Strange Hellos Are Not My Bag [Open]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and open!
WHAT| Venus catches a frog.
WHERE| The pond.
WHEN| Week 1
WARNINGS| Dead animals.

She was not expecting to lose Kankri so soon, to spend so much of the next few days wandering around in the wilderness without seeing hide nor hair of her allies. She wasn't expecting her Arena raison d'être to be pulled out from under her, leaving her lopsided, unbalanced, tottering through a cold, damp wilderness. She imagined her return to the Arena, with her face and self-esteem and verve back, would be some sort of comeback, and yet instead she's floundering all blank-faced and witless.

Loneliness becomes a tangible being to her, not human-shaped but wrapped around and over her like a heavy drift of snow. She feels it as something corporeal. It's only been a week and yet she talks to herself and to the audience, sings snatches of songs to fill the silence otherwise only marked by the snapping of geese. She stays by the pond during the day and then puts distance between herself and the water at night, so as to avoid the worst of the temperature drop. The cold has kept her from sleeping too long or too well, but the hollowness in her expression comes entirely from her state of mind instead of body.

Just when she thought she was above water, something underneath her has tugged at her ankle and she's sputtering again.

She's managed not to poison herself off of the berries here, but she's getting hungry. She knows that the geese are catchable, if aggressive. She has a shiv fashioned from a broken branch of pine tree, not anything terribly sophisticated. She considers going for the fish in the river but knows that's just going to mean getting wet for very little chance at reward. So instead, she decides to go for waterfowl back at the pond.

Lurking in the tall grass around the shore, she takes off her uggs and sets them aside as she gets into the mud. She cringes, watching as her feet vanish up to the ankle in the murky water, but crouches, waiting for signs of wildlife. Whenever she approaches the geese, they see the rustle in the reeds and steer clear. For about an hour they continue this dance, her patience dwindling as her toes go numb, the shiv tucked into the strap of her bra so she can use both hands to catch a bird. Eventually, she sees something else moving by her foot, and after verifying that it isn't another corpse bobbing up like she saw yesterday, she leans in to get a better look.

She makes the split second decision to go for the easier, if smaller target, and there's a burst of activity as she lunges forward and wraps her hand around something fleshy and living while geese flap and squawk out of the tall grass.

She may have missed out on the goose, but she emerges from the reeds with a large frog in hand, and the grimness of her face breaks briefly into triumph.

Comments

[foundafamily]

From afar, the pond doesn't look too promising as a (relatively) comfortable place for shelter. That's kind of what Firo wants--he can deal with being damp and filthy if it means he's getting some distance from the other tributes. After a great amount of cursing and stumbling through the weeds and muck, he makes it close to the shore and starts looking for a place to rest.

He hears a rustling in the tall grass and whirls around to face the source. Though he's unarmed except for a kind-of-sharpened rock in his hand, he's tense and ready to strike.

...Only to relax, straightening his posture from his defensive stance, when he sees the woman is carrying a frog, not a weapon. Or, at least, the frog probably isn't a weapon. Maybe it's poisonous. "The hell are you gonna do with that?"

[celebrityskinned]

Venus pauses in the rushes, still up to her ankles in dirty, smelly water. She looks, for a moment, like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and her response is almost insolent in its bluntness. "Eat it."

Her eyes go to the rock in his hand, knowing that she might get hit with it if she moves too fast. Anything could be a threat in the Arena - not necessarily to her, but she has no idea what this new person's view is, what they'll do if they panic.

"I won't hurt you if you don't."

[foundafamily]

The frog doesn't look at all appetizing, but he nods in slow understanding. "...Gotta make do with what ya got, I guess." There's some food in his pack he was planning on saving for later, but he wonders if he should offer her some if she's this desperate.

First thing's first, they should get the truce out of the way. Brushing though of food aside for the moment, he smiles, completely devoid of any threat. "Deal--I was gonna say the same to you."

He glances at his rock contemplatively. He does have a backpack he could put it in, but... "...If you don't mind, though, miss, I'm gonna keep this out. In case somethin' more dangerous than a frog comes by." Admittedly, he himself would be skeptical of the explanation, but he does mean it. When it comes to killing, Firo's only done it on Family orders or in defense of himself and others. And he could never do it to a woman.

[celebrityskinned]

"I hear it's a delicacy in some countries. Frogs. And meat's meat, right? I gotta have some protein."

She can talk herself into eating it. She's talked herself into worse. Unfortunately, the feeling of the slippery, bloated thing in her hand is poisoning her appetite, and she ends up tucking it down the front of her windbreaking, winding its flippery webbed foot around her bra strap to keep it from slipping down too much. Disgusting but practical.

She nods at the rock, the grimness returning to her face.

