thearena | Team...whatsit.

"Yes. And soon. Too much noise and movement around here, we aren't safe. Half the arena has to know where we are now, and I'd rather not stick around to learn which of those would use that to their advantage."

She takes one deep breath and looks hard at Ariadne. The girl is little more than a stranger to her, but she has no desire for any harm to come to her. But Shepard thinks she's stronger than she looks, now that she's taking the time to actually see. "Get everything together. I'll find Garrus. I'll meet you back at the campsite in... 10 minutes?"

Not that they have any possible way to tell time out here, but it's will give them both a general sense of a time frame to work in.

"10 minutes," Ariadne agrees, hefting Shepard's pack onto her free shoulder, knowing full well that any longer might mean all of their deaths. Her heart is in her throat at the idea, but that doesn't get them anywhere; if she freaks out, she'll only slow everyone else down. At this point, it's best to just listen to orders and get out of there as soon as they can.

She swallows thickly and nods again, exhaling to calm herself before starting back towards the campsite to gather their things up. She has everything of hers already on her.

Ten minutes crawl by like hours, but still she finds she doesn't have enough time. Garrus. Garrus. Where are you, Garrus? She can't bring herself to shout his name too loudly, not with her heart in her throat. But she calls to him, still. Searches every nook and cranny she can think of that Garrus might have wandered off too. But time after time, she finds herself back at the path of the rock slide. Dust-heavy air and damaged earth make it almost unrecognizable. Its the scarred path of the mountain face and then the drop...

Without Amy or Ariadne right in front of her, its easier to allow her eyes to blur. She swallows back all the tears and fears threatening to crawl up her throat and escape in a scream. She has to find Garrus. Because she can't lose them both. Not when she just got them back.

Only one cannon fire, she has to remind herself. Only one. But neither Kaidan nor Garrus are anywhere to be seen. And ten minutes have come and gone and the longer she stands there looking out over the edge, helpless to do anything for whomever may have fallen from where she stands, the more vulnerable she leaves herself and the girls.

It isn't much. But she arranges a handful of broken sticks and small rocks into a message that reads simply "N7→", leaving the arrow pointing in the direction she plans to head. If by some chance whichever of the two remained alive -- she still thinks it's Garrus, but she is starting to wonder -- they'll know it's her and where to find her. And hopefully it will be vague enough for anyone else to just see as sticks.

She returns to the campsite in search of Amy and Ariadne, but the look on her face is easy to read. She didn't find what she was looking for, and the clock is ticking. Daylight is quick to fade around here, and this area is far from safe.

"We should go."

True to her word, Ariadne had quickly gathered all of their things, keeping everyone's stuff as separate as possible while still easy to carry. Her own bag is still holding up well; she's impressed with herself.

She doesn't say anything when Shepard returns; she doesn't need to. Now isn't the time to start asking questions and demanding answers, though. That can wait till they get somewhere safe, somewhere that isn't prone to rock slides. She nods instead, glancing in the direction she figures is safest, "That way?"

Shepard nods, briefly. Her breath short and her body aching, though she doesn't think it's solely from her day's earlier exertions. It's a bone deep pain that makes her feel hollow and like she's about to be sick. But she swallows it down, because she refuses to let a little thing like grief to slow her.

She shoulders the bag she'd given to Ariadne to pack with their supplies. It's heavier now, and the weight and movement of it is painful against her back, blooming black and blue bruises from Kaidan's little mishap with her only that morning. The scrapes and bruises are only painful, physical reminders of his absence, now. And the bittersweet hope that things had finally started to look better between them only for him to be snatched away.

She begins to move, allowing Ariadne to fall in step with her. She'll push them if she must, but for now, she'll let them keep their own pace. They seem like smart enough girls, and they certainly should know the danger they are in. It feels like running. No. It is running, and part of her hates it. But she can't take on an enemy she isn't prepared to fight, and so she moves, allowing herself one long last look behind her, hoping against all odds to see Garrus saunter over to them, grin and make one of his terrible jokes. But he isn't there and they have to go.

