thearena | Into the woods [closed]

Entry tags:

Into the woods [closed]

Who| Bucky and Albert
What| Exploring the arena
Where| Following the river
When| Early week 1
Warnings/Notes| None for now, will update if need be

After a first week spent trying to establish a base and local source of food and water close to it Bucky is finally setting out to explore the rest of the arena. This reconnaissance, made easier after a small bonanza of supplies dropping in by parachute to him by sponsors outside the arena, is high on his list of priorities. Should something happen to their current base or if there was safer location out there for himself and his group to hole up in then Bucky wanted to know about it. Knowing where was safe to go in an emergency situation could be life saving later on.

His first instinct is to follow the river. Using the blanket he was sent as a bag, tied with rope woven from the long grass of the meadow, Bucky puts his sponsor gifted first aid kit, food and water inside to last him over a trek which could take him more than a single day. Inside his parka are hidden the two hunting knives he was sent, as is his fire starting material -- not that he intends on lighting any fires unless absolutely necessary, he's brought it more as potential weapon than anything.

On that note he's grateful the snow has melted, though its initial appearance has him worried more will be on the way. In its place there is a thick low mist which greatly reduces visibility, meaning Bucky's going to have to rely on his ears more than his eyes to stay safe against the dangers of the arena and will make it hard to tell friend from foe until they're up close.

As he walks along the river bank he reflects that he probably should have brought company with him but Bucky knows he will move faster and quieter alone. It's safer for the others this way.

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Albert's done much the same with Jet, the blond having set them up to sleep in the trees since Jet is far more comfortable with heights and Albert has to admit it gives them a better vantage point to see if there's danger or wild game about. He worries about the weather though, especially with this fog. Fog means moisture in the air and after a certain point that may well mean rain, something they'll have trouble with in the trees even with all of their newly granted supplies.

Which prompted another worry of Albert's concerning Jessica, but it's not one he can do anything about while in the Arena so he's been forced to put it from his mind for now and address it when he's back in the Capitol. His focus should be on survival, which is why he's down by the river at first light. Not just getting water, though there are two bottles set beside him on the bank if Bucky can spot them in the early morning light. Albert's figure sits hunched in a parka and hat, holding a stick out over the misty water. He's used some of the suture thread from a first aid kit to put together a makeshift fishing pole and he seems to be trying to catch breakfast.

"Trying" being the keyword. He doesn't seem to be having much luck if the muttered grumbling under his breath is any indication.

His boots squelch unfortunately in the mud, something that not even all his hard-taught stealth skills can deal with. Ideally Bucky would look for another route, one that took him over further ground, something that's not easy when he doesn't know where he's going in the first place. It's better that he stick to the obvious landmark that the river is so he can easily find his way back to base later on.

It's expected that he should encounter someone sooner rather than later and that the person in question is a friend is a welcome bonus. It takes Bucky a moment to recognise him from the fog but when he does he rises out of the crouch he'd sank into at the first sign of company and makes himself known.

"Albert." he keeps his voice low as he comes closer, getting a better look at what the other cyborg is doing. "Hey."

"Hey." He's not surprised at all by Bucky's approach, giving away that he'd heard the other man coming some ways off. Albert chose his spot for that reason. The squelching mud is a decent proximity alarm.

When he speaks, Albert's voice is hushed, trying to maintain what quiet there is for further his fishing endeavor, but if he's honest there's really nothing about this that's going to work. He has to bait, to start. He'd tied a few blades of grass together in a pair of loops to mimic a bug but it's nothing very convincing even to a fish. A moment of quiet later and he gives up, pulling the thread from the water and starting to untie it so he can put it in his pocket for another (likely fruitless) try later.

"I was just trying to catch something more filling than pine nuts for breakfast," he smirks ruefully. "Not much luck. Out doing the same?"

"I've used a spear to catch fish, it's more effective with the supplies we have." Bucky's offering it as a suggestion. It's a tactic he's had some success with, helping to keep them all fed while they waited for the first wave of sponsor gifts to fall.

He shakes his head at the question, "I'm doing reconnaissance. I want to see how far this arena goes." before the Gamemakers could start to throw in more complications.

"You're staying near here?"

"That might be a better idea. I'm just not keen on wading in. It's freezing and lord knows what else is in the water." Not to mention it'll take hours to dry out in this fog. Better to play it safe. He shoulders the stick-formally-known-as-fighting-pole and gets to his feet.

"I am, but Jet's holding down the fort for now. Care for some company?"

Bucky looks along this stretch of riverbank and doesn't find what he's looking for. "There could be rocks suitable to stand on further upstream." he offers as a suggestion. Standing in the freezing water was not a good option and so far Bucky had avoided it, knowing how dangerous the cold could be.

