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WHO: Draco, Pruna, and Katurian
WHAT: Draco's death at the hand of a Districtmate
WHEN: late in the third week
WHERE: moving out of Fantasyland and towards Tomorrowland. Somewhere between the two.
WARNINGS: death, likely language.

Though Draco knew quite well that he would do better to just hang out in Fantasyland, and keep his mouth shut and his makeshift wand up, he couldn't help but feel as though he needed to move around a little bit. He was getting bored, quite frankly, especially after Eponine's death. He no longer really had a purpose, short of perhaps finding that prick who'd lost him that bag during the Cornucopia. But he didn't even have a name for that face, and finding him would be a chore.

So wandering, it was. He'd still been hanging about with Katurian, though less and less. Probably for the best, mind. It wasn't that he disliked the man, it was more that he realised it was better if they split off and did their own things. Killed their own Tributes, perhaps. And though Draco hadn't really killed Eponine himself, it felt as though he had - her and Howard both. Even now, as he walked along, he felt a tingle urging him to find some other Tribute, maybe give them what they deserved. He tried to ignore it.

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Pruna had been drifting between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland not staying in the same place twice. She was still angry that Adel had went and died when she hadn't been there and she knew better than to stay in the same place for long.

The little girl had never quite looked civilised despite the stylists best efforts in the short time they had between her arrival and this arena, but now she looked wild. She was covered in bruises and scratches from fights with monsters and was more dirt than anything.

She was eating a piece of sweet cake, it was going a little stale now but she had made it last as long as she could, her knife was in her other hand as she crept down the path.

She froze when she heard footsteps and inched closer.

That man. The one who was from the same district as her. She didn't like him though they had not spoken that much. She glared at him, planning on following him a bit, he might have food.

Draco scuffed his foot against the ground as he walked, gathering his cape about him like that might somehow help. He had never been quite as mad at himself for not learning more about edible plants as he was right then; the cans he'd gotten from the Cornucopia hadn't lasted them that long at all, no matter how long they tried to make them last.

Hunger was making him focused on one thing, and one thing only: the ground beneath his feet. He heard the sound of someone nearby, but didn't register where, nor who. There was a dull ache in the entirety of his body now, residual from the scuffles he'd gotten into during his time in that Arena. He glanced back over his shoulder, wondering where Katurian was, how long it would take the other man to catch back up; he was blissfully oblivious of Pruna's presence.

She followed him a bit longer, he was so noisy she was surprised that no wild animal hadn't come and eaten him yet. It would be so easy just to jump out on him and the girl thought she should take this opportunity. After all everyone had to die, those were the orders.

So she might as well try now while he looked exhausted. Taking a deep breath she gripped both rock filled shoes and knife and jumped out behind him, swinging the shoes towards his head.

Before he'd left Fantasyland, no animal had even dared; perhaps they'd just been smart enough to avoid someone who gave off a strange sort of aura, or perhaps they just had better things to do with their time. Draco wasn't complaining, regardless, nor was he complaining about the way he hadn't really seen many Tributes around in a while.

Except till now, apparently.

One of the shoes clipped the back of his head, and though it wasn't a full on blow, it was enough to make Draco stumble and cry out, his foot slipping on the ground beneath him. He didn't go down immediately, but his balance was off; he hadn't seen the girl when he was looking around before, but she had to have been there. (Little bitch, his brain helpfully supplied just before connecting her face to that new Tribute in his District. Who attacked their own teammates?) One of his hands went to his trousers, seeking out his own knife while the other sought out the ground as he stumbled again, stars flying before his vision for the second time this Arena. He felt blood run down the back of his neck, and knew that couldn't be a good thing.

Well no one had told Pruna they were supposed to be teammates. She had just been told to fight to the death and that's what she planned to do. She brought her knife towards him as she tried to keep him down, knees attempting to find pressure points, shoe going towards his hand, trying to prevent him from grabbing his own knife.

Effie would need to get her hands on this one sooner rather later; it couldn't bode that well at all to have someone like Pruna just running around willy-nilly. Draco's mind automatically flickered to that thought as he went down with a grunt of effort, lashing out to try and get her off of him. Her shoe hit his other hand, the one that was indeed almost at that knife, and shattered some of the smaller bones automatically on impact; he cried out again, bringing one leg up in an attempt to kick her away, now that his knife had fallen out of reach.

