thearena | Arena 14: A Grimm Age

Arena 14: A Grimm Age

The morning breaks to a familiar routine for most of you. Bright and early the Tributes are roused by their escorts and stylists, escorted from their rooms and to the waiting hovercraft. The flight takes them a few hours out from the Capitol and after landing they are escorted quickly into an underground complex to be prepped. Tributes will find to their dismay that their outfits are a little less practical and a little more costume this time around, the ratio of which depends entirely on the whims of their stylist. Peacekeepers will appear almost immediately after they've finished dressing to put them in the waiting launch tubes.

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They rise up from the ground and -- phew, what's that smell? The Tribute's look around them to see a full-on medieval village, constructed entirely from wood and thatch. There are empty pens that might have once held pigs and chickens attached to the houses and a well is visible down the street. What commands attention though is what's in the centre of the village square where the Tribute's are standing; a pyre built around a tall wooden stake. Those who look amongst the piles of twigs and wood will see the gleam of weapons, as well as backpacks containing survival supplies. This is your Cornucopia, Tributes.

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Anyone who tries to look further afield, over the roofs of the houses, will see the main feature of this arena looming above them. The castle stands tall and forbidding, a monstrous sized building of stone with flags bearing the emblem of the Capitol flying from its parapets. From here, if they squint, they can see the drawbridge is down and the portcullis is open. For now.

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A triumphant sounding of trumpets is what signals this arena's beginning and with it those Tribute's with powers may feel a sudden tingling in their bones, a rush of energy as those powers are restored to them. Any with constantly active abilities will find a light illuminates immediately over their head, signalling that something about this powered arena is going to be a little different from the last. For those who try to use their powers right off the bat... well, they'll be in for a nasty shock.

[[OOC: A mod reminder that this arena is designed to punish Tribute's for using powers. If your character will attempt to use powers at any time in week 1 of the arena it needs to be reported here to be RNG'd by the mods for chances of success or injury.

There will be a thread on Death Roll posts for subsequent weeks power usage to be reported.]]

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Éowyn pulls the girl close, half-dragging and half-carrying her as she lunges through the smoke. She doesn't expect Arya to appreciate that, but she also doesn't intend to slow herself down for Arya's shorter stride. Not until they're out of the worst of the smoke does she loosen her grip on Arya a little, coughing. She keeps moving, though, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and heading for the nearest building.

"Are you hurt?" she asks, as they go.

Arya takes deep breaths, her throat feeling red and raw, coughing more intermittently now and staying close to Éowyn, looking back warily half expecting attackers to emerge through the cover of the smoke.

"I'm fine." The words come between ragged breaths. "But I didn't get anything." She sounds more disappointed at her lack of Cornucopia bounty than nearly getting burnt to death.

"I have a bow," Éowyn points out. "And there must surely be something in this place that I can fight with, even if only a spar of wood I can take as a stave. That pyre cannot be the only source of goods, not in such a place." Looking back over her shoulder, she tries the door of the nearest hut, and is a little surprised at how easily it opens.

The smell inside is one of rot and fetid abandonment, and she wrinkles her nose at it, even while appreciating it as something still more real than the Capitol's sterility. Holding the door open for Arya, she glances around the single room, trying to see what they can scavenge. There's a cooking pot by the fire - if they scrub that out, it may be useful, as may the hook it hangs by. No food, or at least none that looks edible, and the rushes on the floor are filthy and old. Once again, Éowyn is reminded of the villages they passed through during the war, hollowed-out and abandoned. It isn't a pleasant thought.

She shakes it off. She's had a lot of practice in shaking thoughts off, lately. "We'll take shelter here a while, where it's defensible. See what we can salvage, then head out of the village. It stinks of death."

"I can use a bow." Her voice brightens a little, not having used one in so long and not realising she'd missed it until now, when the opportunity to use one was presented to her.

She follows her into the hut, gazing around at the rotting timber and the rats scuttling over the floor. The fact that she's relatively unfazed by it perhaps speaks volumes as to what she's experienced before arriving in Panem. "Where to? It must get dark before long."

"Maybe you should take it, then." Though the longbow is about Éowyn's height, and therefore probably too big for Arya. Still, she isn't lying when she adds, "It's so much firewood to me. I never learned to shoot." She might be able to figure it out, given time, but she has a strong sense time is in short supply around here. Mentally, she reminds herself to add archery to her training regime when she gets back.

