thearena | [open] snowflakes fall like velvet from iron colored skies

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[open] snowflakes fall like velvet from iron colored skies

Who| Darcy Lewis & You!
What| A super-backdated catch all. Includes snowball fights, shenanigans, and death.
Where| All over the Arena
When| Post-Cornucopia through Week 4
Warnings/Notes| Friendships gone to hell and death in the second thread.

01 - Not-so-hunter Gatherer

Darcy's capable of a great many things. Making scientists actually get some rest, tasing people, being able to mostly function on three hours of sleep and god knows how many cans of Monster. But none of these things involve anything in the way of survival training, which she's sorely lacking. Even during the few times she's gone camping, there were plenty of modern conveniences with her so she wouldn't have to attempt to identify which things could kill her. Or kill something herself.

So the idea of stumbling around trying to find something of use is so not her idea of a good time. And it's not like she has her phone on her to google if the handful of berries she has at the moment would kill her if she decided to snack on them. She also doesn't have the sense not to talk to whoever's rustling the bushes nearby and just hopes they're friendly. "Uh, hey, do you know if these are safe?"

02 - Geesus Christ

There are animals Darcy's totally down with. The happy, bouncy bunnies and the deer? Totally cool. The flock of really pissed off looking geese? Not so cool. Maybe it's because she's seen them be aggressive fucks before, or because she really doesn't want to wake up in the Capitol to be teased about being the girl who was pecked to death by geese, but she can't help but be cautious of them.

She'd try to avoid them all together, but they've blocked her path back to camp and going around them just isn't an option. Luckily she isn't alone. Which is a small miracle in and of itself. "How good are you at distractions?"

03 - Ain't Snow Party Like A Cave Party (@ Avenger's Cave)

Okay, so, the iPod that had been sent to her wasn't her iPod, but it was close enough. Except the music...okay, some of it it kind of blows. But it's better than not having music at all, right? Of course it is.

While the external speakers aren't the greatest, they could be worse. They're decent enough that if she puts it in one of the cylinders that the iPod was parachuted down in, they can be amplified for a miniature dance party. Which she's taking total advantage of right now. And might've just accidentally danced up against someone.

That's what it feels like anyway.

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Darcy doesn't exactly have a death wish. Okay, maybe a little because it's cold as fuck and she misses her bed and her iPod and from how Punchy made it sound, being a Victor sucked balls. Anyways, this shouldn't end like it did when she first met Bucky and lobbed a totally fake snowball at him and almost got herself killed. No, they're friends(ish?) now and she already explained that this was a normal thing to want to do.

Which doesn't mean she doesn't keep her distance this time when she lobs a snowball at him with an impish grin.

The fact is he see's the snowball coming, yet doesn't move out of the way. He knows it can't hurt him, unless she'd packed a stone in there which wasn't a Darcy thing to do, and it seems like a waste of effort to dodge. At least at first. It's a better reaction than throwing her down on the floor and threatening to smash her face in like he did last time, anyway.

It isn't until the snow melts, icy water trickling down the back of his neck and sending shivers down his spine that Bucky takes offence. The cold was a jolt to his system, like waking up from a stupor as he stared back at Darcy, then methodically bends down to gather snow in his hands.

There was memory in the motion, a hundred childhood snowball fights springing back unbidden as he rises back up and throws a snowball at Darcy in return.

Darcy's still for a moment as she watches to see what Bucky does. She isn't sure what to expect, how he'll react. What she does do is take a few steps back, as if getting ready to run back to the cave in case someone who is bigger and stronger than her can intervene and save her ass if things go horribly wrong.

The fact that he stands so still is really unnerving. It's enough to make her worry that she broke something inside of him with one well lobbed snowball. That is until he bends over to start making his own snowball.

Deep down inside of her, Darcy knows that she shouldn't be that surprised by him retaliating. It's natural, especially for someone who has his kind of crazy assassin skills. But she's surprised enough that she just stands and watches as the snowball comes at her, splattering across her face and chest from hitting her scarf covered mouth.

She dusts herself off and begins forming another snowball because, oh yeah, this definitely means war. Which is what she has in mind when she takes off running while throwing it at him.

