thearena | [OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

Entry tags:

[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

Who | Sigma Klim, Eponine Thenardier, and You!
What | Sigma and Eponine pass the time in their shelter, and later Sigma's last stand in the Arena.
When | Week 2-3
Where | In the jungle.
Warnings | Illness, drinking with a minor, death and mentions of gore in Homura's thread.

The whole of the week, Sigma had been drifting in and out of consciousness. While Eponine slowly recovered from the last of her flu and the wound on her leg, the Doctor was only growing progressively worse, as though her pain could seep into him. His whole chest ached when he took a breath and it was as though his lungs had been grated apart, filled with blood, flesh, the water from the air that suffocated him in every humid breath. Even in his sleep he coughed rattlingly.

But the girl's presence next to him kept him grounded, kept him from giving up in his battle against his own body. At the moment he laid near the entrance to their root alcove, conscious enough to watch the opening carefully, if in a daze. If anyone were to spot them he would leap on them and tear them apart like any badger or weasel, illness or no. If he had been doing this duty for minutes or days, he could not tell; any duration of consciousness slipped away from him without bias.

Comforted that there had not been an unexpected guest in some time, he turned to their stash of supplies hungrily. He wheezed with every breath, for his throat felt as though it were burning, and he could no longer endure going without water periodically.

"Eponine? Shall we eat and drink?"

*

After the girl had run away, leaving Sigma to awaken in a panic and search for her in a fog to no avail, the Doctor decided not to return to their shelter even if it meant leaving Eva behind. He could not face her motherly wrath over failing to supervise the girl, nor could he deal with his shame if he continued to travel with her - not to mention with his worsening cough he was extremely contagious. In the end, it was better for them to go their separate ways. Sigma gathered up only the canister of food a sponsor had graciously given him (he had a suspicion Eva would kill him for leaving with anything else) and set out for nowhere in particular.

Dr. Klim had found running water to refill his sponsor canister when it began: the freezing jungle rain, soaking, torrential, inescapable. The moment the water descended on his shoulders Sigma felt as though he were being picked apart by thousands of blades of ice - if the touch of another's skin on his had given him instant cool relief, this was like drowning a burn in an ice bath.

Shaking, now, and hacking as he went, Sigma rose from the bank and spun around, searching fruitlessly for a place to hide. But no matter how thick the overgrowth, the rain continued to pelt down on him and Sigma lifted his head to the sky helplessly. He was too weak to make it back to Eva's shelter in the roots, which was far behind him now - but if he stayed, he was dead. Fatigue overcoming him, Sigma curled into a pathetic ball beneath a tree and shut his eyes, coughing into his hands.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The heat was heavy in the jungle at almost all times. It made the burnt flesh of his arms constantly feel like they were on fire again. The rain, for that at least, is a mercy.

He hasn't been able to find anyone, not even for a kill, but mostly that's been thanks to hiding-- he'd be damned if anyone called that for what it was though. While the rain is cooling on his arms, he doesn't want it anywhere near his face it's hard enough to keep his paint in place; now that he's down one eye, and hosting three long bloody purple scratches across his face, it's even more so. He tries to keep his head bowed, ruining what he had left of his visibility, with how his hair hung down in wet veil. He's suddenly grateful for having been given a shorter haircut so it's not down to his waist as it used to be.

He's off his game. This would be death back on Alternia-- real death, but he can't be bothered. For that, he nearly misses the old man.

He stops short, pushing his bangs aside to get a proper look. Was he dead? No, he was breathing... The Initiate could kill him. Right here and now he could tear out his throat, laying there prone as he was. He wouldn't even need a weapon, he could use his strength, his claws, his teeth. He could spill red all along this forest floor, shining and beautiful.

Or he could crouch low and close, just enough space to run if he had to-- if it was trap-- and to see him properly if he didn't. He owed this one, in repayment for keeping his moirail alive, safe. He owed him. And the Initiate kept his word.

"BROTHER SIGMA?" He says, hesitating in reaching out to shake him. "What the motherfuck all is a brother got intent for all making like at to be cullbait? YOU'LL BE STREWN ALL WAYS UP ACROSS THE MOTHERFUCKING ISLAND HERE YOU UP AND WILL."

At first, the Doctor had not heard him, his loud voice muffled by the sound of the rain beating in his ears. Sigma had been trying to hide within his memories, still vivid due to his gift, in a warm bed some fifty years ago where Diana stroked his hair. He was taken from this hallucination by the sensation of real warmth on his shoulder; Sigma twitched, opening his eyes. His muscles spasmed in an involuntary fear response and he dug his nails into the dirt to ease it - had it been anyone else, he would no longer be alive.

