Innocence is burning away Day 7 [Leon vs Potato]

[анзие (Anz)]

You can walk the path among the lines

district 4 male

seventeen

Leon Krigel

frame of mind

"What are you thinking?"

Owen's face is peaceful and faraway, and he's wearing a contented little smile on his face, but Leon wants to ask because Owen is intriguing and he's beautiful in the dim light of Leon's room. It took time for Leon to break the silence, but now Owen stirs and smiles at him; Leon's gaze is drawn immediately to his pink, parted lips.

"Oh you know. Life, death, you."

At that, Leon throws his head back and laughs. "Romantic," he drawls. "Am I always on your mind, then?"

Owen's gaze softens. "Always is a strong word, Leon."

Rolling over to rest his chin on Owen's chest, Leon casually links their hands together, feeling that little spark of warmth adding to the life in his heart. He exhales a soft breath, thinking this is actually nice - it's peaceful, and not just in silence. And he likes that.

As he's studying the exact outline of Owen's face, Leon notes that he still seems a little faraway. A small frown touches his own lips, but Leon keeps his peace to leave Owen to his thoughts for as long as he needs. But I wonder what's on your mind.

When he can't wait any longer, Leon shifts and presses a kiss to warm skin. "What are you actually thinking?" Life in a wicked little grin spreads across his face. "Do I have to tickle it out of you?"

Owen blinks and stares right at him. Their hands come free with a little twist of Owen's hand, and the older boy wraps his arms around his stomach, eyeing Leon warily. "Don't you dare."

"Oh, I dare," Leon murmurs, grinning.

"You won't do it."

Leon laughs, and his fingers press against Owen's sides.

Laughter, breathless giggles, "Leon-"

Except that he's not tickling Owen anymore, he's pressing kisses to his mouth, his face, any part of him that Leon can reach, and he doesn't know why desperation is something he's feeling but it's there, and he's thinking, Owen, Owen, Owen, with his heart pounding in his ears to the beat of his name.

Owen, Owen, Owen.

Nothing else matters here and Leon doesn't know why.

Owen's hands on his back soothe him when he's calmer with his face tucked in the crook of Owen's neck, and Leon hears, "Your definition of tickling is different from mine. Not that I'm complaining."

A breathless little laugh escapes him, and Leon settles so his weight on Owen's, and he's wrapping his arms around him. Owen buries his face into Leon's shoulder, and Leon whispers, "It's not my fault you're irresistible."

--

He breathes like he's breaking, air rattling on every inhale as every little bit of heart and soul and hope crumbles to dust in the now hollow recesses of his heart - but Leon's still breathing, and maybe that's what hurts the most. Tears streak silently down his face, and he's turned into the shadow of the night as he breaks on thought alone; Leon's never felt so alone in his life, and fuck if he isn't stupid for it. (He had no idea - no idea just how much how much the child still in him had pinned his hopes on a happy ending that was never something that should have began to even happen - how could he have ever been so foolish?) His heart wilts, empties and it beats but it's mechanic - valiant, but mechanic. He's never felt so close to death as he does tonight.

Hanging above his head like a taunt the Capitol's symbol gleams and fades with the last of the Anthem, moments dragging going passing slowly like they're infinite, like they're all infinite. Echoes of the Anthem bounce carelessly through the arena, but to Leon it's all secondary because the sound of his own breathing, of his own heart - both pound against his ears, roaring, ringing, screaming, someone's screaming-

-if they could only shut up-

-their voice hurts, and he wishes they'll shut up because he doesn't want to hear this; he wants to block out his ears but he only has one hand left, the other holds his in afterlife-

-gripping so tightly, it hurts, it hurts, "Leon, don't-"

-but Leon has never meant to hurt him at all, never wanted to, never planned it - was willing to lay down his own fucking life if he came up against him at all because that's a sacrifice he can make, the only one he can ever make in this god-forsaken place because it's the only fucking one that matters.

Silence. The river burbles questioningly beside him.

"I'm fine," he tells it in a little whisper.

His throat hurts.

The ringing in his ears fades into soft, panting breaths, and Leon lifts his head from where he's resting it against his knees, feeling oddly dizzy and lightheaded. He has to rest his arm on the little boulder he's chosen as a prop for his tired body, and his head hangs over stone before he's able to lift it and face the world - and the cameras that are undoubtedly watching. He's too tired now to feel ashamed for the tear tracks on his skin, too tired of caring. Mechanically he makes his way down to the river, kneeling to trail his hand in the life-giving liquid. Droplets of water leap out of the crowd to cling to his skin, and Leon smiles, soul falling easily back into the mould he's made for it all those years ago.

It's only a mask now, and his battered soul is outgrowing it so, so fast.

The water refreshes his skin and washes away any trace of his broken heart. He rests for the night, his shining new weapon just under his hand as he lifts his head to count the stars (and figure out which one he is now, wonder whether he's watching over Leon - or is he still angry? Does he still hate him?).

Morning comes, and with it an iron wrapped around his heart. If there was any doubt before that he wants to get home, it is gone now. There is nothing for him to do here but return to Four - as long as it means Nocturne and Aelia and May and his killers are all gone. That's all he wants.

He follows the river flow, letting it lead him to wherever - and whoever - he might meet next. The wicked gleam of his new sword promises to aid him, and it's comfortable in his hand; Leon lifts his gaze to see a potential murderer.

(Cold, steady anger rises in him, and Leon strikes with his target painted bull's-eye red in his mind.)

