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.

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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."

Eponine's not been eating properly for some time now - even before the arena began. Her constant fighting with Howard had affected her appetite - in that, she had lost it completely. She had managed to escape the Cornucopia with a few potatoes and eggs - and a whole crate of beer had appeared for her - apparently, somebody wanted her to drown her sorrows - and it was this that she had lived off for the most part. Her slashed legs burned constantly, and ached if she tried to stand. Her head hurt, and her nose was raw from her wiping it. She was stinking and she was hurt, and with her long shorts and her shirt slashed to make bandages, she was just a little cold. But the beer numbed it all.

"I'm not hungry." She mumbled at Sigma, before holding her hand out for a beer can. "There were potatoes in my pockets, Sir, before Eva cut them. You can have 'em all."

"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.

Sigma frowned as Eponine reached for the cans, adjusting the collar of his shirt which felt tight around his swollen neck. Having been seriously ill until now he had turned a blind eye to her drinking while he was asleep, deciding to leave it to Eva to decide whether or not it could substitute for water, but now that he was conscious he sighed disapprovingly. "Are you sure you should be drinking that? If you had lived where I came from, it wouldn't be legal. You could hurt yourself." Again. He had taken Howard's drink away on the yacht before and wound do it again, unhappy the minors were served alcohol here freely.

He watched the cans like a hawk, so that if she did take one, she would only take one at a time. "Thank you, but I'm not hungry, either," he was, but he did not think he sore throat would allow him to swallow just yet. "I only need something to drink," he admitted.

Edited 2013-11-08 20:42 (UTC)

Eponine looked at Sigma with bleary-eyed surprise.

"What is there wrong with beer, Monsieur? It is not like a spirit. I wish I had brandy instead. Now that is what I drank all the time in Paris, you know? It is good, brandy. It warm-"

She broke off, coughing harshly. "warms you. It makes you forget all the bad things, it makes you forget everything."

She reached over, took a can and cracked it open. She had got used to the pull rings now. But she handed the can straight to Sigma. Then she took another for herself.

"Try it, Sir. Drink it. It will make you feel better."

Food, water, fluids, weapons, supplies. Enough to last for a good long time. Homura had not wasted her time relaxing; for the several days she'd been gone, she'd prepared to take off with as much as she could when the Compound let her go at last.

Most importantly, she had medical supplies. Enough to hopefully do something for a certain someone.

When the horrible sound had finally subsided, and the fences were clear, Homura bolted. Despite the amount of supplies on her, she moved quickly, decisively. She was going to keep looking, until either she found what she was looking for - or it was shown to her in the nightly displays.

It was several hours later, and deep in the jungle, in the pouring rain, when she had last found what she was looking for. No--who.

She needed only look at him for an instant. After that, she had no doubt.

"Dr. Klim."

She was more than too late. He was beyond saving.

Edited 2013-11-09 02:50 (UTC)

"...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)

"It isn't that there's anything wrong with it, per se... But indulging so young is not healthy..." Sigma could not help but sigh to himself again as Eponine recounted her past drinking experiences. He knew that times had changed, but she had been in such a helpless state recently that it tormented him to think of her as an independent adult who could, in fact, drink her problems away if she chose.

When she passes him the beer, Sigma makes a face, uncertain if he should accept. He ultimately takes it off of her hands, deciding it was one less can she would drink for herself. His throat burns, his head swims... the thought of something cold to drink that could relax him if only a short time is certainly appealing. The Doctor knew his tolerance for alcohol was rather sad, and his illness would certainly not help... but if he was responsible about it, there wouldn't be a problem, right?

"...I suppose just one would not hurt."

Sigma unfurled his body and rolled onto his back upon the girl's arrival, having been startled awake. Though her footsteps were almost silenced by the pounding rain, every noise around him was like sandpaper grating against the bones in his ears.

"Homu...ra..?" With his inflamed throat, he could barely say her name. In his exhausted state, he had even forgotten his formalities.

This Arena had passed like a fever dream with its rapid weather changes, unbearable humidity, its uncanny environment in general. He tried to focus on the girl, but could barely register what was happening, could not keep his eye open - it was as if he could drift off to sleep and wake up in his bed, pleased to discover the nightmare had passed and the fever was breaking.

He lifted his arm, opened his hand to reach for her, a wordless plea to be helped up, to somehow be spared from the rain.

