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thearena2015-03-16 11:49 am
cowcatcher) wrote in thearena2015-03-16 11:49 am
Entry tags:
[OPEN] In the darkness, I will meet my creators
Who | Jane and you!
What | A catch-all post for her brief stint in Arena 13. Includes multiple prompts covering events between the first and third weeks.
Where | Throughout the arena.
When | From the Cornucopia scramble to just before her death in Week 3.
Warnings/Notes | Language, injury, death.
THE CORNUCOPIA
Caesar Flickerman's hints that an old-school arena was in store had practically made the choice for her. If they weren't going to send her hurtling through zero gravity again, she was going to go for the Cornucopia. It's the when of it that takes her by surprise, but her mind's still set as the peacekeepers lead them away for prepping. They're dressed in layers for cold weather, no shitty, clunky spacesuit to be seen, and she's ready, every nerve bristling under her skin like a live wire. The wind hits her face before she ever sees the arena, carrying the scent of earth and pine and open sky, and she comes top level in a crouch, poised to sprint for her life.
Single-mindedness sees her through, and when someone beats her to the backpack she had her eye on, she whips around and goes tearing back towards the treeline, unwilling to stick around for the bloodbath. She catches a glimpse of Nick, who had agreed to make the run with her, sees that he's not empty-handed before she loses him. Veering slightly to the right wins her a hunting knife, and it's another small homecoming to have that in her hands as her lungs start to burn with the cold air.
She doesn't stop until well after she's crashed through the treeline, face and arms whipped by branch after branch, ears sharp to every sound around her. Most that is silence, but she thinks she hears a river running. Her nostrils tingle with the smell of all the grass she'd crushed underfoot. Small branches, evergreen, are caught in her hair. A laugh coughs its way up her throat, low and choppy as she takes in her surroundings and catches her breath.
This is what she knows. This she can do.
WEEK 1
A. For someone with a good third of her body covered in a violent rash, her mood could be worse, but not by much. She had been sharpening tree branches to arm the entrance of the cave she shared with Luke, Nick, and Clementine when it happened. According to what she knows, poison ivy isn't supposed to be this aggressive, but if the Gamemakers can engineer fucking aliens, it's in them to make this spread the way it has, climbing past the sleeves of her windbreaker to agitate skin that hadn't even touched the stuff.
She's trying to wash up at a nearby bend of the river, stripping out of her jacket and unfastening the upper part of her suit, making sure Jaime's nail file is secured before letting the layer of clothing fall to her hips, tying the sleeves in place. The cold wind helps somewhat before it just doesn't, and the water's sting is bracing, but none of it is stopping the itchiness at all. Desperate, she plunges an arm further into the stream, breath hissing through her teeth, until her hand hits the riverbed. She digs her fingers in until she has a handful of silt, which she heaps onto her other arm and slathers it up to her shoulder. On she works, piling mud at the river's edge before covering herself. She's freezing at this point, but she swears it's working.
B. The rash the poison ivy had left is fading from her skin. Her hands are scabbing, even cracking and bleeding in some places, but overall they're much less red. She hadn't bothered to wash away the mud, still streaked in it under layers of clothing, but this storm was threatening to do it for her. Her shelter, if you can call it that, is a pair of fallen pine trees. She huddles up in the tight space and pulls the hood of her windbreaker as low over her face as it'll go, trying not to shiver. Today's catch, a pair of squirrels, is secured inside the light jacket against her chest, safely out of the rain while providing some insulation for her as well. It's pitch black beyond the boughs of her hiding place, interrupted frequently by lightning.
Though she's alone, it's almost freakishly comforting. No one is going to be on the move in this storm. Her eyelids start to droop, and she lets them. This is as good a time as any to catch up on sleep.
WEEK 3
Since the arena began, Jane has kept to the south of the Cornucopia almost entirely. It's the first time she strikes out so far east so she's on alert. Food is the only thing that would send her so far from her shelter, especially now. The woods have become a more dangerous place since the snow began to fall, and after she and Luke had a close shave with a sabertooth tiger, she's not eager for a re-run.
It isn't her first plan of action either. But when all the snares she set turn up broken or empty, it's clear that it's time to widen her hunting grounds. She comes upon the bog first, and follows along its edge, unwilling to enter when it looks like a wasteland and smells terrible, even by her standards.