Leon attacks Potato
y4XF9ASSsword
1096 -- Deep Gash on Left Thigh -- 8.0 damage
(Sword)

With your shattered frame of mind

[googlefont="Macondo Swash Caps:400"]
'The scene with Owen and Leon was planned with and approved by Mylee'
sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

Seein' ther faces 'a Miss Sonja an' Miss Ingrid in ther sky weren' no picnic. I tried not ter look, ter focus on a tuft er grass tryin' ter grow in ther desert, 'atween thr kernels 'er san' rather than look at ther faces in ther sky but somethin' in me made me watch as their faces flashed up there. An' then I was rememmerin' my numbers an' what Miss Sonja taught me an' if I think real hard I reckon that there are only four 'a us lef'. Ou' of two dozen 'a us, we're all tha's it. A though' like tha' jiters them bones it does.

I ain't wantin' ter thin' 'bou' ther fac' that there are only three people 'atween Opal an' I, three lives holdin' me back from wrappin' my arms 'roun' her an' fallin' inter ther sweet scen' 'a her embrace. Tha's three whole lives righ' there. Three people who woul' gotter be dyin' firs'. The idea of liftin' my sword agin' ter kill makes me ache on ther inside an' on ther ou' but there ain't not a thing I kin do now, there ain't no other way bu' this ter git myself back ter her. If I wanna see her, I gotter figh' an' I will figh' too. I will do this thing, I will become ther monster agin', fer her.

Las' night I were prayin' ter Ripred, wonderin' if she could hear me righ' now, if she could be listenin'. It ain't that I reckon that i'm all tha' importan' in ther grand scheme 'a things, but I'm importan' ter me an' she has me righ' in ther palm 'a her han'. I wonner if she knows it, tha' each tremor in her han' makes my worl' shake. I wonner if she cares 'bout me, ther boy who said he couldn't kill an' has now killed many.

There ain't no reason ter hold back no more. Miss Sonja an' Miss ingrid are dead an' gone from this worl', probably havin' tea up in ther sky with Ma an' laughin' over the foolishness of mortals 'er somethin'. I slep' las' night, long an' well. I am rested, bone weary an' soul weary but willin' ter fight agin', jus' so's I kin git my han's tangled up in her hair one las' time, jus' so's I kin buil' her that picket fence. Today I ain't holdin' back, I will give it my all, even if it is my las' day ter live, it's an awful one fer dyin', an' I refuse ter go down willin'. I won' be goin' down easy.

I'm gonner figh' an' I'm gonner live as har' as I kin do it, fer my wife who is 'awaitin' fer me, fer the fiels 'a green I gotter git home ter plan'. I got me all these promises I made fer myself an' I ain't fulfilled any 'a them, it's about time I star'.

When mornin' comes 'roun', I pull my bag on, an' I go lookin' fer ther danger that's surely seekin' me as well. It won' take long I know. There's that feller from yes'erday tha' did Miss Ingrid in, he's gotter be 'roun' still, jus' waitin; fer me ter make my stupid move.

I do it too easily this time, not even needin' ther trauma 'a blood ter sen' me away. I give myself over ter ther hunter, ther man who figh's 'cause I ain't thinkin' I'm much 'a figh'er myself, but ther other one in here, ther hunter, I reckon tha' he knows wha' he's 'doin. He knows where we are goin' nex'.

Ter hell, we both reckon.

He straightens with a sigh, pressing his shoulders back as if trying to force them to stay in place. His eyes are keen, cold, calculating. They are not the eyes Sonja asked for him to have as he carried her to the river, but they aren't the eyes of the man who killed one of his best friends either. These eyes are colder than that, brutal. He does not care for suffering, whether he is the one inflicting pain or receiving it. This version of him, this other boy is here for one thing only and that is for blood, a lot of blood. If it is his or his enemies, he does not care.

He releases his sword with a pull, the metal sliding against the leather casing filling the stagnant air. He does not need a reason for this, he does not need to catcall. He is a natural force, nature taking it's course. He will fight, he will tear and claw. There is nothing that can stop him here, not in this but perhaps death.

He lunges, divine comedy stuck fast between his teeth.

[potato attacks Leon]
SivCOsiAsword
[Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.0 damage]

[presto][/presto]

sword

[анзие (Anz)]

You can walk the path among the lines

district 4 male

seventeen

Leon Krigel

frame of mind

They have matching swords.

Leon notes this with a detached sort of air as the other boy's blade swings to nick the side of his neck, adding just one more scar to his already vast collection. What kind of pattern will it be now, on his skin; will they become white lines standing out starkly against the color of his heritage? Will the stitches leave a mark? A part of him thinks that they might, for the fact that not-so-experienced hands were the ones that tried to hold his frame in place - but another part of him wants them out, gone; maybe he'll think this is all a bad dream in the end.

(He doesn't know

if he

wants

it to be

a dream.)

A vague part of his mind supplies the other boy's name - Potato, his parents must have thought they were being funny when they named their child after a vegetable root, but then again his own mother decided Leon is a suitable Blaise Napollyon - a name he realizes now that he's left so far behind he may as well be a different person entirely.

This is who he is now, unwavering hand and steady eyes and a mask placed over his bared skin in a form of an eerie smile that doesn't falter; Leon's only dimly aware that he's smiling, smiling like he's onstage with a lyre in hand and the full force of his happiness turned on his siblings - but the instrument in his hand kills, and where Blaise would once have looked on it with some level of irritation and a longing for something significantly more peaceful, Leon aims to destroy the boy who may as well be his killer - who may as well have killed all the others alongside.

