thearena | [OPEN]

Who| The Signless and YOU!
What| The Signless is forced into exploring by the fireworks, and comes across some of his fellow players.
Where| Adventureland
When| Just after the Fireworks
Warnings/Notes| None that I can think of! Will add if any come up. I'm starting in prose, but I'm comfortable with either prose or actionspam and will write to match you!

The Signless pressed his back against the huge fake tree, trying to calm his thundering bloodpusher. The last of the flashes from the fireworks had died off a few minutes before but that panic hadn't yet. There was something in him that simply didn't take well to bright projectiles from the sky, something that remembered a hail of meteors from a past life and endless flaming arrows from the current one. He closed his yellow and red eyes, breathed in, breathed out. He would be fine. They'd forced him to move when he'd had every intention of sitting right where they'd dropped him, but even if they could make him move they couldn't make him fight.

He sank down into a sitting position against the base of the tree and began to tug off the leather boots they'd forced him into. After spending his whole life walking over all sorts of uncomfortable terrain with bare feet they frankly weren't necessary, and he'd found as he ran from the fireworks that they'd been more of a hindrance than a help. He couldn't grip, couldn't really feel the ground under him. At least they'd dressed him in black, even if it didn't have the usual defiant red ornamentation he liked. In the current darkness, and with his gray skin, he blended in fairly well against everything else.

Except for the fact that, what with wrestling with the damn boots, he was moving against an otherwise deadly still backdrop.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I wouldn't," he says, shaking his head for extra emphasis, but he knows she likely won't believe him. He can't really blame her, what with the situation they're in. Still, he holds up his hands, fingers splayed. "No weapons, see?"

She continued glaring but lowered the weapon, a tiny bit. Not putting it away. "I will no be stabbing you." She promised.

At that, he relaxed, letting his hands fall back to his sides.

"It's much appreciated."

He knew that, eventually, he'd be killed, the moment someone decided to stab first and talk second. His best chance to live was to avoid other tributes altogether, but in an enclosed space there was only so long one could keep running and hiding. Running and hiding without an open wound would make surviving for longer that much easier, though.

"What was the other alien you met like?" he asked, to change the subject from stabbing and because he was honestly curious. If the person she had met wasn't a troll, that brought the species count in this place up to three, and how strange was that?

"Well she did be bigger than you and purple and looked like a horse, but had a tail that looked like... like a bug. And she did be having four eyes and two of them did be spinning round which I think would be being very useful."

She kept her knife down low.

"I imagine it would be. Being able to see is always helpful. I only have two eyes, but I can see in the dark, which I think is just as good."

He tried to sound friendly and encouraging. She seemed... well, nice, even with the knife and the strange accent and the being an alien.

"You can be seeing in the dark?" She was jealous of that as well, all she could see of him was his general shape, his horns.

"Oh, yes. We trolls -- I don't know what kind of trolls you've seen before, if they're nothing like me -- but the kind of troll I am is generally awake only at night, so we can see in the dark. You can't?"

Wow. Aliens really were weird. And super interesting.

"No. I can no be, though I do be being awake at night a lot." She wrinkled her nose.

"I imagine it's hard to sleep, here."

You know. Since sleeping might make it easier for someone else to put a knife in your back.

"You know, if you wanted to stay with me, we could take turns keeping watch so the other could sleep."

If the other aliens here were diurnal, he couldn't afford to be caught sleeping when most of them were active. Besides, it wasn't like he wasn't used to keeping odd hours.

Pruna nodded, it really was. But she was suspicious, "You do be expecting me to be trusting you?"

He shrugged with one shoulder.

"I believe in treating others as I would want to be treated. I trust that you won't stab me, so I should hope that you trust me not to harm you in return. I'd have nothing to gain by killing you but a guilty conscience that I neither want or need."

Treating others as he wanted to be treated... She wrinkled her nose, aliens were weird. The girl didn't even understand what that meant, how she wanted to be treated... She would be treated however those around her saw fit and she would defend herself if they wanted to hurt her.

And he trusted her not to stab him, part of her wanted to just to prove him wrong. But the promise of sleep was more tempting. She could always stab him tomorrow. "Okay, but you be sleeping first, and I will be waking you up in two hours."

Well. It had been his idea, he supposed that was fair. If she wound up stabbing him anyway while he slept it would be a valuable lesson for if he encountered her again -- assuming he survived.

"Alright. If anything happens, wake me up sooner." And preferably not with a knife in the eye.

This, at least, was familiar. He settled back against the tree, pulling his cloak a little more closely around him (thank goodness the outfit they'd given him had one).

She nodded and walked a few paces through, knife out, shoes held in her spare hand. She might not be able to see in the dark but her eyes were recovering from the fireworks and her dark vision slowly adjusted, she stood still and silent.

Two hours later she shook his arm. "You do be waking up now."

For a split second the Signless was disoriented -- Were there bluebloods? Why was it dark, had he overslept? -- but then everything came back in one big rush. He let out a small groan and opened his eyes, instantly awake and back in a place he'd rather not be.

"Thank you."

He pushed himself to his feet, ran a hand through his hair (which had absolutely no effect except getting it out of his eyes, given it was already awfully messy).

"Your turn."

"... You do be welcome." She wrinkled her nose and nodded before sitting down and curling into a ball, her knife still clutched in her hand like a normal child would hold a teddy bear.

The night was, thankfully, uneventful. For the first time, the Signless got to witness a sunrise that wasn't quite so volatile as the ones on Alternia-- no hordes of rising undead, no threat of instant blindness, amazing. It would almost be pretty, if not for the extenuating circumstances.

He gently set his hand on Pruna's shoulder and shook.

"It's morning. Wake up."

Pruna woke up with a start, her knife at her side and ready, she blinked in the sunlight. "You did be supposed to be waking me up in two hours."

"Ah, well, you looked so peaceful, and no one came by, and you seemed to need it a lot more than me anyway. Besides, it's only been a little longer than that, it's no big loss."

It had, after all, been about six AM when she'd handed watch over to him. Unless hours for her species were a different length of time, he suddenly realized, and felt rather foolish. Aliens. Weird.

She wrinkled her nose, "Well if you do be getting tired and be being eaten by monsters it do be being your own fault."

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