Neffa a Reyeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lessthanelementary) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2014-02-19 10:04 pm
lessthanelementary) wrote in thearena2014-02-19 10:04 pm
Entry tags:
this will end well
Who: Neffa and Courfeyrac
What: Neffa seeks to steal some food and fails his stealth check
When: Midway through week five
Where: Courfeyrac's one-man barricade
Warnings: Neffa's getting shot!
Neffa has never survived long enough to starve before. He's always been cut down in the first weeks, just when weakness is setting in. He's never lived long enough to feel hunger like a living thing inside him; he's never felt so weak, so slow, so heavy. He would bargain for food, but he is still so frightened. He runs when he hears footsteps; he sees movement out of the corner of his eye that is not there, and runs from that, too. The only words that come to him are whimpers at the shadows ("Don't kill me. Don't kill me.")-- in case they're hiding easily-persuaded murderers, maybe.
He finds Courfeyrac just as the shadows are lengthening through the long glass windows, and the intercom has announced that the museum is closing in ten minutes. It's easier now than it was to find Tributes alone, but not to find Tributes alone and so well supplied - and he is hungry enough, tired enough, desperate enough, to wait until the shadows have swallowed up the fourth floor and the intercom is silent, and to begin to crawl-- inch by inch-- toward the pile of supplies he knows is waiting in the darkness.
He is thinking only of the cruel, cutting hollowness of his hunger. Not of Courfeyrac, who is a stranger, or whatever weapon he might have. Neffa does not have a weapon, but he is not thinking that far ahead. He is only telling himself, as he nears the end of the deepest shadows, Take any one thing and run. Don't wait. Don't stop.
What: Neffa seeks to steal some food and fails his stealth check
When: Midway through week five
Where: Courfeyrac's one-man barricade
Warnings: Neffa's getting shot!
Neffa has never survived long enough to starve before. He's always been cut down in the first weeks, just when weakness is setting in. He's never lived long enough to feel hunger like a living thing inside him; he's never felt so weak, so slow, so heavy. He would bargain for food, but he is still so frightened. He runs when he hears footsteps; he sees movement out of the corner of his eye that is not there, and runs from that, too. The only words that come to him are whimpers at the shadows ("Don't kill me. Don't kill me.")-- in case they're hiding easily-persuaded murderers, maybe.
He finds Courfeyrac just as the shadows are lengthening through the long glass windows, and the intercom has announced that the museum is closing in ten minutes. It's easier now than it was to find Tributes alone, but not to find Tributes alone and so well supplied - and he is hungry enough, tired enough, desperate enough, to wait until the shadows have swallowed up the fourth floor and the intercom is silent, and to begin to crawl-- inch by inch-- toward the pile of supplies he knows is waiting in the darkness.
He is thinking only of the cruel, cutting hollowness of his hunger. Not of Courfeyrac, who is a stranger, or whatever weapon he might have. Neffa does not have a weapon, but he is not thinking that far ahead. He is only telling himself, as he nears the end of the deepest shadows, Take any one thing and run. Don't wait. Don't stop.
no subject
He's been on edge ever since his encounter with Jason, scared to leave the barricade now, scared to move. It doesn't seem safe outside and he doesn't want to risk running into someone dangerous beyond the high walls of the fossils. At the same time, he's exhausted and he hasn't slept more than ten minutes in a stretch in the last couple of days. He's too afraid that someone might sneak up on him.
Which is, of course, completely within the realm of possibility. That said, he can only keep his eyes open so long before his exhaustion gets the better of him. The day is starting to wind to a close when he shuts his eyes, telling himself that he'll only sleep for ten minutes. Maybe thirty, if he's allowed to indulge himself. Either way, he's tucked into the barricade and his .38 is loaded and at his side.