She didn't hesitate. Quietly, she grabbed his arm, to pull him up. And then, after that...

...where could she go with him? In his state, he wouldn't last long to get very far at all. The Compound was out of the question, certainly. The Cornucopia was questionable at best. The fact the vines didn't seem to be attacking almost seemed a portent of its own. Perhaps a testament to the fact he would die painfully on his own anyhow, laying broken in a pool of his own bodily fluids--

The hand that grasped Sigma's metal arm tightened a little. Perhaps it was because of the weight of the old man; frail as he now was, the arms were still not normal arms.

"I can get you up. I've got a tent I can cover you with if we move out a little ways." Her voice betrays none of what she is truly thinking. "Can you hold on for a little longer, and stay awake for me?"

Edited 2013-11-11 04:56 (UTC)

Howard looks almost equally pathetic as he scrambles through the mud and over branches, soaking wet and shivering. His skinny frame doesn't handle coolness well, and the water makes all his clothing stick to him and highlight his skeletal features. He bites his lip and looks for some sort of tree to hide himself under, something to curl up against until the cold storm is replaced by cloying humidity.

He finds Sigma at the base of one of the trees he's looking for, and for an instant thinks he's found Sigma's dead body. He feels twin impulses - to try and rouse the corpse of his comrade (friend? protector? father figure? acquaintance?) and to go through his pockets and see if there's anything useful there. Thankfully, a racking cough makes Sigma's shoulders jerk, and the fact that he's alive means Howard doesn't have to choose between his affection and his pragmatism.

He crouches down next to Sigma, next to the tree.

"Almost like your first Arena, right? Curling up for body heat?"

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 took her arm, petite in his, gratefully, careful not to snap it between his metal fingers. It was just enough to help him scramble to his knees, then to his feet - he did not rise just yet, too weak, and squatted in the mud as he listened to her in a fog. His breath made his chest rattle.

Sigma blinks once, twice, until he can speak. "...Okay..." It's as though she is the adult and he has become the child, entirely dependent on what she decided to do next. Though his body is unwilling to listen to her advice to stay focused, he comes to a compromise: his sunken-in eye closes, but his metal one whirrs to action, rusting metal groaning in the rain: watching Homura gratefully.

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.

Her, the adult. And her charge the child. She didn't question how she was all right with the control, with the unquestioning stance of this man. How she held his very fate, the fate of one who was otherwise a stranger - right in her hands. She'd long ago learned her answer.

Homura didn't waste time. She went about a dozen paces before she set to work, grabbing the items she knew she would need.

She had a plan. She knew what she needed to do.

The tent cloth came out with a flourish, though she had little intention of merely making a tent, which would have restricted the space for Sigma. He was hardly a small man, and if she went by the instructions the tent wouldn't fit over him. So she used the cloth to make a canopy top instead.

Using the pegs to fasten two ends on trees, and the metal rods, connected into long shafts, for the other two ends, which she tied on the shafts neatly with a single, right knot. She was done within minutes, and soon she was unrolling the sleeping bag on her for him.

After about ten minutes, it was finished. It was makeshift, of course, and quick, but it was sturdy and it would do. Quietly, she walked over to Sigma once more, carefully

"This will do, for a night or two," she spoke again at last, her voice hardly above a whisper compared to the driving rain. "I will fend off the vines, while you rest. Then, I think, we shall go from there."

Face to the mud, which felt frozen as the water rose, Sigma was beginning to drift off, falling asleep even as his entire body was soaked and wracked with pain. His resolve had broken without Eponine: death had not been an option with the suicidal girl around, as it was his duty to set an example. Now how easy was it to forget that, to combat the cold not by strength but by refusing to fight it, to drift away and go to wherever Kyle and Diana were waiting for him...

But there had been another reason Sigma had decided to fight, and from the jungle it has wandered along and sat next to him. The Doctor had done his best to press on despite his illness, for the longer Sigma fought it, the further he could keep moving, the less likely the two of them would cross paths. Sigma's eye snapped open and he gave a trembling gasp, horrified that this had slipped his mind. Howard! His motivation reignites in him, seeps into him up from the earth where he'd fell, and his fingernails dig into the roots of the tree to wake himself up.

