the lion and the lamb {bastian/aurora}

[k!ah]

District One careers were scary- as much as I hated to admit it, they had the intimidation factor about them that had me looking away from them. Almost like they where the sun, so blazingly hot, so fucking bright, that if I stared too long I might go blind- or simply just get burnt.

Jack had told me that in the arena that the instinct to survive would overpower the fear, but what if I couldn't shake off the intimidation? Just stare at them with Bambi's eyes and let them crush my skull without so much as a yelp? I had to do something about, and I had to do something about it now, in a controlled environment, where if I become that stupid baby deer, it wouldn't mean my death, just me looking like a fool, and most likely an easy target when push came to shove.

This was the reason I found myself before Bastian Fray, trying to see past his blaring light I push my sunglasses into place, metaphorically of course. "Oi, I bet I could take you," did I look as confident as I sounded? Probably not. "Let's go," I say as I kick off my shoes, planting myself in the middle of the sparring mat.

[ griffin ]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

► ► ►

He makes himself a home in the hand to hand station. Leather-gloved, water bottle at his feet, his muscles aching in protest from days of ‘stupid relentlessly training’ as his trainers put it, he was settling in nicely.

Bastian always made homes in places that weren’t his real one. The Fray mansion wasn’t a home as much as it was a cesspit of excess wealth and privilege and every fucking thing his father represented. He wanted it to burn all down after he died. Wanted to burn it and salt the earth behind the fiery wreckage, leaving only embers and ashes and a family that would never be whole again.

He didn’t, though. Instead he set himself blaze and has been burning ever since.

The fire is all he knew. Wicker king Bastian Fray, the boy on perpetual fire, burning, burning, burning—

“Huh?” his brows scrunched up as he suddenly noticed the figure beside him. Hadn’t been paying attention. Was she speaking? He looks perplexed, all until the girl got in a fighting stance.

“That’s wrong, doe eyes.” Bastian says the first nickname he thought of as he studies her. She looks like a doe. Innocent yet agile, the deer is actually an animal with impressive fleet footwork. He nudges the other’s ankle with his foot, “shoulders width apart, and plant yourself on the balls of your feet.” He does the stance he is talking about, and then arches a brow quizzically. “Ya’ a trib’ or what?” 

[k!ah]

“That’s wrong, doe eyes."

That's not right- was he supposed to be fixing my form?

He knocks my stance wider, “shoulders width apart, and plant yourself on the balls of your feet.” He demonstrates as he speaks, bouncing on the balls of his feet and for a moment I am unsure of myself. I wasn't sure how I expected him to react to me, but I had not expected him to-

"-Ya’ a trib’ or what?”

He didn't even recognise who I was! "Am I a trib?" I ask thoughtfully, stroking my chin almost in a mocking gesture, temporarily forgetting my weariness at the fact that I was addressing the tribute from District One. I look down at my uniform as though I had just discovered the clue to my answer, "well would you look at that! I am a tribute!"

I dance on the balls of my feet, my arms coming up to guard my face. "Aurora Emerson, District Six," I say as I move around him. "I'm stronger than I look, you know."

[ griffin ]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

► ► ►

He snorts, unable to help his amusement at the other’s display. “That’s a big surprise actually,” Bastian says, with an equal degree of sarcasm. “Didn’t know they were sending toddlers to die now.”

And that makes her next act all the more surprising – she springs on the balls of her feet, and her fists tautens in a boxer’s grip. He pumps his brow up again, but this time it’s due to gentle surprise. “Well okay!” He smirks at this firecracker of a girl. Bastian gets into his stance rather slowly, with too much languidness for it to be anything but serious, and yet he has to say, he is curious.

How bright can Aurora burn?

“'Right, then.” His chin dips in the briefest of nods. “Hit me, doe eyes. With all ya’ got, come on, come on.”

[k!ah]

His snort of amusement has me pouting, the uneasiness I had felt no longer lingered. It was probably naive of me to let that slip, to forget exactly who I was standing before. He was a career, after all, a career who might be the one to stab a spear through my beating heart. That uneasiness was my protection, a reality check that I needed to keep close or I might find myself doing something stupid.

His snort turns into a smirk, watching me with amusement as I moved around him, keep my guard high, my senes alert. Right, then, he challenges with the slightest dip of his chin, and I feel my lips pull back into a grin. I might be small, but I had been in enough back street alley fights to know how to pack a punch.

My heart begins to race, my reality check is nowhere to be seen, I do something stupid.

I punch Bastian Fray straight in his pretty face.

Oh shit. Play it cool, Aurora.

"How's that, pretty boy?"

[ griffin ]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

► ► ►

She makes a grin and it’s a shadow of Xylia, Peggy, and Charlotte. A replica, but not perfect, there’s slivers of Aurora Emerson there, and still he seizes up. The truth of it smashes against him with the force of ten Capitol trains: fuck, I abandoned them. My sisters. Something in his throat catches. He blinks, once, twice, and –

Crack.

What? 

Spinning. The room. Pain. A groan. He gasps. A hand rises to his nose and flinches when it grazes the freshly-broken bone there. His fingers come away bloody. “Fuck,” he husks with echoes of a half-laugh, half-grimace underneath. “Toddlers can pack a punch now, huh?” He tips his head back, hoping the blood would pour back in, and looks at Aurora through over his water line.

“Now you gotta do that again and again in the arena,” he says. It’s something he would have told his own sisters. “Over and over, until they stop moving. Got it?”

[k!ah]

A crack. A groan. A curse.

Blood pours from his nose and I can't help but feel a little proud of myself, though I can't feel the ache in my knuckles that I knew should be there. I rub it anyways, noting the way the first two begin to flower with a light bruise.

He tilts his head back, looking down at me impressed- well I hope it was, I decide it is. “Toddlers can pack a punch now, huh?” I try not to take offense to the title toddler, giving him a dirty look as I give my hand a few rough shakes.

"This toddler can," I quip, dropping the stink eye that I was giving him, replacing it with a wide grin.

There is something more serious, more urgent behind his next words that have my grin slipping a little. Now you gotta do that again and again in the arena. Over and over, until they stop moving. Got it?

In other words, until they were dead.

I give him a nod, a promise that I would. "Why are you helping me?" I ask after another moment, I had half expected him to knock my ass to the floor after a shot like that. The other half of me was naive enough to think I could still take him, after all, I had taken on the girl from four and won.

[ griffin ]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

► ► ►

He touches his nose again only to howl out a curse.

It’s broken and crooked and it hurts but he supposes he’s being dramatic about it because he’d had deeper, crueler bruises painted on his skin from nights spent in the streets of district one after dark and from his father’s alcoholic rages.

That’s the thing about fathers – they pass things onto you. And his father’s anger was his worst and most hated inheritance but he also can’t carve it out, can’t scrape it away, can’t escape its prison. Teasing Aurora helps. It keeps his head clear and leashes his anger because he always teased his sisters too and he would never let his anger touch them, not the way his father’s had.

“Call it training wheels,” Bastian says around a grin full of blood, letting his hand fall from the bloodied nose. “Every toddler needs ‘em, right?” He licks his lips to taste the metal on them. “How old are ya’?” He chucks his chin at her in question. “Six?” She doesn’t look older than Xylia but burns as bright.