Yabba Dabba Nooooo [open]

[acroodawakening]

Who| Guy Crood
What| Guy's Introduction to the Arena. Forecast: Terror with periodic showers of extreme anxiety
Where| I'm going to say he's somewhere around the northwest of the island
When| Second week, I think?
Warnings/Notes| Guy's new and twitchy, so watch out.

"I don't - I don't understand! What do you mean a battle to the death? Are you crazy?!"

The last thing Guy remembered before waking up on a hard bed...thing in a strange shelter (a cave maybe?) had been settling down for the night with the rest of the family. (In a sleep pile, of course.) The place where the Croods had been camped out was hilly and not far from the sea, so the cool night breezes coming in from the ocean had made sleeping all cuddled together rather comfortable and no one in the family could ever pass up a good sleep pile when conditions allowed it. They hadn't even bothered with a fire. There were few wild animals daring enough to tangle with a jungle cat the size of Chunky, or their owl-bear Lu, and their scent alone usually kept most predators away.

That was where he'd been last, curled up next to Eep, his daughter sleeping on his chest, Belt curled around his head, in a jumble of limbs with the rest of the family. All of them had been wrapped up protectively in his father's - in Grug's - arms. The last thing he'd seen was the endless swath of stars above them, their light sharp and beautiful, and the last thing he'd heard was the soft rustling of grasses as the wind swept over the hill.

The next thing he knew, he'd woken up here - wherever here was - alone. No daughter in his arms, no mate curled up next to him, no family to be found when surely they would've woken up if someone had snatched him up in the night.

Then again, Guy still wasn't sure how he'd wound up snatched without waking up himself. All he knew was that he was here, being dragged by people wearing some strange hard...something (were they people at all?) down a tunnel, one that looked far too neatly carved to be natural. The faceless beings dragging him around looked like bug-people, like they were humans with carapaces. (Humbugs? Insectumans?)

"Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey!" he cried out in a thin voice as some of them started pulling off his clothes. Somehow every "hey" was an entirely different pitch. "Hands off! Hands off! Get your creepy bug hands off!"

He thrashed against the hold they had on him. "And give me back that knife! That was my father's!"

Kicking didn't seem to do much good. Whatever they were, they were strong, and before long they'd forced him into unfamiliar clothing and shoes, made of no animal skins Guy had ever seen before.

"Who are you people?!"

Guy felt something pinch his arm and saw one of them withdrawing some kind of long...needle. He let out a terrified yelp as he was shoved onto a round stone. Then he started to rise through a long tube, another tunnel, into a place with open sky.

"What have you done with my family? Where's my daughter?" He pounded his fists against the side of the tube, and screamed again, "Where's my daughter?!"

But the bug-men were gone from view and then he was above ground in the middle of a vast, untamed wilderness, muggy and wet, unlike any he'd ever seen -

"Why did you take me inside a cave somewhere just to shove me back outside again?" Guy yelled at the stone platform he'd risen up on, perplexed, holding out his arms as if to say 'What gives?' What, they'd kidnapped him to move him maybe a mile?

Wait, no, this wasn't like any of the forests of home. It wasn't bright enough. There were no vividly colored plants in rainbow colors, completely overpowering the green, no girelephants grazing nearby, no albatroceroses flying lazily through the air. It was very green but compared to just about every forest he'd ever seen in his life, this place was dim. And those bug-people... He'd never seen anything like them in the old world nor had he'd seen anything like them in Tomorrow.

Where were the hills? Where was the sea? And most importantly of all: Where was his family? His breathing started to come more quickly and catch in his throat as he looked around at an unfamiliar landscape. The strangers' words started to sink in:

You will be competing with the other Tributes in a battle to the death. There will only be one survivor.

There were other people here then. Other people that had probably been grabbed from who knew where, shoved into this place, and told the exact same thing. Before he even realized he was doing it, Guy started to run, but before he got very far he stopped himself, slowing back down to a trot.

It was difficult to. Sometimes, when he was in a panic, Belt was the one that had to smack him out of it, but Belt wasn't here right now. He had to do it for himself.

Just like he used to. Before Belt. When the nights were always dark and his stomach was empty more often than it was full.

"No. No no no. You know how it works," he muttered to himself, waving an arm. "Stop. Stop."