The pond is night and day to the bog, pristine where it was stagnant. She dips in a hand, gives the water a taste, and fills the canteen she had received from Clara weeks earlier. It's cold enough to make her teeth sting, but it tastes fresh, like the river running near the caves.
That's when she spots it -- the slow ripple making waves a stone's throw out from the shore. She scrambles back instantly, canteen falling from her hands. It raises a streamlined head to stare right at her, unthinkably big, and keens. Jane forgets to breathe, frozen in place with the air in her lungs misting out in shock.
It's a dinosaur. It's a goddamn fucking dinosaur.
DEATH ( closed tofuckitall )
Sooner or later, it was going to happen. Jane had no illusions about making it to the end, much less winning. She's here to keep Clementine alive for as long as she can, for as long as she's able to dodge the inevitable. In the end, she just hadn't been careful enough.
He had found her in the clearing where she was burying her kills in the snow to preserve them. She hadn't heard him coming-- stupid, so fucking stupid. He fired twice, each bullet tearing through her abdomen. Then he took her knife and left her to die. Offhandedly, pointlessly, she wonders how much ammo they gave him, and feels herself sink deeper into the snow as her blood and fleeing body heat melt it to slush beneath her. It'll be over soon, she figures, and stops trying to stem the flow of blood with her hands. The cold, so familiar by now, settles over her like a shroud. Her lips and eyelids start to go blue. She hopes she'll freeze before reanimating, wishes she'd just hurry up and die already. After all this time, guns are still too loud, still a dinner bell, especially with so much blood. It wouldn't be walkers here, but that isn't much better.
The bullets are doing their job, but slowly, much slower than usual with winter to contend with, and she's never been very patient. Birch-white fingers slick and bright with blood fumble without feeling across her parka, clawing at the fastenings in an attempt to access the smaller knife stowed in an inner pocket. She tells herself that even if she can't put herself down she can open her throat, or a wrist, at least have some say in this bullshit, but the blade's handle is impossibly smooth. It slips from her hand into the snow as she tries to get it open.
A laugh of anguish bubbles up her throat and through teeth gritted hard enough to make her ears ring, dissipating in the air above her head. She's so dizzy-- heavy and light by turns with pain and blood loss, and she's only getting colder.
"Of course."
What | A catch-all post for her brief stint in Arena 13. Includes multiple prompts covering events between the first and third weeks.
Where | Throughout the arena.
When | From the Cornucopia scramble to just before her death in Week 3.
Warnings/Notes | Language, injury, death.
THE CORNUCOPIA
Caesar Flickerman's hints that an old-school arena was in store had practically made the choice for her. If they weren't going to send her hurtling through zero gravity again, she was going to go for the Cornucopia. It's the when of it that takes her by surprise, but her mind's still set as the peacekeepers lead them away for prepping. They're dressed in layers for cold weather, no shitty, clunky spacesuit to be seen, and she's ready, every nerve bristling under her skin like a live wire. The wind hits her face before she ever sees the arena, carrying the scent of earth and pine and open sky, and she comes top level in a crouch, poised to sprint for her life.
Single-mindedness sees her through, and when someone beats her to the backpack she had her eye on, she whips around and goes tearing back towards the treeline, unwilling to stick around for the bloodbath. She catches a glimpse of Nick, who had agreed to make the run with her, sees that he's not empty-handed before she loses him. Veering slightly to the right wins her a hunting knife, and it's another small homecoming to have that in her hands as her lungs start to burn with the cold air.
She doesn't stop until well after she's crashed through the treeline, face and arms whipped by branch after branch, ears sharp to every sound around her. Most that is silence, but she thinks she hears a river running. Her nostrils tingle with the smell of all the grass she'd crushed underfoot. Small branches, evergreen, are caught in her hair. A laugh coughs its way up her throat, low and choppy as she takes in her surroundings and catches her breath.
This is what she knows. This she can do.
WEEK 1
A. For someone with a good third of her body covered in a violent rash, her mood could be worse, but not by much. She had been sharpening tree branches to arm the entrance of the cave she shared with Luke, Nick, and Clementine when it happened. According to what she knows, poison ivy isn't supposed to be this aggressive, but if the Gamemakers can engineer fucking aliens, it's in them to make this spread the way it has, climbing past the sleeves of her windbreaker to agitate skin that hadn't even touched the stuff.
