Mini Arena 2

[etcircenses]

Tributes are woken early, and the hovercraft ride is a long one. Not the longest some have experienced, but they are clearly going far.

25 - 24 - 23

They land on the deck of the boat, and are ushered underneath, to the lower levels, quickly. Their stylists go from cabin to cabin, decking them out in over the top finery, before loading them into the pods installed into the corners of the rooms.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

The platforms lift them up, and they are all ringed around a grand buffet table, loaded with a grand feast looking ready to sag down from the weight. Among the food are supplies, plenty of them, all for the taking.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

They've all been warned, don't step off your pedestal early. They have also been warned to put on a good show. That's all this is about, a good show. None of them have been told that there can be multiple winners this time around.

5 - 4

3

2

The sound of the gong plays crystal clear across the opening. The games have begun.

Comments

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland joins the rush to grab something, anything that might be useful. Knife, yes, rope - it'll get wet, but chains are far too heavy, get the rope. What the hell are those? And that? He can't even look around to see if others think whatever those are could be useful. Too dark, too suddenly. Too dangerous to linger trying to figure it out.

It isn't until he stands and starts in the same direction as most of the others that the feelings that've been floating in the back of his head actually develop into real thought. As he'd been flown in with the rest of the tributes, he hadn't been able to help a feeling of awe - like most things in Panem, the ship seen from above had seemed like something from one of the old tales of his childhood, except nothing in any of those tales had dared to be that grand. When Roland thinks on the fact that they've all been forced into this place to kill and die for no greater cause than idle amusement he feels sick, sick in a way entirely separate from his familiar anticipatory nerves. But when he thinks of this ship, of the machines he can hear even now still trying to keep it afloat -

The first time Roland had entered an airplane, there'd been no time to indulge his curiosity. More important things to do, and quickly. But here? Now?

He tugs at the fine powder-blue material of one sleeve, tucking the knife under the mass of lace ruffles spilling from it. Ridiculous, but handy, making the sleeve tight enough to keep the blade in place. The rope gets wrapped over one shoulder and under the opposite armpit, sitting high enough on his chest that it won't get caught in the pad of more of that lace ruffled at his throat.

Then he starts in the opposite direction from the one most of the rest seem to be following. Toward the sound of the explosion. Toward the deep rumble of those failing engines.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Maybe it's just because of all the time they spent together, just the two of them (like it's just the two of them again now), but when Susannah sees there's a figure moving towards the explosion and not away from it, she knows it's him. She snatches a knife of her own and a life vest (which she shrugs over her cocktail dress) and she chases after him.

"Gunslinger," she says, once she's closer, "the deck's the other way."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Mm?" Roland turns, looking her briefly over as he does. So the orange thing, at least, was probably important.

"So it is. Perhaps, gunslinger, you'd best get to it." Not that he isn't glad to see her. Susannah's presence is soothing, even with things as they've been lately - maybe even more so, because of that - but pointing out the obvious does not prompt Roland to give out answers. Especially when this particular answer isn't one he could quite put into words, even if he wanted to.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Perhaps you best come with," she says. "If I'm going to die on this ship--and I probably am--I think I'd like to alongside you." She keeps walking briskly after him, forspecial feet going tink (or maybe clack) on the metal ship floors. "Why towards the explosion? What are you looking for?"

[ka_sera_sera]

He glances at her, then looks down toward the hall in front of him with a little frown. He's thinking on the high possibility of death, which'd been easy to dismiss a moment ago but that gives him a twinge now, hearing it in her voice. "There's no need," he says, directing his frown toward a hallway intersecting with theirs instead of back at her and trying to focus on the direction from which the ship's low, choking rumble might be coming. "Quest's over. No need to follow me into death any longer."

