[closed] if the children don't grow up

[crabmunicator]

Who| Karkat and Roland, Alain, then Éowyn
What| Imagine dragons, oh wait, they are real and mad as shit.
Where| The forest.
When| Throughout week 4.
Warnings/Notes| Likely talk of murder and child death. Mention of disordered eating in Éowyn's prompt.

A. early week 4, for Roland

It was Sansa he met first this week, whose presence brought him back enough to keep going in the proper way. Regardless of what happened back in in the second week, she was alive, and that was enough. He helped her how he could, got her somewhere safer, surely told her better sense than she'd been operating under. Where she's gone from there is her own prerogative. For all his intent in helping her, he couldn't keep her under his responsibility forever. His nerves wouldn't hold for it.

Still, he keeps to the forest. Other areas have been destroyed, via the meteors that wiped out Alternia, or the bombs that have set off in places past. Here at least is familiar, a scenery he's used to from a couple arenas, and one he can work with fine enough. He's found food for himself and kept himself clean, or as well as can be done with the few supplies available. His jumpsuit is stained in places with what's clearly blood, some his as cuts or tears hint, some not. But he moves well, and whatever he's suffered is healing fine thanks to the first aid from a kit someone sent. A makeshift bag carried at one shoulder holds the rest of his supplies, padded inside with what he could find to muffle the contents, and in his right hand he carries a hunting knife.

It's not an interesting life out here, but the act of survival is plain and easy. Keep his eyes and ears alert, don't risk sleep, hunt when he has to, avoid needless danger. It served him fine the past week, and he imagines it will serve him still.

B. mid week 4, for Alain

If there's one thing that's been certain this week, it's goddamn dragons. First with Roland, and now here and there, they've shown up angry as anything for reasons the Gamemakers surely put in their heads. He's avoided them while he can, thinking it better to not risk death if possible. It's left him tired and sore, though, exhausted in the way much fighting under poor circumstances after a week without sleep tends to bring. He'd know it best.

It leaves him almost paranoid, too, eyes never able to ignore a shift of shadow from above for fear it means another dragon winging near. Wasn't it bad enough having to worry about other tributes? It's harder, too, when the damn things keep setting the treetops on fire. Is that crack just a distant branch popping from the flame, or someone drawing near?

C. late week 4, for Éowyn

Surely what everyone needs after fire-breathing dragons is a big fat snowstorm. Better than burning, right? Surely someone thought it was a good idea. Karkat trudges through the snow, glad at least for the forethought of his sponsors who sent him a parka and boots as the snow started coming down. No gloves, to his dismay, which has kept his hands tucked in his sleeves with only his sickle pointing out to prove he still has them.

It's strange, trudging through the snow. It reminds him of all the cold and winter of the twelfth arena, of traveling around with Dave, of arguing Nill into eating properly, of eventually dying to the saber tooth. It leaves him lonely, too--Dave's not in the arena anymore, and Escorting seemed to whisk him out of his life into busier things. Nill's been gone for a while now, and it's her he could have used best these past two weeks. If she had been there, if she had stayed his hand...

He exhales, breath white against the cold, and keeps going. At least the dragons are less frequent now, and tributes are easier to notice against the stillness.

Comments

[atouchofka]

Alain's gun and well-trained eye has served him well in the week so far. He's a sniper to the core, when it comes down to it, and even dragons can be brought down by a well-aimed shot to the eye or throat. But he's uncomfortable with staying in any one place too long, and so he flits from place to place, gun kept close, catching sleep in brief moments and then moving on again. He hasn't slept more than half an hour at a time since he got separated from Roland.

For someone so solid, Alain can move remarkably swiftly and silently in a pinch. But he's tired and run-down, and it isn't that surprising that, eventually, he slips. The twig cracks loudly under his foot, and he flinches at the sound, raising his gun warily and casting around for anyone who might have heard.