"Initia-" he had barely spoken the title before he coughed again, one that rattled in his chest, made his vision swim. He could barely speak through his swollen throat once he retrieved the strength to. Despite his condition, the Doctor was visibly concerned for Initiate Fraysong's injuries, and considers his own well being secondary. "...Are you alright?" He cleared his throat. "Forgive my weakness. I am very ill. I am unlikely to survive," he said simply, factually. Behind muddy green eyes it was clear he was suffering.

He lifted a soaked arm to wipe rain from his brow. He did not know how much the other's injuries affected his ability to fight, and by staying here he risked death. "You may go, if you wish," he admitted wearily. "There is hardly a point, now." Blood was pounding in his head and the rain had drenched his clothes through. Sigma was a big man, and it was certainly humbling to be frail, now, even helpless. But with all of his pride intact, he would not beg. And now that the cameras were surely on him, he was determined to live - Sigma dug through the hard earth with robotic hands that whirred under the stress, lifting himself enough to balance himself on his knees, and began to stand.

Even with how visible it is, the Initiate doesn't notice the Doctor's concern for him. Or perhaps it's less not-noting and more not understanding. No one has any reason to be concerned for him, especially not in a death game. With some confusion, he hastily says, "Of course my ownself is being fine, I'm motherfucking alive ain't I? MORE ALL THAN WHAT AT CAN BE SAID ON HE."

The Initiate frowns, looking the Doctor over with his one eye for... something. Some sort of physical wound he could make sense of and know what to do with rather than a vague word of being ill. What exactly was he supposed to do about a motherfucker being ill?

"I ain't at to just leave," He says, one part incredulous and another offended. "I SWORE UNTO HE WORD AT FOR REPAYMENT OF THAT WHICH ALL WAS DONE BEFORE."

He's just about to offer a mercy cull-- it would be so easy, and he could make it quick, painless even, just a quick snap and then done-- when Sigma rouses. He watches as the old man rises on up. It's pathetic. It damn near hurts to watch.

"No point," He scoffs, and rises to stand himself. He's taller, despite being far younger. "THAT'S HOOFBEASTSHIT AND YOU GODDAMN KNOW IT, BROTHER." He looks him over again. "You capable at for walking on? YOU LIKE SOMEONE GOT TO GUTTING YOU OUT ALL TRYING TO WALK ON ALL ANYWAYS; IF YOU AIN'T NEVER KNOWN AT FOR WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE, I TELL YOU IT AIN'T A THING WHAT'S BEING FOR LONG."

"A-Are you certain?" Sigma chokes out. He stares at the wound on the other's face, then tapped the glass on his own metal eye, both as a gesture and to remove the raindrops that had accumulated. The area above his eye, where his eyebrow should have been, is pockmarked with scar tissue from ripped-off skin. "I have been there. It is agonizing. You are made of stronger stuff than I." This much was obvious, for Sigma slips with a cry in the wet grass as he tries to lift himself up on the tree trunk, slamming his knee into the root. He groans and tries again slowly.

The Doctor is amazed that the Initiate would keep his end of the bargain even in these circumstances, where escorting him to safety would be nothing but a burden, might even kill them both. But his eyes brighten with hope and gratitude and he chases any acceptance he had of dying here from his mind. The other Tribute's strange method of speaking flew over his head in his exhausted, barely-conscious state, but the message was received, nonetheless. The rain continued to fall and Sigma summons all of his strength, finally getting to his feet, though he shook like a newborn fawn. Sigma took a few more staccato breaths between suppressing coughs and places a hand on his forehead to soothe the radiating heat. Even to his robotic limb his temperature feels hot.

He sighs, a half feverish moan, half resigned to the other's aid. "...There is a tree, about a mile and a half south," Sigma points in the direction he needs to go. He would risk coming across Eva, as well as his hiding place being exposed to someone else or to having already become a sinkhole, for a chance to sleep. "It has a dry root shelter at its base. If I can make it there, I might live," he swallows. "...But I'll need help. I am heavy," he cautions, "and I am afraid I might be asking too much of you." The other Tribute is strong, but he does not know what the Initiate is capable of lifting, and Sigma's cybernetic enhancements were meant for a life lived on the moon - on earth, he was easily more than 250lbs. And while he had been healthy enough to walk alongside Eva at the start of the Arena, he is not sure how much farther his legs will hold him now.

"...Ain't saying at it to be pleasent," He mutters, glancing from the Doctor's eye, then quickly down. "BUT IT AIN'T ON FOR TO KILL ME. His kind is made to keep along. TO LIVE AND LIVE REGARDLESS OF WHAT THINGS MAY BE ABOUT."

