thearena | lapping currents

Entry tags:

lapping currents

Who| Jack and Roland, then Jack and Brock
What| Lake monster funtimes
Where| Around the lake
When| Early week 3
Warnings/Notes| Nessie-related incidents

The days had started to bleed into one lengthy, hellish nightmare -- sleep was elusive, the weather was unbearably cold and capricious, and the search for food had become a constant concern. So in an attempt to find a better and more productive place to fish and stave off that ever-encroaching hunger, Jack followed the river upstream and eventually ended up at a lake.

(Closed to Roland)

The beasts that Jack finds monopolizing the lake are massive and inconvenient. He'd rather not get too close to one, particularly because he'd had more than enough experiences with terrible beasties in the past, but he'd already expended the energy to make it to this lake. He needed to try.

Ten minutes into it, and nearly waist deep in the remarkably chilly water, and he's having absolutely no luck. Frustration causes him to smack an open palm against an incoming wave and curse beneath his breath. The monsters' big, lumbering presence in the lake was scaring off any potential food.

His eyes briefly roll skyward, settle back on the nearest creature, then slide down to catch sight of a rock sitting on the lake bed. Oh. Hold on. The creatures looked to be fairly docile and harmless, maybe he could scare one off.

Jack retrieves the rock, rolling it around in his hand to get a feel for it, then casts it at the beast. It skims through the air and strikes true with a wet thud, and a grin slips onto his face -- then immediately drops as the beast angrily howls, swings around in his direction, and charges. His eyes grow wide, and it takes a moment for his body to catch up with the sudden, rising panic that hits him.

Turning quickly around, the pirate sloshes through the water towards the shore and shouts more curses. The loud commotion could garner the attention of any nearby Tributes, sure, but that thought is far from his mind at the moment.

(Closed to Brock)

Most of Jack's interactions with the Tributes in the Arena thus far have been, thankfully, unexpectedly nonviolent. Someone had even been kind enough to offer him food and fire in the first few days of this madness. But, of course, it'd be foolish to abandon caution because of it.

So when the pirate catches sight of someone wandering around the lake's shore and watching -- analyzing? -- the creatures, he doesn't immediately approach. It takes a few minutes of silent observation, but eventually Jack recognizes that the man is not only familiar to him, but from his own District. The two of them had met in passing, here and there, but hadn't ever managed to graduate their interactions into an actual conversation.

It makes him wary, but it's a fleeting leeriness when Jack realizes that Brock is gearing up to actually go after one of the monsters. He emerges from the treeline waving his hands. "Oi! No no no, hold up, mate!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It could, and does. It isn't smart, from purely a survival perspective, to come any closer to whatever'd made that noise, but he can hear a human voice underneath the animal one and so he runs closer.

The fellow's right to curse, he thinks, losing a moment in watching the rampaging creature with wide eyes. Only a very brief moment, though, and soon he's moving the spear to his right hand - don't want to risk those missing first two fingers to mess up the throw - and scooping up a likely looking rock, calculating. Realizing he'll have to come closer to hope to score a good hit. Closer as in, into the water. Well, shit. He's already involved, isn't he? Might as well.

Once he's close enough he eyes how fast it's going, carefully not allowing himself to become too awed or intimidated by what he sees, and throws. Unlike Sparrow, Roland is trying to make it angry, or at least distract it.

He succeeds.

"Swim," he calls to the other man, after trying to gauge his progress. There's a definite undercurrent of duh to his voice. "You'll move faster!"

If Jack had heard Roland's advice, there's no sign of it. He continues to flounder in the waist-deep water, arms swinging wildly, the roaring of the enraged beast behind the pirate urging him to go faster dear gods above please.

The pirate has lost his own crudely made spear to the water's depths with all the crazy arm flailing that he's doing, and so can't even use it to help himself. Instead, in that blind panic, Jack catches a foot on another, much larger underwater rock and manages to trip. He plunges face first into the icy lake, all his cursing abruptly cut short, and disappears.

Thankfully, at this point, the creature has fixed its attention on Roland and is furiously splashing its way in the man's direction. It's a few moments before Jack actually comes back to the surface of the water, sputtering and coughing, and starts to swim his way to shore.

