Arena 01: Ready, set, go!

[gamemakers]

There's no word, before they arrive, of what the Arena will look like, what hazards and advantages it will give to the Tributes. It was a topic of interest in the news coverage beforehand, it always is, but as always, it's a closely guarded secret of the Gamemakers. They're gathered from the Training Center, individually, and taken into the hovercraft, where everyone is implanted with a tracking device, buried deep in the muscle of their forearm. It's harmless, but cutting it out would not be.

The hovercraft delivers them to an underground bunker, with only their stylists, and there they receive their one advance clue about the Arena; their clothing. Each Tribute is dressed in thick cloth pants and shirt, given sturdy hiking boots with thin neoprene socks, and a short, weather-proof jacket with deep pockets and a plastic hood. Nothing more.

There's just time to say goodbye to the stylists when the countdown starts. Each Tribute is directed into a glass and metal tube, which then ascends. And the countdown keeps going, a loud projected voice.

25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21

It's noon in the Arena, the sun brilliant on water, on cliffs, on the snow high above them. Twenty-four pedestals stand in the span of a wide tide-flat, surrounded by stony mud encrusted with oysters, cut through with rivulets of glistening water.

18 - 17 - 16 - 15

Through the middle of their circle runs a thigh-deep river, the run-off of the massive waterfall that stands a short ways back in the woods, and in the middle of that is the Cornucopia, blinding gold in the sunlight, reflecting the sea and the trees and the mountains.

9 - 8 - 7

They've all been warned, don't step off your pedestal early.

4 - 3

2

And then the gong, rolling out to echo off the cliffs and water, seeming to ring forever.


[OOC: Don't forget the OOC Arena post, especially those of you running for the Cornucopia. And here are your fellow tributes. Every single one of you ought to post to this post. There will be a Cornucopia thread, and anyone else feel free to post as you will. Please add a tag with your character's name.]

Comments

hitagi

[spites]

Her hands are empty, her lungs; the cold settles jagged in her mouth as she drags in every breath in a rhythm she tries to keep steady.

Ready.

And then she closes her eyes.

She does not think of the other tributes, does not allow herself the second to ask Can I- (and an echo in the clear cold quiet of her own mind, Will I-) because to ask is to pretend that she does not already know the answer, hasn't already given that answer over those two years when she lost her weight and her emotions and she does not have the time for that. For the few remaining seconds she has when she can still be herself and not just another girl trying to forestall dying, she breathes.

Set.

She opens her eyes and stares at the Cornucopia. She marks the three points that will form the line she has to run. In the water, the glint of the knife, a bag floating just past it and beyond that the treeline. Don't stop. Keep running. She will not get them, she thinks and this is how it used to be, how she survived those two years. Functional paranoia, living every second as a worst case scenario.

Go.

Off the pedestal and running and then half-falling into the water, an icy slap on her skin and she runs for the knife, for the bag and for the trees.


[ hurhur interrupt away! hitagi's luck is of the suck so she totally fails to get both the knife and the bag but at least she lives! ]

[buildingreality]

They are going for the same knife.

Ariadne figures this out when she sees someone coming up beside her. It doesn't slow her down any - she's moving too quickly to just stop - but her feet slip on the ground, the boots don't have enough traction to hold her upright, and she's going down before it even registers. One hand reaches up, trying to snatch for something, trying to stay upright, or at the very least, trying to take someone else down with her.

[spites]

She tries to shy away seconds too late the delay in reaction not caused by hesitation but by an old reflex to strike out rather than to recoil, her hand slicing to Ariadne's as if to reach out. She has none of her old improvised weapons though and her sleeve is caught. The break in her run and the drag on her sleeve cause her to stumble. Gravity has always been an automatic loss. There's no grace to her fall, just the trained reflex to lessen the impact. To be up and running in the least amount of time again. She is only dimly aware of where Ariadne has landed and she tries to angle her own away from her.

She does not cry out in pain and she's on her knees, turning to look at Ariadne, to evade a blow which may not come but it's safest to expect that it will.

[buildingreality]

Ariadne has no intention save to get away, to escape to another potential weapon. She might have practised her blows enough to knock someone out, but she doesn't have faith that she could kill someone with just a punch. Not when they're both scrambling.

She's curling into herself as she pushes herself back up, eyes locked on Hitagi - the immediate threat. Her own knees are burning from the effort with which she slammed the ground, but it doesn't slow her down. She trembles, bracing herself for whatever might happen next.

[spites]

She rises slowly, keeping her eyes on Ariadne's. The other tributes are running ahead of them; the advantage of her speed is lost and the danger is growing with every new weapon picked up but Hitagi can only look at the other girl and the trembling she cannot (does not?) conceal.

With a step, she could be on her, uncertain of the outcome but certain to bloody them both. With another she could move back and away from what this moment could be, the sharp edge of a turning point for which she is not ready (now while the first strike is still yours, now while you can see her eyes and know if when if when that choice to attack is made)

She takes a step back.

"If I don't have to, then I won't."

Her own words are almost lost to her, made distant by the dizzying vertigo, the rushing of her blood and the cold.

"It's not a lie though whether or not you choose to believe me is up to you."

[buildingreality]

She's ready to bolt at any moment, one hand bracing her against the ground for the sprint. She's not very good at them - she doesn't run much; the walk to and from school, that's the most exercise she gets lately - but it might be enough to get her to something. Not to the knife, but to something else. The cans she spotted earlier. Some kind of sustenance.

But sustenance doesn't matter if she's going to die right there and then.

Her breath catches for a moment as she realises that she might have a chance, and she pushes herself back to her feet. She knows she looks wary and distrusting at the words, but she has to take them for what they are: a temporary truce, perhaps.

There's nothing for her to say, so Ariadne says nothing at all. Her gaze darts away, making sure it isn't a trap time and again, and she nods, pose relaxing as she takes a stumbling step in the opposite direction.