thearena | Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combined

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Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combined

Who: Ruffnut and Open to All
What: Ruffnut finally feels at home...and then it burns to the ground
Where: The isle of Berk, the water area and then the forests
When: Week 4
Warnings: Death, pain, violence.

This is Berk.

Even when the sun is out if you're not wearing fur and leather you're likely to freeze, and the coldest days of the year will freeze your spit in mid air so you can hear it crack when it hits the ground. Only the heartiest most durable and determined life can thrive in such a harsh and cruel environment. Beasts with an inner flame that burns more fiercely then the sun and a temper to match.

Dragons.

And only the strongest of humans can live alongside these mighty armored beasts with such a wide variety of skills and methods of death dealing.

Vikings.

The last of the Berk Vikings could hardly believe that the Capitol had rebuilt her home for this arena, but fate had guided her to it's rocky shores and she was more then content to wait out the rest of the arena here. After all, no one knew Berk better then Ruffnut. Every cave, every tunnel. Every cold dark wet place was as familiar to her as the carvings set in the buildings.

And yet Berk was different here, more dangerous. But as previously mentioned, those who live on Berk are stubborn among other things.

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After having been lost at sea for a couple of days, and walking the long way around the water setting sail from the forest, Ruffnut's luck was the only reason she even made it to the isle of Berk in the first place.

At first she thought she was hallucinating, but no...it was really all there! Her crappy raft bumped against the dock alongside proud viking ships that looked as though the dragons had been using them for target practice.

Shaky legs brought Ruffnut up the countless stairs into the town square where an eerie and ominous stillness put the viking girl on edge. Her hand rested on her remaining pistol and she wondered idly what good the gun would do against dragons.

No vikings, not even the low backround noise of the forges fires being pumped or the creaking groan of wagon wheels rolling along the ground. Just the faint flashes of movement in the sky or along the horizon of dragons.

Not a single Viking.

She should have expected this but her heart ached in a way she didn't want to admit to and she moved through the town feeling like a ghost in her own home. Had some other tribute found this place already? Were they hiding? Was she really alone?

All the signs of life were here. Boots on the front porch of huts, half eaten piles of rocks outside Fishleg's house, Chicken bones outside Astrid's house.

Burn marks outside her own house. Long cold.

Placing a hand on the door to the home she shared with her brother and their parents, Ruffnut took a breath and stepped inside.

Having spent the day fortifying her home with decorative shields from other peoples huts, stacking up furniture and generally hoarding the towns supplies for herself, Ruffnut was ready to take the next step in what she was sure was a foolproof plan for survival.

Time to tame a dragon.

She woke up earlier then she would have liked to do a little fishing and catch some bait to lure a dragon to her.

She didn't particularly want a new dragon, she wanted her old dragon, but Barf and Belch were no where to be found. The Dragon Training Academy was completely void of dragons let alone trainers.

Slowly walking into the woods with a basket of fish in hand her eyes were peeled and her ears perked for threats. Somewhere in this forest was a dragon, and she was going to bribe it into helping her...or potentially get burned alive.

The dragons were agitated.

With her plans to convince a dragon to join her survival efforts failing miserably, Ruffnut had retreated to her home and the next day awoke to find the village swarming with beasts. Dragons of every shape and size were tearing up the ground, shredding through houses and lighting things on fire. They hadn't reached her house yet but it was only a matter of time.

There was no way she could chase off these dragons alone, she could barely handle one dragon by herself, and counting the bullets she had left she wasn't even sure she could kill a dragon if she had to. Most of them had thick hides, some strong enough to stop even a bullet.

With the heat from the fires making her sweat Ruffnut watched her village be wrecked and as horrible as it was...she smiled.

It looked so freakin' awesome.

This was a place she would have never expected to visit.

With the village a smoldering wreck, Ruffnut had retreated to the last standing structure on the island. A miserable old shack formerly belonging to the most cantankerous old fart on all of Berk. Mildew and his only friend a sheep named Fungus. Two unpleasant characters so unbearable that the rest of Berk had agreed and built their shack on the other side of the mountain that held Berk's main hall.

Neither was there naturally, but a field full of cabbages was only somewhat shredded by deadly nadders who were slithering and skittering through the dirt and leaves.

Kicking open the door Ruffnut wrinkled her nose at the smell of old man but shuffled inside anyway, even this place was better then completely abandoning her home.

Even Ruffnut had to admit, a continued attempt to survive on Berk was becoming far too difficult.

And so with a heavy heart and one last walk through the ruins of her village she found one of the only seaworthy ships left and set sail from Berk.

The ship itself was too large for Ruffnut to properly control it on her lonesome, but she managed to get the winds in her sails and the island shrank smaller and smaller behind her.

But while Ruffnut was done with the island and it's dragons...the island was not entirely done with her. Shadowy shapes lurked in the ocean below following her ship. Would she be meeting anyone else on the ocean before these shadowy figures made their move?

