thearena | dropping like flies

Entry tags:

✘ steve rogers (au)

dropping like flies

Who| Steve Rogers (AU) and you!
What| Week 3 catch-all
Where| Mostly around the forest areas, bordering medieval fantasy land.
When| All throughout week 3.
Warnings/Notes| None yet! He'll be wary but not immediately hostile to strangers, so if you'd like to set up a fight with potential injury just hit me up with a PM first!

THE SKIES (mid-week)

There's a hunting knife in his hand as he stalks through the woods, following the tracks of some deer - his intent not to hunt, but only to track. After three weeks he's looking a little worse for wear, his jumpsuit torn in a place or two and a darker shade of grey than it started, but dry. His footsteps are light, picking carefully through the undergrowth.

As he reaches a small clearing, he pauses for a moment, surveying the valley ahead. In the distance he can just make out where the bombs took out the western lowlands -

An inhuman screams vibrates through the air followed by a rush of wind as a shadow passes overhead. Steve retreats back to the treeline, gaze fixed on the form circling the valley in the near distance. It's the length of at least three tanks from head to tail, its leathery wingspan at least twice as long.

The dragon circles lazily, ignoring its audience - so long as they stay behind the trees.

A FEAST (end of the week)

Though deer had been out of the question, Steve manages a decent catch toward the end of the week: wild boar. The beast lies dead on its side, two crude spears jammed into its flank. Steve hovers over it for a minute, wiping some sweat and dirt from his brow as he takes his hunting knife out and kneels by its side. With a grunt he removes the first of the spears, distracted for a second as he decides whether it will still be useful as a weapon or better off as kindling.

He decides the latter, breaking the spear into smaller pieces and tossing them in a pile. The second spear gets the same treatment, and the same judgment. His knife skims over the short tusks, but instead of chopping them off he attempts to snap those with his hands too.

In any case, this carcass will make too much food for one person. Anyone looking for a meal can make an attempt to steal it, or maybe they might venture asking to share.

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James is dead.

Even with the assurances that offworlders return, there's still a numbness that comes with the knowledge that she's gone from the arena. Some part of him attempts to rationalize: it's for the best (assuming it was quick).

Bacopa is nearby, somewhere, he ought to go looking for her again. They've been traveling together, loosely, for the better part of the past week.

Normally, he can track her and keep awareness of his surroundings easily, but today - he doesn't see the wolf until he reaches the hill's crest. The animal is aggressive, territorial - possibly crazed, he notices the carcass of a smaller wolf rotting in the sun, its stomach split open. Entrails hang from the living creature's mouth and it howls, leaping at him.

His knife is thrown from his hand as he's temporarily pinned down by two heavy paws, a sharp grunt escaping from his lungs. They tumble halfway down the hill until his back hits something hard and sharp. The wolf's jaws open inches from his face, snapping as he wraps his hands around its snout, fighting to keep it from tearing his throat out.

In District 11, people work hard. They're made strong by the back-breaking labor and by the knowledge that any faltering on their part can be led by swift death. Wild animals sometimes wander into the fields and orchards looking for easy prey, and the working children are taught quickly how to deal with them.

You are small and they are big. You are weak and they are strong. You can't let them know that. You can't turn your back and let them think you are prey. You must look death in the face and dare it to come for you.

You can't let them think you are prey.

Sometimes she approaches Rogers like this. Sometimes she gets caught up in bearing her teeth and making herself look big so he doesn't realize she's weak. Sometimes she forgets to do that and she lets him feed her and care for her, and that's the scariest times, because she knows that he can't save her. No one can save her but herself.

She doesn't know why he shadows her when she leaves, which she does periodically, but it means that she hears the commotion. She doesn't think before turning back to see what's happening. She doesn't think when she sees Steve pinned by a wolf, either.

"HEY!" Don't let them think you are prey. "HEY!" She makes herself look as big as possible, puffing out her chest and bearing her teeth before grabbing the glimmer of metal on the ground. Steve's knife. She slides down the ridge and grabs a handful of snow, throwing the ball at the wolf and hitting it in the ear. She doesn't think about anything but getting its attention.

His head is swimming from the blow he took hitting the ground, but a high-pitched voice pierces through the ringing in his ears and the murderous growls. There's a smack and bits of snow hit his face. The wolf turns and Steve takes that split second to send his fist in its direction. He aims for the throat, but the wolf moves at the last second and instead he hits it in the side of the head with a sickening crack.

The beast yelps - but just like he warned her earlier last week, the blow that doesn't take your attacker down might just make them more angry - and its on him again, jaws sinking around his forearm. The scent of blood fills the air.

Edited 2015-10-14 19:16 (UTC)

From where she is, she can't see where he's bitten, but she can see blood staining the snow. She lets out a roar of outrage and runs at the beast, tackling it from the side. She doesn't think about how it's big and she's small, or the man can come back after death and she can't; she just thinks about the blood.

She grabs a handful of snow and smacks it against to wolf's snout, trying to get some in its eyes so she can sink her fingernails in the sockets, and she just brings the knife down, trying to stab it in the throat but really running high on too much adrenaline to aim much.

The wolf snaps at empty air when the snow hits its face and when the knife comes down it gives another pained yelp. The spray of a mortally damaged artery patterns the snow and the girl with a splatter of red. The yelp becomes a shudder that becomes a whine, but it's a bluff. The wolf has enough strength to make one last lunge at Steve's throat with its barred fangs, too slow. His right arm comes around, fist hitting an eye socket that crumples under the force of the blow.

There's a shudder from the wolf, and then it lies still.

Steve's eyes remain on their attacker until he's sure that there's no breath in its lungs, pulling himself into a sitting position with a grimace. Then he looks over at the girl, brow furrowing with concern as he searches for any wounds on her. His expression is a bit pained, but his voice is soft.