Even for cyborgs with metal limbs.

After a moments thought he nods, company could be helpful, as far as Albert was willing to go. He'd be less vulnerable with someone along. "How far have you gone, so far?"

He shrugs and nods. "Best to try again in the evening, anyway."

The go ahead for Albert to go with Bucky brings a small smile to the German's face and he moves to his friend's side as a signal that they can keep walking and Bucky's leading their small journey. "Not far at all. We've mostly stayed in our tree. I've wandered the woods a little bit and found a few small ponds. Our concern has more been securing water, food, and shelter than anything else. How far have you explored?"

"We have a cave. There's a number of them further downstream." Bucky points back where he came from. He has no fear of telling Albert his teams location, or that there are other caves suitable for dwelling nearby if he and jet would be inclined to move there. The two cyborgs are trustworthy to Bucky and people he would like to have near himself and the others, it would increase security in their area.

"I've explored that area, some of the forest and the meadow where the deer are." and other animals besides. "There's plenty of game here."

Bucky starts to walk comfortably beside Albert, setting an easily sustained pace for their journey.

"Good," he's glad to know he'd just been unlucky so far instead of the Gamemakers trying to force them to resort to cannibalism. He can't imagine that makes for good tv anyway. As for the caves, he appreciates the trust behind Bucky sharing that information. He knows Jet is content with their tree though, even if Albert's not, and that the bigger group they're in the bigger target they are for the Gamemakers to throw a disaster their way.

Albert walks beside Bucky in companionable silence for awhile, a little chagrined that the sun doesn't want to come out long enough to burn off any of the cloying mist that occasionally has a shiver run through him. He does have his parka and scarf, but the Arena itself is growing colder by the day and it's getting to him. He's been spoiled a bit by modern life, he reasons. In his twenties he could work through feet of snow if it meant earning a few dollars but here he's mentally grumbling over a chill in the air. Funny how things change you and make you a different person.

That thought sparks something for Albert, the memory of Panem's own copy of the man at his side. He's not sure if anyone ever told this Bucky that the other exists, and he's not certain exactly how to do it without compromising Panem Bucky's role in the Rebellion. According to the footage Albert had gone to find after his meeting with the other man, the Victor had been presumed dead for years.

There, that's it. There's footage of him. Speak about him in the past tense and perhaps this Bucky will catch on.

"I was doing some research before the Arena on past Games," Albert starts conversationally though softly so his voice doesn't carry too much and give them away to anyone that might be around. "I found something interesting. Apparently the Victor of the sixty-third or fourth or... somewhere in there was named Bucky as well."

He doesn't mind the silence, it puts him in the mind of the ops he's run before, the one's he can remember and the one's he can't. Always silence, even when he was working as part of a unit. They didn't like him to talk unless it was necessary and so Bucky had grown used to the silence, both from himself and others.

The sun may not be coming out but the going isn't bad, even with the mist. It's wet in many places but never too much to obstruct their progress and they make good time as the sun rises higher in the sky towards noon. Wrapped up in his parka and other winter accessories Bucky feels quite comfortable.

After the last claustrophobic arena and the time spent cooped up in the Capitol the expansive openness of this one feels refreshing. If he tried he might even be able to believe for a moment that they were free, out of the Capitol's control and in the true wilderness.

"What?" Bucky isn't sure he heard Albert correctly at first, then the words really register and he stops in his tracks. Albert spoke softly so Bucky does too, even though he's startled by this information. "Bucky Barnes?"

Maybe it's just the name -- but no, Albert wouldn't have brought it up over a mild coincidence like that, there's something more to it. Tributes encountering double's of themselves born into this world wasn't unknown.

"Yes," Albert replies, keeping his face front and using his former-fishing pole to keep his gait steady on the squelching ground. It's a little rough when the weight of his metal legs keep trying to make him stick.

"Strange how that happens, isn't it? Other worlds having other versions of ostensibly the same people, even sometimes with the same names or similar histories." He sounds like he takes purely academic interest in the subject, but Albert's banking on Bucky knowing him well enough to know that he doesn't just bring things up for no reason.

"I wonder if that's part of how they choose which Tributes to take from other timelines."

Albert wouldn't be telling Bucky this if it wasn't important. It's strange how, if this is so, it's the first Bucky has heard of his double from this world, particularly if they're a former Victor of the games. Victors were celebrities, rock stars, so surely the case of any of them having an alternate world version of themselves brought in to fight would be worthy of some kind of publicity in the Capitol, yet he'd heard nothing until now.

Unless there was more to it. Unless there was some reason for the Capitol not to bring up that Bucky's existence.