His arm connected with the side of her face and the kick connected with her leg, sending pain jolting through her but she clung onto him blindly, not willing to give up her advantage no matter how much it hurt. She growled in pain but brought her knife towards his throat.

Katurian was not far behind.

Since his fight with Hyperion (the broken nose, the bruised ribs, the weakness and the wooziness), he had needed to rest, on occasion, to lean his body up against plastic rides and brick walls for minutes at a time. This meant that it took him a little bit longer to get from place to place, that when he broke off from Draco's company today, he didn't go quite as far as he anticipated.

This meant that when Pruna attacked, he could hear those soft grunts and moans. The struggle.

Katurian did not know that Draco had helped kill Howard and Eponine, and he did not know that he was itching to kill someone else just for the power it gave him. To Katurian, Draco was a young boy who was confused and angry, who sometimes made spiteful (and mean) decisions, who hadn't yet betrayed him with a knife in his throat. Draco was a young boy he had promised to protect. He didn't understand the scene at first, the little girl on top of the older child. His ally.

And then he saw the knife.

"Stop," he said, his voice a rattling yell. Fear and panic and confusion. He ran towards the scene, his feet nearly slipping on the ground underneath him.

Despite being so small, she was damn strong. That or he was just weak from lack of proper food. Either way, it was taking far more effort than it should have to fend her off, and to keep that knife from his throat. One wrong move, and she'd be able to slit his throat without much trouble at all. Still, he worked to try and fend her off, just until he heard Katurian coming-

Katurian.

There he was, his voice carrying above everything else. Still, Draco didn't let it distract him; if anything, he hoped it would distract her, and give him enough of a chance to kick her off.

"Do no be coming near." She shouted back, yelping as she was kicked again. She clung on though, because if she lost her grip now she would be vulnerable and she hadn't known there were two of them.

A bad mistake and one she would pay for if she wasn't careful. "You do be staying out of this."

But a verbal warning was not enough. Maybe it was because she was so small. Maybe it would be different if she were strong and terrifying, or maybe it would be different if he weren’t quite so invested in Draco’s safety. But she was small and she wasn’t terrifying, and Katurian had put far too much of his identity into being the “protector” to give up now.

He did not stop or hesitate — but he did not draw a weapon, either. He ran towards them as fast as his feet could take him, and then he leaned over and attempted to scoop the girl off of Draco with both of his arms. In a different scenario, it might have looked like a hug.

“No,” he said. “Don’t. Stop this. Don’t —“

The pleading went on and on and on. He was barely aware that his lips were moving.

Draco growled when she clung to him, trying to lean back now instead of getting her off; Katurian seemed eager enough to try that, after all, and he'd have a better shot at it. His heart was in his throat. That knife was still close to him for safety, and his hand, he was pretty sure, was broken beyond repair; it was useless, for all intents and purposes. Fantastic, that.

He could still propel himself backwards a little bit, though, trying to get away from her.

She was small and not terrifying at all yet grabbing her was a bad idea, she was small but wriggly, elbows and knees flew in Katurian's direction.

His grip hurt but she could ignore pain, or at least pretend to and she tried to launch herself at Malfoy's throat again.

Between them all flailing and fighting against it all, it was a wonder none of them had sustained worse injuries thus far. Another noise - somewhere between a growl and a shriek - tore from his throat as she lunged at him, her knife just nicking the tender flesh of his neck. Blood welled up immediately, and he struggled to roll over so he could reach for his own knife in retaliation, finding instead that his broken hand was getting very much in the way and he would be better off trying to stem the blood already running down his neck in rivulets.

His rolling at least threw her down enough to give him a few moments reprise. She made no sound as she hit the floor despite the fact that her arm was grazed and bleeding as she gathered herself back up to throw herself back at the man, going for his neck again.

He took kicks to the stomach, he took elbows to the neck, and none of it mattered. None of it felt like anything. The only thing Katurian could feel was the fear, the adrenaline, the simple disbelief that a little girl could be this vicious.

He didn't see the blood. Not yet. While Pruna lunged again, he attempted to grab her even harder, to carry her up and off of the ground.