"Thank you."

They are even now.

The blood sprays all over her. It stains the snow and her skin and fills up her nostrils with a coppery smell. She pulls the knife out and the spray just gets more powerful. It lunges for Steve again, and she's too small to pull it back, but it's okay because he punches its face in.

When it collapses, dead, on Steve, she lets go of its fur, staggering back. All at once, the adrenaline is gone and it's like crashing into a brick wall. Her knees get rubbery and she falls on her butt in the snow. All her limbs are shaking and she can only look at the hulking beast they just took down, and it hits her what she just did. She tackled a wolf. She tackled a full grown wolf to save a man intended to kill her who can come back from the dead anyway.

That was really, really dumb.

Steve sits up and she turns her head to look at him, still struggling to get a full breath of air between the shaking from her sudden adrenaline crash.

"You're welcome." Her voice is weak, but she quickly gains the awareness to give him a once over with her eyes. She saw blood earlier, and she knows he's hurt. "Your arm--" She can't quite get herself to stand, but she grabs a handful of snow and balls it up in her numb hands before crawling closer. Without a word, she presses the snow on the bite, making sure to pack it tight before moving to add more. "This makes it stop bleeding."

She'd know better what to do if they were in the woods where she could identify plants, but they have snow and she can work with what they have.

For a moment he forgets about his own wound, afraid she's about to go into shock - then he can only watch dumbly as she willingly crawls closer to him, pressing it into his bloody sleeve. Those teeth sunk in deep. His expression tightens with increased pain, but subsides as the cold starts to numb the wound.

"I'll be alright." His voice is rough now. There's a high chance of infection. He can either hedge his bets heading back into the forest looking for the right plant, or he can start heading toward saltwater. For now, he just lets her take care of them (it helps, he knows, to have a task - and she's not squeamish).

There's a pause, then -

"You could've left me." He's looking at her again, expression conflicted, his gaze scanning her yet again to make sure none of that blood belongs to her. Did she really feel that she owed him? He trusted her enough not to kill him in his sleep (he doesn't think she could kill someone yet, not unless out of self-defense), but she could've easily taken his knife and run just now. The danger is far greater for her, they both know it.

She finds that it's very helpful to press the snow on his skin. The first wads of it melt off his arm, and with it runs blood and dirt. It's not the best cleaning, but hopefully it's enough for now. Then the next wads stick around for longer, pressed in his wound, numbing the pain and bringing down the bleeding and swelling. If she doesn't think about it too hard, it's like all the times she's had to do something similar for her little siblings after they got cut or bruised or bitten by something.

Even with the task to distract her, she still has to think about what she just did. Her mouth is dry at the thought, only now just getting the enormity of it, and her limbs still shake. "I could've." She probably should have. It would have been the smart thing to do--grab the knife, run away, and then maybe find another sympathetic soul to take her in until she could stab them in the back too. Even if it's the smart play, the thought makes her sick. "I didn't think about it. There wasn't time to think. I just..."

She shrugs. How can she articulate the way it felt to see a giant animal on top of him? The burst of adrenaline, the complete disregard for the danger, the instant and utter conviction that she would help him without a second thought?

Is this how Rue felt when she saved Katniss' life? "I didn't want you to die."

He stares at her for a moment, watching as she packs his wound and speaks. I didn't want you to die. The notion has him uncomfortable, and he shakes his head, expression suddenly turning grim.

"I can't die." The Capitol will just bring him back if he does, that's what he's here for: to play their games. But her -

"You need to win." And that might mean letting him die, letting other people die. He doesn't like saying it, but he likes even less to think that her death might be caused by him - or because he gave her the wrong impression.

"The games have been happening for eighty years, almost. The youngest any victor's been is fourteen. I'm twelve."

The adrenaline must have loosened her tongue. She hasn't had the courage to say what everyone has been thinking until now. She's been telling herself that she'll get through it somehow, that she won't end up like Rue, but that's a lie.

She clenches her teeth, pressing the snow against his bite like it's all that matters now.

"I'm going to die. Maybe it would've been different if I was older and bigger, but I'm not." Her throat burns, but she tries to make her hands steady. Steady like Rue. "My sister was also twelve when they took her." Rue knew she would die. She was so graceful about it. There was no crying or screaming, but Bacopa's eyes are stinging and she wants to cry. Rue was a better girl than she is. Rue made her remaining life make a difference. "She saved a bigger Tribute too."

If Steve watches the ground below the valley, he might notice a familiar (semi-familiar, at least) figure darting around in the brush. Like a large meerkat, she popped up, turned to look at the dragon, and popped back down again, only to appear once more, slightly closer to the woods. This worked pretty well, until the dragon finally spotted her, and let out one of those piercing shrieks, diving for the elf.

At that point, she stops bothering to pop in and out, and starts running. It's a little too close for comfort when she dashes past Steve, throwing herself into the trees, and the dragon gives an annoyed cry, before circling away again.

For a few moments, she lays there on the ground, huffing and puffing, before she notices Steven, and as if she hadn't just races a dragon for her life, flashed him a grin, hopping to her feet with more energy than anyone had any right to have. "She's a nasty piece of work, isn't she? Did you see that? Nearly got me. Man, I wish I had my team here. One time, we killed this dragon that was being worshiped as a goddess, had to cut our way through half the damn cult, too. Actually how I got my axe, wherever those damn Capitolites snuck it to. If I had that axe and my armor, could've mowed that fucker down like a rotten log."

As she chatted happily away in Steve's general direction, she moved to the tree line, squinting up at the dragon. "So, you're alive. How're you liking the arena? Everything I said it'd be, huh?"

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dropping like flies

CLOSED TO BACOPA (beginning of week 3)

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