Arena 05 - Chill

[gamemakers]

Usually, the tribute's outfits for the arena aren't accessorized. But today, the last thing their stylists hand them before the countdown begins is a pair of heavy black glasses, polarized and thick-lensed. They look at odds with the thick, winter gear they've been outfitted in.


It's a long rise to the surface today, inside their individual little tubes, much longer than usual. They start to feel the cold only about halfway up, and to hear the wind. It howls across the surface as they reach it, pressing all of their clothes flat against their bodies. And the reason for the glasses is immediately apparent.


20 - 19 - 18


The sky is white. The ground is white (and gray and black and blue but mostly white), the far-off sea is blinding silver. Everything in sight flings light around, fractures it into scintilating rainbows and sheer white beams of reflection. It is strong, cruel light, and it bears no heat at all. The surface is so cold that the little metal trackers ache in everyone's arm, and the countdown has to continue at a deafening volume to be heard.


 12 - 11 - 10 -


The circle of silver pedestals is the only regular shape to be seen. All else is fractured and split, the most uneven footing imaginable. And at the center of the circle, the Cornucopia sports icycles hanging from its lip, almost to the pile of supplies tucked all neatly inside its mouth.


4


3


2


There's a lull in the wind just as the gong sounds, letting it peal out across the frozen glacier, and echo off the high rock cliffs in the distance. And the ice answers, with a loud crack that seems to come from miles down.


Let the Games begin.

Comments

[downbeat]

Katurian's heart was pumping fire and crude oil and dissociation -- but he still couldn't move from behind the covered snow bank where he had escaped after fighting Sherlock.

He had tried to tell himself that he was living in a movie right now, in a picture book, in a story, and in that story, the protagonist was going to freeze to death if he didn't get one of those bags, but it was no use. The initial adrenaline had worn off, and Katurian was only a man wrapped in a jacket with his life ticking away between his breaths.

With the whipping wind, he couldn't even hear the sound of Grey's approaching footsteps.

[greymatter]

Meeting the very same snow bank that Katurian happens to be hiding behind, the scientist uses his momentum to vault over it. And lands right beside the cowering writer.

He hadn't expected someone to be on the other side. He should have. Of course people would be hiding wherever there was cover. But he hadn't expected someone to be on the other side of this one.

Flipping the harpoon around to take it in both hands, he aims the point straight at Katurian.

[downbeat]

Katurian doesn't have time to think. Grey is a series of lines and shadows and shapes. He is an obstacle -- not a man. It's for that reason that he doesn't yell or cry or stick his hands up in surrender when Grey aims the harpoon. He instead rides his blind adrenaline and dives forward, ducking down and lunging in an attempt to curl his arms around Grey's knees, to knock him over.

[greymatter]

He wasn't expecting that either.

Set off balance, he falls backwards onto the snow covered ice, the bag slung over his shoulder catching part of his fall. "Get off!" He snarls, jabbing the harpoon in Katurian's direction.

[downbeat]

Katurian immediately recognizes the problem with this, the problem with not thinking. His arms catch under Grey's legs as they tumble down together and the left, oh, the left is easier to free, but the right one is squeezed down between Grey's leg and the ice. He shoots up his left arm, frantically trying to push away (or grab) the harpoon.

[greymatter]

Bringing a leg up, Grey kicks out at him, aiming for his face. He can't be positive that this man has no weapons, but considering his utterly ridiculous plan of attack, he'd guess that he does not. Perhaps his first kill will be even earlier than he'd thought.

[downbeat]

The kick connects with his face with a crack, and before Katurian realizes, his face is leaking blood. Now he yells, but the sound is muffled by the blood that fills his sinuses. His nose is an explosion of fire and white light, and for a moment, he is stunned, knowing nothing but that moment, but that pain.

[greymatter]

He takes the opportunity to squirm free of the other man, bracing a hand on the ice to steady himself as he gets his feet beneath him. The harpoon is once again turned on Katurian, a grin now lighting the scientist's visage. "...Do you often attempt to tackle people holding harpoons?"

