So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

[needlebearer]

Who| Arya and YOU
What| Multiple week 2 Arena prompts! Arya gets lost in the forest, sees the ghosts of those she's lost in the catacombs, tries to capture a horse, and goes to the banquet.
Where| The forest, catacombs and castle
When| Week 2
Warnings/Notes| Warning for Arya seeing ghosts of her family having died very violent deaths, warning for animal cruelty in that there's a decapitated direwolf ghost too. Skip prompt B if these are a problem, the rest of the prompts come with no warnings. Prose and brackets both welcome.


a) The forest
She hadn't seen Tom since the Arena had started, but no cannon had sounded his passing, and his face hadn't appeared in the sky among the Tributes that had fallen. No, not a Tribute now - working for the Peacekeepers, something that Arya still felt sore about, even as she acknowledged that it would benefit them. At least she knows Molotov is back in the Capitol now, and that was one weight off her mind - she'd been afraid that she wouldn't come back from the Arena at all. She was terrified that she herself wouldn't come back, too - it wasn't the dying that scared Arya, not any more - it was the not existing.

From what little she knows of Tom's powers, she figures that he'd have taken to the forest. It's not somewhere Arya's gone far into yet, but today she ventures deeper inside, treading carefully to soften the sound of her footprints, the daggers she'd received from sponsors gripped tightly in both hands, whirling round sharply when she sees a shadow through the trees or hears a twig snap, uncertain if whoever's out there is friend or foe.


b) The catacombs
Arya had slept down here the last couple of nights. She didn't mind the skeletons; it felt comforting, really, to know that they'd been put to rest where they were supposed to be, that they'd slept for centuries in the tomb of their village. She was reminded of the crypt in Winterfell, and she had to stop herself, distract herself, when she thought about it for too long, knowing that Theon Greyjoy had seized Winterfell and that for all she knew it probably lay in ruins now, the bodies that slept in the crypt unearthed and desecrated, the statues defaced, even the one of her Aunt Lyanna, that always stuck in Arya's mind because her father had always said she looked so much like her. What did it matter? she thought. They're all dead anyway. I'm all that's left and I'm a world away. There aren't any Starks now, why should it matter if Winterfell falls?

She's bedding down to sleep, huddled in a ball feeding pages from the stacks of Celebrus that Peggy had sent her to her tiny fire, feeling consumed by these thoughts, by her bitter loneliness and the ache that came from her vengeance being unfulfilled while she was forced to participate in blood sports for the entertainment of people who knew nothing and cared nothing. She feels completely disillusioned -- and then she hears a voice from behind her, one that's very familiar.

"You are a Stark of Winterfell. You know our words."

She sits bolt upright as she hears her father's voice, certain that this is some sort of cruel trick that the Capitol are playing on her, remembering the jabber jays mocking her with the voices of those she'd lost forever and those she sought to dispense justice. But no, she's sure she sees him disappearing around the corner, the thick cloak in the style worn in the North hanging heavy at his back. Before she can even think about what she's doing she's on her feet, running after him as fast as her feet can carry her, following the sound of Ned Stark's voice and his heavy footstep deeper into the maze of catacombs. The Capitol had brought her back to life, after all. Maybe they'd done the same with her father.

Finally she reaches a dead end, and as she's about to give up and turn back around a figure flickers into focus before her. Her mother. For a second Arya is overjoyed, until she sees how Catelyn Stark is slumped on her knees, blood gushing from a slit to her throat. "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." Right through a coffin next to her walked a grotesque figure that she recognises instantly as her brother Robb, the head of his direwolf Grey Wind sewn crudely to his back. No, I avenged you-- I got the ones that did that, Robb-- No amount of reassuring both the ghost and herself will give him peace. Then, finally, her father steps between the other two, and Arya realises why she'd only caught glimpses of him - his spirit had been leading her there headless, the body walking by itself around the crypt. Ned Stark's ghostly head emerges from the ground, rolling to a stop just in front of her feet, and Arya screams as it looks up at her with blank, dead eyes.


c) The castle
Arya hadn't dared to spend another night down in the catacombs. The castle had been her ultimate destination and now she makes her way there in earnest, the many gifts she'd received from sponsors bundled under her arm. She'd been wary at first, but when she'd seen an Avox through the window her curiosity had got the best of her and she ventured in, wondering what they could be doing there.

