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[justoutrunyou]

Who: Sandy, Pruna, Shepherd, Katniss and open?
What: Exploring the caves, eventual death of Sandy and Pruna
Where: North near and inside the caves.
When: Week 5
Notes: Kid death, violence

It's raining.

It's oddly comforting to Sandy. The sound of rain. The feel of it. But what's curious is how different it smells in a jungle then it does in the city. It's a clean but thick scent. It drifts up through the back of her head and clears her head of thoughts.

The poncho keeps her dry well enough, and sticking close to Pruna keeps her feeling safe. Shepherd is with them once again which just adds to the idea that if they run into anyone dangerous, she's safe.

But that oddly only comforts her so much. Mindy's words still rang through her ears. Could she really kill someone? It wasn't enough to do it out of self defense.

"I am getting better right? Not so cowardly?" She asked Pruna as they continued trudging to the North seeking out the shelter of the caves Sandy had found earlier in the arena.


 

Comments

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna on the other hand had decided she hated rain. With a passion. She had been brought up somewhere where it rained perhaps three times a year and here it just wouldn't stop. It was wet, it was cold and it made her face hurt more than it already did.

Which was a lot, the whole side of her face was swollen, her eye itched and it was weeping again. Pruna knew an infected wound when she saw one, or felt one in this case, but she had done all she could do for it.

It meant she was feverish though and the rain was not helping. She grinned at Sandy when she spoke and nodded, "You do be. You did be being really strong against the monster." Pruna was still amazed at that.

[inciting]

Katniss was greatful for the rain.

Her clothes were still stained, dark reds and violets, but the rain has washed the blood from her face, her hands.

Peeta's blood. Too much of it.

But she couldn't think of that. She needed to find the girls. And she had a lead, she was sure, but it had moved to harder ground as they approached the caves, and with the rain, she was risking losing it.

So when she practically stumbled over them, she felt relief was over her. She seemed to have a knack for it.

"Sandy, Pruna!"

[earthborn]

"That's close enough."

If you were going to stand any kind of guard, you don't do it right next to whomever you were escorting. That'd work well enough for fighter pilots or caravan guards, for whom mere presence was it's own deterrent, but in this instance Pruna was a wounded gazelle and Sandy not much better; she kept them at arm's length.

Conversation might've been nice, but maintaining a perimeter was smarter.

So when Katniss stumbled forward, Shepard let her pass, then stepped up behind her and hooked her knife-hand around the kid's throat. The message was clear; hold still, or you'll get to do some bleeding.

"You two wanna trust this one?" If they said yes, then Katniss could go free. Shepard wasn't in the business of ultimatums or idle threats.

[justoutrunyou]

Things suddenly happened very quickly. Throwing a hand up to wave at Katniss Sandy froze when Shepherd re-appeared. How had she gotten over there so quickly!?

"She's our mentor!" Sandy blurted out freezing in place for fear that Shepherd might not accept her reasoning. "She's cool!"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna jumped up when she saw Shepard and the knife, hearing Sandy's fear. Pruna wasn't scared, but Katniss was an ally and killing her would be messy.

"At ease!" She shouted, she wasn't sure of it's usage but it was how Shepard had got Garrus to stop, just like magic and so maybe it would work here as well.

[inciting]

Automatically Katniss reached up to grip Shepard's hand, the rest of her body still, mind reeling as she tried to think of a way out of this. There weren't many options. Her grip loosened as the girl's spoke. This was clearly and ally of theirs as well.

Hopefully this could end neatly.

/peeks in here :<

[carnagecarnival]

((OOC: I figured a separate thread after they arrive/Katniss temporarily heads out would be best, let me know if I should change anything/move this/delete it/etc. :x))

The deep rumbling of growls will alert them to his presence before they even spot the lumbering demon-esque silhouette of the Initiate, marked by a single red-orange glow in the dark where his remaining eye is to be.

Blood coats him in bright lurid red, and indigo all down his front, even the tiniest trace of teal and yellow on his claws. His face is a mess, scared and ugly, what's left of his paint clings on for dear life in ruined smears of white and grey. The rain makes a desperate attempt to wash him clean.

He radiates rage. It rolls off him like a miasma, like he's never been truly angry before. Not likes this.

And now his eye turns to the cave.

Sweet~

[justoutrunyou]

Inside the cave, oblivious to it all Sandy is resting with Pruna and splitting a can of pears that had been sent to Sandy from a sponsor.

"They even make canned pears better then home. That's like...one of the cheapest things they can do better? What's next better ramen?" Sandy muttered mostly to herself.

Then a though struck her "Do you have any food from home that you miss?" She asked Pruna.

:D

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna wasn't sure what she thought of these tinned pears. Surely fruit was meant to grow on trees but it was another oddity of the Capitol, that fruit came sealed away in juice.

