thearena | (no subject)

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Who| Roland and Alain; potentially open
What| Roland dies
Where| the forest
When| week 5
Warnings/Notes| death, possibly Roland getting chewed on a little by a wolf. (eta: warning for a teensy bit of human barbecue) I marked this as potentially open because I would love for Roland to interact with anyone who wants it one last time before he leaves this arena, so although there is no general open prompt, feel free to pm me so we can talk over where they might meet, and then I can put a prompt up for you. (Or feel free to make one yourself, Roland could be found anywhere except the ship and the top of the castle.)

There's little point in not having a fire, at least so far as security goes. It's a testament both to luck and to their own training that the lights hovering over the two of them haven't attracted many threats, but it isn't as if the extra light is going to make any difference. A fire helps, too, with the constant damp - doesn't make it any drier, not really, but it feels like it does and that counts for a lot. Normally feeling wouldn't matter a whit against reality, but in the face of perhaps a month of this damned shoulder making every moment of whatever he tries to do - including sleep, including anything that requires two hands, and including many things that don't - into more of a struggle than he'd ever have expected, Roland will take any hint of encouragement that he can get.

Even if the extra light does no good for this damned headache.

His good hand rubs its fingers against his brow for a moment and then Roland moves his gritty eyelids back up, gazing again out into the trees and the darkness. "Where was I? Oh, Aang. And his spirits. You've seen him when you've come to visit me, I'm sure. Small boy, large tattoos. Watch for those spirits, Alain - think I've seen a few from the corners of my eyes, and it'll be a hell of a distraction if any of ours come for us."

If Roland's voice sounds as if he's not hearing all of what he's saying, sounds like he's talking just to talk, talking so he doesn't have to think about pain or sleep, well. That's probably your ears playing tricks. Everyone knows Roland Deschain only talks when he needs to.

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"I can't help watching for them," Alain says after a moment. "The hard part's shutting them out."

His hands are healed, although the skin on his palms is still pink and new, but his broken leg stretches out in front of him at an awkward angle, still splinted. Homilies and Meditations is open in his lap, although he can't possibly read it by the dim, flickering light and isn't trying to; just having it there helps to ground him. It's something of home. In the absence of his gun, it's something to tie him back to Gilead, and his father's face.

His fingers trace the pages now, as he looks up at his dinh. There's a long moment of quiet before, at last, he says in a low voice "There's too many like him, Ro'. Children, women, people who've barely held a weapon before. This isn't like war. How do you win when every kill they'd have you make is an innocent?"

When Alain breaks into that silent moment Roland blinks a couple times, looks back at him. "You remember the war very differently than I do, then," he says, his words clipped and his tone distinctly annoyed. Not annoyed with Alain, precisely, but with the fact that Alain had broken into Roland's heavy, unending thoughts on his various pains and aches, and with the fact that what Alain broke into them for something so naive. And Alain does look naive, doesn't he? Looks very young in the shifting lights, round faced and smooth skinned and ignorant. Roland lets his eyelids fall shut and savors the brief, small dulling of the pain that's been lancing through his mind for a good portion of the last few days. "Show me a gunslinger who's only ever killed his enemies and I'll show you a man who's never fought at all. Or a liar."

Alain's quiet for a moment, staring into the fire. He frowns a little at that sharp tone, but only a little. Mostly, what he hears in Roland's voice isn't irritation but pain... but no hint that Roland doesn't believe what he's saying. No surprises there. Roland Deschain always did speak plain and simple.

"It's not the same," he says at last, closing the book in his lap and tucking it back into the pocket of his vest. The firelight catches the planes of Roland's face, deepens creases into canyons and sharpens him into a skeleton of the man Alain knew. Not for the first time, Alain is horribly aware of that gulf of years between them, the worse because he knows that, right now, Roland looks at him and sees a boy. And he looks at Roland and sees... what? For a moment, he's not sure he knows. "I've been at your side since before they let us use shot and powder, Ro'. I know people have died in the war, people who didn't deserve to. On our side and theirs. But it's not the same. We never set out to put shells through children's skulls or kill their women or..." He trails off, gnawing at his lip. "That's what made us different from Farson. Don't tell me it's changed, Ro'."

