thearena | Little girl, don't lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night?

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✘ steve rogers (au)

Little girl, don't lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night?

Who| Bacopa and AU Steve Rogers, Bacopa and open
What| Bacopa is determined to live. The small issue with that is that she is tiny and this is a big, big arena.
Where| Everywhere you don't need to travel over water to go to.
When| Weeks 1 - 2
Warnings/Notes| I think violence against children is a given.

Everyone

She decides early on to stay away from the water. She can only tread water at best, and it's too easy for her to get stuck in a bad situation without any way to escape. When she sees the sea, she walks near the shore, but far enough away that she can easily escape if something climbs out of the water. She scavenges for anything that could be eaten--seaweed, washed up fish, and so on. They don't have readily available seafood in her District, but she watched the chefs in the Capitol cooking it.

She tries the bunker. Once. After wandering desperately trying to find a way out for two days, she bursts out of one of the exits and just leaves as fast as possible.

She doesn't spend too much time in the desert, either. It's not terrain she's familiar with and there's very little cover she can use.

The City looks promising. She spends one day exploring and then holes up in an apartment building--but then the screaming starts and things move in the dark. She locks all the doors and windows and spends all night staring at them, waiting for something to attack her. She leaves the area once the screams stop in the morning.

She prefers the mountains and the forest. The forest offers shelter and easy access to trees to climb and use to run from limb to limb like Rue once did. The mountains also have shelter, and they have the added bonus of being difficult to get to, so people won't bother her there. The only issue is that it's hard for her to get to it too, so she can't explore too far in.

Whenever she sees people, no matter where she is, she immediately tries to disappear, whether by hiding behind something or under something or climbing up something out of range.

For Steve for Week 2, Alternian Forest

Frankly, she didn't expect to survive this long. The fact that she has makes her simultaneously proud and very nervous. Rue, after all, lasted pretty far in her games, but she eventually died.

These new games can last for months. She can't get comfortable, because even if the other Tributes don't get her, game events can.

Like this one.

She had just been staring at the night sky from her commandeered when the meteors started hitting. She only managed to half-climb, half-fall to the ground before the forest started burning. She let out one piercing scream, but she shuts her mouth, conserving all her energy so she can sprint as fast as she can away from the fire, her feet stumbling and threatening to make her fall on her face in the dark, but she has to keep running because the fire is right at her heels.

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His week has been spent in the cover of the forests, foraging and sharpening crude spears as best he can with sharp rocks. A knife would've been nice, but the Cornucopia is long past over and there's no point in dwelling on woulda, coulda, shoulda.

For the most part he keeps to the relatively familiar parts of the woods (green leaves and brown bark), but it's toward the end of the first week that he ends up on the edge of the greenwood. In the near distance pink leaves pierce the sky, and by nightfall sunset he's close enough to get a better look.

By nightfall, he regrets letting curiosity overwhelm caution.

The trees turn from pink to bursts of orange and red after the meteors strike, the ground rocking under his feet. He moves, quickly - and spots another figure attempting to do the same. He says nothing to her, just reaches for the back of her jumpsuit and lifts, bundling the girl in his arms as he bolts past the teal barked trees and makes a beeline for the green.

In all the confusion, Bacopa feels something snag on her suit. With a yelp, she's lifted off her feet and pressed against something hard, maybe a person's chest, and shit she's going to die, she's been grabbed by a monster or a Tribute and they're going to kill her, she can't die like this she won't die like this not today--

She sinks her teeth into one of the thing's arms as hard as she can. Maybe if it lets her go she'll be able to run away from it and the fire.

Adrenaline is pushing him forward. There's no sound from him when her teeth sink into his arm and he doesn't stop running (any attempt she makes to squirm away will be met with an ironclad grip).

Not for a good fifteen minutes or so does he begin to slow, then stop, turning to look toward where they just came from. Then he'll glance down at the ferocious bundle he picked up, frowning as he loosens his grip and finally allows her to escape.

Her struggles do nothing. The grip is too powerful, and the ground flies under them as the person runs, fire lighting up everything up around them until it isn't anymore. She wants to scream, but screaming will do nothing, so she bites and scratches and squirms for her life.

