thearena | [open] I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns

Entry tags:

[open] I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns

The hail storm was terrifying, but Brock somehow managed not to get totally beaned in the head by softball-sized chunks of ice. He's curious to know how many people this actually took out -- death by weather -- and he carefully picks his way through the pine forest he'd taken shelter in, keeping an eye out for the dead or the dying.

He'd gotten a parachute earlier in the week with a dumb little invitation to a dumb little game. He's not sure if everyone had gotten the same thing, but it screamed of TRAP and DANGER to him, so he ignored it. He also ignored it because he doesn't really like games in general, especially not mysterious ones in the middle of a murder orgy.

He's kept the pieces of the parachute, though, stuffing them into the ragged backpack he keeps slung over his shoulder. You never know when you might need to MacGyver something together.

He's giving the Cornucopia a wide berth, going round the edge of the pond on his way to the river instead. He sees something in the water and glances sharply toward it, pace slowing. All he sees are ripples, though, so maybe it was a fish jumping or a duck or something like that. Sure. Frowning, he adjusts the backpack and then continues on -- but then he sees something again, something that is definitely not a duck or a fish, and he stops dead in his tracks to stare at a plesiosaur rising up out of the water.

"Holy shit."

WEEK FOUR, MONDAY: PINE FOREST.

It's cold. It's extremely fucking cold, and Brock wishes he'd begged for something warmer than snowshoes and goggles when given the chance. He thought he'd been all smart about it, anticipating them dumping just literal tons of snow all over the Arena. But he didn't anticipate the cold, and he feels stupid for not having that kind of foresight.

A fire is a bad idea. A fire will draw people right to him. But if he doesn't build one, he's pretty sure he's going to freeze, and that would just be embarrassing. He spent a little while looking for an animal big enough to play Tauntaun with, but his energy was quickly sapped by the cold.

So that left him with the fire again. Shivering, swearing angrily to himself under his breath, he grabbed the knife from his pack and bent down to start digging a hole in the ground. A fire pit was the only way he could do this without making an enormous tactical error, but the chill is making it very difficult to get his limbs moving properly. It's all very frustrating, and he wonders for about the eight thousandth time what he ever did to deserve this.

WEEK FIVE, SUNDAY: MEADOW.

By this point, Brock is kicking himself for asking for the snowshoes. Useless! They are useless. The snow is all but melted by this point, and it's open-jacket weather. The only thing preventing him from dismantling them and using them for parts is the paranoia that the weather is going to flip back the other way out of nowhere, and he'll need them. It certainly wouldn't be the first time the Capitol pulled some bullshit like that.

Lugging around unseasonable equipment aside, another frustrating thing about the newly-spring weather is that he is freakin' allergic to something growing out here. He can't stop sneezing -- an ordinary annoyance that is actually super life-threatening out here. He keeps trying to stifle it, which just hurts and isn't even very effective anyway. It's dumb. Everything is dumb.

Sniffling miserably, Brock winds up in the meadow. Considering that whatever it is that's making him sneeze nonstop is probably growing here, that might not be the best decision he's ever made. But he's sure he's not the only one with allergies to this thing, so everyone else is probably not going to come out here where it is theoretically worse. He'll suffer if it means he's going to be relatively safe, or otherwise not forced to beat somebody up when he's feeling like shit.

The plesiosaurs a few days back were one thing. What he sees in the meadow is another -- that is a wooly mammoth, and suddenly all of Brock's discomfort melts away in the excitement of actually being able to take one of these down. It is on his list, hunting and killing a mammoth. Or a mastodon. He doesn't really know the difference, but the point is, it's cool as fuck.

Slowly bending down to one knee, Brock starts rummaging through his backpack for something he can kill it with. He's trying very hard to be quiet and sneaky so as not to startle the thing, but that's maybe moot when he starts having another uncontrollable sneezing attack.

WEEK SIX, TUESDAY NIGHT: BIRCH FOREST.

The sun is going down and Brock's nerves are frayed nearly to the breaking point.

He's figured it out. The way the beams move along the horizon, the way his own beam follows him no matter where he goes. Like a spotlight of death. It's almost laughable how heavy-handed it is -- how much the people in the Capitol must be gagging for blood -- but Brock isn't laughing.

He's moved back into the forest, thinking it may provide some kind of shelter from the beam. People would still be able to find him, sure, but at least he wouldn't be out in the fields, visible for miles with nothing around him but a pastel spotlight. As the sun sinks down and the aurora flares up in the sky, he's scrambling to get his shit together, to break up camp and move. Sleeping in the late day seemed to be the best course of action, since he needed to be moving at night.

He has learned from his encounter with Molotov not to leave his shit laying around, so he has his pack slung over his back as he quickly puts out his campfire, his back turned to a cluster of trees.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[No more food. No more boxes in the trees. And now they'd taken away his stealth with those damn lights.