[downbeat]

Katurian gives a laugh that borders on hysterical, high-pitched and uneven. It dies in his throat moments later -- not even terror can do justice to this experience. He touches his broken nose with his palm. There is something strangely grounding about it, feeling for injuries instead of dreading death.

"This is a first," he slurs. He does not try to get to his feet. Why bother?

[greymatter]

"And a last." He comments, placing the tip of the harpoon against the other man's sternum with a grin. Katurian is a new face, and new tributes tended to be utterly unaware of the fact that they could come back after death.

[downbeat]

He does expect death. He does think this will his last. Katurian thinks about Michal, about the very real possibility that he'll be executed if he never returns home-- or worse, that he'll become a ward of the state and live the life of misery and abuse that Katurian has given his whole life to protect him from. This provokes a steadier fear in his gut than simply the fear of death. This provokes something like survival.

"Please," he says. He is not ashamed of begging. He meets Grey's eyes. "P-Please not now."

[greymatter]

Grey raises an eyebrow. "Not now?" He asks, with a laugh that's half carried off by the wind. "When would be preferable for you?" He implores amusedly, before jabbing the sharp end of the harpoon against Katurian's sternum, his voice taking on a growl. "Why shouldn't I?"

His eyes momentarily wander to the spatter of blood Katurian's left on the pristine whiteness of the snow, fixating on how incredibly bright and vivid it appears against such a pure and reflective background.

Snow was a good place for blood to be spilled.

[downbeat]

This is not a man he can appeal to on grounds of mercy. It does not escape him, the way he looks down at the blood splattered snow. Katurian has seen that same look on his parents, that same light. Unbeknownst to Katurian, that same look is in his own eyes when he pours over fictional murders and choreographed deaths, when he gleans and dreams and breathes in the shadow that shrouds them all. That quite obsession. That admiration of death.

His breath catches and the world spins as Grey presses the blade against his chest. "I'm still useful," he breathes through the pain, the fear. He flexes his fingers. "Retire me when I'm not."

[greymatter]

The scientist narrows his eyes behind the dark glasses, silent and unmoving. He's kept to himself through all of the past arenas and done well enough save for one. But this one... this was an entirely different kind of arena. Resources were scarcer than ever. Cover was nearly non-existent. And the cold threatened to claim any living creature as a new landmark upon the glacier.

A temporary alliance (if it could be called that) could possibly be of benefit. And if it wasn't... well. That would be easy enough to take care of.

He pulls the harpoon away from Katurian's chest.

[downbeat]

He releases a breath, his temporary calm (temporary numbness?) giving way to shudders and gasps. He cups his bleeding, broken nose.

Under other, more pessimistic circumstances, Katurian would wonder if he was only postponing the inevitable, drawing out his own death in this frozen wasteland. Yet he still has hope. He still thinks that if he lasts long enough, someone will free him and take him home. Someone will make everything normal again.

"You w-won't regret this," he says, sitting up in the snow. "I p-p-promise you, you won't regret this.".

[greymatter]

Grey had begun to turn away, one hand leaving the harpoon to reach for the bag whose contents he had yet to explore. One hand was all he needed to shift the end of the harpoon to just beneath Katurian's jaw as he turned sharply back towards the other man. "Don't make me."

[downbeat]

The harpoon does not scrape his skin, but Katurian cringes as though it were a physical wound. The words, the tone, the too fast movement-- Grey has made his message abundantly clear. This mercurial monster holds his survival in his hands like a tiny bird, and there is no time for hesitation. There is no time for fear or tears.

"Yes," he says, significantly softer.

[greymatter]

The scientist's harsh glare lingers a moment longer before he pulls the harpoon away again, shrugging the bag off of a shoulder as he sits against the snow bank. The harpoon does not leave hand's reach.

He unzips the bag, beginning to unpack it's contents, and his grin seems to widen with each item revealed. A fire-starting kit (including wood), a pair of lightweight aluminum crampons, a 50-foot nylon rope, and heavy snow gloves.

He's never seen crampons in his life, but it's not difficult to figure out what they're for. Keeping an eye on Katurian, he trades his gloves for the heavier ones and fits the crampons to his boots before packing the rest of the items away once more.

There was one important thing missing from the bag. Food. But he could remedy that.