fallen soldiers {rise} phyllis&dragan

[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

klaus goravich
eighteen
district three

[/presto]

---

OH, FOR EVERY KING THAT DIED

---

I don't even know their names, and they are about to die. The boy and the girl from District Three, my home, their home. The only difference is that while I stepped out of the arena with a beating heart and air in my lungs, they never will. The next time their family sets eyes on their bodies, it will likely be in a casket being lowered into the ground. I used to smile, to see the good in everything. I used to hope. But as I sit, legs dangling from the edge of the table, I can't manage to light my eyes. Today, for the first time in far too long, I have something to do. There is a way I can help someone to live, and yet in doing so, twenty-three people still die and nothing is changed. In a few short weeks, I will no longer be the newest Victor. The current youngest, the little boy. Perhaps then they will begin to expect more from me, but for now I have been allowed to wander aimlessly and abandon the tasks I am set. I still read, sometimes, but the times when I find myself escaping completely into an imaginary world are fewer and farther between. This girl and this boy who I am soon to address for the first time are going to die. If they somehow don't, how will I ever be able to look them in the eye knowing I didn't prepare them for what was to come as well as I should have? How will I explain to them that there is no way to prepare anyone for a week in the arena. The room is empty enough, and I like it this way. Just me, just Klaus. I don't have to pretend to be brave or strong or wise now, and nobody looks at me with an aching stare, as though they hope they will do what I have done. They are wrong.. I want to like the tributes I am mentoring, to explain to them and tell them and teach them. They should smile, I think. Tell stories, make friends, be happy. Then, die. There are two words that stick in my mind, though, making it so hard to believe in them. "I volunteer." The boy, his voice rough. He chose his fate, who am I to tell him anything at all?I know what it is like to be forced into a fate worse than death, to cope when nobody should cope. It's incomprehensible to me that anybody should decide on this fate for himself. Then, the two of them are standing before me. I smile an introduce myself, even though they already know me. "I'm Klaus," I say, and I wonder if the smile reaches my eyes after all. You can do it, Klaus, you can do it. Do what, though? Lie to them? Tell them everything is going to be okay, that if they read enough about plants and slay enough dummies they'll be prepared for what is to come? I can do it. But it wasn't up to me. All I can truthfully say to these children is - if you want to come home, find friends who love you enough to die. Find Fitz Ripley, Penelope Libertine, Destiny Lenstil. Find Elon Emberstatt, Mahlah, Stark. Don't forget, don't ever forget. This advice is useless, because the world has likely already forgotten about the people who brought me home. Twenty-three children, three of which died at my very hands, protected me from death. Still, I have not decided if living or dying is worse. Rather, they are different, each filled with pain and regret and loss. "I'm going to tell you a story." This wasn't my plan, not at all. Surely, they will laugh at me. Crazy, he is. A deep breath, a pause. A glance around myself, a shaking hand pushing the hair from my eyes. I continue. "Once upon a time, there was a scared little boy who couldn't find happiness, despite how hard he looked for it." Destiny's scream enters my mind, playing over and over, I killed her. I killed her, and I told myself it was for the best. That she was gone already. That she was going to be with the boy she loved, and her Mama. I lied to myself. That scream burns at my heart and pierces my resolve. And then Penelope. She was like that from the start. A deep ocean of complexity and dreams, a girl filled with wonder and awe and nightmares. She was a fire, and she burned to hold us together. When she died, our army fell. I think of all the things that these two children will never know. The way her eyes sparkled when you looked right into them. How Destiny breathed in the middle of the night, enveloped in her dreams. They will never know what it felt like to climb with Fitz Ripley. My best friend. Nobody ever will. "When he was reaped, he didn't want to die. He wanted to go home to his family, his brothers and sisters. He loved them." Who have these warriors left behind? A family? Or, like Destiny, nobody? Who am I to say nobody should volunteer as tribute? Wouldn't I have done the same, if Hopper was reaped that terrible morning? I love Hopper. My mind wanders absently, marvelling at the equipment, the obstacle course, the countless dummies and weaponry. Why do they bother? How could a week of fearful learning and practise prepare you for anything, let alone your imminent death? If you're going to be killed, why not spend the last days you have making friends and living. But then, why? What does it matter? After all, me and the two children who sit before me are the same. Just kids, afraid, probably, and soon enough forgotten. Nothing special about us, from a District with no remarkable industry and little money. I think about the time I spent in this very building last year, preparing. Learning. Without that time, maybe I would have died like the rest. If I wasn't me, one of the others would be standing here now. Haff Ferde, that boy I never spoke to, the silent one with the wise eyes. I don't even know how he died, which day, who killed him. There are many things I don't know about those who saved my life. "I- I'm sorry. Do you have anything specific you want to know?" Why would they care to hear Fitz's story? Why would they care enough about Fitz, when I never did? Never enough.