Thankfully the man makes it out of the water before Roland decides he needs to go after him - making the thing angrier would have been useless if it hadn't given one of them time to get further away. But part of making it angrier involves giving it something to be angry at, which means that while he is backing away, he is doing so much more slowly than the other tribute. Before that fall he might have been able to wait until the tribute was safe and then escaped himself, but it's becoming clear that may not be an option. It is also becoming clear that this thing is quick. Very quick.

Quick as in, it's here.

Roland barely has time to switch the spear back to his good hand and lunge. Not even an aim like his would have much chance in circumstances like these, so instead of sinking into its eye, the spear goes straight up its nearest nostril. The noise it makes, even though it's staggering backward, is still too close to be simply a noise; it's like a physical force, surrounding Roland as the creature tosses its head and, as he hasn't had time to let go of the spear, tosses him with it.

He goes up. He does not, quite, go over. His fingernails, short as they are, scrape over its skin and finally catch in something that looks like a set of gills, once he gets a look. It doesn't take much thinking to know they need that spear back - it'd stuck in a stupid place, but that's better than breaking off against what's got to be very thick skin, and it is very probably their only chance. "Get it!" he yells toward the other man, but loud and piercing as Roland's yelling can be, the other tribute hadn't seemed to hear him telling him to swim a second ago. Too panicked, probably. Shit.

He manages to fumble his backpack off, hanging from the creature's gills by just one arm for those couple seconds, then slings it. If he is lucky, his aim will be true and it will hit the man square in the back. If he is not, he'll just have to trust that special brand of yelling, a yell that once cut through battlefields, and hope something comes of it before he falls and is shortly trampled. "The spear! Get the goddamned spear!"

Edited (ugh sorry for the 2nd edit, wanted to make sure one bit didn't look godmody) 2015-02-24 03:02 (UTC)

(( OOC: I hope this works for you! If not I can edit c: ))

The shore is within his reach by this point, the frigid water swirling and splashing around his ankles with each frantic step. He can hear Roland's yell above all the commotion, but the creature's horrid roar spurs him to go faster in the opposite direction. Once solid land is firmly beneath his boots, and he's sure the monster is focused elsewhere, Jack stumbles to a brief stop to catch his breath. He's soaked to the bone, freezing, and ready to cut and run away as far as possible -- when the backpack smacks him straight in the back.

"AHHH!" The cry that erupts from his throat is a mixture of annoyance, surprise, and terror -- the latter before Jack realizes it's not the monster attacking him. It causes him to wobble a couple steps forward, unsteadily, then the pirate immediately whirls around. He's suddenly forced to take stock of the situation unfolding in the water, and his lips pull back in a grimace. The man is shouting at him to get the spear, but Jack doesn't look at all inclined to dive right back into the action and put himself in danger.

In fact, Jack takes a slow step backwards, closer towards the treeline. As if he's about to bolt and leave Roland to fend for himself.

Strictly speaking, this was the Arena. A deathmatch that had only one victor, which meant there would be countless bodies piled high before this ridiculous torment -- dressed up as showy 'entertainment' -- could end. Which also would be a perfect excuse for Jack to turn tail and run, and then let nature take its course. For all intents and purposes, there would be no real blood on his hands.

So to speak.

Another step backwards.

But, no. There's hesitation from him. Because as much as that was an option, that would also play into the Capitol's game, it would be stooping down to their level. And as much as Jack was about self-preservation and not caring to pay his debts where it's owed, the pirate wasn't about to take part in the dance the Capitolites had forced him into.

All of this runs through his head in only a mere few seconds until Jack loudly curses, "Damnit it all and back, bloody hell!" And takes off back towards the lake, sliding downwards momentarily to snatch up a couple sizable rocks from the shore. The water is as cold as ever, smacking into his legs with an icy chill as he wades back into the fray, and thankfully it looks like the monster is still busy with Roland. Jack takes the distraction to position himself close, aim, then slings a rock at the beast. The first hit lands, hard, but isn't enough to gain its attention. The second time, Jack accompanies it with some wild hand-waving and obnoxious shouting and splashing.

It works this time, and the creature swings its head in Jack's direction -- close enough for him to make a grab for the spear. His hands lock onto it by some manner of luck, and the thrashing movement on both ends cause him to slip and jam it much further into its head. There's a wet crunch and blood pours forth, followed by another ear-shattering bellow.