Ariadne watches Shepard closely, unsure of what to say or do beyond just keep moving. Unsure of whether or not the other woman is hurt too badly to keep moving at any kind of decent clip, unsure if she'll be able to keep them both safe if the need arises. She hopes it won't.

Her eyes dart around as they move through the Arena, her heart in her throat. Finally, she broaches the topic that's been on the tip of her tongue for a while: "Are you all right?"

Shepard makes a sound that is supposed to sound like a puff of a laugh, but there aren't many who could possibly miss the absence of humour there. "I'll be fine," she insists. And that is true enough. She will be. She's just going to be sore as all hell for a few days. But a little thing like pain isn't going to slow her down. "Just a few bumps and bruises," she insists.

They keep mostly under the cover of foliage; trees and brushes. Anything to keep them out of the sight of others. As they move, she watches and listens for the sign of others. Unfamiliar tributes or... a fallen ally. She finds nothing.

It takes a while for her to speak again. She doesn't want to make much noise. They've made more than enough all day, so the quieter they remain, the better she will feel. But maybe a little assurance will go a long way, and the last thing she needs is either of the girls to be worrying about her. "We should keep moving until nightfall," she insists, hoping Ariadne will take that as an assurance that she can.

And they do. Quiet, rushed, tired and hungry, Shepard carries on through the Arena until the shadows start to blur together and the night noises of the forest come alive. They only come to pause when the evening's 'ceremony' begins. An anthem none of them had ever heard before their coming here courses through the air, blaring like an unwelcome symphony.

Her heart is in her stomach and her eyes burn as the flickering image of not Kaidan, but Garrus is displayed in the night sky and she wants to scream. Wants to cry. Wants to collapse to her knees and punch holes in the hard ground, but she does none of those things. Only stands there and looks at the sky with an expression unreadable to most. Maybe its a selfish thing, but she doesn't want anyone... not Ariadne, not Amy, and certainly not the rest of this world to know just what Garrus had meant to her.

She doesn't want them to know anything.

She knows better than to push the topic when she has no proof that Shepard is anything worse than just the obvious scrapes and bruises she had mentioned. This isn't the same as with Cobb and Arthur and everyone else; these are people she doesn't know intimately. She hasn't been in their heads, she doesn't know what makes them tick from those minor details hidden in the dreamscapes. She only knows what she's shown, and that isn't enough to tell her otherwise.

Ariadne suspects, certainly, but that isn't the same thing.

She's fine with the silence, knowing that it's prudent to keep quiet lest someone trail them. They can hear people coming this way, rather than alerting the Arena to their presence. The Gamemakers will be watching them anyway, and maybe they'll be giving enough of a show to warrant some further care. When Shepard speaks next, she merely nods, taking just enough of a break to force herself onwards; if Shepard can do it in her state, Ariadne most certainly can.

She's unsure of how to feel when the anthem plays. When it's Garrus' face, not Kaidan's. She doesn't know either that well, but she does know Kaidan a bit better. She's almost grateful.

But all the same, she glances to Shepard, trying to read her. Impossible, of course, like trying to read a book in Braille without knowing it. Only her sharp inhale and her intense stare would suggest that she was concerned.

When she finally lets herself pause to rest, it's hard not to wince as she eases herself to the ground, leaning against the trunk of a fallen tree. Her back is black with bruises, she's certain, though she hasn't actually seen it for herself. And while it's a relief to have the weight of the pack off her shoulders for just a moment, the press of the tree bark is just a new and different discomfort. But her feet appreciate it; sore from the walking and the wet and the cold. They were fine enough shoes they'd strapped her into, but too new. Not enough time to get them to form to her feet like a second skin.

