thearena | Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Arena 12 - The Spaceport

As usual the Tributes are woken up early for the start of the arena, leaving the Tribute Centre before dawn. A few hours ride in a hovercraft delivers them to their destination where their excited prep teams will outfit them in skintight suits that are colour coordinated by District (D1 is White, D2 is Red, D3 is Orange, D4 is Aqua, D5 is Purple, D6 is Pink, D7 is Light Green, D8 is Blue, D9 is Yellow, D10 is Dark Green, D11 is Lavender, and D12 is Black) over which they will be put into what is instantly identifiable as a spacesuit, complete with oxygen tank and helmet before being loaded into the tubes.

They rise up into what appears to be outer space and immediately upon emerging from the tubes Tributes will find themselves floating upwards with a length of rope the only thing holding them to their podiums. The countdown crackles out from speakers built into each Tributes helmet.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a dusty crater with buildings surrounding it, made up of a number of chained down cases and cubes in limited numbers. Cubes which sharp-eyed Tributes will note look like they fit into the slots beside the doors that lead into the spaceport.

8

7

6…

The mirrored visors of the uniformly white spacesuits make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Tributes fighting for goods will have to risk harming their friends but the alternative, floating off into space or suffocating when their oxygen runs out, leaves them little choice.

3

2

1…

The gong rings out and the countdown’s voice announces, “the Arena is now open” before the line goes dead. The Games have begun.

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The knife twirls in her fingers, an idle demonstration while she stops for a moment, eyes on the ground, listening. As far as she can tell there isn't anyone headed in their immediate direction, but it doesn't seem safe enough to actually stop yet.

"No one will get close, but I can make sure they don't try."

With the statement comes an image, something brief and offered freely - Nill in the training center, practicing with knives, and though she makes it look like she's bad at it the image through her eyes shows that almost every knife that doesn't hit the target goes exactly where she intended for it to, a shadow, a speck on the wall. It's all very deliberate.

"I used to have knives with me all the time. I can't here. They don't know I can use weapons," She tells him, gentle and quiet before she straightens a little. "But I feel safer with it."

It's probably a little dumb to give it away without needing to, but surely they won't think of her as a threat just for being able to use one thing. But the simplicity of it helps her beat down the nausea that some of those deaths brought to the surface, an easy distraction. She turns towards him and offers a very slight, warm expression, and though it's kind it doesn't quite make it to being a smile.

"I'll be careful, but I might not get to talk to you like this again. I can block enough out. I'll be fine. Don't worry." She doesn't need to be afraid about people reading over her notes, or listening in. She can actually be honest, and while she hasn't exactly lied to the Initiate, it's nice to know she doesn't need to. "You don't need to be sorry." Much like her expression, there's warmth in the words too. She wipes at one of her cheeks again, trying to make sure the damning evidence of her tears are gone. She's still afraid, but there's no way for her not to be afraid here. It just wouldn't happen.

"We need to go a little further, but then we can stop. Is that okay? Can you keep going?"

She hid her skill from the Capitol? All what abilities she's got done with knives apparently being impressive and done all up for proper cullting too. Like an angel.

clever sister

He's flattered that she'd share it with him. It must be deliberate, which in it's own way, is something new, no matter how many times it might happen here in arenas. If she's being careful, that's go. She might not get no voodoo scars. He'd hate to scar her. He'll do his best not to be sorry, as all like Terezi wants him not to crush himself that way, but he can be grateful she's alright.

He shudders on the final question, simply all in poor timing.

yes

He's been worse, far worse, no matter how it feels now, and all the times he survived. It's less a physical pain and more a dull horror. More of being not quite rid of whatever kept him unconscious that this could be done.

divulgences due sister for the motherfucking impart of things what is mine own of secret. keep countenance clear. let him tell of the rebellion.

Edited 2014-12-09 23:33 (UTC)

"I had a clever teacher."

The tone in it is a quiet sort of fondness this time, the sort that is mostly only associated with good memories. Maybe she should have attached them with bad ones - learning how to take care of enemies from a distance so they never got close enough to kill you shouldn't have been a good thing, but she was so happy at the time. Before that she'd been so weak for so long.

She quotes then, "'Never let them know what you're capable of'," and the thought is clear and distinct this time, not just an impression of sound. It's a real voice, one that might belong to a young man.