It's still moving, but it's clear that he's done a great deal of damage.

No, Roland didn't miss the couple moments in which the man obviously thinks very hard about leaving Roland to it - but the only part of that worth sparing thought on right now is the fact that he'd come back, and managed to score a hit. A good one, too, judging by all that noise.

The creature thrashes, but Roland's made enough upward progress that this does not dislodge him immediately. Instead he tries to use the thing's movement to swing further upward, and manages to fling and scramble his way onto its back. And where is there to go from here but further upward? He's certainly going to do no damage barehanded, not from back here. So he links his arms around his neck, links his legs similarly, and shuffles up its neck. It's not graceful, not particularly dignified, but it works.

It'd die on its own just from whatever the other tribute did to it, that's obvious from its swaying and jerky, aimless movements, but those movements make it even more dangerous right now to be on the ground than to sit atop it and, to be honest, he doesn't want to wait.

After some business with Roland's fist and the creature's eye which - no, really - is much better left vague, the thing sways even more. It leans toward the ground, mouth opening wide and seeming ready to scoop up anything it can reach. After what seems a very long moment, starts to fall. Roland pushes off the thing's head as best he can, and hopes that if he does end up hitting the other tribute on the way down he does not do so too hard.

The area near where the beast stands is a horrible place to be, of course, and all the wild commotion churns the water around Jack and makes it nearly impossible to move away or dodge flailing monster limbs. Thankfully, he's not injured in the struggle.

With the spear lodged fairly far up into the beast's nostril -- and the other Tribute attacking it and weakening it even further than that -- the pirate begins his second attempt at escaping from the water and the monster.

In the meanwhile, he calls out, "You got this, mate!"

He's sloshing as best as he can away from the whole mess, his back turned from the battle and ensuing defeat behind him, so Jack doesn't see when Roland launches himself from the falling monster. If he had, perhaps he'd been able to dodge out of the way. But instead, the Tribute smacks square into Jack and plunges the pirate fully back underwater. Thus the loud THUD of the monster collapsing, finally defeated, is muffled by water.

Roland flails a little in the water, trying to get his bearings well enough to roll off the other tribute and grasp at the back of his clothes. After a moment his feet find ground and he tries to roll away, tugging at those clothes in an attempt to help pull the man toward the surface. Whether or not that helps, well.

"Tell me you swim," he says, once he's let go and managed to get his own self mostly upright. "Its death throes'll get us for sure if you try and wade all the way back to shore."

Jack clumsily thrashes around in the water as well, doing his best to disentangle himself from the other Tribute. His boots hit (mostly) solid sand, and the yank at his clothes from Roland helps him break back to the surface of the lake.

He sputters for air, choking out the cold water from his lungs and -- after a few seconds more of that graceless flailing -- is finally back on his feet. He flashes a quick look at the man's comment and then motions wildly with both hands. "It was in a moment of panic, mate, so shut it and go!"

He's already started to swim now, making his way towards the shore.

Roland isn't going to argue. He goes under and swims, and what he lacks in experience he makes up for with long legs, good coordination, and adrenaline. For a couple seconds Roland could almost be swimming through one of the rivers of his youth, he and the other two going as fast as they could to escape their latest bit of mischief and so proud of themselves for taking the time to learn it. Never once doubting their own brilliance, or that they'd escape without a single scratch. He draws what use he can from the memory, and gains some speed as the motions of swimming begin to come back to him.

Mischief, though, hardly covers something like this, and as he reaches the shallows and finds his feet the brief, happy illusion is broken. That jumpy, light feeling's still running through him though, his blood still up, and he turns to just stare for a long moment. The creature's huge, its bulk pushing great waves up around it that seem to wash across the whole of the lake.

Standing around with his mouth hanging open can wait, though. There's someone he ought to be looking for, isn't there? He looks around for the figure he'd seen so briefly fighting that thing - the hair, he remembers, had been distinctive. He splashes a little ways away, stopping and holding out a hand.

"For you father's sake, how did you manage to rile that thing?" His tone manages a mix of awe and exasperation, and he realizes a bit too late that the hand he's holding out is the one that's still got a little bit of eyeball clinging to it. Well. It isn't as if either of them are actually clean at this point.

