thearena | ain't no party like a ranger party [open]

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ain't no party like a ranger party [open]

Who| Thorongil and anyone!
What| That great big open party log I promised! Thorongil is taking a different approach to this Arena, and that approach involves giving people free food.
Where| Around the arena -- generally in the forest area.
When| Late week 1, post-Bilbo and Sam )':
Warnings/Notes| Feel free to respond using the log prompt itself, but if you have another idea, feel free to throw it at me in a toplevel! Thorongil will be wandering around the Arena hunting for food, so he could stumble on conceivably anything. Ragnar, Anna, I'm looking at you two especially.

For many of you, this Arena will be one of the most traumatic things you've ever experienced.

For Thorongil, it's Tuesday.

Most nights, he camps with a fire. Reckless? Perhaps, if he were trying to win the Arena.

But that's not Thorongil's goal.

He hunts during the day and cooks what he catches at night: if the firelight doesn't draw in other Tributes, the smell will. It's been a few days. They're probably starting to get hungry.

Approach in the open, and he will greet you with a nod of his head. Try to sneak up on him, and he will hear you. "You'd better come out into the light," he will say, putting a hand on the long, sharp spear he's made for himself. "I know you're there."

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After the gong had sounded, Jack had essentially disappeared -- for the first half of the week -- over into the more northern end of the pine forest, in an attempt to get cover from the other Tributes. The scuffle at the Cornucopia had left him with a couple aching bruises and a few shallow nicks from recently acquired knives, but not real or fatal damage. He had, thankfully, made it out of the chaos with his own weapon -- a sharp, serrated hunting knife.

But he wasn't exactly a hunter. The famous Captain Jack Sparrow knew how to live for months at sea, could fish for turtle and bird meat on a desert island and survive, had even climbed out of the maw of Hell itself. But snagging a fleet-footed deer or rabbit had proven too difficult thus far, particularly as the abrupt lack of alcohol took its toll on his system and caused him raging headaches and a general sense of malaise.

And so the aroma of meat cooking is what draws him in, cautiously, towards the the firelight. Trying to snatch the food and run would be ideal, of course, but Jack knows there isn't the energy or willpower in him to do it or fight for it. He instead takes a few seconds to linger behind the cover of a tree to properly suss out the situation -- just as the man calls out to him.

The pirate's upper lip twitches, not liking that he's been found out, and after a moments hesitation Jack slips out from cover and lifts a hand in peace. "Meant no harm, mate." His gaze slides down to the spear the man has, a slow and deliberate motion, then back to his face. Another pause, then, "Blimey, that smells downright wonderful."

Well, this was a shady looking fellow. And coming from a guy who was given all kinds of unsavory nicknames by what was essentially a frontier town because of how shady he looked? That says something.

But this man is also clearly worn out -- tired, hungry, and not looking for a fight. Too smart to pick one, maybe. Thorongil sets the spear back down.

"You're in luck," he said. "There is much here to hunt, and I've caught more today than I can eat myself. But you cannot have it for free. Sit," Thorongil says, indicating the spot opposite him, on the other side of the fire and the nearly-done roasted goose, "and tell me something of yourself."

Once the other man puts the spear down and offers him food, the tension that strains the pirate's body seems to ease a tiny bit. Hesitation forces him to linger in the spot that he's in for a couple more seconds, before Jack finally -- and cautiously -- picks his way over to the spot opposite of the man, dropping into it with a slow, small, afflicted exhale.

Even without running into too many Tributes these last few days, it's been a rough few days.

He lifts both hands and clasps them together in silent thanks, hungrily eyeing the nearly cooked bird. Eventually his gaze flits back to the other man. Talk about himself. Now that's something Jack can do in spades. "Name's Cap'n Jack Sparrow, one an' only Captain of the Black Pearl." Not that anyone had recognized either name or ship since his arrival. Still, it was an important bit of information for everyone to know.

And there's more to it, of course, but Jack is curious. "Who might you be?"

Thorongil is a man who has known pirates. Never closely, never as anything but an enemy, but his last real battle in Gondor was against corsairs. When his dinner-guest calls himself a sea captain, something in Thorongil wonders...