But no, Ingrid had killed one - that's what she said to him.

"You killed her?" The words were stuck in his throat because asking won't bring them back. Nothing brings back the dead, and if he didn't before Leon knows for certain now - no matter how many times one whispers their name like the next call will have an answer there are no points of contact but for the imagined conversations and pictured hands against his cheek whenever a breeze brushes on by. The dead are gone.

All that's left of them are memories.

Will you be a memory?

He doesn't know if he says the words aloud, but they hang in the air like he has. Leon laughs suddenly, a sound so bright he hurts himself listening to the echoes - but he's still laughing when he leaps with the sword that calls for the blood of the other boy, an angry beast - a living creature.

(Target

locked

in.)

Leon attacks Potato
XdpRVQgBsword
1156 -- Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage

With your shattered frame of mind

[googlefont="Macondo Swash Caps:400"]
sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

He knows that this is the boy that killed Ingrid. There is no one else in the area, no one else could have done it. He should feel anger about this, divine righteousness. He doesn't feel anything. His insides are empty and bottomless, devoid of emotion. He feels nothing as his sword makes contact with the other boy's skin, just how he has felt nothing before, each time he has killed a person. When he cut off that Tiger's head, or pushed his sword through Jem's skin. There was nothing to be felt, simply an absence of a problem. He isn't a human being anymore, he is a robot, a mechanical man built out of sand and hollow bits.

He feels like with every step he takes, he is holding a red flag out to the side, waiting for the bull to charge, waiting for the hand on his chest, pushing him into and past the dirt, telling him that it is done. Maybe he could have survived once, maybe he might have made it to his final third. To swing the Muleta just one last time. However, he is no longer a boy but a rag doll held together with needle and thread, badly made stitches. No one now can save him from this fight, no one now can tame the bull that is running for him. He is surely in Ripred's hands.

Nobody covers for the matador.

He will die here today, on the sands of this desert, barely half a day's walk from where he and Sonja turned the sand red only hours ago. It is his fate to do so maybe. It was his fate to suffer for so long and then get given unto him an angel. Now he will suffer for that too, those few moments of purity he held in his fist when he was able to hold Opal in his arms. If a life in hell is what he earned for daring to love the stars out of the sky then he was complacent. It was a fair trade.

Yea, though I walk in the valley of Death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me.

He was not afraid to die. He would walk calmly into death if he was asked to by this boy. However, he was not the type to walk alone. If he could, he would try to take him with him. He feels the cut open up across the back of his leg where there are already so many wounds that he might as well be a leather worker's practice piece. The pain is sharp, spicy, entertaining to think about but nothing more than that. He barely stumbles as fresh blood wells and starts to fall down the back of his leg.

He is a machine with only one mission, to get back to her. He will move tirelessly forwards until he can no longer stand on his own two legs and when that moment comes he will crawl and if he can no longer crawl he will roll. He will see her again. He will love her again.

He swings the sword with gusto, no anger involved, simply a quiet calm that enfolds his love.

[potato attacks Leon]
yAN3I5Hpsword
[Miss -- 0.0 damage]

[presto][/presto]

sword

[анзие (Anz)]

leon krigel

Leon barely evades Potato's sword as it swings down, and maybe his other arm would have been in the way but it's not there and there's no point in wondering otherwise.

They are quiet but for the panting breaths and occasional grunts of exertion that slips past their lips, a dozen varieties of weariness in singularly syllabled sounds; but Leon doesn't feel it. Doesn't feel heavy, or hurt, or lost, like loss is supposed to be the counterweight for his being. Is this numbness, or calm? Can he be calm now?

(Strive.)

The river rushes to the tempo of their dance now, and maybe neither of them will speak words but there's nothing to say - and if they had the words it may well be lost in the sound of the water that is not unlike the sounds of Four. The rush eases what emotions that possessed him like demons just hours before they have crossed swords; it keeps them locked away. And that's what he needs, what Leon wants; he has to choose his direction.

Can you imagine living life in peace?

If peace exists.

(The sky

belongs

to

none.

Attack.)

Leon Krigel attacks POTATO EARNEST
sXhDQ6bnsword
1120 -- Shallow Cut on Cheek -- 3.5 damage

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

He does not have the strength that he once did. perhaps once upon a time he might have been able to swing the sword in his hands as easily as if it was a blade of grass. There were days when nothing was too hard, when he could accomplish anything he set his mind on. He remembers the harvest times, when he would swing the scythe high above his head and cut down the blades of wheat that the family down the clouding dirt road had grown. The feeling of the dry grasses giving underneath the slick sharpness of the scythe had always made a satisfactory feeling bloom beneath his rib cage. There was a sense of community in those times, when everyone would gather together to help with the harvest.

During those times the prayers at church were less about the usual things and more about the harvest being bountiful. People wonder why District Eleven is so invested in Ripred, why the people there bend in prayer to a God so unmoved. It is because they have no one else to turn to. They cannot control the weather or how well a harvest will do. They cannot control how many bugs will eat the much needed plants, they can only pray that Ripred will see them through, that Ripred will help them reach their quota so that they may live happily for another year.

For most districts, it is the reaping that they have to look towards in fear, but for District Eleven, the reaping is almost a secondary fear in comparison to the stress that is collection day. Punishments are harsh for those that do not fill their designated quota. Many a man or woman have disappeared with the meager harvests, human slaves taken in payment for the amount unable to be given. A bad harvest does not only mean starvation for the inhabitants of the District, but it also can mean saying goodbye to loved ones. The people in Eleven live in a constant state of fear and that fear is held by all, shared. The people place it and themselves in the hand of Ripred and they pray to Ripred, asking for safety, for love.

