thearena | Life's the biggest troll but the joke is on us

Entry tags:

Life's the biggest troll but the joke is on us

Who| Dave and OPEN + PROMPT for Molotov
What| Tmw things start getting awful again, Dave deals with feelings and then dies. Whoops.
Where| Strider shop, the fountain???
When| Start of Week 4/End of Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Dying and stuff, murder and talk about mercy kills.

There's something almost finely tuned about Arenas. You can have a terrible time the whole way through, but there's a distinct moment when all the dominoes start to fall. It starts with one person, then it feels like everyone starts to go down. Dave doesn't want it to weigh on him, but it's not easy to logic out of heavy feelings by imagining they'll reunite back in the Capitol. What if he doesn't make it back there? What if they put him back in jail with the other jailbreakers and suspects and they only bust them out for kill carnivals?

He can't help feeling like most of what he's done here has been a mistake, even if it was the only option there for him. Every action is like a fuck up that he needs to follow with another fuck up until he paints himself into a corner. Of course, it's easy to think shit like this when you're alone. Particularly after watching two of the people you've grown closest to bite the dust, one of which you had to help along the way. Memories of that are going to weigh on him for a while, coupled with guilt that he doesn't know what to do with.

Being alone isn't for the best right now, but he's found his way to the Strider store and he's sticking with it. At least it's a pretty damn obvious place to find him! He's scooted up into a corner to fiddle with an aged style of gaming device for the most part, but he'll wander around and peruse the merchandise, changing into duplicates of his old outfit so he can discard bloodied clothing for something fresher. The solitude is nice for a while, but soon he's hoping someone finds him or wondering if he should seek someone out. There's the niggling worry that anyone he looks for might be dead holding him back, keeping him content to play ill beats at soft volumes whilst choosing to be ignorant of the chance that it might make him a target.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If there's anything fortunate to take from this, it's the fact that he isn't on the highest level. That's really about all there is. He hears a crash and he worries who might have been caught up in it, but all he can focus on is the blinding pain in his head from the never-ending cacophony of a well protected mall. If he didn't know any better, he'd say his ears are bleeding. Fuck, they might just be, but he won't pull his hands away to check.

He's a sitting duck out in the open like this, he knows it, so he'll pick a direction and run as if he's hoping to find somewhere in the mall that echoes the sound less. As it happens, with one sense useless to him, the other ones aren't heightened whatsoever. He runs into someone, slamming into them unintentionally but wasting no time for apologies. He pulls a disgruntled face at the passerby and moves past them as if they aren't worth a screamed apology or a second glance.

He might regret that.

Molotov hasn't slept in two days. That's the root of this all.

As more and more stores become refuges and/or get totally destroyed, finding a safe place to catch some sleep is getting harder and harder. She'd missed the store closings tonight, and with the hordes of angry roombas still roaming, she had to make due with an overstuffed chair that was slightly hidden by virtue of being tucked in a niche with some plants.

It would have actually been a decent napping place had she managed to be there for more than twenty minutes before the alarms all went crazy.

Her head and ears ache, but she is a woman who regularly fires guns and stands next to explosions -- hearing loss thanks to dangerously loud noises aren't as foreign to her as they probably should be. So her pace is less frantic than the kid's as she heads the opposite way, her duffle of supplies on her shoulder and her hunting knife at the ready. She has to save her prize bullets for as late in the game as she can.

In the dark, Molotov probably looks more scary than she actually is. While she's washed her face, her hair is still matted with the blood of the man from the movie theater, the red still staining her pale skin where she just rushed too fast to scrub it off properly. Her tank top is ripped -- all of the tops she's been switching through are ripped by now -- and wrinkled and covered in filth and blood.

But it's the lack of sleep that's got her right now, that makes it so she can't just let the kid pass by.

Her arm stretches after him, fast as a bullet, and she grabs him by the neck, long fingers wrapping around and pulling him back to her. She only has one eye and, in the faint flashing lights from the car upstairs, it's flashing with fury, her teeth bared like maybe she's willing to rip his throat out with him. She isn't, but you never know.

Maybe the mistake here is letting himself get too casual about all of this. He's had some scrapes, sure, but he hasn't quite met anyone interested in killing him. Not this arena, anyway. He can blame most of his thoughtlessness on the fact that the only thought in his brain is weighed down by the sound of sirens screaming.

