Usually, the tribute's outfits for the arena aren't accessorized. But today, the last thing their stylists hand them before the countdown begins is a pair of heavy black glasses, polarized and thick-lensed. They look at odds with the thick, winter gear they've been outfitted in.


It's a long rise to the surface today, inside their individual little tubes, much longer than usual. They start to feel the cold only about halfway up, and to hear the wind. It howls across the surface as they reach it, pressing all of their clothes flat against their bodies. And the reason for the glasses is immediately apparent.


20 - 19 - 18


The sky is white. The ground is white (and gray and black and blue but mostly white), the far-off sea is blinding silver. Everything in sight flings light around, fractures it into scintilating rainbows and sheer white beams of reflection. It is strong, cruel light, and it bears no heat at all. The surface is so cold that the little metal trackers ache in everyone's arm, and the countdown has to continue at a deafening volume to be heard.


 12 - 11 - 10 -


The circle of silver pedestals is the only regular shape to be seen. All else is fractured and split, the most uneven footing imaginable. And at the center of the circle, the Cornucopia sports icycles hanging from its lip, almost to the pile of supplies tucked all neatly inside its mouth.


4


3


2


There's a lull in the wind just as the gong sounds, letting it peal out across the frozen glacier, and echo off the high rock cliffs in the distance. And the ice answers, with a loud crack that seems to come from miles down.


Let the Games begin.

WHO| Wyatt, Grey, and (later) Neeshka
WHAT| Wyatt vs. Grey, Round #2
WHEN| Mid-way through Week #4, post Alpha-death
WHERE| Woods, not too far from the ruins
WARNINGS| Bloody, bloody, death.

It was the routine that kept Wyatt going. Try to sleep despite the wet and the cold and feeling like his insides were trying to make a break out the outside. Get up, choke down something edible. Head for the woods for water. Revisit breakfast. Spend the day trying to avoid being killed. Head back to Neeshka at dark. Start over.

Keepin' it in a list like that, tellin' himself to just keep puttin' one boot in front of the other, made it easier. He could do neat, little steps.

And it seemed to be working. The past few days had passed on by without (unexpected) incident and he was beginning to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he might somehow see the end of this thing.

( But then... )

WHO| Anna Morasca, Neeshka, Wyatt Earp (also open to Dean Winchester)
WHAT| The odds are no longer in Anna's favor. Spoiler Alert: Anna dies.
WHEN| The end of week two.
WHERE| The beginning of the canyon; M4
WARNING/NOTES| Death. Language. Violence. Blood. Gore.

Luckily for Anna, she'd been nowhere near the Cornucopia or the ruins since the bloodbath so the nausea anyone else felt had yet to really reach her. It had instead presented itself as a worsening migraine and minor stomach pains that Anna had attributed to hunger and the cold. She and Dean had yet to really stumble across anyone at this point, which was an advantage for the two of them since neither wanted to kill anyone. It remained unspoken, the inevitability that they would have to fight because The Capitol wouldn't let both of them live if they miraculously made it to the end by themselves. Anna had her own contingency plan for that.

She'd strayed from their little camp in the base of the canyon to stock up on water, as well as attempting to catch any fish in the net she had with her kit. A hunting knife had arrived for her with a sleeping bag earlier in the Game and she made it a habit to keep the knife on her at all times, as well as a makeshift staff she'd fashioned out of a tree branch she found.

Leaning down, she splashed her face with some of the cold water and sighed happily, drying her face with her shirt and not even expecting company. A mistake she would inevitably pay for.

WHO| Neeshka and Glinda
WHAT| Neeshka gets Glinda out of the arena
WHEN| Day 2, afternoon
WHERE| Just outside the ruins
WARNING/NOTES| Death will happen here! Probably slow-ish death, too.

Even before she found Wyatt again, Neeshka was a happy camper. She'd got a very useful weapon, a lot of useful stuff in her bag-- and a nice, warm coat that she'd promptly muddied up to keep the reflective bits from giving her away. She'd prowled around the ruins a bit, shot herself a rat for breakfast, and was now perched in a long-broken second story window, half-hidden in the afternoon shadows, looking down on the grass, canyon, and beach.

She was looking for something-- or someone-- to shoot.

WHO | Wyatt, Neeshka, and NPC Sam
WHAT | Reuniting and it feels so gooood... Also some death.
WHEN | Day Two
WHERE | Let's say... H7, J7ish.
WARNINGS / NOTES | Deathly-death. Some minor swearing from the cowboy.

So far as Wyatt was concerned, this new arena was going a fair-well better than the previous. Sure, it was quite a bit colder, and wetter, this time 'round, but he felt like he understood this place.

And that made a hell of a lot of difference.

( Read more... )

For some this is starting to be routine. For some it is new, and little is done to ease them into it. The peacekeepers are never warm on these flights, but they are rougher, quieter today, and after having their tracking devices inserted or reactivated, the tributes don't see them until they are lead to small, metal rooms.

They are dressed quietly by their stylist, and the stylist move quicker this time, dressing them in heavy cargo pants, boots, thick socks, an undershirt and sweater. A light, plastic jacket is laid over the top, with a hood and plenty of pockets.

They are lead to tubes, with a reminder not to leave the pedestal. The tubes are metal this time, thick, the door sliding closed over them and leaving the tributes in the small, dark area. Entombed until they start the smooth rise to the surface.

25 - 24 - 23

Rising to the surfaces, they can see before them a building, ravished by time but still standing. Behind it, cliffs fall to the ocean, glittering in the sun for miles and miles, a dark blue distance that offers no escape. Behind them, the last trails of fog lead into a forest, still spotted with the lingering remains of the buildings that had once stood there. The air is cool, crisp, and the warmth of the sweater can be appreciated quickly.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

One wall of the building before them is gone, exposing deep into the building's heart. There, about 50 yards into the ruins, lies the cornucopia. It's weapons and supplies are scattered among the ruins, dropped haphazardly among crumbling walls and exposed rebar.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

Warned not to move from their pedestals, they are given the last 10 seconds to plans their attack.

5

4

3

2

The gong sounds, clear in the crisp air. Let the games begin.

[OOC: Check here if your character ran for the cornucopia to see your results. Post here to play those out.

Characters on reserve have until Wednesday, Nov 14th to be eligible to tag into this arena and this post, but anyone who did not sign up for the Cornucopia will be handwaved as having not not been part of the Cornucopia battle.]

WHO| Neeshka and Ariadne
WHAT| Stalker turned stalkee
WHEN| Evening of day 7
WHERE| The north end of the big island, around S6
WARNING/NOTES| Somebody is dying!

Things were slowing down a bit, it seemed like. Neeshka was running across fewer and fewer other people in here, and was actively avoiding the ones she ran into. Well, not quite avoiding, but definitely not engaging. She'd taken out one of these Tributes, or whatever they were being called, and for the next few days, she was content to just watch and stay alive.

That didn't mean she wasn't bored silly, though.

So when she heard someone else moving around in the foliage not far from where she'd recently woken herself up from the day and made an attempt at finger-combing out her hair and smashing open a coconut to drink from, she dropped her find and shimmied immediately up the nearest tree as quietly as she could. It was no big loss, really, because she was very, very sick of coconuts, and was starting to wonder if the afterlife weren't preferable if it had drinkable water. Not quite wondering enough to let someone stab her just to find out, though, so she tried to shrink into the leaves as invisibly as possible.

WHO| Oushirou Shirogane and OPEN (and Revya)
WHAT| Oushirou's somehow not dead yet (and then he is)
WHEN| Arena Day 4
WHERE| R-7ish
WARNING/NOTES| Revya's gonna kill him, bloodily. Before that, though, he's around for CR.


Chalk it up to luck that Oushirou was still around to see the sun rise on his fourth day in the Arena. And not because he'd even been particularly trying, really. If this setup was a death match, he knew he was going to die in the end. He could defend himself to an extent, but he couldn't kill anybody. He'd given up violence and wouldn't go back to it, not even to preserve his own life in this place.

Just lying down and dying was hard to do too, though, nor could he bring himself to take a personal hand in ending his own life. So he supposed he was just... waiting for someone else to come along and do the job for him. He almost regretted fleeing the bloodbath at the Cornucopia and making the swim to the next little island. Things would have ended a lot sooner if he'd stayed.

For now, he'd figured out the coconuts, driven by the discomfort of thirst and hunger, but that was really all he had going for him. He was exhausted, sunburned, and let's face it, his hair was ruined despite the single tight braid it had been bound into (not that his hair was a priority, mind, but he couldn't help but mourn it a little...). He sat under a palm some distance from the shoreline, staring out at the lagoon feeling tired and sore and dully hungry, his expression sullen as he wondered—yet again—how things had wound up this way.

Day four. And four and death were a bit too close for comfort, in his culture's superstitions. Maybe today would be the day.

WHO| Neeshka and OPEN!
WHAT| Exploring the aquatic buffet
WHEN| Night of the second day after the Cornucopia
WHERE| A beach at the southern end of the big island, around R10
WARNING/NOTES| Nothing worse than DnD-style cursing, at the moment

Coconuts weren't particularly filling, Neeshka had found. With no knife or anything of the sort yet, she couldn't hunt snakes or those big birds she'd seen on the shore now and then-- though she'd had to run away from a couple of the latter, when she ventured out onto the sand during the daytime. Those were some big, scary birds, if you asked her. Not that she hadn't seen scarier in her time, but still: usually she had someone else with a sword to hide behind.

Now, at night again and with the heat a little less intense, she was wading out into the shallows attempting to catch her some dinner there, with only a single craggy piece of rock she'd managed to break off from a boulder on the seaward side of the island, but then didn't have the knowledge to actually shape and sharpen. Already she'd cut her fingers on its awkward edges twice, and gotten a hand-full of spines from a fish with her other hand-- which then got away-- so life wasn't really going so hot right now.

Nor was it going particularly quietly. There was a lot of splashing and more than a few muttered curses going on, so it wouldn't be hard to find her.

Who| Wyatt and... you?
What| Planning his next step
When| The day after the Cornucopia
Where| Let's say S4
Warnings/Notes| None

He'd survived the Cornucopia, and the subsequent swim to the next island. The cut on his arm had been dealt with (hopefully the salt water had cleaned it well enough to keep infection at bay) and the long night, spent just inside the tree line, had been uneventful if restless.

Now, with the sun already on its ascent through the startlingly blue sky, Wyatt stood in the sand, looking out at the rolling waves. Hunger was a gentle itch, scratching at the back of his gut that he could ignore for awhile yet, but thirst, well, that was going to be problem. And soon.

Mustache quirking thoughtfully, he ran a hand over his hair and sighed.

Shoud he follow the beach? Or head deeper into the trees?