thearena | (no subject)

Its the smell that attracts Tate to their location. He had always found it unwise to light a fire, even in the middle of the day- it gave away your location to everyone in the arena. Still, using his sense of smell he follows it, only now realizing that he hadn't eaten in days. Tate isn't use to having hunger, he hadn't needed it back when he was a ghost in the house.

Not for nothing, of course, that Eliot was chosen as the chef. Not because Donatello was a bad chef. He just wasn't the best chef out of them. Plus he'd been working on the traps, limiting his time to cook. Indeed, he'd just come back after working on a trap hut on the other island the whole night. Though, given how awake he was as he entered the tent, he could have fooled his allies.

"Morning," he greeted. His tone wasn't exactly chipper, given what happened the previous day. "Second one's up. How's Momoko and Ariadne?"

This time around had seen their alliance to a point that worked a bit better for her. They both still had their space, but could cover their backs well enough to not get killed sometime during the night. Her water bottle was seeing plenty of use, while Eliot covered their meals for the most part, and Donatello did his own thing. It was working well enough so far.

"Did you see anyone out there? Or do you think we're safe until we want to split up?" Ariadne glanced up to him from where she was sharpening her spear on a small rock, setting it aside as Eliot came back in. Her eyes moved to Don as he returned barely paces behind, and she offered him a brief, amused nod of greeting, "Good morning. I'm fine, thanks. How did it go?"

"I didn't see anyone except you two," Eliot replied, sitting down. "We should be safe for now."

He separated portions of the food for each of them. "How was last night?"

Tate could hear the voices of others and the name "Momoko" stood out, making his eyes narrow and his hand clench tightly around his machete that had been drawn. He began to creep closer to see how many there were. He knew he couldn't take them all on by himself, that would just be stupid. However if he could get just one, possibly by surprise, he could be content with that.

"Oh..." At this, Don sheepishly smiled at Ariadne. "Hey there. Didn't notice you."

At this, he sat down cross-legged, accepting the food that Eliot was serving.

"Thank you. It was all right. I managed to rig two of them last night; I just need to finish up the third one and we should be good to go. Still have plenty leftover, so I can make more weapons if we need them."

She smiled at Don like she was used to it, like she didn't really mind going under his radar like that. It was a useful skill.

Ariadne took her own meal, picking at it slowly, to make it last longer and keep her fuller longer. "That's good. We've got a solid base to work with. Anything from here on out seems to me like it's just gravy."

Eliot nodded. "That's awesome. Do you need my help with anything later today?"

He'd keep watch while Don slept. Later, they'd see about hunting the others and finding Momoko.

Tate was content that they were distracted by their food and their conversation as he moved silently to position himself behind them. He drew his machete slowly as he moved forward, finding himself behind the same bastard who had shoved a grenade in his mouth in the last arena. An evil smirk came to his lips as found his opportunity to seek revenge.

With one quick lung he was going forward with his machete swinging as he came up behind Eliot with the large knife moving to slit his throat.

"Well, I-"

And then he heard a sound. Swinging. And then-

"ELIOT! WATCH OUT!!"

Edited 2012-08-29 13:18 (UTC)

Eliot reacted instantly to Don's shout, ducking forward, twisting around, and bringing his arm up to block the blow. He screamed as the blade met his wrist, cutting through flesh and skittering off of the small bones there.

Tate saw that his strike and been thrown off, but having broke skin regardless, he fought and used it, working to tear further into Eliot's arm. His arm went to Eliot's shoulder as he pulled the blade out and brought it back for another strike, this time aiming for the back of his neck. He was determined to get this guy down.

Eliot had fought through pain before now but he'd never felt pain like this before, not even in that North Korean Prison. The fact that he'd just lost his hand couldn't even filter into his mind around the hot, blazing agony in his wrist. He felt bile rise in his throat as his vision faded to white. In his last seconds of consciousness, he tried to push the younger tribute away from him.

She knew she should have killed him when she had the chance.

Her spear was too long and far from wieldy for this sort of distance, Ariadne thought, hastily snatching up another rock. She was getting good with them anyway; once Eliot had shoved Tate, she lunged at his legs, the goal to take him out at the knees. She hadn't even registered that Eliot's hand was gone, somewhere beneath their feet, presumably to be reattached later in the Capitol. Assuming they could do that.

The slice had left an awful mess, hitting the arm and a vein caused blood to spray and drench Tate. He made for one last stab at the wounded man before seeing the other tributes begin to react. He felt the rock hit his leg, causing a sharp pain, but not one that would cripple him.

He had done the damage that if it didn't kill Eliot, the aftermath of trying to heal without supplies would and Tate was content. He turned then to begin his scurry to escape and run away.

Even despite Eliot's blood spraying over her too, she didn't let up on Tate. Ariadne rolled to one side, out of any potential resulting blow; she caught her footing again, pushing forward to chase after Tate, one arm reaching to snatch roughly at his wrist to pull him back. One did not just get to attack one of theirs and expect to get away with it.

Tate felt her fingers wrap around his wrist, but its her strength that surprises him and causes him to stumble. He doesn't let this keep him down and keeps pushing forward. His own arm swings back towards her in hope to strike his opponent in the face.

Her knees buckled a little as his blow caught her in the cheekbone, sending an ache through her whole face. It didn't slow her down anyway, and the rock she clung to like a lifeline came swinging against towards his head in retaliation. Or arm. She wasn't picky, as long as the blow landed. If she had to, she would beat him to death with it, and end the matter with a final shot from her spear.

