Just one more; Druso Izar oneshot

Druso Izar

Life was not a fairy tale.

Druso knew that.

The bugle horn of Roldan would summon no help from the hills, not here. No one to slay the tartaros before they devoured the young people. Oh sure, the district had its heroes, but they were pale imitations of the real thing. Nothing heroic about dipping out from the district for six years. Nothing heroic about losing almost as much as the Izar’s to the games. Kirito’d been a decent mayor at least, but Druso didn’t care much for the other two. A lumbering brute and a capitolite whore if reality tv was to be believed.

Fuck’em. What’d they ever done for the Izars?

But while the heroes from the tales he’d listened to as a boy were not real, the monsters were.

Errua the madman, beating the servant maid to pieces. Breaking her collarbone. Stabbing her in the chest and the back. When that final blow shattered her knee, he’d been sick. As sick as he felt now, downing his third bottle of beer. Plenty of tartaro’s roaming the arena every year. Druso reached for a fourth bottle and grimaced.

Where was the witch of Zaldin when you needed her?

He was going to have a few more grey hairs before the year was out. Not as many as Aresti, but still. Count your blessings, he heard a voice from his past say, and he did. Magdalena was a spitfire but she was his spitfire. And Iris, sweet Iris. She was the rainbow in his stormy sky. His brothers, His—

Druso looked at the bottle in his hand and then threw it.

It shattered against the wall, fragments of glass and splashes of alcohol going everywhere. The man in the black had come again, his scythe whetted and sharp. Alfonso and Sarina were in the ground now. In the ground with Gabriel. And Raquel, and Levi and Iago and Benat.

Following in the footsteps of old, long dead Uxue.

If there was a God, what the hell did their family do to piss him off so much?

“I guess the victors are fresh out of miracles eh?” he’d said to no one. To everyone. Iris hated when he got belligerent, but he’d been unable to hold his tongue. Four victors and two tributes come back alive in the last fifteen years, but nothing for them. "¿Dónde está nuestro milagro? Dónde está?" They could guide that little orphan girl back home, but not any of his nieces or nephews. He’d seen Ms. Persimmon at the funeral too; Vasco’s doing, no doubt. He’d wanted to tell her to leave, but he also didn’t want to get into an argument with his little brother about his friends.

"What’d they ever done for our family?" He’d brooded to Iris. “What’d they ever done but ride home with our coffins and offer their condolences?” No, he wasn’t sure he liked that Vasco was so friendly with them. But that was Vasco, tongue always wagging, making friends with strays and making speeches.

Druso eyed the mess he’d made of the bottle and then stalked out of the house, heading for the barn, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. God, Aresti didn’t deserve this. None of them did, but goddammit, they couldn’t catch a break. No fair shakes for them. “Give us a fucking chance!” he yelled at the sky, before gripping a two-stringed bale of hay that was probably meant to be shipped to district ten and heaving, throwing it a few feet away.

Sarina. How often had he gone over to their house with bottles of sarsaparilla he’d brewed himself? Little treats for his nieces and nephews. Well, she wouldn’t be drinking any more of those, that little bitch from district one had seen to that. Druso shouted a long string of expletives and threw another forty-pound bale of hay. Aresti hadn’t deserved that. Hadn’t deserved to watch his little moonbeam choking on her own blood as she weakly clutched at the arrow sprouting from her throat.

And Alfonso, oh, Alfie. Guess he wouldn’t be working the fields with them next year after all.

“You’re getting big, chico! Almost a man!”

He’d been a man alright, skewered a tribute even after losing a leg. He’d done his best.

But doing your best just didn’t cut it when you were an Izar.

They had to work twice as hard to get half as much. And it just wasn’t fair.

Aresti’s house was feeling empty. Too many ghosts. Already been six years since they’d buried Gabriel. Druso grabbed a pitchfork and stabbed the dirt over and over in a growing frenzy. One too many bottles. He’d held his brother tight when they’d died. And again at the funeral.

Aresti’s pain was his.

“I’ve got you mi hermano. I’ve got you.” He’d said, his voice on the verge of breaking. The two of them had always been the closest, had always been the ones to get each other out of trouble when Vasco tattled or Bakar came down like the fist of God. But there wasn’t anything he could do about this. No tale he could spin; no evidence he could palm. No gum to stick under the table. They weren’t kids anymore, and hadn’t been for a long time.

Druso threw the pitchfork at the wall, and it bounced off, the handle spinning around to smack his arm, and he cursed it, the flood of emotions coalescing. He grunted to himself and then headed back to the house to find Iris. He knew he was a sight, sweaty, covered in dust and bits of hay; but when he found her sitting on the edge of their bed he pulled her into a hug anyway. He needed her body against him.

“When does it end Iris?” he said into her neck. “When all of them are in the ground before their time, and every house has more empty beds than full?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just pulled her down onto the bed with him and held her, looking up the ceiling. It was too much. And there was a quell on the horizon, like the one that had taken Salome.

Por favor. Please, he silently begged the God he wasn’t sure he still believed in. Give us some peace.