thearena | second verse, same as the first

Entry tags:

second verse, same as the first

Who| Karkat Vantas and Justin Law, later Karkat's corpse and whoever wants to find it
What| Karkat goes off on his own to look at the glowing things and gets murdered by crazy kid hopped up on God and chucklevoodoos.
Where| Bioluminesence exhibit!
When| Early week five.
Warnings/Notes| decapitation, dismemberment, gore

Since Terezi left, Karkat's taken to wandering around alone when he can. Only when Bert's asleep, of course--Terezi had asked Cuthbert to take care of Karkat in her letter, so there's no use trying to sneak off while he's awake--but Bert's human, he has to sleep at least a couple hours once every night or so, so it's not hard to find time to slip away. And Bert's lusus, at least, is okay with letting him go off on his own while she stays to watch Bert sleep.

She heard him read Terezi's letter aloud too, after all. So even Bert's lusus knew why Terezi left: because it was getting closer to the end of the arena, closer to everyone for themself, and she hadn't wanted to stay and watch the rest of them die--or kill them now to get it over with. And also because Terezi had suspected the masks were doing something to her, wrecking her control, making her irrational and impulsive... and she didn't want to risk doing something she regretted.

So Terezi'd left and Karkat had quit wearing the masks and started walking alone when he could. He's in the bioluminescence exhibit now. It reminds him of Alternia, of home.

He wishes like fuck he hadn't destroyed it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cuthbert is tired of waking up to Karkat being gone, and this particular time has lasted long enough that Bert is going to take matters into his own hands and find Karkat for himself.

He's immediately drawn to the bioluminescence exhibit because it's one of the more incredible things he'd seen in the Capitol so far. It's unfortunate that he's so mesmerized by it that he doesn't notice anything wrong until he slips on something wet and slick.

Luckily, Bert's reflexes are quick enough that he doesn't fall, but he does tear his eyes away from the glowing everything around him to see what he slipped on. He just barely manages to not yelp at Karkat's lifeless eyes as they stare back at him. It's obviously a fresh kill, or the body would be gone, so Bert glances around quickly and when nothing stands out to him immediately he grabs the severed head and makes a run back to where he left Susannah.

"Bert?" Susannah's eyes are wide when she sees him running to her like all hell was on his tail. "Bert, what's wrong-- is that Karkat's?" Because she's finally close enough to see his grisly souvenir and oh lord, she wishes she wasn't. Why the hell did she always let that kid go off on his own? He was younger than Bert! Older than Jake and they'd given him a fair passel of independence--but Jake had been a gunslinger, 'prentice or no, and the troll boy... well, he wasn't.

"Aye, I would recognize him anywhere, even if he has a couple of doppelgangers here."

He sets it down gently, not entirely sure why he took it in the first place. He's upset but just sort of numb to it for the moment.

"Who would take his head off? Is it not enough to slit his throat?"

He isn't upset at Karkat being on his own, but he hasn't considered that it contributed to his death yet.

"I think," Susannah says slowly, unable to take her eyes off the severed head, "whoever killed him wanted to be really thorough. Look, he wrote something on Karkat's head: DEAD." She wrinkles her nose. "Considerin' the color, I think he might have done it in blood."

Bert knew this was his blood color, he'd seen Karkat die a few times over now. "Aye, that's his blood. But why write on him? Just to humiliate him further?"

Bert doesn't want to cry, not here where he's being watched by the whole world, but right now it seems pointless to hold it back.

"I don't know," she says quietly. "Some people-- they're just sick. Like mad dogs. And there's nothing you can do about them but put them out of their--and everyone else's--misery." She thinks about Jack Mort and how he was made for a game like this. She wonders not for the first time if there's a Panem Jack Mort, like there's Eddie and Henry Dean, if he's still dropping bricks on people's heads here and pushing them into subway trains. Maybe he's a Gamemaker.

She holds her arms open for Bert, offering a hug if he wants it.

Kankri finds it's easier to move than to sit still with his thoughts, lately. So with the excuse of scavenging for whatever left that everyone else might have missed or discarded, he's wandering the upper floors - cautiously, to be sure, but he feels like he at least knows what to expect now, and while it's not comforting it at least makes it easier.

When he hears two people talking, he ducks into hiding, almost on reflex at this point. But when he recognizes Cuthbert's voice - and that he sounds upset - he comes close and peers around, and immediately wishes he hadn't.

"Oh god, Karkat," he says softly as he comes around. "Where - where's the rest of him?"

Cuthbert doesn't want to cry, that's more weakness than he can afford right now. He's seen a lot of death and even when it's a friend it's more familiar than it should be. This is exactly the sort of thing he's been trained to accept, and he feels his heart harden against the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He twitches when Kankri approaches them, upset that he didn't hear him coming.

"I suspect the rest of him is being cleaned up. Or eaten, if your kind are tasty. There's little enough food here that even one as scrawny as Karkat would make a decent meal."

He didn't mean it, but jokes were in his wheelhouse.

"Bert!" Susannah's scandalized in spite of herself. Then she sighs. Why wouldn't Bert joke about this as he did anything, everything else?

This would be a terrible time for the intercom to go off, so of course it does: Attention Museum Guests: Karkat Vantas has been beheaded and reduced to delicious hamburger by the same tribute who dismembered the Signless! Watch out, Kankri, he might be going for three out of three!

Kankri looks sick to his stomach, and at the announcement he cringes, backing away.

The same person. The very same person. Someone was hunting them down?

"I should- I should go," he says, his voice thick.

