thearena | Jingle bells, Walkers smell [open]

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Jingle bells, Walkers smell [open]

Who| Clementine and OTA
What| Out and about through the mall
Where| Various locations, the Walking Dead store, the escalators etc.
When| Start of week 2
Warnings/Notes| only that which you bring with you

Prompt A: Anywhere, reacting to Christmaaaas

When Clementine had briefly talked about Christmas with Dave at the Cornucopia she hadn't actually expected it to happen. At first she'd been childishly delighted by the fake snow, trees, snowmen and giant inflatable candy canes; then suspicious.

The suspicion turns out to be fruitful as that same stupid song plays over and over again, as if the Capitol had forgotten any other Christmas music existed -- except of course it's all obviously purposeful. "So this is how they drive us all crazy." Clem grumbles, kicking at a pile of fake presents.

Prompt B: The Walking Dead store

The Capitol has been surprisingly creative here. In addition to the expected Walker masks and t-shirts, there are hoodies, posters, dolls, slippers and even mock up survival kits (though all the weapons included in these are made of foam) amongst other things. There's a rather disturbing noisemaker that when tilted produces a realistic Walker groan.

Clementine puts that one down quickly.

She pauses at a table of action figures, full of people she'd known since the outbreak started (and herself, weird) as well as generic survivors and Walkers. Her fingers find one of Lee soon enough, staring at the well-done detail on his face and feels just as disconcerted as she did by the biography in the bookshop.

Prompt C: Bottom of the escalators, going to the food court?

Going down is so much more fun than going up in this place, at least for Clementine.

After squinting downwards for any potential hostile tributes she clambers up onto the bannister of the escalator, and gets a good grip on it as she edges backwards right up until the point gravity starts to take hold. It'd suck to lose her balance and fall into the crushing gears hidden under the innocent looking steps.

With a final inch backwards she starts to slide, grinning as she does and resisting the urge to let out a whoop of enjoyment. It only takes five seconds to get down to the ground floor like this, she almost wishes it was longer (and didn't have to think about the climb back up later).

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Christmas themed. Seems a little early, doesn't it? Dave almost worries that his sense of time is so borked that he has no idea it's december, but that's ridiculous because he is the absolute spirit and authority of all time related shenanigans. They're just fucking with them, and it's working.

As soon as he sees the decorations, his irony gland begs him to find Clem simply due to their conversation earlier. Rifling through display magazines makes coupons an easy find, a pen is an easy find too and so is newspaper and tape to wrap it all up. Not without the addition of a little something extra, he's not too much of a dick. He writes CLEMINEM in bright red marker and pretty much skulks around looking for her.

It's pure coincidence that he finds her in the most christmassy part of the mall, but getting there makes him realise he's not sure how to deliver it. So. He's just going to throw her present at the back of her head.

There Clementine is, just innocently looking at Santa's grotto when someone decides to throw something at her head.

It's not a heavy impact by any means, it is however a startling one, resulting in her whipping round and fumbling at her bow before she realises who the culprit is. No sign of Dave since the Cornucopia and he then he throws something at her head. "Dave!" the girl sounds suitably annoyed, "What did you do that for?"

She glances briefly at the package, not catching the writing on it just yet but considering picking it up and throwing it back at him in response.

Except wait, are those bruises?

Alright, well. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Maybe Dave should have been so kind as to address himself first, but he let himself get shy about it.

Inwardly, he berates himself for being an idiot, but outwardly he's just going to fold his arms over his chest and smirk. He's almost entirely forgotten the fact that he's bruised as hell and wearing a tooth necklace, it's been an interesting and overwhelming week.

"Merry Christmas." He nods down at the package with a raised brow, hoping she takes the hint and opens it.

"Jerk." she huffs at him, "What happened to you?" and is that necklace made of what she thinks it is...?

Clementine looks down again and her eyes widen, now she bends and scoops up the newspaper package, reading her Dave-bestowed nickname written on the outside of it. She almost forgives him for throwing it at her head all in that moment without even having opened it, almost. "A present?"

Being a mature, hardened survivor Clementine of course falls to pulling open the wrapping with grace and delicacy. Just kidding, she rips that sucker open and manages to catch the coupons as they almost go flying but her full attention -- and delight -- of course is on the silly sunglasses that are the main course of Fakemas. She laughs and takes them out to put on at once. "How do I look?"

"Life." He answers dryly. "Repeatedly." It isn't a complete lie, but he doesn't want to ruin Christmas with stories of woe and misery. Particularly when he's clearly off the hook for being a jerk for the moment.