Yet, when the stranger he'd been so quick to push past grabs his neck, it's like everything falls second for a split second. The only thing he can hear in his head is a resounding curse at himself and he stops entirely, like she's a wildcat ready to pounce more than she is a person. It might not be such an inaccurate comparison, at this rate. His hands twitch for the sword he has slung over his shoulder, but he feels like a movement like that could be the last one he makes.

Fuck it. His hand is whipping around to make a grab for his weapon, staring so hard at her it's probably apparent even with his shades. "Easy girl." That probably sounded hellishly condescending, but it isn't occurring to him at the moment.

It really has been less of an overall hellhole than Molotov had been lead to believe. This most recent week was seeing everything get more severe, as all the supplies save for the daily buffet were practically depleted, but even so, the arena is more boring than anything else.

Molotov feels almost like an animal, really, running on adrenaline and fury for the moment, and even this asshole's words barely get through to her; she's too drunk on her lack of rest, on the endless noise, on the pounding in her head. She squeezes as hard as she can around his neck, her free hand grabbing at his over the hilt of the sword.

Her thought is wordless, more a feeling than anything else.

It's going through his heart.

There it is again, Dave, you pillar of warrior like attributes and battle-hardened glory. Another fucking mistake. Good fucking job. He's a survivor in a lot of ways, he's seen a lot of shit, but good god he fucks up. He's bitterly freaking out in his head, but he knows he needs to get his shit right the fuck together quickly.

The hand on his neck hurts and her grip is unfairly tight for someone of her build. He grunts, unsurprised when her hand meets his on his sword and he lets his arm relax as if surrendering the attempt to make a grab for it. More importantly than anything, he needs to get her out of his space. Her hands are on him, thus occupied, though he knows that hand on his throat could end this fight quickly. He's as quick as he can be in his movements, raising a leg to kick hard at whatever he can reach. He's trying to pull away from her in the same gesture, using their combined weights and the instability to try and move the situation in his favor.

All the while the sirens are making any chance to use words impossible at this rate, any opportunity to talk his way out of it like he usually would is gone.

Edited (spelling...) 2014-09-16 00:43 (UTC)

He kicks her stomach and she bends, though her grasp doesn't weaken at all. She's almost past feeling the pain of his foot slamming into her, though that doesn't help with the fact that their balance is precarious at best, the way she's nearly lifting him as he writhes around.

They fall and she lets go of his neck.

She grabs his sword on the way down instead, pulls it free and away from him before they hit the ground. She kips up, hair flying, and growls, the weight of the sabre as familiar and friendly in her hand as her own automatic rifle is. But she's going to kill him with his own weapon, that was decided somewhere deep within her the moment he had the bad luck to run into her.

Molotov stabs down, after where he fell, where she knows his torso must be. The first strike doesn't matter so much, anything to keep him down and bleeding.

The alarms echo everywhere around them, deafening and painful and filling Molotov with a frightfully inhuman kind of bloodthirst.

When she bends, there's a moment of hope that he can fight his way out of this. They tip and he thinks he might squirm away, might grab his sword and live up to the reputation he's meant to have. That goes to shit in approximately ten seconds, though it feels like it takes both more and less time than it does.

He didn't count on her grabbing his own sword- her own weapon was what he had assumed, of course. He thought he'd have a second, but he doesn't have a moment before he can feel the blade of his own sword pierce his midsection. Maybe it wouldn't be a deadly cut anywhere else, but he's pretty much fucked right now.

"Jesus- FUCK-!" There's no point holding back a scream of pain, nobody can hear it but the two of them when everything else is dulled out by the sound of sirens. It's almost liberating to be able to yell like that without knowing someone will sweep in and save him, it'd only make him feel worse at this rate.

"Don't you think this is a LITTLE fucking bit of an OVER REACTION!?" Even at a time like this, he can't shut the fuck up. The words are yelled in a hoarse, desperate voice as if logic or sarcasm are relevant right now. His hands are free to shove and push at her, trying to do any damage that he can in a flurry of fear and pain. Adrenaline is coursing, but it isn't enough to dull the pain in his head and torso entirely. Next time, asshole, apologise to people you collide with.

There's no answer. Normally she'd answer, spit back something just as biting, but now, now it's like her humanity is gone, pushed back into a cage by the noise and exhaustion and the spray of red that flies when she pulls the sword out of his gut to plunge it back down again.