He's not surprised he hits her with it, that's not even in a boastful way, he's just confident in his aim even if the snowball is lighter and less aerodynamic than his usual projectiles. The expression on her face is makes him snort, than let out the smallest, hoarsest chuckle.

The snow isn't his favourite thing, though it's more tied into the cold than anything else. It surprises him he can laugh at anything to do with it (it actually surprises him to laugh at anything at all, when smiles come rarely enough).

Darcy moves and Bucky wastes no time in doing so as well, snatching up more snow in his hands as he dodges her throw and tosses another at her, searching for a suitably defensive position.

For the briefest moment, Darcy can't help but wonder if Hydra gave Bucky super snowball skills. Except that wouldn't make any sense because Hydra seems like the opposite of fun (well, unless one were to count using science for evil as fun, from what she remembers from her history classes).

Darcy would usually keep moving to dodge the snowballs until she hears him laugh. It's awful in a way, but she doesn't expect it from him. Sure, she's seen tons of footage of him during the war where he seems like the type to laugh and smile, but there's a difference between seeing the footage and seeing it in real life.

"You should do that more often," she says as she flings another snowball at him and begins running again, scooping up more snow as she moves.

Adaptation is a highly prized skill, to say the least.

Bucky finds a tree to hide himself behind, Darcy's throw hits it and the snowball explodes, dusting him in flakes as he risks a glance out to survey the situation. She's still out in the open but is wisely keeping on the move, which makes it difficult to pin her down. The next snowball he throws doesn't hold together quite as well as the first, disintegrating in the air beforeit even gets close.

With a grimace he bends down, hurrying to try and make another. "So everyone tells me."

Darcy continues darting around out in the open before she finally gets to the tree line. It's too dangerous to try to take the time to build a proper defense wall, both with the snowball fight and the other, far more fatal dangers out in the Arena. But the trees...well, Bucky might have the right idea. The next one she packs together is tight, but hastily made, pieces of it breaking off as it careens through the air towards him.

"Look, I'm not usually the type to say you should do what everyone tells you, but...maybe in this case there's a reason for that?"

Bucky doesn't dodge this one. He brings up his metal arm like a shield even though his right one would be just as effective given this isn't a firefight, using it to block the snow. Darcy could totally count that as a hit if she wanted to.

He's trying to make a more compact snowball this time round.

"I'd like to." he admits as he hurls the snowball at her. Smiling is good, smiling feels good, especially when it makes others happy with him.

Darcy doesn't notice which arm he uses to block her snowmunition. If she did, she might have called him on it. Or she might not have, considering that could potentially do more harm than good. She does notice that it hits him and gives herself a mental tally. If this were somewhere that didn't involve murder and instead had hot chocolate, she'd try to remember that she earned extra marshmallows in her hot cocoa like she would back home.

Of course, there are no marshmallows in this murder arena, or hot cocoa to put them in, so the point is moot.

The snowball hits her, exploding into powder against her jacket as she molds her own in her hands. "When we get back to the Capitol, we need to just find a bunch of puppies and let them pile on top of you. There's no way you wouldn't be able to smile through that," she shoots a grin, and a snowball, at him. "Hell, that might even be able to pull at laugh out of you."

Bucky considers the suggestion for a moment. Letting puppies climb all over him sounds like an absolutely ridiculous suggest, which makes sense given that it's coming from Darcy who he knows for those sort of ideas. Then again, she was usually right about them, especially when it came to the ability of small fluffy creatures to cheer him up.

"I think I like dogs."

It's a maybe more than a yes, since he's not entirely sure if she's serious or not with idea. He ducks the snowball and throws another back. "That'd be something."

Darcy is well aware that it's a ridiculous idea. Outlandish, even. But it also sounds like that sort of thing that could work (unlike her ability to dodge his snowball).

"You seem like you'd be a dog person," she says lightly, forming a snowball in her hands that she flings back at him. "I wonder what your laugh sounds like," she adds, hoping that her hint dropping isn't too obvious.

"They had a video in the Smithsonian. No sound though."

Well that's... that's more depressing than he'd meant it to be when he says it out loud. Bucky presses his lips together thinly, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.

