A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Ribbon - Danae

Danae

The crack of rock against skull makes me keel aside and retch, bringing up acid that stings my tongue and throat. The second time I'm ready, the third I'm running and waving my arms and shouting, the way the instructor told me to do if we came across dangerous animals. "He went that way!" I shout. "Walt went that way!" I don't care if I'm right or not. "That way!"

Milo drops the rock and looks up at me. I can see white all the way around his eyes. Frightened even more, I step back. There's blood splattered across his face; Fidelis' blood. You know vampires? Sure you do. There's a fad for them every few years, and half the Capitol goes nuts over pale skin and black hair and creepy eyes. Like the girl from Platinum. Milo looks like he threw himself into it heart and soul. I can imagine him crouching over me, drinking my blood. He seems to be swaying slightly.

I'm Ferrous stock, even if I've never exactly been proud of it. And Milo is, when all is said and done, just an Avox. I draw myself up and, thinking of Fidelis and how he speaks, try to purge all fear from my voice. Nothing but certainty. Leave no room for disobedience. Father is particularly good at this, but I never quite got the hang of it. "I think you should go," I say, like a host talking to a drunken guest who keeps vomiting into all the plants instead of in the special room. "Now."

One of his hands darts a quick movement.

"I don't understand." Or maybe he doesn't understand me. I repeat it again, slower. "I. Don't. Understand."

Any of it, really. I don't understand how the Capitol lost. I don't understand how the Treaty ever got accepted. I don't understand why I'm in the arena, or that Fidelis, of all people, is lying there not moving, and I don't understand what Milo's lightning-fast Avox gestures mean.

He does another one anyway.

"Go!" I shout, and this time my voice cracks and it turns into a sob. Milo stands up steadily, like a mountain assembling itself, and for a moment I think he's going to hurl himself at me and I steel myself to run.

So much for being brave.

For what feels like a lifetime, Milo watches me watching him. He is swaying. What's he thinking? I have no way of even guessing. There are thoughts in there, but are they vicious and violent or peaceful? Does he pity me, or hate me? Does he even realise what he's just done?

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he turns around and lopes off. I should chase after him, should find something to hurt him, make use of any kind of weapon...but my legs are carrying me in the wrong direction, and I'm sure I'm trembling too much to be of any use. If I was going to get him, my chance would have been while he was distracted with Fidelis, and I didn't manage it. All I did was shout and scream. And now look.

I drop to my knees beside my stricken sector partner. Not that he's easy to recognise, now Milo has done with him. Every part of him looks bruised and battered. I grab his hand and call his name. His eyelids flicker, so he can hear me, and a ragged movement in his chest tells me he's still breathing. His lips move. "Muh...muh..." It's not words, it's hardly even sounds, but he's alive. His hand is clammy and cold. The crack of the rock echoes in my mind; I can see the three strikes of it. One above the left eye, deep, streaming blood. One further back, half-hidden behind his hair, that has white bits in it that I don't dare to look at directly. And one on the temple, and that's the worst because it looks like the whole side of his head has caved in. If he's lucky he'll have blacked out after the first. "Come on," I urge him. "You're Probus Fidelis Warwell, you're not going to die. You're not allowed."

A smile, or maybe I'm imagining what I'm desperate to see. But I'm right, I know I am. He can't die. Some people are above injury; you expect them to rise again, whole, as if they were never even hurt. Even the severity of his injuries should be little concern. In the Capitol he'd be a day under the knife of the best surgeons money can buy, maybe a week in the hospital to recuperate, surrounded the whole time by gifts from well-wishers and visited by his loved ones, and in two he'd be out and about and smiling at the world again, with his scars disguised by camo-skin and only the slightest of bumps in his skull to speak of his adventures.