Alain takes no issue with Roland for calling him a liar. Of course he doesn't. It always did take much more than that to get under Alain's skin, and realizing this which was once a fact so familiar to him, feels odd, a piece of his past come to his present and warping all the memories which sit around it. It's a feeling he's sick of, has no capacity to deal with, dismisses. Other things worth thinking on here.

Roland starts to shake his head, thinks better of it. Sighs. "Alain, I cry your pardon," he says, tone heavy, because even if Alain does not seem to need to hear it it's something that ought to be said. "I forget-" He forgets that they'd shielded Alain from some of it, he and Cuthbert. They must have. "What was it we thought of Farson, back then? The difference between his and ours? Was there anything real in it?"

Alain falls silent for another long moment. "The Signless..." he begins, at last. "When I talked to him at the sermon, he said..."

Whatever he was going to say, however it relates to the matter in hand, it trails off back into silence. This silence is shorter, though, tense and charged. It only lasts a moment, then Alain's head snaps up, and he's fumbling for his crutch. "Do you hear that?" Not sure himself whether he heard or felt that low growl, only sure that the hairs on the back of his neck are prickling, and they don't have much time.

He's still struggling to his feet when he hears it again - and, yes, definitely hears it now. Low and vicious and too close. "Fuck..."

Roland may never know what exactly it was the Signless said, which is a pity because Alain mentioning it was, for one wonderful moment, almost enough to distract him. Roland had straightened on hearing the name, his expression sharpening. He knows of course that his old friend and his new one have met one another, but it's still a new enough idea to be very interesting indeed.

Not interesting enough to be worth pursuing, though. Not now. Roland's standing, sparing a moment's use of his good hand to try and help Alain up and to the nearest tree. Then he reaches toward the sash tied around his waist and tries to lift the rope stored there, woven from torn up strips of clothing he'd gathered from the village. Always have a rope. It's one of the basic tenets of Roland's arena strategy, as well as his strategy in the rest of his life, and it has not served him badly yet.

"Stand on my right, and sling this over that branch. We're not fighting here if we can help it." He does not glance in the direction of the noises, and does not waste thought on the fact that he should have heard those noises earlier. He should have, but focusing on should haves is something that gets men killed, and a single stupid mistake is enough for one night.

"Pull yourself up. Me too, if you can. I'll try to help, but-" He shrugs and grimaces, both at the pain of thoughtlessly trying to move that right shoulder and at the pain of being so useless here. It's a fact that has to be worked around with no delay, but that does not mean he has to like it.

Edited (forgot to have him help alain up, oops) 2015-06-25 13:09 (UTC)

Alain nods, gritting his teeth against the sharp agony of his broken leg - which has come awake as he stands, and is clamouring for all his attention - and taking the rope from Roland, all business now. He doesn't hurry; hurry is fatal in a situation like this, and he always did err on the side of caution. He takes a moment to weigh the makeshift rope in his hand before casting it up over the branch. His aim is true, although there's a sickening moment when it snags on the way back down and he thinks he may have to draw it back and try again.

By now the wolf is close. He can see its eyes cast amber in the firelight, the hulking shape of it in the darkness. Any moment now, it'll tire of circling, and strike. Clenching his jaw, Alain winds the rope around one arm and starts to climb, forcing himself to focus entirely on the climbing and not on Roland or the wolf. "If you grab the rope," he says, not slowing, "if you can keep hold, I can haul you up." If he can get to the branch in time.

Edited 2015-06-25 18:07 (UTC)

Roland does so, wrapping it around his arm as best he can. More chance of injuring his one good arm by hanging all his weight on the forearm like that, but it's all he can do, so he does it. And then he waits. No going back to get anything they'd left on the ground, because any excess movement now risks making the thing lunge. No putting out the fire, either, which had not been large, but neither had it been small. All he does is stand still, keeping his hand near the long cooking knife at his waist, and watches Alain try to make his way up.