"Sure, but throw it at me and I'm tossing you into this bog with the rest of the creepy dead things." She looks like she's joking, but she's entirely serious, even though her nose wrinkles and she pulls a face. "Seriously. Watch your step. There's...I don't know. It's not a good scene here."

[metalicarus]

It wasn't the mall or the space arenas, but already it seemed this arena wasn't going to be too bad for Jet and Albert. It was cold, sometimes just chilly and sometimes down right freezing, but they really only had to worry about their torsos getting cold when their limbs were metal. That said, they had plenty of friends who were susceptible enough to the cold and they were the ones Jet was worried about.

As it happened, he accidentally found one of said friends when he heard a splash and a bunch of geese flying off because of it. It didn't take him too long to find Venus, feet muddy and looking worse-for-wear, with a frog in hand. That explained the noise.

"Please tell me you caught a friend and not lunch."

[celebrityskinned]

"Jet!" Venus' face lights up further as she strides out of the cattails. Her smile, free from the brand that so caged it, is almost solar now. She nearly rushes forward to hug him until he speaks.

"Um." Venus looks down at the frog in her hands, now dead, its spine snapped by her thumbs, and just like that she feels guilt in her stomach, feels stupid, feels as if nothing she's done is right. And the sound of Kankri's last breaths rattle through her head like wind through pines.

And the flood of relief she felt at coming across Jet, Jet of all people, her good friend, seems to dry out and leaves nothing but parched, cracked earth in its wake.

"No, it's food."

[metalicarus]

Jet had always been good at reading people and seeing her change from day to night was sharp and painful and he didn't even know where it had come from but he felt that old familiar sensation that was associated to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or simply saying something wrong. It wasn't a feeling he'd had in a while, but it was one he'd learned the hard way growing up, even long into his years as a cyborg.

He closed the distance between them quickly and pulled her against his chest. "Vee, what's wrong? I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." the last thing he wanted to do was cause that look that had smothered her shine so fast.

[celebrityskinned]

"No, it's fine."

Maybe, if she were in front of someone else, she'd be able to draw on that actress spirit that allows her to smile, brazen-faced, at even the most daunting and dire circumstances. But Jet's friend enough that somehow, it means he doesn't merit the effort she'd put into lying to him. So her smile is a flicker, like a guttering candle.

She gives him a squeeze that's honestly more like a cling than anything else.

"Have you found Albert yet?"

cw: animal death

[revocation]

Cullen isn't exactly the greatest hunter ever. He was trained as a warrior, and he's straightforward in his tactics, not good at stealth or quickness. He deals more in stamina, in going toe-to-toe with an enemy and winning through sheer brute force rather than guerrilla style.

But they must all pull their weight, in the arena, if they are to eat. And he has a knife - a good hunting knife, even. Cole would be able to make such a knife sing, if he had survived the cornucopia, but as it is, Cullen is the one with the knife and he must needs make use of it.

His chance comes when something startles the geese near the pond, and - mostly by sheer dumb luck - he's able to get a hold of one. It's the catching that's the difficult part, with fowl, that much he knows, recalls from his childhood in Honnleath. The goose is screeching like a demon, but Cullen is quick and knows what to do - the neck snaps with a little crack, and the bird goes silent and limp in his arms.

It's only then that he spots the cause of the animals' distress.

"Ah, Lady Venus," he says politely, as if he wasn't carrying a dead goose, and she wasn't mud up to her knees.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus hears the crack even through the maelstrom of birds, of feathers flapping and of squawks, and so she sees Cullen a fraction of a second before he sees her.

"Mister Rutherford," she says. She doesn't relax, and indeed her tendons and nerves seem to pull tight like rubber bands at the sight of him. He may not have any ill will for her, but she doesn't know him well enough to trust him yet. He's seemed a little squeaky-clean for her so far.

She glances at the frog and then at the goose.

"Oh, don't tell me I just chased that into your hands. That's not even fair."

[revocation]

Cullen doesn't like being forced into such mistrust, anymore than he likes being forced into this arena in the first place. Mistrust and misunderstanding breeds resentment and violence, as surely as actual evil intent, that he knows from long experience.

But he also knows he must be cautious - this woman may seem nice enough in the city, with the veneer of civilization all around, but they all know what they're here to do. Cullen has no intention of harming anyone unless in self-defense, but he keeps his guard up, regardless.

"I didn't catch it on skill, that's for certain," he says with a snort. "I'd offer to share, but I have several mouths to feed, some of them rather large."

Well, the Iron Bull is very large, he could probably eat the whole goose in one sitting if he wanted. He keeps deliberately vague on their numbers, though - she doesn't need to know that they're down to five when they should've been eight.

"However, if you... require assistance..." Mistrustful he may be, he still doesn't want to leave her if she's in need of something he can help with.

[celebrityskinned]

Her eyes light up a little, not in excitement but in curiosity to hear he's already found his allies. Envy, somewhat. She's been alone in this wilderness while Cullen's found a whole passel, from the sounds of it.