Edited (eta: if I skipped over something you wanted to play out by assuming they both made it to shore okay, tell me and I can edit) 2015-03-09 02:47 (UTC)

Having lived almost his entire life at sea, Jack isn't anywhere near a stranger to swimming. So now, less fueled by panic and more bolstered by the prospect of this horrendous debacle being completely over and done with, he arrives at shore not far behind Roland.

He grabs the man's hand to help pull himself up, realizing a second too late that little bit of squish isn't supposed to be there. His lips draw back in a briefly disgusted grimace, but then the pirate merely flicks his hand to get rid of any piece of it that clung to him and moves on.

As Jack slogs onto fully, blissfully, solid ground, gasping to catch his breath, he glances over to Roland as the man asks him a question. He knows how stupid the truth sounds, especially because it almost got them both killed, so instead Jack shakes his head as if it puzzles him.

"Couldn't tell you, mate, honestly. I was tryin' to catch a meal, a fish or two, and the beast came after me."

((OOC: works perfect for me!))

"Hm," he says and turns to look back toward the lake. The thing's thrashing is starting to slow. A little at a time, it's starting to sink down below the waves. It's huge still, and a little graceful even now. He wonders how long it's going to take the large, strange thing to die.

Then the wind slips around Roland and he feels himself shiver, finally looks away from the sight ahead to frown down at his clothes. Wet, of course. Soaked. It's a wonder he's still kept his shoes.

Speaking of things he ought to keep - is that his backpack over there? That splotch of blue? "Best stay close," he says over his shoulder, wading toward it. "I won't stop you from going, but if we've both got to strip down and dry off I expect we could each use a lookout."

His gaze follows Roland's out to the lake, watching as the beast slows in its death throes and slides further beneath the roiling waves. On the one hand, good riddance. On the other, there's a brief pang of guilt that hits him at the creature's unnecessary death. But it's definitely a fleet feeling.

He glances back to the man, giving him a considering pause, then nods. "Aye, sure enough."

He falls in step behind him, clutching both arms close around his torso in a futile attempt to keep the wind from biting further past his clothes. "You don't 'appen to have a bit o' food in there, do you, mate?"

Roland glances at him, because that accent isn't terribly familiar, but the 'aye' had been. Strange to realize, but he hasn't heard that come from a mouth other than his since waking up in Panem. Instead of answering right away, though, he takes the time to check his pack over and glance inside. Looks alright, at least at a glance.

With every moment that passes the heat the fight left in him fades and it becomes harder and harder to ignore just how cold that water was. He won't go far into the trees, he thinks. Best start a fire sooner than later. With that in mind he looks around as he talks, scanning for the right kind of fuel. "Help me find enough wood and I'll consider it. Dry if we can find it, but if we can't find enough in the next few minutes we'll have to break off some branches, risk the smoke giving us away. Why d'you ask? Trouble hunting?"

"Haven't had the best of luck, as it were." As it was, Jack'd had barely enough energy for that earlier fiasco with the lake monster. He'd been sent food by his Escort the first week, but since then he'd been forced to find it on his own with increasingly little luck.

Jack rubs his hands against his arms in attempt to warm himself up even the tiniest bit, then as Roland prompts, scans the immediate area. Right. Probably a good idea.

"Aye, got it, find wood."

He wanders off for a few minutes -- searching and collecting -- then eventually returns with an armload of mostly dry tree branches, unceremoniously dumping it in a pile. Once Roland has returned with his own share, Jack gestures. "Enough, you think?"

"Mm. Some of these are a good size. Should last long enough." He crouches, ignoring the shivers making their way through him in favor of stacking the wood properly.

"Hope you aren't the bashful type. If we don't get these clothes off we're going to be fairly badly off fairly soon. May as well start now - the wood I shaped to help spark fires is soaked, it'll take even longer to start anything with this." Lucky as they were to find enough so quickly - the other man must have a good eye - things still aren't going to be easy. That's the point of these arenas, isn't it?

The pirate snorts at that, as if even the mere idea of him being bashful was ridiculous. "Can't afford to be, mate, when you spend the better part of your life in close quarters on a ship like I 'ave." Which was true, most sailors were forced to lose any semblance of modesty after a couple months confined at sea with each other.