But Ripred never loved a District less.

Even if Potato were to make it out of this alive, he would be returning home to a half-starved district containing a little less than half of the population that it boasted just under three years ago. No matter how often or fervently the people in his district prayed, Ripred either would not listen or could not hear them. Many were dead and Potato was meant to die as well but he didn't. He might of, if it hadn't been for the girl he was so earnestly trying to return to now. He might have given up then if it weren't for the way she'd pleaded for him to stay with her, for the way she lay with him in the darkness and whispered her life to him.

He had thought he loved her before then but he could only love her better after the death of his innocent thoughts of her. When she told him during those dark weeks that she was not the champion of gardening but of something else, she'd expected him to flinch away in the darkness. He could feel her flinching as she lay on top of the covers and he lay underneath them. He hadn't done anything to show that the idea of killing someone else disgusted him. he also hadn't admitted that he was glad that she had murdered her best friend. He didn't want to say that he was happy she had been through so much, that she had survived so many horrors, because no one would wish a hell like theirs on anyone.

He was glad though.

He was glad to know her.

He thinks about the sun, high above his head. He thinks about how much he used to love to chart it's route across the sky, how often he nodded to it's departure as he wiped his brow and stood tall in a field that he had spent the day working on with gusto. He wonders what the point of it all was. He was eighteen years old and this was where he was destined to meet his end? After years of toiling like an ant in the field, he was going to die here, after only having tasted the fruits of his labor.

He had made love to Opal the moment they had left their quiet wedding. He'd laid her out on the bed and he had unbuttoned her dress and shivered as she'd pulled his shirt off. He had kissed her neck and kissed other spots as well. He wasn't going to die a virgin, he wasn't going to be a martyr either. He wasn't here to prove that District Eleven could get far as well, he was here for entirely selfish reasons as shown in the way that he had taken down one of the best people he had ever had the privilege of knowing.

He was here because he loved a girl so intensely that he was very much willing to kill for that love. Maybe that was the reason that Ripred seemed to have forgotten about him now. Maybe she had cast him aside for the darkness that was taking control of his body in this very moment. He couldn't recall ever selling his soul to a demon but perhaps he had. This was what love was, wasn't it? Defeating odds that seemed stacked against you in a strange feat of power. Love was stepping forwards in an effort to conquer the enemy, striving to beat the foe so that he could go home to her.

If he sold his soul to a couple of demons in the process, then so be it.

The clouds cut slowly overhead in an almost unrealistic fashion as he feels the blade scrape across his cheek. It is odd to feel the line drawn there, the instantaneous bloom of pain. It is not easy to describe without having felt it one's self. It's similar to the smell of a morning frost come too early, destroying hundreds upon hundreds of plants, making discord and panic bloom in the hearts and heads of handfuls of people. It is the long, drawn out pain of reaching for a mother who is being taken as payment for the crops that have died. It is reaching with all your strength and not even being able to touch her fingertips before the doors shut and she is lost from you for an eternity and a half.

They send her tongue home to you in a little wooden box, a note from the President himself attached, telling you to plant the tongue in hopes of growing something more useful of air.

It is hopeless, to grow up in a society such as this. It is hopeless to love, to care. To want for anything is silly, and ridiculous. they brought this punishment upon themselves. No one knows how anymore, but they did, sure as day. Sure as the sun rises, they deserve this, to kill each other on the playing field instead of walking off of it, arm in arm, to go home to loving families and ice boxes full of food. It is all they've ever known at least, there surely isn't anyone left who could recall the days before any of this.

Ripred does not know what she has done in leaving him to his doom. A god does not know about the small humanity of people, nor does she care. A god is a god is a god and a mere mortal, well. A mere mortal can only hope to live as long as she wishes it.

Potato was not going to make it until tomorrow. The dice had been thrown and it did not look good for him. He could remember the satisfaction of the wheat stalks falling beneath his blade, how unsatisfactory this all was, how cutting human flesh was not what he had been crafted to do. He had been made with loving hands to make green grow from the Earth and in eliciting blood, he had thrown the gift of the Mother away. Whatever happened now, he had wrought upon himself.

For a moment, he looked upwards, as if searching for a camera. She was watching. It did not matter which she it was at this point, all the Shes that were important to him most likely were. They were few and far between. He would not make her watch him be cut down without fighting for it.

He did this for her, and for himself.

Despite the nature of what he had become, he did so want to live.

[potato attacks Leon]
UKJxuh3Nsword
[miss????]

[presto][/presto]

sword

[анзие (Anz)]

leon krigel

"You live your life just once, big Z. I know this is weird coming from me, but you shouldn't..." Leon waves his hand vaguely in the air, but his gaze is pointedly fixed on the scattered clothes on the floor. Perched easily on Zeus's windowsill, he's long seen Zeus's latest conquest out the door with a dozen charming smiles and warm words - but he has none for Zeus now. "You know. Sleep around so much." He leans back against the frame and raises an eyebrow at his friend.

"How else am I to shield myself? I don't want to feel the agony of losing a loved one again."

A slow exhale. Leon turns his gaze to stare out the window as he speaks again, "Yeah. You're not supposed to be hiding who you are, Z. The girls love you. You just have to let them love you properly." There's no suggestion in his tone, only a steady encouragement that his friend turns away from - but it's as usual. The muttered, "I'll love them my way, and you love them yours," is more mutinous than it is Z actually angry, and Leon knows it's about time to drop the subject - after he's left Z something to think about.