He checked his waist to see if they'd left anything at all that he could use, but his knife, his flint and spark stone, his pouch, all of it was gone. They'd even taken his shell necklace and leather hair tie. He had nothing but the bone bracelet on his wrist.

The moment he realized they hadn't taken that, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Okay so maybe it wasn't a knife but his bracelet matched the bracelet on Eep's wrist, that had the same carvings of a warthog and a tiger joyfully chasing each other's tails. There was a ring attached to it, with smaller rings attached to that, bound together with a strip of leather. He pulled that strip extra taught with his teeth. Now was not the time for it to rattle.

After briefly glancing at the carvings on the bracelet again, centering himself, he looked up at the strange new world around him and took a few deep breaths.

"Okay," he said quietly to himself in huffed breath. "Okay, Guy, you've been here before. Maybe not with quite so many people trying to kill you buuut with everything else trying to. You know what to do."

Then he started to move off through the underbrush, quickly but also carefully and - above all else - quietly, his eyes and ears open for threats - and open for anything useful he could find. Especially flint. In situations like this, flint was your friend.

Comments

[formersurgeon]

Joan stopped him.

"Look, it doesn't really matter. You're right, your time is long enough ago that even us knowing you were from it wouldn't tell us anything useful. And if you're from a different world entirely? It still doesn't tell us anything useful. It might be interesting to find out about our worlds once we're back in the Capitol, but right now it's not going to keep us not dead."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock's lips were already parted with a retort, but Joan had hit upon the best possible way to shut him up: telling him it didn't matter. And being right. Because this was quickly crossing into philosophy territory, and, for the moment, he really didn't care.

So, he sucked in a breath and nodded tightly.

"Yes. Well. Precisely." He said as he cleared his throat.

[acroodawakening]

Guy just rolled his shoulders in a loose little shrug, and moved slightly behind the tree again, peeking out almost shyly.

"Sorry, I have a habit of questioning everything and surviving it at the same time. Usually because the life-threatening things that need to be survived happen a lot where I'm from." Another shrug. "I'm a good many-tasker."

Apparently his language's concept of "multitasker" translated a little oddly.

"And, you know, I'm trying to understand. But I'll take a look and makes sure we're still alone." With that, he tucked his knife in his belt and started to climb the tree he was standing next to, though he was cautious enough to make sure he was climbing the side facing away from them. He scurried up it faster than most people would have been capable, not even using branches at times, just jamming his fingers in the bark of the tree.

"The whole view, though," he said as he climbed, hardly out of breath. "The whole view's important."

He peered around carefully, trying to make out any movement in the underbrush.

"And if you have assumptions about what I am, what I'm capable of, about the past you think I'm from, other people might." He peered around a branch at them with a gaze that was just a little sharper than before. "Knowing what people like you might expect of me, about what they might assume I'm capable of, might not help you, but it might help keep me not dead."

He briefly stopped, dangling from a branch with one hand, feet still against the tree trunk, and nodded to Joan. "Like you seemed almost surprised I understood some of that stuff with the different worlds and about ideas with time. It was almost like you were surprised I was smart. Are there going to be other people that see the stripes and the messy hair and the stone weapons and think I'm not smart, too? Because I can definitely work with that."

He started climbing again.

He could see the possibilities there. Ugh ugh, growl a little, throw a rock, make himself seem as if he's just trying to bash his way through a fight, run away as if he's afraid of losing but not so fast he actually gets away, lead the person chasing him into a trap...

Not that he'd do it to anyone innocent but for this even to work, for it to be a battle to the death more than once (since Signless said it wasn't his first time) that meant there had to be killers. There had to be predators hunting the people like Joan that didn't seem to want to kill. There had to be people willing to kill the ones whose instinctual response to a distressed person was to try to calm them down and give them kindness.

The idea of that left a bad taste in his mouth. There were only a few reasons that it was okay to kill another person. 1) Self defense. Especially if you'd tried to talk your way out of the situation. 2) If they were trying to steal your food or water when you'd starve or die of thirst without, which fell under self defense. 3) Defending someone else. And then there was 4) Out of mercy. If someone was already dying or in so much pain they wanted to be dead.

Being told "you have to kill, there can be only one survivor" and then doing it was not self defense. Not when people were apparently not killing and coming back to life anyway. Joan seemed to be talking with experience, Signless said people died and came back...