No matter. He'll survive this. Somehow. Robbing the sap in the forest seems like a good start. At least the trees will block out the light following him. Mostly, anyway. He wasn't hallucinating that, was he? It was hard to tell; he hadn't slept once he realized he had a huge target following him in the sky. Not properly, away; he'd drift off for maybe a few minutes before he snapped back to full wakefulness.

The man in the forest...he had supplies. He had to. No one survived this long without them, and if he was new, he'd probably have something. Anything was worth stealing now. If he could cripple or kill the guy, well...that'd make everything safer for him, wouldn't it?

Garrett, perched in one of the trees, notches an arrow, takes aim, and fires. It's just too bad that sleep deprivation does take its toll on one's accuracy, especially when aiming for something as small as someone's head...]

[For his part, Brock is unaware of anyone creeping up behind him until it's nearly too late. He's too concerned with packing his shit up so he can get a move on, and he only hears the creaking of the tree branch a second before the arrow hits him; he moves to quickly look over his shoulder, the arrow slicing along the surface of his cheek for his trouble.

He stares for a second, more offended than anything else, and then he whirls around the rest of the way, pointing.]

Hey! I see you, asshole!

Then you'll see this one coming for your face!

[...Goddam, even his natural snark has taken a serious beating from the lack of sleep. He notches another arrow and wills the world to stop swimming. It doesn't, and the thief is forced to fire at what he thinks is his target.]

[Brock is on edge. Even though he's not running on zero sleep, napping during the day was not as restful as it could have been, particularly when he was waiting for someone to creep up behind him and stab him the whole time. But he's still alert, the adrenaline and paranoia helping him instead of hurting him, and he instinctively ducks the arrow even as it goes wide.

Reaching back for the big hunting knife in his knapsack, Brock moves toward the trees, scowling.] I'm gonna enjoy this. Get down here and I'll make it quick.

The only good thing to come about the hail lay in the fact people weren't the only ones victim to it. Even if it's not the best thing, Milla is using the fabric she's scavenged from the parachute to wrap up a fallen rabbit she's found in the snow and left over hail.

The water rippling and the sound of Brock's voice is enough to jar the woman from what she's doing. "Goodness-" She steps back from where she is near the water's edge. Backing off without taking her eyes off of the creature. Even without her powers, her free hand naturally moves towards her forehead.

Then it begins to sing. Milla cuts a glance to Brock briefly, making sure he's seeing this as well.

Brock has seen a lot of weird things in his life. He can't say he's never seen anything as impressive as this great beast rising up out of the water like some kind of magical, ethereal submarine, but it's been awhile. Certainly he hasn't seen anything like that the whole time he's been a prisoner of the Capitol.

He sees movement further down the water's edge and tenses, briefly, before recognizing that it's Milla. He gives her a wide-eyed look, then motions toward the plesiosaur with his head, as if to say look at this crazy shit.

It's singing, and he doesn't know if that's just something it does, or if it's gearing up to attack or something, so he takes a cautious few steps backwards.

Milla gives a shrug with her hands flying up in an open palmed gesture, more or less communicating what even is this? She's not quite sure what to make of it. Not that she's going to stick around this close to find out.

She's very cautiously making her way towards Brock, being careful not to attract the creature's attention. It seems absorbed in singing for now. She motions for Brock to keep moving, they can more safely talk away from the creature.

Brock nods slowly, eyes flicking back and forth between Milla and the plesiosaur as he cautiously backs up. It's entirely possible the thing has no interest in them whatsoever, but, you know, it's better to play it safe.

He waits until they're what he figures is a safe enough distance away before he speaks, though he still keeps his voice low out of caution. "This is getting weirder all the time."

Milla would rather avoid attracting its attention as much as possible. Given their last arena, she'd prefer to avoid antagonizing anything unless needed.

"Seems we haven't quite hit our strange threshold." She answers quietly back, sparing a glance back at the singing plesiosaur. It splashes around a little, which makes Milla stiffen slightly before relaxing as the beast continues amusing itself for now.

Tom isn't afraid of what might be drawn to him by the aurora lights. That confidence that borders on (nay, wholeheartedly somersaults into) arrogance insulates him from any anxieties, and instead he's only annoyed that the bright lights announce his presence to his prey. Unaware and unconcerned with whom it is he's tracking, he follows one of the beams into the woods, not bothering to try for stealth when the sky is as subtle as a crescendo of theme music up until the two auroras combine, at which point he circles around, adopting a sneakiness he had abandoned until now.

He pauses when he sees the size of the man who only hasn't seen him first through the dumb luck of Tom's choice of entryway, a dense cluster of trees. For an instant, it reminds him of Cain, his reliable and missed muscle, and a surge of nostalgia blossoms in Tom's soul like algae. And then Tom settles into a mode of dispassionate calculus, aware that Brock knows that someone has come hunting for him, that someone is in the near vicinity where the two auroras have merged. Brock's skilled enough that Tom can't expect going unnoticed to last more than another five seconds, and he's faced with a decision: leave now and hope that Brock decides not to follow someone who was spoiling for a fight and decided against it, or press his luck.

