thearena | Candy Arena

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Candy Arena

Who| Topher [OPEN]
What| Topher gets a gift and then gets sick
Where| Arena 1 | Candycane Lane
When| Middle of Week One
Warnings/Notes| Gross physical reaction to the candy

He'd made it through the chaos of the Cornucopia by a miracle or more accurately the grace of the Gamemakers. As Tributes fell around him Topher made the rash decision to race for one of the precious few bags of supplies. The gods must have been smiling because he'd also managed a bow with arrow and two short swords that were actually more sturdy and lethal than they looked. Perfect. He knew better this time and he sure as hell wasn't going walk up to death again.

The supplies had come in handy for dealing with the annoying sunshine and happiness of the whole place, but there was a noticeable lack of food and water and after a few days Topher's body was starting to protest this new diet.

Hungry and fully tempted to head back towards that chocolate river, Topher trekked on towards the small houses that stood out like a bad omen in a fairytale. He hoped others would head towards the giant pink horror of a castle looking for high ground. Personally Topher was hoping some nice gingerbread family had left their dinner on the table when evicted by the Capitol.

Once he reached the first house he cautiously peered around keeping an eye and ear out for his fellow Tributes. So far his luck was holding up, but only in that he was alone, as for the food, well... He leaned against one of the houses and grabbed a random flower made of some sugary paste that he hoped wouldn't kill him and bit into it. Two hours later he was really regretting that decision as he vomited for the third time. Being as there was nothing actually left in his stomach he simply dry heaved and downed another antacid.

Great. Calico was right, he sucked at this. Here it was the first week and he was going to die of dehydration.

Or not.

A silver gift from the sky landed next to his face. Tiredly he opened it and wanted to cry at the sight of food and water. The note said it was from Timaeus. Topher opened one of the waters and forced himself not to down it all in one go.

"I swear Timaeus you are a god among men." Sweet, cool water slid down his throat and into his empty stomach. Amazingly the nausea seemed to let up. Things were looking back up!

And then he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

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Karis' hated this arena. At least the last one had been relatively familiar. This - this was just stupid. Constantly bright, surrounded by oversized candy. It reminded her of something a crazed child might draw up (well, she remembered one of her little sisters drawing something like it up once, a long time ago, in another lifetime). The clothes they've shoved her in aren't all that great either - some kind of nurse's uniform, complete with cap, sotckings, heels and a skirt. Of course, it was torn now, a black stain on the front where some sort of bile has dripped down her chest. And she's ditched the heels because who the hell fights in heels? She's been hunting for other tributes, trying to get her first kill. She'd spotted a descending parachute and she'd followed it - it was going to someone, right?

She'd found one of the cheery gingerbread houses and she carefully edged around one corner of the building, the exposed bones of her foot scraping on the ground.

"Where are you?" she muttered, more to herself then to anyone else.

There had to be someone here. She paused - she'd heard someone mutter something. Or thought she had. She crept forward again, eyes darting back and forth.

"Anyone home...?"

There was no way he was going to stand up and wave his hands around. Slowly he packed up his supplies and tossed his bag onto his back. Creeping around the small house Topher tried to think of the best course of action. Actually hiding inside the house was suicide, but there wasn't exactly an abundance of cover around. He gripped one of the short swords and shuffled around the corner of the house listening for the direction of the scraping.

Go away, go away... His palms began to sweat as he tried to control his breathing. He didn't know that voice which made the whole situation worse. Were they one of the psychos or one of the sane Tributes?

Karis froze for a moment, head cocked as she listened. She was completely silent as she tried to figure out if someone was actually in there - or maybe she was imagining things. After a long moment she started to move again, edging toward the doorway. The bones of her feet clicked quietly against the ground - if someone listened very hard, they'd probably be able to hear her moving. She paused again at the threshold and then she hurled herself through the door with a clatter.

Time to see if anybody really was there.

The loud burst through the door caused Topher to jump. His heart pounded in his chest as he realized that whoever it was had gone into the small house instead of coming around the corner; this was his moment to run. While the stranger searched the house Topher took off back towards the chocolate river hoping to put enough distance between them before the other Tribute realized that he hadn't been in the house at all.

It took Karis a few moments to realize the house was empty. She'd been tricked - or at least misjudged the situation. With a snarl, she turns on her heel and darts back outside in time to see Topher dashing away. He's got one hell of a lead on her and she lets out a hiss between her teeth.

Dammit.

She takes off after him, picking her way through the bright candy-land.

This place sucked.

He slipped on a candy rock and fell to his knees, tearing open his pants. This was not how he had planned this Arena. Stay low, stay alive. Easy. His stomach chooses this moment to cramp up again and he stays on the ground as he vomits up the water he had drank earlier.

Crap. He was tired and weak but like hell he was going to just kneel there and be killed. Shaking hands pulled up one of the short swords as he turned to face the other Tribute.

