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

[greatestdetectiveaward]

Javert isn't really terrified by the whole thing so much as perplexed. He's afraid to die, although not terribly so - he's certain he'll be welcomed into Purgatory at the worst - but this system is so unlike anything he's ever experienced. It seems more like the gladiator battles of old.

"And there are no alternatives, I suppose?"

[itwasrhetorical]

"There are two. Fight or die." And Glinda had not intentions of letting herself be killed this time. Not without a fight first.

[greatestdetectiveaward]

"Ah. In that case, as you can see, I am in no position to attack you. I'll take my leave, if you choose not to shoot me." He starts to back away. There's no reason for her not to, really, unless she's afraid to shoot, but he suspects she won't attack someone on their way out.

[itwasrhetorical]

Instead of an arrow at his back a wad of snow is launched instead.

"I am not a murder. I am the Good Witch of the North and I take grave offence at your words." The woman's pretty lips twist into a furious scowl.