But it's nothing more than a feeling, one that passes half-unnoticed. Captain Sparrow has done absolutely nothing suspect except vaguely remind Thorongil of a corsair, and that's no crime. His guard, while it is not completely down, does not raise further.

"I am called Thorongil," he replies -- called, for it is not his name, "and I have been many things in many places, but never a sea captain."

(( OOC: I should've mentioned as a heads up too. Jack looks a bit different from his icons -- his stylists cut his dreadlocks off. ))

It wouldn't be wildly out of the question for the other man to get that impression of him. Most people in this place could sense it from a mile off, and the pirate did next to nothing to correct it.

Even if his Capitol team hadn't managed to 'clean him up' prior to the Arena -- whatever good that'd done, now that he was back to being dirty and covered in mud from running around -- the manner in which the pirate conducts himself around people makes it pretty easy to assume that whatever sea vessel he'd captained back home had, at best, lax standards.

"Thorongil." He tries out the odd name, and furrows his brow. "Interesting name, that. Can't say I've ever heard it before." His gaze lands and lingers briefly back on the delicious-looking goose -- but Jack wasn't about to move from his spot, so his eyes slide back over to the other man. "Been one a fair share of me life. Me father sailed the seas, and I happened to follow in his footsteps."

((OOC: gotcha, thanks!))

"Well, then," Thorongil says, sitting back a little. "I'm sure you still want that goose. You can have it -- in exchange for a tale. Tell me something of your time at sea."

It says something about a man, Thorongil has found, what story he chooses to tell. He'll decide what he thinks of Sparrow after he hears the tale.

"Aye, certainly."

A story for the goose? Easy enough payment. Thumb and forefinger brush down his mustache and goatee as the pirate considers which tale to tell, then his face brightens when it comes to him.

Jack shifts into a more active position, leaning forward, elbows on his knee, hands splayed for dramatics. "Have you ever, by chance, heard of the Kraken?" He pauses only a moment for Thorongil to answer then continues to explain it regardless, mouth now twisted with disgust at the thought of the creature. "A terrible, horrendous tentacled leviathan -- " his fingers wiggle, now, to demonstrate, "-- the Kraken was, with a size greater than any ship-of-the-line that could ever be dreamt up by men. It hauled all manner of ships to the depths and devoured men without regard; the smell of its breath alone, of such colossal rot, was enough to wrinkle the noses of the foulest pigs."

With the creature's presence properly built up, Jack continued: "Such a beastie was bent to the will of the accursed Cap'n of the Flying Dutchman, Davy Jones, ferryman of the dead." And also someone who Jack had owed a huge debt to, but there's no need to mention that. "Who, for some obscure and incomprehensible reason or another, had decided to send the creature after meself and me crew and ship."

"It shortly found the lot of us out at sea, and proceeded to tear into my beloved Pearl and the crew aboard." Except a good portion of that initial battle had been seen from far away, as Jack had taken the only longboat to try and escape to land. Also not really worth mentioning. "As the beast had destroyed the cannons in its second attack, me last option was to use the last of the rum and gunpowder kegs, hoisted aloft and ignited with a pistol shot, to cause it to retreat for a short while. An' it worked -- for a short time."

And it had allowed enough time for Jack to horribly misstep and let desire cloud his judgement, for Elizabeth to get the better of him. "While abandoning ship, during the chaos, one of me crew members betrayed me -- " his mouth purses in a brief grimace, " -- bound me to the ship and convinced the rest to leave without their captain." The fact that Gibbs and the rest of them had believed Elizabeth -- that Jack had stayed behind to die like that -- still miffed him at times. "I slipped the bonds, and found meself faced with an empty ship and the Kraken's gaping maw."

This next part is his least favorite part, and that seeps its way into his expression. "I fought, o' course, the best I could, but the beast won out in the end. I was pulled down, with the Pearl, to the depths of Jones' Locker."

At this point, Jack leans back a little in his seat. His visit down in the Locker had not been a fun time in his life, but nonetheless, a grin eventually splits his mouth. "I lived through it, as it would be. Clawed my way out of the Locker, out of hell itself, and back to the land of th' living with my ship."

