thearena | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Lee and you!
What| Lee Everett's just been through hell and he isn't quite ready for death matches just yet.
Where| by the lake
When| beginning of week 2
Warnings/Notes| idk stuff. thangs. Mainly some TWDG spoilers, probably.

Lee's tired. The kind of tired that that settles into your bones and makes it hard to move and just as hard to think. He doesn't know how he's still alive. Someone had failed to explain that part to him, or could be he just forgot to ask. It's hard to say.

Either way, he knows he has to keep going. It's not the apparent death match he's been thrust into that motivates him -- it's Clementine, because if he's still alive then that means he might be able to find his way out of this place and back to her. Then they can focus on getting her somewhere safe, truly safe. He owes her that much.

He chooses a random direction and starts trudging through the snow. This Capitol sure as hell isn't in Georgia, that's one thing for sure.

Twice packages parachute from the sky with notes attached -- one with food, one with a sleeping bag. The knowledge that someone's looking out for him is more unnerving than anything, but Lee is in no position to turn down supplies.

It feels late in the day by the time he exits the trees and finds a lake -- a lake with a glacier. Yeah, this definitely isn't anywhere near Georgia. There's something about a sight like that that spurs a man to action, and suddenly the threat of murder-by-stranger feels all the more real.

Lee listens, and once he's confident that no one's about to come charging from the trees, he begins his search for a makeshift weapon.

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Clementine creeps rather than charges from the trees.

The air is bitterly cold and snow is starting to drift down from the grey clouds overhead. It's a bad time to be out and away from shelter because if she's come to know the Gamemaker's at all in the ten months she's been here, it's not going to stop at a few flakes. In fact Clementine wouldn't be surprised if a full on blizzard was on its way.

She has her food and water, her warm winter clothes but if the snow does come down hard it won't be enough without shelter. As she walks beside the lake with the glacier she's focused on this, trying to think where she and her friends could go when she see's someone ahead of her.

At first she doesn't recognise him, freezing in place at the possibility of an unfriendly Tribute, but then something clicks. Clementine feels like the breath has been completely knocked out of her in that instant. Her eyes widen and she's starting to run, dashing across the space towards them where he's standing.

"Lee!"

"Clementine?"

A sense of dread settles in the pit of his stomach. As much as he wants to turn and see her, to know she's safe, he'd rather she not be here at all. He doesn't want to think of a little girl stuck in some bizarre death match, doesn't want to wonder how she'd been brought here or why.

But then he turns and there she is, and that dread is washed away by sheer relief.

"Clementine!"

She's different; he notices immediately. Older, maybe -- but that doesn't matter just yet. Those are questions for later.

He runs forward, too, closing the distance between them to pull her into a tight hug.

"I wasn't sure I'd see you again, Sweet Pea," he says.

Clementine skids across the wet ground and impacts with Lee hard, throwing her arms around his middle and pressing her face in against his chest. A sob is working it's way out of her chest before she starts to cry in earnest.

She can't believe it, it's him, really him.

He calls her 'Sweet Pea' and she just wants to curl up against him and never let go.

"I d-didn't..." Clem tries to take a breath, a shaky one and get a hold of herself, "I didn't either... I..." she swallows thickly, "I'm sorry, Lee!"

Edited (noticed typos, sorry!) 2015-02-11 12:05 (UTC)

Lee shushes her, gives her a comforting squeeze. "You don't have anything to be sorry for," he says. "I want you to remember that, okay?"

He breaks the hug and steps back to get a better look at her. She's definitely older -- maybe twelve? It's nearly impossible for Lee to comprehend that it's been years since Savannah, but he knows it must be even harder for her. Really, it's all he can do not to cry.

"I guess it's been a while since we've seen each other, huh?" he says. "I should probably be the one who's sorry."

Things might have gone differently if he'd paid better attention to that damn walkie talkie.

"I don't..." It's her fault, she left, she let herself get taken by the stranger and Lee got bit, he had to cut off his arm and then he died, because of her. She's trying to stop herself from crying, it's too cold to cry and she doesn't want to do this in front of all the cameras. It's not right that way. "It has."

Clementine looks more apologetic at that, lifting up her sleeve and wiping hard at her face. "No! No you don't, it's n-not your fault!" she hiccups as she talks, overwhelmed by the emotions she's feeling. "I missed you so much, I c-can't believe you're here."

Underneath all the selfish relief and happiness she's afraid of what this means, what the Capitol's motivations are and the fact that... that the person she loved most since her parents is going to have to suffer through the arena's and possibly dying, again.

"I can hardly believe it myself," Lee says.

A sense of guilt settles over him, heavy and uncomfortable. At the time, asking Clementine to shoot him had seemed like the best idea but now that he's alive again, now that he's of a right mind, it strikes him as something abhorrent. What kind of a person makes a nine-year-old do something like that?

