Clara Murphy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thearena2014-05-27 09:36 pm
seestheman) wrote in thearena2014-05-27 09:36 pm
Entry tags:
[Open] Roam if you want to
Who: Clara Murphy & YOU!
What: Clara slips out of the house to go exploring.
When: Week 2 (maybe later than that too?)
Where: All over!
Notes: Possible language? Potential violence?
01 - Main Street
Clara's pretty certain that her and Alex weren't the only ones to lay claim to one of the buildings in town. Thinking otherwise would be naive at best, and could get her killed at worst. Which doesn't mean that there aren't some that haven't already been sacked or claimed, and if she's lucky she'll find one of them and some supplies to add to their stash. Brandishing the knife that had been dropped in front of their house with her name on it the morning before alongside a flashlight that she's clutching in her left hand, she approaches what looks like an abandoned drug store, hoping that maybe there's still something of use inside.
02 - Amusement Park
Clara had always liked amusement parks. The lights, the colors, the sounds, the smell of funnel cake and cotton candy. They always made her think of going to the carnival with her family as a kid, or dates with Alex, or the proud look on David's face when he won a goldfish or a stuffed animal almost as big as he was. What they definitely never made her think of was thick fog with the skeletal figures of rides emerging with every step or the giant, terrifying clown face that obviously served as the entrance to a fun house. Hearing some sort of footsteps near by, she climbs over the wooden counter of a game stall and ducks down, hoping whoever (or whatever) it is goes away soon.
03 - Orchards
Suspicious as she may be of taking whatever came from the Arena itself compared to what was dropped in for them as gifts, there are certain creature comforts that Clara's missed from home. Ones that aren't completely obvious, like fresh fruit. So her discovery of an orchard makes her wary, which she ignores in lieu of the fact that there's a peach tree right in front of her and one's practically within her reach.
04 - Choose Your Own
What: Clara slips out of the house to go exploring.
When: Week 2 (maybe later than that too?)
Where: All over!
Notes: Possible language? Potential violence?
01 - Main Street
Clara's pretty certain that her and Alex weren't the only ones to lay claim to one of the buildings in town. Thinking otherwise would be naive at best, and could get her killed at worst. Which doesn't mean that there aren't some that haven't already been sacked or claimed, and if she's lucky she'll find one of them and some supplies to add to their stash. Brandishing the knife that had been dropped in front of their house with her name on it the morning before alongside a flashlight that she's clutching in her left hand, she approaches what looks like an abandoned drug store, hoping that maybe there's still something of use inside.
02 - Amusement Park
Clara had always liked amusement parks. The lights, the colors, the sounds, the smell of funnel cake and cotton candy. They always made her think of going to the carnival with her family as a kid, or dates with Alex, or the proud look on David's face when he won a goldfish or a stuffed animal almost as big as he was. What they definitely never made her think of was thick fog with the skeletal figures of rides emerging with every step or the giant, terrifying clown face that obviously served as the entrance to a fun house. Hearing some sort of footsteps near by, she climbs over the wooden counter of a game stall and ducks down, hoping whoever (or whatever) it is goes away soon.
03 - Orchards
Suspicious as she may be of taking whatever came from the Arena itself compared to what was dropped in for them as gifts, there are certain creature comforts that Clara's missed from home. Ones that aren't completely obvious, like fresh fruit. So her discovery of an orchard makes her wary, which she ignores in lieu of the fact that there's a peach tree right in front of her and one's practically within her reach.
04 - Choose Your Own
no subject
She's waiting for one of their inevitable deaths to come when Alex gets it onto its side and calls for the knife. Clara doesn't know why it takes a moment longer than it usually would for her to do anything (she pins it on the fact that the adrenaline rush is starting to ebb away and she hasn't been sleeping as well as she usually would as of late). Taking the utmost care to be sure that her hands are safely cocooned in the sleeves of her jacket, she plunges the knife in its tail-end and, putting all of her weight into it, drags the knife forward, trying to cut through the exoskeleton. While she's pretty sure that the knife's edge might be chipped and ruined by the time she's done cutting through it, it still works for the most part.
There are a lot of things she wants to tell Alex right now. That he was right and she should've stayed at the house. Or, in the same vein, that she's sorry that he had to come rescue her and she never meant to make him worry (because she knows him and it's another thing on a long list of things she feels like she needs to apologize to him for). Or that she's almost thankful that he's covered in armor because if he wasn't he'd probably be dead or badly wounded (again). Of course, saying any of those things over the sounds the spider's making right now are an impossibility if she wants him to hear her.
Instead, she walks past Alex toward the spider's front and, noticing something that resembles a vein, covers her face with a sleeve and stabs it, ducking out of the way of the spray of...blood or venom or whatever the fuck it is, only getting the sleeve of her jacket slightly sprayed in it (though not enough to soak through to her sweater or past it to the skin, thankfully). Once that's done, she starts to strip off her jacket with the now ruined sleeves so she can wipe the spider's saliva off his chest, and refolds the knife before pulling down the hood of her sweater.
Let's start wrapping up this thread?
"Thanks." Alex releases his hand hold on the spider, letting it thud to the ground and ignoring the way that even though it's huge, it's still doing that disgusting leg curl that his brain is still instinctively going holy christ at even though he's stuff in some kind of armor. "It didn't get you, did it?"
Looking at her, his HUD sweeps the outline of her body in red and then begins ticking off biometric readings, whatever those are supposed to be. It comes back with "emotional distress" and "increased heart-rate" like those wouldn't be obvious. Clara just ran into a goddamn spider from a monster movie - who wouldn't be shitting bricks about it? His left hand comes up to cup her face, hesitates, and then gingerly touches Clara's cheek, the coolness of the graphene grazing her skin. She looks like she only got some of the jacket hit with the blood and it's not eating through her like the drool was. Clara's trembling, though, and even though he's touching her with a prosthetic hand, he can still feel how she's shaking.
He's never seen her like this. Alex remembers what she looked like when she was ramping up to propose and he used to think that was the most scared she'd ever been. It doesn't have a candle to the look on her face now.
Sure!
It's the dumbest thing, but the moment his hand touches her cheek something in her snaps, breaking all her resolve to stay strong and steady and calm. She's always cried when she's too stressed, and this is one of those moments. Usually she'd try to make it not so obvious or try to cry pretty. But this isn't usual. Nothing about it is. She's pretty sure that there's both tears and snot and her eyes are bright red and starting to get puffy and there isn't a chance in hell she'll be able to hide it from him like she usually would because, nope, it's too late, his hand is on her cheek and he's looking down at her and, if she's completely honest with herself, she doesn't care that about him seeing her cry right now and is just so relieved that she didn't lose him again.
"I'm fine," Clara says in between ragged breathes. "How about you?"
no subject
He doesn't know how long and frankly, he doesn't care: from what Clara told him, it's a miracle he's even here today. Alex stands there, feeling useless as his wife's shoulders heave as she cries. Really cries. He rubs her back with his flesh hand (his "good hand", in his mind, because the other one is alien), whispering something like "it'll be okay" and "we'll work it out" and he doesn't know if he believes it. All Alex knows is he needs to convince Clara and he can worry about how much he believes his own BS later.
"Hey," Alex keeps his voice low, trying to aim for comforting but aware they're still near the tree line. If other Tributes didn't hear them, another one of those freak spiders might. "Hey, look. We'll get back to the house, okay? C'mon."
He protectively loops his arm around her back, glancing around at the fog as if daring the other Tributes to try their luck. After the damn spider, Alex feels like the rest of the Arena can't possibly be as bad.