Somehow, through the luck of Loki and the stubborn determination of her viking ancestors, Ruffnut had survived.

The chunks of wood that remained from her ship were bound together with rope into an even worse looking raft then the one she started with. It was barely floating but it was enough to keep Ruffnut above water and that's all she was hoping for.

So exhausted from a night of kicking the water Ruffnut barely noticed the bump as her raft washed up on the shore of the forest. Back to where she'd started. With trembling arms she dragged herself from the raft onto the muddy ground and flopped onto her back with a sigh.

This week had either cured her completely of her homesickness...or made it worse by tenfold. She wasn't sure yet. For now she'd lay limp in the mud doing her best imitation of a dead body and hope nothing tried to eat her.

Luna's occasional ventures out in search of people who need help are typically uneventful, and she doesn't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. She knows there have been deaths in the Arena and she wishes there were something she could do, but she's only one person now and no longer capable of surveilling an area as large as the Arena. It's no longer so easy to see where people are in need, and since one incident at the Arena's start she hasn't encountered anyone who requires actual aid of any kind.

So it's a surprise to see someone lying on the ground when she nears the shore, and Luna runs forward immediately to check on Ruffnut. She leaves her first aid kit on the ground nearby - it will get muddy, but the contents are safe - and immediately kneels down to check Ruffnut's pulse. Please be alive, she thinks to herself, but given the nature of the Arena Luna isn't sure.

Éowyn had been charred and clawed and bitten this week, and she showed the marks of it - as did the horse she rode, which had its tail shortened to the bone by fire and a deep set of claw marks on its flank. But they both still lived, and she rode tall, hiding her weariness as her mount limped along the shoreline.

When she saw Ruffnut, her first thought was that the girl was dead. Her second thought, hot on the heels of the first, was that if she was dead, her body should have been taken - or, if it had been too recent, Éowyn ought to have heard the cannon sound. Frowning, the shieldmaiden clicked her tongue and drew in on the reins, dismounting to edge cautiously closer to the supine figure.

It took her a moment to recognise the girl, but when she did, her concern only grew. She had fought alongside Ruffnut, in the uprising, and hated how limp and weary the younger girl looked. Clearing her throat, Éowyn reached out to shake the Viking's shoulder.

"Bwah!" Ruffnut woke with a start, embarrassed at having fallen asleep and flailing with her arm to fend off whatever predator was sniffing around her...oh it's a woman.

"I'm not dead!" Ruffnut declared patting the ground and finding her gun in case this woman wanted to finish the job the sea monsters had started. Her wild eyes were only matched by her wild and unkempt appearance. While some tributes might try to remain at least decently clean, Ruffnut had embraced the dirt and grime of the arena and only her recent swim in the ocean had cleaned her slightly. Mud still dripped from her braids however.

"Huh wha?" Ruffnut woke slowly her eyes blinking unfocused. When had she fallen asleep? She must be more exhausted then she thought.

"Five more minutes." She mumbled and then her eyes focused on the face that was waking her. "Oh hey...it's you." Give her a moment she might remember your name eventually.

"Are we dead yet?"

"No." Éowyn settled back on her haunches, looking down at the girl. "Nor do I intend us to be, but you have chosen a poor place to rest. Are you hurt, or only weary?"

"A little of both." She planted her hands into the mud pushing herself up into a kneeling position, and then twisting around till she could sit, slouching, legs sprawled out in front of her.

"Dragons man. I dunno what got them all riled up but they're more ticked off here then they ever were back home.

"Your home's dragons were a far cry from those of my world, then," Éowyn said dryly, and looked up at the sky as if afraid speaking of them might summon them. "We have known them ever as bringers of great darkness. I am only glad that these beasts have less sly wisdom than the dragons spoken of in my world's tales."

"Well I mean...it's not like they weren't dangerous." Ruffnut mused "It's just back home we could tame some of them and ride them. I tried that on these dragons and almost lost my arm." She rubbed her shoulder subconsciously.

"My village is out there." She explained further pointing out to a smudge in the distance. "The Isle of Berk. And the dragons, a lot of them are from my world but none of them were falling for any of the tricks the dragons at home fell for."

Not that she was an expert in dragon taming but no one needed to know that.

"Oh!" Luna recoiled once Ruffnut woke up, but her position wouldn't allow her to run away immediately. The best she could manage was to lean back away from Ruffnut and definitely away from the gun, holding up her hands to show that she was unarmed.

"I'm sorry!" It came out quickly, panicked, with more than a hint of fear thanks to the potential threat, but maybe if she just stayed calm she would make it out of this with her life still intact. "That's--that's good, that you're not dead. I was afraid you were." A short pause, a nervous look at Ruffnut's current state and the space where she'd been lying on the ground, and Luna decided to add something else: "Are you all right?" Not being dead wasn't quite the same thing as being okay, after all.

Ruffnut studied her for a moment, every passing second of holding the gun made her arm ache. That beast must have done more to her then she thought if she could barely lift her weapon. Trying to make it look like it wasn't out of exhaustion she lowered the gun and sat back in the mud. The effort made her wince from a sharp pain somewhere in her ribs.