She had no idea what Ramen was. She was sat leaning against the wall of the cage, trying to ignore the pulsing pain in her face and listening to Sandy ramble on. She gave a small lopsided smile at the question.

"Baklava." She licked pear juice from her hands, "And honey cakes, they do be being my favourite. Taiwin did be buying me a honey cake whenever I did be being successful in a mission."

Shep will be coming in later but hi friends im so sorry friends ; ;

[carnagecarnival]

They talk on of strange foods and it says something that he doesn't pin the voices immediately. It says even more, that he doesn't recognize at least Pruna. He could blame the blood later, but its not what guides him closer, moving silent, claws at the ready and staying close to shadow as he can.

A growl slips out between his teeth. Just one. And then he darts forward, raises his claws high to tear and--

He freezes. The Nameless. For the first time in what may be days, the red of his outer-eye eases a little closer to its proper gold, settling on orange.

"...Nameless sister..."

He steps back. Then eyes her down. She's been injured. His glare darts over to the other girl.

"DID YOU UP AND DO THIS?" He growls.

[knifewithnoname]

The growl made Pruna spin around, knife appearing in her hand as she put herself in between Sandy and the threat.

It was the Initiate, she blinked with her good eye as he stopped and then nodded. "It do be being me!" She didn't move though, and she didn't lay down her knife. In case the troll decided to kill her while she was injured.

She drew himself up as he spoke. "No, she did no be doing it." She bared her teeth, "This do be Sandy, my girlfriend, do you be remembering? You did be meeting her, when she did be dead sleeping. You will no be hurting her!"

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy felt like her heart might explode from how fast and sudden the threat had appeared. Even as injured as she was Pruna had still been read in the blink of an eye.

Worse still the sharp intake of breath caused by the sudden arrival had caused her to inhale her pear and it was caught in her windpipe. She hacked and heaved, doubling over with a red face and watering eyes. When the offending object came out it tumbled from her mouth with a dull and pathetic splat on the floor.

"We've met?" She managed to croak weakly, catching soggy breaths of air between her words. She recognized the creature from the broadcasts but couldn't recall speaking to him.

And in this moment, this calm after the panic, Sandy realized that she had almost lost the game to a pear.

Death by pear. She'd never live it down.

[carnagecarnival]

The Initiate eyes Sandy, suspiciously, for a moment more before turning back to Pruna.

"Alright," He says, slow. "CONSIDER IT WORD NO HARM ALL WILL COME THEN IF THAT MAKES FOR THE MUTUAL."

To Sandy, though he watches Pruna, he says, "Meet we all up and did. A SISTER WAS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS, BACK ALL WHEN THOSE CREATURES WERE BEING AT TO BE FOUGHT. Your matesprit made for introductions one sided." He nods his horns in Pruna's direction at the word 'matesprit'. "SAID TO A NAMELESS SISTER YOU WEREN'T LIKE TO DIE, THE PROPER FEAR WHAT BE ALL OF THE LIVING STILL TO YOU. Good to up and see that it held true."

Slowly, his one eye darting between them, holding especially Pruna and her knife, he lowers himself to the ground. They can let him stay, or they can attack. He decides to let the choice be theirs.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna turned around as Sandy began choking, one eye still on the Initiate in case he started something. But then he promised to do no harm and the stupid pear left Sandy's mouth and rolled onto the floor where Pruna squished it beneath her feet. Stupid pear.

She doesn't put her knife away but she does smile at the Initiate, as long as Sandy doesn't mind he can stay.

[justoutrunyou]

This guy was something else. She had to pick through his words for whatever she recognized and shrugged.

"Yeah I guess not even having a monster force it's way down my throat and burst out my chest was enough to kill me. I must be getting tougher after all."

[carnagecarnival]

A flicker of smiles passes over his claw-scarred lips.

"YES, HE WOULD SUPPOSE THAT WOULD BE ALL LIKE AT TO BEING A SORT OF TELLING INDICATION ALL ON THE WORD OF THAT," He says with a short breathy laugh. More seriously, he continues, "Have heard things all of you. A SISTER WHAT ALL IS WANTING TO BE STRONG. Your matesprit speaks highly. JUST AS HE THINKS HIGHLY OF HER." He looks on Pruna with pride. Even as she still hangs on to her knife.

"He is called by title of the Initiate. IN CASE SHE WEREN'T BEING AWARE."

For Shep

[inciting]

Once the children were asleep, Katniss tucked herself at the edge of the cave, looking out over what she could see of the forest. The rain came and went in waves, and the air was still thick with moisture.