But it's not her struggles that gets her out. It's the person letting her go. She stumbles to the ground, but quickly recovers and swings around the face it, backing up out of arm's reach. The big guy from the Capitol who talked to her about animals. She can still taste him in her mouth.

She should run, but they're no longer in a fire. They're in a more familiar forest. He could have killed her, but he didn't.

She stares at him, tense, waiting for him to make a move. She can run, she should run, but she's curious. He just saved her life.

The girl from the Training Center lounge. He stares back at her for a moment, equally tense in his indecision - he doesn't want to frighten her off, but she has no reason to trust him. Plenty of children are already dead.

But she's still standing here, staring at him.

He breathes in through his nose, working his jaw (it's been a week since he's spoken to anyone).

"Did you see what started the fire?"

Bacopa thinks back to Katniss and Rue. Rue had had reason to trust Katniss--after all, Rue was the same age as Katniss' sister, and Katniss had been ready to die for her. Rue saved Katniss' life, and Katniss tried to save hers in turn.

"The Gamemakers dropped flaming rocks from the sky. They looked like shooting stars first."

(Bacopa remembers the image of her dead sister wreathed in flowers as if it were yesterday. It had been a better funeral rite than anyone could have hoped for. All of the District proudly scraped together as much money as it could and sent Katniss bread in thanks.)

Bacopa is still tense, but she starts chewing her lip, struggling to not think too hard about Rue but finding herself inexorably driven to think about her. It is possible for people to care for others in the arena. That's what Katniss did.

"You just saved my life." She's not sure what to think of it, but it wouldn't make sense for him to kill her now. She starts chewing the inside of her cheek along with her lip, keeping her eyes on him. "...Sorry I bit you." She's lucky he didn't just drop her in the inferno for it.

He tries not to grimace. All the survival training in the world won't help much if the arena decides to toss flaming projectiles at them - that's the thought he's stuck in when she thanks him for saving her life and apologizes. His brow starts to furrow, but then he lets out a huff, as though he just thought of something vaguely funny, and the tension in his expression begins to fade.

"Sorry for startling you." The jumpsuit sleeves took most of the bites and scratches, even with his immune system dampened he's not likely to end up with an infection. A pause, then in a more serious tone - "You should aim to hit higher, if you need to."

He presses a finger into a soft spot on his throat. Sensitive places.

She instinctively moves her hand to mirror his, gently prodding the soft underside of her throat. "I don't know if I could hit it." She has small arms, hasn't even had the chance to hit puberty yet.

She shifts her weight from side to side, still staring at the man. She remembers Rue's alliance with Katniss, the way the D12 Tribute invited Rue into her sleeping bag and Rue immediately fell asleep. Once she decided she trusted Katniss, she went all in, because there isn't any room for doubt in the Hunger Games.

She either decides she doesn't trust him and leave, or she decides to trust him for now and go all in. She can leave later if she decides she has to.

"Can you show me?" It would require that he grab her again and show him how to jab his throat, but if he wanted to kill her, he'd have done it by now.

"If you're low, aim for knees." His eyes follow her hand as she pokes at her own throat. He doubts that he needs to tell her that her best bet is to keep far away enough from her opponent that she doesn't need to aim anywhere.

Something like confusion flickers across his expression when she asks to be shown. She's unarmed (if she weren't, he'd be bleeding a lot worse already). There's a pause, then a slow nod. Yes, he'll show her. Like a well-trained pack beast he lowers himself down to one knee, allowing her to approach so that he can scoop her off of her feet a little more gently this time.

She waits for him to crouch. Once again, she considers running, but he hasn't killed her so far. Visibly steeling herself, she walks to him and turns her back, instinctively tensing when he gathers her up into her arms but not squirming like she had been before.

"Okay. So what do I do? Should I try to punch--" she reaches up one little fist and taps the underside of his throat gently, "--here?"

This isn't comfortable for her, but at the same time, there's something comforting about being in the strong arms of an adult that she doesn't think will hurt her. It reminds her of her dad, who liked to pick her up and swing her around back when Rue was alive and grief wasn't thick in the house.

"Yeah -" His brow furrows again, he only needs one arm to hold her so the other comes up to gently guide her wrist. If she'll allow it, he'll direct her hand to his nose, positioning her hand so that the heel of her palm presses upward.

