thearena | [ota]

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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.]

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The Signless nods.

"A thousand sweeps, which I believe are longer than human years, but it's the same either way."

He looked thoughtfully at the dog. Roland was right, there wasn't going to be much meat. "As for brains, considering the trouble it was to take it down, I don't see any reason to waste any of that dog. Any food is good food."

Karkat's on his way to the nutrition block to search, but he calls over his shoulder, "Yeah, we're not highbloods or anything, we'll totally eat offal. Even if we don't have any unfertilized shelled ovums to scramble the thinksponge with." Which is how he'd always eaten the brains when his crabdad had brought dead mammals home.

Edited (singular thinksponge not plural) 2014-05-27 04:02 (UTC)

For a moment, Roland just stares in the direction of Karkat's voice.

Well.

"I'll take that as a yes," he mutters, and bends over the dog again to continue inspecting it. "If we want to stay here long enough for the meat to dry, I'd try to drain the blood into the fireplace. We just need some way to hang it up." Roland straightens and looks around the room. "Maybe some of this furniture would do, but I'm not sure... Have you seen anything here that might work?"

While he tries to think through their options, another part of Roland's wondering about something else. "Does Cuthbert ever have trouble communicating with him?" Roland asks, quietly. While Roland may be long used to understanding only a quarter of the details in any given conversation, that's not something he can really see his old friend putting up with.

Ah. That's right, Roland is a friend of Cuthbert's. Signless sighs and runs a hand through his hair, his expression becoming a lot more drawn-in.

"I think they have trouble communicating with each other, much more than either of them wants to admit. Cuthbert makes little effort to understand many troll concepts, and mocks Karkat when he doesn't understand human ones rather than actually attempting to educate him. It leads to frustration and frustration leads to further misunderstanding, as you'd imagine."

And, alright, he may be a little biased, but he is deeply unhappy with Cuthbert over pushing Karkat to pail him, over treating him like not putting out meant he was worth less, over not giving Karkat what a troll actually needs out of a blackrom but staying in one with him anyway because he's a dumb horny teenager. Cuthbert is not in his good graces right now.

Roland sighs. "That does sound like him." Much more like him than what Roland'd been trying to imagine. Signless' manner says he's speaking more in specific terms than general ones, and Roland wonders at whatever relationship he's got with Karkat, whether it's close enough that Signless has been told everything.

"Sadly, I think you've got the right of it," Roland says, trying to keep his voice low. He doesn't know how sharp troll ears might be, so speaking of this at all might be a risk, but he wants it said before Karkat comes back. "Signless, I cry your pardon on his behalf."

He's taken on Cuthbert's loyalties by helping these two, and that means taking on Cuthbert's mistakes as well. For all Roland's uncertainty about whether he and his friends make enough of a group to need a dinh, and for all Cuthbert's gone something like a year without a leader of any kind, he does seem very much to need one.

"He ever was the most..." How to say this? "...willfully immature of all of us. But I don't remember him being so young." Roland shakes his head, dismissing his own confusion on the matter, and studies Signless thoughtfully. "Perhaps between the two of us, we can find some way to manage them."

Maybe one day Signless will try to explain pale romance to Roland, because yes, the type of relationship he has with Karkat is pretty much explicitly about Karkat telling him everything.

"I've been trying, mostly on Karkat's end, but I'm sure you've seen how hard it is to keep things civil between them." After how messy that breakup had been, all help was good help. Especially since Roland knew Cuthbert better, could probably put things in ways he would better understand.

"And normally that would be a good thing, with black romance, but neither of them understands boundaries." At least he'd been able to talk to Karkat about that, after the disastrous night with Kankri earlier that week. At least he'd made some headway.

"I don't think either of them mean to be so difficult. They just come from very different cultures and have very different expectations for what a relationship should entail, and they're too young to know how to negotiate that respectfully yet."

Roland raises his eyebrows. Black romance. Doesn't sound like anything anyone would willingly take up, but... "I've probably got as much to learn as Cuthbert," he says, standing and walking toward one of the room's doorways. "But now's not the time. I may have to call on you at some point after all this, long as you don't mind a lot of explanation."

He leans past the doorway, squinting. "There may be some chairs in here that'll be of use if they're still sturdy," he says, and grabs two to set them face to face in front of the fireplace. "Help me pick this up again, I'll tie its legs to the back of one of these."

