[open]

[ka_sera_sera]

Who| Roland and you?
What| crochety old cowboy makes a fire, terrorizes some birds, and drops things out of a tree
Where| in a small cave, then near the river outside the caves and in the pine forest/cornucopia field
When| before and during the cave bloodbath thing
Warnings/Notes| nothing yet

a.
The cold by this point isn't really a surprise. When it starts Roland's managed to find a little cave to settle into, and wills himself to be as still as possible to use less energy. Still, sometimes he has to venture out to find firewood, head down, spare pieces of leather wrapped around every possible bit of exposed skin. He moves carefully, trying to focus more on the cold than on the vague memories it brings. Somehow Susannah is the gone friend Roland finds himself missing the most often, and before he dismisses the thought, he wonders if he'll ever get used to surviving arenas on his own without her. If he's lucky, he won't.

Later, he makes a fire. It's got to be near the cave's entrance, so he picks a time there's less wind. It's either let the smoke be visible or let it choke the whole of the cave, because the heat is something he does not want to risk doing without. If that attracts attention? Well. At least a fight would give him something to do.

b.
By the time he loses his handy cave spot it's gotten warmer, though he's in no state of mind to appreciate it. Voices he doesn't recognize move by, followed swiftly by voices he does, other tributes calling out names he doesn't recognize. Even before one of those unfamiliar voices swings around and changes, starts calling out to him in tones far too familiar, it's pretty clear that something is wrong.

Using their families against them is an old trick even for the gamemakers, something they've done before. Can he keep that in mind as Alain's young, strong voice calls out to him, ends in an abrupt choking noise he remembers even better than he'd thought? As a young woman cries out to him in pain, as he shivers and realizes he's gripping the stone of his necklace so hard its chain is digging into the back of his neck? He tries.

Even a long while and a few voices later, he knows it's a ploy. It's only that he forgets he's been trying to stay out of whatever trap that's being laid, springs up even as a boy's cry echoes off the walls around him. "Go then," says the boy, sounding calm and resigned and Roland shoots to his feet, scoops up a handful of dust and pebbles and gives a huge, wordless yell, flinging them at where the voice came from. There's a squawk, sounding odd after all the human tones, and the bird launches itself away, flapping in startled circles for a second before going for the cave entrance.

"Yah!" he yells, and chases it out. Come pass by and watch him, a lanky figure highstepping through the river, yanking his long legs up and over the snow to try and keep up with the bird's pace. He yells things like "h'yah!" mixed with the stuttering, stilted mess the chip in his head turns his own language into, though the occasional "thee, wicked spirit" and "heed my order!" does make its way through, punctuated by rock flinging and a good deal of wordless yells.

He throws another rock and it hits with a crack. A bird falls, and the others around it start squawking even more loudly, milling around in confusion. Come pass by and witness: Panem's newest, angriest scarecrow runs through a field waving his arms, yelling incoherently and really freaking out a small flock of jabberjays. He's doing good work.

c.
It's later that day and he feels tired, wrung out. He drags his feet through the forest, looking thoughtfully up at the trees, and eventually tries to make his slow, weary way up one. When he tries to settle on a spot where a few strong branches spread from the trunk of a thick tree something slips from his backpack - a first aid kit, judging by the sound of it hitting the branches below. When he sits up to try and see, one of the thin, soaked, battered things that used to be Ugg boots snags on a twig and slips right off his foot, falling quickly out of reach.

Roland gives a loud, heavy sigh, and lets his head fall back. He might be able to do without one, but he sure as shit needs to go down and retrieve the other.

This has been a wonderful day.

Comments

[theevenstar]

It seems prudent to wait until he's all the way down, safe on the forest floor instead of perched on a branch that might not hold his weight should the wrong move get made. Only once he is down, and concerned with the boot, does she straighten up.

And casts a look over her shoulder, in the direction of the caves. She isn't that far from them, and easy enough to find should anyone come looking. "Sharing your fire would be ... nice. Thank you."

He could kill her, she supposes. That is what the tributes are supposed to do, and her soldierly skills are laughable when compared to actual soldiers. But believing the worst of everyone she meets only invites paranoia, and Arwen would rather avoid going down that road.

"I am sorry you grieve. Is there -- can I help?" Not her place, and he might revoke the invitation, but she has to try.

[ka_sera_sera]

For a moment his eyes move over her face. A genuine offer, looks like. "Sharing my fire will do," he says, and for a second his eyes crinkle up at the corners, his look tired but warm.

But genuine or not, he can't keep that look up long and it fades as he looks back down, crouching and rooting around to pick up fallen twigs. "Some company for a while. These arenas are odd. Isolated - at least, just lately. Those damn birds don't help." He tosses his hand in a quick, irritated gesture toward the caves, where he reckons most of them probably still are.

"I'd hope you managed to avoid 'em, but it looked like they were seeking us out deliberately." He frowns down at the stick he's just picked up, because anger isn't doing him much good just now but that doesn't mean he isn't.

[theevenstar]

The smile she gives in return is small, and a little watery, due to still being a little bit on edge from the birds and memories of the people they imitate so well. "That I can, and will do."

She can also help gather firewood. Adequate logs for a proper fire are scarce, she noticed that on the day she arrived, but there are a number of smaller ones, easily collected and gathered into an armful to set down near where Roland is concentrating his efforts.

"It would seem so." She doesn't sound entirely sure, mostly on account of not having thought of that before, how someone would deliberately set such a horrible trap. The Arena keeps taking her by surprise. "Did you hear them too? Voices that should not ...." Arwen stops and shakes her head. "Forgive me. I ask entirely too many questions when I should be listening."