Shrugging one shoulder, Leon lets his gaze follow the rise of the ocean before turning back to stare at Zeus with the most piercing look he can muster. "You know it's bad when I'm telling you this stuff." Then, wryly, "Though the rate you're going, I should be worried you'll destroy my rep." Leon stretches, then unfolds his legs, dipping to swipe a vaguely clean shirt and chucking it at Zeus's face. "C'mon, you lazy lump - let's go meet the others."

He's never smoked in his life, and Leon doesn't plan on starting - ever.

But it sure feels like he's inhaled too much of the silvery clouds that Zeus puffs out like some kind of absurdly clean factory - like floating in the sea on an oddly calm day when the waves aren't fucking with his balance on the little raft, or trying to crash into him like he's a lonely island. (He's not lonely he's got others he's got others there are others and he-) He doesn't know this as numbness now - he knows it as adrenaline, pure and bodily; he knows it as strength in weakness, toughness in tender moments, a racing heart to a simple touch (the crook of his neck is safe it's warm and safe and lovely and he smells amazing, and he can probably feel the beat of Leon's heart like he's never done this before and it's different with them. It's different with him.

It'll never be the same with anyone else).

Zeus once embodied freedom in ways so similar to Finnegan that Leon might well have found himself (strangely) attracted to his friend were it not for the fact that Leon knew him too well. Knows him too well still - Z is as bound to whatever he might be bound to in the way Leon once was.

(He's free now.)

The water is beside them, gurgling what Leon imagines to be encouragement - and he hears their voices urging him on, friendsfamilylovers alike. He weaves around the sword again, raising his own as a silent tribute to them - and a promise to the rest.

It gleams in the sun, and slashes towards the other boy.

Leon Krigel attacks POTATO EARNEST
P04YUcAXsword
1004 -- Shallow Cut on Forehead -- 4.5 damage

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

He can't cheat death for a girl, it's too cliche and the universe knows it. The writers are frantic, attempting to get the train that is his story line back on it's tracks but sometimes life cannot be written, in specifics, his. Not everyone can have the chance to win. Not everyone can be the hero of the story. His mistake was in thinking that he was the main character of his, but only now is he beginning to realize that sentiment might not be true. He might be just a supporting character in Leon's.

He remembers being ten years old and laying in the dark, listening to the stories his sister liked to weave. There was always hundreds of explosions and peasants getting eaten by dragons before the knight in shining armor rode in to save the day. When he was young, he liked to imagine that he was the night his sister spoke of, that he was the awesome power that could fix anything. Maybe he was, back home. Here he was the peasant about to be burned to a crisp by a being more powerful than himself, the dragon at the end of his story.

He'd wanted to be the one to rescue the princess, not die trying, not being one of the many failures that were referenced in their scorch patterns against the cold mortar of the castle walls. He thought that he could do it for her, that he could become something powerful, unbreakable, but maybe he had been wrong. Maybe just all along he had been wrong and it would have been smarter to die in the first few minutes of this long, tiring struggle called a game. He could have saved himself the trip to hell.

He would do it all again if he had to, he would kill Sonja a thousand times in her name. He would become something so very cold and distant that mountains would shrink when he came near and he would love her so fiercely that she wouldn't ever be able to deny him. He would love her so much that she might forget what he had become in order to get back into her arms.

He was going to die here.

He didn't want to think about that.

He was letting it happen after all.

He felt it as the blade bit into his skin and sliced across his forehead, sweat instantly mixing with the open wound making it sting worse. Blood thankfully pooled at the corners and ran down the side of his face so that he was not blinded by his own self. He could ignore the sting of these fresh pains if he paid close attention to his older wounds. Then he could take a turn ignoring his old hurts by paying attention to the fresh cuts in his skin. It was the same as shifting from one foot to the other after standing still for a long period of time.

The only thing that he wasn't entirely pleased with was this boy's lack of speech. He wasn't a talker during fights himself. If Sonja were here or even Ingrid they could both attest to that. It was horrid going down like this without a word from his killer, without a reason. There was no rhyme to this, the fact of the matter being that this Leon wouldn't be killing him if they weren't here. The only reason this fight was happening was because if it wasn't, there would just be a longer wait until one of them got home. It was better to end it here rather than drag it out.

His body felt cold and meek, his arms were tired and he was exhausted with it, all the constant fighting that was dragging at his body. He wasn't a machine at all, even if he wished it of himself. He was an eighteen year old boy and truth be told, he wanted his mother, he wanted to bury his head in her arms and never come back out of that embrace. He might achieve that wish soon if this other boy was to get his way.

Some part of him wished that he could lay down his sword and topple over into the sand but he couldn't give up and so he worked on, relentless as stone, insufficient as foam. He was doing no damage here, not landing any attacks. All of the fight had seemed to vanish from him. He was barely anything now, least of all a boy. He wasn't a husband, nor a man. He was a small thing, a broken thing, a tired thing.

He wanted to shut his eyes, to rest. He couldn't. Not yet. Never yet. He would swing his sword again and again, no matter how many times he missed, to the very last.

So be it.

He swung.

[potato attacks Leon]
ftDEJvDFsword
[Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]

[presto][/presto]

sword

[анзие (Anz)]

leon krigel

Leon finds it hard to imagine that, once, the Games never existed at all. It's been so much of a way of life for them at this point - for the children growing up, marching onto the town square every year to dread the slip of paper or papers that have their names written casually across the front in what Leon imagines to be simple black print. Just little shapes to form a group of words, which becomes a name.