His headache, he notes vaguely, is dimmer now. Well, no, it's not that it hurts less, it's that the pain of it is muffled; the old red curtain has not quite dropped over his thoughts as it does in battle, but there's something about that growl, about the light that reflects every few moments off the thing's eyes, that sparks some deep, instinctive fear in him, and all the physical sensations that come with it. The growl, the eyes, and the quiet voice in Roland's mind pointing out to him far off the ground those eyes are. It is Cort's voice, but his old teacher seems to know as well as Roland does that there's nothing for it. If Alain can not find a spot far up enough they may both die, but if he does not find a spot quickly, Roland definitely will.

Fear pumps through him and Roland keeps his body still, keeps his good hand near his knife. He keeps one eye on the circling thing, and one on his old friend.

Alain climbs. He climbs as fast as he can, hand-over-hand, his eyes turned upwards to seek out somewhere he can come to rest, somewhere he can pull Roland up after him. Still, his progress seems frustratingly slow. He's strong and fit, but the tender new skin on his hands is already starting to blister, and he has a lot of weight to pull up on a rope he doesn't wholly trust. Besides, that same cold fear has come over him as Roland, and while it lends him strength, it also slows time to a crawl, makes the air thick as tar.

I won't let him die, he thinks fiercely, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to climb faster. I failed them once. Not again. And then, blessedly, he has hold of a solid branch, and he's scrambling up onto it, his leg an explosion of pain held back only by will. Only now does he look down, at Roland and the wolf, and is horrified to see how close it is. "Hold on," he mutters, as much to himself as to Roland, and straddles the branch, winding the rope around his arm and starting to pull.

If the wolf attacks now, can he get to his knife, send it down to land in the beast's neck or skull? Maybe. But not without dropping Roland, and that is something he can't do. He's helpless and God, how he hates it. All he can do is perch there, precariously tilting under Roland's weight, and pull.

There isn't much weight to Roland, considering his height - but there is height there, and muscle too, wiry but dense. Roland is not heavy, relatively, but neither is he light. But desperation and will can help a man do a great many things which he'd otherwise never be able, and Alain has both.

So, luckily, does Roland. He grasps the rope tightly, trying to take most of his weight from his hand rather than his forearm, and the only other thing he can do is kick at the trunk of the tree to help Alain pull him up.

Once he gets there he perches carefully, because there isn't much room and Alain's leg needs a lot of it. "Only have knives, don't we?" he asks, trying to shake the rope off of him and one-handedly pull it off of the branch it'd been hanging over. As he does, he takes stock of what's below. The fire, the trees, and the wolf - for that's what it must be, although he's never seen one this size. Useless as it is to think, it does pass through Roland's mind that a bow and arrow would be particularly useful here. But there is no way Roland would be able to use one, and with Alain's leg as it is standing still long enough to aim would be impossible.

"Up," Roland decides, watching out the corner of his eye as the wolf paces up to the tree. He holds the rope out toward Alain. "Same way we just climbed. That branch looks strong enough."

Alain nods, coiling up the rope as quickly as he can to throw it again. "Only knives," he agrees, as he takes aim, "and mine so short it would have to take it in the eye or nose to get it away."

His hands and arms are aching from the strain, even through the haze of adrenaline, and he has to take a moment to steady them, closing his eyes and forcing his body into compliance. At last, taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes and casts out the rope. The first throw falls short, and Alain curses under his breath, hurrying to draw it back in before the wolf (snapping and growling beneath them, its eyes luminous in the firelight) can take hold of the dangling end. He snatches it up just as the wolf lunges, its claws scrabbling at the tree; its teeth snap shut inches from where Alain's good leg hangs down, and he draws it back quickly.

The second throw is better-fated, but Alain's hands are growing slick with sweat. This branch, which seemed so high to climb or to pull Roland onto, suddenly seems very close to the ground. He wipes his hands on his leggings, tries to listen to Cort's voice in his mind telling him that such fear will do nothing to save them, and looks at Roland. "If you hold it now," he says, reaching over to retrieve the other end of the rope, "I can haul you up first." Unspoken, but there in his tone: if one of us must die, better it be me.