The Cassidys have never been known for cowardice.

He takes Arya's revolver, loaded with the last six of her bullets, and trains it on Brock as he emerges from the trees, practically congealing out of the shadows rather than simply stepping into the light.

"Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you here, lad."

Brock can see the auroras shifting and melting in the sky, and when one merges with his own, he knows his time is running short. There is always the possibility that it's just another Tribute who would be more than happy to give someone else a wide berth, just stumbling through the (more or less) dark, whose light would pretty soon move back in the other direction, or careen off somewhere else. But considering he'd just had somebody else try to shoot him in the back, it looks like things are getting more desperate. After all, he knows there are people out there who are actively hunting Tributes down, not just kind of meandering through the Arenas like he is.

Most Tributes seem to be from Earth. Of the ones that aren't, they all tend to have pretty generic American or British accents, which Brock isn't entirely certain is due to the translation implant deal, or something else. That said, the Tributes who have unique accents are easy to remember, and it's only be some amazing grace of god that Brock's eyes don't roll the fuck out the back of his head with such force that they shoot directly to the moon.

He lets his knapsack drop to his side, still holding onto it by the frayed strap, and turns around. "Bro, I'm flattered. But pretty sure I made it clear before that you're not my type."

Brock's sneezing might have drawn attention, except that it's soon interrupted by a scream. Bayard, having left the camp with the Thedosians to collect firewood and gather water, has taken a slight detour (even knowing that it drew him away from his ally's hearing range, which they had specifically told him not to do) to investigate the beautiful, blooming meadow he had seen through a gap in the pine trees. He couldn't help it. The way that the sun had hit the flowers and greenery reminded him of home, only in a wider spectrum of colors, and carrying his little container of water, he'd settled in to a patch of sun in the meadow and drifted off. His nose runs a little, but he's been sniffling from the cold since he got here, and despite the warmer weather he just pulls his jacket tighter around his skinny body.

Perhaps it's the fluffy parka hood over his head blocking out the noise and his peripheral vision, but somehow he misses the sound of something approaching. It's only when a shadow looms over him that his heart races and he whirls around, nearly dropping his water container, and sees a beast out of a nightmare or a storybook bearing down on him. It's only because of his swiftfootedness that he avoids getting stepped on by the huge circular foot that stomps down next to him. He throws himself to the side and scrambles, loosing that scream and getting to his feet despite the mud and slick grass. The canister of water is lost somewhere under its mighty, hairy tread.

He realizes a moment after that that the creature isn't chasing or following him, simply moving past him like cattle will breeze past hens. The mammoth lumbers to the middle of the meadow and collects flowers with that strange, elongated snout, shoving them into its mouth and chowing down with chunky yellow teeth.

Edited 2015-03-13 01:40 (UTC)

Screaming isn't a super unusual occurrence in the Arenas. It doesn't happen nearly as often as one would guess with everyone being stuffed into a murder orgy, after all, but still. Sometimes, after Brock manages to tone down his paranoia and anxious energy enough to actually drift off to sleep, he'll wake up with a start to the sound of someone screaming bloody murder in the distance. Probably because they are being bloodily murdered.

But in this way, it's always in the distance. Echoing against the mountains, the location impossible to pinpoint from the way it travels across the water in the pond, muffled by the trees in the forest. This scream, though, is right in front of him, and Brock looks up sharply, gripping the knife he's managed to loose from the innards of his pack. Screaming means murder, and murder means someone actively murdering. This is a thing he would like to avoid.

He doesn't see anything, though; no bloodied psychopath rising from the field of flowers. Just the mammoth. He squints for a second, hoping to god that it wasn't the mammoth screaming, because in that case, he was going to have to rethink the whole Kill It plan. But then he's sneezing again, another uncontrollable bout, and when he's done, the mammoth has moved far enough away that Brock can see a person in the flowers, some kid. He's unsure if it's who was screaming, or if he's the person who was making someone else scream.

"Hey," he calls out, eying the mammoth to make sure it isn't about to charge either of them. "You alright?"

"Yessir!"

Bayard peaks out of the tall grass, knees smudged with grass stains, face with a smear of pollen on his cheek. His eyes widen as he sees, well, the single largest man he's ever laid eyes on. The Sartorises have never been a stocky bunch, nor has anyone in Jefferson, what with living off the land and the lean times. These days Bayard's seen very few adult men who weren't withered by age or children or hunched from years of picking cottons. He's used to thinking that a man could actually grow bigger from the grandiosity of honor, that the shape God made him was only malleable as far as his integrity would take him.

Brock proves that no amount of grandeur can quite make up for just factual mass.

"Just took me by surprise, sir." He looks at the knife with an equal amount of awe, seemingly unfazed by how Brock's been sneezing. "Are you going to kill it?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns

Week Six, Tuesday Night

no subject

no subject

no subject

Pond

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Week 6

no subject

Week 5

no subject

no subject