thearena | Did you fall out of the stupid tree?

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Did you fall out of the stupid tree?

Who: Volanz and OPEN!
What: Exploring ~~and falling in~~ the wreck that used to be Tarzan's Tree House
Where: Tarzan's Tree House in Adventureland
When: Sometime into the first week, he's a little late to the party
Warnings/Notes: Nothing really, he's probably more afraid of you than you should be of him.

Volanz was up a tree. It wasn't a real tree, but it was tall and that was good enough for him. It meant he could see things.

The young troll was out on the end of one of the tree's longer branches, squinting doubtfully northward. He didn't like that it was so bright out, but at least it did help him see the shapes of the distant carcasses of old attractions. What the hell was this place?

Unfortunately, it wasn't giving him much of an idea of where to find food. Water wasn't going to be a problem at all, he'd already figured out there was so much water. He could probably get fish out of it if he had to, but he'd need some kind of tool to do it.

He sighed, disappointed, and crawled backward to get over to the rail he'd come up off of. He tested with one leg to see if it'd hold his weight again, unsure of the decaying wood, then climbed down onto it ag-

SNAP

Volanz yelled as he dropped, bounced off a branch that took the breath out of him, and only just managed to grab hold of the next one to arrest his fall.

He clung to it, upside down with eyes squeezed shut listening to his heart hammer for a moment. Oh god oh god oh god.

Then he opened one eye and looked down.

He snapped it shut again and clung tighter.

The ground was awfully far away.

"Fuck."

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"Crivens, kid, what're you doing up there?"

Gaius brought one hand up to shade his eyes from the sun, craning his neck up to look at Volanz, who... yikes. Were those horns?

"Er... you need a little help getting down?" Better make sure any attempt to help wouldn't be taken as a possible attack.

Yes, they were horns. Bright candy corn orange ones, for that matter. When the kid turned his head to look down at Gaius his eyes were huge and amber-yellow, definitely not human looking.

"I was just trying to see where things are!" he called back. Wait why was he justifying himself to this guy, everybody was supposed to be enemies in here. Right?

Volanz twisted to stare at the branch above him again. Shit. How was he going to get back on top of this thing? As he tried to pull himself back up, he continued.

"But if I get down there you're probably just going to stab me or some other thing, right?"

Well, Volanz was unusual-looking, all right, but he seemed to be capable of communicating just fine. Of course, seeing as how he wasn't human, there was always the possibility he could turn into a much bigger, nastier-looking critter that would be much harder to handle.

"...No. I generally try to reserve the stabbing for people who deserve it." What was wrong with this place, anyway? And why were the people in it so quick to accept the whole kill-or-die deal?

"Hang on. I'm going to come get you down." Gaius looked around, then tossed his sack up to one of the bottommost branches, which was still fairly high up. He could at least make sure animals didn't make off with it while he was busy with Volanz.

That done, he leapt lightly upward, finding his way nimbly from branch to branch. He was no taguel, that was for sure, but Gaius was certainly a capable human climber, and heights came to him with ease.

"But that's what we're supposed to do," Volanz replied. Still, he wasn't exactly in a position to decline help. Stupid trees. Why did he have to go with the tree anyway? Stupid stupid stupid.

"That's what they said. Because only one person's actually supposed to survive?" He couldn't stop his voice from rising a bit more than it should have there.

"Uh huh," said Gaius, continuing to climb. "If someone asked told to stick your arm in a dragon's mouth, would you do it? I don't know about you, Horns, but I'm not bumping off anyone just because a couple of nobles told me to."

He was rapidly coming up on Volanz's location. "Okay, I'm going to give you a boost, so use it to get upright. You do know how to get down on your own, don't you?"

"Okay, I'm ready," he said. He let himself hang by his arms so that Gaius could reach him better to help push him onto the branch.

"I should be able to do this okay?" Provided he didn't fall again, of course. He was going to be extra careful of the railing. He crouched for the moment on the artificial limb, peering at Gaius.

"And, well, I guess if someone told me I had to do that I might? Because usually in my experience nobles are pretty much just as dangerous to me as dragons, I guess, and sometimes dragons don't bite. Nobles do." He paused, then added hurriedly, "I mean like not always literally, but sometimes literally! But yes. They hurt you more often than other things do."

"Now!" Gaius steadied himself on a sturdy-looking branch, put his hands under Volanz's feet, and gave him a quick upwards push.

Once he was reasonably certain Volanz wasn't in danger of dropping like a stone, he made his way to a different branch and slouched his way into a sitting position. Though his manner was casual, he was confident he could regain his balance and keep himself out of danger, even if Volanz decided to aim a shove at him.

"Er. I guess the ones in your outrealm must be a lot closer to the ones out here, then. Back where I came from, they hardly ever bit at all."

Volanz wasn't in any shape to be shoving people around who were bigger than him and clearly better climbers. Knowing his luck, he'd probably fall again and break his own neck this time. He started edging his way back along this new branch, aiming for the walkway again.

"I don't know what an outrealm is, but I guess that could be the case?" he said. "I don't know if you aliens have highbloods but it's generally not the best idea to make them angry at you. I think these people are the same? And I guess if I have a chance of not dying in here while listening to them, it is better than them killing me because I didn't listen at all."

He started to climb down onto the walkway again, making sure to give the boards a solid kick first. They groaned and wobbled a little, but held.

"I don't mean any offense and you seem pretty okay, so this is kind of bad circumstances I guess. I just like to be alive," he said.