The strike to the shoulder would have reminded him of the time before when the same tribute had hit him the same way, but he was thrown off balance and too disoriented to realize it. Again Tate found himself stumbling to get away, crawling even. All he had to do was get away from these tributes and survive this and he would cross this one off as successful. He had done as planned, caused some damaged and with all his strength his made his feet move as he continued with his retreat.

Don, meanwhile, had dove onto Eliot. He had been trying to revive Eliot, to no success. He tried to staunch the blood, stop the bleeding. Something, anything.

Not working. It wasn't-

"Shell!"

He sword under his breath. It was almost exactly the kind of deep arterial cut that had done him in the previous Arena. How ironic.

Edited 2012-09-07 03:51 (UTC)

Eliot regained consciousness enough to feel the pressure on his shoulder and chest. He couldn't open his eyes to see who it was but it hurt. He tried to moan but couldn't hear that he'd made a sound.

Ariadne was thrown off-balance as well, finding herself having to duck one shoulder to catch herself into a roll. Tate, meanwhile, was more than able to get away from them at that point in time; she was too busy trying to catch her breath.

When she glanced over her shoulder, it became that much harder; Eliot seemed to be losing a lot of blood, and it didn't look like Don was having much luck stopping it.

"Here," she tried, pushing herself up and stumbling a bit, reaching to tear off a chunk of her shirt to press against the wound.

"Thank you..." Don was trying to keep methodical, logical, but the blood was already seeping through Ariadne's short piece as it was pressed onto the wounds. "I'm sorry I didn't...I mean, I should have sto-"

He was interrupted by the moan. Quickly seizing upon this, Don leaned in closer to speak to Eliot.

"Eliot. Eliot. Can you open your eyes? Come on... you're gonna be all right..."

Even if he himself was fast losing hope that would be the case, he wasn't going to give up.

Edited 2012-09-07 05:09 (UTC)

Eliot tried to open his eyes but couldn't quite find the strength. It felt like someone had stitched them shut. The pain was bad enough to make him wish he hadn't regained feeling. He moaned again, this time quieter.

"Forget it," she told Don, shaking her head a little. They had bigger things to worry about. The logic reigning in her brain was screaming that Eliot wasn't going to make it from this; he was probably in shock already, and she doubted that could ever get better. All they could do was make it easier on him.

While one hand pressed her already soaked shirt to the wound, her other hand moved to find his, giving it a squeeze. She might not have been the most touchy-feely person in the world, but Ariadne could comfort in a pinch.

"Come on. Try."

Shell. Shell. She was right, but he needed to try also. Try to do something.

That's right. He could do something.

"Ariadne." Slowly he released his pressure on Eliot's injury. His voice is very eerily calm. "I'll be right back. I need to do something."

And with that he disappeared out of the the tent.

Eliot sighed as he felt the pressure lift. He felt whoever it was, somehow, he couldn't quite remember who, leave and reached out his... not-hand to stop him.

He frowned. It was getting harder to breathe, as if something was wrapped around his chest. He found himself coughing and a wet, metallic taste filled his mouth. He grimaced, moaning faintly as the coughs shook his already sore body.

She glanced up, watching Don silently, offering him a quick nod. That left her alone with Eliot, the only one who could keep him alive until Don came back. Hopefully he was fast about it.

"Eliot. Stay with me. Don't move. Just focus on the sound of my voice," she told him, frowning a little. This was worse than a quick death, she thought; part of her wanted to just put him out of his misery at this point.

He stilled. It just made sense to. He was getting so tired. It felt as if he was drowning. He frowned caught between the need to not be seen in this condition and the desire to not be alone.

"Can you hear me? Nod a little if you can," she continued, just trying to keep him conscious a little bit longer. At least he had listened to her the first time. Her hand gave his a squeeze, trying to give him something concrete to hold onto, instead of simply clinging to consciousness. "Don will be back in just a second. Come on, stay with me."

He clutched tightly at her hand, needing something to distract him from the pain. Her voice was soothing, comforting. He was a bit too far gone to make sense of what she'd said, though. His lips parted as he tried to breathe around the liquid slowly filling his lungs.

He wasn't giving her any response. A worse sign that she thought, and she gave up on trying to stop the bleeding from his wounded arm, dropping the scrap of her shirt to take his hand in both of her smaller ones as she glanced back quickly over one shoulder. The cameras were probably eating this up - the thought occurred to her in a flicker of a moment, quickly ignored again.

"Eliot, don't worry. It won't be much longer. Then you'll be okay again, back in the Capitol," she murmured softly, the words meant for no one but him.

His head turned weakly toward her voice, making the blood on his lips and teeth all the more obvious. Her voice seemed to fade in the distance along with the pain. He sighed quietly in relief.

The sight would probably haunt her for a while - despite having killed a few people thus far, this was the first time she'd seen anyone she knew dying - but that wasn't on her mind. Not till later. For the time being, she merely kept her soft murmurs up, sure that they weren't registering at this point, but not unsure they weren't helping in some way.

(no subject)

And along comes a wild Tate Langdon

Re: And along comes a wild Tate Langdon

la la la, do we want a post order?

I think so...

Sure!

Sounds good to me!

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Ariadne feel free to comment whenever- tagging order got a bit screwed up

Don and Ariadne, both...

It's all good

Re: It's all good

/ruins post order forever

;)

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