"Kaidan is still alive," Shepard finally breaks their silence with the unsaid but obvious statement, forcing herself to hold on to the one positive the universe will allow her. She wishes she knew what to do about it though. She wants to go searching for him. He's somewhere, alone and likely injured, and every instinct she has screams at her to not leave a fallen man behind. But there is the safety of the girls, and even herself to be concerned over, and they've traveled into unfamiliar territory and there are far too many unknowns, other tributes and Gamemaker traps alike. For the moment, she knows there is little that she can do right now, other than regroup and get her bearings.

Ariadne remains standing while Shepard rests; she wants to make sure that if they were followed, if there's any sort of threat, they can take care of it quickly. She hasn't lost her knife yet, and it remains well within her reach. She keeps an eye on their surroundings, watching everything as best she can before glancing back down to the other woman.

"He knows what he's doing," she states, hoping that she's right. "He'll find us again."

Shepard doesn't doubt Ariadne's words. She knows the girl would be right, if she could believe that Kaidan was actually in any sort of state to taking care of himself. At the very least, he had taken quite a tumble. Hell, even if he'd been armored, she'd be worried about serious damage. But Kaidan had been in wrapped up in the same boots and pants and jacket that they all were. But she smiles and nods anyway, appreciating the sentiment and without any energy or care left to voice her concerns.

"We should eat. Rest up for a little bit and move along." she says, even though she doesn't have an appetite to speak of and isn't sure she could sleep, even if she wanted to. But it's worth giving a shot.

Edited 2012-05-06 03:56 (UTC)

"You're right," she replies, voice dropping slightly, keeping quiet. She fishes through her bag, finding what little food she herself has been keeping and sharing with the others, offering it up to them as she joins Shepard in sitting. If they're resting proper, it's best to actually rest; she knows she can watch their perimetres even from sitting. "We still have time to find a new site before it gets too dark."

She forces herself to eat a few bites, making a mental note that there isn't much to go around. She also sips on some water. Nothing has any taste to it, but she can't recall if it ever did even before today.

For a moment, she shuts her eyes. Not to sleep, but in effort to quiet her racing, screaming mind. For days, things had felt like a hyper-realistic and often times slow-paced bad dream, but now things were encroaching into nightmare territory. She's faced worse and more traumatic things in her life already, but at least there had always been some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Even situations where death seemed likely eminent, things has looked better. Because at least then, she would have been dying for a reason.

Here? Death was the only thing that awaited all but one of them. And even if she lived... what then?

Nothing. But what good would come from thoughts like that?

Nothing.

No, she needed to get her head back in straight. Find objectives. Safety. Shelter. Survive. So, she passes the remaining share of her food to the other girls and with slow, light movements, prods at the most tender spots on her back, just to make sure that their little journey down the mountain hadn't made anything worse.

"A few more minutes, and will you be ready to move again?"

For the duration of their rest, Ariadne's eyes are locked on Shepard. She's concerned, nervous; she knows, from past experience in the dreams, that when people are injured, you can never be sure what will happen. Though she trusts that Shepard will be all right, there's no saying what might happen from here on out.

She's not really quite so concerned about Amy; the other girl isn't much to worry about, if their conversations were ever anything to go off of.

Still, it's not nearly the same as the nervousness she felt around Cobb. This is a much more comfortable discomfort, though she's not sure how to word that without sounding insane. She's glad, though, that this isn't a dream, even though it would allow her to build beyond anyone's imaginations; she could outwit even the Gamemakers, if only they were all asleep.

It was wishful thinking, all in all, but Ariadne could still hope for it. She hadn't expected building to play such a part in her life, but Arthur was right all along - she had to come back.

Shepard's voice snap her back from her reverie, and her eyes come back into focus; she nods assent, finishing up the brief snack. She still isn't used to any of this. It's easier to take orders and figure it out, but she almost wishes she could just step back for ten minutes and figure out what was happening. Certainly, she has a mental map of the Arena, but it's rough; she doesn't know where anyone else is.

