thearena | Crow Jane, don't you hold you head high

Who| Wednesday Addams and everyone~~
What| Arena catchall
Where| Weeks 1-3 in the Addams Mansion, then inward toward the bunker
Warnings/Notes| Wednesday warning, also she is open to kill the hell out of you if you want. Also will update for Week 7!

I. Wednesday’s leg is a mess. After making off with only a tent, she’d gotten to the dustbowl only to get caught on an open bear trap in the strange, abandoned carnival. But she’s not a quitter, and she wrapped the wound with the fabric of the useless tent.

It took a whole day of limping, but she finally stumbled on home.

Well, she knew it wasn’t really home, that this recreation lacks whatever essence it is that really makes a house feel like one belongs there, but it’s good enough for an Arena. The secret passages are all there, and so are many of the weapons and toys that they keep at home. Wednesday knows enough to take a home field advantage when she has one, and so she takes possession of the house that does, after all, rightfully belong to her in the absence of her family.

II. The Arena is shrinking. She figured it out after the second round of bombs made the Arena seem to close up, when things started feeling more claustrophobic. But she clings to her house until the explosions start coming down in the city.

Her leg has healed slightly, helped along by food and medicine Jason’s been sending, and she’s able to start heading toward the center of the Arena, slowly but surely. She doesn’t know exactly what’s there, but she knows it’s probably safer than being where the bombs keep coming down.

III. Wednesday chose the bunker over the wasteland; it just seemed less likely to let a missile come flying at her. She’s been hiding in small spaces, stealing supplies where she can, always ready with the knife Jason sent her. But now she stands in front of the televisions, looking unimpressed, as clips of My Little Pony and pink cupcakes flicker by. Everything she sees is happy and cheerful and colorful, and often musical.

She hates it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It isn't as if Roland doesn't know this place is dangerous. Were this an ordinary day in an ordinary place, he wouldn't go near it. Cemeteries like this had been fine places for Roland and his mates to visit, back when they were young enough to think they had to go around proving their bravery to one another. Roland hadn't had too hard a time with it, then, as he'd been sure there was no real danger in it.

He's learned a little differently, since then.

This isn't an ordinary day, though, and no ordinary place. This is an arena, and the part of Roland which yearns to fight and conquer just because he can is only encouraged by being here. He keeps it under control, not wanting to play too completely into the greedy hands of the gamemakers by hurting his fellow tributes for sport, but he does take a few more risks. Risks like walking through the large and grim cemetery which surrounds this house, risks like walking straight up to the front door and knocking on it. If no one answers he'll inch his wary way inside, hand ready to grab for the shillelagh twisted into a strap of his makeshift purse, but in the case that there are spirits - or something else - living here, he might gain more by being polite.

The biggest mistake he makes is approaching through the cemetery. Wednesday knows, logically, that her relatives aren't under those gravestones and in those mausoleums, but it makes her feel a bit less alone if she can look at them and imagine that they are. But at the sight of a stranger making his way towards the house, she runs from the window and grabs a weapon from her stash, a halberd from one of the suits of armor. It had creaked and grumbled at her when she took it, but she just told it to hush.

She doesn't answer the door. She hasn't gone downstairs, choosing instead to run up to the roof and peer into the vat of hot oil that the Addamses keep above the front step. The very air around it makes her face sting from heat, and she grabs the wooden handle of the pot to slowly, gently, delicately dump it down over this intruder's head.

Alert as he is in these arenas to sound, there's no time for Roland to consciously register that the noise above him promises nothing good. But a part of him notes it, nonetheless, a part which registers itself as instinct, and Roland has spent long enough surviving on nothing but his instinct that he does not question the need to duck inside the house, and quickly. Once done he looks behind him, notes where the mess of whatever that was landed, and resolves to find his way to the source, if he can.

Before anything else, he closes the door behind him. If anything else comes down from the roof to meet him, it'll have to alert him by opening that door. Next, to see what he can make of the inside of this place. If there are any stairs he'll head toward them, and if not he'll take the clearest path to the largest neighboring room. "My own castle used defenses like that, too," he calls out as he moves, looking carefully all about him. "Didn't do us much good, either."

Drawn by the noise in the bunker, Ermac cautiously makes his way into the shelter. He knows he needs to be careful in the Arena, so he's slipping in as quietly as possible, knife at the ready.

When he sees Wednesday standing in the darkness, barely lit by the screens, he clears his throat a little. He doesn't actually approach her, however; just because they were on goods terms outside the Arena didn't mean she wouldn't attack him now.

Wednesday is more of a stealth killer anyway, thanks to being so small and young -- she has to rely on manipulation and trickery rather than any kind of brute force. Ermac is among the group of adults that she's mostly hoping someone else kills so that she doesn't have to.

She turns her head and brandishes her knife at the noise, though she quickly lowers her once she sees who it is. "Oh, hello," she says, voice flat as ever, even if she does look perhaps a bit relieved. "I didn't know you were still alive. It's hard to tell, even with the cannons and fireworks."

Ermac lowers his knife as well, but doesn't sheathe it just yet. He trusts Wednesday outside the Arenas, but knew she was a killer when the situation called for it. He'd very much prefer not to have to kill a child, even if it would help secure his victory.

"Indeed. The system here is...prone to misinterpretation, it seems."

He found himself actually beginning to miss the Mortal Kombat format. Two fighters and an audience that could more than confirm the outcome of each match. There was no room for misinformation when an audience of 50 saw one fighter tear the spine out of the other.

"You appear to be unharmed."

Crow Jane, don't you hold you head high

I, week one

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III

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