As he comes to his lungs remind him he needs to cough, and Sigma clenches his throat and chest so tightly to stop it he feels they might collapse. His cough comes out a wheeze, hopefully masked by the pelting rain. Palms to the grass he pushes himself upwards until he can at least sit, staring ahead, not answering Howard's question and going about as if he had not heard. Vision swimming, Sigma looks around for the easiest path away. It was not Howard's fault that he was in such a state, though undoubtedly the boy would blame himself if he knew... If he learned...

Howard was not expecting an embrace, or even much of a response. He was anticipating that he and Sigma would sit there, shuddering in the cold, sopping, side by side like two parts of a Russian nesting doll. But he wasn't expecting Sigma to pull away.

"Sigma...?" Sigma barely even looks at Howard, and Howard's seen that look in the faces of many FAYZ kids before, in his own eyes when he watched the tapes of the Games. Sigma's looking for an exit, and as Howard opens his mouth to question why the cough in Sigma's throat makes it painfully clear.

The pieces fall into place in Howard's mind and crash like tectonic plates. He did this. He got Sigma sick. And now Sigma wants nothing to do with him.

A normal person might not make those leaps in logic so quickly. A normal person might suspend judgment until they've asked a bit more. But Howard's not merely a normal person, but a walking compilation of neuroses, a Greatest Hits of abuse and abandonment. And his senses are keen enough to find even the most fleeting shadows of loss.

He's not stunned, as he stays seated in the rain, right where he is except for the shivering. You can't be stunned by something you've always expected, deep down. But he is stung by it, and so he just sits there, mouth slightly open and clogged with a hundred words he can't say, tears starting to mix with rain.

She laughs and cracks her own beer open.

"Your health, Monsieur, for mine is failing!" She gulps at the beer, letting the fizzy, sour liquid swill around her mouth before she swallows. It makes her throat ache but it soothes the dull burn of her flu as well.

"Truly though, I do not see why you should fuss so. It is common where I am from for children to drink beer. Most of the gamins - that is our word for street children - they are all drunk. They nick the gin and the brandy left over from the drunks in the street. It is better than to steal water - for that only leaves you cold forever. I do not like beer, but I like what it does to my head. It makes me sleep."

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.

Sigma grimaced, knowing he would not outlive the Tribute, barring any miracles. He took a sip while Eponine spoke, and while it was difficult to taste and swallow, the lukewarm liquid spread a cool feeling through his overheating chest and in his empty stomach. He leaned back against the wall of the enclosure and sighed contentedly.

"Concerns for your health aside, that's exactly why I fuss," he chuckled. "Letting it go to your head could get you into trouble." It was a harmless statement now, with the two of them closed off to the world. He paused. "We could use a good rest, couldn't we...?"

Sigma stared into the can pensively. He wished to change the subject to something more cheerful, for it was better to be happily drunk than a bitter drunk, but he wondered if there were any pleasant memories Eponine had left to tell. The Doctor was at a loss.

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 curled into a ball beneath a tree before she finished. Now that there was a chance he might survive, it seemed, the vines had begun to bother him again. He fought them off for a few minutes, moving from tree to tree as they chased him, but as the tenth minute approached he gave up, falling still, laid on his side with his knees to his chest.

Once Homura had erected the tent he gathered the last of his mechanical strength and broke from their grasp, though red welts had formed around his ankles (his wrists had no organic skin to devour). After she had explained her plan, Sigma did not wait to discuss her kindness: leaving the hell of the jungle behind him, Sigma ducked into the tent. Now that he was out of the rain he yelped in pain, not realizing how much the torrent had harmed him until it no longer beat against his back. His consciousness swimming as the veins in his head beat loudly and threatened to burst, he felt as if he radiated heat, and realized his condition would prove deadly if he didn't rest at once. His clothes were sopping wet and he removed his shirt with more concern for survival than privacy - the old man was well toned, making it darkly hilarious someone herculeanly large should be left helpless against an invisible foe. Should Homura care to look, there was a seam across his shoulder where tanned olive "new" skin on his arms met a sickly grey complexion, and then it was gone as Sigma removed his boots and burrowed into the sleeping bag.

He brought the blanket to his neck as he removed the rest of his wet clothes. The soft fabric felt so clean and warm after such long suffering that it was a blessing to the dying man. Between chattering teeth and words slurred from blue lips, Sigma attempted to express his overwhelming gratitude. As far as he was concerned in his agony, it was the most undeserved and charitable thing anyone had ever done for him. "Wh..y help me? H-How can I th-thank you, Homura?"