Most of the blood would have left when the beast's throat was cut, but not all of it, so Roland picks the thing's head up the same careful way he'd carried it, wound aimed up. "Depending on whichever when he was taken from, I don't think Cuthbert knows anything about human romance either." He shrugs. "I won't make excuses for him, but it may help to understand that much."

"I wouldn't mind explaining, though I've found some of it is very hard for humans to conceptualize. You'll need to go in with an open mind."

He helps Roland lift the dog, following any instructions he's given -- this isn't something he's used to doing, considering that with a family of four to feed back home and an abundant amount of wildlife they never really dried much of anything.

"Everyone was young and stupid once," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. "It's not an excuse, no, but it explains his actions. My issue is more that he continues to be young and stupid despite attempts to educate him."

Karkat comes back with some nutrition cylinders (creamed spinach, cling peaches, corn) and another carving knife, not quite the same size as his first, having only managed to hear the tail end of the conversation.

"I don't know about stupid," Karkat says, "but we're fucking stuck being this young as long as there's games. They keep bringing us back in bodies exactly like when they grabbed us from where we were, so Bert's still the same fucking age physically as he was when we got here."

"Do you really think that makes a difference?" He frowns at the dog's back legs as he ties them to the chair. That's not something that would ever have occurred to him. "That we keep our memories, but not the ways we've been changed by them?" It's not the worst case scenario, certainly, but something about the idea's a little disquieting anyway.

"Tilt its head back," he says, going back into that other room for another chair. "Once the rest of what's in there finishes draining, we can probably start to cut it open. Either of you have anything that'll strike a spark?"

"I would imagine your memories and the lessons they teach you are infinitely more important than the relative age of your body," Signless says. He has extensive experience with that, after all: two sets of memories, one body, and without them he never would have come as far as he has.

"Speaking as someone with experience in such things. As for a fire, we have matches." He looks to Karkat (he's the one who's been carrying them, since he found them originally), tilting the dog's head back as instructed.

"Yeah, but it's fucking awful to know that you'll never get any bigger or have an adult moult or have whatever happens to adult humans happen to you because you're stuck in an adolescent's body forever," Karkat says as he gets out the less-than-half-now filled match box out of his windbreaker pocket. "I mean dying all the time is shit anyway, but I know when I think too much about that shit it fucks me up a bit and I'm one of the ones that got to go back for a while before they grabbed me again." Or whatever had happened.

Edited 2014-05-31 07:26 (UTC)

As they talk Roland kicks at the extra chair, breaking it down into kindling that he sets in a simple pattern inside the fireplace. "Going back? Does that happen often?"

It's not that he doesn't care about the rest. It's only that - well, it happens. It's 'fucking awful' that it happens. In Roland's mind, that's all there is to say on the matter. As to Signless' experience with memory, Roland notes it, but... later. He'll ask later. His own memory problem isn't something he's going to think on too much in a setting where he needs to be as alert as possible. "After the last of this blood's finished draining, we can slit it open. See if whatever comes out looks edible."

Edited 2014-05-31 12:57 (UTC)

"Karkat is the only one I've known who's done it. They took a week to bring him back from the arena and when he did come back it was with an older moult and more memories. I'd assume they could do it with anyone, if they wanted."

Probably only for the gain of the Capitol, though. They'd wanted Karkat older so his love life was a more acceptable thing to focus on, in the Signless's opinion, or possibly because it would give them more emotional blackmail material considering everything he'd been through when he'd gone back.

"I heard it's happened to at least one human," Karkat says with a shrug. "I'm fucked if I know which, though. It's just one more stupid way they show they own our globes. Like how this one time they told me I had to take this human girl--I think her name was Emilia? yeah, Emilia Michaela--I had to take her to lunch and then this aquatic recreation area. It was, like, back when all those capitol guys were really into trolls and not whatever it is now."

Roland nods, files it away in his mind next to the other information Karkat's given him regarding their suspicions about how people are brought back. He does not, however, comment. It's interesting information, but as far as Roland's concerned there's nothing left to say about it. He just grasps the dog's head, tilts it back a little more, and watches the last dribbles of blood drain out of it. "Should be alright to set the fire now. Shouldn't be anything too big, just enough to cook this thing's organs with. And be careful when you slit it open; I'd eat something covered in dirt before anything that's spent too long on this carpet."

Signless steps back to allow Karkat a clearer area to set the fire. That's been his job, since Signless has been doing most of the hunting, and he's actually pretty good at it.

