thearena | In the desert, you can remember your name.

Entry tags:

In the desert, you can remember your name.

Who| Group 2
What| Waking up in the desert arena
Where| Scattered around
When| Several hours after the Candy Cornucopia
Warnings/Notes| Deathroll will be coming soon to check out this arena's cornucopia and find out who dies between now and next week.

Make no mistake about it. The bloodbath of this Arena's Cornucopia was brutal. Half of the Tributes fell, a jerking, painful death. It is the highest death count in one day that recent memory can ascertain. It is shocking and unexpected, certainly a twist as far as those watching from the safety of the Capitol are concerned.

But it doesn't compare to what happens next. Because the Tributes that fell in in the bright candy hell don't wake up.

At least, not in the Capitol.

Not this time.

The fallen Tributes' eyes open, one by one, as the trackers in their arms let out an uncharacteristic jolt to bring them back to consciousness. They are not in their soft beds in the Training Center. They are not even in the Capitol. Instead, there is heat, more intense than that in the strange candy land that they had been in. A wind picks up, swirling dust and sand around them, stinging eyes and skin.

Everyone who was cut down is spread far and wide throughout this arena, still in their costumes, perhaps a little worse for wear.

"Good afternoon, Tributes." Claudius Templesmith's voice echoes through the air once all of the Tributes have been unceremoniously awoken. "And welcome to the second half of the Seventh Arena of the 75th Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor."

And with that, they're on their own....

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Eponine, Mademoiselle."

She looks with pity at Mona. The poor girl - poor everyone, being dragged in. Eponine remembers her first arena; she had been plunged straight in, without having spent time in the Capitol. And then Draco slit her throat.

"I do not know really what happened there, in that place. I have never seen them do it before; usually they leave us to killeach other. I don't like it - but this time I must try harder. And you will have to fight."

She's doubtful though. COULD this girl fight? Eponine offers whhat cold comfort she can.
"It does not hurt to die, you know? Not much. But still, we will put it off for as long as we can."

She shrugs. She's got more used to palling up with people now, though it isn't her natural inclination. So somewhat awkwardly, she offers,

"We should find shelter, Madame. Somewhere to hide. And some water - this... The yellow, it goes in my mouth and makes it dry. Have you slept on the floor before? Come - we must hurry before another finds us."

Eponine begins her struggle to walk again, not looking back. But she talks anyway.

"The Capitol is nice. They give you food and clothes - and such food - as much as you like, Madame. And such dresses. And a room to yourself. It is good there."

Except, you know, the whole being shoved back in an arena to die and Capitolians being awful and the occasional threat about your loved one. Other than that, great place!

Eponine, huh. With that and the 'mademoiselle's... "Est-ce que vous êtes française?" she asks haltingly, with the accent and pacing of someone learning it in school. "...I should be in my study group right now."

And she glances away at that, like that's the thing that gets her to realize that this is her real life right now.

"The poison sure hurt," she mutters petulantly, shifting her hands on her shoulders to try and protect them. But she has no intention of dying yet, and they need a place to cool off without getting heatstroke. "It doesn't look like there's much shade anywhere." She's seen tents and the like in the previous arenas, maybe they could get a hold of one-- but she didn't get a chance to grab anything from the Cornucopia before collapsing, so they'd have to find something here.

"...Sand, honey." Did she not know the word or something?

The Capitol sure is nice for kidnapping her, and their clothes were hideous and they made her fight, but she'd much rather be there than here. Still, she seizes on the opportunity to talk about the dresses. "I can tell, your outfit is super cute," she says, looking her up and down. "Not like this hideous thing, ugh. So 2004."

"Ah, mais oui, Madame. Ma chambre etait a Paris. Ce n'etait pas agreable. Parlez-vous francais, Madame?"

Her French comes out rapidly, lifting her hoarse voice a little. "What is a study group? Are you a student?"

She looked in open admiration at Mona. She was the first female student Eponine had ever seen. She must be clever. But Eponine was clever too - she knew a lot - just differently to Mona.

"Sand?" She had never seen it before. Never been out of Paris with it's mud and cold and rain and snow. Unless Montfermiel counted? But that was just the same. "It is a strange thing, Madame. It moves beneath my feet. But no - there is no shelter - Madame, we must walk. Do you mind?"

She began to walk - struggle- again. She tugged self consciously at the hem of her dress.

"I do not like it, Madame. It is very short - and now hot. What is 2004?" She didn't comment on Mona's outfit. It was very short and very tight and not at all decent. Eponine didn't know where to look.

"Je parle un peu le français. I'm about to graduate, or I should be..." she trails off, glancing up at the sky with a worrying look on her face; would she even make it back in time to graduate? And who could even imagine the hell going on without her there...

"Never been to the beach? Très sad, girl, we've got to get you there... if that's even a thing we can do here." She doubts it, but it's at least a suggestion she could offer. "I don't mind. Let's." And she smiles and reaches to hook her elbow through Eponine's to help the both of them stumble along.