Truth be told, she's gotten scars from being in the heads of others before. But those were all from long-term exposure, and Nill is sure that if she's aware of it, it's less likely to become an issue. It won't be like last time. No one will die just because she didn't know how to fix herself. Or so she likes to think. Nill gives the Initiate a very slight once-over, as if making sure that the outside matches up with the thought, but at that last part she lifts a hand to cover her mouth, trying to look contemplative. It should probably fool people well enough.

She's trying not to smile. It shows in the very slight sense of relief that accompanies the words when she responds.

"I knew there had to be something."

The link stays up, though she says no more, just waits to hear what he has to share. She's been waiting for confirmation of something like this since she woke up her second day here.

She's relieved. He almost feels guilty for what things he's about to give her.

The first images he pulls up are not ones of hope. The first are xenomorphs, fearsome alien creatures of great physical power and endurance. He shows their queen, the eggs, the beasts, all of them, hissing and shrieking. He shows that of himself and the other tributes trying to beat the creatures back, enlisted by the capitol for this little round of pest control.

Then, he goes further, to the image of a girl upon screen, cuffed and ready for execution-- but hers was all the more grand and gruesome than the quick shooting of brainy.

Cruentus, the President's daughter, is drawn up holding a needle. "This is a poison fit for a traitor," she announces. "It's rapid-onset, degenerative. It strips away the parts of the brain that take the oomph out of bad memories. Then it disables the part of your brain that dampens pain signals. Then it kills you." The image flickers, replaced with the sensation of seven sweeps worth of a thousand troll's fear, his own pain, everything coming down at once with only the soft shooshing of a yellowblood troll keeping it from driving him insane. It changes back and there's Ariadne, her veins shot up with poison, convulsing then bleeding, then shot by Cruentus just to be sure, Avoxes sent out to clean the blood.

He goes further still, to when it was announced on over network by Eva. "A lone rebel, there is no rebellion," all things what were said as Ariadne was left to die alone.

And then he's going back to the xenomorphs, or more accurately, just after. He's picking up a file in the street, hidden there just for him. A file which would tell that it had not been capitolite negligence that had caused the release of the xenomorph beasts, but an act of rebellion. As well...

real as all what can be is the thirteenth district. rebellion basing lay within its threshold all motherfucking illicit. but no savior be those what reside. ain't no care shall arise at for off worlders us. ain't no care for our living on. it be independent of they that i and others here do our motherfucking work. i can give you names. can give for places, safe ones what to get converse up on in. they ain't had war in a mere seventy five years. panem is well motherfucking due for one. and it is we what will be the deliverance. we have made some moves of ours...

He shows Penny, in all brutal and callous glory, crushing a mouse upon live feed, being always so motherfucking quick to Avox others. He shows the broadcast claiming she'd been murdered, and the flurry of peacekeepers what would take nearly half their lot away. Including Terezi. He shows breaking her out, grabbing her and her branded self and fleeing with the Disciple and the Signless, wishing he could take more with him.

but it comes always at risk and cost.

He shows their capture. His last cry out to Terezi. The last time he even saw the Disciple. He shows the room where they avoxed him, sterile and white and terrifying, and then no real image at all, only the ghost of what he felt (so as not to set her off) where disobedience was so very feared it got made impossible. He shows all other avoxes, heads down, eyes empty. He shows himself among them, cleaning up after the other tributes during the last full arena he was being in.

be careful, sister.

It's not that Nill has seen things like this before - mostly, her silence is inspired by the fact that it's not surprising. It's horrific, but along the lines of what she expected from the Capitol. In other worlds corporations and hunters had to worry about politics, about weaving a believable story. They needed their public images, and President Snow doesn't have to worry about any of that at all. She closes her eyes, focusing a little more on the memories than the real world. She disconnects, does her best to hear the emotions without necessarily feeling them.

The relief is gone, but these images are easier to bare than the other ones, the memories of death after death after death, the screaming. She opens them again, finally, and glances down at the knife in her hand, tilting it ever so slightly to watch the light reflect off the blade.

"They can't bring the people I loved here," she tells him, the voice somehow quieter, maybe even a little somber. As if that somehow means that it might be better if she was the one doing dangerous things, not someone else. "I'll be careful."

After a moment of wishing very badly that she had a cigarette, Nill turns her gaze up to the ceiling, and shows him another memory.

It's a conversation through a tablet. The hands holding the tablet look like Nill's, but they're devoid of all the marks and scars currently on her hands. --Well. Conversation might not be the best way to put it.

