[ota]

[69problems]

WHO| Karkat, the Signless and YOU!
WHAT| Mutant camping, and food sharing if anyone's hungry
WHEN| All through week one
WHERE| Various less-shitty houses around the residential area
WARNINGS| Nothing as of yet; will be updated or marked in-thread

For the first week, Karkat and the Signless wander the rows of houses. Many of them are empty of anything useful, but occasionally they find a can or two to add to their small stock of rations. In a few of them they find bugs hiding somewhere dark like they found in the first one, and on those nights they have to worry at least a little less about running out of food. Once they even manage to trap and take down one of the dogs -- it isn't exactly appetizing, but cooking it as thoroughly as Signless insists on to make sure it's safe to eat masks at least some of the taste.

Mostly, they use the (less dilapidated) houses with fireplaces as overnight camps. The faint glow of their fire can be seen through the grimy windows, especially when it gets dark.

[As a note, the mods have said humans probably shouldn't eat bugs as they'll suffer pretty bad side-effects. If your non-troll character shows up and wants some of their food, it's probably best to have it happen on dog night.]

Comments

[sleeplessinalternia]

"He's, like, weirdly good at hunting bugs," Karkat says, "it's fucking crazy. He just goes BAM and stabs them with his knife, like it's fucking nothing."

He looks an awful lot like the troll from Joly's district, actually. Just younger and smaller.

[medecin]

With Joly, kindness may very well beget kindness, if not in this arena, perhaps in some other, or in the capitol, perhaps.

"Has it been?" He looks interested at the question as he sits, and well, the bug meat does look rather appetizing at that. A bit more like the small lobster-like animals that he's tended to enjoy back in his childhood home during the summer months. "The others must have been quite difficult for you."

The lack of silverware would phase Joly anywhere else, but here, it seems part and parcel to the whole arena process. So he can use his hands, or his face. Somehow, the idea of lifting the plate and treating it more like a soup type meal seems to be reasonable.

"Ah luck. At this stage, any of that IS a good thing, and perhaps because of you it will find its way to spread around."

And then Joly is focusing his attention on Karkat, and the explanation, looking really quite impressed by that description.

"Hunting bugs then. It seems to be a skill which has done you well. I apologize." He adds, looking a bit sheepish. "I do not recall either of your names, though I certainly have seen you on the tapes before."

[69problems]

"That's alright. There's a lot of tributes to keep track of." He indicates himself. "I'm the Signless, and this," he gestures toward the other troll, "is Karkat Vantas."

He doesn't quite realize that that might not be enough to keep Joly from mixing them up, what with not being familiar with trolls and certainly not with genetically identical trolls who are only distinguishable because of a marked difference in age. Dealing with the Vantases is a little trying when you're a human.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Hi," Karkat says. "You're one of those France guys, right? Like Enjolras or Curryfuck or Eponine or Marius and Cosette or whatever."

Karkat, so far as he knows, has been assuming France is a colony planet of some humanity that actually has space travel. He has a little trouble with the conception of governments smaller than a single planet.

[medecin]

"Or whatever." Joly agrees, amused in spite of the circumstances, that 'Curryfuck' has decided to stick around as Courfeyrac's name among others here. Because, all in all, a certain part of it IS rather accurate, and if one considers the idea that curries are rumored to be rather spicy, well...even more accurate in terms of those thoughts, really.

"It is very good to meet both of you. Monsieur Signless." He is giving Signless a nod there, in greeting. "And Monsieur Vantas, or ought that be Monsieur Karkat?" Differences in age are all well and good, certainly, or will be, at least, once has remembered which is the elder.

And, well, so far as these things go, they might well be the only ones from their particular planet in their particular time and universe, so that assumption, while Joly would deny it, may not actually be so far from the truth as that.

"And I am Joly, and a doctor, should you need my help at some point in all of this." So far, odd as the concept of eating bugs was, he feels all right so far, but then, he's only had a few bites of food thus far, so....

[69problems]

"I don't doubt one or both of us will need it, after this is over," Signless says with a small sigh. Arenas were never good to either of them; it was a miracle Karkat had escaped without an immediate injury, considering his past luck.