He doesn't relax when he sees Karkat, either. On the upside, nor does he fire.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland's condition is about the same. Healthy, and about as clean as is reasonable. As much as he's been trying to stick with Alain somehow arenas always separate. It'd happened with Susannah, when she'd been here, and it happens with Alain, and whenever it does a little seed of dread always roots itself a little deeper into Roland's heart, a quiet, ever-alert part of him whispering that this is when it happens, this is the time he'll be left alone again-

Roland is clean enough, he's fed enough, and his steps are quiet as he makes his way through the forest. Little point exploring this area, as he hasn't strayed far from it or its surrounding areas in the past few weeks and he knows it pretty well, but he hasn't found a good enough place to stop for the night. The real danger is the other tributes, though he's spotted them all so far soon enough to avoid.

There are a few, though, he wouldn't avoid. When he spots one of them now he makes his step heavier, noisier, even raises his right hand and waves it a little in a ray of sun, the light glinting off the gears of his first two fingers. A risk it might be, but it's better than shouting. Never know who - or what - else might be around to listen, but if he's got a chance to check up on Karkat now he's going to try and take it.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn has kept some of the things she salvaged from Meduseld before it burned - a couple of tapestries, as well as her pack of weaponry and supplies - but as she is more invested in her horse's wellbeing than her own at this point, she's put both the tapestries, kept as blankets, over Brandybuck's back to keep him as warm as possible in the storm. She preferred the dragons to this cold. At least they were something she could fight, something she could defend against. Here, all she can do is huddle close to the horse's side to share his warmth, and keep walking - not aiming to get anywhere, just knowing that if she stops and gives in to her tiredness, she'll die here. She's a shieldmaiden of Rohan, a daughter of Eorl's line - she's damned if she'll lie down and let a mere storm kill her.

So she walks. Sometimes, she stumbles and falls; sometimes she has to tug on Brandybuck's makeshift reins to keep him from lying down in the snow. Always, she walks, and squints through the snow for any sign of shelter, or anyone to help or fight.

When she sees Karkat, at first it's only as a dark silhouette in the driving snow. But it's something, and that's more than she's had in a while; clicking her tongue and murmuring comforting words, she pulls Brandybuck's head around and shifts direction to walk towards him, her numb hand on her sword.

Then she sees who it is, and her frozen face breaks into a weary smile. "Karkat."

[crabmunicator]

A gun is what Karkat sees first. And fuck, a gun? How is he supposed to fight a gun? You can't stab a bullet out of the air with a knife, and his sickle (packed away with his other things) would serve no better. Maybe the boiling pot could shield, but--

His eyes catch up with the rest, and from that comes recognition. He's only met this guy once, but Karkat hasn't forgotten him, and it's enough to take out the tension that roped up through him. The downside is that it gets replaced with something else.

"Put your gun down, you ass! Don't you recognize me? I'm that guy who told you about this place when you were new. I'm Roland's friend. I saved his craggy husk from getting torn up by a daywalker out in the desert a couple weeks ago!"

Yep: indignation. Stupid, blustering, grumpy indignation. He's been stressed, and here he's got something to yell at, which is all a high-strung alien teen could ask for if you exempt things like not being in a dragon-blighted death arena. But hey, beggars can't be choosers.

At the least he holds the hand with the knife down, only using his empty one to gesture, no matter how broad and emphatic those gestures are.

descriptions of violent death; crab has a flashback panic attack

[crabmunicator]

Karkat catches the noise and his first thought is that someone isn't trying very hard to hide. The second is that they're either an idiot or don't feel the need to, the second of which is unquestionably more dangerous. Anyone like that is probably well-armed enough to kill, probably willing to do it, probably...

Well, Roland's technically not ruled out of that list. Karkat spots the fingers first from the flash of light, and then it's easy to see the rest of him marching through. But whatever Roland might do if he had to, this is ally territory for Karkat. Saved him from a daywalker, stuck in a cave for a day, talked about too much stupid shit territory.