Their name.

His name.

Do all simple things become complicated in the end? Do they all start with little black letters written across a white canvas - a name, their name, his name, then words and

words and

words and

words.

Do all stories start that way?

Leon is not as much a writer as he is a talker; he's never voluntarily picked up a pen to tell a tale in his life, but he thinks that this is a tale he can never phrase with ease. He's lied - he lies with the smile and the words and all the things that start with him - but he can't lie out of this, and he can't tell the truth about it either.

How can he ever put any of this into words?

"Nat, those mutt things - they're ginormous."

"'Riss, a life without water is crazy."

Words. Words

words words words

words.

Does the word seem strange, now?

It sounds weird in his mind. Sounds weird, sounds funny, sounds like it's not even a word at all.

Except it is.

(He's alive.

He's still alive.

And he has to do this for...

for them.

Yes.

So Leon knows he's got to find some peace of mind, if only to see the lying strings and the wasted lives that were strewn throughout the arena; wasted lives - twenty-three to save one, and he's willing to bear that burden.

If only to know that their killers are dead and gone.

The blade slices through the air to find his target.)

Leon Krigel attacks POTATO EARNEST
wcHDIXcmsword
1081 -- Severed Right Forearm at Elbow -- 9.5 damage

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

He grunts in the instant his arm disconnects with his body and falls to the ground. His fingers twitch in surprise as they find themselves laying in the sand, unsuspecting of this new development. He didn't know that it was possible to feel so much pain in one instant and if he were the type to have a scientific mind, he might be willing to catalog that pain in the moment. It is more like the pain rips him in two, sending him stumbling backwards, the heat of it spreading up his arm and through his body.

This hurts more than any ear being displaced. This is a red hot poker under the coals of his indifference, stirring him up and filling him with fire from the ground up. He grips his sword tightly still in his left hand, where it has always been. His right hand was always the useless one, but not the unloved one. With that hand he did many things. He planted the fields and watered them, he made things that might be useful to his mother, he held his wife in that hand. Now it was on the ground, no longer even twitching in the dirt.

How could he pray in church now, with no left hand?

He'd seen Old Ben praying by pressing his stump against the palm of his other hand and it had always filled him with a touch of fear. He was disfigured and maybe it was right to fear that because it was unnatural. There was an absence that was sorely noted. Opal was missing a leg but she was still beautiful. It didn't matter, she didn't need that leg for praying. He'd kissed the place where her leg ended and the absence began because he didn't understand just how much pain it was, he'd been foolish.

He was angry.

He'd liked that arm.

He had the decency not to cut off Sonja's arm before killing her and Sonja had the decency to at least speak to him as she'd been attempting his murder in return but as of yet this Leon was silent. Maybe that's just how the reaper came though, silent as the grave.

His arm hurts like hell, it's no small thing to lose one. However, Potato is not entirely here and to the man who holds his body steady now, it is simply a flesh wound, nothing more. He didn't need that arm anyway, not here. All he needs is to fight and nothing else matters. Nothing else in this Ripredforsaken place is important other than the need to keep breathing, to stride forward.

So he does not drop his sword and run away to lick his wounds like any sane person might. He turns his sword in the air, lazily flicking the droplets of blood off like he has so many times this week and then he charges forwards.

[potato attacks Leon]
t7AQndc4sword
[Deep Gash on Chest -- 9.5 damage]

[presto][/presto]

sword

[анзие (Anz)]

leon krigel

(If he thinks about it there is nothing like watching a girl struggle to take her final breaths the way Leon watched Jacinda Zembori struggle to breathe; there is nothing like seeing the way the lights died out from her eyes as she expelled her final breath - these are some of the few things Leon remembers of that night, along with the sound of the cannon and the hovercraft lifting her spread-eagled body into the air. Killing has nothing on watching someone suffer.

He never knew her, but he'd known then that seeing the suffering is so much worse than a spray of blood across the air.

The sword goes through the other boy's arm like it's- not quite butter, but easily, the wicked edge dripping a dark, dark red. Odd. They match, now, one-handed teenagers who have killed more people than they ought to have - Leon certainly has killed two more people than the younger version of him ever thought he would have, and now he's sliced off one more arm than he knew he would.

He feels nothing for it.

We match.)

They are not alone. They have family. Each of them have family - every person who has graced this arena has a family watching. It doesn't matter if any of them are related by blood, or if they are just people that one picks up along the journey of their life to this point, the fact of the matter is that there are people watching them here. They're all watched here, there is no such thing as privacy. (They know.) If there's a need to hold back Leon hasn't listened to it at all.

What is there to listen to?

Certainly the race of his heart is a merry little tune, his life solidified in a beating organ of muscle; it's something to listen to. It's not quite music, but it's like the crash of waves over the beach - it's real, it's real and it's alive. It's beats like it's written a song for its empty friend - it's fighting frame.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

Let this song fill your mind and soak into your bones.

(He fights on like he can see the finish line, like it wasn't a metaphor in the first place. Leon fights, and fights, and fights, because that's all he's meant to do here, isn't it? Fight, and stay alive.

Staying alive.

Leon swings the blade with the full force of his strength behind his arm - it whistles through the air towards his mark.)