For now, she just kicks aside one of the rats, grateful for her decent boots, and strides over to the nearest chest of drawers. Knives, that would be something. If she can get a knife, too, she might be able to cobble together a spear, and then she'll be far more formidable.

"I taught myself." She sounds equally proud about that and frustrated that she never had the chance to learn properly. "I was better than my brothers at it." Her face lights up as an idea occurs to her. "I could teach you, a little."

The rats don't seem to bother Arya in the least. When one scuttles too close to her she simply reaches down to grab it and break it's neck. "At least they'll keep us fed for a while."

Éowyn's lip curls a little at the thought. She knows it might be necessary, but the idea of eating rat isn't exactly appealing, especially not these rats. "Aye," she admits, pulling open another drawer and wiping at her eyes, still watery from the smoke. "But I'd sooner be sure there's nothing more edible, first. As for the bow..." She turns, smiling at the younger girl. "I'd be proud to be taught by such as you."

Arya would rather not eat them if there's an alternative - from experience, she knows how stringy rats are - but she's eaten worse, and she's determined to survive in here this time around. "I can skin them with an arrowhead if we need to," she offers.

She looks extremely pleased for a second, then tries to hide it to show that it's not really a big deal. "There might be something in the forest we could hunt with it."

"There might be," Éowyn agrees. "Even if not, we can set some snares and see what falls into... aha!" This drawer yields a knife - small and blunt and rather rusty, but a knife nonetheless. Turning to Arya again, Éowyn holds it out handle-first. "Not much," she admits, "but better by far than an arrowhead."

Arya takes the knife, turning it over in her hand. It would take a long time to skin anything with it, but at least it was something. "I didn't expect the Gamemakers to leave us even this."

"Nor I," Éowyn admits after a moment, shaking her head. It's clear from her smile just how relieved she is by it, and just how reinvigorated. "Could be there's more than this. See how rotten the bedding is, will you? If it's in any fit state, we should take it, for bindings and bandages, before we move on."

She pulls the sheets from the mattress, wrinkling her nose a little at how mildewed it smells. There's not much that's salvageable but there's enough, and she begins tearing into it, using her teeth to rip it apart and rolling up the usable pieces, dividing them equally between Éowyn and herself.

Éowyn keeps looking through the cupboards and drawers, but there's little else of value. She does retrieve an iron poker from the ashes and dust in the fireplace, though, shoving it through her belt like a sword and feeling rather better for its weight. Taking the makeshift bandages from Arya with a little nod and a smile, she goes to the window, peering between the rotten shutters.

"We should be able to make a break for it," she decides after a moment, stuffing the torn sheeting into the waistband of her leggings for safekeeping. "Are your eyes still stinging?"

"No," she replies, though she's still blinking far too often, feeling the burn of the smoke and trying her best not to let her eyes water. She knows how the Capitol would take the footage and play it up to look as though she were crying. "I'm fine. We should move. The forest, maybe."

"The forest," Éowyn agrees, raking her hair back and knotting it quickly out of her eyes. She'll get it properly out of her face later, but for now, she just needs it to get in her way less. That done, she slings her bow and arrows back over her shoulder, and nods to Arya, striding towards the door. "Ready?"

Arya nods in return, though she feels anything but ready, not knowing who or what could be lurking outside. Still, it's their only real choice: it would take minutes for someone to burn down the house with them inside it if they caught on that the two of them were hiding out in there. Taking a deep breath she clenches her fists tightly, the small knife gripped in her left hand - little good it would do, unless perhaps she got a clear shot to take someone's eye out with it - and bursts forth, squinting as she steps into the sunlight and making a run for the forest, hoping that Éowyn is close behind.

Éowyn is barely a step behind, loping along with the poker held at the ready, keeping pace as best she can when one of her strides covers twice as much ground as one of Arya's. The blasted village is a place she's all too glad to leave; even dark and twisted as the forest looks, it's at least a place less obviously scarred, where some kind of nature is still awaiting. And, more importantly, it's a place where hiding ought to be easy.

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Arena 14: A Grimm Age

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Should we wrap this up?