Darcy's only away from the snowfort to get water, her pink taser at her side just in case anyone decides to attempt to jump her while she's away. Okay, sure, one of the guys could've gone to get it, but she could use the alone time and, really, she's pretty sure she has the warmest get up out of all of them, so it only makes sense. She's halfway back when she see's a tall figure in the distance.

She isn't sure why the first person who springs to mind is Thor. She knows he's alive, obviously, since she saw him at the Cornucopia and he hasn't popped up in the sky at night. She doesn't know why he's kept his distance, but it doesn't matter, because if she isn't wrong, then he's right there and she can find out.

Holding tight to her bottles of water, she runs towards him, she calls out muffled shouts of "Thor! Thor!" through her scarf covered mouth until she gets close to him. "Geez, where've you been?"

When Thor thinks of threats and targets, he doesn't immediately think Darcy. She isn't formidable enough to worry him too much, so he's felt no compulsion to actively hunt her. If anything, she's worth avoiding purely for the fact that she could easily throw him for a loop. Little things are niggling at his mind, he can't chance the weakness at a time like this.

As such, his encounter is purely out of chance. He'd been out to get water himself and he'd been too cocky in thinking he'd manage to make it without seeing a soul. It's been easy to isolate himself so far, so he isn't walking with the caution he should be. He sees Darcy first and he knows from where he's standing he can't simply leave without being noticed. He wonders why he would leave, when a target is alone in the open like this.

There's an internal struggle for a moment as he finds it difficult to push himself forward, but it seems he doesn't need to. His expression becomes unreadable and cold as she approaches and he tenses, doing everything he can not to step away and compromise his dominance.

"Away." He says with a pointedly curt tone. "Leave me." He says, his resolve crumbling as he takes a step away from her.

No one could ever accuse Darcy of being dumb. Foolhardy and a little impulsive, yes, but not dumb. Though, really, when she looks back on this moment, she'll mutter 'Jesus that was dumb.' Also 'I really should've listened to Thor,' not that she'll be able to tell him that for a good, long while.

Darcy doesn't listen to him, instead she takes a step towards him. Theoretically, if she needed to, she could pull out her taser for safety's sake. She really should. But it's Thor. Her friend, her spacebro, a dude who she's already tased before and really shouldn't be tased again.

Even if the look on his face is decidedly un-Thor-like and he's stepping away instead of towards her.

"No way," she says as she steps towards him, trying to close the gap between them. "Are you kidding me, I've been looking for you for months." Which she wishes were an overexaggeration.

Even the dumbest actions can come from a good place. Were Thor in a better mind space, he'd say we are all at our dumbest when we are acting out of emotional urgency. Sometimes it's easy to look at an accumulation of red flags and see nothing but your friend and your friend alone.

Thor, however, looks at his friend Darcy and only sees red flags. His heart is picking up the pace in his chest and it becomes more and more apparent that the threat she poses is real. She won't hurt him physically, but something deep in him aches so intensely that it makes the static charged paranoia in his head grow stronger.

He should kill her. Now. Quickly. But he steps back again.

"You will regret it if you do not heed my warning." And he should not warn her at all. It's like there are sirens in his head now, demanding to know why doesn't just end this now.

Darcy doesn't get why Thor would be acting like this. She should be able to, considering he was disappeared off into the depths of wherever the fuck he was taken and only returned to fight in a death match. But something clouds that.

It also makes her stand her ground instead of running, or pulling out her taser and trying to shock some sense into him.

"Thor, it's me, Darcy. We're friends," she says as if that's going to make everything better. "I don't know where the others are, but I can take you back to where I've been hanging out with my b...other friends and we can talk this out."

Since he understands no better than Darcy, less than Darcy, he's not the person to ask. He doesn't understand why she approaches despite his warnings, but it threatens him.

His breathing shallows, chest rising and falling as fear starts to grip at his heart and his mind. Everything she says is like a needle prick, like the embers of a fire he knows will consume him if he doesn't fight it.

"We can't." He says carefully, stepping in slowly with his arms raising from his sides. It almost looks like he's going in for a hug, not the kill.

Everything in Thor's body language screams afraid and agitated, and considering how much bigger he is than her, that's a bad sign. But it also doesn't stop her from taking a step closer when he raises his arms.