"- or press here -" again, he shifts her hand (if she doesn't struggle) so that her thumb presses against one of his eyelids. "Or here, if you can reach."

He releases her hand, leaving it where it is, and waits.

Bacopa doesn't struggle. She allows him to guide her hand, gradually getting more comfortable the longer he goes without hurting her. "Okay."

When he releases her arm, she moves her fist to give the underside of his neck a gentle love tap. "Here." She then moves to lightly press the heel of her hand against the underside of his nose. "Here." Then, the lightest touch of all, she brushes her fingers against his eyelid. "Here. Got it."

Now that she thinks on it, it makes more sense than just mauling his arm. She hadn't really been thinking when he grabbed her, only panicking. "Should I try to kick you, too?"

Not even a twitch comes from him as she places her hand on each spot, his eye closing just as she brushes against his eyelid. Her hands are small, but she can learn to do the maximum amount of damage with them.

It's self defense, he reminds himself.

At the question he nods again. "Anywhere that hurts the most - but you wanna make them let you go, not make them mad." That'll only make things worse. Depending on her attacker, something like a kick to the groin might do the latter to someone well-trained.

Edited 2015-10-14 18:58 (UTC)

"What kick makes them let you go?"

She has little brothers, so she knows what a kick in the groin does to boys, but it doesn't work so well with girls and she doesn't know if it'd make a grown man let her go.

When he's not moving around, this feels less like she's being restricted and more like she's being hugged. She tries not to get too comfortable with it.

If he has any memories of holding children before, he hasn't properly recalled them - though there was a photo. They'd been in one of the heavily edited files Peggy had given him to read. It'd been black and white, a man in a spandex costume kneeling down next to two children, the backdrop a stage.

With his free hand he points to his solar plexus. "Here, with your knee. Hard as you can to knock the air out of them."

"Okay." She pauses a beat. "Should I try to do it?"

She's not sure if she really has the strength to hurt a grown man and doesn't know how to properly take one down, and practice makes perfect. Yet somehow, she doubts that he would really appreciate her suddenly trying to kick his stomach, even if she's clasped in his arms.

He shakes his head, starting to lower her back to her feet.

"I need my air."

This time he almost smiles, as if he realizes he made a joke. A beat, then he points toward the mountains in the distance.

"That's where I'm going."

He can't make her follow him.

"Okay."

Even though it's kind of nice to be wrapped up in his arms like that, it's also very nice to be on the ground again. She pulls away from him, not letting herself get too comfortable. Rue had slept in Katniss' bag, but Bacopa is a little more slow to be cozy.

But even so, he's big and she's small and he saved her life once. Bacopa looks towards the mountains, then comes to her decision. "I'll go with you." She doesn't ask. She's afraid he'd tell her no if she asked.

Éowyn found a horse in the first week, and has, if anything, grown complacent since then. It's easy to fall into a sense of safety with her own hall and a mount, with a sword at her side and easy meat - even if the hall is empty, the mount ill-trained, the sword of foreign make and the meat from animals she doesn't always recognise. Still, she has become comfortable, her hardship less hard to deal with here than in the Capitol, if anything.

Seeing Bacopa shakes up the routine. She sees her in the mountains, on one of her daily reconnaissance sweeps. Éowyn is tall, mounted, and keen-eyed, and will see Bacopa before the girl sees her; it takes all her willpower not to spur her horse into a gallop, knowing that will only frighten the District girl away.

Instead, she eases from a trot into a walk, keeping one hand on the reins and the other in the air, well away from the sword at her hip or the crossbow on her back. Her eyes stay on Bacopa, watching for where she may hide.

"I mean no harm," she says, as she draws near enough to be heard. "What I said when we met before still holds. I have shelter, and water, and meat; will you not join me, child?"

The moment Bacopa hears someone coming, she dives. She hides behind a rocky outcropping, her heart thudding in her chest, and eyes a cliff she could try sliding down. Is it worth the risk that she might be dashed on the rocks if she jumps? What is waiting for her if she doesn't, though?

Then she hears the other Tribute speak.