Ariadne pauses, letting out a soft exhale not unlike an exclamation or sorts before she begins clearing the area up, removing all traces of their having been there.

The break and the food had helped, and now the movement.... maybe she's just getting used to the pain, or maybe she's just hyper-aware of her Cerberus implants being put to good use, but either way it doesn't seem as bad as it had been just a short while ago. Or maybe it's all in her head. She's not sure it matters in the end, so long as she can keep herself going.

The encroaching darkness and steep terrain makes movement slow, but better slow and steady than standing still she believes. At least there is less and less snow as they continue on their way, and hey... no harm looking for something good about this hellish day, right?

Shepard grew up on a space station, and called an Alliance starship frigate home, so she was actually quite used to a steady, regulated 72 degrees. Training and exposure had given her the necessary experience she needed to know how to deal with it, but that didn't exactly translate into her having any sort of fond feelings toward the cold. Until now, her most recent memory of dealing with snow was back on Noveria. Back when she'd had both Kaidan and Garrus at her side. She thinks maybe it's best to move away from it as much as possible. Plus, snow is far easier to leave tracks in, and basically anyone with a set of working eyes can follow a trail in the snow. She'd rather not have that.

The area they are headed is...as familiar as anything else in this region of the Arena. Since the Cornucopia and before her meeting up with the girls and Kaidan and Garrus, she'd wandered much of the west, as far as she could go. It ended about a kilometer west of their position in nothingness; a cliff-side and an unfamiliar sort of energy barrier. It wasn't a mass effect field, so... well, at least it was something to rule out.

"I never asked..." Shepard breaks their silence, voice still quiet so as not to make too much noise. But with the darkness getting even blacker around them, she needs more than her eyes to make sure they're close by. "Where are you from?"

Ariadne certainly does prefer the lack of snow; while it doesn't necessarily bother her, it's just easier to move, to survive without it. It does keep people at bay, though - she's grateful for that. She thinks that - and the alliance - might be what are keeping her alive.

She doesn't mind soft-spoken conversation in the dark; her own nerves are starting to work as darkness falls, and the sound of everyone's voices nearby alleviates that a little bit. "Paris. I was studying architecture before all of this."

'All of this'. The vaguest way to include both Cobb's arrival into her life, and the Arena. Both could be considered along the same lines of life and death, though nothing Cobb put her up to ever involved killing other people. Watching them die, perhaps, but never killing them directly. Probably a good thing.

"Paris, huh?" Shepard smiles at the word, even gives the smallest hint of a laugh, because she knows Paris. Or, of Paris at least. She's never been, herself. To be perfectly honest, she's only had her feet on the surface of the Earth itself maybe a total of a few months' worth of time, if she were to add it all up. "You know, I half expected you to say some place I'd never heard of. It's a lovely place, if the vids are anything to go by."

She pauses a moment. A shuffle in the leaves catches her attention and she can feel the adrenaline already starting to pump through her veins, until sh spies a squirrel scurry out from the underbrush and up the trunk of a tree.

She isn't wholly certain of how to take the laugh, but Shepard's next words relieve her somewhat; truth be told, she isn't exactly certain that she'll often run into people from places she's familiar with either. She lets herself laugh a little with the other woman, making the most of it while it lasts.

"It is-" She hesitates when the squirrel passes by, lowering her voice more as she continues: "It's just as lovely, I'm sure, even if there's no video that could possibly give you the feeling of being surrounded by everything."

"What made you want to study architecture?" she has to wonder. It's always been a bit fascinating to her, to learn what led others down the paths they found themselves on. The ones they chose for themselves, at least. The life of a soldier had really been the only thing Shepard had really wanted in life.

For a moment, she thinks that maybe this isn't such a good idea, asking questions like these. To get to know someone just a little bit, before one of them inevitably dies. But then, she remembers the cameras. That thing Amy caries around with her, and all the others around them, out there in the rocks and trees, hidden from view. And maybe... maybe making things personal isn't all that bad. Sympathy for their cause - make the outside world see them as real people. It wouldn't hurt anything, except maybe her own heart in the end.