In return, she opens her own arms and does the intergalactic fingerwave of 'bring it in' to help him ease into it, thinking it'll be comforting and not something that sets him off more. "Yes we can. Whatever they did, we can fix." Maybe not right away or perfectly, but enough. Bucky's kind of proof of that.

He flinches when she beckons for him, like he ought to turn tail and run rather than comply. A dark thought occurs to him in the gesture, certainly from the mind of a hunter and not a friend.

He doesn't run, rather, he steps in closer with absolute silence. The fact that his eyes show no affection should be hint enough that he isn't seeking her comfort, but his hands find her face and cup her cheeks slowly and gently. Cold skin slides over a face still holding a little warmth, but they barely linger. His eyes remain fixed on hers, holding her stare as he clamps his hands down tight and twists her head violently.

There's scarcely time for her to react, she's limp and on the ground in an instant. Briefly, Thor feels dizzy. His exhale of warm breath is visible in the air and he shudders through it. Without a word, he steps away from her body and trudges into the dark.

These, fucking, geese.

Sandy had already encountered them once this week and had to be bailed out by some of her more masculine friends but this time it was just her and...who was this girl?

"Um...pretty great actually but what are you gonna do?" Because if Darcy's plan was run away and abandon the eleven year old girl with the six inch hunting knife in her hands...well actually that would be the smart thing to do. Sandy's backpack clanked with the glass bottles inside and she knew the weight would make it harder for her to fight, but if they were going to run she didn't dare leave it behind.

The rips and tears in her oversized jacket weren't so bad that the insulation was leaking out yet. She had rolled up the sleeves so she could use her hands but there was no way the jacket actually belonged to her.

Darcy doesn't necessarily have Goose Issues. She has friends back home who have, who were chased across the quad at Culver because they tried to get friendly with the feathered monstrosities. And she can't help but wonder if the ones here are worse than the regular ones considering...well, this place and the people who run things.

"I was thinking of trying to make a break for it," she admits, feeling more than a little guilty as she looks the kid over. She can't help but feel like she has to justify herself. "You know, so I can get the supplies back to camp."

That doesn't make her feel any better about asking a young girl to lay down her life for her. Even if it is to get things back to her friends. Especially a girl whose jacket looks like A) it's been through hell and B) it was given to her (or, less likely but still possible, she took it which is kind of terrifying to consider if Darcy wants to meander down the path of worst case scenarios).

"I'm sure we could find a way around them."

Having her suspicions confirmed didn't exactly make Sandy feel any better about things. She was distracted as one of the geese approached honking and flapping it's wings wildly. With an angry scream Sandy swung her leg hard burying her foot in the bird's stomach and kicking it so hard it lifted off the ground for a moment.

For most birds this would be enough to make it rethink it's life choices. This one however struck with lightning speed and bit down on Sandy's ankle hard enough to make her cry out. The knife flashed. The goose screeched and the other feathered bastards surged forward to avenge their fallen comrade.

Darcy knows confirming that makes her seem like the Actual Worst. And she feels rotten for doing it, but at the same time, it doesn't help the kid to make her seem like she's going to happily lay down her life for her when she won't, and she doesn't exactly expect the kid to agree to do the same either.

Until the kid decided to make one angry goose a soccer ball and the other her dinner (if she didn't get killed by an onslaught of geese first). And then the rest of them began running towards them. All Darcy could think of was the time a friend dared her to kill a chicken while playing Zelda. Except these geese, somehow, seem meaner than the chickens. "We should run," Darcy shouted as she tried to look for a clear path, looking more than a little panicked.

Sandy considered her options for a moment as the beasts rushed them and determined that yes...yes running was probably the best choice as much as she hated running from these stupid birds twice in the space of a week.

Keeping her knife in hand she spun around and seized Darcy's arm trying to drag her in a direction that looked to be slightly more heavily wooded then others.

"I don't think they can turn as fast as we can so we gotta put stuff between them an us!" She urged even though she wasn't 100% sure that assessment was accurate.

Of all the things Darcy expected, having a kid try to drag her along while fleeing a bunch of geese...well, it wasn't on her list at all. She wouldn't be that surprised if the kind, loving people of the Capitol were watching this ridiculousness with Yakety Sax being played over their escape attempt and yucking it up at their misery.

