Venus Dee Milo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thearena2014-06-26 12:56 am
celebrityskinned) wrote in thearena2014-06-26 12:56 am
Entry tags:
How Did You Expect Your Soul... [Closed]
WHO| Venus and Guy, Venus and Nasir, then Venus, Enjolras, Jet and Albert
WHAT| Death! Traumatic memories! Chain whips and bad food!
WHEN| Week 5 during the Hellrena, thread with Guy during week 4
WHERE| Throughout the Arena and then near the abyss.
WARNINGS| Bugs, death, some body horror, mentions of child-abuse, two gladiators slugging it out.
She goes looking for water before the Arena descends into Hell. The lake seems to have vanished somewhere into the fog, somewhere that she and Enjolras can't seem to locate despite their best attempts to retrace their paths. Eventually, it only makes sense to split up. They'll stay on the asphalt of the town road and hope that if they both keep moving in opposite directions, finding their way back to the meeting place in the middle will be simple enough.
She takes her chain and her boxcutter. She swings the former while she walks, and it cuts little trails of negative space into the cloud around her. She clicks her tongue as she walks, trying not to let dehydration or exhaustion look too evident on her frame in front of the cameras. Her head's pounding. Her throat is dry and crawling up the back of her mouth.
She stops when she hears something.
-/-
She finds Enjolras again when she's in less than ideal shape. Her fight with Nasir left her bloody, left her with broken bones and, she suspects, internal hemorrhaging. The Arena's already over for her, which would bother her if she ever intended to actually win one of these things. What actually does upset her is the fact that she's crawling back to someone else to slowly die, just like she did last time.
She's selfish. So sue her. She doesn't want to get lost in the fog and let the animals feast on her while she's alone.
There's a strange rage that pulses just beneath her skin, a hunger that creeps along between her bone and muscle that she can't explain. She itches at her flesh and some of it comes off, and her teeth hurt. She tries to not pick at herself, because she doesn't need to be opening new ones when the ones she got an hour ago are still oozing blood down her clothing to mingle with sweat.
The benefit of this strange setting change is that she has her powers back. She teleports back to the meeting place she and Enjolras had, landing with a bit of a squawk of pain as she puts weight on what is, in all likelihood, a broken ankle. She holds one arm close to her body, and the corner of her mouth has been sliced down to the side of her neck.
"Don't look now, but I'm a bit of a mess."
WHAT| Death! Traumatic memories! Chain whips and bad food!
WHEN| Week 5 during the Hellrena, thread with Guy during week 4
WHERE| Throughout the Arena and then near the abyss.
WARNINGS| Bugs, death, some body horror, mentions of child-abuse, two gladiators slugging it out.
She goes looking for water before the Arena descends into Hell. The lake seems to have vanished somewhere into the fog, somewhere that she and Enjolras can't seem to locate despite their best attempts to retrace their paths. Eventually, it only makes sense to split up. They'll stay on the asphalt of the town road and hope that if they both keep moving in opposite directions, finding their way back to the meeting place in the middle will be simple enough.
She takes her chain and her boxcutter. She swings the former while she walks, and it cuts little trails of negative space into the cloud around her. She clicks her tongue as she walks, trying not to let dehydration or exhaustion look too evident on her frame in front of the cameras. Her head's pounding. Her throat is dry and crawling up the back of her mouth.
She stops when she hears something.
-/-
She finds Enjolras again when she's in less than ideal shape. Her fight with Nasir left her bloody, left her with broken bones and, she suspects, internal hemorrhaging. The Arena's already over for her, which would bother her if she ever intended to actually win one of these things. What actually does upset her is the fact that she's crawling back to someone else to slowly die, just like she did last time.
She's selfish. So sue her. She doesn't want to get lost in the fog and let the animals feast on her while she's alone.
There's a strange rage that pulses just beneath her skin, a hunger that creeps along between her bone and muscle that she can't explain. She itches at her flesh and some of it comes off, and her teeth hurt. She tries to not pick at herself, because she doesn't need to be opening new ones when the ones she got an hour ago are still oozing blood down her clothing to mingle with sweat.
The benefit of this strange setting change is that she has her powers back. She teleports back to the meeting place she and Enjolras had, landing with a bit of a squawk of pain as she puts weight on what is, in all likelihood, a broken ankle. She holds one arm close to her body, and the corner of her mouth has been sliced down to the side of her neck.
"Don't look now, but I'm a bit of a mess."
no subject
"Okay. Let me just find something to dig with. Yell if you need me."
With that he ran off to a nearby house he'd rummaged through. There had been some useful tools in it, including some that had looked like they were for digging.
Before long, he was back with two shovels and handed one to her. Then, wordlessly, he started to dig in a nearby patch of soft-looking earth.
no subject
When he comes back, she silently takes the shovel from him, starting on the wet earth, side by side.
"Thank you," she whispers.
no subject
It was very matter of fact.
"Running from stuff -" He grunted as he dug, following her lead on how to use the tool. "Fighting hungry predators together. That's what you do with your tribe."
And he had one here, filled with people that cared about him as much as his family back home, that he cared about in turn.
no subject
The shovel makes scraping sounds as it goes past stone and roots, as they make a grave for the things that have been done to her. For a while they dig in silence, and then she stops for a moment, and looks him in the eyes.
"No one was ever there for me as a kid." And so she didn't expect anyone to be there for her now, and yet here he is. Not only was, but is still, in the messy, sweaty cleanup.
no subject
To an extreeeme degree.
"I'm glad I can give you that now." He paused his speech but kept digging. "I don't think I'd have been the same person if I'd grown up in your world. I don't think the kind of person I am can be...can even come to be in a lot of worlds."
They all seemed so different, so alien, and so much of what he was had come of walking across sun-baked mudlands, and watching countless stars at night, and learning not to lose himself to the fear of the scraping claws at the opening of the caves he'd hidden in.
"But I like to think that if some very different version of me had been there, near you, that that part of me would've been the same. I wish I could have been there for you."
no subject
And it goes without saying - it's practically written in the air, invisible, some language they can both intuit without anything between them - that she wishes the same for him.
The hole becomes deep enough that they can drag the body in. They do, and she imagines burning it, but everything is too damp here. The earth will have to break it down the hard way.
"Guy, I know you're worried about if-" If the Capitol gets to his world, gets his mate and child and family. She doesn't say any of that out loud, not wanting to put the idea out there. "I know you're worried. I just want you to know that your priorities are my priorities. Your most important priorities. No matter what happens."
no subject
So he did. With the arm that wasn't holding the shovel, he hugged her gently in a one-armed hug, pressing his forehead to hers with the tiniest brush of his nose against her nose.
By now she probably knew what that meant. It was a familial hug. A "you are my tribe" nose rub.
It said more without words than most could say with a whole paragraph.
/wrap?
Yet they've found family here. Imperfect, desperate family, willing to protect and defend and comfort and love.
It's more than could ever be quashed by this government.