She remembers the woman. It's hard not to, with all the crazy stuff she said. All the things she's offering right now sounds wonderful. Dryness, warmth, food. It also sounds too good to be true, but what does this woman stand to gain from toying with a 12-year-old? She doesn't get glory or much of an advantage from killing her. It seems like a better idea to just let some Gamemaker hazard kill her off.

Still, Bacopa has trouble trusting. She peeks around her rock suspiciously, eyeing the woman on the horse, trying to look intimidating despite being tiny and without any kind of mount. "I want to see your weapons." And she wants to make sure they're nice and put away.

Éowyn nods, soothing her fractious horse with a gentle murmur - hush, sweetling, hush now - as she takes her hand off the reins and reaches back to draw her crossbow. "Unloaded," she points out, thumbing back the string a little to show Bacopa the empty notch where the bolt would sit, and then returns it to the backpack she took it from. With her other hand, she draws the sword a little way, just far enough for its blade to glitter in the sunlight, then shoves it back into its sheath. "That, I cannot unload. But you have my word it will not be drawn against you." And she sighs, running a hand back through her hair as she picks the reins back up. "You are wise to be cautious, and I understand. But if I wished you dead, then you would not now stand before me. Trust me a little, if only for that."

Leaning down, she offers Bacopa a sword-calloused hand, meeting her eyes.

Bacopa takes a moment to continue staring suspiciously at the woman, but she has a point. If she really wanted Bacopa dead, she could have just trampled her with the horse and spared the need for a weapon. Bacopa's quick, but she's not faster than a horse.

Even so, her instinct tells her not to trust anyone in the arena. Can she really survive if she doesn't, though? She's seen these recent Hunger Games, and it seems like everyone eventually gets a group to survive. She's not sure she wants a group, but she needs food and shelter and this woman might be able to provide some protection on top of it.

"Fine." Bacopa takes her hand, keeping her eyes on the woman cautiously. She finds herself hoping that Rue is looking out for her, that she'll make sure that this woman is like Katniss, but she pushes the thought away.

"Thank you," Éowyn says quietly, her warm hand wrapping around Bacopa's. "Have you ridden before? Brandybuck may shy a little to carry two riders, but he is well-bred and strong; it will be no hardship to him." Her tone has changed, become more businesslike and a little less gentle now that she seems to have some small degree of trust.

"No. I've never ridden a horse. I think they do that in District 10."

She stares at the horse warily, unsure if she should even be standing this close to it. It feels like the beast could crush her the moment the mood strikes it, and she doesn't trust it to suddenly want to rend her limb from limb.

"From all I have heard, I would wonder at if they did not," Éowyn remarks, and smiles encouragingly. "Here, climb up in front of me. It's quite safe; there's a streak of wildness to him yet, but he's no coward." And she pulls up on Bacopa's hand, aiming to hoist her onto the tapestry which is serving as a saddle. "Hold on to his mane, and grip with your knees if you can. Fear not; I will not let you fall."

Bacopa hesitates, but she's committed to this now. She clumsily tries to scramble up the side of the horse, kicking it once or twice by accident before giving up with a frustrated groan and letting Eowyn hoist her up like a sack of potatoes. All the while, she mutters apologies to the horse, as if she's scared it'll try to eat her for her transgressions.

Every muscle is rigid when she's placed on the horse. She uses all her strength to squeeze her thighs to the beast's sides and twists her hands up in the mane. She looks tempted to forgo the mane and just cling to the neck in hopes that it won't shake her off.

She's not used to horses.

"Steady, Brandybuck. Steady. There's my boy." Éowyn reaches past Bacopa to pat the horse's neck affectionately, relieved. He shifted while the girl was getting up, yes - shifted and whickered, and laid his ears back for a moment - but he didn't move away, which is all that matters. Seeing how utterly unhorsemanlike this girl is, Éowyn had had horrible images of the horse spooking and bolting, and probably catching Bacopa a blow along the way.

But that didn't happen. And now she relaxes, picking up the reins with one hand and putting her free arm around Bacopa's middle to hold her in place, and gently nudges him forwards with her heels.

"Try to relax," she tells Bacopa, as the horse starts walking. "The tenser you are, the more like you are to end up with a bruised behind."

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Little girl, don't lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night?

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