"I hope you're right," Darcy couldn't help but yell because, holy shit those geese sounded angry and close enough that she was pretty sure that if she turned around to look she'd get them killed. And, nope, she was not going to die by geese. That wasn't an option. "If we can find some rocks, maybe we can distract them by making them think it's food." Okay, that was probably a terrible plan, but it was the best she could come up with.

Me too. Sandy thought to herself as they began weaving through the trees.

As luck would have it that did seem to slow the geese down to some degree. Either they weren't angry enough to keep chasing as hard as they had been or the terrain change was more then they'd bargained for. Either way only a particularly persistent goose followed them into the woods and from the angry honking sounds he was making, he had taken personal offense to their indiscretions.

"What is this guys problem?" Sandy panted casting a glance over her shoulder at the bird.

Having an angry goose pursue them through the woods is not what Darcy expected to happen. "Maybe you kicked his mate?" She practically shouted, trying to not to lose her shit because of the angry, feathered fowl chasing them. "Either that or he wants to become stuffing for a pillow and dinner?"

As they ran, Darcy tried to think up something she could do to stop the silly goose, possibly fatally because she was starting to get sick and tired of rations and juicy goosey sounded damn good.

Deciding that she wasn't willing to keep fleeing in terror from a single bird Sandy skid to a stop and turned to hold her ground at the waddling, flopping and flapping beast.

"Well if he wants to die so badly I can help with that." She growled feeling some pent up anger and frustration welling up in her chest. After everything she'd been through was she really having trouble with a bird? A bird without any special powers, or poison or fangs? Just...a bird?

Armed with only a folding knife it seemed Sandy was ready to earn them a fresh meal. Had Darcy come up with a more effective and less dangerous plan yet?

If Darcy had come up with something more effective that didn't involve a small child fighting off a literal angry bird with a knife, she would have put it into action. But she hadn't, which is why she practically let out a horrified screech that mingled with the words "What are you doing?"

All thoughts of a goose-feast fled her mind as she tried to think up a better way to go about stopping the bird that didn't involve putting Sandy in danger. If the girl didn't have a knife in her hands, Darcy would try to just grab her and haul ass, but right now that didn't seem like the best life choice. "C'mon, we can figure out something else that doesn't involve you getting killed by a battering goose," she said a little too loudly as she grabbed Sandy's shoulder in an attempt to get her to stand down.

"I won't get killed if you help me." She grunted shrugging off the hand and tightening her grip on the knife.

"If we're gonna run away from one single stupid bird, how are we ever gonna win?" She added letting her anger get the better of her. Maybe this was more then just about the indignity of the bird. Maybe it was because Sandy used to be the girl who ran from things and being in the arenas had turned into a girl who ran towards things.

Either way she lunged screaming like a tiny barbarian and slamming into the goose which exploded into a flurry of feathers as the two tumbled over one another in the dirt and started fighting furiously. The beak chomped down painfully on parts of her that weren't padded by extra jackets. The wings struck with suck impressive concussive force she saw stars.

Congratulations Darcy. You are now the sole witness to a wrestling match between an angry male goose and a messed up eleven year old girl. What's your move?

Haruto had thought he was being fairly inconspicuous while he was setting his shoddily-constructed rabbit snare somewhere a ways away. He had also thought that he'd notice if someone was nearby. This place was just proving him wrong left, right, and center, wasn't it? "Huh?"

He looks up, looks over, and looks confused. "Uh. Maybe?" Probably not. But he couldn't actually see them from here, and he couldn't well admit to not knowing something if he didn't actually get a look, first. He rises from his crouch, brushes his knees off, and shuffles himself closer.

It does not even occur to him for a moment that this woman holding out berries is going to try to kill him. It probably should by now, but....

Really, at the end of the day, Darcy doesn't intend to kill anyone in the Arena. She just wants to lay low for as long as possible since there's pretty much zero chance of her winning, and then die in the most painless way out there.

"Only maybe?" She gives the handful an unsure look before dumping them on the ground. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

Instead she walks up to him and looks down at his not-so-handiwork. "So, what are you making?"