The Doctor wiped the rain from his brow with the mudless back of his hand, and dirt dripped from his fingers onto his cheek. Howard had called to him, there was no way he could ignore him forever. Finding his feet, he tried to decide how to deal with the boy, sluggishly starting ahead, like a man in slow-motion.

Even if remaining behind was an option, he had nothing to offer Howard. His lips had turned blue and he could not make conversation, after all, without wheezing - he turned around to face Howard a moment, trying to smile, though it came off as more of a grimace as the rain slammed down across his back.

Gathering all of his strength, he tried to be perfectly clear, to speak only once, the only words he could think to say. "I'm being pursued," he lied. "Do not follow me." His tone was sharp, like commanding a dog to stay.

Homura was quiet as Sigma undressed and got into the sleeping bag. She didn't feel or look abashed at him undressing; indeed, she seemed nonplussed by it all, letting him take his time. He did not have much of it left; rushing him in his illness would have been stupid, cruel even. Especially seeing the physical effect of the illness.

She wasn't sure if Sigma believed he might survive the night, but she knew. He had been in the humidity and damp for too long. It was quite possible he had other infections, now, taking advantage of his condition. Whether or not he knew it, or was able to realize it.

At the question, Homura closed her eyes.

"Rest, for now, Dr. Klim. Save your strength. That will be thanks enough."

Edited 2013-11-29 02:36 (UTC)

And so he doesn't. He supposes he should be grateful enough that Sigma at least provided him an excuse.

He sits in the rain and mud as Sigma walks away. It takes a while, although the lapse of time if still truncated by the mist and water obscuring the view of the forest. In a few moments, Sigma is gone, swallowed up in the grey and green horizon.

"I'm sorry!" Howard calls, much too late, much too uncertain. And then, soaked down to the bone, he trudges into the jungle too, in the opposite direction.

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..."

Even in the sleeping bag Sigma began to tremble, as if lowered into snow. His face bloomed with a bright red burn and he moaned without realizing he had done so at all. He watched his savior in disbelief - or at least, he tried. His cybernetic eye had cut out in his exhaustion and he could no longer keep his organic one open. His eyelid grew heavy and eventually eclipsed his pupil, though he fought to open it again. Within seconds, however, his eye was shut tight and his head fell limp against the blanket.

"Homu..r..."

Why go so far for a stranger?

He fell less into sleep and more into unconsciousness, still shaking. Had she let him go on this way for very long, he would eventually talk under his breath, repeating a woman's name, muttering for forgiveness in his fever dreams.

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."

She quietly watched, until, at last, Sigma fell silent. If he wasn't asleep, then he had lapsed into a coma. In any case, he was not responding. And thus he was very unlikely to wake up for what was to come.

That's right, Dr. Klim. Don't worry about it right now.

Slowly, she stood up, and with two simple tugs, undid the tent straps tied around the trees. They began to flutter harmlessly towards the ground. She'd not merely made the tent into a canopy for comfort, after all.

It had been for expedience.

This isn't personal. No, I lie. In a way, it is. You and I...

The linen was heavy enough that, covering someone, it would be difficult for someone as sick as Sigma to breathe as it was. Grabbing the edge with one hand, Homura bent down to the dirt and covered Sigma's head, all the way to his crown, as tightly as possible. The rods bent, threatening to snap in response, down by Sigma's feet from this action.

...we have more in common than you realize.

Meanwhile, Homura's other hand grabbed the man's throat with a strength not generally found in a girl her age, or her size.

That's why...I'm doing you this favor.

Without a second thought, she squeezed as tightly as she could.

Edited 2013-11-29 04:05 (UTC)

She laughed again at that.

"Sir, always I am in trouble in this place. And in the Capitol. And in Paris, and even after Cosette was taken, in Montfermiel. It is only how things are. And I shall drink to make me not realise it, if you please."

She raised her can to her lips, half defiantly, just to prove to Sigma that she'd do as she liked, and began to drink steadily. As her can emptied, she tipped her head further and further back until every drop had been drained. Only then did she set her can aside and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, which she licked, to make sure every bit of alcohol possible was inside her. It had hurt her throat, doing that, but she didn't care. She had proved her point, and she smirked triumphantly at Sigma.