Draco couldn't help but scream a little - just a short burst of sound, as he tried to force himself a little bit further away. His foot caught on his cape, and he made a more concerted effort to tear the thing away from his back, the pressure on where it tied around his neck causing him to bleed a bit more profusely from the wound Pruna had inflicted. He wasn't sure what she'd nicked, but it couldn't bode well.

"Get her away from me," he hissed, torn somewhere between anger and fear. He felt trapped, stuck where he cowered for his simple inability to move properly through the pain shooting up his arm.

He succeeded and she kicked out again, ignoring the fear and concentrating on finishing the job. She hadn't left anyone half dead yet and wasn't about to start now. She reached and grabbed his cloak as she was lifted into the air, letting the momentum of her being dragged up pull the cloak tighter around Malfoy's neck.

He could have slammed his fist into her face. He could have used his own knife to cut across her throat, to relax her deadly grip.

But he couldn't. No. Not a little girl. No no no no no no --

He tried to dig his fingers under her fingers, tried to claw and pry them from the cloak. Now he saw the blood. He saw how desperate the situation had become, and he tried to block it out, tried to pretend it was happening to someone else so that his hands wouldn't shake and his legs wouldn't collapse underneath him.

The noise that Pruna's gesture stole from Draco was nothing short of a choking gag. The cape had pulled into a more inconvenient place, dragging the blond forward a bit more as the fabric cut into his neck, and Draco had to reach out with his good hand to catch himself on the ground, trying to tug it away, smearing his blood against the dirt under their feet. "G- Ghk-" He tried to plead with Katurian, fingers clawing at where the cloak was cutting off his airways, starting to make his vision go black just at the edges.

Pruna held on as tightly as she could but Katurian was much larger than her and his fingers stronger than hers, it wasn't hard for him to forcibly move her fingers.

She kicked out again, trapped in his arms and tried to bend down to sink her teeth into his hand.

He swallowed a scream, Pruna's teeth digging into his hand. He also swallowed the urge to drop her, to let her fall back down onto Draco's prone form, because this was something he would not forgive himself for, this was something worth fighting for. The pain provided a moment of clarity (a flash of desperation) and so he broke his rule, if only for a minute. He wheeled around and threw Pruna away from him.

He flicked open his knife and stepped in front of Draco.

"Stay back," he said, a harsh, unsteady whisper. He was acting. He was writing. (But his eyes were still wild.) "Stay back or I'll gut you like a pig."

His good hand came back up to his throat, hastily loosening the cloak as best he could as he began to gasp for air. It had cut marks against his skin, the blood more readily flowing with every racing beat of his heart. If he bled out from that, he would never forgive him, Draco decided, though his vision remained blurred and dark around the edges. Hardly a good sign.

He choked a couple of times, coughing to clear the passage, and let himself fall down to his back, hoping that it will let him breathe properly again. The area was starting to spin, and he knew Katurian was in front of him anyway.

Edited 2013-04-12 23:46 (UTC)

A crunch as the girl was thrown down but she recovered quickly, jumping back to her feet, her knife pointing at Katurian who was now protecting her prey.

There was a chance he would die anyways, but she couldn't be sure, and every instinct in her told her to finish the job.

"Not if I do be gutting you first!" She bared her teeth again and rushed at Katurian, when she got close though she dropped to the floor, skidding towards him, trying to kick his feet out from under him.

Katurian shouldn't have been surprised. And yet he was.

He dropped, his footing gone, poof, but he still had enough control to angle his fall towards Pruna. He grabbed at her, scrambling for her knife, for his wrists, for anything to hold her down. To hold her back.

"Don't you dare," Draco coughed out, moving to the defence of his teammate albeit slowly. Pushing himself back up from the ground was more difficult than it ought to have, sending further shooting pains up his arm. Still, he dove at her, his free arm moving to take her out at the stomach.

He got her ankle, stopping her in her slide, causing her to struggle. She took Malfoy's blow silently doubling over with pain, terror coursing through her as she reached out blindly thrusting her knife at him, reaching out to grab his cape, his shirt, anything.

Because if the other man was going to kill her she was taking Malfoy with her.

Again. Again, someone was trying to save him.

“Draco!” He yelled despite himself, despite the knowledge that his voice could carry towards other Tributes, other people who would crave their blood. He grabbed at Pruna's head. He needed to grab her hair. He needed to knock her into the ground, knock her out before it was too late.