Her mouth waters as soon as she smells the feast, and she gathers as much food up as she can before retreating to a corner and curling up exhausted, eating as much as she can, becoming suddenly alert as soon as anyone else arrives to the banquet, afraid after her ghostly encounter that there are worse things out there than other Tributes trying to kill her.


d) The forest again
Feeling refreshed, Arya heads back into the forest, hoping to score a kill or at the very least find something to hunt, needing not the food but just something on which to take out her frustration. She's not gone very far into the trees when she hears a rumbling up ahead, and then the ground beneath her begins to vibrate as a drove of wild horses heads straight toward her. These are the first horses she's seen since arriving in Panem and she can't help but be a little elated. She sits in a nearby tree, watching them gallop by, wondering if she could ride one.

Comments

D!

[freedomscall]

“You know, I stole a horse once” the man sat near by, not close enough that Arya could have easily killed him, but not far enough that it was hard for her to hear. “I'd gotten away from the Temp- the Knights escorting me back to the Circle. Lost them in the woods. They couldn't leave without me, went hunting and left their steeds tied up at the outskirts of the forest. A little magic got them tangled up, and I snuck back, stole their Commander's horse, and booked it to Denerim. They found me a few days later, but by that time I'd sold the horse and most of their supplies” And paid for far too many dances and far too much booze in the Pearl.

“You know, you shouldn't be out here alone. I hear there are are bunch of people fighting each other for their lives out here”.

[needlebearer]

Arya looks quite amused at his story, and pretty impressed. Though looking at the horses stampeding past, she's not sure that it will be quite as easy to steal one as Anders describes. "I wish I could have done that. It sounds like an easy escape." She thinks of the various captors and escorts she'd had since leaving King's Landing, and wonders if there was ever an opportunity where she could have just jumped on a horse and taken off.

"Maybe that's why I'm out here alone. So I'm away from the ones doing the fighting."

[freedomscall]

He smiled at the girl, “I can see why you would. I don't want to get caught up in it myself.” The mage glanced down at his hands. “I'm afraid if I throw a fire ball this whole forest will go up in flames”.

Brown eyes glanced back to the horses and for a moment he just watched them. “...You see the one with that white blaze on his face? He's got spirit doesn't he?”

b?

[shiny_and_chrome]

The scream gets his attention. He's peeking in the catacombs, less uncomfortable than another might be by the darkness and stone. It's just like the Citadel at night, only without the background hiss of running water.

All he's got for a weapon right now is the length of chain on his wrist, but he's good at improvising, so he pounds down the darkness toward the scream, still not really entirely sure what he's going to do when he gets there.

[needlebearer]

Arya hears his footsteps growing closer, echoing off the walls of the catacombs, and she becomes even more afraid when she realises that the spirits aren't reacting to the sound, fearing that whoever or whatever is approaching is going to join with them in tormenting her. She's trapped between the ghosts on the one hand and a stranger on the other, unsure which is the greater terror and frozen in place, reaching for her daggers and trying to look anywhere but at the blank, dead eyes of her father, mother and brother.

[shiny_and_chrome]

She looks afraid. Well, 'afraid' kind of seems like an understatement, but he's not real good with words, so, you know, close enough. He's fine with killing...in combat, that is. You know, with the Buzzards or the Rock Riders, people who were trying to kill you, first.

But not like this. The length of chain goes slack in his hands. "Are you. I mean.....you okay?"

b

[ka_sera_sera]

The scream could be simply another part of this place, of course, or part of a trap. But given he'd entered this building in the first place looking at the words written on it - It is we who will pay the price of war, indeed - and thinking something like, 'Let's see. Let's just see,' there really is no reason to try and be cautious. Instead he jogs in the direction of the scream, trying to mark off in his mind the turns he takes to find it.

It doesn't take long to get there, not at all. He was already close. He stops, takes it all in, and decides to focus primarily on the figure he recognizes. "Arya." His voice is sharp, quick, and when next he speaks it'll be even more so. His right arm still hangs at his side, useless, and the bone of his right shoulder still makes a bulge where none should be, but combine his stance and the dim lighting and Roland thinks that injury shouldn't be immediately apparent.

Of course, looking at him is the last thing she likely wants to do right now, judging by that scream. "Pull yourself together."

The other forms around her get none of his attention - or at least, they don't seem to. Waking her up before they do whatever they're going to next is the important thing.

