shenunigans: (to torture)
Dave Strider ([personal profile] shenunigans) wrote in [community profile] thearena2015-05-26 01:25 pm

Past, present and future tense. [closed]

Who | Dave and Rose.
What | Dave finds out his sister is here, chaos ensues.
When | First day of the Arena, later in the day.
Where | Probably around the village.
Warnings/Notes | Horrors of the Arena? Sibling angst??

Through everything that happened between now and god knows how long ago, Dave has barely had time to deal with Rose leaving. He'd barely had time to deal with her being there at all, there were levels they just didn't click on and things they could never agree on. He'd been glad to have her and protect her while she could, but the sense that she wasn't his Rose was as apparent as the fact that he wasn't the right Dave for her.

The weird vacancy he feels without Rose hadn't quite been filled by her, but it felt emptier when she was gone. It's like the glass half-empty that got knocked over. You were disappointed that you didn't have enough AJ and now you have none at all, good going chump.

Now, as he fully expected would happen, he's heard word that she's back. Back and different. He hates the way excitement flutters in him, he hates to be happy to see someone he misses more than he cares to admit. He hates that he can't hold back from trying to find her even if he knows it's something like a literal needles in a haystack case here. The dread of what the Capitol can do will set in later, for now he just needs to find her and catch her up on everything before someone else tries to embarrass her.

This Arena is proving beneficial, because the village seems to be something of a brief gathering points. It's as if most people have learned a sense of professionalism where the Arena is concerned. The first murders happen at Cornucopias, then people convene and go their separate ways so that the killing can progress through the coming weeks. He still has time before they all dissipate and finding her is impossible. He searches through the broken down houses of the village and around the outskirts of the castle, all 5'9 of him hidden under the heavy robes of a nun costume, shades and tufts of blond hair still apparent around his freckled face.

It's along this path that he comes across someone head to toe in wizard garb, and they definitely aren't Merlyn. He isn't close enough to see their face and his eyes thin behind his shades, his approach wary as he postures himself to be at least a little intimidating.

The eyes are what get him. He'd know those anywhere, even from a distance. He doesn't know if the familiarity is dawning on her, but he's hitching up his stupid, nun skirt and jogging toward her anyway. He hasn't said anything yet, he doesn't know what to say. He stops a few feet away from her and finally drops his skirt, raising a brow at her. Was she always this short? God, don't tell him she's from another timeline. He can't take it. It takes everything to swallow that train of thought and push forward with his best blank face.

"Sup?" Don't be a zombie.
wickedgoogly: (053)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-05-26 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Rose, fortunately, is not a zombie. She is younger though, apparent in the shape of her face in addition to her shorter height as she turns to better face the fucking nun that just jogged up to her. The costume tells her nothing, but the tufts of blond, the shape of his features, and those shades--

"Dave? Why are you--" Older, taller, wearing that ridiculous getup, here at all. It's too many questions, and she drops them together with the hitched-up hem of her robe. It's muddy anyway from traipsing out to the castle and back, but it's easier to walk without the stupid thing tripping her feet.

She ignores it as she steps closer. Anna had said he was a teenager, and she can suppose that's true, but it didn't really prepare her for this. He's a nun, she's a crap wizard, and they're in a stinking, rotting village in the middle of a death game.

"I don't know where to start," she admits helplessly. "How long have you been here?"
Edited (nips at typos) 2015-05-26 05:04 (UTC)
wickedgoogly: (023)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-05-26 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
Rose's lips slowly press together as she takes him in. His stance and body language are telling in a way: there's a stiffness, a wariness, an apprehension. Her own shoulders sit tense under the heavy fall of the robe.

"You look older than just that," she says as her tone settles into something more measured. "You'll have to pardon me for not being as hip and stylish as you. They didn't give me a choice of costume; it was either this or the pajamas." The purple ones, Derse ones, emblazoned with a moon.

She swallows tightly.

"Dave, what happened? We were--" How does she even say it? "I didn't expect to... be anywhere, much less a decaying fantasy village."
wickedgoogly: (012)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-05-26 12:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Rose breathes a sigh through her nose. It's him, alright. No one else can be this frustratingly evasive, except perhaps herself. It runs in the family.

She rubs a hand over her face. "As much as I'd like to explore your new found proclivity for projecting your sexuality issues onto me, along with yet more terrible sports analogies, I'm still floundering with the basics." The hand drops.