Sigma drops and he starts forward. He stares. His instincts war with him. Leave this fucker, cull him, rake him for what good he could offer, send him carnivalbound, he will either kill you when he gets the chance or he'll be your death some other way. He curses twice under his breath in the chirps and clicks of Alternian. He owes this, he doesn't have a goddamn choice. He gives the man the dignity of letting him stand himself and he listen's to Sigma, looking to where he points, then back again.

"This all will be easiest if he can be climbed up upon my ownself's back," The Initiate begins. "MOTHERFUCKING MIND, IF YOU PULL ANYTHING WHAT ALL INTENDS AT TO HARM I WILL MAKE YOU HURT LIKE WHAT YOU AIN'T NEVER KNOWN, EYE INCLUDED. That up and motherfucking made word on, he's carried a body before, been capable well at since-" how long had it been, since his first cull? Had been two, three, sweeps? He remembers moving bodies, not having hit his growth cycle yet and being so much smaller than his dead attackers. He remembers his legs shaking for some reason or other, as he painted his hive and made their bodies a warning. He can't remember when it started. "-before remembrance is all holding sharp," He says. "HE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO CARRY A MOTHERFUCKER WELL ENOUGH."

And so, slowly, he kneels. He allows his back to the old man. The voices stop screaming for anything but a kill as his heart hammers. But he tries to keep his face from betraying him, if not the tenseness of his form which Sigma might feel if he does indeed touch him, along with the distinct chilliness of his grey flesh brought on by the coldness of his blood.

Edited 2013-11-10 16:04 (UTC)

Satisfied by the explanation, Sigma nodded sympathetically. In truth, while Sigma had no obligation to the wellbeing of Initiate Fraysong, he could not help but show concern over someone who still had a chance of survival. All he desired now was to die with some semblance of dignity and not like a cat thrown out in the rain.

He blinks once with his wrinkled eye, squinting hard to shield it from the flood, as the Tribute outlined the gruesome death he'd inevitably die should he betray his assistance, and then held the Initiate's gaze. "I would never do such a thing," he announced plainly, "and even if I would, I could not do it now. ...And so your terms are more than fair."

Hesitantly, and not without some embarrassment, he puts his metal hand on the Initiate's shoulder, the normally robotically precise limb now shaking from the fatigue in his shoulder. His second arm wraps below the Initiate's neck, and he's about to hoist himself onto the other Tribute's back-

When without invitation there's a flashbulb memory that ignites like a wick, of the previous Arena when Sigma had been in a similar condition, in a fog between life and death - there had also been one who had stopped to come to his rescue, who could not do anything but hold and protect him untill he passed... it had been his boy, his wild black hair a mess, and would be the very last time Dr. Klim would ever see him alive...

At once Sigma drew back as if the other's skin had burned him, coughing wildly, and for how quickly he moves it might seems as though he had gone back on his word and has wound up to strike. Instead Sigma takes a few panicked steps back, knees buckling beneath him, boots squashing in the mud. "Ahh," he shields his eyes instinctively as if he could block out the memory. By now, his long hair is soaked, and spills over his hands as he covers his face. He stays frozen this way for a moment longer. "I am sorry. I do not know what happened. Let me try again."

His hands release his face and his expression has returned to its natural stiffness. He tentatively reaches for the Initiate's back once more, half expecting to be run through by teeth or claws.

He's tense like a rope wound so tight it's near ready to snap. He doesn't let people this close. Not living people. He focuses himself like he's a funambulist walking that fine line, breathing deep. He won't let it be caught, even as the man's arm goes around his neck. He is balanced.

And then suddenly he's not.

He whirls around, fast, snarling loud, ready to block, ready to defend himself from the inevitable cull attempt, ready to cull this motherfucker for betraying him, for daring-

His face slowly, so slowly slips out of it's frozen snarl, as Sigma's coughs fill the air. Both his eye and the empty socket are wide as he gapes. Had he done something? Had the he gotten his powers back and hit the man with voodoo? No, that couldn't be it, he would've felt that, even in just a single instant. He doesn't move a muscle, not as long as Sigma doesn't.

"Motherfucker, what...?" He starts, but he doesn't follow through with the question. Sigma said he didn't know. But it was so like how other trolls had looked before being hit with voodoo, he wonders...

When Sigma finally does rise, it's all that much harder to calm himself to what he was before, which really, hadn't been all that calm in the first place. He keeps one knee raised, the other down, and watches, disquieted, over his shoulder.

Having heard the growl and the cutting of claws through air as the other turned, Sigma braced himself to be killed. When he isn't he's relieved his trust has not been betrayed, but it also drains him - his enduring facade slips as he cannot keep conscious much longer. Once the other is willing, he touches the Initiate's shoulder again, and this time the memory does not dare to return. After lingering there a moment, he finally climbs onto the other Tribute's back, eye closed to forget the similar dark hair. His left arm twitches in repulsion, disturbed even to lay against another's skin harmlessly, but he has no choice.