And so she doesn't accept the offer immediately.

"Who's with you? Dorian and Cole?" She doesn't know yet that Maxwell is part of their clan, and only remembers looking up Cole and Cullen on the communicators for Dorian.

[voiceinthephone]

Venus' earlier concerns about Phillip would unfortunately come to fruition as he stumbled around the Pine Forest and down to the pond. His hands were covered in blood but it wasn't his, further proven by the way they trembled. At first he'd actually avoided the pond for the rotting corpse smell and the possibility of being attacked but right now, he had to get away from the body in the Forest.

Seeing the familiar form of a woman and the flying meals, Gray instantly stopped making noise by running and swallowed the emotions down as best as he could. He had a mask to put on, even if it was cracked. "Uh, you planning on snacking that? Y-you really shouldn't eat anything that's been exposed to, um, putrescine, I think it is." He disposed of dead people, not let them die with their guts pouring out.

[celebrityskinned]

She doesn't startle when she sees him, but her foot twists behind her like a ballerina pirouetting so she doesn't have her back to the person who got within earshot of her without her realizing it.

"Oh, come on, frog legs are a delicacy in some parts," she protests, but she looks suddenly much more uneasy about her catch. She looks down at it, at the spine she's already broken with her thumbs, and feels a wave of guilt for the life she's taken so unnecessarily if she won't eat it. It's not that she feels all that close to frogs, not that she doesn't understand that murdering other people, much less other animals, is just part of the Arena.

It's just that she's been trying to be better than that lately, than just a machine directed by other people to kill. She's been trying to develop her own sense of what to do with herself. And apparently, so far it's led to losing her best friend and the pointless murder of this amphibian sack of organs in her hands.

She looks back up at him.

"You look like hell, Phillip."

[voiceinthephone]

"Oh I can believe they're an expensive d-dish but, uh, consumption of decomposition acids will give you the runs like you wouldn't believe," he tried to lighten the mood with a little morbid tidbit, "C-Can't exactly have that kind of death here." This coming from a man who spent the last few minutes watching a fellow Tribute die of blood loss. But what really had Phil shaken was another thing entirely: that he was here as a means of punishment.

The statement was met with a rough sound that tried to pass off as a laugh, "I feel like hell, Venus." He didn't want to say why, he was already resorting to his old preserving ways to put a smile and bear it, repress it. "You need to wash that meat down thoroughly, get alcohol, anything t-to get the bacteria and juices." He had to pretend it was a carpet he was washing back home. Get rid of the evidence.

[celebrityskinned]

"Yeah, that sounds like no fun."

She could guess, looking at the way he's shaking, at the blood, and somehow the image of her as a teenager returns, after her first kill. Not on the battlefield, because she kept her cool there, but afterwards, in the shower, catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror that seemed a few shades paler than even the steam should have made her. Brushing her teeth mechanically, as if directing every step to an alien. Lift the toothbrush. Rotate the top off the toothpaste. Squeeze. Stop squeezing.

She takes a step out of the marsh and holds the dead frog at her side. Its legs dangle like hanged men.

"I do have alcohol, though. Would you, um. You a fan of vodka?"

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam hasn't been down at the pond too much, since he holed up with some of his allies up in the caves. There's closer sources of food, and ones that don't involve getting wet and even colder. But the geese he remembers seeing around here are pretty damn tempting, especially now that he's got a hunting knife.

And especially since he'd found out Natasha got teriyaki sauce in her Cornucopia backpack, there'd been a guy in Sam's unit who swore by his teriyaki goose jerky.

So he's lurking, stalking around the edge of the pond and keeping an eye on a particular goose - right up until something spooks some other geese, a little bit away, and his attention snaps that way. His shifts his grip on the knife, moving cautiously over that way, but relaxes when he sees who it is.

"I hear frog legs go great with cornbread," he comments, expression lighting up in a smile at finding her.

[celebrityskinned]

"Are you making fun of me because I'm from Georgia?" she asks, any fear she feels at being snuck up on immediately dashed on the happy floor of realizing it's Sam. She can think of no better person to run into now, no heart she wants more to curl her body around.

It's all she can do to keep from running into his arms, from letting desperation animate her limbs and push her like a magnet to another person who- who cares about her. But instead she wades forward a little too quickly to be cautious, a smile splashed across her face.

"I was wondering where you went after the Cornucopia."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

His smile widens, chuckling a little. "I wasn't, but now I might be."

God it's good to see her, to see her smiling and uninjured and coming towards him holding a big old frog. He can't pretend they're not in an arena, that they're not facing potential danger every minute, but he can be happy to see her. And once she's close enough, he can wrap his arms around her, frog and all, pick her up and hold her close as he swings her around before setting her down.