"But okay, bad dystopian novel. I gathered that much myself. And time shenanigans are fully in evidence. I ran into Anna earlier; she said she knew you, and another version of me who was middle-aged. Was she from my far-flung future, or is something else at hand? And how long have you all been waiting around for this game, because I've only just arrived."
wickedgoogly: (067)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-05-26 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Less than dormant? Her eyebrow raises. She'll have to put it on the calendar for later, if there is a later for this game. But the look he gives along with his slowly easing tension is an odd sort of relief. While she doesn't like having the situation to be like this - she never asked to be in a death game, even if she had just stolen a suicide mission from him (circumstantial!) - it feels freer somehow. Like he's trusting her more, despite everything, and that she appreciates when everything else is so topsy turvy.

She does listen while he goes on, quiet and attentive, with a nod back for the one he gives. Gossip later. And while what she's told of her other self is both unexpected and deeply fascinating, it's the last part that draws her words first with the widening of her eyes.

"Are you serious? That many deaths, and yet..." She motions emptily. "You've been revived, somehow?"

If it's true, it does answer something she was wondering at. Anna hadn't been clear on the timeframe she'd known other-Rose for, and Dave did claim he's been here over a year. It seems a long time to wait for just one game, especially if they were shuffling around the players, and bringing one like herself in here at the last moment.
wickedgoogly: (023)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-05-27 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
She still doesn't know he meant that comment, the one about her, but from what he says they'll have plenty of time to piece out all the details later. It's hard to take something she's teased him over for so long as a real admission when all this other heavy shit is hanging over them, waiting for the ropes to snap.

"Televised?" she asks before she can get to any other thought. She looks around but sees no cameras, and hasn't for all her storming about earlier.

It provides just distraction enough that Dave gets his chance to get his arm around her, and it's happening. He is making this shit OCCUR. Rose for her part tenses up at the surprise contact, but he's warm and he's taller and maybe, just maybe she needed this. It's been too much today: her mom is dead, she was just about to die with him before coming here, and all this is a lot to take in after all the chaos of Sburb. She's hearing it and cataloging it, but barely any has had time to absorb. He's older than her, years older, and she's not yet sure what that means.

She slips her wide-sleeved arms around to encircle his waist. "I suppose I can offer some ironic indulgence for your fans," she says, but the clutch of her hands speaks sincerity.

She heard the warning, though. She chooses not to answer it.

After a moment she pulls back some herself, more reluctant than she'll admit to herself to disengage entirely. "I'd ask if we could find a place to sit and talk, but I doubt we'd find a chair that isn't mouldering in this place." She tips her head up to meet his gaze through the shades. "You have a lot to tell me. The Tumor wasn't the end, was it?"
wickedgoogly: (051)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-02 12:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"Found that out the hard way, did you?" she murmurs, catching the gesture. But it's fine by her not to sit on a roof. They'd be targets up there, easy to see, and she's not much for that. She's already ran into one person with a monster in his stomach, who would have liked to eat her if she'd shown the feathers of the kind of bird he was after.

(He was a crap liar. Jesus, Nitou, learn how to deceive.)

But there's no real answer yet, clear now as he steps off. She follows a step later.

It's a lot to think about still, even in this small snatch between standing and making their way into the shack. Cameras on them constantly - she heard that clearly, the inflection too, and it sits heavy and solid in her mind. She never thought to be a TV star, but this isn't even that, and the 1984 meets Battle Royale comparison sits all the more aptly than it already did.

She can't shake the feeling, too, that he's stalling. She can't figure whether to be annoyed or relieved for the brief respite from the bomb sure to come, and ends up settling into a wary middle as she steps inside after him. It's about as decrepit as she expected. Watching the floor for rats and refusing any furniture that might be about, she steps around so she can face him again, and sets her arms into an uneasy fold.

Here she says nothing. Her look is silent, expectant, but patient enough to let him start on his own.
wickedgoogly: (037)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-07 07:04 am (UTC)(link)
Rose murmurs a nice gesture as he launches in, because it is a good substitute for the flashy green font, but otherwise doesn't interrupt. There's a lot to take in even with her own future teenage alcoholism left out, and it's possibly for the better that it is. It would be too much now on top of everything, to learn that after all that she sunk into the same kind of problems as her mother without being remotely in the position to know why, and how no one managed to draw her out of it.