[needlebearer]

It takes her a moment to realise that the voice calling her name belongs to a man of flesh and blood rather than another spirit here to confuse and torment her. She stares at Roland as though she's trying to stare right through him, needing to convince herself that this isn't another trick.

"You-- you can see them, can't you?"

She wouldn't be surprised if the Gamemakers had made it so she alone could see her relatives.

[ka_sera_sera]

"Mhm. But I can't dismiss them. Only you can do that." He's guessing, of course. Roland is not truly a guessing man but sometimes it has to be done. There's no chance that these are the same ghosts of his own world, handled in the same way - all the rituals he'd memorized endlessly as a boy and the language he'd learned to use them, all that's useless to him now. Panem has its own ideas about what creatures like these are, and just what it is that they can do.

What Roland does know is that these creatures, like everything else in this arena, are here for show. And what, to the Capitolites, would make a better show than a child forced to defeat these horrors alone?

Well, a child being torn apart by them, that show would probably be considered very good. With luck, they'll be able to avoid that one. He focuses down on Arya, and on the severed head laying there in front of her. "You have the power here, Arya. Not them. Send them on their way."

[pimpcanes]

All it takes is for Arya to set foot in the forest for Tom to find her, because his body is...dispersed, as it were. He's within and part of every tree in the forest, a sort of spasm of energy coursing through branches and leaves and roots. Occasionally he'll whip a vine or bough when the rats the Gamemakers have sent after him in this form start to gnaw at a branch, but unless they were to burn this entire forest down he'd likely survive. He's considered just hunkering down and outlasting, but aside from the fact that that would bore him to death, he's sure that the Gamemakers would retaliate against such an unimpressive display.

"There you are, lass. I was worried you'd never come looking for me. Now, don't be alarmed..."

When he senses Arya around him, he decides to emerge. He peels himself out of a tree near her with a sickening cracking noise, unfolding like a flower blooming as a person neither flesh nor plant but some strange concoction of the two. His eyes are dark holes in his rough face, his beard and hair mossy and tangled, his hands clawed and bark-covered, but his teeth are undeniably human, and within his eye sockets there's a sort of sparkling intelligence that defies the lightlessness within the cavities. The costume the Capitol gave him has been discarded, but that's alright, because the entirety of his anatomy below the ribs is decidedly inhuman, a near-mermaid's tail of wood and plant matter that merges with the grass beneath him.

"Where have you been?"

[needlebearer]

Arya just stares, unsure at first if she's really seeing Tom before her, or some trick of the forest. He looks like one of the creatures in Old Nan's tales, something that would have lived in the Godswood thousands of years ago and may still live beyond the Wall. Of all the powers to have, it seemed like a good one, a way to lay low and either outlast or outsmart all enemies. She imagines herself becoming a tree in the courtyard of the Red Keep, waiting until Joffrey stepped too close and then strangling him with her roots, and she wishes sorely that it's something she could do too.

"The village. With Éowyn. She saved me from burning to death at the Cornucopia."

[pimpcanes]

"Good lass. Éowyn seems to have a right head on her shoulders." Though he's sure she wouldn't say the same for him; going back through footage and rumors, he's found her to be fond of Aragorn and thus she has good reason not to be fond of him.

"I have something for you. It's deeper into the woods, but I'll keep you safe as we travel. This is my kingdom, you see, in a metaphorical sense."

c

[aintyourdad]

The castle is a really obvious landmark, and thus a really obvious place to get into trouble, but that doesn't mean he can just avoid scouting it forever. Joel knows better than that. He waits, keeps his head low, and makes sure he does a perimeter check before he goes in. He's careful, quiet and methodical as he moves through the building, and when he stumbles upon the banquet, he is immediately suspicious - this has to be a trick of some kind, right? It's fake, or it's poison, or - something.

At the very least, if anyone else finds out about it, there will be a lot of people running around here, and therefore a lot of danger, so he starts filling his bag and pockets with as much food as he can carry - until he spots the figure tucked away in a corner.

"Hey, kid."

[needlebearer]

Arya's curled up with her head against the wall, half-heartedly eating a leg of chicken, her exhaustion having overtaken her hunger. When she sees Joel she brightens a little, though she looks wary too, unsure of how far friendships outside of the Arena count for anything inside.

"Joel, you're still alive."