No one had to really be that brutal, did they? And what if everyone banded together to not be brutal? What if the ones that were savage were killed and only those who weren't were left? What kind of "game" would their kidnappers have on their hands then? What if they tried to work together rather than let themselves be danced around like toys?

Even if that wouldn't work, didn't the people who didn't want to fight deserve to die on their own terms? Shouldn't the ones that killed indiscriminately deserve to be hunted down for it? Rather than dying at the hands of other people tossed into this wilderness, their kidnappers should be the ones to get their hands bloody if the people who didn't want to fight had to die.

As he perched there in the branches, he went quiet for a moment, to listen for anyone possibly approaching, using the height he was now at to look around a bit, just to make sure they hadn't been approached while talking.

[formersurgeon]

Joan felt bad about making an assumption like that about someone she didn't know. In this case, it was tantamount to racism.

"You're right, I didn't expect you to be...intellectually sophisticated. I'm sorry."

[alldeduction]

"Any chance you had of them thinking you were less intelligent just evaporated - at least after this arena," Sherlock pointed out, calling up into the tree.

"Everything here is broadcast. Every word we speak, every decision we make, they are all watched and dissected. You might be able to use it to your advantage now, however unlikely, but once we are back in the capitol - once in another game, everyone will know who and what you really are."

Or, at least, the who and the what you wanted the world to see.

[acroodawakening]

"Trust me, if you'd grown up - mostly alone - somewhere where you sometimes found yourself staring down two boulders' worth of charging batodile and the only way you could save yourself from very pointy teeth was by thinking up a way to use vines, rocks, and maybe a stick to build a trap - in thirty seconds or less - you'd be intellectually sophisticated, too," Guy said to Joan with a wry raise of his eyebrow. His tone was gentle, though, as if he didn't hold the assumption against her.

He really didn't. Not now that she'd apologized. Not when she'd been so kind.

"Or you'd be dead. I guess." He shrugged. "People survive by strength, smarts, or numbers where I'm from. I'm not tossing-boulders strong and I lived what you might call a-" His face twitched oddly, and his eyes went a little wide, as if he was trying to make something bad sound less negative "-a solitary existence. Lots of solitude."

He nodded to himself as if to say, 'Good job, self, for how you worded that. Have a mental banana.'

"Anyway, I wish I'd known the eyes could do that or I'd have played dumb. I thought they were just watching us now. But you're right, I can at least play dumb this time."

He nodded to himself again. With one last look around, he started to climb down from the tree.

[formersurgeon]

"Hopefully you'll be better at adapting to being constantly watched than I've been." Joan was still struggling with pretending to be anything other than herself on an extended basis.

[alldeduction]

He bit back saying 'they aren't eyes' because it really didn't matter what they were - intellectually sophisticated or not, explaining advanced technology when you didn't have it on hand to demonstrate wasn't going to be sufficient to understanding.

He watched as Guy climbed down, only glancing over to Joan once. She reminded him of John so much sometimes that it nearly hurt.

He hadn't exactly been good at being watched either. Though you think he'd be used to it, after his brother. (Well that thought had come utterly unbidden. How long had it been since he'd thought about his brother?)

"You'll see the extent of it soon enough. Everything it edited, of course, so who knows - perhaps the story they wish to tell the capitol of you is a brainless barbarian. If you play it up, it may go to your favour, but don't count on it. Our stories are more to their whims than ours."

[acroodawakening]

Guy dangled from a low branch and landed steadily on the ground. Then he picked up his spear from where he'd left it leaning against the tree.

"No, they're not. Well, yes, they can make them whatever they want to make them into for themselves, but generally speaking, they're not."

He tried to think of a way to make it clearer. Sometimes he had trouble with this, with finding the words for what was inside and dragging it outside. Too much time alone. Too much time making up his own words for ideas and beliefs that other people had words for.

He looked to Joan.

"What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter if they watch you and it doesn't matter what ways they twist that story about you for themselves as long as however they twist it makes them want to keep you alive. It doesn't change the one you have right here."

He tapped his temple.

"You made one where instead of trying to hurt someone who was scared and - and alone. You tried to make them less afraid. You made a story where you have friends that - " He nodded towards Sherlock "- that want to protect you. That's your story. The real one, anyway."

He shrugged.

