thearena | ARENA 10-Placid Hollow

The Tributes are taken early in the morning, most of their support teams seeming in good cheer as they dress them in warm clothes, getting them to their tubes. There is obvious comfort in the familiar for the prep teams, and they chatter with, or in some cases, over the heads of their Tributes as they get them ready and load them up.

20

19

18…

If the Tributes could see the area they are passed up into, they would see a deeply overgrown, dilapidated town green, with a large bandstand rotting away in the middle. The spoils of the cornucopia are not gathered in one spot, instead scattered throughout the thigh high grass and weeds around the town green.

Around the edge of the green, the old business stand a silent sentry, looming out of the fog as it thins and winds into them, providing much desired cover.

8

7

6…

But the Tributes cannot see the ground around them. The fog, thicker even than it will be in the rest of the arena, makes the world small around them. The sound of the count down echoes strangely, the tributes seeming too close as the fog brings sounds of their breath, their coughing, the snap of twigs under their feet right to ears of the other Tributes. But with the fog bringing visibility down to only a few feet, it's hard to tell what is a true danger, and what is only the fog playing tricks on them,.

3

2

1

The gong rings out, and the countdown's voice announces "the Arena is now open". The Games have begun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That's handy." He could understand Orc not stopping to look inside it. "If there's one bag around there's bound to be other things." He couldn't imagine Orc attacking him, so he paid more attention to his surroundings, looking for more bags or any food or weapons.

"Usually there's a big pile of stuff." Orc pointed out the obvious as he continued to trudge along scanning the ground and not paying enough attention to the fog around them.

"This place is creepy." He added "Reminds me of a horror movie." Suddenly Orc was glad that most zombies and vampires couldn't pierce his thick skin.

He nodded. Usually there was a big pile and plenty of people fighting to get things from it. This was an improvement on that respect - it was more a case of getting lucky than fighting well.

"It does a bit. I suppose that means something's going to jump out at us." Ian was quiet for a moment, but nothing did. He wasn't worried about the prospect because if something did come along and kill them then it wasn't his fault and there would be no need to torture anyone else.

"Beats getting poisoned I guess." But only just.

His steps echoed in the street with heavy rumbling sounds that would make it hard to hear someone...or something sneaking up on them.

"What should we do?" He questioned defaulting to the adult's sensabilities. Orc had his own plan and desires in this situation of course but he knew that he wasn't the best at making plans.

"Find somewhere to stake out where we'll be safe," he said without hesitation. That would work until the food ran out, but then things might have calmed down a bit. "You might be safer without me, though," he added, looking over at Orc.

Orc was about to object to that plan on the grounds of needing to find his friends, but the last part caught him off guard and his face screwed up in confusion.

"I think you might have that backwards..." He mumbled hoping Ian would clarify.

Ian shook his head. "I either have to play the game and kill people in here or someone will get hurt outside the arena. Here's better because at least you recover." He looked over at Orc to see if that prospect worried him. "I'm not about to kill you now." He wasn't quite sure when he was or if he was, but he was sure he didn't need to worry about it yet.

That actually made Orc smirk and shake his head.

"I really don't think you could, I'm hard to kill when I'm drunk, probably harder to kill when I'm sober."

And he was stone cold sober right now.

"Who are they threatening to hurt?" This was a new sort of manipulation as far as Orc had heard.

That was a relief. Maybe he was safe with Orc, although he wasn't sure if he should test that theory. "Friends, I think. Or anyone, I don't know. They weren't very specific and I don't want anyone to get hurt instead of me."

Orc nodded accepting that reasoning.

"They'll do anything to get us to play along huh?" He couldn't imagine how terrible he'd feel if the Capitol attacked Howard or Eponine to make him co-operate.

"So...should we um...fight or whatever? So your friends don't get in trouble?" From the sound of his voice Orc was not at all interested in a fight.

"They can do anything to get us to do what they want," Ian said in a low warning voice. He wasn't sure what Orc had been up to and therefore whether he needed the warning or not.

"We can if you want, but I don't think it'll count if we discussed it beforehand." And Ian didn't want to fight Orc. He wouldn't, even if he hadn't been made of rock and impervious to anything Ian might be able to do to him.

"I don't want to fight." Orc decided for them both, "So they'll just have to deal with it if that's what they want. You're a nice guy and I don't want to hit you."

It was more defiant then usual, usually when he said he didn't want to fight he was begging.

"All right." Ian was hardly going to complain about that. He was quite happy not to be hit by someone with as much power in a punch as Orc would have. "We'd probably best split up so neither of us end up needing to hit each other."

"Alright." Orc was hesitant, Ian seemed like such a good guy.

"Just...please be careful. If you need help...well I'll try."

Why were the nice guys the ones that always seemed in the worst trouble around here while guys like Aunamee got away mostly clean.

"Thank you." Ian smiled at him. "And same for you." Then he walked off and vanished into the fog.

ARENA 10-Placid Hollow

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