He sighs. One day he'll apologize, but not now.

"I missed you too, Clementine," he says instead. "I thought I was going to have to break out of here to come find you."

Breaking out still doesn't seem too bad an idea, though. No matter what this place is called or how it presents itself, Lee still can't fathom that it's anywhere other than in the world as he knows it, run by some poor, deluded bastards who couldn't cope with the walkers.

"How long have you been here, anyway? Are Christa and Omid with you?"

She's not mad at him for that, she never has been, only herself for causing the circumstances which led to that moment. All the things Clementine has ever done and that is the worst of them, the thing she regrets the most. Everytime she missed Lee afterwards she never forgot that guilt even though she'd been told time and again it wasn't her fault.

Breaking out would be a very bad idea. It's impossible for a start and even they got out the Capitol would find them, they have eyes everywhere. "We can't get out of here, Lee, there's no way out." no way but death or victory. "I... you shouldn't be here, I'm sorry."

They brought him here now after all these months and Clementine's sure it must be something she's done. Late punishment, maybe, for her part helping in the jailbreak attempt.

"No, they're not. I've been here, um," she sniffs, rubbing her nose, "ten months." Omid was dead, not that that seemed to mean anything to these people and Christa... she didn't know about Christa. "I was the only person from our world for a long time."

Venus, another Georgia native, is enjoying the snow just about as much as Lee is. Her gloves don't seem thick enough, her face a magnet for the pain of the cold wind slapping against it, occasionally kicking ice crystals up that sting her cheeks. Her teeth chatter. She cuts a slit in her blanket and ties it around her shoulders like a cloak, even knowing that it'll slow her down in a fight.

For all that, she keeps going, not out of any apparent goal but simply because she doesn't want to die if Kankri's going to send her a gift and let her know he's alive. She doesn't expect God or anyone to reach down and give her a sign, but she expects that at some point a goal will occur to her. She'll have an epiphany that'll strike like a bolt of lightning, and she'll know what to do.

This leaves her largely to meandering during her days, getting the lay of the harsh land. She's well-fed enough on Sponsor gifts and the frogs and geese she's been able to catch at the lake, and that means that once a day she needs to make the trip up to the lake for water. It's ice cold enough that she's sure she wouldn't be able to get enough of it if she were in any other climate, but here filling her chilled body with even colder fluid just seems an unappealing task.

She reaches the water and crouches down on the rocky shore, taking her gloves off by the fingers and tucking them between her legs to keep them warm while she gathers water in the container that once carried food. Unbeknownst to her, a rock bluff has hidden her from Lee and blocked the sound of her footfall from reaching him. It's also stopped her from seeing him.

She pauses, head twisting on her neck, when she hears someone approaching, scrabbling over the rocks. "Hello?"

Lee freezes on the spot, cursing his stupidity. He's out in the open without a weapon -- even under normal circumstances that's a bad idea.

"Hey," he calls back as calmly as he can manage. "I don't want to fight. I'm not here to hurt anyone."

Maybe it's possible to talk his way out of this, or that the other person is as uninterested in a fight as he is, but he scans the ground for a decent-sized rock just in case.

"I'm not looking for a fight either. This weather's a bitch enough to deal with," she calls back, not recognizing the voice. Tucking her gloves into her armpit, she straightens up from behind the rocks, brow narrowed yet eyes open with curiosity at who the new person is.

Her legs are tense, ready to propel her into a dodge if he throws anything at her, if he lunges.

"I'm just here getting water, newbie."

Lee holds up his right hand in a placating manner, and she might notice his left arm ends abruptly at the elbow.

"Don't let me stop you," he says. "Like I said, I'm not here for a fight."

He pauses before adding, "The name's Lee."

Maybe a little friendliness will help him stay alive. Sure, it's a long shot, but it never hurts to try, right?

"Venus."

She bats her eyelashes slightly at his missing arm, but, well. They didn't name her Venus Dee Milo for nothing. It's a sight she's more used to seeing in the mirror than on others, but it's not too jarring.

Her face cracks, a grin splashing white across her face like a dash of sardonic paint. "Your accent's familiar. You from Georgia too? It's like they took my whole damn home state and dumped us in here like the toys at the bottom of a playchest."

Like him, she's a believer in friendliness.

Though Brock is used to the snow, being from Colorado by way of Nebraska, that doesn't mean it isn't any less irritating when it's this deep. He'd been happy to see the snow at first, since the alternative had been slush and mud, which made it difficult to actually be discreet when trying not to slip and slide everywhere. Snow made it difficult to cover your tracks, but it also made for fresh drinking water without having to risk getting murdered out by the river or the lake. So he'd been glad to see it.

But then it just kept coming down. And down. And down.