[ka_sera_sera]

"You've done nothing that needs forgiving." He moves to gather a little more wood, thinking on her question. Even if he hadn't been in a position to see the birds leading other tributes on as soon as he'd heard the voices and so to easily connect the two, Roland does not have the kind of imagination necessary to doubt the evidence of his ears and mind; to ask whether someone else had heard the same thing would never have occurred to him.

"The voices had a cause, lady-s- s-s-" The gamemaker's machine in his brain catches the word of his world, sai, and as it always does twists it into something completely different. "Sir." He grimaces, giving his head a quick shake. "Pardon. They had a cause. How much do you know about what you heard?"

[theevenstar]

It could be that Arwen wants to make sure she is not losing her mind. If someone else heard the cries, not even necessarily the one she did, then the experience has happened. Really, truly happened, instead of some phantom trick meant to poke and prode at her mental senses. There are those in her world who would, and have, tortured people that way.

But Roland is being rational, and that puts her more at ease. Perhaps more than it should. "I heard ..." The elf trails off to pick up a couple of branches. "Magic, or sorcery. Voices from our memories, meant to drive us mad. I know what I heard should not be possible. It must be the same for the other tributes."

[ka_sera_sera]

He nods. "The Capitol's specialty seems to lie with machines, rather than magic - and where one of those grows, the other always seems to fall by the wayside." After a look around and a little movement out of the way of any branches that might dump snow over their fire, Roland begins to clear snow off a likely patch of ground.

"At least it always did in my world. In any case, I know that it was the same for the others as for you. I saw enough of them passing me for the deeper caves." He pauses, going still a moment. "If that goddamned bird had led me that way too I think I would have followed it. All the way into whatever lies in those caves, just to get a better shot."

After another moment, sitting quiet and thinking about that, he finishes brushing the snow away and begins crossing their sticks on top of one another. "I'd never ask about what exactly you heard, but how did you escape? I saw enough being led with those voices, which I only avoided because I startled mine."

[theevenstar]

Arwen looks down at his question, staring at the ground while he continues his preparations. The answer he seeks is a hard one for her, one that produces some shame when she thinks about it.

"I fled." After another moment, the elf sighs and finally selects another branch, adding it to her armful. She brings them over to the area he is leveling out, and sets the load down. "Away from what I did not want to hear."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland gives a nod, then spends a moment taking a fire board and spindle from his pack and working to make a spark with them. More difficult to spark a fire with this than the flint and steel he's used to, harder with his hand as it is. "And here we both are," he says, trying to roll the spindle with short enough movements that it doesn't roll right out of his grip. "I thought those birds left me be because I killed a few, but they aren't following you either. Perhaps they've just shut up now their work is done."

There's no acknowledgement on his end that running as she had is the slightest bit shameful. Not that it isn't, but she's done the hard work of acknowledging it.

The work on making that spark is abandoned for a second as he reaches a hand over the pile of fuel to shake. His right, because even now that one tends to move first despite the missing first two fingers that make it his second choice in pretty much everything. Including lighting fires. "Roland Deschain, of District Four. Suppose we're well met, much as we can be."

[theevenstar]

It is shameful, to run from what you do not want to face, but it is also instinctual on some levels. Arwen knows her way around a sword because her father taught her, but she is not a warrior. She heals, she supports, she knows her place in society as a non-combatant. That is not to say Arwen will not fight for what she believes it, it's just a different kind of fighting.

This kind turns her stomach, and she wants to believe that other tributes feel the same way. "It could be that they follow those who follow them. You resisted, and I ran, so perhaps they have found others."

The elf falls silent, watching his movements. It is only because she has seen others make the same gesture that she knows what to do. But it still takes a moment's hesitation before extending her own hand and curling her fingers around his carefully.

"Arwen of Rivendell, also of District Four. Well met, my lord."

[ka_sera_sera]

He keeps his grip light, automatically matching the strength of hers for a single shake before he goes back to the business of the fire. "Haven't seen you. Either you've only just arrived or we've managed to miss one another. Do ladies in your world speak so to all the men they meet? In my world, calling me your lord would be considered a pledge of fealty."

Ah, a spark. Good. He spends a second or two just encouraging it to grow and then glances back up at her, expression dry. "And somehow I doubt I'll ever be hearing one of those again. Certainly not here."

[theevenstar]

"I have not been here long." She watches his efforts to get the fire going, wishing - not for the first time - they had an adequate firekit of elven make to do a proper camp site. "Ladies of my world use respectful address when meeting others for the first time, unless those strangers have already proven they are undeserving."

Every soul on the road has potential, in Arwen's estimation, and that is probably why she gets escorted most everywhere.

"Also, the inflection and word usages differs from person to person. This language we speak now is not ... as nuanced, I fear. Would you prefer I called you something else?"

She makes a noise of agreement about the birds, hoping the man is correct.

[ka_sera_sera]

He considers, although he does it while watching the fire very closely. He's neither cold nor wet to be in actual physical danger, but having decided it's worth the effort to be warmer and thus a little less miserable, he is dedicated to seeing it through. "I would. My days of being anyone's lord are far behind me. Forever, I think."

A slow breath takes him back to the here and now, away from those old days, and Roland focuses back on Arwen. "But if formality settles you more, ah- the titling of my world's barred to us too. Most of it. Call me gunslinger, then, although my name'll do just as well."

Roland sits back, eyes the fire, decides it'll do well enough on its own for now. To keep his mind off the matters that led them both here, he has to keep talking. He casts around for a topic. "Riven-dell. It's a lovely name. Does the place match it?"