This is also the man who worried over him when he came for advice back in the training center. A sick feeling wells up in Karkat at that. The advice about bones came to no end, decided against even before he entered the arena, and too gut-churning to ponder once the occasion for it came. He had blood on him, fading rage, and the rising realization of just what he'd done.

Karkat swallows thickly and sinks against the nearest tree. His breath comes louder, catching in his throat instead of getting to his lungs; his arms shake and grasp around knees that fold up close, his knife dropped to the side with his bag. He should get up, he should say something, should--no, can't run now, because Roland's surely seen him if he's waving--but how can he--

He can't--

It's all back in his mind, memory and image, blood, a knife in his side, his sickle in soft flesh, the wet tear and the heavy thump and he killed someone, not anyone but another District kid, dead for good and gone and he can't breathe.

[atouchofka]

Alain blinks, but his deliberation is brief. Then, nodding, he shoulders his gun. "I recognise you," he agrees, Karkat's indignation rolling off him like water off a duck's back, and relaxes visibly. "And am glad to see you well, say true." It's not a lie. Karkat's been far from his mind since they met, but he has nothing against the troll, and he is a friend of Roland's.

Besides, if Alain is honest, there's something about his indignation that's curiously reassuring. Indignation is something he can work with. Indignation is real.

"Have you seen him since?" he asks after a moment. "Roland. We got separated a few days back, and I'd as soon be back at his side."

[crabmunicator]

Be it a warning or a danger, Karkat is bound to stick out in this weather. His skin is plainer than the trees, and though the hood of his parka covers his horns, his eyes are still yellow as beacons. The sickle helps little more with its bright red color. The knife might have been safer to carry, but easier to lose should he have dropped it in the snow.

In any case, he's lucky that when he sees a figure moving closer, it's someone he recognizes. Long, blonde hair, even a sword at her side, though the horse is new. He may have run, otherwise, though how far it would have gotten him when she had a horse...

He doesn't have to worry about it now.

"Éowyn? Where the heck did you get a hoofbeast?"

She looks tired, at a glance, though he's tired enough himself. At least the stains on his jumpsuit are hidden by the parka.

[crabmunicator]

Glad to see him well. It sounds strange to his own ears when he barely knows him, and he can't think what to say in return. He felt ambivalent enough of his own survival for much of the third week, but in a way, it's good to hear it like this from someone he didn't expect to say it.

It eases his expression, and the question keeps it so. "Yeah--yeah, I did." His posture follows suit. The knife he still keeps in hand, but the wild gestures stop. "Ran into him earlier this week. He... We fought one of those dragons together," he says, deciding it better to skip over the talk before. "Did you know their meat is actually edible? He wanted to make jerky out of it, too."

[atouchofka]

"And why not?" Alain's smile has a touch of fondness to it, a reaction to just how quintessentially Roland that is, but it's a serious question nonetheless. "Better to dry it and cache it than let some beast make off with good meat and grow stronger from it. He has an eye to survival, as ever he has."

[crabmunicator]

"He has an eye for scenarios in which I scream copiously," he returns, rolling his eyes. "But yeah, I'll admit he knows his stuff. He's taught me a lot of shit in the training center."

He waves his empty hand again and starts walking. "Come on. I don't know where he went off to, but we can look together. And if another one of those dragons comes around I would rather have someone with me when it does."

[atouchofka]

Alain nods, letting his gun drop to his side as he falls in beside Karkat. "He's learned a good deal since our boyhood," he says after a moment, rather thoughtfully, "and he was ever the sharpest of us when it came to survival." There's a degree of wistfulness in his voice. The conversation they had during the bombing still feels very near, and very raw: it sits strangely, even now, to think of the distance between the Roland he knew and the Roland of today.