"The offer is very much appreciated. I don't think trolls and humans are different enough that it would cause problems, not with the sort of wounds one usually gets in the arena."

[sleeplessinalternia]

It wasn't a miracle, it was him running the fuck away this time instead of doing the cornucopia like usual.

"Vantas is my second hatchname," Karkat says. "So, I dunno. However you humans figure that out, since you just go around using your hatchnames with everyone and don't bother to get titles when you're adults."

[medecin]

"I would not think so, no." Joly agrees,though he does look...interested in those differences. It may be worth looking into what the Capitol Scientists have done to patch them together after arenas, he thinks, idly. To see if he might learn more about how to help, but for now.

"I am by far more adept at simple injuries, or not so simple but...those not involving many interior organs.At least not out here. I would like to be better but...I hope I do not get the chance to practice on either of you, if you take my meaning.

"And that depends, I suppose, on what you would prefer." Joly muses. "Do you have a title I ought to be using?" It occurs to him it is a little different actually. "And most of us do not. Only those who have special training, perhaps. Doctors and the like. I would have been Doctor Joly eventually, but not yet." And there he's smiling. "What might I call you then, Karkat Vantas?"

[69problems]

"I don't think our titles work the same way human titles do, then. They replace our names entirely; they don't just get tacked on at the beginning." Or else things would be a lot more confusing, with two trolls named 'Kankri Vantas' running around the Capitol.

"And Karkat isn't entirely old enough to take a title yet." Though considering as long as he was in arenas he wouldn't age, he might never be.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"It's a sign you're an adult," Karkat informs Joly. "I'm preparing ahead of time so I'll have a good one." It was going to definitely be Thresher something. He wanted a cool secondary title if he could get one.

[medecin]

"Ah that makes much more sense." Joly was not entirely sure how it would work in their world, but the equivalents did help him to place what he was doing here. Slightly anyway

And that was the moment when things started to go a bit...blurry, as if he were a little faint. How entirely odd. He blinked a bit, not completely able to follow the line of thought there.

[69problems]

Signless didn't yet notice Joly's not being entirely with the conversation.

"The human way doesn't seem all that bad, either. It saves the trouble of re-learning everyone's names once they reach adulthood."

Not to mention that it sounded like you earned them through vocation or social position; less chance of other people slapping a title on you and it sticking, something Signless was familiar with.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Neither did Karkat. "But picking out your perfect title is an essential rite of passage for, like, all trolls," he argues. "Just like Conscription and your first drone visit."

[medecin]

"Like...Confirmation..." Joly managed and then, talking was not a thing that he was doing very much of anymore. There was a wave of more dizziness now, and it was forcing him to find a place on the floor to sit.

"I...if you would both excuse me please, I suspect I am somehow deathly ill."

And then he was curling on the ground, wrapping an arm around his head, and hoping this might stop.

[69problems]

... What. Did humans normally do that, just get sick out of nowhere? Somehow, Signless didn't think so.

"I'm... sorry? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Not that he was any good as a doctor beyond simple fixes for basic wounds, so the answer was probaby 'not much'.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"The fuck's Confirmation?" Karkat says, frowning. He peers down at the human. "It kind of looks like food poisoning," he says, glancing worriedly at Signless. "Only he just ate the exact same thing we did."

[medecin]

Joly would have answered the question, and he did hear it being asked, but, for the moment, about all that he was able to do was writhe around. It HURT, but more than that, everything had all gone very STRANGE.

"it...church thing.." he managed, before doubling over and starting to throw up the exact same thing the trolls had eaten. When he'd finished with that, things started going a little dark, and he tucked himself into a ball, rocking back and forth a little.

[69problems]

Okay. This was clearly bad. He reached out, hesitated, and then drew his hand back. With how much Joly was moving around, rubbing his back would probably not do much good.

Instead, he turned to Karkat with a panicked expression, as though Karkat would have any better hold on the situation.

"What do we do?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

"I don't know!" Karkat hisses back. "He's-- is this why humans don't eat land bugs? Is he allergic? Did we just poison him? Oh fuck, we just had to accidentally poison the fucking human mediliquidator, didn't we? Fuck!"