Arena 05 - Chill

[gamemakers]

Usually, the tribute's outfits for the arena aren't accessorized. But today, the last thing their stylists hand them before the countdown begins is a pair of heavy black glasses, polarized and thick-lensed. They look at odds with the thick, winter gear they've been outfitted in.


It's a long rise to the surface today, inside their individual little tubes, much longer than usual. They start to feel the cold only about halfway up, and to hear the wind. It howls across the surface as they reach it, pressing all of their clothes flat against their bodies. And the reason for the glasses is immediately apparent.


20 - 19 - 18


The sky is white. The ground is white (and gray and black and blue but mostly white), the far-off sea is blinding silver. Everything in sight flings light around, fractures it into scintilating rainbows and sheer white beams of reflection. It is strong, cruel light, and it bears no heat at all. The surface is so cold that the little metal trackers ache in everyone's arm, and the countdown has to continue at a deafening volume to be heard.


 12 - 11 - 10 -


The circle of silver pedestals is the only regular shape to be seen. All else is fractured and split, the most uneven footing imaginable. And at the center of the circle, the Cornucopia sports icycles hanging from its lip, almost to the pile of supplies tucked all neatly inside its mouth.


4


3


2


There's a lull in the wind just as the gong sounds, letting it peal out across the frozen glacier, and echo off the high rock cliffs in the distance. And the ice answers, with a loud crack that seems to come from miles down.


Let the Games begin.

Comments

for sherlock

[downbeat]

Katurian traveled up the tube with his eyes squeezed shut. He told himself again and again that he had resigned himself to death, but with each passing second, his stomach grew sicker and his limbs grew heavier. That first blast of icy air was like electricity, and his breath caught and his lungs screamed.

Then something inside him shut down.

It sounded like a buzzing inside his head at first, an irritating insect ducking in and out of the wind, but then that buzzing became the roar of a lawnmower, a truck, a train, and it overtook his entire body, that phantom sound, and made him feel like he was drowning in the open air. All of a sudden, he was outside of his body, he was the buzzing sound, and he was safe because he was a noise and no could ever ever ever touch a noise, and he was a cardboard cutout, he was paper mache, he was a character in a story and he was going to be all right because the protagonist always wins.

When he ran, Katurian heard nothing but the wind and the thunderous screams inside his own head.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock face was a mask - stern, sharp edges and no softness. His curiosity had disappeared and was replaced by petulance and spite, and he had been quite nasty to his handlers as he was brought to the arena. Prepared.

The parka (suitable for at least minus forty, he told himself, glancing at it) gave him a clue to what to expect, even if he couldn't quite believe it.

The countdown and the tunnel only served to further steel the muscles on his face. He would not look out of his element. He would not look afraid. And really, he wasn't. Sherlock Holmes wasn't afraid, he was mad.

The wind hit him with the force of a typhoon, and he braced himself against it. His eyes immediately scanned the entire landscape. Barren. Barren, save for the large metal structure, the heaps of supplies at its centre, and the dozens of tributes arrayed in a circle around the edge.

A death trap, in other words. But one he had to keep a close eye on.

He took off in the other direction almost immediately at the sound of the gong, running far enough to a crest of snow, throwing himself down behind it to better see what was happening at the centre.

And, unfortunately, the man barreling straight in his direction.

[downbeat]

Katurian didn't see Sherlock (didn't see anything) before his foot connected with the crest of snow.

He tumbled downward into the ice, skidding on his knees and catching himself with his wrists. The shock of the fall jolted him awake and yes, oh yes, there was definitely a person on the ground next to him, and he scrambled up onto his hands and knees and flung himself on top of Sherlock without a second thought. He was still in another world, a world where none of this was really happening, where he was invincible and inhuman and safe. His hands fumbled for his lapels.

[alldeduction]

He tried to move. He did, but the snow slowed him down and he was already lying in it, so he only just barely got out of the way before Katurian was suddenly on him, grabbing at the lapels of his parka. Sherlock instantly started to squirm, violently, grabbing a fistful of snow and launching it at Katurian's face, trying desperately to bat Katurian's hands away from anywhere near him.

