Confusion at the outfits was followed by confusion at the skates, and the tubes and pedestals, and finally by the arena itself being, on first glance, an actual skating arena.
Of course it was bigger than that on a second sweep, but the initial thought of a deathmatch with so many people and half of them flailing around on the skates like decapitated cluckbeasts was amusing enough to distract from the countdown, from the speech, for a few moments, at least.
The last several moments were spent scanning the other tributes for any familiar faces. Sure, he'd holed up in his room fairly exclusively after the fiasco of an "investigation" but the potential for there being people he knew here, too, was enough to get Kurloz looking for them.
And then the explosion hit, and he wasn't quite sure anymore if he wanted people he knew to be here after all, but he still scanned the (now more horrified faces) a bit quicker for someone, anyone.
Double horns, bicolored eyes, a clumsy fall right onto the face and that wasn't his yellowblooded idiot (Messiah bless), but it was close enough, and he was crawling, so clearly he needed help.
With little more thought than that, Kurloz was off his pedestal, gliding over the ice around blasted out pieces and chunks of people he would never know while avoiding so much as glancing at the details - no checking for grey skin or splatters of color or broken horn, not when he had to get that idiot off his hands and knees as soon as possible.
And maybe the tunnel vision was serving as a distraction.
Still, he slid to a stop in front of the crawling troll and crouched down in front of him, tried to appear as nonthreatening as a highblood could manage in a deathmatch, offering his hands palm-up for Sollux to take.
no subject
Of course it was bigger than that on a second sweep, but the initial thought of a deathmatch with so many people and half of them flailing around on the skates like decapitated cluckbeasts was amusing enough to distract from the countdown, from the speech, for a few moments, at least.
The last several moments were spent scanning the other tributes for any familiar faces. Sure, he'd holed up in his room fairly exclusively after the fiasco of an "investigation" but the potential for there being people he knew here, too, was enough to get Kurloz looking for them.
And then the explosion hit, and he wasn't quite sure anymore if he wanted people he knew to be here after all, but he still scanned the (now more horrified faces) a bit quicker for someone, anyone.
Double horns, bicolored eyes, a clumsy fall right onto the face and that wasn't his yellowblooded idiot (Messiah bless), but it was close enough, and he was crawling, so clearly he needed help.
With little more thought than that, Kurloz was off his pedestal, gliding over the ice around blasted out pieces and chunks of people he would never know while avoiding so much as glancing at the details - no checking for grey skin or splatters of color or broken horn, not when he had to get that idiot off his hands and knees as soon as possible.
And maybe the tunnel vision was serving as a distraction.
Still, he slid to a stop in front of the crawling troll and crouched down in front of him, tried to appear as nonthreatening as a highblood could manage in a deathmatch, offering his hands palm-up for Sollux to take.