And again.

And again.

She's fallen to her knees over him, ignores his hands shoving and pushing at her chest, and grabs his face, nails digging hard into his cheeks. Still holding his sword, she carefully removes his sunglasses, sets them to the side, then bends down until their noses nearly touch.

"Watch," she demands, voice rough and hard and angry.

Then Molotov sits up and drives the sword down into his heart, where she knows it's beating furiously with terror.

As someone who has had to set up his death multiple times for ease of time travel shenanigans, he's seen himself go through a world of pain. He's been shot multiple times, stabbed and most vividly of all remembers the blinding flash of pain from the explosion that sent him all the way to the top of the game. Somehow, this is worse. This is humiliating and slow and it's more terrifying than he wants to admit.

For the moment he has his shades to hide his twisted expression as the blade engraved with Alex Murphy plunges in and out of him like it's going out of style. You'd think it would hurt less with every stab, but every time he expects it he builds it up to be just as painful. He tries harder this time to keep the cries of pain in, biting at his lip until it bleeds. A hiss of pain escapes when she grabs his face and his nose crinkles when she gets way too close. His breathing is erratic and desperate, like every one might be his last, and he can't stop shaking. All he had to hide that was his sunglasses, so it's no surprise she takes them and reveals his blood red eyes dilated in fear and from adrenaline.

"Make me." He spits out, squeezing his eyes shut long enough for her to drive that sword into his chest. There's a flash of pain and a cry and then the sirens stop, the pain stops and everything stops. It's almost a relief.

There's a twinge of annoyance when he closes his eyes, but Molotov is too tired, too far gone to care all that deeply. He'll have the pleasure of watching his death over and over on the screens in the Capitol, watching her loom over him and win, take away his chances of escaping arena hell.

She exhales, sits back on her haunches for just a moment, then stands up. Using the sword, she drags him along the floor to the fountain, making sure to ram the crown of his head into the pool wall just because she's a petty, angry bitch. Then she pulls him over the edge and dumps him in, leaving him there to be found in the morning or whenever it is that they haul the bodies away. She has yet to stick around and see it happen in person.

Molotov doesn't start that habit now. She could take the sword, but she finds that she doesn't really want it all that much. She returns to her bag, picks it from where it was dropped, and heads away calmly.

Another one down.

She's aimless now. There was no reason to be loyal to anything, everyone she wanted out was gone. No Chibi Usa, no Hotary, no Clem. Pruna and Sandy were still moving around, but the way she figured, they would be OK until something soared down on them, and she didn't want to be around them right now anyway. Seeing Clem go down had been the last straw, and now she was just going to do the Arena however she wanted.

That, and she had no choice at this point. Her ears were ringing, her eye bloodshot, the other behind an eyepatch, useless to her now. The goddamn explosion was enough to make her half blind, and the comic shop had lost its appeal now. She was wandering now, in and out of hiding spots.

She wandered into a store she didn't bother checking for, anxious to get a change of clothes. The knife was in her hand, and she's low to the ground, just looking to see who was going to pop up, as she could hear some rustling in the store.

Clem's death had been a turning point for Dave too, Elsa's death had been the wall he turned and slammed into. He remembers seeing Mindy when Clem went down, he remembers wondering how many members of her brigade she'd kept alive. He'd known they wouldn't last long. He should have helped more, but he didn't.

She isn't quiet enough to escape his ears, even with the soft sounds of bass and raps coming from the little radio he's found. He keeps himself low as well, rounding the corner with his saber held defensively before lowering it when he realises who it is.

"Hey." His voice is soft, a little hoarse too. Everything about him looks tired, but this time Mindy is worse for wear. He opens his mouth to ask where her team is, but decides against it. "Sup with you?"

Mindy turned at the voice, then relaxed slightly when she saw it was Dave. She could kill now, she knew that, but she knew a full on fight would get ugly, and likely leave her the worse for wear. What she didn't need right now was a murderous fight, right? Maybe she did. It might help to get the adrenaline pumping again. Anything to kill the quiet in her, the whirlwind of doubt and self hate and would be's.

"Been better," she said, and is surprised by how weary she sounded, even while her voice was tempered with a steel in it she maintained as Hit Girl. "So have you, I bet. I'm gonna make a guess and say you got put through the wringer. Probably lost a few."