Well, there he was, vomiting up - well, not much from the looks of it. Mostly bile. She grinned (it wasn't a nice grin) and slowed as she approached. The only tricky bit was that he actually had a weapon - and it might make her life much more difficult. She slid forward in a half crouch, hands hooked into claws as she tried to circle him.

All she had to do was find an opening.

He tightened his grip on the sword as he slowly stood. Topher was far from a fighter, but he also wasn't going to just let himself be killed by whatever this was.

"I will hurt you." Amazingly his voice didn't shake even though his body was full of nervous energy. Why couldn't this thing just leave him alone?

"Oh, good, I thought you were gonna make me a salad with that thing..." Karis retorted. She eased a step closer as she circled, slowly starting to close the gap. She just needed to get a little bit closer to make a grab for him.

She wasn't, after all, very subtle.

"You could just give up, you know."

"I'm much more of a kabob type." Actually he'd much rather she just left. Couldn't this woman-thing see how threatening he was with his sword?

Topher moved back, but there was only so far to go before he fell into the chocolaty river. "Or you could just leave. Don't you have some sort of survivor instinct? I'm armed. You're...rotting. Doesn't make for the best of defenses."

"Rotting? Me? Hadn't noticed," Karis drawled in reply, "Trust me, I've been through enough scraps to know how much this ol' body of mine can take..."

Her face split into a grin.

"Think I might try and test it against you..."

Then again, he does have a sword.

You'd think that in a land made completely out of candy, you wouldn't run out of anything to eat. Even if you weren't a fan of candy, it was still something, right? Cindy thought she'd lucked out, despite hating this place. It was too sticky for her, and the singing. Dear god, the singing. Finding those ear plugs in her bag was a blessing.

But she couldn't keep them on all the time. They blocked out the singing, but they blocked out almost everything else, too. It was good that she didn't have them in right now, because she could hear someone talking. She hadn't run into too many people yet, so this could go either way.

Gripping the rapier a little tighter, she moved in close. "Hello, anyone there?"

He was hurting and tired from his run in with the crazy lady-zombie and sure as hell wasn't about to just announce his presence for round two. The voice sounded familiar, but right now everything was just that much too foggy in his head.

Topher's bag fell open as he reached for it and he scrambled to gather his supplies before the owner of the voice found him. His coordination was off and he was only making a bigger mess; for a moment he contemplated leaving everything and just running. He let out a frustrated groan before biting his tongue to keep quiet. Clearly this whole going it alone thing was not good for him.

She kept moving ever closer, and when she got to the house she actually stopped. There was someone here, or, around here. Ugh, these gingerbread houses gave her the creeps. Thinking about Hansel and Gretel. Gretel was a great girl, until her brother killed her. Now Hansel was a creepy guy witch a creepy job.

She got the shivers just thinking about all this. "Seriously, who's--" As she started, she turned the corner and came upon the broken bag. Well, whatever was in the broken bag, which was now broken, and the stuff was on the floor.

"Topher?" Cindy blinked, putting her rapier aside so he could see that she was harmless. To him, anyway.

He fell back and sighed. "Brawn."

A part of him wanted to cry, the strain of being chased around by some zombie and then having Cindy come up on him was getting to him. Everything was getting to him. He shook his head and started to gather his items at a more sedate pace.

"If you're going to kill me please just do the deed quick, because I'm way too tired to run around again."

She gave a laugh in pure relief, covering it with her hand so it wouldn't be too loud. "Shit, not what I expected." Cindy rubbed a hand over her face, wincing at the cuts on her cheek.

"Are you kidding me? I'm not going to kill the Brains, I wouldn't get out of here without you." Cindy came over, picking up the broken bag along the way and tossing it at him. "So, running? What else have you been up to?"

"Funny. Blonde and funny." His smile didn't reach his eyes as he took his bag in hand. This bag was all he had against everything and everyone out here and while he was grateful she hadn't just run off with his treasure he wasn't going to chance it.

"Puking. Don't eat anything that looks edible." The bag went onto his back and he stood on shaky legs. "You look healthy and not so run down." Not fair.

"We blondes have to be funny if we want to get anywhere that's not a night club," She quipped, putting her sword into the makeshift holder she'd made with her belt. Everyone needed to be careful these days, but Topher didn't look like he was up to killing her while she stood in front of him.

"Yeah, found that out pretty easily." She gave a wince. She'd been sick for a while, but she wasn't going to let other people in the arena know how bad it had been. She needed to appear strong.

"I've got some pretty good sponsors. Plenty of water, in any case. Have you gotten anything from anyone, yet?"

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Candy Arena

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sorry about the delay.

i see how it is

crai

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hey, look what was in my spam folder :|

WELL HEY there you are xD It's okay!