"Only maybe." That's all he's got, lady. He's trying his best to keep things cool, but the empty stomach and general feeling of wilderness-y griminess aren't making it easy. He does stop when he sees that she has given up on the whole berries thing and is instead coming over to see what he's been doing.

"A rabbit snare." He casually slides his hands into his pockets and steps aside, looking somewhat pleased with himself. She can go right ahead and have a look. If she doesn't know berries, she likely doesn't know rabbit snares, either, and can't judge too harshly.

It's an ugly little wire loop that's set to pull tight if something's head runs through it. It's kind of badly positioned and looks to have been constructed from a piece of wire that he pulled out of the hinge of his first aid kit.

Maybe in some universe there is a Darcy who's an expert when it comes to rabbit snares. After all, her uncle tried to teach her about snares and knots on a camping trip when she was twelve. Of course, what she took away from that entire trip was to always have at least three spare sets of batteries on hand if you were to take your Game Boy into the woods for a weekend.

Darcy doesn't notice the flaws in his snare and instead zeroes in on what a rabbit snare's for. And then feels her stomach twist uncomfortably. Logically, she knows that people eat rabbits, hell, she might've had rabbit in the past. But that's not what she focuses on. Instead she focuses on the concept of eating a cute, wiggly nosed, floppy eared bunny. "You're trying to capture rabbits?" She doesn't mean to sound so offended by the thought, but she can't help it.

He could sort of understand where she was coming from, but his hunger was winning out over feeling bad about eating cute fuzzy animals. He had eaten plenty of cute fuzzy animals before, hadn't he? He just hadn't... seen them while they were cute and fuzzy. But he could handle it! What kind of a Rider would he be if he couldn't?

"Of... of course I'm trying to capture rabbits! You've got to eat in here, somehow. Rations aren't just going to keep falling from the sky." Maybe he sounds a little defensive.

Darcy's heard that rabbit tastes delicious. Of course, she's also sure people could say the same about guinea pigs or hamsters, and she definitely isn't going to get in line to eat those either.

"Well maybe they would if you didn't do things like plot to murder an innocent bunny." Okay, Darcy is, by no means, one of those crazy meat is murder types (not counting those two weeks she tried going vegan to catch the eye of a dude on campus), but she has to draw a line somewhere and apparently this is it.

He stifles a laugh, though not very well. It comes out like something of a snort. "And here everyone was telling me that they liked it when people killed things in here. If anything, maybe once I catch something, they'll send me more stuff." Yes, there we go, that's an encouraging thought. So much so that he gives his jacket a little prideful, puffing-up pull and nods along.

Congrats on doing the (not completely) unthinkable and making Darcy get indignant. "They like it when we kill each other. Rabbits don't put up a fight. They just look at you with big eyes and then make that weird scared rabbit sound until you either kill them or let them go." And, as someone who loves meat, she hates saying that.

The prideful puff deflates, for Darcy's logic leads in an unpleasant direction. "So what you're saying... what you're saying is, that the Capitol thinks we're less adorable and worthy of living than bunnies." He turns away, making a disgusted sound, throwing his arms up in the air. "That really hurts. Why's it have to be like that?"

"Because bunnies are soft, fluffy, and have floppy ears and wiggly noses while we're their source of entertainment in the form of murder," she replies with a shrug. "Dude, they used to throw kids into this thing to kill each other, do you really think they care about a bunch of adults? Especially adults who generally come back from the dead when bunnies don't?"

She stops for a moment, realizing what she's saying. "Oh my god, I sound like someone from PETA."

"...maybe a bit." He's familiar with the group, kind of, sort of. But enough of this circular murder-and-bunnies argument. He sighs and passes a hand through his hair and starts to step away from that snare. "I'm starting to not care if they do care. I just want something to eat. When's the last time you've had something?" And then, after a brief pause, "....and what's your name?" Names are good, generally speaking.

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[open] snowflakes fall like velvet from iron colored skies

Closed to Bucky

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Closed to Thor

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2, I'm gonna be honest, I've wanted to try this CR out for a long time. You're way cool :)

awww yeah. and oh gosh, thanks.

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1, at some vaguely backdated early point?

sounds good! :)

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