But that isn't the point. He drops the subject with a sharp little shake of his head, like a horse dislodging a fly, and sighs. "I used to dream of dragons," he says suddenly, and looks up at the sky. "Never thought when I saw them, it'd only be to try and get a better vantage for shooting them out of the sky."

[shieldofrohan]

"In the desert, in the first week." She pats the horse's neck, and bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from shivering as she crosses the space between them. "Brandybuck, I've named him, aft-t-ter a friend of mine." The cold makes her stammer, her teeth chattering no matter how hard she tries to stop them. She draws in closer against the horse's side, thankful for the heat of its body. "You found a sickle, I see."

[crabmunicator]

His eyebrows raise as she mentions the desert, but any question waits when he sees her shiver. He wishes he had a second parka, and thinks back to the snow arena, where Linden had sent him a second that served fine to give to someone else. Hell, he had a hat, scarf and gloves, then, even a blanket, and now he has naught but the scraps he's stuffed into his pack to muffle the things inside it.

That, too, has to wait for her question. His grip tightens and his face goes paler, turning the grey even ashier. "... Yeah, I... It was someone else, actually. He got it from the Cornucopia. I got him to hand it over, make an alliance, and I helped him out later." His voice is distant and dry.

It's only a short pause before he's stepping over, though he avoids meeting her eye as he does. "Here. Just, huddle against me or something, or sandwich yourself between me and your horse, whatever. I can't give this to you but I'm not going to let you freeze to death while I'm still standing here."

[crabmunicator]

Karkat's eyebrows lift just so, curious as Alain talks about the past, for how little he knows of Roland's. He'd ask more, in fact, were it not for that shake of the head.

"What, you mean you can shoot that well?" he asks instead. "Okay, consider me thoroughly leaving dragon duties to you. I had to jam my knife into an eye socket earlier. Do you know how terrifying that was?"

His arms unfurl into gestures. "I mean, fuck, my friend had a dragon for her lusus. She--Okay, lusii are these monsters that raise us because we don't have parents, and technically she didn't have one at first? But then she did, and it was stupid, and anyway the big white ones are like hers, but I haven't seen them much such Alternia got hit with the Reckoning: Redux Version," he complains, like any of that makes sense. "But now, she's not even here, and I'm fighting and killing the stupid things and have had dragon meat in my heinous alien digestive system. How messed up is that?"

[ka_sera_sera]

Which, of course, means Roland hurries over. A part of his mind is warning that this sort of thing is a pretty common type of trap, but that warning is vague, noted by his mind more for form's sake than anything else. This is Karkat, who wouldn't knowingly lure Roland into anything. Besides, Roland doesn't hear anyone else nearby. Which doesn't mean no one's there, but it does make it pretty likely.

"Karkat? Are you hurt?" He kneels about a foot in front of the boy, frowning as it becomes obvious that he isn't. "Or ill?"

He ducks his head to try and get a better look at Karkat's face, and this whole situation is starting to ring mental bells. Distant ones. He doesn't try too hard, though, to track the familiarity just now. It'll come. "Breathe, Karkat. Are you able?"

[atouchofka]

Alain half-smiles, though without much humour. "Not a great deal more messed up than I'd expect from this place, to say true. As for shooting..." A little shrug, one without any pride or false modesty behind it: he's just stating facts, as he sees them. "I was trained as a gunslinger, spent most of a decade in sniping or reconnaissance. These dragons move no faster than the birds and coneys we'd shoot as children, and they go down hard as any human, if you get them in the eye or down the throat." At least, the one he shot earlier did. He hopes the same holds true for any others they might encounter.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn sees him pale, and bites her lip, frowning in concern. Something has happened to that someone else, she thinks at once. She knows that haunted look. She's seen it once too often in the mirror.