"Don't we all," said Gaius, cracking a faint smile. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no guarantee they won't try and off me even if I do play along. So I don't think I will at the moment. Especially not to avoid making the dastards angry."

As far as he was concerned, a craven moneyed class willing to toss sacrifice young girls and children in the name of their bloodsport? Wasn't to be trusted. Would he defend himself if attacked? Certainly. But there was a difference between killing someone in the name of survival and killing them because he was told to.

He slipped down several branches to retrieve his sack, hefting it neatly over one shoulder. "Name's Gaius, by the way."

"I'm Volanz." It was good to be on something he was pretty sure wasn't going to break out from under him.

"Well, I guess if you're not going to try to kill me? I can tell you there's not a whole lot up there." That seemed fair. He gestured to the upper parts of the Tree House. "I was looking for things I could use for stuff but it's like everything is rusty or broken or useless. I kind of almost think they did it on purpose, there wasn't even anything sharp."

Or at least nothing sharp that he felt confident wouldn't break almost immediately. Splinters of decaying would didn't really count.

Sorry, Volanz. You were Horns from this day forth.

"I figured. Haven't been able to find too much around here so far. Oh, but you should probably watch out for the ducks. Nasty little things -- though they're pretty tasty over a fire."

He considered for a second. "Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? You'd think they'd be clamoring to hand us pointy things to shank each other with. There's fruit around here, too."

A duck had to be some kind of animal, but considering the experience he had with a feral cat on his way over here he was not too surprised by that description.

"I'm not so great with weapons if I'm really honest? But this is kind of stupid. If I could just get something to cut with I think I can get wire out of some of the machines and use that for things. Like fishing. And stuff."

And, say, trying to make a trap that could conceivably kill an alien. But he wasn't quite ready to admit that to a person who may as well have been an enemy five minutes ago.

He's trusting that way.

"Maybe it's just more fun to watch us all be bad at things."

"'Machines'?" Yet another term he was unfamiliar with.

Gaius swung his legs back and forth, rocking his branch slightly with each movement. "Guess you could always try a rock or something. That ought to make for some scintillating entertainment." His tone was dry; he didn't much buy into this 'being a Tribute is a huge honor' thing.

Edited 2013-03-25 22:59 (UTC)

Punchy's drawn to the sound of branches snapping. He associates it with kittens caught up trees that he can gallantly rescue for little old ladies and their super hot teenage granddaughters. But it's not a kitten or a little old lady he sees up the tree, but a weird little goth kid.

"Yo!" He waves at Volanz, who appears to have his eyes screwed shut, but whatever. "Need a boost down from up town that dealio?"

"Yeah!" He nodded. "There are machines all over. I think they're broken, mostly, cause nobody's been taking care of them I guess?"

He scrambled over a rail into a formerly off limits area, zeroing in on an electrical box.

"I think I can get this open..."

Volanz scrabbled at the edges of the hatch, trying to get his nails into the gap.

Volanz makes a startled noise and looks down.

Oh shit an alien oh shit what do.

He didn't even understand that.

"Um, excuse me?!" he calls back.

"Yo, you deaf or something? I asked if you needed a hand, homie. You're getting serious altitude up there."

Punchy grins disarmingly. It's his 'encourage the scared civilian' face.

Gaius made his way over to where Volanz was scrabbling at the hatch. He glanced around for some debris he could use as a prybar. "Maybe you should try giving it a good kick."

He didn't see what was so special about a broken metal box, but Volanz was clearly interested in it.

Volanz stopped scrabbling.

"...That's a pretty good idea, actually," he said. He took a step back and delivered a surprisingly solid kick to the wall box.

The dent he left was enough to deform the door to the point where he could grip it, and the decaying hinges were no match for the determined young troll. The lock, however, remained attach and the door dangled from it when he let it go.

"See? Machinery!"

Volanz peers at Punchy warily for another moment.

"Are you actually trying to help me? Cause I thought that was not a thing that people do here."

Good job making yourself sound helpful and friendly, Volanz. Gold star for you.

"Niiice," said Gaius, cracking a smile. He appreciated the fine art of breaking into things, though of course he preferred tickling a lock to brute force when possible -- it made less noise, and was therefore much less likely to alert the guards.

"Never seen a contraption like that before. What's it do?"

"Um," replied Volanz. He toggled a few dead switches to confirm his suspicions. "Well, as of now? I guess nothing. But it probably used to do lights and things. Switches tend to be for that in my experience?"

He gave the whole board a quick testing, pushing buttons and flipping things to ensure the electricity was truly dead before he went trying to rip its guts out.

"I'm not actually all that good at these kinds of things? But we're not trying to make it work anyway so that's just as good, I guess."

"It lights things up? Sounds pretty useful -- too bad you can't carry it around." Whoever had built this machine had clearly been of the impractical sort.

Gaius craned his neck around to watch Volanz work. "Anyway, you seem like more of an expert on this thing than me. So what were you checking for earlier?"

"I'm not most peeps. I'm a baller."

I mean, duh, Volanz. Punchy waits for a go-ahead before he starts to climb up the tree to commit his daring rescue.

Volanz was going to just assume that was a good thing to be, in that case.

Well, he didn't exactly have a lot to lose in this situation.

"...Alright, you can help!"

He'd save asking about Punchy's eye until he was able to run again. He knew a guy missing an eye. It was a tetchy subject.

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Did you fall out of the stupid tree?

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