Leon Krigel attacks POTATO EARNEST
jPojNsBmsword
1098 -- Stabbed in Calf -- 8.5 damage

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

He'd wanted to love her until they were old and grey. He'd wanted to wrap himself up in her scent to keep himself warm at night before leaving the house to tend to the plants that grew in their garden. He'd wanted to plant her one of those, filled with roses and lilacs and tulips. He'd wanted to give her so much in return for the hope that she'd always given him in shipments of pounds of it. She'd been the doorstop between him and death, the safety net for so long that he'd forgotten what it was to know that he was dying.

As he felt the blade enter his leg he began to remember it, the feeling that washed over him once before already. It had been hopelessness then, as he'd crouched in the dirt and held fistfuls of dry earth in his hands. His father had just breathed his last and he didn't know if Nightshade was even still alive. His mother was long gone and everyone around him, the people he had been raised with had been dropping like flies. He'd been ready then, to die. He'd begged for it with hands bent out of shape in prayer, with tears in his eyes, he'd asked to die. The knowledge that he was useless and on the verge of it yesterday had sent his seventeen year old brain over the edge.

Everything had seemed so dark then.

She'd come, like an answer from Ripred herself, an angel descending from the heavens. She'd come and held him in her arms and she'd told him that it would be alright, everything would be okay. She'd promised him then that he wasn't going to hurt anymore because she was there to fix him, to pour so much love in him that he nearly forgot how he was broken in the first place. She'd washed the desperation and sadness out with peace and healing, she'd reminded him that it was alright to be broken but it was good to stand up again, to keep going, to live.

The sword slipped out of his left hand as his fingers uncurled and fell into the sand with a muted thud. It rested there, silent as his grave and he wondered why it had come to him in the first place, why she had sent it at all. It was so he could live. He knew that. It was given unto him by his wife, the love of his life because she had wanted his survival. Instead he had only managed to condemn himself to the furthest pits of Hell. If he'd been able to make it back to her, the killing might have been somehow worth it. He wouldn't be, going home to her that is. This was his rest that he had been seeking.

He followed the sword, knees hitting the sand with a painful judder through his body, highlighting every single cut that was made upon his skin and into his flesh. The blade shined in the weak sunlight, he did not. He was a patchwork thing, sewn together so many times that some might refer to him as Frankenstein's monster, a being made for aggression but not well known for his beauty. He wasn't what he had set out to be, he wasn't the peaceful boy that his parents had raised. He was crafted by the hands of the Capitol and like all terrible things, he'd had to become an ending.

His mouth was dry, filled with ash as if he were in the grave already. This was a slow death that he was condemned to however, he'd bleed out through these wounds. He was too tired now, so exhausted. He could barely raise his arm, let alone try to lift the sword again. His body burned all over, like he was being turned to stone incredibly slowly. He would become a gargoyle maybe, a creature. He was a creature already, a thing made of flesh and bone but lacking the boy who had once inhabited the body. He had possibly died already, long minutes ago, gone on to hell ahead of the rest of him.

He raised his head, shutting his eyes so he could feel the sun's warmth upon his skin, he was shivering from the cold. Before the drought he had loved sunlight, he had loved everything that there was to do with the world. Now he was dying, an embittered, twisted version of who he had once been. He was mutated by the demons and devils that had taken hold of him and plagued his district for these long years. All the purity, the innocence that his sister had loved him for was gone now. He was a shell.

The ring on his finger was heavy with collected sorrow. He shouldn't have married her. It was childish and silly to have hope that he might return to her. He was surprised that he even still had hope that Ripred might look after him. She'd probably foreseen what he would become and given up on him ages ago. It was silly of him to pray, to hope for anything. He shouldn't have married Opal. He'd made a widow out of her after only one week of marriage. He knew he was going to break her heart. He'd sinned the moment he saw her, coveting something so beautiful. He'd sinned when he'd married her, lying when he vowed to love and protect her for as long as they both would live.

He'd broken that promise.

He was dying here.

He knew it because his bones were so weak now that he couldn't feel the weight of the pain anymore, it was lifting away from him like a piece of clothing. The blood was leaving his body in streams and rivers, running down the plains and hills of him in an effort to get to the sea. It was odd to look at, like an evacuation of his body was occurring even as his heart was beating. He was heading for the hills, disintegrating like leaves shedding it's tree.

He was glad that he married her, he didn't regret it. He loved her so much that it burned him just to think about it. The only pain he could feel now was the hurting in his heart, weeping, sobbing for Opal to come to him, to wrap her arms around him, to tell him it was alright. If this was one of his sister's stories, maybe that would happen. Her tears would heal him and he'd heal over time, he'd garden again, he'd plant potatoes and other vegetables. There'd be no drought, no ailing health, only her and life.

This wasn't a fairy tale.

She couldn't save him, not here. She was far from him now, a sweet far thing, untouchable. He would never hold her in his arms again, he would never kiss her cheeks or have the scent of her hair ever again. He was dying. The last memory he had of her was when he'd left her that last morning. The covers had collected around her waist and her hair had spread it's self all over the pillow. He'd lain awake, watching her breath in and out, in and out, in and out for very long moments. He'd watched her eyelashes flutter and smiles tug at her lips as she dreamed. He hoped she'd remember to smile still, that she would love someone again.

Her loving someone else hurt unbearably so. He didn't want to think of her with anyone else. He didn't want to think of her alone either, old and grey all by herself with no one there to tell her how beautiful, how wonderful she still was. That thought was what kept him there, holding on as long as he could. He didn't want his wife to be alone. He didn't want her to cry, to feel hopeless with no one to hold her. He didn't want that for her. He couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't be the one to tell her it was alright when it felt like it wasn't. Someone else would have to.