"Thank you," she says quietly, and draws close to him, hesitating a moment before she puts her arm around him. If anyone asks, it's to keep him closer, for the warmth. Definitely. No protective instincts here. "We had hard winters in Rohan, but little like this, and never without shelter." But now, as far as she can tell, all the shelter in the Arena has been burnt or broken by the dragons, and even that cold comfort is gone. If Karkat's skin touches hers, he'll find her cold as ice, and her fingers are mostly numb. She can't feel her feet.

"Will you speak of it?" she says after a moment, cautiously. "What became of him? You need not, if you will not, but it may help to have it in the open."

Éowyn that's adorable

[crabmunicator]

Karkat gamely tolerates her arm, taking it plainly as a gesture of seeking warmth. He wouldn't want it otherwise, but right now he'll do what he can to help her keep alive. She taught him things back before all this mess, and for that she's as good as a friend. He tucks the end of his sleeve over her hand, too, hissing a little as his warm fingers brush her cold ones.

Lucky for her, he runs warmer than any proper hemocaste.

Éowyn's question has him blinking, though. He glances up and says, "Nothing. He's still around, as far as I know. I haven't seen him in those death projections they do at night."

Of course, her intent doesn't escape him; she only misdirected it. He shifts where he stands, turning the sickle in his grip. He's talked of the issue at other times, and surely will in the future, but Éowyn he hardly knows.

"Don't ask more," he says. Then, "Tell me when you're not halfway to an icicle and then we can move. My legs are fucking frozen with this jumpsuit, but if we find somewhere clear enough and can gather some dry wood that hasn't been burnt up already, I can make us a fire." The light will be a risk, but it's better than freezing to death.

[crabmunicator]

He squints. "Coneys?" But the rest sounds solid and downright reassuring. He breathes out, some tension going out of his posture even as he checks the sky again.

"Thank whatever random chance drove us together. If you can knock one out of the sky before it gets to us, it will save a metric assload of trouble. I've been trying to avoid them when I can, because honestly, fuck trying to fight one of those on foot with short-range weapons. That is asking for a short, swift death, and I am frankly still having a hard time that the one Roland and I encountered didn't gore me for it."

Lowering his head, he looks back over. "I would thank you for not shooting me, but honestly that should be common courtesy in literally any other circumstance. Have you been shot? I've been shot. Being clubbed to unconsciousness with my own excised globes in a sack would have been more enjoyable."

[atouchofka]

"I've been shot," Alain agrees, and leaves it at that, because while he has been shot more than once non-fatally (and has the scars to show for it: you don't fight a war for a decade and leave unscathed), too much thought on the matter just brings him back to that image from the expose, the lovingly high-definition close-up of bullet striking brow, the sight of his own brains blowing out of the back of his head. He leaves it at that, but without really realising it, he raises one hand and rubs at his forehead, on that so-thin crest of bone between his brows.

"Other Tributes aren't my biggest concern," he says after a moment, still scratching at his forehead. "I'll shoot if I have to. But for now, those flying beasts have to take priority. They're bigger, and meaner, and they have more firepower." From the deadpan way he says it, it's not immediately obvious whether he's aware of the pun.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn nods, accepting that. She won't press, not if he doesn't want to talk about it. It isn't her place, and anyway, she's kept her own griefs so close and so tight it would be hypocritical to expect less from someone else. "I can move," she says after a moment. "It's better to move." And she withdraws her arm from around his shoulder to stroke Brandybuck's neck, making a low sound in the back of her throat. "There, now. We won't tarry here too long. His legs freeze faster than mine," she adds, to Karkat, and sighs. "And if we stop too long, he'll lie down here, and I don't know that I'm strong enough to get him back up. Let's move."

[crabmunicator]

Breathing. Ha. Haha. Karkat's breath is a rasp, pulled in grating down his windhole and puffed back out without absorbing anything. The sound of Roland might as well be a blade for how he flinches, but whatever panic grips his mind tells him to curl tighter rather than run.

He's not injured - not recently. Roland might spot the cuts in his jumpsuit where Sheen's blade got him, but the wounds are bandaged, healing fine. They don't account for all the stains.