"Are you tired? I am not so - perhaps another drink shall have me asleep; this beer is stronger than the one from Paris."

The Doctor watched the girl down her beer in surprise. His can still almost full, he realized he needed to catch up to her pace. Sigma lifted his drink to his lips and tried to finish it quickly, snatching up another one preemptively. Two less Eponine would get to drink, now.

But Sigma was not the iron stomach that Eponine was. A numbness was beginning to wear away at the edge of his consciousness and he rubbed his eyes drowsily. He was a young man no longer. "Slow down, now," he said with a laugh, "or else I will be asleep." Dr. Klim tried to pass it off as a joke, as she had shown that she would no longer listen to his advice.

Still he was desperate to change the subject. "You know, Eponine, listening to you talk about where you came from, I realize there's still quite a bit we have yet to learn about eachother," he began uncertainly. Perhaps the alcohol was beginning to speak and he had forgotten they were on television. "You know, if there was ever anything you wanted to ask about me, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you..."

Edited 2013-12-05 19:52 (UTC)

"No?"

He had her attention, and she stopped, mid beer-crack to focus properly.

"Will you tell me more of where you came from? What you did. Who your Papa was, where you grew up? Will you tell me of the women you mention and the child you have? I would like to hear everything."

She lay back in the poisoned grass, and plucked a single strand, tickling her lip with it.

"After all, Monsieur , we have all the time till someone finds us, and these Capitol people with their nasty -cameras are they called? - will love to know, I know that."

"That's a lot of questions," Sigma said with a grin, though his empty stomach tightened as Eponine mentioned his son. "I suppose we do have the time..." But he wished to pretend that their conversation was private, that whatever he said to Eponine was between the two of them and the two of them alone.

Leaning back on the wall of the cave again, Sigma raised his eye to the ceiling. "I was born in the year 2006 in California. You know, it's the same place..." He had almost said 'where Howard lived,' but thought better of it. Quickly searching for how to finish the sentence, he spat, "...where the second to last Arena was held. Do you remember? I used to live around there." In this case 'around' meant a commute from anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more depending on how insane the traffic was, but it was a reasonable substitute.

"My parents divorced early into their marriage and my mother raised me. I did not see my father often, and it took me a long time to realize he wasn't much of one." Sigma smiles in spite of himself. Just as he was to his son, in turn.

He suddenly remembered something considerably less grim she might find interesting. Sigma had never directly asked Eponine what era she came from, but he had an idea - he pushes himself off of the wall and leans towards her. "You know, Eponine, I've told you before there were billions of people alive when I was young. Allow me to explain to you what I mean... I'd wager that in the time you're from, there were no more than 500 million people alive on Earth. When I was your age, there was more than seven billion," he explained. "Think of the largest of cities you've been to, and then imagine it more than ten times as crowded. That would roughly equal out to the scope of the place where I was raised."

"Two thousand and six... Two THOUSAND and six...! Truly, Sir, I cannot even imagine such a date. Is the world really so different? I cannot imagine it any other way."

She traced her blade of grass around her nose and over her eyebrow, down over her cheek, her chin, onto the other cheek and round her other eyebrow to begin again.

"You lived in a strange world - are all your houses fitted with carriages, then? And where do you keep the horse for it? You allow them in your house? That was a strange arena - I did not like that one. Monsieur Draco magicked me so I had to - I had to..."

She had to eat Howard's face. That had been the worst arena so far. Quickly, Eponine gulped at her beer, downing it without stopping. She didn't want to think about that.

Once she was finished with the can, she lay down again. She could feel it starting to take hold now, that cloud of dullness descending over her brain, numbing everything. And it was all better. With a groan, she rolled so that she was on her side, facing Sigma.

"I can't imagine anywhere being more crowded than Paris, Sir. If you could see it - such people. Everywhere. And the houses, higgledy piggledy and people, ten sometimes, stuffed into one room, and children and men and girls like me, all sleeping in the streets, in the alleys, under bushes and in ditches or jails. So many people, Sir. You cannot imagine it."

Dr. Klim was not conscious to appreciate what Homura did for him, his body had not the energy to startle him from his sleep. Deep within his fever dream Sigma tried to breathe. His nightmare blistering to life, a saw tore open the space between the glenoid of his shoulder and the humeral head of his upper arm while a spike bored a hole through his right eye. He falls and his chest feels crushed when he tries to draw breath, pain consumes him like a vise. He tries again and chokes on a scream instead. His body twitches under Homura erratically.