[dividedgirlofmine]

"You don't think I wouldn't run off in time to save myself again?" she asks. "Roland, honey, it's not about the quest anymore. It's because..." She frowns slightly, trying to figure out how to put this in words. "I don't have to follow you into death, sugar. We're already wading through it. Breathing it. We're walking together in death. Because you're my dinh, yes, but also because you're my friend."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland stops walking, bows his head. He doesn't often think on the year or so before Panem, not on the actual details of it, but he's thinking on it now. On those last few days. The way Susannah'd left him, chosen to leave, and on his deep, jealous need in that last instant to pull her back, to keep her from that door even if their dear dead friends did await her on the other side. Maybe especially then, but that's a thought that's barely formed before it's dismissed along with those other vague memories.

She'd leave now too, if she could. If there was anywhere better to go to.

Roland takes her hand. The grip's loose, ready to free both their hands if either should suddenly need them, but until then he does not intend to let go.

"Until death greets us again, you're welcome to join me. I was following the sound of the engines. Do you hear them? Or - do you know this kind of ship?"

[dividedgirlofmine]

She doesn't intend to let go either.

"I think it's a steamship," she says. "Or-- the closest equivalent. And yes, I think I hear them. Did you want to see them?"

She'd take her with him, if she could. If there was ever a way to pull Roland back from seeking his own death.

[ka_sera_sera]

Neither of them has to try to seek death out, here. Though, if he did have the opportunity to leave...

That's a problem for another day. Or, more likely, for never.

"I do. I think... down that way." Roland nods toward one section of the hall, pulling Susannah toward it by their linked hands. Somewhere in the Capitol, a Susannah-fangirl is plotting fic with a fever that deepens with each second they keep holding onto one another.

"Might end up going through water to get to it," he cautions, because she may say she's prepared to die with him but he wants to make sure she knows the risk. "How strong is your swimming?"

[dividedgirlofmine]

It's a good thing the fangirls don't know about... well, about a lot of things, least of which is all the months when it was just the two of them and Oy. "I do all right," she said. "I had lessons when I was a girl. I don't know how buoyant these legs are, though," she adds, gesturing to the prosthetics.

[ka_sera_sera]

He thinks on that, looking cautiously into a room as they pass it, then back to Susannah. "Will you get them back if they're lost here? Separated from your- your body?" If not, he might have to reconsider. Might have to actually try to win, though the thought pulls at something sour in his gut.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"I don't know," Susannah says, after thinking about it a moment. She squeezes his hand. "If I don't, you know I can get along fine without them. I'll just have to save up again or make a deal or-- something. Don't let that make the decision for you, Roland."

[ka_sera_sera]

"It's been too long since I've made decisions for anyone else," he says, and then it strikes him that maybe - maybe - she's following his thoughts a little better than anyone else would. Following them the way she used to, back when the five of them were one. When he'd first arrived in Panem she'd mentioned sharing khef and he hadn't believed that they could, and he still balks at the idea- but it's probably only that she knows him, knows him still, and that thought might be more warming than the first.

"But your choice is your own, and I'll respect it." He squeezes her hand in return and keeps walking. "If you do lose them, though, I'll do whatever I have to to get them back."

He lets that sit a moment before continuing. "Anything you'd like to see? I doubt these engines interest you much as they do me."

[dividedgirlofmine]

After months alone in the wilderness with one billybumbler, how could they not know each other so well? Better than they knew each other when they were five as one and whole, if you want to know the truth.

"I know you will," she says, giving his hand another squeeze. "And it means a lot to me. There isn't much I'm interested in on this ship, so I don't mind if we just look at the engines and head up. Just... let's not take too long about it. We ought to at least try a little to get off the ship."

[ka_sera_sera]

The look Roland gives her is, for a second, very tired. Watching eyes, of course. Got to give at least some pretense of a performance. But if he's tired, how must she feel? Susannah, who's spent so much longer in this than he? There's no sense in asking, especially not here.

"I'm not sure which side the water's coming in from," he says instead, considering the noise and heading for a flight of stairs. "But we'll probably hit it sooner rather than later. And if you've got your knife out, I'd keep it ready on this stairway."

[dividedgirlofmine]

Tired enough, if her returning glance means anything.