"The year? Alright for movies, but it's so outdated," she says, as if she hadn't been 10 at the time. "And, well, terrible for being stuck in the desert, of course."

"No." Eponine shakes her head. "There is no beach in Paris. It is a cold place, not like this. There is rain and the river and mud and perhaps snow sometimes."

She shrugs. "I do not know anyone who has been to sand - what was your word? Beach? No - there is nothing like this in Paris. Perhaps in England or Marius's stories but I do not know. I would like to go - when we are not to die. But there is no beach in the Capitol, Madame. And we are not allowed to the districts."

She had been executed for trying to escape.

"I do not know what they are like."

She absorbs Mona's chatter about the year and films as they struggle towards a dune.

"You are from 2004? Then - I am more than one hundred and fifty years before you, Madame. It is strange to think - but no, where I am from it is only eighteen hundred and something. I forget the year. Thirty, maybe. Do you have these games on the walls where you are from then?"

She means broadcasts of the Hunger Games on TVs.

"Damn. Well, this is about what you'd get, only a beach would have the ocean. It's going to be really hot in the day and really cold at night..." So that was a double incentive for finding shelter. There had been tents before, right? Definitely something in the videos like that. "But we'll really need water."

She knows a lot more about deserts, down to little details about microclimates and how to best survive in them, but it's better to keep that sort of thing close to her chest.

"Duh, no, it's 2011," she says, because those seven years make a difference. "But are you really? That's, what, like French revolution times? Let them eat cake, and all that?" The names surface immediately in her mind-- the Bourbon restoration, the shift into the July monarchy, the beginning of colonization in Africa-- but she's got to keep up the appearances. "Games on the wall...?"

"I do not mind the cold, Madame. I am used to that. One winter, when we were thrown from our room, and we had no money for a new one, we slept under the bridges. Sometimes under a bridge, sometimes in a ditch. I still do that sometimes. And it snowed - it snowed so much, Madame, I thought I would surely freeze to death, but no. No, I am still alive. But heat - yes, water. Where is there water in a desert?"

Eponine has no clue about deserts or predicting weather or anything much else. Fighting and stealing and clinging to life is about all she knows.

"Ah, but yes, there is a revolution. My - Marius - he is plotting with his friends. I hear him. He is plotting another fight. My papa fought at Waterloo though - you know it? We're real Bonapartists in my family. I do not know about cake though, Madame. There is no cake. There is no food at all unless you rob it or beg or look in the gutters and the bins."

She grins at Mona. It's probably quite disconcerting, given that she's just insinuated she's a starving beggar rather than a skinny Aladdin with nice teeth.

"Yes - have you seen in the Capitol? They show repeats of us here in the arena on the walls of their buildings."

She gives her a look, raising her eyebrow as she hears all that. "Honey, that's some serious hobo business." But good, maybe she won't be whining too much at night-- they'd just need something to keep the wind out.

"If we don't find an oasis, we'll have to get it from plants." Or animals, but she was going to hold off on that until they needed to. "Plants need water to grow, right? So they'll have some."

It's strange, talking to someone right out of a history book. "Everyone knows Waterloo. And the cake thing, but that's just a joke." But she smiles back despite all that. "That's okay, my best friend forever has this boy who follows her around, and he totally did all of that and he's still like totally tolerable!"

"Oh, the TV? We definitely have that. No Battle Royale stuff, though."

"Yes, TV. That is again the word. It is so different here than Paris. Everything seems magical to me - lights and water in a tap and the TV. I just wished they did not show us killing always. It would be nice to show something nice, I think. Only -" She looks curiously at Mona. "Only these are called the Games, the Hunger Games - not a battle royale."

"There is water in plants, Madame?" Eponine shrugs. "I do not think there will be trees here though. What is a hobo?"

"Well, they have TVs and running water in Paris in the future, too. It's the City of Lights," shes matter-of-factly, "but usually it's just sexy fashion models and deep foreign films with everyone smoking, nothing like this."

"It's totally a ripoff," she adds with some confidence, moving her hand as if she was ready to start filing her nails-- only for the gesture to fall flat, given the circumstances.

"Yeah, totally." She'd have to remember what level of education she was dealing with. "But it'd be, like, cactuses and stuff, not trees. Sad homeless people."

"You call me a sad homeless person, Madame?" Eponine looked sharply at Mona. For a minute, she looked distinctly upset but then she sighs. At home, she was homeless now. And she was upset. Marius - he had said Cosette's name even now, even when she had tried to help him.

So she sighs and shrugs. "I suppose you are right. I am a hobo."

Mona's description of Paris means nothing to Eponine. Fashion models? Sexy? Smoking? Her papa smoked....

"The Marquis de Sade was in the same prison as me, Madame. He wrote of sex - but it is scandelous. He was long dead before me though."

Mona's gesture catches her eye too - Eponine bites her nails, so they're broken and the skin raw around them. Nothing like Mona's. She stares.

"What is a cactus? What does it look like?"