But with that said, as Jack watches Roland stack the wood for the fire, there's still a momentary hesitation from him. He wasn't worried as much about the man's opinion of him; it was more the fact that the Capitol had eyes everywhere, apparently, ready to broadcast to the masses whatever juicy morsel of footage that they were able to catch. It was hard not to feel exposed, with that in mind.

Eventually, however, the cold and forceful shivers that wrack his body win out over any of those qualms. "Light it quick as you can manage, aye?" He strips off the soaked parka that Swann had sent him first, then works to undo the stupid one-piece uniform that the Capitol had put him in. He's angled in such a way that Roland will eventually be able to see the various tattoos that decorate his side, arm, and part of the large one that engulfs the entirety of his back -- as well as the old scars that mar his body here and there.

Roland takes the board and spindle out from his pack, looks them over without much hope. In bad shape, as predicted. Best get these damn clothes off before worrying about it, and that takes enough concentration to do with unsteady hands that he does not look back up until he's got his own one-piece mostly peeled away. When he does, it's to see skin even more decorated than his own, although Roland's has no tattoos. Only dimpled scars, old pale slash marks, a small, round burn scar on one shoulder, and a raised web of lines across his shoulderblades.

His eyes flicker over the other man's back, briefly curious as to whether the marks there are the same as those spread over his own, but doesn't dwell for long. None of his business. Then the rest of the one-piece comes off, and the long underwear underneath, and the socks and shoes. Their minds are in the same place, less with the men in front of them and more with the whole of Panem, back warm and safe in front of their little screens and probably watching every second of this.

The only way through is to keep as much dignity as he can, so that is what Roland does. He sits crosslegged, resisting the urge to go to more effort to cover himself, and focuses instead on pulling his hair over one shoulder and trying to squeeze all the water out from it. "Take a couple sticks yourself," he says, getting the words out through the cold with some effort. "May as well both try. And tell me your name. If we're both to be buck n-naked in front of everyone, should know one another."

Jack finishes peeling the wet clothes from his body, shuddering harshly with the cold. He settles near Roland, not allowing his thoughts to wander towards the disconcerting notion that he's most likely on display for the entire Capitol to openly gawk at.

The concern has to do with ego, mostly; the pirate normally buried himself in an array of clothes that had become part of a carefully constructed persona. He's supposed to be the notorious and infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, scourge of the Seven Seas and the entire Royal Navy -- an image that's harder to maintain when everyone could see the battered, scarred, all-too-thin appearance of his body.

The pirate notices the spattering on scars on Roland, as well, but doesn't remark or linger on it either. Instead, Jack busies himself with picking out a couple sticks to work with, then his gaze darts upwards. "Aye, true enough. It's Cap'n Jack Sparrow. Your name, mate?" The words are clipped and forced through chattering teeth.

Roland glances at the man, judging his condition. He, although nearly as scarred and thin as the captain, is one of those people who has never made a conscious decision to change how people think of him with his clothes and manner - at least, barring certain long ago attempts at disguise. The people of the Capitol aren't seeing anything they oughtn't, at least not in that sense. Instead of concerned, Roland is insulted. He is pissed off, he is angry. But if he could not control that part of himself he likely never would have made it out of boyhood, let alone all the way into the here and now. Controlling his anger has gotten easier, too, as the years pass and the lines of age spread and deepen over his body. There will be a time for that anger. This, however, is the time for other things, like keeping them both alive a little longer.

"Roland Deschain. Guns-s-slinger, if we're using titles." With that shiver in the middle of his sentence, the rhythm Roland's barely gotten going with the sticks between his hands is lost. He frowns at said hands, starts another try with them very slowly. His grip, once he's focusing on it, steadies. Not completely, but a little.

"Captain," he adds, because even though speaking is becoming a pain in the ass, it's better than sitting here thinking about how long it might be before this fire starts. Besides, he meant what he said before - if he's sharing this particular indignity, he wants to know a little of the man he's sharing it with. "Take it you don't- don't mean militia. Hope your ship didn't meet too many sea monsters." No, no, that wasn't Roland taking shots at you, Jack. You handled that sea monster well. So well.