She sat down a moment, hard, on the floor. "Not that its an intuitive guess. You were there for Clem. I kinda lost it a little there."

If she attacked Dave now, there certainly wouldn't be much reason for him to hold back. He's sick of this game, he's sick of people who play this game, he's sick of seeing and reliving things over and over again. It's a time travelers worst nightmare and there's fuck all he can do.

"Elsa's dead." He responds, trying to sound as vacant about it as possible. "Someone shot her in the back." Again, just stating facts, trying to keep his emotions under wraps.

"Yeah." He moves to sit near her, lowering himself down a little more elegantly. He already hurts all over, he doesn't need a sore ass on that list. "I don't blame you. I'm still so fucking mad she was here at all, the assholes said that she'd get special treatment for winning her mini arena and she got approximately fuck all in the easy department. Now the new guys are gonna swoop in with their guns and win, probably."

She wouldn't attack Dave. She'd consider it in her last Arena, but she already won, so as far as she was concerned, she was more than done with being cutthroat about it. If she didn't know the person, they'd get axed.

"Elsa. Shit." She did not look happy with this news. Elsa was a good one. She didn't mark her for winning of course, but hearing that she died still was a heavy thing to digest. She sighed, shaking her head.

"Yup. It's getting raw now. Should be used to that, but its never good to hear."

She closed her eye. "I shouldn't have attacked Pruna. I've done her and Sandy fucking raw before, and I was on good terms with Pruna before. It's just...seeing Clem like that, it reminded me how little power I have, and not just with her. With everything. With my subconscious. Getting to be I can't sleep at night peaceably anymore."

Nevermind the lack of sight, the latest crowning achievement.

"It's been such a slow fucking mess since we hit the ground. Feels like they're drawing it out on purpose. Like they don't want the environment to do the big pickings so we start killing each other." He'd been mulling over this for a while, waiting for fire or zombies or torrential rains of acid. Nothing. Nada.

He listens when she speaks, and he isn't sure what to say. He wants to agree, but he's not sure he does. He's not sure he wasn't seconds away from attacking Pruna himself. He feels like this is a hug moment, or something, when words don't really cut it. He just isn't sure how she handles affection. Fuck it. He loops an arm around her and places a hand on the side of her head, effectively pushing her against his chest.

"Sleep is overrated. So is self control. You can do both of those in excess, then shit passes you by." He drops his hand a little lower, giving her shoulder a wary rub. "But if you want to take a nap I'll keep watch or whatever. I have nothing better to do but sit around and feel sorry for myself."

Edited 2014-09-19 14:53 (UTC)

"Way I see it, some people are totally fine with that," Mindy said, sighing. "Not that I'm surprised. I've done this enough times to know once food gets scarce and you start throwing in new people, the deaths start to come steadily. There's nothing that can be done to stop it, no matter what Captain America says."

It was unfortunate, but that was just the way things were. No point in romanticizing it: people were different, and they dealt with the death arena however they might in their world.

The hug was...good, but Mindy swallowed, licking her dry lips. She knew she was becoming attached, and it would make it worse when Dave was dead, and he WOULD die. That was certain. If you had people dropping bombs or flat out slaughtering others and leaving them up to show, you weren't playing around. Dave could kill, she bet, but could he keep killing with no conscience? Probably not.

Still, she appreciated it. "Sleep is not something I've been coming by easy. I keep...reliving the jail time. It's like they fucking forced PTSD into my mind on purpose. I'm not going to last much longer this way. Even I have my limits."

She gestured to the face. "I can only see half of you."

"I'm under no illusion that everybody wants to leave with their hands clean, but there's gotta be some reasoning behind this easy setting. Roombas aren't exactly the scariest thing we've faced off against."

When she doesn't protest it, he relaxes a little, blissfully unaware of her line of thinking. He's died over and over again, but that doesn't mean he hasn't faced the idea of a death he won't come back from before. Before he came here, he had a feeling he'd go down saving his friends from their big boss. If he needs to change it up a little and save the people he's met here, he'd do it. It's probably more likely than he wants to admit, too.

Again, he's not sure what he can do or say. He's never really been in a situation quite like this. "You aren't about to let them win though, are you? You made it this far." It feels annoyingly hollow and he's not sure how to fill that void. "Whatever you do, you better have explosions or some shit. Go out with a bang- wait, what? Where'd the other half of me go?"