The question that comes up now is a strange one. For most of his life he would have at least considered the offer, or a part of him would have. The part concerned with his quest, that he should live to complete it no matter the sacrifice that makes that life possible. And now?

He consults that part of his mind without thinking, casting out for what is necessary. Where he would once have found thought there, need inarguable and real, he finds only empty silence. It's so disconcerting that for a second he only stares at Alain, mouth open and expression slack. He is ready to say something, but there's nothing there to come out.

Cort, whose memory is always so near in both their minds, might have cuffed Roland over the ear now, because for this one second Roland freezes. Roland is now consulting another part of him, the one that makes these split second decisions, and there is nothing there. Not a single damned thing. This has never happened to him, not like this. Not a single time in memory.

Even if he had the information to figure out that this is a function of the gamemakers and their power limiting, that a good part of that instinct Roland so counts on has some of that power behind it and that he only has to push to make it happen, even then he would have figured it out too late. That one second was a second too long. The wolf rears up again, slams into the tree - Roland's side of it, this time, since it had no luck with the other one - and Roland wobbles. He tries, still after all these weeks he tries, to reach out to the branches with the hand closest to them. The right.

The fingers of that right hand twitch. His legs are pulled up, the better to make room for both of them on this little perch. Not nearly enough to help him keep his balance now. The tree shakes, and he wobbles. And he falls.

There's enough time to find himself thinking, shit, not again, and then there is pain over his right side somewhere, too great to determine exactly where it's coming from. There is enough time for one more thought: Well, at least now the decision has been made.

"Ro'..." Alain starts, urgently, into that frozen moment. Then the branch they're settled on shakes, and he doesn't even pause to steady himself, because Roland is falling. "Roland!" he half-screams, and lunges out to try and grab his dinh's hand, to pull him back up (as if he has the steadiness or balance right now, as if just leaning like that isn't enough to make him teeter, as if grabbing Roland would do anything more than pull them both down into the wolf's reach...)

Too slow, maggot! He hears Cort's voice in his ear, so clear, as Roland's hand brushes against the blisters on his palm, as his hand closes on empty air. Then Roland's gone, and Alain is scrabbling for balance, one hand twining around the rope to steady himself, the other fumbling for his knife. It's too late. If he's honest with himself, he knows it's too late.

But it can't be. He can't fail Roland. Not again. If he can just get his knife through the wolf's eye, drive it back, get down there to stem the bleeding...

He'll still die. It isn't Cort's voice this time, but his own, heavy with understanding. He shakes it away - he won't listen, not now, he can't - and flicks open the pocket-knife, trying to get a good aim at the snarling, bristling shadow under him. Even in the dark, he can see the blood, and knows with a sick feeling in his gut that this is another comrade lost. Roland, of all of them, the one who should most survive...

His knife flies. His aim is true and fast as ever, and the blade sinks into the flesh under the wolf's eye, making it roar in pain. Alain forces himself to look away, the tears starting to his eyes as he hauls himself to his feet and begins to climb.

The instinct that was so absent a moment ago is the only thing in Roland's mind now. Well, not in his mind, but in all of him. His mind is empty of all thought, but not because he is dying - although he might be, Roland has only ever died from impact with the ground before, and isn't really sure how to judge anything else.

Not that it occurs to him to try. His body is responsive as it ever has been, his mind empty, and when the wolf opens its jaws to howl in pain instinct deeper than thought tells Roland to move, and so he does, rolling out of its mouth and finishing the fall he'd begun. From those teeth to the ground is a height about the size of a man and Roland lands hard, but any pain that sends sharp through him is nothing to the adrenaline that's moving through his blood now, and is ignored.

What isn't ignored is the surprise of a couple of fingers landing in something hot. He spares the precious time to look over, then looks back again, and lays flat on his back. One more moment of stillness, one more - and then the wolf is here and the both of them are moving and it howls, and Roland sees orange dancing up over the thing's pelt and smells cooking meat. His mind is still no place for thought, but Roland is aware, distantly, that some of that smell might not be coming from the wolf.

Isn't important now. Won't be, anyway, for much longer.