Edited (I tried to leave the typo in so I wouldn't edit a second time but I just couldn't stand it XD) 2015-04-07 00:55 (UTC)

((OOC: NP and also sorry for the wait!))

The pirate is not having much better luck with his own attempt at a fire, despite his best efforts. He's also concentrating so hard on the task at hand -- desperate for a sign of smoke, anything at all, to show that they were on their way to having an actual fire -- that the name and title and everything else nearly falls on deaf ears.

Jack doesn't bother to glance up at the man, mouth parted in a partial grimace. "P-pleasure, mate." Yep, making an effort for full-on sentences is becoming too irritating, so he'll opt for shorter, easier ones.

"Gunslinger?" With the way Jack says the title, it's clear the word holds no meaning to him.

And as to Roland's question, a slight smirk tugs at his mouth. "Militia?" There's a huff that almost sounds like a laugh. "Decidedly n-not." The second bit only widens his smirk, and his eyes flash up for a second to Roland. "We did, met the Kraken. D-defeated it, too." Even freezing and shuddering like he was, Jack still had the energy to lie.

[ooc: no problem, I'm in no hurry! :D]

"Kraken." He says it slowly, although it isn't the best set of syllables to try and say at a time like this and saying it slowly doesn't make the word come out any smoother. "Don't know that one. Sounds a fine story, if you'll tell it. Fine distraction. Once we can both speak." Frowning, Roland leans forward, narrowing his eyes, because keeping the stick held tight enough in his right hand instead of falling out the gap where the fingers used to be takes concentration.

Concentration, apparently, isn't quite enough. "Shit," he spits as it falls loose, because even though speaking is still a pain sometimes you need a good heartfelt curse. "You'll have to- to do this. I'll make racks. For- for the clothes." Roland's motions then are stiff, deliberate, because moving to stand and settle closer to their gathered wood exposes quite a bit that the whole of Panem will never have the right to see. His expression hardens, and he continues talking as pride carries him over. Good to have something else to focus on.

"Gunslinger. Word means little in this world. Even if I had a gun. But we've our titles still, aye C-captain?" Even if going to sea isn't as rare in the other man's world as it was in his own, Roland reckons it takes some dedication still. If Sparrow doesn't know what Roland's own title means maybe he'll know it means something if he looks in Roland's face. There's knowing there, and dim humor, too - their titles hearken to purpose. Those purposes are far out of reach for what may be a very long time, if not the rest of their lives. Titles that have no meaning. Titles they each cling to, nonetheless.

"Aye. Kraken. Once -- " Another harsh shiver, and a lengthy pause as Jack concentrates on what he's doing. " -- once there's f-fire."

His gaze flits over to Roland momentarily at the curse, and the pirate acknowledges his words with a curt and absent-minded nod. He's trying not to give in to the overwhelming frustration that threatens to take over. He spends a couple more seconds attempting to make it work, and then Jack drops the stick and vigorously rubs both hands together in an effort to return at least a little sensation back from the icy numbness that had settled in deep.

"That we do, mate." He cups his hands against his mouth, slowly breathing out to further warm up his fingers. The meaning the title has to Roland isn't lost on Jack, as his own holds what looks like the same significance to him. It didn't matter, to him, that there was neither sea nor ship in this accursed place. The title had been hard fought for, and Jack was proud of it. "You'll h-have to tell me 'bout what it means, eh? Later."

He grasps the stick back in his hands, shifting his sitting position, then gets back to work. A few minutes later, a tiny twine of smoke winds its way upwards and Jack's face immediately brightens.

"Oi! Oi!" The words are bitten out with a chatter, but loud enough to garner Roland's attention.

For those few minutes Roland works in silence. He's about to batter his freezing mind into saying something else, anything other than how damned cold he is, before he hears the excitement in the captain's voice. Roland looks up to see and his long, wrinkled face lights up with a smile that doesn't look like it fits the rest of him, a look of pure, sunny happiness he hasn't worn since - well, long before arriving in Panem, he knows that much. Nothing like unrelenting cold to make the smallest normalcy seem a gods-given miracle. He abandons the sinew from his pack that he'd been winding around a couple chunks of wood - one good thing about the soaking his things had gotten, it makes the sinew much easier to manipulate - and shuffles on his knees to get closer. The happiness in his face fades very quickly, and by the time Roland moves all that's left is a carefully restrained eagerness.

