I'm Just Trying to Take This New Skin for a Spin [Open]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and open!
WHAT| Various Arena encounters.
WHEN| First week of the Arena.
WHERE| Anywhere you want!
WARNINGS| None yet.

She has a map now.

Over the last few days, making about one 'jump' an hour or so, Venus has cased out the ground floor of the space port and gathered supplies for herself, Jet and Albert. Some of it's food, some of it's water, some are just sharp pieces of metal or strange vials that she's certain could make for a decent weapon. A strip of spacesuit cloth, tied over the edges of the upturned helmet, has transformed it into a handy messenger bag, and she's sure that the design will be all the rage in the Capitol soon. She's filled it each time with whatever scraps might help them last the weeks and track down the people who most definitely won't be winning.

She can tell by the way her skin seems to hum when she's done teleporting that she's been pushing it lately, and because she's with people willing to call her out on it, she rests. She sleeps while Albert keeps watch, keeping the injured Jet company while he takes his turns. She eats from the little dehydrated packets and she doesn't do more than two 'jumps' in an hour if she can help it. She makes sure to clean the makeshift bandage on the stab wound in the side of her chest on the regular. After they figure out the pattern to the gravity failures, she makes sure that they're all strapped in to the ground for the twice-hourly jolt.

When she teleports, it's nearly painful to see, a trick of the eye as reality arranges itself in perverse ways to squeeze her out of the dimension and back into it. She seems shrouded in the afterglow of lights that clutter up an eye after a flash, and then disappears into a blind spot that vision should not have allowed. She emerges in the same way, silently but preceded with the colorful blots of the optic nerve going haywire. And when she's crawled out of the pocket dimension she travels through, she only sometimes remembers to apologize for startling anyone she comes upon.

She may just teleport right next to you.

Comments

[a_minute_younger]

"Nah, I'm fine!" Gary takes a moment to stiffly roll onto his back, propping himself up on his good elbow. His expression is cheerful and stays that way. "Some asshole caught me at the Cornucopia, but that was days ago. I'm okay now!"

Anyway, that's a boring thing to talk about. Gary changes the subject. "Teleportation, huh? That's how you did it?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Good. Because I could-" She pauses herself, realizing what she's about to offer, and wonders if it's something innate in her, the impulse to heal. It's crept out from under her better judgment, from the reality of the Arena, like a weed through concrete. "Yeah. Anyway. Teleportation. Figure I've been around half the Arena so far."

[a_minute_younger]

Maybe it's a good thing that Gary isn't perceptive enough to pick up on that aborted sentence. Either way, he finds teleportation much more immediately interesting than the prospect of healing. Gary's priorities probably say a lot about him.

"Half? No way." He gives a little wheeze of effort as he sits up the rest of the way. His battered ribs are not making this process easy, pain or otherwise. "Is it all like this? Like, just hallways and boring old rooms and stuff?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Well, if you head down, you'll get out of boring rooms and into creepy rooms. Lots of damn, musty, wet caves and stuff. It's like being inside someone nostril." Venus wrinkles her nose appropriately.

"You found any tips and tricks, kid? Like, I don't know, running water?"

[a_minute_younger]

Gary wrinkles his nose back. "Eugh. Yeah, I'll stay up here, thanks." Not like he could have made it to the bottom floors anyways; Gary hasn't made it far in the science labs, and he hasn't found any other ways to get downstairs. Maybe he's glad that he hasn't. So there.

...No, of course he's going to try a few more times. Who wouldn't?

But that's enough of that. "No running water, but I don't need it!" Rather alarmingly, Gary starts to pull down the collar of his spacesuit, and he doesn't bother to explain why he's apparently trying to strip until he's already rammed his arm down the front and is groping around. "The Gamemakers let me take a couple of water bottles with me--you know, from the Mini-Arena? They're--rrgh--" He pauses, having found something around his waist, and begins the arduous process of wrestling it through the spandex towards his neck. "--not the bad stuff. They said I had some points, so I bought some. Hah! See?"

Sure enough, Gary has produced a single, mostly-full water bottle from out of the top of his spacesuit. It is only a little dented and sweaty. Gary seems quite proud of it.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus raises her eyebrows and is halfway to looking disgusted when instead she just laughs. There's something so earnest about Gary's posturing that she can't help but approve of it.

"You're actually going to trust them with water after they got you guys all raged up on it in your last Arena? Do you just never learn?" Despite the fact that she keeps Gary at arm's length, there isn't really any malice to her mocking. She doesn't dislike him, and lately she's been rationing out her hatred and even her disdain for people who actually deserve it.

"If you're going to offer it, I'll pass. I think I'm outright absorbing the air from downstairs as hydration. It's like a sweat room."

[a_minute_younger]

Gary looks briefly disappointed at having his offer turned down, but he recovers quickly. More for him, right? He shrugs and clamps the bottle between his legs so he can unscrew the top. "I mean, if it was gonna make me go nuts, it would've already happened, wouldn't it?" Obviously. Post hoc arguments are completely legitimate for this situation. "Besides, it doesn't taste as good."

Speaking of things that taste good. "I bet the downstairs rooms don't have cake in them. I don't want anything to do with rooms that don't have any cake."

[celebrityskinned]

"The cake's a lie," Venus says, deadpan, before she laughs again. "That's the meme, right? I don't know, I don't play videogames or anything like that."

She glances at the unscrewed top but, other than that, pays it no mind. She takes a seat on an old dashboard that make have once given satellite readouts, but now only blinks balefully.

[a_minute_younger]

Gary at first blinks just as ineffectually as that old dashboard, but is quick to regain his composure once Venus explains the reference. "Oh yeah! Yeah. Hah!" Yes, memes, Gary knows all about memes. Even memes that are from games he's never heard of before. Even the ones that don't exist in his universe. Yes, he knows all about those, no need to judge him or anything. Gary covers up any lingering indecision in his laughter by shoving his water bottle in his face and taking a couple long gulps.

Considering that he only has one of these and apparently hasn't found a replenishing source of fresh water, drinking so much at once might not be the smartest idea. But over the course of the Arena so far, Gary's actually been controlling himself quite well--not through practiced restraint, but because getting the water bottle out and open and closed and stored again with only one working arm is actually an ordeal that he often doesn't have time for. Venus might notice this now, as he struggles to get the cap back on.

"Pretty convincing lie, then," he says, as the meme continues to go straight over his head. "I think it's the only stuff I've eaten for the past...shit. How long has it been? A couple days?"