"Alain!" All the certainty that was so absent up there in the tree - a very long time ago, it seems, perhaps years - is here in Roland's voice now. This is a voice that has roared over gunfire and battle and death, a voice that does not even consider the possibility of going ignored. "Come down! Pin it here!"

He's thinking of his own weapon, of course, the cooking knife that may be hanging from his belt, may have fallen on the ground, and would be so much more effective at pinning anything than Alain's little blade. But the actual details don't matter. All that matters is that Alain comes down here, and helps make certain this thing dies.

Edited 2015-07-03 23:13 (UTC)

Roland doesn't consider being ignored, and no more does Alain consider ignoring him. There's something deeper than thought that responds instinctively, a bone-deep answer to that command. If he thought his leg could take it, he'd drop at once - uninjured, he could roll on landing and be up again with nothing more than bruises. But his splinted leg won't allow it, and his descent is painfully slow; he shins down to the branch they were settled on before, rescues the rope to make the second descent. Truth be told, he's climbing fast, barely slower than freefall, but it feels hellishly slow. Roland's still alive down there, can still be saved.

He can't. You know he can't. But Alain shoves aside that voice of truth, drops the last couple of feet - agony jars up from his broken leg, and he stumbles and almost falls, can't help crying out - and shambles as fast as that leg allows, held upright only by the creaking wood of his splint, towards Roland and the wolf.

"Knife," he croaks, dropping to one knee beside Roland and fumbling for the weapon. His eyes are on the wolf, watching for the moment that its writhing turns into an escape, that it lunges for him or yelps and flees. Neither can be allowed.

But then the cooking knife is in his hand, and he lunges just as the wolf does, and buries the blade deep in its throat with all his strength. Blood gouts from its neck, hissing and thickening in the flames. Alain grunts with pain and effort, blood spattering his tearstained face as he hauls the knife back out and stabs it again, forcing the blade through thick fur and cartilage to sever the animal's windpipe. It's dying in any case, but its howls as it bleeds and burns may draw more of its kind, and neither he nor Roland can fight another.

Roland. Scrambling back, ignoring the scattered embers that scorch his hands and knees, Alain moves to try and haul his dinh away from the flames, leaving the knife in the wolf's throat.

"It's pinned," he says, his breath raking horribly in his throat, the tears not all from the smoke. "It's pinned, Ro', it's done. It's done." Don't die on me he thinks desperately, knowing it's useless. Don't die on me, Ro', not you too.

Roland's legs still work. Maybe the only part of him that does, and it's enough to help Alain in dragging the two of them away from the remains of the fire. He tests his good arm, curious, and finds some resistance there. Looks over and - ah. The fire. Of course. Isn't feeling that yet. Might never feel it, he thinks, and pays attention to how it feels as he shifts, getting the ground under his feet and trying to push himself onto Alain's lap. If other wolves come, they come. Roland isn't thinking of that. He wants to be close to Alain, wants to feel his friend underneath and around him, and that is the only thing right now with which he is concerned.

"Tears." He murmurs it, because the unnatural sharpness the world had gained during his fight with the thing is beginning to fade, and whatever's happening on the side those huge teeth had bit into him is starting to - well, nevermind what it's starting to do. Roland locks those sensations away and does not look down at whatever it is that's causing them, because there is no point. He looks up at Alain's face, instead.

"That's two now who've wept over my deathbed." If ever there was a concept that needs a moment to chew over it's that one, and Roland takes it. "Strange. Better this way 'round, maybe. Already giving me a much better send off than the one I gave to you." The more he speaks the more his murmur slows, his words beginning to wander and his mind beginning to wander with them. "Remember? Must be why you're here, show me how it's done. You ever were the best of all of us at grief."

Alain bites his lip and pulls Roland the rest of the way onto his lap, ignoring the jagged, blinding agony that engenders in his leg. "And you and Bert ever the best at mocking me for it," he says, with the hint of a sad little smile. "As for send-offs... I died in war. No time for grief there." Wiping his eyes on his bare, bloody wrist, he pushes Roland's hair back off his face, looking down at the older man. "You ought to rest, Ro'. Close your eyes. I'm not going anywhere."