"'M sorry," he repeats softly, his formality dropping in his weakness. He had not impressed the other Tribute by his moment of weakness, he knew. The power to his cybernetic eye suddenly cuts with a quiet metal screech and Sigma goes limp, exhausted, still conscious but in a daze. He begins to shiver violently, and while his metal bones in his arms makes the flesh of the limb ice cold, the rest of him that is still human burns hot beneath his clothes against the other's cool body.

The Initate feels the smallest of shivers of his own. The man runs hot, hotter even than a maroonblood, perhaps the mutants even. There's something not right about that. He grips the man's arms, metal and flesh.

"S'fine," He mutters, even though it isn't. He can feel the man shake. He ought to move fast. It will be better on the both of them. He rises up to his feet and thanks Messiahs his blood has granted him this strength. He starts moving along, quick, listening careful in case of attack-- from any direction. Which gives point to the question:

"WHAT ALL WAS THAT? That what all just up and had happenstance."

Edited 2013-11-29 01:38 (UTC)

Sigma had hoped he wouldn't have to explain himself, but he thought lying by omission to the Initiate would lose him an alliance. When he shivers next, it's not from the cold. He keeps his eye shut, pretending he's wading through a nightmare instead of speaking with another person. That way he could deny he ever spoke these words.

"I had a... friend," he says heavily, the emphasis alone revealing his lie. "He died the last Arena," he paused to cough, "and he helped me, too. He went out a stupid way. So I dunno why I thought of him..." His words slur together as he trails off.

The swelling in his throat made him feel as though there was something stuck inside it. He coughed to clear it, but only makes his voice more hoarse. "I have an eidetic memory...," he admitted through gasps, still drawling in the cold. "Things come back to me... quite easily..."

He's not one to pry, not like this, but if there's going to more incidents as before, it'd be better to be prepared for it. He'd actually like to not cull the person he's trying to pay back debt to. He frowns at the way he says friend. He would think if it was a quadrantmate, the motherfucker would just say so. But then, perhaps he had reason not to mention specifics. It doesn't sound red, the way he speaks, and definitely not caliginous. If anything it sounds of a pale nature.

Which is... where this debt came to be in existence in the first place. Asking this man to look after his Moirail. Most trolls in loss of their Moirail would see others suffer tenfold, which made that all the more poignant. He's mostly gathered by now that humans don't know of Moiraillegiance, but perhaps it'd been something of a similar nature. That one important person...

He's silent for moment, then, "I UNDERSTAND. So long as a motherfucker don't jump too sharp next time where all I'm being near. OR GIVE AT WARNING. Instinct and all."

In spite of his pain, Sigma smiled to himself. He had no instinct to blame, but could be jumpy in the same way, and it was the reason he had put bells on his son's suit. Perhaps he and the Initiate were more similar than Sigma yet realized. "I believe I can manage that," he mutters weakly.

In his daze he half considers warning the Initiate about his prophetic powers as well, but decides against it when he remembers he hasn't had them back for several Arenas, now. He only had them on the Capitol's terms and it wasn't often.

The rain was beginning to let up, and with it Sigma felt the last of his endurance vanish. He became acutely aware of how the cold water had felt like knives against his back, that his body was now left to compensate for the soaking frigid aftermath, and Sigma moans involuntarily in exhaustion. He can not ask the Initiate to hurry, but fears he will be dead on arrival if he does not.

He doesn't like how quiet the Sigma voice becomes. He likes how quiet he gets after even less. He's used to hauling bodies, trying to clear his beach, trying to use them as warnings, for painting, for staving off beasts, this thing and motherfucking that. He's not used to carrying along the living. He doesn't like how the longer he goes along the more it feels like he's doing the former.

Sigma moans and it just seems like the right time to speak.

"DON'T MOTHERFUCKING DIE," He commands. "Don't you make at all like to dare, brother. IF YOU UP AND GET UPON THAT NOW AFTER ALL THIS, MESSIAHS HAVE MERCY ON YOU, MOTHERFUCKER."

He keeps going, keeps trudging onward. The vines don't make things easy but at least no raptors or the like make it harder. Eventually his back starts to get an unpleasant ache but he figures by this time, they should be near enough, right?

"Let him know when all we're there. IF YOU GOT CONCIOUSNESS ENOUGH ALL TO DO SO. A tap should motherfucking suffice if he can't speak."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

this is the only appropriate icon I could find

IDK WHAT IT IS BUT IT'LL DO

I'm the latest motherfucker (also that was an icon of Sigma's kid dragging his body around yep)

not... as much... as me (sigma you're a charm)