"Get grass. Small t-twigs," he manages, voice low and urgent. "Lay them next to it." He leans down, providing a view for Panem's cameras that he is almost going to regret later. But only almost, because getting close enough to coax the spark with a very small, very careful breath into - if he's lucky - something producing actual heat is very much worth it. "Do you know how to feed this? C-carefully? I need to dry the clothes, or we'll be just as bad off." To be fair, Roland doesn't mean to be condescending about it. He doesn't even realize. It's just that fire is important.

"A-aye, aye -- !" Jack doesn't have the energy or time to be offended, even if Roland had meant it to be patronizing. Carefully, and with movements stiff and halting, the pirate angles himself away enough to reach over and tear a handful of grass from the ground, and, with hands shaking horribly, gather a few nearby twigs and slivers of wood.

Every ounce of his concentration is on the task, now, as Jack lays the bundle of tinder around the curl of smoke in the wood with painstaking care. He's so entirely focused on this that the malaise that had settled in like a fog over him the past few days -- from the bitter cold, the starvation, the headaches that claw at the back of his skull due to being forcibly sober -- miraculously becomes an entirely secondary concern.

Instead, adrenaline has his heart beating in his chest, hopeful.

He leans forward, giving the Capitol more footage that he's sure they'll love as well, and cups his hands around the smoke. It's only a tiny coal with barely any life in it at all, and the breath Jack blows onto it is stuttering and faint. It doesn't do much, and he inhales a slow breath to try again. He exhales another slow breath out, trying to coax the spark into an actual flame.

Roland watches closely for a moment, but interfering now would likely make the little spark gutter out altogether, and the man's breaths seem steady enough. Those watching from their warm rooms back in the city may never know how much will that takes, not to interfere, but ruining things by giving in to his impulses in that way would be unthinkable.

So he only watches. Goes back to building a few small racks, winding sinew around the corners, trying to rub some life back into his limbs while he watches the captain work. Their clothes, for all the good it will do right now, go up on the racks. On impulse, Roland pulls most of the dried meat he's got left out from his pack, too, and sets it where the other man will see it once he turns around. He hadn't been going to, had been planning on ignoring Jack's question earlier as to whether Roland had any food, but what the hell. If he can make a fire it'll be a fair celebration, and if he can't then the energy from food won't hurt.

Of course, his will not to interfere only goes so far. "I'll t-take a turn, if your luck's bad," he manages, rubbing at his arms and still watching very closely.

It's around the time that Roland offers to take over that the kindling finally catches -- the flame is initially barely visible, just a few tiny licks of fire into the open air, then the smoke thickens. Jack's so elated by it, by the prospect of fire and warmth and escape from the freezing cold, that his answer to Roland only comes out as an odd, muffled noise buried in his throat.

He waves a hand at the man, in a gesture meant to gain his attention -- or maybe merely in raw excitement -- while his other hand stays cupped protectively around the fledgling flame.

"Oi, look, look! G-Got it, I think. Hope." A shaky breath, away from it so that he doesn't accidentally blow it out. He's aware that he could easily suffocate the fire with too much fuel or air given too quickly, and thus Jack continues to be careful as he tries to coax it further.

It works, as a few seconds later the fire starts to hungrily consume more and more of the grass.

Roland's big, strange grin does not return - likely will not for some time - but he does smile, mouth thin and wide and pleased. He watches the grass closely for a moment, adds a very tiny bit of grass very carefully, and leans back. "Good," he says to the Captain, cautious and relieved, but doesn't bother trying to manage anything else. If they watch the fire carefully they may be well soon, well enough to talk of kraken and gunslingers and anything else in relative comfort. For now Roland only rubs his hands up and down his arms, keeps sitting close to the other man, and waits to finally be warm.

Brock has gotten his hands on a spear at some point. Well, it's less a spear and more a branch that he's whittled down and strapped a knife to with the last remaining scraps of his Ugg boots. He was glad to have gotten a replacement immediately in the Cornucopia, because the Uggs were stupid and embarrassing, but at least they had their use.