Without a doubt, if there were other Tributes around to hear, they would have already. The scuffle was already too much for most people to ignore, Draco would have thought, and he growled when Pruna thrust that knife at him again. His instincts were sadly poor, one hand moving to make sure she didn't hit his face; the knife went straight through the palm of his hand, and any noise he could have made at that point was silenced by the shock of seeing blood running down the back of his wrist. His eyes were wide as saucers then, and despite both hands being now useless, he brought the other up to try and fling her away, oblivious to the way she'd already grabbed onto his shirt.

She twisted the knife, just enough to open the wound because a little folding knife like that, it could break if it got stuck in his hand and she would be without a weapon, if she survived this.

Katurian grabbed her hair and yanked her back at the same time as Malfoy's hand, as useless as it was struck her face with a crack, blurring her vision.

But she kept hold of his shirt, and the knife, so even as her head was yanked back and she was dragged off the floor and towards Katurian, she dragged Malfoy with her.

Desperation was what made Katurian do what he did next. Desperation guided his skeleton and muscles with puppet strings. It pushed him forward. It clouded his mind.

(But even with his mind clouded, Katurian still saw the knife go into Draco's hand and he thought of mutilation, severed toes, the end of the end.)

Desperation made him tighten his grip on Pruna's hair then try to throw her head forward into the hard ground.

He screamed. He wasn't much for that, under most circumstances, but he thought that he might have been justified this one time, instead of perhaps back in first year when it was little more than him shrieking uselessly. Pain was shooting through his arm - both arms - and blood was running down his hand, starting to spatter and puddle on the ground beneath the three of them the more they tussled.

Involuntarily going along with the pair of them, Draco fought to get away; it wasn't worth much, not when he had no way of pushing Pruna away that didn't involve further pain in his arms (though maybe it was worth; maybe he could try). He merely tried to brace himself on the ground to prevent himself from going anywhere else. It was difficult, his vision blurred at the edges, focused purely on whatever was directly in front of him, and then still with some difficulty.

Her head hit the ground, pain flooded through her and for a moment she lay still, but only for a moment before her mind wrenched back control. She finally let go of Malfoy and began attacking the hand that had hold of her hair.

He preferred this. His adrenaline could handle pain better than it could handle guilt, and so when the attention was drawn to his own hand, he exhaled relief. He kept the fingers tangled in her hair. His extremities were so numb with panic that it was easier, almost, than letting go.

But defense was important as well. He swung his other hand around in an attempt to grab at her wrist. The knife.

He gasped for breath when she finally let go of him, eyes wide and pupils blown from the shock that was starting to set in. His fingers were cold, especially those on his bloody hand; it was almost as though he couldn't even move. He was trembling, Draco realised belatedly, wondering if this was the end. What a stupid way to die - being attacked by a small child, and dying from the trauma of the whole damn thing. He wanted to curse himself for letting her get so close to begin with.

Draco stumbled as he tried to push himself away with useless hands, his feet sliding on the blood spilt from his own wounds. His breathing was ragged, but he knew he couldn't do much more that Katurian wouldn't be able to do himself. Still, it seemed like an exercise in futility as he hit the ground and stayed there, hyperventilating as he tried weakly to drag himself away somewhere else.

She hated leaving a job unfinished, never leave until you are sure they are dead. But desperate times called for breaking training a bit and she was confident she had caused enough bloodloss for him to die anyways, it wasn't like there were any healers here... she thought...

So she concentrated on the one who had hold of her kicking out at him, moving as fast as she could, trying to dodge the hand coming to grab hers, slashing at the arm that held her hair with her knife.

Pruna's slash drew blood, a jagged diagonal line that traveled from the back of his wrist to the edge of his thumb. His blood trickled down to the ground and then got lost in Draco's blood like a glass of water would get lost in the ocean. The pain forced his hand to snap open, but he was bringing his arm back a second later and trying to knock the girl away. Again, he put himself between her and Draco, the attacker and the victim, the boy and the girl. He didn't yet know that the fight was already over, that Pruna had chosen to flee and that things were too late for Draco. He only knew that he failed to do the one thing he promised, he swore he would do, and that his own shitty moral compass brought him there.

How could he expected not to hurt children like that?