"Oh. That's what you meant." Her heart sunk slightly here. "Yeah, something big's gonna happen sometime soon then. This settling stuff never just happens. They're probably going to throw a wrench in the works pretty fucking soon."

Surviving this long was because Mindy knew she was good enough to do it. But trying to win again, like she did before? That was bullshit. She already proved she could last in this thing, and as far as she was concerned, what the hell good could winning again even DO for her? She'd just have to end up slaughtering more people for them, and for what? They had already reminded her what they could do to her if she disobeyed their shit, and they'd already mangled her friends and brought her dad back from the dead. What point did she even have to prove?

"Let who win? The gamemakers that tortured me and through me into this fucking Arena? I think they pretty much win by default. I kill a bunch of people, they take credit for making me stronger. I get killed, they say it was mu punishment. So really, do I EVER really get to win?"

Her friends were dead already, and now she was starting to long for the Capitol, if only to see some of them again.

"They went here," she said, indicating her eye, "and that's why they're gone now. Kind of a fucked up irony I was already scarred on that side, now I can't even see out of it. Or maybe they'd call the shit poetic justice."

"They only win if you let them win. Trust me, I know how hokey it sounds. I don't know what they put you through, but I know it sucks. Maybe winning doesn't have to be some grand victory, it just means you aren't some name on their little good list or whatever." He lets out a short sigh. "Look, I suck at this. Point is, your my mentor and if you give up, whatever you're giving up, we're basically fucked. Probably." Now he's exhaling like he just ran a marathon. "That was the was motivational speech anyone has ever made."

He just shakes his head at himself. "I mean if you don't want to win that's fine, but never let a bitch see you sweat, right?" He gestures for her to tilt her face up. "Has anyone had a look at it?"

How could they NOT win? They had come damn near closer to wrecking her spirit, they'd taken all of the things that made her who she was, and to top it off, they had brought back the one person in the world she wanted to see, only to take him away again. About the only thing that she could hold onto was her rebellion, and after the latest indignity, what would even happen with that?

"I don't think I'm on their list of good people NOW," she reminded him, gesturing to the mark on her face. "As for giving up, well, you're not going to see me 'bravely' giving up on my life or anything in this Arena. If there's one thing that I can't ever do, its give up, even if it might be the best fucking option."

Which for right now? Might be a little good for her, if only to recover from everything.

"Look at it for what? And who would I even trust to do that? The only people I would have let get near this are gone, the assholes took them away."

"I think they're running out of people they can put on a good list." He points out, trying not to let too much hope slip into his voice when he says that. He knows they'll stamp out whatever they can, but there's something a little inspiring about everyone starting to rise up a little more and a little faster every time.

"Good." He feels a little curt, so he adds. "Your recovery time is just going to get quicker every time. It's like the Olympics of dealing with emotional trauma."

He shrugs his shoulders. "Check if it's still there." He offers with a small smirk. "Do you trust me?"

"Bet that's how they find their most loyal lapdogs then," she said icily, letting him know exactly what she thought of people like that. Killers, no doubt, or at least the sort of guiltless fuckfaces willing to look the other way. People that Mindy would have no problem getting rid of, given the inclination.

She scoffed. "Man, how did I ever get so lucky? Oh right, I was trained to deal with harsh fucking conditions. Not so educated on torture though, that's pretty new."

Awful too, and just the thing to turn Mindy's usual mindscape into a nightmare of bright lights, electrocution and a parched throat.

She rolled her eye. "Nah bruh, pretty sure I'm still blind in the other eye. But if you're that curious, go ahead. It's not like I can do anything about it anymore."

AKA? She did trust him. She couldn't say that so easily about everyone in the Arena.

"I always had a feeling the ruthless training would come in handy." He mutters that in a low voice, trying to skirt away from real talk now because he's exhausted and beyond good at it. Looking at eyes? He can do this.

"Lemme work my magic." He moves to pull off his shades, putting his red eyes on display with much less ceremony than he might have used a while ago. Plenty of people have seen them by now, it's one of the things he's had to suck up.

"Stay still." He murmurs, reaching out to push Mindy's hair out of her face with a rough hand before using one hand to keep her face steady. He leans in to look critically at both, thinning his eyes when he does and realising he actually has no idea what to do with this. "Yep. That's an eye."