[aintyourdad]

"Yeah," he says disinterestedly, as though that's hardly surprising, or at least that it doesn't matter much to him. Joel is far more focused on Arya, now. "You okay? You sure that food's good to eat?"

b

[knittingbackwards]

"Oh, dear," Merlyn mutters, as a child's scream cuts through the catacombs. His own ghosts hang around him, very few of them human; he pays them no mind when they scream at him, but occasionally talks to them or uses them to bounce his own thoughts off. "Dear, dear," he repeats, apparently to the ghostly owl flying around his head, and stands up from the tomb he's been sitting on. "Yes, quite awful, Archimedes. Quite awful indeed."

Bundling his knitting up under his arm - he's done quite a lot of it over the last couple of nights, when the ghostly screaming has kept him up and they won't respond to his polite requests to stop rattling their chains - he sighs and starts towards the scream. It isn't far, and when he rounds a corner, holding up the little torch he made out of a rolled-up magazine, there she is. A child, all right. A little girl. Merlyn mutters something foul under his breath, not caring if the Capitol hears his invective against them, and draws closer through the hooting, chittering cloud of his ghosts.

"They aren't real, you know," he says, his voice gentle, and pushes his knitting needles under his arm with the yarn so he can proffer his hand. "Don't pay them any mind."

[needlebearer]

"Of course they are, they're right there." She stares at Merlyn intensely, first to make sure he's not some sort of ghost too, and then so that she keeps her eyes focused on something other than her dead relatives. "...You can see them, can't you?" She sounds panicked then, the thought of the Capitol making her see things to drive her mad being even more frightening to her than if they were actually there.

[knittingbackwards]

"I can. I can also see..." He looks around at his own ghosts, scratching his beard. "Archimedes. He's barely a chick, but here he is, look, full-grown and totally incapable of reasonable conversation. Here, you see these hedgehogs? Their mother died before they were born, but look, she's right there. This fellow rattling a bayonet at me and trying to spook me, he died in the trenches in 1915, saw it with my own two eyes. Charming fellow. Bit low of them to use him in their smoke-and-mirror act. Because that's all it is, you know." He winks, his wrinkled face knowing. "Believe me. I'm a magician myself. I know all about smoke and mirrors - and ghosts, for that matter. Pay them no mind. Do you know how to knit? It makes for a marvellous distraction from all this kerfuffle."

b

[biiowiired]

Psii had ensconced himself in one of the recesses in the wall. He covered his monk's robes in dust and lay down behind a skeleton, hoping no one would notice him. The shouts of ghosts matched the voices of the soon-to-be-dead that had been his psychic companions since his hatching. Just like ghosts of the future, ghosts of the past could fuck right off. He tuned them out like he always did.

He couldn't possibly miss Arya's scream, undeniably alive compared to the echoing shrieks of the ghosts. Higher-sounding, too, like that of a smaller person. None of the wigglers or children he knew, but he worried anyway. Anyone finding themselves in Psii's vague vicinity usually became someone he'd try to protect, as long as they didn't aggrieve him. He admitted he had a bit of a problem.

He scrambled over his skeleton companion and lurched forward in the darkness clutching a femur to visually deter attackers. He'd like to save his optic blasts for people stupid enough to attack an armed troll. He had a vague idea of where the scream came from, and he followed the wall there.

He was a shambling blind troll, with completely black sclerae and bits of burial rags hanging off his clothes and horns. A perpetual flame was on him on account of his visions. Lack of food beyond what bats he could catch had drawn the gray skin tight and dry on his already slim face. He only heard movement from one person as he approached the next archway, which ruled out a Tribute fight. He opened his mouth, fangs glinting in the torchlight—

"Goddamn ghothtth better shut up, I've got an ath cramp the thize of the green moon, and I am not in the mood!"

[needlebearer]

As she sees Psii heading toward her she feels herself panic even more, just for a second before she reminds herself that the Trolls were among the Tributes and even Mentors here, rather than further creatures of the catacombs sent by the Gamemakers to torment her. She focuses her gaze on the fire flickering about his head, finding it hypnotic in a way, and soothing - a reminder that nothing in here was real, that her family were dead and gone and lay rotting in Westeros rather than haunting her here, and were as much a product of the Arena as the flame.

"We need to get out of here. They won't follow us out of the tombs, right?"