He sidles closer when she rips into the newspaper, waiting for the moment of approval that will inevitably come because Clem is easy to please. He adjusts his own as she slips them on her face before giving her a thumbs up with both hands in approval. "You're a real Strider now." He's totally putting on a gruff, manly voice so she knows the importance of that.

"Do I need to hit someone for you?" because it's starting to look like you can't be left on your own Dave, maybe she should keep a closer eye on him at this rate.

Clementine snorts, suitably pleased, "Clementine Strider, it has a nice ring to it." she'll have to find a mirror and see how ridiculous she looks in a pair of heart-shaped glasses later. On the practical side they're kind of a nice respite against the continuous artificial lights. "Are there any rules to that?"

"No more than I've already hit them- but they have a gun now. I wouldn't chance it." He hopes saying that will nip any ideas she's getting in the bud.

"Clem Strider sounds better, we object to full names in our family. You've probably noticed." Bro and Dave sound more like nicknames, after all. He thinks she looks adorable, but he can't very well say that. "Your mission is to find the irony in everything. You need to seek out crap nobody else likes because it's lame and make it cool because you can." That probably makes no sense. "Quick, name something crap."

"Lame, I wish I'd got a gun." she sighed, and not for lack of trying either. Clementine hadn't known exactly what the scavenger hunt had been about when she took it on and after discovering what other people had gotten for completing it she wished she'd tried even harder. One of those pistols would have been really handy to have. "I hope you hit them really hard then."

"Cleminem Strider?" she suggests, as a final adjustment because she really likes that nickname. Clem Strider sounds just fine to her though. Clementine snorts with laughter, "Uh, polkadot."

"I don't. Swords are cooler." He gives his saber in it's makeshift hilt a tap. "You with a gun would be a force to be reckoned with, I bet. No man would be safe." He shakes his head and tuts just barely.

"Seems sufficient and legit enough to be photoshopped onto a birth certificate." Not that he has one considering how he came into existence. "Right, now you love polkadot. You'd wear polkadot leggings because you rock the hell out of them. You can appreciate how something as stupid and pointless as gaudy print can seem disarmingly friendly when in reality you're a small assassin. It makes it cool, you're too cool to care what normal people might consider to be garish and unflattering, you wear it because you are the pinnacle of fashion forwardness. Soon after that everyone will wear polkadot print because you've liberated it from being lame and you'll have to stop because it's too mainstream."

"You have to get close to use a sword, and I didn't get to learning from Bro yet--" she seems to notice the saber for the first time and despite what she just said she obviously thinks it's pretty cool, though tries not to go overboard showing it. "I'm really good with a gun, wish I could show you."

Well, Clementine had a feeling going into this she was going to end up having difficulty following Dave's point and boy is he right. Let her try and sound this out.

"So... I wear something crap, because I like it but then I can't wear it when other people like it?" That's how it works, right? "Why stop wearing something you like because other people do too?"

"If you're good, it only takes one swing." He idly considers taking some swings at the empty presents, but he shouldn't blunt the sword he guesses. "Bro offered to teach you? Cool. He taught me too. Never did teach me how to slice a meteor in half like he could, though." He even sounds a little indignant about that.

"You know a few months ago I would have laughed, but now I'm pretty sure you aren't shitting me." That's almost a compliment, sort of. "Maybe we can get it off him, he's just wandering around pointing it at people willy nilly anyway."

He just nods. "You don't have to wear it, you can watch it or listen to it or eat it. You're a trendsetter, the sound of other people enjoying something you like is annoying because they don't get it like you do."

"He sliced a meteor in half?" she asks, pointedly emphasising the important words. "That's impossible!" For one thing, weren't meteors supposed to be really, really big? You'd need a sword bigger than anyone could lift to do that!

Clementine shakes her head, "That's a waste of a good gun. I'd take much better care of it." she'll take that compliment because she was absolutely telling the truth of course.

"Okay... I think I get it."

"No it isn't." Wow there's that indignant tone again, someone is a little defensive when it comes to his Bro and all that he's accomplished. "He saved my life, man. I was there, I'd know. Besides, it's not the size of the sword, it's how you swing it." Which he would know.

"Of course, you could just kick back on the porch and kill some game. Fry it up, make jerky and the world's your oyster." That made very little sense, but he assumes that's the only worthwhile use for guns.

"Awesome, you're a sword lesson away from being a real Strider now."

Sometimes (often) Dave comes out with a lot of tall tales, a lot of things Clementine struggles to either follow or believe, as she squints up at him here though she gets the feeling that he's telling the truth and not attempting to pull her leg. Thinking back to what he originally told her of where he comes from maybe it's not so impossible there. "Sorry. It sounds like something out of a movie, you know? I don't think people could do that where I come from."