Having to hoof it through several feet of snow is an altogether annoying endeavor, and Brock's irritation at the situation means he's being a little less careful than normal. He sees the dip in the treeline and makes for it, since it either means water or meadow, and either one would be a good place to find animals -- something that's been scarce since the snow started falling. He's low on supplies and could use something to hunt.

He didn't think he'd run into a man, though. It's a stupid assumption with how many of them are out here, and Brock allows himself all of a single second to feel dumb before he's whipping out his hunting knife and taking a defensive stance. He's still some distance away from the man and the lake, but it's better to be safe than literally dead. "Hey," he calls out, inflection casual even as his posture screams danger. "Seen any game come through here?"

Shit.

Lee takes a moment of his own to feel dumb, too. What kind of idiot loiters around in the open like this? Of course other people would be showing up.

...Huge, muscular, armed people, as it turns out.

It's difficult to remain expressionless as he turns to face the newcomer, but Lee tries to appear calm. He's not sure how successful he is, but he tries.

"Nope," he shouts back. "I haven't seen anything. But I, uh, think I passed a meadow a ways back. You should check it out, could be something there."

He was never a hunter, at least not before the world started ending and food got scarce. Even then, his hunting trips rarely turned up much game. In other words, he knows the meadow advice is probably shit but he really wants Hulk Hogan to be on his way.

Brock takes a second to assess the situation. The guy doesn't look well-armed, but that doesn't mean anything. Brock himself is ridiculously good at making a weapon out of nothing, after all.

He doesn't particularly appear to be well-trained, either; there is a certain way that spies and soldiers carry themselves, a predatory sort of bearing, and that isn't present. However, that doesn't mean Brock is about to let his guard down -- just because he's not a soldier doesn't mean he can't shoot him in the back if he turns around to leave.

"Meadow, huh," he says, not budging. "Which way?"

As it happens, the random direction Lee takes happens to be alongside the one Dave takes. He's Texan, so the freezing cold is no easier on him. He's been sent several parkas and he's squeezed himself into three of them at once. His arms are folded tight over his chest as he pushes through the snow and mutters himself.

"Snow is such a goddam cliche. All the power in the world and you still think winter wonderland is a genius idea? I mean really. I could think of a better one off the top of my head. Uh.." He's pretty much talking to himself, just loud enough so that the Capitol listeners can take note. "Haunted cat shelter. Way more interesting." He grimaces upward as he drags his legs, everything is starting to feel numb. "I dunno what's really entertaining about a bunch of bundled up losers hauling their sorry, frosty asses through liters of silky, white- Shit-" Dave cuts off midsentence, realising he's basically trudged right into the open and into the vicinity of a stranger.

"Do not be alarmed, stranger, I am the ghost of Christmas past." He holds out his hands in surrender, despite the fact that he has a hunting knife tied to his pants.

Edited (sorry i am no brains ) 2015-02-11 12:04 (UTC)

By now, Lee's armed himself with a branch. Not the classiest weapon, nor the most threatening, but in his experience they work decently against walkers. Maybe they'll work against whatever else he finds out here too.

However, when a whatever-else (in the form of some guy) actually approaches, Lee's still hesitant to actually pick a fight. He turns slowly, lowers the branch, and tries to appear as unthreatening as possible.

"The ghost of Christmas past, huh?" he asks dryly. "All right, I'm game -- so long as we can leave '89 buried where it belongs."

The fact that Lee isn't armed in a way that's particularly threatening is enough to make Dave ease up a little, the fact that he lowers his weapon makes it all the better. Sure, this could be a play, but Dave has a knife and he has a.. really big stick.

"That doesn't sound very Christmassy, champ." He retorts, but it's followed by a scoff and an appraising look. Not that Lee can really tell when Dave is wearing aviator shades with no movement on his lips. "You new?"

Tess was by the lake, keeping a little camp behind one of the bigger snow-covered boulders. With a big enough nook in the rock for her to huddle into to keep out of the cold wind (though not out of the cold entirely), she's there taking stock of what supplies she has left; her bundles of food that should last her for three days have been managed to be stretched out throughout the first week, a handy trick from having to ration a lot of the time back home with shipments coming few and in between. She might have enough of it to last another day and a half if she's lucky, which most of the time she isn't.

The sound of footsteps crunching through the snow somewhere to the back of her in the stillness of the open area catches her attention, hands going still over the bit of food she'd been unwrapping. Someone or some thing is out there, but what? Who? Another Tribute? Or is it possibly a meal for her to snatch and cook?

With her parka on it's hard to move around while being quiet which is why she shifts very slowly and as silently as she can, reaching for her knife as she keeps the axe leaning against the rock. Gradually Tess rises to peek over the top, squinting out from under her hat through the light snowfall.

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