but he doesn't get the chance before he's lost in the touch. It's unfamiliar, this kiss, all hunger and heartbreak and hope wrapped up in one frantic thing. He responds in fervor, but pulls back as quickly as he can, knowing that love always comes at a cost.

And Nico is not prepared to pay this one.

Nico doesn't watch as Francis's knife makes it's mark, but when Hisidrio spins out at them again Nico can see the place where the blade has warped the back of his armor, a thin line that if added to could send the whole vest coming apart—not unlike the very mark Diana had left on Nico's own.

"I'd rather it be on yours," Nico matches Hisidrio as best he can, tries to ignore the pounding in his chest where his heart sits, desperate to keep the anger and rage that has been coiling in the pit of his stomach since Jessica died at a low simmer. Rage has not served him well this games, and he misses the icy chill of hunger in his bones, misses the way it felt when he was in the training center and each blow felt like a puzzle that needed solving rather than a matchstick that needed a spark.

( safety net don't hold me now
in this hole i've fallen down
secret home i've made and found
a new way to breathe )

There are flowers blooming on the edges of his mouth from where he’s kissed Nico Thorne; their petals are textured and their nectar is sweet, like fresh syrup. 

It feels and tastes like spring momentarily – gentle spring where buds unfurled themselves in the most elegant way and trees drawn back their robes of green. Bright spring where the crown of flowers atop Francis’s head and the flowers trellised along the line of his mouth are in full bloom.

“On your head be it, Five,” growls Hisidro and Francis laughs, because he is wrong to address him as a mere number. He knows he is so much more than that. “I am not a number, Hisidro—and I don’t belong to Five,” his eyes are dew-drops but his words are stone, “I don’t belong to this world.” Francisco Bloom has always been whimsically ethereal, always less a boy and more a nymph, and a faerie.

     Now, it's time for him to go home. 

The sunflowers orbiting his black hat rustle in the faint wind and, for a second, it seems as if Francisco Bloom is another sunflower stalk, dancing along with the cool drafts. He is a thing grown on this soil, and what has grown must die for the cycle to repeat again. He vaguely predicts what awaits for him in the way time seems to slow down, its grains suddenly glacial, and in how gentle and gossamer-thin the once strong winds become. Nature reaches out to embrace Francisco Bloom with a sadness; something dark awaits him in the horizon and it knows, it sees, it grieves.

He closes his eyes and let his body align itself with the breeze, closes his eyes and let his body be the breeze.

Instantaneously, there’s that freedom that can only be felt by surrendering yourself to nature. In a sudden, there is that sensation that he is intrinsic to every pulse of the earth and every draught of air that caresses its lands. He’s a thing blown onto and caught between the sunflowers and the grass. He is the hitched breath in Nico Thorne’s lungs as Diana’s weapon stabs at him.

First, it feels like his skull has been stuck by lightning, numbed to the very core, neurons electrified. Then, the world reels and breaks into whimsical shapes in front of his eyes; he knows Death is near when this happens. It gently enters the periphery of vision, its wings simply thin muscle and massive bones, its dress shredded and as dark as the night.

     But, it is gentle; it waits for him. 

“Nico,” He breathes out and stumbles back. The armor he’s wore is brushed off by trembling fingers because Francis knows they are of no use now; an extra layer of steel would not mend a cracked skull, that he knows from Myrcella’s death. It pains to walk but Francis does, backwards, into those arms he knows would forever catch him.

Nico smells like blood and coal, like a boy that can survive what Francis couldn’t. His nostrils bury themselves into the crook of the other's neck and he smiles, because the mere scent of him numbs his pain.

“I wonder what day it is today – I hope it’s a Saturday, the weekend. I think I’ll spend it by the orchard; a new batch of daffodils would make everything lovelier.”

Even though he knows he is in the arena, some broken and imaginative parts of him malfunctions and makes Francis believes that he is back home, amongst the asleep violets and birdsong of his little orchard. Every flower is closing its buds now, sleeping from exhaustion, and he feels the same exhaustion tug on his eyelids. But, Francis wouldn’t sleep, not yet, not when he has one last thing to fulfil, one last wishbone to break. 

     “Will you take me to where the sunflowers are?”

