patchwork / autumn&francine leisure

[dars]

I recognized that by choosing grace, I was probably sealing my own fate. She was so close to gone she was practically carrying a suitcase, and all it would’ve taken from me was a single swing. One swing, and the score would’ve been settled, and the mouthy One boy would’ve learned that his fear tactics had no power in a place where everyone was already scared to death. It would’ve satisfied Bambi, fulfilled her request. It would’ve meant one less person who realistically could’ve beaten me one to one. For my game, running the girl from Four through with my sword was the best option by and far.

But for Francine’s? If I continued to fight, she either ran away alone or stayed to fight with me. And it wasn’t that I didn’t think she was capable- I knew better than anyone left in the arena just how capable she was. But I still didn’t feel like it was something she should have to continue to witness, certainly not to take part in. Surely it’d only set her more off-kilter, and that wasn’t an end Francine deserved to have.

In the wake of devastation, I turned to her when the silence finally hurt more than the thought of breaking it.

“This world should’ve been kinder to you, Franny. I won’t claim to know what your life was like before, but I can tell it wasn’t easy.” I was afraid to ask after it, in fact. With so many cameras, I was worried it might get us both into trouble. Besides, it wasn’t as if her life here had been any better.

“I can’t keep you safe, so I won’t promise to. I’ll stay by you, though. And I’ll try my best. But no matter what happens tomorrow, I need you to know it ain’t your fault. Any of it. You’ve seen so much death- too much. But believe it or not, there’s a lot of life out there for you to live. For both of us. I believe that.”

I could feel my eyes welling with tears so I forced a laugh and blinked them away, made myself busy uselessly spreading out the wrinkles in my shredded up, muddy, bloody dress.

“Anyhow, I reckon we should get a move on, before it gets too much darker.”

[✨ zozo.]

And then there were two.

Because Francine was too late. Again. She can hear Steele yelling at her to go, help, now -- and then Steele was a dead body, too heavy to move. Francine succumbing to the weight of yet another loss.

It's all she can hear now, Steele. She'd thought the career would have slit her throat in her sleep for failing Adan, but when she'd come-to the next morning she found herself untouched. Steele ever-quiet, she found solace in that. She only ever spoke when needed, making the gravity of her words all that important. Francine had understood that - yet when Steele had commanded her to help, she couldn't.

Eleven, eleven, eleven, she spins the battle pipe between her fingers and blinks away tears. What good was that? What good was a game of hide and seek in the dark, what good was being invisible, if she couldn't use it to help people live? Death has always followed Francine. Or maybe she follows Death. No matter, she knows what it brings - and everyone else had too. It's why they had left her alone. It's why nobody wanted her. It's why Papa never spoke to her, and Matron kept her at arms length. Cursed child, last one left at the orphanage, no friends but the ones she made up in the dark.

Her bottom lip trembles. She blinks away tears, hot and angry. Her hands are covered in blood, phantom tremors in her hands - the feeling of her sword cutting through flesh, muscle, bone. Of trying desperately to haul away a heavy body. Useless, useless, bringer of death.

She does not speak. But the moon does, dressed in beautiful rags - tattered, but still shining. Francine listens to her, tries to believe the gentle things she says to soothe the sear of hurt in her chest. Why does Autumn stay? She has seen what happens to those that stay by Francine's side. One by one they fall. Francine should leave. Spare Autumn her curse.

Still, she shows Francine something that is strange, unfamiliar - something she craves. Kindness. And that is why Francine stays - selfish, famished little thing. She stays because Autumn is gentle, yet fierce, and kind, without reason. Without a cost.

("I need you to know it ain’t your fault. Any of it.")

Francine is quiet, then. And then she leaps toward Autumn, wrapping her limbs around her soft frame, clinging to her like she is all Francine has left. (And she is, isn't she?)

"Thank you," she whispers into Autumn's hair, embracing her tightly. Her cheeks are wet, heart exposed. When was the last time she hugged another person? Was there ever a time, before now?

"For staying."

Despite it all.

Despite me.