Someone is gone. Whoever it is that Nill is talking to is obviously trying to keep her in check, but she protests all the more: they need to go now, they had to leave, they had to find him, they had to save him, anything. The argument doesn't get them anywhere, and Nill finally gives in, agrees to follow his rules. But there are tears welling up in her eyes, and shaky hands hover over the screen as a few tears drip onto the tablet, before finally, she manages another reply.

"we're going to make them pay, right?"
"Yes. Yes, we are."

The image fades, replaced by a new one, much shorter than the last. There's a troll girl with horns that are undoubtedly Virgo, and the chaos of where they are has made it impossible to hear much of anything, let alone the armed man that's coming at her from behind. She doesn't see him. Nill does.

Barely a second later a hole appears in the side of the man's head, and the snow on the other side is painted red. It looks like a battle of some kind. The memory ends there, and Nill lifts her head to look at the Initiate once more.

"I've been to war before. I can do it again. They'll pay."

For taking his voice, his freedom. Everyone's freedom. All the dead people, all over this planet and all the people that were probably in this arena right now that would never make it home.

"When we find a place to stop I'm going to see if I can talk to Linden."

Edited 2014-12-10 03:15 (UTC)

The images wash over. The younger Nill, the pain of losing someone all like that, being reassured that things would all be fixed as like to come together-- he remembers being one to say that exact such thing to another young weeping girl.

The funny thing, with what she shows him, is that he recognizes the troll. Jadeblood, sleek fangs overhanging, a stern face, one horn a simple curve, the other marked with a sharp hook, resembling perfectly the horns of the mothergrub. There's but one difference and it's simply age.

Through his mind flashes, all of his own fear from his youth, a tall troll in jade green dress, sclera being that too-yellow hue indicative of her motherfucking day-glow rainbowdrinker status. The image is off her towering over him, showing him as the youth he'd been, back when he and signless were closer to each other than anyone.

Her descendant, he realises. Nill knew of the Dolorosa's descendant. Maryam.

They can't bring the people I loved here. Maybe so. But they could bring alternates. Ones like Mituna. Ones all being from times other. Or times doomed. It's good she ain't said this alloud. He's sure, if they could hear her, they would try.

And it would be so motherfucking easy to make her suffer. That's always how it is. Everyone gets thinking they know the limit, of where they couldn't possibly be hurt no more. It doesn't exist. He would know.

Unwarrented, quick flashes of war, torture, inquisition, screams, his own grinning face, come along. He stamps quick upon them, hoping she ain't seen too much.

They will pay, he agrees. This is fact most assured. Even if he's no longer motivated by it anymore so much as he is that they all be free. The vengeance is what got him into this and now here he is.

just don't pay up for their mistakes.

He didn't wish to lose no more. Not her or anyone.

Wait. She had connection with Linden? Why?

He looks at her, confused.

Nill has been very careful since she got here. Try not to show favoritism to anyone in particular - equal parts kindness for most of them, with more kindness for the ones she saw more frequently. She tried and she tried, and then the kid Arena happened, and she sent tickets to two boys and cried when the Initiate had died. Kankri was a target. The Initiate was. Nico, too, if he had ever made it out of that Arena, but he never did. His is the only name she's used here, because they already got rid of him, and surely they wouldn't bring him back just to get at her. It would make sense to go after the people here. Even the place she claimed to be from didn't actually exist anymore. They couldn't use that against her, or the fact of her death. She'd tried so hard.

She almost thinks to comment on the jadeblood, who looks so much like her friend, but then those flashes happen, and though Nill didn't understand the meaning, they were enough to be on the alarming side. She tucks her hair behind her ear and tries to make sense of it, but... she can't pry. Wouldn't. So she doesn't, and she doesn't ask.

"I'll do my best." She can't make any promises.

(Was he smiling..?)

"My teacher was a lot like Linden. Brilliant. Tired. An addict. I used to be able to talk to him like this no matter how far apart we were. I always found him, so Linden would be the easiest person to find. I want to see if I can hear anything outside the arena."

There's also a hint of fear underlying the words, bits and pieces that flicker in and out, slightly ulterior motives that don't hugely impact the good intent behind the action. How awful Linden had looked before the peacekeepers came to escort her away. His health is poor enough as it is, and she's afraid that even if she does get brought back from this Arena, Linden might not be alive anymore.

Edited 2014-12-10 22:51 (UTC)

The more he feels that faint shifting of unease off her, at his own memories, the more his eyes keep from meeting hers. The more it goes the clearer those memories try to be, doing that feed through loop he's starting to really hate.

But she doesn't pry and that's a relief.