She's trying to wash up at a nearby bend of the river, stripping out of her jacket and unfastening the upper part of her suit, making sure Jaime's nail file is secured before letting the layer of clothing fall to her hips, tying the sleeves in place. The cold wind helps somewhat before it just doesn't, and the water's sting is bracing, but none of it is stopping the itchiness at all. Desperate, she plunges an arm further into the stream, breath hissing through her teeth, until her hand hits the riverbed. She digs her fingers in until she has a handful of silt, which she heaps onto her other arm and slathers it up to her shoulder. On she works, piling mud at the river's edge before covering herself. She's freezing at this point, but she swears it's working.
B. The rash the poison ivy had left is fading from her skin. Her hands are scabbing, even cracking and bleeding in some places, but overall they're much less red. She hadn't bothered to wash away the mud, still streaked in it under layers of clothing, but this storm was threatening to do it for her. Her shelter, if you can call it that, is a pair of fallen pine trees. She huddles up in the tight space and pulls the hood of her windbreaker as low over her face as it'll go, trying not to shiver. Today's catch, a pair of squirrels, is secured inside the light jacket against her chest, safely out of the rain while providing some insulation for her as well. It's pitch black beyond the boughs of her hiding place, interrupted frequently by lightning.
Though she's alone, it's almost freakishly comforting. No one is going to be on the move in this storm. Her eyelids start to droop, and she lets them. This is as good a time as any to catch up on sleep.
WEEK 3
Since the arena began, Jane has kept to the south of the Cornucopia almost entirely. It's the first time she strikes out so far east so she's on alert. Food is the only thing that would send her so far from her shelter, especially now. The woods have become a more dangerous place since the snow began to fall, and after she and Luke had a close shave with a sabertooth tiger, she's not eager for a re-run.
It isn't her first plan of action either. But when all the snares she set turn up broken or empty, it's clear that it's time to widen her hunting grounds. She comes upon the bog first, and follows along its edge, unwilling to enter when it looks like a wasteland and smells terrible, even by her standards.
The pond is night and day to the bog, pristine where it was stagnant. She dips in a hand, gives the water a taste, and fills the canteen she had received from Clara weeks earlier. It's cold enough to make her teeth sting, but it tastes fresh, like the river running near the caves.
That's when she spots it -- the slow ripple making waves a stone's throw out from the shore. She scrambles back instantly, canteen falling from her hands. It raises a streamlined head to stare right at her, unthinkably big, and keens. Jane forgets to breathe, frozen in place with the air in her lungs misting out in shock.
It's a dinosaur. It's a goddamn fucking dinosaur.
DEATH ( closed to
fuckitall )Sooner or later, it was going to happen. Jane had no illusions about making it to the end, much less winning. She's here to keep Clementine alive for as long as she can, for as long as she's able to dodge the inevitable. In the end, she just hadn't been careful enough.
He had found her in the clearing where she was burying her kills in the snow to preserve them. She hadn't heard him coming-- stupid, so fucking stupid. He fired twice, each bullet tearing through her abdomen. Then he took her knife and left her to die. Offhandedly, pointlessly, she wonders how much ammo they gave him, and feels herself sink deeper into the snow as her blood and fleeing body heat melt it to slush beneath her. It'll be over soon, she figures, and stops trying to stem the flow of blood with her hands. The cold, so familiar by now, settles over her like a shroud. Her lips and eyelids start to go blue. She hopes she'll freeze before reanimating, wishes she'd just hurry up and die already. After all this time, guns are still too loud, still a dinner bell, especially with so much blood. It wouldn't be walkers here, but that isn't much better.
The bullets are doing their job, but slowly, much slower than usual with winter to contend with, and she's never been very patient. Birch-white fingers slick and bright with blood fumble without feeling across her parka, clawing at the fastenings in an attempt to access the smaller knife stowed in an inner pocket. She tells herself that even if she can't put herself down she can open her throat, or a wrist, at least have some say in this bullshit, but the blade's handle is impossibly smooth. It slips from her hand into the snow as she tries to get it open.