"I'd always loved creating. It was like drawing, but with that one step further. Being able to see something like that through from its initial conception to the end...it's amazing." She's aware that she's rambling a little bit, but she feels strongly about it.

The worst part of all of this is that she won't be able to build anything like that again. Not in dreams, not in reality. But she doesn't let that show on her face as they walk; she only lets the fact that she truly loves what she does show clearly. Shepard has the right idea anyway - maybe this way, they can get a little bit more sympathy garnered towards them in the end.

"Creativity is something I find very fascinating. A friend once told me that creativity was a sign of cultural progression. Music? Art? It's all over the galaxy, in so many forms and mediums. But I don't have a creative bone in my body," Shepard says with an almost-smile. "Couldn't draw my way out of a paper bag, no less imagine up an entire building."

It was pleasant - no, that was too tame a word. It was fascinating to hear that the galaxy was filled with people like her, all creating all manner of things as they saw fit. She even smiled, wider than usual, as the conversation progressed. "What about an entire city? An entire world?"

She laughs again, "Me? Imagine up an entire world? No. I think not. I think my mind is just shifted a little differently. You say words like buildings and cities and worlds, and where you imagine designs and ways to make them beautiful and functional, I try to find weaknesses: the easiest wall to crumble, the best place to set up a perfect shot."

Her last few words stir up a small ping of sorrow and loss. Memories of talking sniper vantage points and scopes with Garrus in the main battery during nights neither of them could sleep....

"I can't even imagine of what you would think of Ilos..." she says almost to herself, since she's pretty certain Ariadne will not know what she's talking about. Though it doesn't make her any less sure that the girl would love it. "A place scattered with sprawling ancient cities built hundreds of thousands of years ago; humans were still drawing pictures in caves with sticks when these places were raised; beautiful, massive places built by a people far more advanced than we. I've never seen a place more impressive, and I've seen... well, let's say I've seen my fair share of things."

She pauses, makes sure she's got her footing as they cross over a frigid bubbling stream in the darkness, the moon overhead is still giving them plenty of pale silver light to walk by and the lightness of their conversation seems to have made the pain in every step she takes a little less noticeable. "But say, hypothetically... you could design an entire world? How would you even begin? I'm curious."

She lets Shepard's words roll over her; it's not like she ever wants anything she builds to be destroyed, but she knows it happens from time to time. Eames, putting in an entirely separate line that circumvented all her hard work, taking liberties with her designs. She couldn't really hate him for it, considering how well he did his job, but it was frustrating. What architect didn't want to see their work stand forever?

But even in limbo, nothing stood forever. Things broke down, things gave way. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.

Truthfully, she hasn't the slightest as to what Shepard is talking about when the reference to Ilos comes. All the same, the description gets her a little bit giddy, and she lets out a soft gasp at the very imagination of it. Things like the caves of Lascaux mixing with the more decent designs of Dubai, all towering structures and juxtapositions of style and movement. "It sounds amazing," she finally states, letting a bit of her awe slip into her voice.

Ariadne waits until they've crossed the stream before she even tries to explain the process. "It's easier than it sounds. All you need is the basic concept, and it evolves from there. As long as you have that, you have your cohesion, and it'll look like it all belongs. Even with a client, you still have enough room to do whatever you like: it's pure creation, through and through."

"You must love it," she says, because it's clear in Ariadne's voice that she does. "How long have you studied for? You... forgive me, but you don't exactly sound like you're from France. Is that what you went to Paris for? Architecture?"

Team...whatsit.

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oh dear this is super delayed D: i should be better now though!

that's okay! it happens to everyone~

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oh, would you look at that!? another super-late tag.

I backtag into forever, anyway~

officially off my haitus now; have a small backtag novel!

yaaay, novels! \o/

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