THEY WOULD CROWN ANOTHER

[School is the bane of my life]

There comes a time,

When you need to trust,

When your whole life,

Trust had been nothing.

The boy who volunteered for his own death, Dragan his name. The male tribute from District 3. The sly heart taking grin was the only thing that got him going. First thing he knew he was standing quietly with the others boys aged seventeen. All of them jittering with nervousness and for some, sweat pouring down their frightened faces. Then in a few moments he adjusts his head just so slightly but in the corner of the eye he spy’s his slender father standing there with nothing but a smug grin on his face. His father knows now what to do. Dragan, the only one who knew about his father’s secret. How he smuggled drugs in and how he never stopped even when Dragan found him with a bunch of his friends smoking. The day when he confronted him, just a bright boy at the fragile age of ten. His father put on a fake smile and acted like it never happened, well the rage boiled in Dragan and he erupted through his mouth. He wailed into his father’s face about how he would tell mother if he ever made him work ever again. He was just a young boy, wanting nothing but to play. ] To be free to the world and run around with the other little boys while not having in the back of his mind the work he had to do.The young Dragan did not know that he would grow up to regret it. He did not know that as he got older he would]never trust someone again, everyone seemed too distance and too many had too many secrets, just like he did. He did not know he would get into to drugs and in the moments of his last step going up to the stage. All he would wish for is that he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Just that grin coming from his father’s face said it all, the word murder and accident hanging from his lips. His dad has connections and did not care for his son one bit. In the blink of an eye he could easily hire someone to kill. His father had waited for the perfect time and now it had come. It was to risky when he was younger and now he was basically an adult, no one would care about one adult. Dragan knew he had to escape, to fly away to a different place to risk not getting killed. Arriving to the capitol had stopped that from ever happening. But the draw back was that he was going to go through the torture of the games and still die. If he remanded in the District he would die in the middle of the night, without no one seeing who did it. At least this death would be seen infront of the whole nation, expect the murder would be showered with praise. But still people would cheer for him if he had a vilgant death and might get sponsored if he managed to kill someone. He might die peacefully in the freezing cold or blithering heat, who knew what the arena would be like? Maybe even in the moment of the fight where he knew his life was over. When the sword neared his throat. It was the hunger games after all. At least he would be sent home in a casket, letting his mother mourn him and not mourn him when finding him in a ditch, covered in mud and the smell of rotting fleshHer tears falling down onto the wooden box and not onto the muddy street. It was that simple choices that got him to where he was. An right now he stood in front of the pervious victor, Klaus Goravich who looked just as nervous as he and his tribute partner did.

It all started with a story from him, something Dragan did not think was going to happen. The dim light did not show the confusion in his eyes, but it only took a few moments until he realized he was telling a story about his past or someone. He was the boy from District 3 that came out of the games and lived and now was telling a story about someone . His friend, himself, his best friend, a dead tribute? Even with a few words Dragan could tell it was meant to be a sad and the story hurt when told. One that should not be thought about as he stood on the circle in the middle of the arena, eyeing the other hopeful tributes beside him while the gong was about to ring. But this mysterious boy did have many friends and family to come home too. He had hope where Dragan had nothing, and now Klaus was trying to give him hope by a story and question. It was clear what Klaus wanted him to ask but Dragan had another thing on his mind. So he kept it subtle and short, “Klaus how did you survive?”