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

[elfstone]

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."

Comments

[dreadinquisitor]

He nodded, and smiled - small, but honest.

"Thorongil it is then," he said before, as instructed, he turned away, presenting his bloodied back. Carefully he shifted into a crouch on the noisy river stones and then into a sitting position, extending his legs out slowly in front of him.

"...Thank you," he added, glancing back over his shoulder. "When they told me why I was here, and after the horn, I wasn't expecting such kindness."

[elfstone]

Thorongil knelt behind him and set to work: the empty bottle he had found in his pack would help him clean the cut. It would be cold and not entirely comfortable, but Thorongil's hands were sure. He knew what he was doing.

"I was shown kindness in the last Arena," he said, "from a boy I did not expect it from. It cannot be counted upon, of course, but mercy among Tributes is not unknown."

[dreadinquisitor]

He shifted slightly, a small arch of his back when Thorongil's hands found him - cold and unfamiliar - but he settled again after only a moment, his head bowing and his eyes closing. Letting his mind wander away from the biting chill of the water and sharp stabs of pain as the wound was dug at.

"Clearly some find no trouble with it," he murmured, skin prickling as water and blood trickled down his back. "But still... getting a winner must be difficult."

Sam, Venus, Clementine, now Thorongil. He would be reluctant to see any of them die, now, even outside of the inner circle.

[elfstone]

"This is only my second Arena," Thorongil explained as he worked. "The last one, I gather, was unusual in that it was ended prematurely by the Gamemakers, and only one person survived by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. I cannot speak for how the events at the end of most Arenas unfold." He does his best to keep the water from trickling down -- it'd do no good to leave this man with a clean wound and a cold. He's got clean cloth in the first-aid kit he'd been lucky enough to take from the Cornucopia. "You're lucky. The cut is shallow and has all but stopped bleeding."

He'll start to bandage it, using that sticky material the Capitol has developed to affix a clean, dry bandage to Maxwell's back.

[dreadinquisitor]

He was silent for a moment, muscle twitching under the unfamiliar tape as his mouth turned down, lips pressing together.

"...If I were truly lucky, I would have been able to save the woman I took it for."

He'd simply been too far away, too slow, too late. (And not just for his fellow Inquisitor, but Josie and Cole as well, if the images in the sky were to be believed.)

[elfstone]

Thorongil pauses in his work, his hands not faltering, but stopping for a moment. There is shared grief in his voice when he speaks -- sympathy and understanding.

"I lost two friends to the Cornucopia as well. They lasted a few days, but ultimately succumbed to their wounds. I am sorry."

It had happened only yesterday.

"I pray that both my friends and yours arrived safely back in the Capitol."

[dreadinquisitor]

His head turned again, enough to look back at Thorongil with one eye as the man spoke.

There was something else he wouldn't have expected. It would seem this Capitol had done a miserable job of stocking their arena with bloodthirsty murderers.

"Thank you," he said quietly, honestly. "For what it's worth, I hope the same, for both of us."

[elfstone]

A miserable job, indeed.

"May they find such rest there as they can."

He makes quick work of the rest of the bandaging, smoothing the edges one last time.

"There -- that is all I can do for you with what I have here, I'm afraid." He stands, and he offers Maxwell a hand up.

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell took the man's help with one hand, working his shoulder carefully, testing the work Thorongil had done as he found his feet again. It ached, more now for the poking and prodding, but he knew it would be for the better in the long run.

Turning to him, he began to pull the undersuit back up, slipping his wounded side in carefully.

"It's far better than I could have done on my own," he pointed out. "I'm in your debt, truly."

[elfstone]

"Think nothing of it," Thorongil replied. "Only remember your promise! When we meet again, we meet as friends."

In a different tone, those words could have come out menacing or manipulative, but they are said lightly enough that it is an offer of friendship, rather than coercion into one.

[dreadinquisitor]

"I will," Maxwell promised him with a solemn nod of his head. "You have my word."

Both arms back in the suit, he finished buttoning it up his chest and held out his hand again.

"May the Maker walk with you."

Even if the man didn't understand the phrase, it was said in such a familiar way - honest and warm - the intention couldn't be missed.

[elfstone]

"And with you," Thorongil replies as he takes Maxwell's hand -- he'll take the hand or grasp the forearm, depending on which one his companion goes for. The former is more comfortable for him, but he understands that the latter is the fashion in the Capitol. He understands Maxwell's meaning well enough.

"Farewell, friend."