Clem shakes her head in bemusement (while thinking how nice jerky would be right now, damn it, Dave). "I'll get to the sword lesson as soon as I can, promise."

"I think it's about as convincing as the fact that I'm a time-traveling knight fresh off a meteor I shared with weird grey aliens with border-line personalities." So, not very. "But sure Miss Zombie Apocalypse, you tell me my life sounds pulled from a movie." He doesn't sound remotely offended, even if he's defensive, it's just his normal dead pan tone.

"Hold him to it. He taught me and I'm the best."

Well, "Okay, good point. We both live in worlds that should only exist in movies." she quirks an eyebrow behind her sunglasses for a second at Dave's summation of his life, "Though I think you win for weirdness. Walkers sound kind of tame compared to that."

Clementine nods, "Lucky he's in my District, makes him easy to find."

"If they made a movie out of the shit that goes down in my world it'd be a series of like six or some shit and nobody would get it because it's stupid." He pulls a face as he considers that. "I dunno. It isn't all bad. We get powers and planets and the ability to level up to infinity. I bet zombies get old after a while." And now he's considering that as well. "Clearly the solution is for you to come back to my world and get yourself some powers. You'd probably have a cool title, too. Like- Page of Butts." That isn't cool at all.

Dave just snorts at that. "I lived with him for thirteen years and the guy never got easy to find. He's an elusive shit stain." A dead one, too.

"There's not much variety in Walkers. They say 'grrr argh!', try to bite you, then you get them in the head. Over and over." Clementine agrees, with the most monotone impressiong of a Walker -- and she'll keep stubbornly using the term Walkers as much as everyone around her in Panem insists on saying zombies. Some things were just weird.

Clementine reaches out and play-punches his arm, "Nothing to do with butts!" she says with a roll of her eyes, "The rest sounds cool though." it really does, no lie. Better than going to back to her own world anyway, it's not the first time someone's mentioned she might be able to go elsewhere and if Dave was serious, well, going with him might be vying for the top of her list.

"We could put a bell on him."

"Now see, that sounds a little bit like trolls. But as we all know, trolls are fucking obnoxious and have a lot more to say than 'grr'." His is the face of a man who has spent too much time with exclusively troll company.

He grunts when she punches at him, moving to rub his arm and scowl. "You aren't really disproving my point, you know. That seems like a butt thing to do." Deep down he knows that his world really isn't safe. It isn't much safer than here, realistically speaking, but it's cooler than zombies- walkers. Whatever. "You're a lucky charm though, so I guess that makes your aspect light. Mine is time. Obviously." He's seriously considering this, now. "And you're sneaky so you're probably like a thief- no thieves are dicks. Uh... I think Rogues are a similar concept though." Now that he's thinking about this, he's sort of forgotten about Bro. They'd never get a bell on him anyway, psshh.

"I don't know, I met one and he seemed okay." Clementine says, curious. "They're from your world?"

She sticks her tongue out at him, "It is not a butt thing to do, it's in response to being called a butt." Really, she didn't hit you that hard Dave.

Lucky charm... "Rogue and... light? So what does that mean?"

"One? One whole one? Damn. It's like the fifty or so I've met personally are invalidated now. My perception of an entire species has changed. Which one was it?" He has a lot of feelings. "World is one way of putting it. My world is made up of a bunch of different planets and universes, but yeah I knew them before I came here. It was just me, one other human and about six of them together for nearly three years."

He rolls his eyes behind his shades. "It's a butt reaction to being a butt. I just told you what it means, god damn. You're a lucky thief. You're the kind of thief who shares your loot."

"Shut up!" she says, giving a small shove for the teasing. "He said his name was Signless. It's a pretty weird name." Clementine listens, "That's a long time to be stuck with just one group of people. I guess you didn't get on?"

And there's a poke for good measure. "Okay I get it, lucky thief." in some ways it's already true, given her past. "I like it."

"Nah." He just sways with the shove before straightening to consider that. "Signless huh? Ah, Signless. Yeah. Cool. I don't know him." There are a handful he hasn't met, after all.

"Uh. Well we got on, I guess, considering I dated one of them for a while. Y'know. It just gets awkward when you're around the same four or five people every day for your whole life." He'll put a hand on her shoulder almost companionably before he jostles her to the side. "Congrats. Get your interstellar visa sorted and you can come back with me to space."

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Jingle bells, Walkers smell [open]

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