He means it, too. When Roland's heart stops and he turns to cooling meat, then Alain will move, if only to pull the wolf out of the fire before all its meat is scorched away. He'll gather what he can, leave what he can't, and move on. He's known enough death in his life to manage that, though few that have cut so close to the bone.

But for now, Roland hangs on to life, and so Alain hangs on to him, tears tracking freely through the grime and blood on his face. It doesn't matter that he's been told they will live again in the Capitol. Death still feels like death, and grief like grief, and this is his dinh and dearest friend bleeding out his life onto the loam. "Cry pardon," he says thickly, after a moment, his hand stroking over Roland's hair again. "Cry pardon, Ro'. If I'd caught you... if I'd been faster..." Even knowing that in all likelihood it would have changed nothing, it hurts knowing he was too slow. But he clears his throat, shaking his head (fault lies in one place, with him weak enough to lay blame), and giving Roland a tearful little smile. "Well. We'll talk it over back in the tower, I guess."

"Don' give me that shit," he mutters, pressing his forehead to Alain's side because he cannot quite work his arms well enough to grasp Alain's hand. And by 'that shit' he means all of it, everything Alain just said, although explaining that seems a task so enormous he'll simply have to say what he can and hope Alain understands. "Have my pardon. Don't need it. But, uh..."

His mind wanders then. He takes a breath, wonders what it was he'd been about to say. It'd been important. Ah, there. "But you have it. You have it."

Shouldn't there be something else? Something noble, inspiring? Roland, of all people, has known death long enough to know having time for noble last words is rare, and having the state of mind to speak them even more so. But that applies to other people, surely. Not to him. Not now.

Cuthbert had died in their first arena together. Roland had been stupid enough to get himself killed without even seeing him and Cuthbert had died. A mercy killing, for a boy too weak and hurt to keep fighting. He hadn't come back. There's something important there, something...

Ah. Alain.

"You fight. For your father's sake, and for mine. Fight. Play their game." Not that Cuthbert hadn't. He'd loved it. Roland's mind insists on reminding him of that even now, won't let him have even the small comfort of thinking there's a reason to why some are revived time and time again and some aren't. It's honest, that reminder, but he ignores it. He turns his face from Alain's side to look up at him, but his gaze is nearly as unfocused and wandering as his voice. "If I don't see you, don't think I could... I don't, um... what was I..."

Then Roland's voice drifts off, his thoughts fade, and he fades with them.

"Don't linger too long in the Clearing," Alain tells the still form in his arms, and bows his head, pressing a kiss to Roland's forehead. After a moment, tears running unchecked down his face, he reaches up and gently closes Roland's staring blue eyes. It's a little longer still before he stirs himself to move, easing Roland's heavy form (dead weight now, nothing but cooling meat with the form of one beloved) carefully off his lap and struggling to his knees to take what he can from the body. The knife is first, of course, stuck through his belt, but there are other things as well. He won't let them go to waste. Not in such a place as this.

He thinks of taking Roland's shirt as well (savaged and bloody though it is, it's still an improvement over his stupid vest and bare arms; at the very least, it could make bandages), but that seems a bridge too far. Roland deserves more dignity than that. Instead, he just crosses Roland's arms over his chest and goes to drag the wolf out of the embers. The commotion may draw attention, and Alain isn't leaving good meat here if he can help it.

He's still hauling at the smouldering bulk of the beast when the hovercraft comes for Roland's body. Dropping the dead wolf, Alain straightens up as the claw closes around Roland. Instinct wells up in him - no, no, don't take him, I'm not done saying goodbye! - but it is a child's voice, hysterical and impractical, and he shoves it back mercilessly. As Roland's body rises, though, Alain does tap his throat in salute, watching his old friend lifted away. Only when Roland is out of sight does he go back to his work, retrieving his pocket-knife from the wolf's eye and starting to skin the beast.

No more than half an hour later, he is gone. All he leaves behind him is a wolf pelt and entrails, and the scattered embers now extinguished. And any doubts he had about what he must do. For my father's sake, and for his. The Games aren't over yet.

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