A laugh of anguish bubbles up her throat and through teeth gritted hard enough to make her ears ring, dissipating in the air above her head. She's so dizzy-- heavy and light by turns with pain and blood loss, and she's only getting colder.
"Of course."
Week 1 A
But he's also not inexperienced enough to think staying in one place is a good idea--that's the kind of survival stuff you can learn in Hell's Kitchen--and so he's been keeping himself on the move. He's not far from Jane's bend of the stream when he hears the splashing. A sharpened rock in his hand, he creeps forward to investigate.
Seeing her condition, he seriously considers just turning around and walking the heck away from there, but concern's enough to keep him in place. Eyes carefully averted, he steps closer to the river. "Um, excuse me, lady, not to be rude, but... What the hell're you doin'?"
He's heard of people getting so cold or so crazy that they start doing stuff like this, but he wouldn't have thought it'd happen so early.
Outside the Cornucopia
When Gray spotted movement from the Cornucopia and towards his position, he leaned over from the branch he was stuck in. This woman looked like she made it out of the Cornucopia like a bandit. So he did what he could at the moment: barter. Trade all the fruit he can toss to her, in exchange for helping him get down. "Hello? Hello?"
no subject
It also helps that Nick likes the winter too. As shitty as their situation is, there's something about snow that soothes him.
He knows he can't relax now as anything can happen to him when he's out in the open like this, especially if those shots he heard were actually real. He comes across footprints still slightly visible from the snow. He's become attached to finding safety in the knife he received but he'll probably never feel as safe as he would with a gun or something that keeps danger at a distance. He sees a body, reddened from blood spilt but he has seen too much to be surprised at that anymore. It's when he recognizes Jane that he runs over to kneel down beside her.
He's not as skilled of a tracker as his uncle was, but he's more than familiar with guns to know bullet wounds when he sees them. He doesn't know whether the bullets went through or not, but lets his first instinct take over as he tries to stop the bleeding with his gloved hand over her abdomen. He sheaths his knife (reluctantly, much to his guilt) to use that free hand to cradle her head. What matters now is to get the bleeding to stop and they can go back to the cave to get her treated. If they can. Fuck, what if they can't?
"Jane?"
no subject
She's practically in the water, ears filled with the sounds of the river and her own efforts, so Firo takes her by surprise. She all but whips around when he speaks, hunting knife unsheathed and in hand. She doesn't bother to say what her body's already communicating for her: That's close enough.
Her efforts have nearly covered all her irritated skin, but the rash is still spreading, glaringly visible on her neck and her hands.
"Minding my own business." She answers flatly, raising her knife slightly. She's in no mood to contend with anyone right now. "Wanna give it a try?"
no subject
no subject
He shrugs and holds up the rock in his hand. Underhand, so she can see he clearly doesn't mean to throw it as an attack. "This is all I got."
Not that he can't do a whole lot of damage without a weapon, but maybe the gesture will still give her some peace of mind.
Whether this next question will get him stabbed or not, he's not sure. But he's already here and she's already alert, so he might as well explain why he approached in the first place. "Just wanted to make sure you're not goin' crazy. Are you all right?" He jerks his head toward her arms. Poison ivy isn't a problem you deal with a lot where he's from, so it looks pretty bad in his mind.
no subject
He wasn't trying to con her or anything, he misses the floor too much. He even offers an apple for Jane's trouble of stopping by.
no subject
Any of the snowflakes that land on her skin are slow to melt, clearing away the blood on her hands in pink streaks. Hopefully that asshole will come back around, try to get at some of the food still buried. Some of the tributes, even ones not from their world, know how to eliminate walkers, but not all of them do. This guy was new, not as familiar with who he was up against. Maybe it'll be like what happened with Dandy.
She's still so cold. With dead branches and cloudy sky overhead, it's hard to keep reality straight from the memories resurfacing. Kenny's furious voice fills her ears, and she can see his one eye glazed over with utter hatred as he brought her knife lower and lower. Her eyes catch movement above, and fear contorts her expression as she makes a failed attempt to roll after her remaining knife. Pain kicks in instantly, flaring up her spine like she was just stabbed with a hot poker, and she very nearly howls, the sound jamming against blueing lips pulled low in a grimace.