"I just got chased out of my home by dragons and almost drown slash got eaten like five times in the last two days." She remarked with an edge of bitterness. "So not really no."

Upon closer inspection various cuts and bruises decorated her arm and neck. There was some swelling in her shoulder that might be muscle related. Nothing broken thankfully and nothing spurting blood visibly at least, but her clothes still clung to her with the weight of ocean water and mud so there might be more to see.

Luna's on edge for another short moment, just in case Ruffnut decides she wants to use that gun after all, but when that doesn't happen Luna relaxes a little. Ruffnut's words still sting, though, because while Luna hasn't seen any of the Rhizome here she still remembers Sansa's elation upon finding Winterfell and the tragedy it met later. She can't really fault Ruffnut for being bitter. "I'm sorry. It's a cruel thing, to bring pieces of people's homes here and then make things like this happen."

And it doesn't seem like Ruffnut's gone unscathed either. Luna doesn't like the look of that wince, and besides that the girl's body is covered in minor injuries. She picks up the kit again, lifting it up to show Ruffnut what it is. "Here, let me look at you. I'll see what I can do for your injuries."

She hesitates, but decides that she's safe letting the girl look her over and nods, holding still as she's examined. There's a lump in her chest where the rib has been cracked but not broken. Not yet anyway, and a bad looking burn on her back that seems to be a couple days old. The seawater has kept it clean but it must have hurt awfully bad.

"A dragon got me out in the water, almost sunk me but I threw a throwing star down it's throat and it sank...I dunno if it's dead but it didn't come back." She mused trying to sound tougher then she felt.

That explains the burn, then, at least if they're fire-breathing dragons. Luna's never dealt with dragons of any kind before. It's probably also worth noting that Ruffnut hasn't exactly ruled out the possibility that the dragon will come back, but they can cross that bridge when they get to it.

Luna inspects the lump and the burn - both things she can't fix totally, but at least she can do a little more than she could at the Arena's start. She resolves once again to thank Phil once she's out of here and rummages around in her kit for a painkiller, which she offers to Ruffnut. "Here, take this. You're probably experiencing some pain right now, aren't you? This medicine will help a little."

"It would be too easy if they did," Éowyn agrees, rather ruefully. "Or if they died without quite so much trouble. I have spent all this week half-waiting for my doom to fall. It is a miracle we have come through this in one piece, Brandybuck and I. But come, this is no place to sit. Too open, and too ill-defended."

Ruffnut happily accepts the pill and tosses it back, swallowing dry. Her mentor might scold her for taking pills from strangers, that could probably kill her after all. But this girl seemed like a nice enough sap. The kind of person who shouldn't last long in any arena.

"Thanks for that. I'm Ruffnut. District Seven." Seemed only fair to introduce herself since this woman seemed to want to help. Who knows, maybe Ruffnut had made a new ally without even trying.

The waves began lapping at the shore, coming in further and further each time till they were tickling at her fingertips. She grunted and inched away from the water.

Ruffnut nodded in agreement and hauled herself to her feet, butt coming out of the mud with a wet slurp leaving a Ruffnut shaped hole where she had been sitting.

"Who's Brandybuck?" the blond questioned as she did her best to wipe herself clean of excess mud. Not that she minded a little filth but there was an acceptable amount and she didn't want to be dripping all day.

Meanwhile the waters began lapping further and further up the shore, until they were brushing her ankles. Ruffnut remained oblivious to this as the water rippled.

"This is Brandybuck." Éowyn tugged on the reins, drawing the horse in close. "I named him for a dear friend from my own world." She patted his neck, a little distractedly, as he whickered and lowered his head to try and eat Ruffnut's hair. "The tide is coming in. We should move."

Unfortunately for both the girls and the horse...it was not the tide.

Just as Ruffnut turned her back on the water, an explosion seemed to go off spraying sea foam high into the air and raining down on all of them.

A massive green water dragon had snuck up on them and it roared, it's head wobbling in an almost humorous fashion. It would be funny looking if Ruffnut wasn't suddenly so terrified.

"Scauldron!" She cried out in a panic and scrambled in the mud, slipping and sliding as the beast reared back and sprayed a jet of boiling hot water.

Éowyn dived sideways, splashing into the mud and rolling as she caught Brandybuck's reins again. The horse screamed as hot water sprayed his flank, and Éowyn cursed, already halfway into the saddle before the dragon could draw back to aim at them again. With mud dripping from her, she leant sideways in the saddle, pulling her horse around to the left to face the dragon.

"You know these beasts!" she shouted, over Brandybuck's panic, and drew her sword. "How easily are they slain?"

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Page 1 of 3

Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combined

Day 1: Exploring the Village

Day 2: Dragons

Day 3: More Dragons

Day 4: Cabbages

Day 5: Supply run

Day 6: Thank Thor for the weekend.

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