"Get off!" He hissed, not quite willing to bring everyone else's attention to it.

[downbeat]

The snow stung him where it hit his face, but even blinded by the whiteness and the wind, Katurian kept fighting. He scratched and he clawed and he tried to hold Sherlock's legs steady under his own. His mind was disconnected from his body and he was a machine. He could do this.

He released Sherlock's coat so that he could wrap his hands around his throat.

[alldeduction]

Nope. Nope. Sherlock had been choked more than once in his life and it was a) not an experience he wished to repeat and b) not a way in which he wished to die. Not here. Not under an idiot. In the snow. No.

He shoved. Hard. With every ounce of energy and will and force that he had, with his knees and his feet and his hands and one single purpose. To get Katurian off of him.

[downbeat]

It was considerably easier to maintain a grip on fabric than it was on skin (and Katurian was not much of a strangler anyway, he never had the right strength for that) and so Sterlock's efforts flung him sideways into the snow. He connected with the ground with a yelp, the reality of the situation flooding back to him as the snow encircled his face.

[alldeduction]

Feeling infinitely better without a lunatic's hands around his throat, Sherlock petulantly kicked a good deal of snow in his attacker's direction before attempting to get up.

Unfortunately, under snow is often ice, and the grip of his boots was not enough to keep him up upright when his balance was already shaky, and down he came, straight on top of his attacker. His knees took the brunt of his fall, however, and not wanting to find himself strangled again he lashed out with his hands (not exactly attempting to land a blow with them so much as keep Katurian from getting anywhere near his face), oddly resembling an unarmed seven year old at a pillow fight.

[downbeat]

When Katurian had wandered around the Capitol, begging for his freedom and claiming that there had been a mistake, he had been right about one thing: he was not a fighter. With his body prone, he was no longer the confident attacker he had been mere seconds earlier. His (attempted) blows were scrambled and frantic and blind, and like Sherlock, he was worried more about keeping the other man away from him than the kill.

He kicked up his knee, attempting to knock Sherlock in the gut.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock grunted as the knee connected, winding him slightly, and he used the force of the push to get himself backwards and off Katurian, scrambling through the snow to attempt to get himself at least a few feet of distance to decipher exactly what he was planning to do next.

Alas, he couldn't help but heckle.

"Please, if you're going to bother to attempt to kill me you could at least do better than that," the waspish baritone snapped through the frozen wind.

[downbeat]

Katurian scrambled onto his hands and knees, panting and wheezing. The cold air burned his lungs.

He recognized this voice. He knew who this was.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, because it seemed like the only thing he could say. He was wrapped up in a private horror, in a nightmare where he was the monster that crawled out from under the bed, his nails and teeth long like knives. He was the bogeyman. He was the murderer. The blood pounded in his ears, thunderous and unending. "I'm so sorry."

[alldeduction]

The parkas and the glasses had made telling the participants apart extremely difficult, especially considering Sherlock had not met all of them. But there was no mistaking that grating plea. Sherlock sneered as he stood, hoping his height would allow him to look somewhat intimidating.

Every moment he wasted was another piece of equipment, another can of supplies, gone before Sherlock could mark who had taken it.

"Get out of here," he growled, pulled up to his full height, the wind whipping around him. "Get out of here before I change my mind and kill you after all." It was a complete bluff, of course. Not that he didn't think he could - it was a matter of would. He needed Katurian out of here or all the supplies were lost to him forever.

[downbeat]

Katurian didn't need to be told twice. From the moment his back hit the ice, the word run was on the forefront of his mind. He stumbled up from the ground (twice he slipped, once he nearly fell down all over again) and tore off in the opposite direction, running as fast as his feet could take him on the treacherous ice.

His mind was cloudy and his neurons were screaming, but one thing was certain. Surprising, but certain.

This man did not try to kill him.