"Please," he said, and he was fighting tears in his eyes as he gasped. "Y-You don't need to do this, you don't -- just go, please --"

After another few moments, he gave up the ghost, flopping down to lie on the ground bonelessly. Shock was numbing his entire body, spots were dancing before his eyes; he couldn't focus, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. All that came were soft little gasps of hyperventilation, coming out like pained whimpers as he clung to the last edges of life. He didn't want to die. He hated dying. This wasn't even the first time, but it was still as painful as it ever was. Blood was smeared over his throat, his hands, his forearms. He looked like the wreck he was, and his awareness of Pruna and Katurian was at an all-time low. All that existed was him, the cape that still felt like it was choking him, and the sky high above him.

He let go, she was flung to the side, scratching her face and bashing her head again. The world was spinning and she had to get out. She spared a glace for Malfoy to check he hadn't somehow got back up and then she fled, not pausing at all until she felt she was far enough away to hide and examine her injuries.

He turned, panting, and now he could really see Draco. He could see what happened.

"No," he gasped.

It wasn't what he expected he'd say. It was too short. Too cliche. What happened next was less cliche, however, because when he bent down to remove Draco's cape, his hands were shaking so badly that he smacked him in the jaw. He steadied Draco's head with his hand, but that was as much coordination as he could manage. None of his fingers were cooperating, and it made sense, because none of his thoughts were cooperating either.

There was a great shadow passing over him, all fuzzy and making it strangely easier to just stare up at the sky, his breathing gradually fading into shallow gasps. Draco winced when Katurian accidentally hit him, the pain a dull ache that just joined hands with the other aches coating his body, like a patina over old copper. He gasped for more air, finally forcing himself to glance down from the sky, grey eyes glazed over slightly as he sought out his teammate. His lips were parted as if to speak, but nothing came out.

It was impossible not to see his own failures in those glassy eyes. He was not fast enough. He was not strong enough. He was a sniveling, depressive writer who did better with ideas than the messes that were laid in front of him, and he knew that, he always knew that, and yet he let Draco believe that he could trust him. That he would protect him.

Draco, who once saw him as less than human, who once saw him as an ally, who once saw him as maybe a friend, who saw barely anything now when he looked up into Katurian's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. He didn't know who he said it for. Draco. The cameras. Himself. He gently rested his hand over the boy's eyes, blocking out the rest of the world. Blocking out what was coming next. "I'm going to see you soon."

With his other hand, he pinched Draco's nose shut and covered his mouth with his palm.

Through the vague, cloudy thoughts that scramble his mind, Draco disagreed that Katurian failed - without him there, he would have grappled longer with the girl, suffered more injuries than a broken hand, the other stabbed clean through and still bleeding, a knick on his throat and bruises to match. Without him there, he would be lying there still dying of a slow shock setting in, freezing him from the inside out, and slowly suffocating.

At least now, as Katurian apologised, the words barely registering, and covered his eyes with one hand, Draco knew that it would all be over soon, and he wouldn't have to suffer through any more of this. The next thing he realised was that he couldn't breathe at all, not that he was all that surprised; the suffocation saw him flailing a bit, hands coming up uselessly to try and bat Katurian away. They paused in mid-air after a few more moments of it, almost as though Draco had rethought it, and soften, lowering back to the ground in a slow, almost controlled gesture. If it weren't for the way Draco settled back against the earth, too loose to be alive, he might look nothing more than sleeping peacefully. It was only half-wrong; he wasn't sleeping, but he was at peace.

Over the years, Katurian had learned how to detach himself. He had learned how to turn off certain parts of his brain, the parts that told him no, stop, think about this and move forward like an unstoppable wave. He was worried he had forgotten, worried that like with Daniel, his hands would freeze up and his joints would throw him backwards. He was worried that his brain would tell him no, stop, think about this.

But it didn't.

He pictured oceans. Farms. Forests that sprawled miles and miles.

He pictured blood and power drills. A world that wouldn't listen or give.

When Draco went limp, Katurian did as well, his shoulders slumping, his body falling forward onto the boy. He cried softly, his fingers still locked around the boy's nose. He didn't even hear the canon fire.

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About time for Katurian to jump in?

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skipping Katurian with permission for a round

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you're not katurian!!!

screech!!

Do you think there's enough damage for him to die if she runs?

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yep, totally. he'll just die of shock or something

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aand she's out. Thanks for the awesome thread guys!

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