(It's a hundred layers of heavy guilt. Guilt he's being all too motherfucking tired for up already.)

She says she'll do her best, but truth is, he's not sure he believes her. She reminds him of Terezi in that sense, but unlike her, he's got no business making deals of exchange. He'd changed for Terezi, she stayed for him. Nill was all of her own self and her own choices what he couldn't be making no part of. It scares him just as it ever does with them what he feels he could lose.

His eyes are wide as he listens on what she tells of Linden, and moreover, her own power. Reaching beyond the arena? Truth told, he hadn't tried. The arenas were always being so far from the capitol. He wasn't sure he could push that far.

Aight, He thinks. He catches the very, feeling on his pan, in his fingers, in his maw.

a mentor be he. such ninjas is enduring.

"If I can do it I don't think it can help us this time. But next time..."

Maybe, if she could do it and they planned it right, it could be a valuable asset. Maybe she could do something that would save all of them.

"I hope you're right."

And she really does, because if he's not then this place has taken far too much from Linden, and though she likes him and cares about it, it would mean there just wasn't anything really left of him inside that body anymore. It's one of the more unpleasant fates she can think of, especially in a place like this.

Nill looks down the hall ahead of them, before turning to the Initiate and holding her hand out for him to take. an easy offer.

"Do you want me to find anyone here for you? I don't know if I'll be able to, but I can try."

She must know that powers weren't granted back so often. But then, maybe she doesn't. She hasn't been here all that long, maybe nobody got to telling her. She can't have looked on at arenas past, he's sure she hasn't.

Just as he's sure he is right about this. Linden will still be there in Capitol, just as he was. Them ones from the old games were survivors. Unless the motherfucker got being too rebellious, such things would remain to be.

Then again, who even up and knew?

The idea of trying to find someone in capitol right now seemed all too taxing. He doesn't hardly want to be awake.

He takes her hand, thinking her offer over. Then...

signless. terezi.

His quadrantmates. That's who all he wants right now, more than anybody.

Her fingers curl around his, and she starts walking again, quiet and careful with her steps. The voice sounds as reassuring as she can make it given the circumstances, but as gentle as ever.

Nill knows Terezi, has spoken with her once before. The girl troll that needed her to use the crayons. She knew her name from the kid Arena. Signless, however, is a title that she doesn't recognize. Her expression becomes a little thoughtful. She caught a flicker, a brief little image as he said the title. One of the older trolls. Nubby horns.

In return Nill conjures up a brief image to share. The Signless, seen through a light haze of cigarette smoke, his expression gentle enough, asking how she's holding up. The corner of the image has a little flicker of what looks like an Arena being broadcast.

"Him? He's called Signless?"

Though they've spoken twice, they hadn't actually introduced themselves. Never got around to it.

"I've only talked with Terezi once. But I think I can find them."

His own mind dances over the image. He sees a young boy, with even smaller horns, nubby and bright veined and all too soft. There's his own self with him, smiling back. There's a quick flash and flutter of dark scenes, the sounds of snarling and breaking, but then the soft haze is back, and it's that same boy, only older, matching up to the image she shares with him. His thoughts say Kankri Vantas but his voodoo says;

yes. the signless. he of no sign.

He nods along all the while, and to her claim that she could find Terezi still. Just in case, he offers the faint ghost of the map he's made of her, just a faint tracing of how her mind feels to him through fear.

Then;

thank you

"Your moirail," Nill says back, the voice in his head soft and quiet. Before she'd had an idea of what the word meant, but it makes more sense now. The Signless was important, so important, and Kurloz had missed him for a very long time. Or at least, that's what the image seems like.

"I'll do my best."

The corners of her lips twitch upward slightly, the very closest Nill can get to a proper smile in the Arena, and she lifts her head a little to look up at him.

"Of course. I'll protect them whenever I can. They're important. I'll find them."

Maybe not to her the same way they are to him, but it wouldn't be the first time that Nill protected someone just because they meant the world to someone else. Kurloz loved them, and Nill loved Kurloz. That meant Nill loved them too.

It was as simple as that.

His moirail. It still brings a faint flutter in his pusher. His, and his at last, at after all that time apart, after all the hatred and strife. His moirail. It's hard to believe even as it's real. It rings wonderful in his ears. A miracle.

He smiles soft back at her, even as pain and dizziness makes tunnels, warps his visions, and makes his eyelids droop and struggle with staying open.

For her logic, he'd not fault her. Afterall, it's how he came to care for many others outside his circle. Even Terezi, once, had been the charge of someone else. Everything linked tangential.