( in the city, you find faith
in the people you see fear
that remind you of your own
let it go, skin come off )



Lyrics : Zola Jesus — Skin

History repeats itself, but it is not like he had thought, and it is not Nico who Death comes for this time. 

He had spent the entire evening into morning being afraid to leave Francis alone, that he was going to die when the dawn came the next day and that his boy made of flowers was going to be left to fend for himself against worse souls, that he would be forced to take lives and burn his heart in the process. He had sat outside under the cloudy sky, praying for the stars to come out one last time, needing to stare up at them one last time before he met his fate the next day.

Please, just one more time, he had whispered up at them, begging the sky for this one single act of kindness.

He had sat with his back against the door to that stupid building, knowing that Francis was safe and asleep inside, and prayed over and over that they would let Francis live, that they would just let him keep breathing until the end. If it's my time, I can bear that, he had thought to himself, wind whipping across his olive cheeks still marred from the wounds he'd suffered the other day. Nico had always believed in fate, had always believed that there was a path for everyone on this earth; it had been in this very arena that he realized he had been wrong all along about his path in life, that he had been wrong all along about what it was he had been brought into this world to do. For years, his mother had poisoned him, had taught him hatred and pain and anger when she should have shown him what it was to be loved. It was because of her that he had never allowed anyone else to love him the way that he thinks he deserved to have been.

Just please, let him win.

It feels like a cruel joke now, like the gods must be laughing down at him. A part of him doesn't even blame them, not really, not after the life that he has led. He almost thinks he deserves it, remembers when he stood on the train with Jayne Ashbrook-Laws and told her that he didn't care if she lived or died, remembers standing in the training center with a boy who deserved so much more than the love that Nico couldn't bring himself to give, remembers wanting to volunteer to leave his family behind to go in search of Death. But that—even thinking that feels like a betrayal of the boy who has just stepped in front of a blade for him.

Diana's weapons cuts through Francis's hat, and Nico's eyes are locked on his the moment he realizes this is a killing blow. He watches on as all the fight leaves Francis's body, watches in horror as he slips the bindings of his armor off and crumbles towards the earth. "Nico," he breathes out, and it's almost enough to break the spell, enough to make him surge forwards, his own face a mask of horror as he feels his leg buckle and threaten to sink down onto his knees. Blood spreads from the wound on the back of Francis's head, and Nico can feel where it drips down over the back of his hand from where he holds the back of Francis's neck, trying desperately to keep them both upright.

"Francis," Nico breathes out, his voice barely a whisper of the bone-deep shock and pain that he cannot begin to understand. There's an abyss of guilt building in his chest, and everything but his heart is shouting at him to fall into it, to give into his worst demons and lash out at the one who has done this to his love until they do the same to Nico himself.

History has come again, and Nico was right that this cost of love was not one he was prepared to pay.

He barely hears Hisidrio shouting to Diana, barely registers the hollow ache in his chest at the realization the one who has condemned Francis is going to get away, that she will live to breath another dawn. Francis's face is buried in the crook of Nico's neck, and Nico knows that he must be getting blood on his face from where Hisidrio struck him earlier, but he can't care, can't think about anything but the wet warmth seeping over his fingers and the fact that Nico has spent this entire Games leaning on Francis and for the first time, it is the reverse.

“I wonder what day it is today – I hope it’s a Saturday, the weekend. I think I’ll spend it by the orchard; a new batch of daffodils would make everything lovelier,” Francis breathes into Nico, and his breath hitches in his chest, his hand almost fumbling as he bears the weight of them both and stumbles back, away and away and away again until he can try and get Francis to swing up and onto Ms. Turnip's back. Nico hauls himself up behind him, makes him lean back against his chest. “Will you take me to where the sunflowers are?”

"Of course," he says, urging Ms. Turnip on, hoping absently that Honey will be smart enough to follow after them both. "We'll go there, right now, 'cisco. We'll go and never leave—it'll be you and me and the breeze." It's a lie, and Nico knows it even as he speaks it, knows that the boy in his arms is going to die before the sun goes down, but Nico says it anyways, prays that maybe there will be a shred of truth in it and that Francis will find a home among the apple trees.

"We'll make a home there and never need anyone else."