They'd be more useful, of course, if he still had some remaining scraps to tie to the spear so it could be more like a harpoon instead of just a bit pointy thing he's about to throw at a plesiosaur. Because, you know. That's a good idea.

He's got it held back, muscles coiled as he's nearly ready to let it fly, but then he hears somebody shouting and he whips around, throwing the spear/harpoon at the guy instead. Which is instinct. And also maybe a bad idea, because he realizes it's someone from his own District like half a second too late.

"Oh shit -- dive!" he shouts down the shore.

... Oh.

The man swings around and launches the spear at him, and Jack is stumbling forward too fast to properly stop himself in time. Instead, with eyes now wide in alarm, he takes the man's advice and attempts to duck out of the way. Thankfully it's a far enough of a distance away that the misdirected throw only manages to graze the outside of his shoulder -- ripping a jagged line across his outfit and slicing a superficial cut into his arm -- before it ends its arc and sinks into the earth with a quiet thud behind him.

However, with Jack's momentum, he still ends up toppling forward onto the ground.

It takes a couple seconds for him to climb back to his feet, a low groan in his throat, then reach over to free the spear from where it's landed. While the pirate can figure that it'd been an accident, anger still takes his tone, "Oi, mate! What's in your head, throwing that at me like that?"

Brock just kind of stands there stupidly as all this unfolds, since it's not like he could have done anything anyway. He would feel pretty bad if he wound up, like, inadvertently totally killing a guy from his own District, though. It's a false kinship that doesn't mean anything beyond shared living space and arbitrary numbers, but you have to respect something in this fucked-up world.

Once Jack hits the ground, though, Brock starts jogging over there, brow furrowed with concern. But then he pulls himself up and he's all pissed, which is... understandable... sort of? But not enough where Brock is just going to take it. He stops a few paces away, gesturing stiffly in the direction of the pond, his own tone far from pleasant.

"The hell were you doing, distracting me when I was holding a weapon!"

It's not an anger that lingers long, because it's born out of the last few harsh weeks grinding him down and making him incredibly weary. And also because wow, that could've gone much worse than it truly had. Jack could live with only a light scratch on his shoulder.

His upper lip twitches, however, and the look Brock gets is akin to are you serious. "Saving your damnable life." He swings the spear out, using it to point at the lake where the creatures mill about peacefully. "Those bloody stupid things are downright dangerous an' aggressive."

Clearly this is oh so true, Brock can see, as the plesiosaurs gracefully and ever-so-calmly go on about their business on the lake. "What did you plan to do to it, anyhow? Poke it repeatedly with a stick?"

That Jack still has the spear is offensive to Brock in some stupid, primal way he can't describe. That is his weapon, guy; he made it himself. How dare you use it like a laser pointer.

Knuckles cracking as he tenses his fingers, Brock takes a few steps forward. The plesiosaurs don't really seem to notice any of this. Super aggressive and dangerous, yes.

"Like -- stab it with the thing. Kill it," he says a bit lamely, then shakes his head and continues, a little louder to make up for how plainly he did not have an actual plan. "Look at those things! You know how much you could feed yourself if you took one of 'em down?"

The step forward, closer, elicits a quick step backwards from the pirate. District mate or not, it was stupid to not feel paranoid with any interaction with other Tributes in this hellhole. And unlike most times, Jack would love to keep his personal space free from other people.

Particularly people that looked as scary as Brock did.

But it occurs to him, after a moment, that the man would want his spear back. Jack gives a half-lidded stare at him in response to his explanations, then slowly and carefully shifts a hand to the spear's top side and offers the weapon, handle first, to Brock. The whole time, his other hand will rest briefly on the knife stashed in his jacket. Just in case.

"Right then. If you want to get yourself killed and, believe me, that's the much more likely outcome of this endeavor of yours, be my guest." But Brock had a point, too. If by some miracle the man managed to take one of the beasts down, a person could have a feast with that amount of food. And if Brock got himself killed in the process of trying, that'd be one less person for Jack to worry about. "But don't say I 'aven't warned you, mate."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

lapping currents

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

hope this is okay!

aaaand that'll do it?

no subject

fjkdslafds perfect

sorry this is so late!

no worries! <3

no subject

no subject