He mostly ignores Susannah's reprimand. It's overridden by the announcement, anyway. He does address Kankri as he tries to leave.

"I wouldn't recommend that. If two for three of your kind have been killed by the same man, and he's close enough by that he's still warm, you'll be exposing yourself if you go. We can protect you."

He doens't say that they will protect him. It's heavily implied but Cuthbert can't make any promises right now, not after they already promised to keep Karkat safe and failed miserably.

"If nothing else," Susannah says gently, "we can escort you to wherever your friends and allies are."

She can't remember if Kankri mentioned he was teamed up with someone when they talked before, but he's enough of a pacifist that she's fairly certain he must be either staying with someone--or have a damn good hiding place.

"Karkat died because he got caught alone," she reminds him. "We don't want that happening to you, sugar."

He wrings his hands, bites his lip. Thinking it over. At last he says, "To the fourth floor should be fine. That's where I've set up, I know my way around it very well by now. And I have friends there to look out for me."

If he were alone he'd be happy to bring them all the way back with him, but he doesn't want to bring people over that Venus doesn't know and isn't comfortable with. Cuthbert seems to be loyal to his friends, and Susannah has been quite likable so far, but with it being so late in the game he doesn't want to take chances with Venus's safety that he doesn't have to, even if she is on the mend from the injuries she's had since the beginning.

"I...this isn't a good time," he says to Cuthbert hesitantly, "but I just wanted you to know that I owe you an apology. But we can talk about that later."

Cuthbert is going to take Karkat's head with him until someone makes him leave it behind or just takes it from him. He's still too numb to do anything but nod at Kankri when he addresses him.

"Fourth floor then, we can do that. Fourth floor and back again."

It's easier to focus on what he can do rather than all the thoughts bouncing around his head. This is how he gets through a crisis, by sticking to the things he knows.

Susannah really should do that, but she's just as thrown off by the whole delicious hamburger and troll serial killer announcement as the rest of them. And honestly, part of her is a bit curious about what Kankri would need to apologize to Bert for.

"Do you have any idea who'd want to kill all three of you?" she asks, as she starts wheeling herself forward in the direction of the elevator and stairwell. "The only one I can really think of is that awfully tall troll with the long horns and that's only 'cause of that whole Troll Murderparty Extravaganza thing that was all over the TVs right after I came back from the last arena."

She sighs and rubs her forehead. "I-- I have something I need to apologize for too, Bert. Once we've dropped Kankri off, we really ought to talk."

Edited 2014-03-08 08:47 (UTC)

Kankri spends the rest of the trip to the fourth floor in silence, too shocked and sickened by Karkat's death to really have any focus. He nods to Cuthbert and Susannah when they drop him off, murmuring a quiet thank-you before he moves off into the shadows, where he can duck his way back to the cafe quickly and in relative safety.

Bert sees him off with a nod and takes his severed head and partner back to their own safe spot where he will try to find a safe spot to stash it. Not that it won't be taken away eventually, but he does feel somewhat protective of it for now.

One they're settled again Bert tells Susannah in his best 'we could die if we're heard' voice; "You've nothing to apologize to me for."

"No," she says very quietly, "I do. I do and I have since I came here and it was only-- only my confusion at being brought here that drove it out of my mind. I told you, I think, that I left Roland before I came here. What I didn't tell you, what I should have and forgot to, was that he'd given me one of his guns, so I could protect myself, before I left. And-- I lost it."

The Capitol took it, she doesn't say. She doesn't need to.

She hangs her head. "Gunslinger, I cry your pardon. I've forgotten the face of my father."

Edited 2014-03-10 21:08 (UTC)

He has to stop before he jumps to the wrong conclusions, because he wants to get very angry.

"You lost it? Before you even came here?"

He understands that the Capitol confiscated his weapons, and would have taken hers too. But he doesn't totally register that it's one of the great guns, the ones Roland inherited.

"It got lost," she says, her voice still as quiet as she can make it. She looks up at him and thinks, as hard as she can, they TOOK it. It probably won't work, they probably aren't enough of a true ka-tet to share khef and the Capitol can probably block it, but she needs to try. "With the rest of my gunna."

Think, Bert, THINK. Listen to what I don't say.

But maybe he won't. Maybe he'll kill her for the next thing she's going to say and if he does, well, maybe she'll get revived. But this confession has been a lead weight inside her for over a week and she needs to speak.

"I cry your pardon," she repeats. "Please, don't-- don't do anything stupid."

Edited 2014-03-12 06:09 (UTC)

They really aren't close enough yet to share khef, but he understands what she's saying.

"They have my guns too. Good ones. But I've seen even nicer guns here. I doubt they would think ours are anything but old relics. They may have the iron, but they don't have the power of the men, and women say thankya, who shoot them."

It's not like he hasn't talked about it before. This shouldn't be news to anyone.

"I know," she says, "or-- I figured they had them." She shrugs. "I just thought... well, it was his. And old relic or not, it was a fine weapon. It might not be my fault it's lost, but..." She shrugs. "Do I have your pardon, then?"

After all, it's the next best thing to Roland's.

"Aye, you do. 'Twas nothing either of us could do to prevent the loss. We will simply have to work to get them back, say true."

Bert doesn't want to go into detail about that, though.

Neither does Susannah.

"That we will."

She doesn't press the matter during the rest of their trip back to their old territory. But part of her does feel lighter for having confessed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

second verse, same as the first

Sometime after he dies...

Re: Sometime after he dies...

no subject

no subject

no subject

do we want to let tricks join in yet?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject