thearena | [OPEN] I truly love a fight that's won

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[OPEN] I truly love a fight that's won

Who | Lin Mayuzumi, Venus and you!
What | Lin flaunts her good fortune in the Arena so far, then tries to befriend a stronger Tribute and is betrayed and killed.
Where | Around Lin's tent in melody meadows in the Candy Arena.
When | The last day of Week 2.
Warnings/Notes | Lin is dead dead dead. Venus will be meeting and killing Lin in two separate closed sub-threads, but you're welcome to meet up with Lin before she dies by leaving a new comment!

Lin sat outside her tent, her supplies scattered at her feet, gloating over her accomplishments. For the cameras Lin leaned backwards in the grass, exposing her bustline as much as possible in her tight costume, one hand grasping an arrow while the other clutched her bow. She'd recently feasted on Doki-Doki (though killing one was easy enough at long range, grabbing one that wasn't immediately cannibalized was a problem and took most of the day), and like a cat in the grass, basked in her content.

If only the rest of those fools could see her now. Unlike her treatment in the shelter cabin, there was no way those watching could ignore her now or write her off as an incompetent idiot. She had this one in the bag... Lin had a good feeling about it.

At any male Tribute that approached, Lin lifted her bow and gave an angry threat - but the female Tributes that didn't immediately charge for her, Lin would allow a short stay in her campsite...

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Venus hasn't had quite so much luck procuring food. For the most part, she hasn't been trying to hunt doki-doki anyway so much as track down someone she can be entertaining with. She knows full well that if she takes the day off to wander around alone, with no dialogue and no character arc, the editors will lose interest and cut to people gutting each other. She has to find someone to make soundbites with.

She stops when she sees a woman in the grass. At first she wonders if she's dead, laying there all exposed, but then she realizes it's the girl from the interviews, and it looks like she's actually bothered to learn how to sell herself.

Smart girl.

Venus waves a hand as she approaches, looking confident but not threatening. "Hey, Lin, right?"

Lin sat up in the grass slowly, perhaps even with an effort to be elegant, and gave her best 100-watt smile through the darkness. She cast her bow and quiver to the side in a gesture of solidarity. She realized, watching the highly-scored woman approach, it would be in her best interest to keep a powerful friend. Sooner or later she'd come across a Tribute she couldn't take down alone...

"Venus! Pleasure to see you again," she chirped, her pleasantness betraying the dark thoughts she'd begun to plot. Lin stood, brushed her long black wig behind her shoulders, and held out her hand for a handshake. "I knew you'd be well. I believe we got off on the wrong foot..." By this she meant that Venus had seen her at her worst, and she wished to correct it. She hoped her weapons sitting nearby, both still covered in blood she hadn't bothered to clean off, made an impressive enough statement.

Venus accepts the handshake with the kind of grace royalty has when they meet the peasants - cordial, almost friendly and down to earth, but with the coloring that she's probably going to sanitize her hands afterwards. She has a million dollar grin like she's ready to give out autographs.

"Nah, the dude who clocked me in the head got off on the wrong foot. Don't worry, though, I'll get him next time I run across him. I have plans for him." She slaps her hands together. "Looks like you've taken those life lessons to heart. How's the wildlife taste?"

Lin laughed amicably as Venus clapped her hands, unable or unwilling to recognize her masked disgust. "Hmmm... I could get used to it. A lack of accountability is still something new to me. Tch, you couldn't sneeze in Japan without someone knowing about it." Her voice took on a bored, dry tone. "And there I was, such a fool, required to make up an excuse for anyone who crossed the line, give a hand to those too poor or too stupid to help themselves..."

Lin pressed a finger to her lips thoughtfully. "...It's a welcome change."

"Oh, people know about it." Venus rolls her eyes up, then tilts her head a bit as if looking to see if there's a mic near Lin's temple. "I can't for the life of me figure out where they hide the cameras, which is a shame."

She blinks a bit, trying to piece together what information Lin is giving her. "Hey, honey, don't be dissing the poor and broke. I didn't exactly grow up with a silver spoon."

Lin shrugged. "Well, it's not like we'll be punished." She knew she'd be hailed for her actions when she left the Arena, if she won. And they couldn't show everything, could they? She hoped that with the slaughter of half the competition at the Cornucopia, her panic over that stupid kid went ignored.

But she wouldn't tell Venus about that. Lin raised an eyebrow at her comment, giving the other woman's athletic build a once-over. "Huh! You? But you're good at this!" As if it took someone born rich to be smart or used to fame. "Never would have guessed. Sorry."

Her apology didn't contain an ounce of sincerity. "People who do their best and can't help it, well, that's fine. And people like you who get themselves out of it are even better. But women who rely on a spouse, don't bother to get educated, don't bother to work, and then are totally shocked when they're left alone and have no money for themselves or their brats... those are the kind of people I really hate. Wouldn't you agree?"

She chuckled wickedly, still monologuing. "I think I killed one of them earlier, actually. Should've heard her scream..." Mayuzumi assumed that black-haired girl must have been a housewife, so unwilling to put up a fight.

"Sure do. I had to work real hard to get where I am now. No freebies for the V."

Venus isn't unused to sadism, in taking joy in the deaths of others. Dead Girl seems to enjoy it sometimes, after all, and she's down with the corpse. Some people do what they have to to adjust to their glamorous, murderous life.

But Venus, she tries to be business to make up for the fact that she's secretly sentimental - and secretly isn't going to be all that sad about offing Lin. She decides then and there to make Lin her next target.

"Oh, so you're actually playing?" Venus' face lights up in a charming smile. "That's nice. So many people on the way in bitched and moaned about it that I worried I'd never find anyone sane."

If Lin had also been overplaying her interest in the other woman, the flicker of pleasant surprise that crosses her face now is genuine. Relieved and astounded to have found an ally, Lin's sugar-coated sweetness dissolves into a real smile. Perhaps underneath her caked-on narcissism, she even feels bashful. Her voice drops an octave to her relaxed, natural speaking voice, a voice she'd never intended to show the cameras. "I always play to win."

Find anyone. Lin held her breath. Allies were worth their weight in gold and the timing was opportune. "You know... why don't we partner up for a little while? Stay here for the night, and we'll find us some fresh meat in the morning." Behind her back, Lin wrung her hands together nervously, absentmindedly, like a schoolgirl admitting her affections. She wasn't referring to a feast of Doki-Doki, and her misdirected rage had festered so much she could now admit to bloodlust without breaking her smile.

"Sounds ideal." Venus makes an overexaggerated yawn, complete with stretching arms. "It's been a while since I've taken a nap, and you look like you been pretty busy too." She gestures to the doki-doki.

Venus would almost feel bad, if this weren't the game, if this weren't on television, if this weren't what they're supposed to do. She's already planning on finding something heavy to bludgeon the woman with when night falls. She could break her neck, but since she's already done that to Steve, she risks becoming boring to the viewers.

"What's your method, if you don't mind me asking?" She takes a seat and stretches her legs, making sure they'll look good for the cameras - long, attractive, but muscular, not model-skinny. Venus is used to running, to kicking.

Catching Venus' yawn, Lin's was much more subdued and ladylike. "Yeah, I'm pretty tired." She takes a place across from Venus, sitting down careful as though she were some delicate thing, hoping to cater to the sponsors that preferred a more elegant woman compared to Venus' jocklike personality, but fooling no one. The fact that she might be betrayed does not even cross her mind - no one would make a decision like that this early, not when there are still benefits to be had, she reasons.

Lin isn't quite sure if Venus means for Tributes or for food, but both her strategies are the same regardless. She gestures to her bow, which she learned how to operate during her training. "I prefer to stay at a distance. Pick off the stragglers of a group, or snipe the isolates before they know what's coming. I've only had to use my swords once so far, for some bitch who wouldn't give me my pack." For a moment, her memory reminds her what blood looks like close up, how it oozes so quickly from the head after the blade is removed, and her smile flinches just enough to show disgust. Lin recovers quickly - what was the point of feeling guilty about killing now that she'd come here? She pretends she had to sneeze, and covers her nose with her hand. "Pardon me. -But it must be exhilarating hand-to-hand. Maybe I'll get my chance, soon?"

"Ugh, no one's willing to share around here. I nearly lost a tooth to some blonde girl who kept trying to one-up me on one-liners." And probably won, unfortunately, but Venus was exhausted by then and not very liable to give good, witty quips.

"Exhilarating's a good word for it. It's not the best part, though. It's knowing there are people at home watching, eating up their popcorn, waiting to see how it turns out." Venus tilts her face up to the sky. "It's imagining their faces as every blow hits, you know? Wondering if for ten seconds you can make them feel something real through a television screen."

Lin shuddered, but not out of fear. The way Venus made it sound, killing was such a wonderful thing to do... She wanted so badly to be like that, to kill without her conscience eating her alive. Yes, she reminded herself, she did want to kill, and to be rid of whatever it was that held her back. Absently rubbing dirt off of her heel, Lin took a breath. "Let's do it. Tomorrow, let's make that happen."

She stood up and stepped into the tent, still addressing Venus, one hand clenching the tarp of the door and the other one hidden behind it to hide its trembling from both Venus and the cameras. She could do this, all she needed to do was to set it into motion. "Once we've got them where we want them... let's just beat the shit out of them. Make them beg. That'll give them something to remember." Normally she'd smile, but for whatever reason, Lin couldn't make it work.

"...Let's save our energy for then." It was an invitation to share the tent. She wasn't about to make Venus sleep on the tiles and candy grass outside.

Lin stirred in the middle of the 'night', a woman not suited to the discomfort of the tent tarp on grass. She had only ever slept on no less than down, and even in the midst of hell the shelter cabin had come with a rather respectable mattress and sleeping bag. She moaned slightly as she adjusted her position, her leg having gone numb from an awkward position.

Her eyes fluttered open for only a moment. She barely remembered in her fog that she had invited that other woman, Venus, into her tent. Clinging on to her sheathed weapons in her sleep so they could not be stolen, she briefly considered rolling over and stabbing her new partner there and then when she presumably least expected it. But remembering she had other plans for the two of them, Lin sighed and closed her eyes, hoping sleep would return to her soon. She hadn't even bothered to check that Venus was in the same state and place she'd left her.

"Wake up," Venus says.

She's not inside the tent. She's standing outside it, instead, using one of Lin's weapons to slowly saw through tendon and wire that weds a prosthetic arm to a corpse's bicep. It's dirty work, disgusting work, but she saw the footage from the Capitol well enough - they like a little gore with their glitz. She hopes they get every detail of this on their night-vision cameras, she hopes they get the small rivulet of sweat running down the braid she's arranged in the front of her hair, she hopes they get the squelch, the edge sound when her knife cuts into bone.

"Lin, wake up."

The prosthetic arm comes from free, and Venus lifts it up, testing its weight. A piece of flesh dangles from the end, an artery there like a severed electrical cable. She feels no guilt for what she's about to do. Lin didn't exactly sell herself as someone in dire need of mercy.

Edited 2013-09-03 01:05 (UTC)

Lin moans again, roused from her almost-sleep. At the second call she opens her eyes in confusion. In the darkness she gropes for her second short sword and does not find it. Her panic lasts only a moment - why would Venus go through the trouble of waking her up if she wanted to kill her, she reasoned? Perhaps she had slept longer than she'd thought and it was 'day'. Perhaps she'd killed a delicious Doki-Doki, or found an intruder in the night. Maybe...

Lin got to her knees groggily, adjusting her black wig. She'd decided not to part with it for the striking silhouette it gave her. Cautiously Lin lowered her bow and quiver to the ground, for it would look too aggressive even in the darkness. The other short sword is kept for good measure, held loosely behind her thigh non-threateningly. Lin then lifted herself off the ground with her heels, her free hand snaking ahead to pull back the tarp slowly, just a crack.

"You left. Is something wrong?"

"Never stay in the same place longer than four hours if there are people looking for you, you know?" Venus reaches over to the end of the arm and starts ripping away strips of flesh and dangling nerves and veins.

"How do you see our allegiance, Lin?" Beating someone to death in their sleep doesn't make for good TV. Betrayal, however?

Betrayal is golden. Venus breathes deep from her nose as she wipes her bloody, rot-strewn hands on her pants, hoisting the arm over her shoulder like a little burlap sack of food should be attached to the end.

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[OPEN] I truly love a fight that's won

Reuniting with Venus [CLOSED]

Re: Reuniting with Venus [CLOSED]

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whenever you're ready, new thread below?

Lin's death [CLOSED]

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