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

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's thrilled to see a fire-starting kit, because while he does have reservations about anything that could give away their location, it means they can eat the bird now instead of having to freeze it and worry about bacteria. After dying of horrible sickness in the last arena, he doesn't want to risk it a second time.

He pulls feathers off the bird and sets them aside. They might be useful later, even if only to add extra padding into their boots or something. Waste not, and all that.

"It's better'n the FAYZ." He shrugs but grins back, relishing in the feeling of being useful and wanted. "My hometown. That's how I know everything I do, honestly, about stealing and dumpster-diving and hunting. What about you? You never did tell me what you did back home. Just that you were sort of a jack of all trades scientist."

[dieinpajamas]

"Must have been some hometown, when frozen wasteland is preferable," he says with a raised eyebrow, only marginally interested but careful not to show it. He does take note that his street kid theory appears to be correct. "Pretty experienced with looking after yourself then?" He frowns thoughtfully. "FAYZ is a strange name for a town."

He takes a moment to think over the question of his own past before he answers. It's disconcerting, having to form a false persona around his actual name rather than just picking the most suitable person to step forward. "Well, that's something of a complicated question. If you were being generous you might say I was self-employed. If you were being less generous and more, well, precise, you might say I was unemployed." He shrugs. "Economy, you know how it is."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I'll take the cold over death plagues and killer worms." He nods slightly. "It's a weird name because it's an acronym I made up. Fallout Alley Youth Zone, because everyone's under the age of sixteen. All the adults disappeared when I was thirteen."

Including his parents. It's left him in a stunted state, able to look after himself but convinced that he was abandoned and as such, grasping to human contact with a child-like sense of clinginess. Not that he recognizes the latter factor in himself at all.

He spreads a bit of Alpha's parachute to catch the bird blood as he starts to butcher it. "That still doesn't tell me what you did, though. That makes me think you're hedging, like you don't like me asking specifics."

He's only brave enough to say that because he has the knife in his hands. His expression says that while he's very skeptical, he's really not trying to make waves.

[dieinpajamas]

"Huh," says Alpha, turning Howard's story over in his head. It sounds like a ridiculous sci-fi novel, but then, there's Alpha's own life to consider. Regardless, pointing this out is as likely to put Howard on the defensive as anything so Alpha refrains. It's a handy insight into the kid's mental state, anyway. Abandonment issues are always handy.

"FAYZ. Descriptive, certainly. Did they ever come back?" he asks, curious.

"You, young man," Alpha says, gathering up the arrows to make a rough spit. "Are the nosy type. Some people are entitled to their secrets, you know." He glances at the knife, casually, as though he's only curious about Howard's butchering technique, and he smiles to show that he's not truly offended.

"But nah, truth is, I did pretty much everything, and anything." He doesn't know how much the Capitol knows of the truth and, by extension, how much they would be willing to reveal. Best not lie too much and need to explain himself at some inopportune time later.

"A little massage therapy there, a little personal security there. I'm...indecisive, you might say." He shrugs. "I wanted to do everything, so I gave it my best shot. Just before I came here, though, I was doing photography."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"No. We never found out why they left us all to kill each other over the remaining food." He hands Alpha a bloodied half of the bird - the larger half, a gesture of good intent and submission. "So I mean...this is all kind of business as usual over here."

He waves a hand at the landscape. "Except it's way colder. And that sucks."

He figures Alpha talked about intending to win before. He won't be all hugs and cuddles, and honestly, the idea of him being a photographer makes Howard snort a little. He bets 'personal security' means something out of Bad Boys II where people get shot in the basement or something.

"Bet that's useful here. Knowing how to pick things out at a distance."

[dieinpajamas]

"Well, that's certainly a crap hand to be dealt, but at least you're turning it to good use here." He uses the bloody carcass half to gesture at their surroundings before he sticks it on the spit. He was gratified, if unsurprised, that he seemed to be defaulting to the leader of their little duo. He didn't have partners so much as minions, preferably.

He used to have a lair, after all. He misses having a lair.

"It's handier when you've got a telescopic lens," Alpha says casually. Photography is not an inaccurate description, though perhaps a more accurate description would be 'spent three months spying on his true love(s) and her boytoy with aforesaid telescopic lens'. He very carefully clamps down mentally on any interjections by said boytoy now occupying a section of his brain. He's already had one slip-up in front of the kid.

"But I am pretty observant. That's useful no matter where you are, especially a lovely place like this."