"Thank you for your help with this," he says to Roland. "It's not really either of our specialties; I imagine we could have done it but it would have been with a lot more trouble. You probably saved us some injuries that we can't afford this early."

Not gonna lie, Karkat's pretty proud of his current fire setting skills, even if a large part of it is just that he salvaged a bunch of matches early on.

"Yeah," Karkat says. "I mean, Crabdad would bring home bigger things sometimes, but never that fucking big. The biggest thing I've ever butchered before was like half the size of this at the most and then I had clean working surfaces and a thermal hull to keep the stuff I didn't eat in."

Once he's got the wood and the kindling arrange to his liking, he strikes the match. It makes him think of Bert, for some stupid reason. Maybe because Bert had always been the one to make the fires when they'd been teamed up.

"Have you seen Bert?" he asks suddenly. "I mean, since they dumped us in here."

He's still annoyed at Bert for punching him and for... well, for a lot of things, really, but he still thought of Cuthbert as his best friend here and their stupid dramatic breakup didn't really change that.

Roland nods at Signless. He probably had, though they owe him nothing for it. "I'd stay and help more, if I could. But as it happens, I haven't seen Cuthbert. Susannah, either. I mean to. If I can, I'll find them both."

He eyes the dog, deciding on the best way to cut it without spilling all its guts out. None of the weapons he's got will do the job, it'll have to be one of them - but he looks, nonetheless. Good to have something else to think about.

"For some reason I'd expected it to be easier. But there's something about that Cornucopia... is it always like that? How did the two of you find one another?" Because he plans on being here the next time, too, and he knows he could use some pointers.

"Pure chance, I'm sorry to say. I was wandering, he spotted me and managed to get my attention without getting anyone else's. This Cornucopia I think was worse than the others. Usually it's all in a nice concise pile, not scattered everywhere."

He's more than a little annoyed about that, actually. He made a vow to himself to go for the Cornucopia even though the bloodbath is not a good place for him to be, and they had the audacity to switch it up on him and make it even harder.

"I used to try to run for it," Karkat says, "but then I ended up getting permanent injuries like every other arena. So I figured I was going to be fucked in either case if I didn't go but at least this way I'd be fucked with both eyes and usable limbs. But yeah, it's usually all piled up neatly. And there's usually better fucking visibility too, this fog hoofbeastshit is not standard."

He'll probably have to butcher the dog. He's got the sharp knives after all.

"Hm. At least that's almost good news." Good news that they'll be able to kill each other more easily next time. Hence the 'almost'.

"Making jerky," he says, moving on to the next useful topic. "It's more about drying meat out than cooking it. The smoke of a fire can keep some insects away but mostly it's a matter of setting the meat in the right place and waiting. In a house like this it should be safer, but I wouldn't be surprised if the smell drew something. We should probably sleep in shifts, though you were probably planning on doing that already."

"I'd say that's the smartest strategy, yes. If we're going to be in one place for any length of time we should take as many precuations as possible."

Maybe the dog had been a bad idea. He hated staying still, even if the extra food jerky would provide would most likely prove invaluable and he hated to waste any of it after the trouble it was to bring it down.

"Especially if the smell brings more barkbeasts."

"Do you think they're cannibals?" Karkat asks. He looks off away from the two of them to address the air, "By the way, if anyone's watching this in the Capitol, actual fucking cannibals eat their own species. Not other sentient species. The Greater Degree of Information You Understand!"

Roland raises his eyebrows at Karkat, watching him speak to nothing for a few seconds before glancing around. He sees no cameras, but he hasn't this whole time and doesn't really expect to. He'd never thought it possible to for a culture to have a greater grasp of machines than the Old Ones of his world, and it's particularly unfortunate that he seems to have fallen under the thumb of one. He'd have been able to see cameras of the Old Ones - no matter how well hidden - in seconds.

"I think they're hungry," he says once Karkat seems done, letting the rest pass because there is nothing he particularly wants to say to their loving and devoted audience. "Hungrier than us, probably. So we'd better get started." He nods toward Signless - or, more accurately, Signless' knife. "Care to start us off?"

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do you guys want to just thread together for however many comments while karkat's in the kitchen?

I'm okay with that if you think he'll be a while - just let us know when you want back in?

i'm okay with that, sure

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would it make sense for Karkat to come back soonish?

he'll be back after this tag

yo! i'm back!

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