He just keeps that thought. Feeling that gratitude and projecting at to her, all while she promises. In it, lays fondness of her too. Of all those who could have found him, she's certainly being high in the preferences.

His smile is probably the warmest thing that Nill will see in the Arenas, and she holds on to it like a woman that's not sure when she'll see land again. She tries to project it back at him, just a little, something comforting and gentle.

Nill stops then, pulling him to a careful stop as well, in front of a rather large door that looks like it hasn't been opened in a very long time. It's in an alcove, at least three feet of a hallway before it meets up with the main one, and after looking it over for a few moments and scanning the walls around it, Nill settles close to the wall of the small hall, eyes focused in the direction they came. She makes a gesture towards the opposite side, out of sight of anyone regardless of any tricks being used. After a slight pause she sets her helmet of supplies down and lifts a hand, letting it over by his cheek, but now touching.

"This should work. I'll make sure no one can see us. You can rest while I find them. I can try to make it hurt less too."

He'll take that gentleness, that comfort, and wrap it around himself, something he can normally only do with fear. He follows where she leads, blinks at the alcove she shows him, then follows on into there too.

Safe here.

His thoughts don't even making to being voodoo this time. He sighs aloud in relief, and in his head is that humming thank you. He sinks down against the wall all the while, until he's on the floor, eyes closed and preparing right to drifting off.

No hurt. That would be nice. Maybe he would have nice dreams for once. A miracle that would be.

Into unconsciousness, and the world of daymares, he slips.

Nill's not a miracle worker, and there's probably only so much she can do for him when he has the Voodoo, and she knows so little about how it works and what it does when Kurloz isn't awake. But she remains where she is, back to the wall, knife held lightly between her fingers but ready if need be. She tries to keep projecting comfort and peace at him, tries to relieve him of as much of the hurt as she can. That much is easier if he sleeps. His conscious mind won't try to convince him the hurt is still there when she's trying to trick it into not noticing.

She might not be able to give him good dreams, but she tries. Stars. Images of Terezi and Signless, mostly of smiles, never the Signless's face when they watched Kurloz die in the Arena together, never the way Terezi looked just before she blacked out. His paint, his bones. She keeps the illusion up, which should make it so most people wandering past simply don't notice them, seeing an extension of the wall where their hiding spot is.

Nill multitasks as she tries to find the Signless and then Terezi, and she watches over Kurloz as he sleeps, more a bird than any kind of angel that either of them understand.

It's been a hectic time, getting the hang of her Seer abilities again. The first few hours is always the most disorienting, while she's still trying to catch up on what's going on around her. There are a lot of people to keep track of, and the timelines shift so quickly.

She's still in the process of trying to find people when she catches a voice in her head. It's not like Kurloz with his voodoo, and it's not the same as Vriska's aggressive rooting around (or her attempts at it, anyway). It feels different, and her shoulders hike defensively in response. Her thoughts spin, trying to figure out who this might be, all while trying to fixate solely on superficial thoughts.

"Who's there?" she says out loud, just in case her mental invader is nearby.

Nill tries as much as possible to make sure that the 'voice' in Terezi's head doesn't seem like it might be threatening. She won't do anything about Terezi's natural concerns, no tampering, no making her feel more at ease than she should be, but the voice is a little softer, not gentle exactly but not unkind either.

"Terezi. This is Nill. We spoke once before."

After a slight pause, she continues, "It might be safer for you if you don't speak out loud."

The name surprises Terezi. Nill. The human girl that had helped separate Karkat and Kurloz. Terezi almost goes to respond aloud before she's cut off by the warning. She's no stranger to psychic powers, but normally they don't have the ability to touch her. Maybe this is different somehow. The fact that Nill has psychic powers at all is a surprise in the first place.

Can you hear me, too? Where are you? she thinks to herself, hoping that somehow Nill can hear her thoughts in return. The thought-words are slow and measured, like she's concentrating very hard on the sound of the words in her head to make them clear as possible.

"I can. I'm a little further into the station than you are right now."

The voice goes silent for a few seconds, momentarily distracted by the beginnings of a daymare that she tries as much as she can to ward off. It's a little harder with trolls but she's doing her best - it helps that he trusts her. His subconscious mind won't try to shy away from it as much.

"I'm with Kurloz."

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Arena 12 - The Spaceport

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Voodoo text go

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let me know if this is ok!

it's good with me! should we thread on our own like this for a bit

i guess, yeah

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