"Don't....." he said, rolling his eyes to look at the sky, searching for a camera, "Don't." His mouth was having trouble forming the words, his phrasing was bound to be crooked but ignoring the dying wish of someone couldn't be done by those that watched, it was cruelty to kick the dog that was down already. So they'd listen. Someone would listen. "Don't," he tried again, "Let her be alone....." The effort of speaking sent him lurching forwards and he pushed his left hand out to catch himself, to steady himself. He wouldn't die laying down in the sand like a worm.

"I," he said, voice soft, forcing his eyes open even as he grit his teeth from the pain in his heart, "I love you, Opal Earnest. Always."

And he died then, there in the desert, beside the river, body empty and dry as dust.

[presto][/presto]

[анзие (Anz)]

oh take it all away

district 4 male

seventeen

Leon Krigel

fortune soul

"I've been having these weird dreams lately.
Like, is any of this for real, or not?"
- kingdom hearts

The hovercraft has come and gone, come and gone, like an angel with metallic claws to lift the body up, up, away; Leon heard it come, listened to the sounds with his head half-turned over his shoulder as the wind buffets him and the water he's born from back and forth, back and forth, unsettling the dust to have every grain cling to his tired frame. He stands alone in the river that laps comfortingly against his bared skin; the dust flows away, joining the rush of water with bubbling laughter he imagines is not unlike his brother's.

He's alone here.

It's funny. It's funny-not, not the laughing type of funny - it's just funny. He's just killed a man - has killed twice that many, now - and he feels nothing. Potato Earnest is dead, Ingrid Elwyn and Gavin Barker are dead, and he feels nothing - or maybe he does, maybe it's all in there but just... he just can't feel it. Where have his emotions gone? (Wrapped, lovingly, he imagines, around another boy in another time or another life, were he a dreamer, were he able to summon the ability to think wishfully; he can't, where's it gone? Where's he gone? Where are you?) He should have walked away the moment he'd known his opponent is dying. He should have, would have, could have but for the look on the other boy's face as he gazed upon things he may never see otherwise; Leon stayed against his better judgement, his feet rooted to the sand as he watched Potato Earnest on his knees in the face of a higher power or a better divine.

The sword fell to the floor not in a clatter but a quiet little thud, as final - as powerful - as someone's last breath; it stayed there as Potato hit the ground, the sound of his ragged breathing audible even over the river. Maybe they'd muted it for entertainment's sake - or maybe Leon's imagining things, like the dozen hands reached out to rest on the edges of Potato like he's being given some kind of strength to breathe on, breathe on - to say, "Don't let her be alone," to say, "I love you, Opal Earnest," to whisper, "Always." Leon stayed long after Potato's final breath, stays still, long after the echoes of the cannon have stopped richocheting across the arena. He stayed staring at open, empty eyes - staring at the cold body with blood splattered across the ground like he'd been given crimson wings.

He stayed, staring down at a man who is barely married and barely a boy, and then Leon knelt by his side without a word. His fingers were gentle as they slid Potato Earnest's eyelids shut, but still he felt nothing as he stepped away into the river.

The hovercraft came for the body soon after.

--

The water cleanses with strange swish-swishing sounds and a lovely feel, leaving his skin shimmering in the light of the sun; he leaves a trail of blood as he moves through the water, spinning seemingly aimless circles at odd moments and sending waves back at others so they know what it feels like. What started as background noise in pointless humming becomes a song, the words meaning nothing as they leave his lips:

And I can tell just what you want
You don't want to be alone
And I can't say it's what you know
But you've known it the whole time;
Maybe next year I'll have no time
To think about the questions to address
Am I the one to try to stop the fire?

The words hang empty.

They mean nothing because

they're all aimless here, aimless and wandering like little birds, like all the little birds peeping brightly at each other, tussling over the dead piece of worm, and maybe that's the point of this. Maybe that's the whole point of having the Games. Turning them into little birds - clipping their feathers and forcing them to fly.

They're all dead here,

losing themselves even if they haven't lost a thing. (He's lost a lot of things, from an arm to a person like some absent-minded little creature, head tilted to the side with a look of puppy-like confusion strewn across his features; and still he's alive.) But they lose more than a sense of touch, little pieces of themselves carelessly thrown across the room to shatter against the wall, and maybe a soul never existed at all?

Leon spins

round and round and round, the song gone gone gone from his mind - another thing he's lost now, like a trade-off for his life. Two more have to die and Leon's trading away little things to save what life he has still, from memories (of warm skin and dark, laughing eyes; his own name weighted on a little sigh and a silent, God, I love you, pressed with the heat of his own mouth) to his arm (that hurts but doesn't all at once) to the drops of blood that he's forever stained the arena with.

He wonders if he'll know the faces tonight.

--

Under the light of a red sun, sitting cross-legged on the riverbank, when he holds his hand out just so Leon can see the outline of something or someone somewhere across the river in front of him, and so he talks to him, because who the fuck else could it be? Tells him random little observations, like doesn't that cactus look like a man? or I closed his eyes; did he close yours?; he sings sweet little ditties which first come from his childhood before turning into lullabies Leon makes up on the spot. Did they sing you to sleep?

When darkness creeps on them Leon loses sight of his companion; his hand falls back into his lap and his vision clears to see nothing and no one across the river.

With a little start, he begins to wonder what he was talking to at all.

Leon Krigel cannot flee the fight
Leon uses FA on self
Leon uses N/T on self
Leon uses 5ft of Bandages on self
Leon loots Potato's body
[more to come]

i don't feel it anymore

[googlefont="Macondo Swash Caps:400"]