"So trick them into believing whatever one you need or want them to believe. That one can be the one you tell, not the one you live."

[formersurgeon]

"I'm usually not one to front like that."

It was a lie, but one that even she wasn't entirely aware of.

"Hopefully the people in the Capitol think my story is one to cheer for. Not everyone likes the vicious killers."

Even though most of them probably do.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock rolled his eyes visibly, watching Guy go well past his point and back into some kind of touchy-feely philosophy.

"Well, perhaps you'll have a better idea of what I mean when you are more acquainted with the concept of video editing," He said mildly, looking over at Joan. He'd had quite enough of hypothetical stories.

Most of the time he could forget about the fact that he existed as books in other people's universes.

"Joan, I think it would be best if we turned our story back to camp, if you're quite done."

[acroodawakening]

When Guy noticed the eyeroll, he gave Sherlock a Look, something steeped in 'am I boring you?' and sprinkled with a delicate dusting of 'because if I am, I don't care.'

"You know, we were having a Moment there and you killed it. You're a Moment murderer," he said wryly to the man. "I can tell already, you're a ruiner. You are a ruiner of things."

But then it registered that Sherlock suggested he and Joan go back to camp and the expression faded away.

That was familiar. After his years alone, when he'd come across groups of people now and again, they'd sometimes talked, traded a bit, shared some stories, but then they'd always made it clear they were going to move on - or that he should. He was an extra mouth to potentially feed, a stranger, someone wandering unattached through life and they had no way of knowing why.

He'd never blamed them. After all, if someone wandered alone without a family or tribe, there was always the possibility that they'd been kicked out of one for some reason, that they couldn't be trusted. Maybe if he'd been younger when running across those people they'd have taken him in, but he'd been in his teens by then. An adult.

It hadn't bothered him for a long time. Right now, for some reason, it did just a little, but then maybe that was because after finding his new family, he thought he'd never again get any subtle hints to be on his way.

But it was fair and he didn't know if he could trust them, either.

"Thank you," he said to Joan, after a moment. "For being kind. And helping me calm down. And, uh, for not trying to beat me in the head with a rock since that was always a distinct possibility."

He smiled a small smile. It faded as he wondered if her tendency to talk rather than beat people with rocks would affect her chances of survival. He hoped not. At least she had territorial menacingly tall friends who seemed protective of her, apparently.

"You said you didn't want them to change the person you are. Good luck with that." It was clear he was being genuine. He added, vaguely, his eyes distant, looking thoughtful but not sad, "That's a fight that can be a little hard-won, not changing when things are hard, but it's always possible."

He shrugged slightly. "Just...trust me on that. I hope you manage it."

Then he turned to Sherlock. "And you, oh Gargantuan one, keep looking out for her. She's nice. Unlike you." He added, generously, "Although thanks for not trying to stab me in the face. I do appreciate that."

He was being genuine about that, too. He had a knife, Sherlock had a spear. Sherlock definitely had the advantage if he'd been feeling inclined towards violence.

[formersurgeon]

Joan raised her eyebrows at his elaborate farewell, and his casual insult of Sherlock.

"Considering we're all going to have to live together after this, it makes more sense to make friends instead of enemies." She tilted her head. "Take care of yourself, and we'll see you later."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock offered nothing but a tight smile. Guy was hardly the first, to find him unkind, and like every other judgement of his character that others thought to educate him on, he simply did not care. (Or, at the very least, he did a very good job pretending he didn't.)

He raised the spear and turned his back, only glancing back once to make sure that Joan was following him before he walked away.

[acroodawakening]

It was all about the social ties, so of course it was an elaborate farewell. It was important, the meetings and partings, the hellos and goodbyes. Especially in a place like this.

As for thinking Sherlock was unkind...

If the furry shoe fits, Sherlock.

To be fair, Guy didn't think he was a bad person. There was a difference between being unkind in your manner and a bad person. A bad person wouldn't be protecting a friend. A bad person likely wouldn't have friends to protect, even if they were few. A bad person wouldn't walk away from killing someone they could probably kill fairly easily because they were better armed when they'd been told it was a fight to the death, preferring to leave them in peace instead.

Good wasn't always nice.

But they didn't have time to chitchat over that for now. So Guy merely lifted his knife near his head in a little salute to the two of them and then went on his way.