[biiowiired]

"No. Either ghothtth are averthe to photonth, or the Gamemakerth thought ghothtth would only be appropriate around here. I never heard them outthide when I ran here. I haven't been to the other locationth though, tho I can't tell you if they're 'haunted' ath well." Dusty fingers curled in air quotes. "Anyway, they're not real. I've lived with ghothtth thtarting pthychic shit in my head, I know how they really are."

At least, he was pretty sure they weren't real....

"I'm pretty thet on thtaying here for the batth. They're my only reliable thourthe of food. But if you're lotht I can lead you back to the entranthe. I know how everything feelth, but fuck trying to dethcribe what the hallth look like. Thorry, my vithion ithn't what it uthed to be."

Understatement of the year.

C

[aboveangrybees]

Steve had been tucked away in the castle for the last few days, not really wanting to be here but finding himself here anyway. The group he's with now, he doesn't exactly trust them, but he also doesn't exactly not either, it's confusing and a mess and he's not sure how to go about it. Not like they let him leave and stay gone with him being in this small and fragile frame, they seem to want to keep an eye on him to keep him safe, which is what makes it so confusing. All he knows is that it's just as likely for him to wake up to someone's kind "good morning" as it is a knife in the throat.

So, if he'd already here, why not snatch some food before taking off, make his sponsor food last longer.

He moves into the room when it seems empty, stuffing anything that can keep in his makeshift bag and grabbing bites of anything that won't. But then he turns and sees her, the kid in the corner. She seems tucked away, not meaning to sneak up on him, and really, she might have meant to go unnoticed, but guess that didn't work so much.

He pauses for a long moment before deciding to speak up, still feeling skittish but he'd rather engage with her than turn his back again, "Anything you'd recommend?"

[needlebearer]

"The chicken," she replies with enthusiasm, taking a big bite from a leg. Really she'd hoped for the fare of burgers and donuts that she'd come to love so much in the Capitol, but she'd take any food she could get right now, and proper meat was very welcome indeed after having to subsist on rats for the first couple of days of the Arena. Despite the gusto with which she sets about the food, she looks pale and exhausted, and the last thought on her mind is attacking, though she looks at him warily, hoping that fighting her isn't his intention either.

[allyorfoe]

Tabris had been poking around the catacombs, figuring that anything this awful would probably have some kind of prize for those brave enough to face them. Skeletons meant nothing to her, she stepped over them with no note. She'd created with her own hands more skeletons than this, was she supposed to be scared of them? But still, she was cautious.

The dangers appeared soon enough--A woman with red hair, pulled into little pigtails drifted towards her, and Tabris stopped, feeling like she'd been punched in the gut. "Shianni..." The dead woman turned at her name, her beloved cousin that Tabris had spent the better part of her childhood with, growing up and growing mad, frustrated by the position they found themselves in as elven women. And they had thought that they had finally both managed to do something...

"You failed me," The voice started, and Tabris realized that whatever was going on, she had to get out. She turned and ran, then stopped when she heard that shriek. A child's shriek. Leaving the ghost behind her, she ran towards the voice, and nearly fell over skidding to a stop at the scene before her. More ghosts, and their focus for torment was clear--Arya Stark, looking rightfully horrified.

The elven woman came to a snappy decision. There's not a lot she can do about ghosts, but she can do something about their location. She runs at Arya, and grabs her, throwing the girl over her shoulder like a sack of wheat, and runs for it. She supposes that something could be said about coming to terms with the skeletons in your closet, but as she whirled past real skeletons, Tabris found that she couldn't quite give a fuck. On national TV wasn't the place for this bullshit.

"Hold on--!"

[needlebearer]

She doesn't hear Tabris approach, her eyes fixed on the macabre scene before her. She hadn't seen her mother die or known precisely how it had happened, and she feels even more sickened and helpless seeing it played out in front of her. She feels as though she's got a little justice for Robb and Grey Wind, but the gruesome hybrid of their bodies has haunted her nightmares ever since the night she'd heard called the Red Wedding, and seeing it again brings the images that have haunted her dreams every night since float up in her mind, so they feel almost as real as the ghosts before her. Her father is the worst, though. Yoren had shielded her from seeing anything that day at Baelor's Sept, but that just meant that Arya had imagined it a hundred different ways, and seeing it before her now is even worse than anything she'd envisioned.

As Tabris grabs her, Arya's first thought is that there's something else lurking in the catacombs, waiting until she was distracted by the spirits to make its move. She thrashes and kicks, wriggling to get free as hard as she can.