Somehow, she's still lucid enough to register Nick's voice, and what little struggling she was still putting up dies down, head sinking against the hand he scooted beneath it. Her breathing is shallow, though it erupts into another choked cry of pain when Nick applies pressure to her wounds. One of her hands, bone-white and cold as the snow coming down around them, reaches up to try to push his away while she gives a delirious shake of the head.
"Don't.... I'm done." She tries to shake her head again for emphasis, and comes to rest with her cheek turned to face him, though her eyes are having trouble focusing. Pain racks its way across her expression again, but bites down on her lip and holds quiet, saving her breath to try to warn him instead.
"You should get out of here. Everyone heard those shots... and that douchebag might've stuck around." She comes to a stop abruptly, her body seized by a tremor she can't fight back. It's getting harder to breathe.
"He's got a rifle, is hunting tributes. Won't hesitate." She grits her teeth so they don't chatter, the rest of her tensing so that her lungs might stop shuddering so violently.
"Where's Clem?"
I hope this is ok ; ;
Instead of holding mom's hand, he had to stand at a distance from her. The rifle shakes in his grip and doesn't stop even after the tree she's leaning on against gets painted red.
"Clem's...Clem's fine," Nick rasps out, tongue suddenly having gone dry at what's happening. He swallows, forcing himself to look at her in the eye as if he owes her that before continuing. He's making an attempt to reassure her, though unlike those he had observed doing such things, his panic just becomes more apparent as his speech becomes more rapid, like a child explaining his blunder. "She and Luke are back at the cave. We all got worried so I said I'd look for you and...fuck - I, I wasn't fast enough."
He should've accompanied with her from the beginning. He should've been more insistent about it. It worked out well for them at the cornucopia. He could've made a difference but he didn't.
'Please don't make me do it.'
"I...I can't just leave you here," he forces out, as if to let them both know what's to come next. Despite the tone sounding more controlled than a moment ago, the expression on his face hasn't changed. His eyes are wide and searching, silently asking Jane for her permission to let him do what needs to be done.
Week 1 B /SLAMS THIS DOWN
He'd been midway through removing an ill-fated rabbit from one of the snares when he'd heard the voices - Three, four at most. A small crew of tributes, cutting their way through the underbrush a short distance away. It sounded like they were headed in the wrong direction for the camp, but it was close - Close enough that they'd effectively cut him off from going back the way he'd come from. He lacked Daryl's stealth, and with those numbers, the odds weren't in his favour.
Rather than risk leading them back, he'd been forced to circle wide to avoid their meandering trail and the sun was already hanging low by the time he'd managed to get himself back on track. He thought. Hoped. His sense of direction had never been one of his merits, and after a while, one pine started to look an awful lot like another. It looked familiar enough, and based on what Daryl had been teaching him, the trail he was following looked to be his own.
He hadn't even noticed that the clouds had started to roll in, barely halfway back to the cave when he felt the first fat drops against his face. It was about all the warning he got before the sky opened up, the downpour washing away any lingering hopes of making it back before nightfall. The rain was heavy enough he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him, the sense of vulnerability it left him with far worse than the bone deep chill that had begun to set in; with darkness swiftly approaching, his fortunes weren't likely to be improving. The best thing he could do would be to find some place to wait it out, hunker down and make a fresh start come morning. Daryl and Beth would be smart enough to do the same, and they at least had the cave to keep them dry.
And it did seem like his luck that he'd have chosen the worst possible place to be. His hood afforded little protection against the wind, and it didn't take long before he was soaked through, curls drenched and limp with the weight of the water; he felt a bit like a half-drowned rat. The caves and rocky outcroppings they'd found for their own camp were still some distance away, and the two fallen trees could hardly be considered a roof - but it was the best he'd seen so far.
With that in mind, it probably shouldn't have surprised him that someone else had already made it their own.
The knife was out before he could process the thought, nearly landing on his ass in his effort to put a few feet distance between him and the stranger. His heart was pounding louder than the dull roar of distant thunder, and though he could barely see, he was more than prepared for the fight that would inevitably ensue. In truth, he should have backed off - she'd found it first - but he was quickly running out of options. The weather wasn't getting any better and night would be setting in.
Instead, he'd leave what happened next in her hands. However this ended up playing out, if only one of them was going to walk away from this - it was going to be him.