"Of course," she says. She's been holding it in the hand that isn't holding Roland's since they started walking together. "I don't intend to go out without a fight."

[ka_sera_sera]

He nods, unsurprised by the statement. Encouraged by it, too - it's not as if he isn't made to fight to the death, wouldn't do it no matter what. But with her beside him saying so it's easier to feel it, to feel that part of him that in spite of everything is still eager for it, hungry for the fight even if that fight ends in his death.

Though death, in this place, means something very different from what it used to. No point in thinking much on that now, and in the next moment he's distracted from it anyway. The light flickers, the engine noise stuttering for a moment, and the sparklight illuminating the stairwell dies. His memory, in some areas, isn't what it used to be, but the sight in front of him does strike a note. Hopefully not as many endless tunnels and huge, otherworldly creatures waiting below, but from here it looks the same. "Almost makes me wish we had some fire," he says over his shoulder at her, a corner of his mouth curling upward.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Her own mouth pulls into a returning smile. "If there were cans of sterno in that pile," she says, "I didn't see 'em."

She feels it too, the eagerness for a fight. You can take away the gun, but you can't take away the gunslinger. "But at least now I don't have to ride in that dratted sling."

[ka_sera_sera]

One corner of Roland's mouth twitches. "Not this time. I remember well enough how much you hated it." It's not the thing itself he's smiling at, but that brand of nostalgia where everything - even things you hadn't cared for at all at the time - seem to take on a special glow in your memory simply because you weren't here. Not that he'd go back there if he could, do it all again-

Just the thought makes him a little dizzy and he tilts, reaches out to grasp the railing next to the first few steps and turns his mind quickly away from it. Maybe that's enough nostalgia for now. "Did you get a look at the hallway before the light died?" Most of the warmth's gone from his voice, as if they'd spent the last few moments speaking of nothing at all. Back to business.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Not for very long," she admits, her mouth drawing to a frown. "I didn't see any giant monster--but then, why would they bother puttin' the monsters inside the ship when they can just have 'em swimmin' around?"

Part of her wishes they could have spent a little longer in that moment. The rest of her knows it's just as well they didn't. Back to business, indeed.

[ka_sera_sera]

"Not all monsters are giants. Especially not when the Capitol's involved." It's more difficult to keep his steps as quiet as he'd like on the metal stairs. Especially in these shoes. Shining and fashionable and useless, like everything else the people of this place are so fascinated with. On that note, he spares a mental moment damning whoever had made the decision to put him in all this lace.

Nevermind. Too much trouble to get rid of it.

The sparklight flickers once before dying again. Not for long enough, though, and Roland isn't entirely certain whether he's just seen movement. "Something down there. Not sure what."

[dividedgirlofmine]

"True," Susannah says. "Some aren't any bigger than a person." She frowns and strains her ears to see if she can hear whatever it is that Roland is looking for. There's a creaking sound, but she can't tell if that's the ship itself or something--or someone--below them. "Whatever it is, I've got my knife out," she whispers.

[ka_sera_sera]

Nothing for it but to keep moving down, so he does. His knife is out, and his senses are on alert. Sight is difficult, though, as the light tends to flash on just as his eyes are beginning to adjust. Then there's a hiss, the click of multiple sets of nails on metal, and Roland feels movement in front of him just in time to stab at it. Teeth click as it snaps at him and he turns his head, still trying to see. "Another one," he guesses, warning Susannah in case his guess is right.

[dividedgirlofmine]

She stabs out with her knife in the direction of the noise. It hits something, anyway, if the squeal of pain and the impact of her knife on something that feels like flesh is any indication. "Found it."

[ka_sera_sera]

If this were a longer arena he'd suggest seeing about roasting and eating whatever these are. But it isn't so he leaves their bodies where they are, still heading down. Another one and he swipes at it, feeling teeth graze the back of his hand as it falls back into the wall and doesn't move.

"Rats, I think," he says after the next flash of the light. No more attacks while he says that - he's not sure if they're retreating or just waiting for the two of them to get closer. "Didn't see any obvious signs of mutation."