Her brain started to wander where she didn't want it to go. But now, sitting, it was much harder to ignore. She glanced back, to see if the other woman was up. Katniss wasn't ever very social, but she had never really meet Shepard, and taking care of Sandy and Pruna the way she had already had Katniss impressed.

Even if it had started things rough for them.

"You want to come sit?"

Re: For Shep

[earthborn]

Shepard had once lived a life made invisible by circumstance. Now she lived one that was, by choice and circumstance if not temperament, very public. Even in the dark, she couldn't fully hide, and like this with the moonlight coming grey-blue and dim off the rainforest, she glowed red around the cracks of the scars marring her face. When she turned to look at Katniss, there were coals glowing in her eyes, dim little points of red, inhuman, alien, unable to ignored.

"It's fine," she replied, almost a mutter, pitched low so as not to echo in the cave, nor wake those that slept, "This is usually when I'd ask where you're from, but I think we're all a little past that by now. So, how about this; we both know District Twelve isn't some twee little mining community like in the official literature. What's it really like, there?"

Publicity, after all, had its benefits. You got a feel for what to say that'd make them turn their eyes away, find someone else to piss on for a few hours. There were words you couldn't print, stories that nobody wanted to sell. Hell, it'd always worked wonders on the reporters Shepard had known. Why not here?

[inciting]

Twelve. Home, always. No matter how long they kept her in the Capitol, no matter if she was never there again.

How to describe it, with camera possibly on them? Honestly, after their confrontation earlier, the chance they weren't being filmed were slim to none. So her words had to come carefully. But she had a feeling this woman would pick up on things others might not, things behind her words.

Others would, too, out there watching.

"It's...harsh. Most people work long days in the coal mines, and don't get a lot for it. The coal...it's more than just what we mine. It's everywhere, it becomes part of life." She looked over at Shep, with the subject of twelve in her mind, she couldn't shake the image of dying embers, glowing coals. "It's too bad you're not in 12. You'd fit right in with the theme."

Hopefully the scars weren't too tender a point.

[earthborn]

Well, that was...sanitized.

"I have been known to start a few fires in my time. Honestly, I might as well be in twelve as five. Doesn't make a difference, so far as I'm concerned, what number they paint on the wall," Automatically she flashed a glance to gauge the girl's reaction— and caught her looking back. Staring, maybe. That was no shock: Shepard knew what she looked like, "You could just ask, you know."

[inciting]

With the way things were now, Katniss wasn't too concerned with district loyalties. They were all in this together, for better or for worse.

Looking over, she smiled at the bluntness. Effie had beat manner enough into her that she wouldn't ask off the vuff, but with an invite?

"How'd you get them?" She asked, before adding. "What are they? How do they glow?"

It was, after all, only an assumption that Shepard was even human. Who knew anymore?

[earthborn]

"I died."

Innocuous enough an explanation, given how often people died here. Life was cheap, in the Capitol, cheaper than it had ever been, even in her youth. People died every day, and it wasn't just ignored, it was the point. A disposable culture, like two hundred years ago, when garbage went into the ground to rot, and was almost never recycled. It probably said something unhealthy to feel filial reverence for the notion of a discarded section of plastic-wrap.

"Where I'm from, medical advances aren't the same. We're better at other things, but putting people back together is... Not so much. I spent two years in a coma," Two years, twelve days, dead as dead can be, just meat and tubes. Not that anyone is counting, "—And when I woke up, my face looked like this. Faulty cybernetics. My doctor said it was mostly stress, making them worse, and I should 'cultivate a peaceful state of mind'. Not likely."

[inciting]

Katniss listened, fascinated. She remember waking up, after the Games, her body put back, erased clean. Finding out how much more they wanted to do, how they wanted to reshape her. Feeling like something small but somehow deeply important had been wiped away. But hey body was whole, her hearing was returned.

And she lost barely any time. It was one of those rare times Katniss truly felt thankful to the Capitol.

Still, she couldn't keep in a snort at the last part. If her healing was reliant on her being calm, she'd be dead.

"I'm sorry, for what you lost."

[earthborn]

God, she hadn't wanted to hit Katniss before, but for a moment the urge roiled up in her, a tempting tide of violence, like the burn of bile in her throat. Pity? From this kid? She didn't bother suppressing the eyeroll.

"What I lost was time. Which everyone else in damn galaxy seemed content to waste in my absence," She could have strangled a few of them, if she hadn't needed them so much, and seen their own pain. The past was past, "Sorry doesn't fix that, and it can't bring back the dead. Everything else is unimportant."

[inciting]

Katniss was silent for a moment, not sure what to say. There really wasn't anything to say. Saying she could relate was an invitation for disaster, the start of one of the 'who suffered more' type of conversation she herself loathed.

So instead she just nodded.

"They're not much better about wasting time here."