"I've heard of it happening with others." he chooses his words carefully. "But I thought it was rare." too rare to have a direct correlation.

"I can see how the Gamemakers or whoever decides these things would think it was entertaining, so it may not be as rare as we think. There was that female version of Steve for awhile, after all, and the various doubles of Russian redheads with sex appeal." He shrugs, still convinced that Molotov is some alternate version of Natasha or vice versa.

"And seeing how there are multiples of us to be found on there worlds, it stands to reason that some would have doubles here. What I question is how different or similar they truly are," how much can he trust Panem's Bucky based on how he trusts the one by his side?

He was referring only to versions of themselves born in Panem, but now he considers the wider picture at Albert's prompting.

There was the man who like him and not like him, too. That Bucky Barnes with brown eyes instead of blue who had not come back after the last arena. His feelings over that remain complicated, especially with the last action the older man had done... an action that he questioned, given all prior behaviour he'd witnessed from Barnes, added to the news that Thor had reappeared in this arena, attacking his friends.

Some of his fears about the Capitol are not unfounded after all.

"The other version of me who was a Tribute... he seemed like a good man." he says, honest for the most part. How similar that made him to himself was a matter of perspective. "I don't know the Widow, this one or the one before, enough to say. It's the same with the female version of Steve." here and gone too soon for Bucky to get a real impression. "It's strange I never heard of this Victor Bucky Barnes before."

"Apparently he had a fairly spectacular breakdown and took a swing at a Peacekeeper captain and was locked up for his own safety," which is the Capitol's story in the old news tapes, or at least what passes for news in the Capitol. Albert doesn't believe for a moment that it's the whole story, but he won't be getting that unless he runs into the other Bucky again and that's unlikely at present. "It was something of a scandal according to old Panem Nightlies and Celebrus magazines, but it was some time ago, before the Neverending Quell, and fads pass so quickly here."

A fad, that's all they are to the Capitolites. The same with previous Tributes and Victors. Just fads until the next year with the next set of faces and histories to exploit for entertainment.

From what Bucky understood, the Capitol didn't lock people away, especially people who took swings at Peacekeepers. They turned people into Avoxes or they made them disappear, whether that's the reality for this other Bucky Barnes he can't be sure and definitely can't ask Albert out loud.

What surprises him is how much he wants to know. Some man walked and talked with his face in this world, that man fought and won with true death on the line before Bucky ever came on the picture. There's a lot of questions buzzing in his head right now.

"So they forgot about him." Of course they did, once something newer and shinier came along. "What District?"

"10, and I suppose. Other old Victors are sometimes mentioned in those rags, but I've never seen him brought up." Perhaps maybe because the Capitol knows he's alive somehow, or because they don't want it looked into more deeply by the public because then they'd have to admit they attempted to do away with one of their precious Victors. The Districts wouldn't stand for it.

"It could account for any early sponsors you had in your first Arena, though. Older viewers with nostalgia on the mind," who would be listening to this, unless they've cut away by now. Who would wonder what really did happen to their Bucky Barnes.

That's suspicious and Bucky connects the dots, just as Albert is probably hoping he would. Whatever happened to the Bucky Barnes of this world the Capitol wants him forgotten, a footnote in the history of the games, so much so there's been no capitalising on the appearance of a doppelgänger in the arena.

"Could be." he had gotten gifts even when he'd done nothing to earn any attention, he remembers that, even if he likes the memory of that first arena less than he does any of the others. Bucky can't help but wonder then, did that other man have friends, family still? People left behind, forced to watch someone else running round with their loved one's face.

It's not a pleasant thought.

"I'll look him up when we're out."

Albert nods and lets the conversation go at that, not wanting to risk revealing the native Bucky's status if the Captiol actually doesn't know. He's sufficiently satisfied that this Bucky has gotten his drift regardless and maybe something positive will come of it. He's not certain what, exactly, but having two people who look virtually identical has all sorts of clandestine applications.

"Should we try and cross? There's a felled tree a mile up." He's really not sure where they should go, just interested in helping Bucky with whatever his final goal may be, be it food, exploration, or otherwise. Even world class assassins need someone to watch their back sometimes.

Bucky acknowledges when Albert changes the subject and doesn't attempt to press it any further, the point has been made.

He looks ahead and nods, continuing trudging forwards then. Bucky intends to go as far as he can, find the true extent of the arena. The mountains are one impassable barrier on one side, there will be others ahead as well and he'll have Albert with him as far as the other man is willing to travel until returning to Jet.

"Let's go."

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Into the woods [closed]

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wrap? Idk where else to go with this.

Sure, that works for me