In the memory a slender, young woman rushes over to him, her figure blurred by fever and by the pain that feels too real to be in his imagination. Sigma knows it is Diana, but for the first time he cannot keep her face in focus. Her hands are on his face and neck, ice cold on top of hot blood, telling him to keep breathing, to stay alive...

Beside Homura, the cyborg's metal hands twitch and rise from the floor of the tent in reflex to clear his throat of the obstruction. But with Homura's weight and the canvas on top of him, they can only claw the ground where they lay, polymer fingernails scraping holes through his sleeping bag. There's a sickening sound of metal grinding together inside of his body from the strain, like an old machine that had worked too hard for too long.

Forty-five years on the moon while aging steadily made every part of his body not reinforced by titanium atrophy. After enough pressure, the brittle bones of his neck snap beneath Homura's petite fingers. Delicate thumbs crush his windpipe.

Even the colour seems to drain from his dream as he tries to look into Diana's eyes. Her image is sucked away like a cigarette burn through an old photograph, and he gives up trying to breathe for her. As easily as falling asleep, Sigma drifted into death - in his final unconscious thought he wonders why he had not let go earlier. His body slackened, his arms stopped twisting inside the blankets. Somewhere, a cannon blared.

She felt the snap far quicker than she'd expected. But she didn't let go until the arms stopped moving at last. Then she knew for certain he was done.

But she wasn't. Not yet. Gently the other ends were untied from the rods, fluttering gently into Homura's hands. Quietly she covered his feet up, then went back to the top to make sure he was covered all the way.

Expedience. The instrument of death now covered him as a shroud, though she knew she wouldn't have time to do anything more proper. Already, she could hear the hum of machines descending from the sky and the clanking of metal. They'd take his body, tent covering and all. She wasn't going to try and find out what they'd do if she tried to stop it for a few precious moments.

By the time the machines descended Homura was long gone, out of the jungle and into the grass.

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.

Sigma laughed at her reaction to his birthyear - but his smile slowly fell as Eponine recalled the Arena. He did not mean to upset her and had intended for his story to distract her from the cruel realities of the Games, and was unfortunately failing.

"I know, Eponine. It was like that in some places at home, as well," he softly admits with disappointment. He does not bother to answer her question about the horses and moves on, for fear she might conjure up more bad memories.

Dr. Klim takes a long swig of his second can before continuing. "I studied Genetics. I fear a comprehensive explanation may overwhelm you, but it's the study of... the 'code'... the 'essence' of what makes us what we are. Why certain traits are passed on from parent to child, how our body operates, why diseases occur." Satisfied with his in-a-nutshell summary, he moves on.

"...But that also meant that there were those who studied how to create disease. When I was a little older than you are now, a devastating contagion was released by those with a cruel religious agenda. ...A genocide, Eponine." Sigma closed his eyes. "It was a quick end to everything. My parents did not make it. I took shelter, and was one of the few left alive - in the entire world." Because of his gift. His curse that let him see it all, even live whole lifetimes in the future, before it ever happened. Because he was one of the few that could have done something about it, and failed. Now it was Sigma's turn to finish his second can.

His vision swims as the can leaves his lips, he rubs his eyes to sober up. The good Doctor sighs deeply as he draws into the annals of his memories he had shut away. "...But there was another who survived with me," he reminds himself wistfully. Reaching for another can, Sigma grasps it with two fingers and swirls the full container around playfully without taking a drink. His cheeks are red with drunkeness or love. "...Her name was Diana." Sigma says her name slowly, tasting the sound, as if the bearer of that name were more precious than jewels or more important than an Empress. In that moment Sigma seemed to glow with adoration, and it may very well have been true for him that there was no other in the universe - in any universe - who had ever loved as much as he still loved that girl.

Edited 2013-12-09 00:00 (UTC)

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."

"Oh." Eponine didn't know what to say, really. It felt like Sigma was about to start an epic story of some sort - the story of his life, and there had to be a lot of it, for he was the oldest man that she knew. And it was nice, as well, that he was finally opening up to her. She had sensed, ever since she had met him, that he was keeping something from her - and she didn't like that at all. It kept a wall between them, almost. She couldn't feel close to him - she didn't feel like she knew him, whilst he knew nearly everything about her. Did he not trust her?