He doesn't want to look at him at all with this feeling still in his head - the body's gone, but he still did it, still murdered - but he manages to shake his head in the negative. Not hurt, not ill, but breathing smooth is a mountain to climb.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland thinks about trying to comfort the boy, discards the notion. With Karkat, maybe less will work better. He looks around, looks up, checking for enemies, then turns and settles against the tree about half a foot away from where the boy's huddled. He draws up his knees, resting his wrists on them, and looks up through the trees.

"I thought this seemed familiar," he begins, tone very casual. He doesn't expect Karkat to listen but Roland never speaks without purpose, and this is no exception. "It took a minute to place it, probably because the war was so long ago. Have I mentioned that to you? The war? This would come over some of the men, too. More often once we lost Gilead."

His voice is more distant as he gets further into the memories, slower. There are so many things about that time he hasn't spoken of, and he never realizes it until that speaking starts. "Trained gunslingers, many of them, the rest loyal soldiers. Brave, every one. Almost. Alain- Alain used to say the soldiers were the bravest of all of us, because they hadn't been made into what we were. Many of them hadn't seen a battle 'till the war came to the innermost baronies. Most had mates who who saw to them, when it came over 'em. Some came to me."

Roland glances aside at Karkat, checking on him. He lets a couple seconds pass, listening to Karkat's breath. "None were ever so young as you."

[crabmunicator]

For better or worse Karkat missed his expose. Life's ever busy in the Capitol, and between school and sponsors he had more than enough to distract. He leaves Alain's comment where it is, just the same. He wouldn't want to drag out the unpleasantness beyond what's offered.

It doesn't stop him from rolling his eyes at him. "No shit they have firepower. They're dragons. That's their whole shtick--fire, flying, too many scales, incipient death if we don't watch ourselves. At least you have your priorities in order, though I vote we watch out for other Tributes regardless. For all we know they could lead one of the damn things to us. It would be an easy tactic if they just got the thing's attention first."

He pauses, listening in case some far-off idiot is in fact hollering their way... But there's nothing beyond the usual noises of the forest. It's when he returns his gaze to the sky that he utters, "Oh, shit."

It's there up above: a shape, big, moving beyond the trees. Far at the moment, but apt not to stay that way. He aims a nudge at Alain with enough force to be closer to shove. "Please, please tell me you can kill that."

[crabmunicator]

Roland's history isn't something he hears about often, and when he does it's so often in hints and glimpses more than stories. That Roland doesn't touch him helps, and it adds when he doesn't ask more about his own trouble. The subject is the same, but it's much easier to listen than to have to answer. Even the few things he asks are easy to let go, rhetorical or not important enough for words. Roland goes on anyway.

It doesn't fix him all on its own, but it gives him a space of time and a grounding point in his voice, smooth and constant despite its slowness. He wasn't with him when his memory happened. By this Karkat reels himself in. He finds his breath again, if not all of it; he can at least work at catching the rest.

"It wasn't any war," he says when he finally speaks. "I... You know the District kids got reaped." Slow and distant fit his voice, too, in their own way. It's not out of want that he tells him this. "And I asked help, back before the arena. Didn't use any of it."

Another quiet stretch. His thoughts roll with their slew of what-ifs and things done wrong, should haves and wishes.

"Maglev died and I... I got so mad, I..." Now his hand comes up, rubbing his face. "The, the kid who did it, he was there. And I wasn't thinking, I was just, I snapped. I completely fucking snapped. If Nill had been there, I wouldn't have..." But Nill's been gone for longer, and he chokes back the thought.

"I killed him. District 1 kid. Didn't even realize who until it was over. And now, I saw you... and... I just thought back to that look on your face, back in the training center, and, I don't know. It just... came back." He gestures helplessly, then retreats his hand to wipe pink tears from where they've gathered at his eyes.