Incomprehensible, hm? If the reason Davy Jones went after Jack Sparrow is incomprehensible, Thorongil is a horse. But he maintains an attentive silence as the story is told, increasingly fascinated by the events Jack describes. He picks up on Jack being unwilling to talk about his time in the Locker -- he recognizes that unwillingness, having felt similarly about trials in his own life. He also gauges Jack's retelling mostly honest: details have been omitted, but largely, as wild as it seems, Jack is telling the story as he remembers it.

"I have never known a Man to come back from the dead," Thorongil murmurs thoughtfully. "At least, not before I came here. There are beings in my world that have done it; I have spoken with two who have left the Halls of the West and come back to Middle-earth over the flowing sea, but neither was born mortal."

He opens his hand, gesturing at the roast goose.

"Who am I to deny a meal to a man come back from death?"

The words will barely be out of Thorongil's mouth before Jack has roughly climbed to his feet and snatched the goose from its place over the fire. He slumps back down across from the man and immediately digs in -- without regard to any sort of manners or the fact that the bird was still sizzling and hot from the flames. He's clearly been starved for food these past few days.

Eventually, after a couple minutes, the pirate slows his eating down to engage back in what Thorongil has said to him. His head dips in a short nod, idly picking meat off bone with his fingers. "Not a particularly common feat, I'd imagine. Myself, I've only known there to be one other man to cheat death, as such -- " Jack waves a hand. "-- but it involved a great deal more in voodooism and other such troublesome and archaic nonsense."

His gaze lifts back to the man, intrigued. "Middle-earth? 'Halls of the West'?"

Surprise registers on Thorongil's face -- he starts to warn Master Sparrow that if he keeps on like that, he'll burn his mouth, but shuts up when he realizes it'll do absolutely no good.

Once Jack starts talking again, he listens. Voodoo is unknown to him, but it has an unwholesome sound to it. But he will answer the questions put to him before he asks his own.

"Where I come from, Middle-earth is what you might call the land of the living; mortals and immortals alike dwell there. When a mortal Man dies, his spirit passes on; none know where, save perhaps the great Powers. But when an immortal dies, be he Elf or Wizard or otherwise, he passes over the Western Sea into the Undying Lands. From there, he can return, if he chooses, or stay in peace and bliss."

Jack is still eating as Thorongil speaks, but listening all the same. He doesn't look at all dismissive at the mention of wizards and elves and lands-beyond-the-living, but more fascinated with it. "Huh, fancy that. I've been many a place in me travels, as it is, but that particular mythos I'm not too familiar with."

He wipes a hand across his mouth. "An elf. That'd be those preternatural creatures akin to fairies and hobs and the like?"

"Some call them fairies," says Thorongil, with a smile pulling at his mouth, "but there is nothing preternatural about them. In fact, one might say they are more natural than we are, for their connection to the lands in which they dwell is stronger." He sounds very fond of them indeed.

A contemplative look and a pause, until Jack breaks away from it to quickly finish off the rest of his meal. He can definitely hear the affection in the way that the man talks about them.

After he's brushed both hands against his suit to clean them, Jack cants his head to the side a little. "Have you met one?"

"Met one?" Thorongil laughs. "I have dwelt with them, in their hidden valleys and deep woods. I have no home but with them, and it is for their lands that my heart yearns, when the night is wet and the wind is cold and the road seems never-ending."

His brow furrows at that. The man looked entirely human, but spoke like he belonged with elves.

"You must be quite keen on them, with talk like that."

Bro, you don't even know how keen Aragorn is on elves.

"You would be, too, if you ever met them," he says, coming back to the present. "But I do not desire that any be brought to Panem. There are warriors among their people, and some, maybe, would be able to bear the Games, yet I would not wish this place on them."

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ain't no party like a ranger party [open]

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let me know if you'd rather Aragorn not get this impression! don't want to godmod

<3 you're totally fine!

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tldrs at you sob

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the tl;dr is gr8 no shame

<3

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