But perhaps now she was being trusted enough and at last Sigma was going to tear down the veil. She really didn't want to interrupt his story with mindless chatter - and it sounded like such a lovely story to her, full of romance and tragedy - just the sort she liked best.

She rolled over, so that she was lay next to him, just milimeters away from Sigma.

"Tell me about her, Sir."

Soothed by Eponine laying at his side, Sigma's eye flutters shut as he pulls his memories of Diana to the surface. Perhaps this would be a question Eponine would come to regret.

"She..." The old Doctor stops to sigh. He does not know where to start or how to justify how much he loved her. "She had red hair and blue eyes. There was a line of light freckles along her cheek and nose... she was slim, but not tiny..." Her looks are not nearly the most important thing about her, but he explains it to Eponine nonetheless to put an image in her mind of fair, beautiful Diana. In fact, those traits may have been repulsive to anyone listening in from the Capitol, but they were lovely to Sigma. "My love, she was kind, gentle, and strong. She had much to shoulder, more responsibility than anyone should have to carry in their lifetime..."

He began to drink again, eye still shut. It's a miracle he does not spill his beer all over himself. The lip of the can lingers on his mouth for he cannot decide on what to say, each moment too precious and intimate to be shared on television. Finally, after a long swig, he begins again. "It takes a magnificent woman to love a man with no arms or eyes, Eponine," he says quietly. "My little blue bird... I wish we could have had a family. Perhaps... a little girl..." He keeps his eye shut so Eponine cannot see the sadness that has crept into his soul, though his hand rests just above Eponine's head, dipping down once in awhile as if to stroke her hair but drawing back nervously at the last moment. With as much as he had revealed and so suddenly, it was fair to say the Doctor was well and truly drunk by now. "My son wasn't hers," he says bluntly, opening his eyes and escaping the dream. It still made him sad that she could have been. He had tried to give him his mother...

"She sounds perfect, Sir." There is envy in Eponine's voice. How she wishes that someone, ANYONE, would talk about her in such a manner. How she wishes that someone would love her enough to love her imperfections.

She bites her lip when he talks about wanting a child - a little girl. It cuts into her, those words. A little girl, and here he was, stuck with her. Not little at all, and more woman than girl. It was a shame for him. A shame for her. She is a poor substitute for his dreams.

"Tell me, Sir." She sighs. "Tell me the rest."

He cannot. There is no force in the world, not booze or any drug, that can get him to be honest with Eponine in 'public'. Should his past as a gamemaker, or even as a man who kidnapped innocent people for his own gain, be made known to the audience, well... Without a doubt, no Tribute would come to trust him again, and he would lose Eponine, too.

And so Sigma is dishonest, looking to the ceiling to avoid lying to Eponine's face. The details are left out to spare himself remembering them. "She left me and I raised a child with another woman, a very close friend of mine." He cannot tell Eponine he gave life to his own son simply to raise him as a participant for his game, nor can he explain to her what a 'clone' is. He tells himself it was to spare her the explanation, but in truth, he was terrified she might think of his boy as sub-human. "...The human race was dying off, after all," he substitutes weakly.

There's a long pause as he considers what to say next. His long life, trapped inside Rhizome-9, was not a particularly exciting one without the death games he played. He acts as though that is the end; and the three of them lived happily ever after... "Eponine, there is something I want you to see." The wound is still fresh on his heart and it pains him to recall Kyle's face, his own face, and so Sigma tries to share the burden. "...I actually still possess a photograph of my son," he says cryptically. "When we get out of here, I would like very much to show you. I think the two of you would have made fast friends."

Does she know he's lying? No - no, of course not. She isn't a mind reader and she's feverish and drunk as well. But in the back of her mind, or perhaps the voice is in her feet - she can't tell any more - it whispers in slurs that something's missing. She pays it no heed. Later, she'll remember this conversation as a haze between dreaming and reality, mixing imaginings of Sigma's descriptions with his words.

"Do you think so?" She's doubtful. She can't see herself being friends with Sigma's son, really. Not for any particular reason... just because. Because she doesn't seem to keep friends very well.

She curls up a little, pulling her knees up to her chest, and despite her headache and how hot she feels, and how damp her skin is, she shivers.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

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this is the only appropriate icon I could find

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IDK WHAT IT IS BUT IT'LL DO

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

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

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