"You never know when you'll need it," Mindy replied, more than glad to leave their serious conversation behind. It was starting to get her to feel rather down, and she didn't need to think about something like that when she had to have her head in the game.

The red eyes didn't bother her, of course. Instead she stared back at him with interest, wondering what he was going to do next.

She snickered. "Dude, trust me. I can't see through the other one. I know its fucked. Nothing I can do about that. So other than me being crippled, how are things going on your end?"

"Hey, you never know. I could have looked in your eyes and discovered the implanted secrets to the universe in it or something." Because that's super likely to happen, of course. He's just trying to breeze past the fact that he's embarrassed he doesn't know how to fix it.

"Have you washed it out with water or something? I head that helps temporary blindness." No it doesn't, not remotely. He pulls a face at the question and moves to put his glasses back on before he answers. "I haven't lost any limbs, can't bitch much. It'd be a real peachy vacation if people stopped dying, huh?"

"Maybe if they let you keep the abilities you had," Mindy said, "but since they pretty much take everything away like assholes, can't expect much. It's a shame too. I would really like to say I only scarred my face and it looks cool."

She gave him a dirty look. "Dude, you remember I actually was last girl standing a few Arenas ago, right? You think the first thing I'm not gonna do is try and flush the infected area? Come on."

She snorted. "Wish I was that lucky. Think my day is starting off to shit."

"Universal all-seeing powers are Rose's thing, anyway. I only do time and time accessories. Clocks and pocket watches, sometimes I'll get really archaic and get my knowledge on with a sun dial." He just snorts at what she says. "It's pretty badass. And it's probably safe from every being a trend, realistically speaking. I can't see Capitol people lining up for it, anyway."

He holds his hands up in surrender at the look. "Sometimes self-care is neglected in the face of overwhelming misery. I read it in a book once. Probably."

"What? She never told me this, that bitch! I'm going to give her so much shit the next time I see her!" Actually, good idea, focus on someone else, something else that isn't her face, that the dawning blindness is seeping in. "So you mess around with time? Is that your power?"

Pfft, like the Capitol members would dare actually scar their precious faces for life.

Mindy made a derisive noise. "There's trying to look bad ass and then there's just being fucking stupid. No way I would let myself get blind on purpose."

"I dunno how much she does with it anymore, to be honest. Not sure how much you told you, but we're usually twins. She's my sister, but she's my sister in another dimension. Shit is weird back home." It's awkward to explain, but it's better to talk about than all the other depressing topics they've been going over.

"Yeah, something like that. Timeline hopping and all that jazz. God mode life hacks, like jacking up my bank account in the past so I'm rich in the future." He misses his moolah. "Means fuck all here, though." He scoffs, reaching out awkwardly to give her shoulder a shove for her snark. "So you're a badass normal, right? No powers?"

"I don't know how to tell you this Dave," Mindy began, "but shit is really REALLY fucking weird here too. When people I read about in comic books are walking around, trust me, shit is weird. I'm about to accept just about anything from other worlds, so long as this shit continues to happen."

She made a face. "I can sympathize there. I was actually going to be pretty rich back in my world too, with all the heists dad and I pulled from criminals. Instead, I was pulled to this charming place."

She nodded. "Damn right. Awesome all on my own."

"Yeah, well. People believe that shit but I tell them I can time travel and my twin sister is twice my age from a different timeline and they look at me like I grew a second head. Nobody has any consistency around here, honestly." Ah yes, bitching always makes him feel so much better. Mindy is good at letting some petty as hell rage out with, this must be what gossiping is like.

"Guess it's not so bad. Food, bed, showers I never use. You think when we come back we'll all be in bunk beds in some little storage room? Feels weird to be grinding on the lap of luxury after everything that's happened."

"People like normal, and for the most part, a lot of them go by rules. When you starting throwing shit in their head about time travel and twin sisters and stuff, you hurt their head. They like to think about shit that makes sense, that's real. If you think about it, its because of all of this. None of THIS, bringing us here to be part of their regime, should make sense, but here we are."

In other words, people liked normal where they could hold on tight.

"It's not the life for me," she said. "The luxury of it, anyway. It's their way of reminding us that we should be grateful, that we're better than the people in our district. That never sat well with me. Still doesn't."

"Hello again."