"Oh, sweetie, no, I didn't mean it like that," she says, and looks legitimately concerned for a second. "Sad, like, it shouldn't happen, you know? Besides, there's totally beds for everyone here!"

Well, that moment of self-awareness didn't seem to last long.

She raises her eyebrows briefly at the namedrop, glancing away like she's asking what she got herself into now. "Trust me, sexy in a good way."

"It's like a green... thing, with spikes on it," she says, using her hands to illustrate.

"It was common in Paris, Madame. There are hobos -" She likes this word - "everywhere."

She's saying nothing of the Marquis. She's not read it, of course, but she's heard whispers, rumours, especially in La Madelonnettes Prison. And she doesn't want to delve any deeper into that.

"A green thing with spikes?" She scans the horizon - and spots a vague, blackish smudge. Cactus or tribute?

"Madame?"

"They really clean it up by my time. But, I guess back then it makes sense..." Considering the civil unrest, she isn't surprised; it's just strange to be talking to someone who apparently had first-hand knowledge.

"Yeah, like a pole, or a little balled thing--" but then Eponine gets her attention. She glances first to her and then... whatever it was in the distance. She immediately bends forward a bit with surprising skill considering the heels (though immediately after nearly slips as the heel shifts in the sand, but points for stylish trying) as she squints and tries to make out a more defined shape.

"Shh."

She giggles as Mona stumbles - not that she's doing much better between her high shoes and the sand. But shut up she does when Mona reprimands her.

"I don't think it is a tribute, Madame. It is not moving much - or perhaps we are too far to see? Is it food, do you think? Can you eat a cactus as well?"

Eponine is permanently hungry - especially now so soon after being revived from France. Not that that is unusual - but whilst there is food to be had, she is definitely going to munch.

There's a brief moment where her eyes harden at the giggle, but she suppresses it, glancing back with a self-deprecating smile like it's all a joke.

"Most of them are. It's a fruit too," she says automatically, half her attention on the figure in the distance. "I think we should get closer. There's two of us, right?" If worst should come to worst.

"Can you fight, Madame?" Eponine looks doubtfully at Mona. She looks... well, perhaps not looks, but she comes across as far too educated, to sophisticated, too middle class to know how to fight.

"But it is as you wish - we shall move closer."

She sets off, keeping low.

Eponine may follow Parker or, sometimes, like now, it's the other way around.

Oh, where did Parker appear from? She just does that sometimes. Don't ask.

"Who's she?"

"MADAME!" Eponine jumps violently, turning round at Parker's voice. You know, doing that in an arena of death could be really dangerous. What if Eponine had been armed? Still, she says nothing about it, besides the shocked exclamation.

"Mademoiselle Parker, may I introduce Mademoiselle Mona?" For all the world, they could be in a French lady's parlour, gossiping over tea and croissants. Except for, you know, the unbearable heat, the stench of sweat and the possibility of death at any giveen moment.

Mona is a lot less graceful, and practically jumps out of her skin turning around; this has the unfortunate side effect of making her lose her balance, and she nearly falls straight on her ass in the scorching sand. Great.

"What the hell?" she asks, a good deal angrier than Eponine's more neutral shock. But Eponine seems to know her, so... "Yeah, charmed. What's going on?" Ugh, she so did not need to end up in some trio where she could get ganged up on.

"Don't fall over" Parker, stating the obvious is sometimes her forté.

"And nothing's going on --" she blinks twice and looks at Eponine. "Is something going on? Can you trust her?"

The phrasing's on purpose. Parker doesn't really trust anyone, much. Eponine and Harley are about as close to trust as she can get.

"She's a..."

Eponine shrugs. What does she know about friendship?

"She can stay. If you would like to, Madame Mona."

'T ain't right, is it, to turn a girl away. Eponine doesn't mind Mona, but she doesn't trust her - doesn't trust Parker for that matter.

"Have you found water yet, Madame?"

"Thanks," she scowls, scrambling to get back to her feet as soon as possible. "Don't mind me, I didn't mean to crash the party."

Typical. This was how it always went, wasn't it? Loser Mona latching onto the first person she sees, then the real friends show up. "Whatever, let's just find a stupid cactus."

"No water yet, but I caught flash of the cornucopia. It's sort of hard to miss." Parker grins.

"Gonna make a run for that soon." The gamemakers help whoever gets in her way. One other important thing. "Don't insult the cactus. It didn't do anything to you."

With that, Parker turns on her heel to head out toward the caves. She doesn't ask anyone to come with her, but she expects it. If she didn't want the others around, it would be painfully obvious.

The cornucopia sounded promising, at least; she thought her chance was up when she was lying there poisoned. They’d definitely need water, no matter what, whether it was stupid (stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid, she thinks loudly) cactus water or something else.

She rolls her eyes at Parker’s back, but follows, not wanting to have anyone behind her but also not wanting to be left to fend for herself.

In the desert, you can remember your name.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Ignore the screaming icon. XD

haha oh eponine

XD

no subject

no subject

/threadjacks

Re: /threadjacks

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)