Sam'd missed out on his last chance to do that, when he first saw her in the space arena and just wanted to give into his relief at finding her, thanks to Loki attacking them. He doesn't miss out on it this time.

"I didn't run for it," he admits with a rueful smile. "Last time I had gravity working for me, I wasn't sure about my chances this time."

[silberfuchs]

On his end, Albert's not doing too well for food either. He's lucky that Jet is a wonderful scavenger and they've managed some eggs and even a squirrel or two in their little tree-top camp, but Albert's too wary of the berries around the Arena and decides he needs bigger game anyway. These geese would do nicely... Only up they go in a honking flock and fly out of his reach despite him being absolutely certain they hadn't heard or seen him approach.

Damnit.

And then Delilah pops into view, holding up a fat toad like a trophy and he doesn't as much mind the geese fleeing. Albert straightens up - slowly so as not to startle her - out of his own spot in the reeds, caked with mud from his feet to mid-shirt and leaning on a long sharpened stick. "Nice catch."

[celebrityskinned]

"Albert!" For the first time in days, an expression that hasn't been poisoned by grief crosses her face: relief. It's still polluted (it would have once been joy) but it's the clearest sky her body language has had so far. She runs forward, breaking apart reeds and sloshing as she makes his way towards him in her bare feet.

She doesn't ask before she throws her arms around him, even if it means that the dead frog drips water down the back of his neck. She realizes with a start, as her breath plumes up in front of her, how cold his metal limbs are.

"I couldn't find anyone after the Cornucopia. I was looking for you and Jet but, you know. No luck."

[silberfuchs]

He hugs her close for a moment, lifting her from her feet, then feels the water drip under his clothes and gives a shiver and an odd little stomp of his feet at the sensation, reaching to carefully and awkwardly move the hand with the frog away. That water is cold.

"It's hard to find others in these outdoors Arenas. Not to mention most people don't tend to look up. Jet has us in the trees for now. He's more comfortable in high places." He sounds both amused and chagrined at that; apparently Jet is the only one of the two comfortable up high.

His stomach gives an audible rumble, breaking up whatever other thought he'd been about to voice into a sheepish smile. "Why don't we see if there are any eggs to scare up as a side to your frog?"

[fuckitall]

Nick knows he's messed up in the head when he thinks it's strange to wander around the wilderness like this and not encounter a lurker or two. Or ten. It's strange for him even outside the arena. He has since accepted that no matter how relaxed he ends up becoming (if ever), there will always be that teensy paranoia that is just a notch above plain alertness of something creeping at him from behind and go for his neck. Better safe than sorry.

He curses quietly at himself when he hears squawking from the geese nearby. With how quiet things have been, the sounds from the birds puts a tingle through his body. He tells himself to shake it off, imagining Luke's voice as he tells him to get it together.

But even he has to stake out the source of the noise. Better to know who else is around lest they see him and follow him first, right? So he takes a glance from behind the trees. He relaxes somewhat when he recognizes who it is, maybe even trying not to smirk a little at the sight. Though he'd normally turn back, he remembers what Venus had done for Luke in the last arena and still appreciates the words she offered Nick the first week he arrived in Panem. Nick never got the chance to thank her for the former, so he steps out from his spot to make himself visible. That mild paranoia is still there but at least if he was fucked, he wouldn't take anyone else with him.

"Hey, Venus." On one hand, he has small handful of sticks, all sharpened at the tip with the intention to create another fish trap by the pond. He knows there's a possibility of that translating badly so with his free hand he holds it up both as a wave and a friendly gesture. "That your dinner for tonight?"

[celebrityskinned]

Venus is startled, somehow having overlooked that Nick is there, but she doesn't show it at all in her body language. She turns her head like a cat might at a window, eyes moving coolly over the points of the sticks, noting that they don't look like much for spears or even shivs. That's trap-material, there.

"If I can't get myself a goose, I guess I'm going to have to settle for frog!" she calls, walking barefoot towards him. She doesn't know Nick well, only from a few bits of footage she's been able to watch of the last Arena and by association with Luke, whom she knows more by impression than by actual recognition.

She stops a few yards from him, looking this way and that for Luke, to see if she's walking into a camp of just Nick, alone, tired-eyed and wandering.

"Why, you looking to split?"

[fuckitall]

"Geese are assholes anyways," he comments with terrible childhood memories in mind. They're probably sooner to go after them instead of the other way around. He lowers his hand then and shakes his head, "Nah. It's all yours."

He continues to advance forward a few steps, just to get close enough to talk to her properly. "Was just thinkin' of setting up a fish trap here but...it don't look like there's much here." He looks over to the pond behind her. It doesn't look like an ideal fishing spot and he tries not to look disappointed at the trek he made from the cave to come here. "If you want me to go, I can go. I mean," he scratches the back of his head with his free hand. "...with the way things are, I get it."