Kankri peeks into the Strider shop when he notices who's inside. He's been staying out of most people's sight as much as possible, but a friendly face is certainly welcome. Semi-friendly. Whatever, he's Karkat's friend, Karkat may be awful at times (most of the time) but the people he's around tend to at least be constant when push comes to shove, and that is something to value. Besides, Kankri's sick of isolating himself like he did after the last Arena.

"Dave, isn't it? Have you been faring well?"

For a moment, Dave tenses at the sound of someone entering, but the voice is familiar and pretty quickly deemed as harmless. By this point he's out of his corner and sitting on one of the counters with a comic open in front of him. He's barely paying attention to it, so the interruption isn't unwelcome.

He needs to think on that question for a moment, resisting the urge to laugh a little bitterly. "I'm alive, aren't I?" That doesn't really answer Kankri's question, but at the same time it might shed a little light on his state, given how tired he sounds. "Pacifism still working for you, bra?"

Kankri's face falls. Yes, they're getting into the harder weeks of the Arena now, aren't they? Kankri knows it himself all too well. He's lost people. Had things happen which he would rather not. It always gets harder the longer they're in here, harder to keep going.

"As much as it can be expected to and ever does," he replies quietly. "Would you like some company, or would you prefer that I leave?"

By Dave's calculations, everyone is having a pretty awful time by this point. It's the drop before the bass or some other analogy. Really, he's having one of those ridiculous self-pity filled moments where he finds it hard to believe anyone is having a worse time than him. Granted he just washed the blood of one of his best friends off his hands, but this is an awful place and trauma is daily for everyone. Maybe listening to someone else complain will be cathartic for a while.

"That's what I thought." He doesn't mean to needle, but the snark comes naturally when he's in a pissy mood like this. "Nah, sure. With everyone dying my calender is wide open for chitchat." He pats the counter space in front of him. "Come take a seat in my office, hombre."

Kankri shrugs. At this point he doesn't get too perturbed by people not understanding why he insists on following his own philosophy in such a situation. "The idea is not for it to 'work.' I know I'm not going to win, regardless of whether I do as our captors wish and attack others, and I certainly don't intend to. If I must die repeatedly for others' amusement then I see no point in playing their game. And they seem to find my defiance of their expectations entertaining enough to keep bringing me back." Is that a note of bitterness creeping into his voice? It just might be.

He takes a seat on the indicated counter and peers over at the comic. "Is it interesting at all? This late in the Arena, I find occupying one's time can be difficult."

Really, Dave has no room to talk. He's only killed one person in three arenas and he hadn't quite meant for it to happen the way it did. Still, he doesn't go around admitting it quite so much, so he assumes it's something relatively important to Kankri.

"You must be doing something right if you're still around. People are dropping off like flies here." He notes the hint of bitterness and feels a little bad for bringing it up, but not too much.

"I've read it before. Like. Three years ago." He scoffs to himself. "It's a literary adventure and I highly recommend it. You can really identify with this guy who jizzes webs out his elbows at bad guys and has girl trouble."

"Yes, I've found things start getting desperate for people at this point." He sighs sadly. "The one consolation is knowing that it will be over soon, and then we all have a brief reprieve."

He blinks at the explanation. Really, sometimes Dave just seems utterly incomprehensible. "If you say so. How is - Loki, you said his name was? Is he doing all right?" Kankri knows all too well what a comfort it can be to have someone else to be with during the Arena. Even if that makes it hard to lose them later.

...Actually, he really hopes Loki's okay, because otherwise he may have poked one of Dave's very sore spots. "Er- I mean, if he's not, then I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up something upsetting-"

"Hey, small victories. I don't want to say I'd kill for a bath and a shower because, let's be real, they take that shit very seriously here. But damn son, I smell mustier than an old person's home and I could sleep more than all of those coots right now."

Ramble, ramble. Barely comprehensible but he keeps on keeping on anyway. "He's fine." He answers quickly, just to alleviate the awkwardness before it can get any more intense. "He handles this shit better than I do, anyway. All kinds of competent with the heavy shit, that guy." It's hard to say if it's affection or self-depreciation, but it's there. "How's team troll? I haven't seen many of you guys around."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Life's the biggest troll but the joke is on us

[Molotov]

i think you mean [Grim Reaper]

more accurate tbh

but she left her robe at home

-2 for lack of showmanship

they wouldn't let her bring her scythe in with her!

bastards

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