First Night

[ssa_emilyprentiss]

Who: Emily Prentiss, Mary Zero, and OPEN
What/when: First night in the Arena
Location: In and around E13, behind the treeline around the Cornucopia.

Emily knew human nature.  And human nature was to get as far away from violence as fast as possible.  Ergo, counter-intuitively, she would be safest near the Cornucopia.  And besides, the higher her elevation – seeing as the arena seemed to be bordered by a series of high mountain peaks – the colder the air temperature.

The mountains were like a second home to her, from a lifetime of summers spent in the French Alps with her grandfather.  But she still didn’t relish the thought of the cold, windy nights with only her windbreaker for warmth.

She knew she couldn’t stay holed up in the run-off basin forever, seeing as this was a Game, afterall, and just trying to stave off death didn’t make for particularly good viewing.  For now, though, it seemed like safe bet that it would be easier for the Gamemakers to bring her competitors to her, rather than forcing her up the mountain.

For now.  She could reanalyze that strategy in the morning when she had a clearer head.

The sunset would come quickly in the bottom of the canyon where the mountain peaks blocked the far reaches of the East and West from view.  And with the dropping of the sun, the temperature would fall sharply too.

The Cornucopia was deserted now, everyone who went for it having gotten what then needed and then booking it out of dodge, everyone else long gone.  Anything that had escaped the initial scourge was probably beyond reach now.  But in the off-chance that someone might return to look for any remaining supplies, she camouflages herself at the edge of the treeline to watch and wait.  Even if they didn’t have any supplies she could take, it would still be one less person she had to worry about in the long run.

Comments

[thetributes]

He doesn't like the cold, and he's been around mountains only enough to know that the higher you climb, the colder it gets. To his advantage, he thinks, no one else seems to mind it. They've all ran off, ready to seek refuge on the forested mountainside, while Maxim finds that the rocks of the riverbank nearest the waterfall, while slick and treacherous, left no footprints for anyone to follow, and allowed his pounding heart to beat as loudly as it liked; no one would hear it against the roar.

But as night falls, the dampness sticks, and Maxim decides to reconsider. So, back to the muddy, rocky shore he returns, hunting knife in hand, and hopes for the best.

[Maxim isn't slated to die quite yet. Feel free to interact with him! Scare the crap out of him, wound him, make nice.... whatever!]

[ssa_emilyprentiss]

The situation in which they've been implanted is neither the time nor the place for making friends. Nonetheless, Emily didn't want to be the one who killed kids - the boy looked all of seventeen years old who wouldn't know the barrel of a gun from a whole in the ground.

She was trying not to look at these other tributes as kids, people, equals...they were UNSUBs she kept telling herself. Emily Prentiss - a federal agent - didn't kill people. She killed people who deserved it.


Just because she didn't kill someone, though, didn't mean she was ready to make nice. At least not until she'd had time to size them up and judge their motives. She wasn't going to let someone walk right in and give them the chance to stab her in the back until she was certain they wouldn't.

For now, maybe she'd just scare the kid, get him on edge a little. She tosses a few rocks in his direction, aiming to make as much noise as possible as they ricocheted off the boulders. Maybe the noise would scare him off.

If it didn't, she'd learn something about him.

[thetributes]

He tenses, gripping the hilt of his blade tight in hand as soon as he hears the racket. There is not a bone in his body that could be convinced that those sounds weren't coming from anything other than another person.

Maxim wants to not be afraid. Wishes he knew more about what he was truly up against. But he he isn't a hunter. Not even much of a fighter, unless he's mad enough, and those instance are few and far between.

The bloodbath at the Cornucopia had been, well... no one had exactly told him that was the nickname of the event, and yet that was exactly how he'd seen it. He hadn't killed anyone. Punched a guy, yeah, but it had been in self defense, really. The knuckles of his right hand were still a little red and sore from it. Regardless, he's not looking forward to seeing another person again, so soon after having watched so many of them die right in front of him.

In his immediate present though, he's not exactly thrilled about taking a blow to the head by a flying rock, either. So, Maxim takes cover behind a tree. The opposite side from where he thinks the sound is coming from.

He doesn't see who's throwing them, but he can't say he really wants to. But now that he knows they are there, and respectively, they know he's there, too, Maxim isn't keen on the idea of just running off, either. Not when this mystery person could easily follow him.

[ssa_emilyprentiss]

Emily attempted to stifle a laugh. He didn't run off, so she had to give him some credit. But he also didn't come looking to see where the rocks were coming from him - smart.

Maybe she needed to keep an eye on him.

Unfortunately, she'd have to be extra sneaky to get closer to him because he had the better vantage point. She'd have to climb up the falls a ways and then come back down into the trees behind him and find a tree where she could hole up for the night and keep an eye on him.