As it stands she listens well, lips pursing together as she takes in each piece of information, cataloging what to comment on and what to wonder about and what to leave for later. Even then it's hard to figure out how to attack it, particularly with points that come up that she thought were jokes or didn't get to ask more about earlier.

She finds by the end that she wishes she could trust the furniture more, because she wants very much to sit down.

"The Green Sun wasn't there," she says after a moment, omitting any jazz hands of her own. Her gaze is down and fixed on some spot of floor. "Just this empty spot where it should have been. You and I found our quest beds, and deployed the bomb, and waited--and it was a couple seconds to detonation when I found myself suddenly here." Not here here, but in Panem, waking up to strangers and too little explanation.

There's another pause, a moment of thought as she thinks what to ask next.

"I take it where we were headed would be the post-scratch universe. Doc Scratch did tell me we would have lived different lives there..."

Another pause, a sigh, and if she weren't so mentally exhausted from everything she'd be laughing at the topic her mind comes back to. She looks up again.

"I really dated Kanaya? You weren't kidding about the... the lesbian thing?" It feels ridiculous; she's only a handful of months into age 13, and not yet had cause to engage on the journey of self discovery that is discovering you're queer as a three dollar bill. "I only started to get to know her today," she finishes helplessly.

There's a mix of feelings welling up in her now, tired and frustrated and almost mad. What the hell is she doing here? Three years now, three years between them, three years she could have spent getting to know him as her brother and figuring out what being a god tier Seer of Light is and knowing the trolls better, seeing them, figuring out her own issues for herself. Just like that it's been snatched up, and if she ever goes back, who knows what will happen?

She feels her hands curl and clench at her sides, but pushes herself to ask in a voice that is tellingly stiff, "What about John and Jade?"
Edited (fixes a word) 2015-06-07 07:23 (UTC)
wickedgoogly: (075)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-09 02:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Turned up? Got bigger? She squints at his still vague wording, thinks back to how frustrating and indirect Doc Scratch was - pot and kettle - until it clicks. "We made it," she states, not asking. "We were tricked into causing its existence."

Because of course they would be, of course all the tangle of time and space out there would resolve into that nonsense, and she can't resist rubbing he hand across her face. There is no almost now; she is mad, water over heat starting to simmer.

She looks up with plain disappointment at the news Kanaya isn't around. She wouldn't be able to dive into a relationship her future self had at all, but maybe she could have explained or helped her understand or at least become better friends with her. It's ridiculous and frustrating and so very unfair. She can't figure herself out on her own, and she can't even reap the benefits of learning from the end product. It's Sburb setting them up for failure all over again; it's railroading without the time loops; it's having knowledge right before her and being unable to touch a single piece of it.

It's infuriating, is what it is, and she turns suddenly to kick over an old, weathered chair. It's not as satisfying as she wishes, and in the clattering aftermath she breathes out harshly, hands clutched into tight, trembling fists with arms locked straight.

She doesn't look at him. She doesn't explain it.

"Who's here?"
Edited 2015-06-09 14:36 (UTC)
wickedgoogly: (051)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-15 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
Rose is so caught up in dealing with the hand she's been dealt that she doesn't care to imagine how alternatives might go. They're useless to her situation.

She listens to him list off names, and perks to finally look at him when he mentions Bro, because wasn't Bro dead? But then, timelines--and any hope of her mom being among the number is cut. Her lips press tight again, then she turns to face him fully.

"I recognize some names, but Terezi is the one one I've spoken to out of those, if I recall right." It was earlier today from her perspective, but she only just started learning their names.

It galls her still that all but the obvious are ahead of her. Why set her behind like this? What did she do to deserve any of it? She would hardly put it on anyone else if she had her way of it, but so long as they are here, the petty quibbles still dig at her.

"I'll deal with them if and when I meet them, I guess. Is there anyone I should be wary of, or is that everyone in this charnel house?"
wickedgoogly: (010)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-17 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe later she'll meet him, she thinks. It would be interesting to finally meet the man behind the nigh legendary status 13-year-old Dave afforded him. Here in the present it's not that important, and her thoughts pass on with his words.

Also, he's grabbing her hand. She lifts an eyebrow quite pointedly at him, and there aren't any splinters because she kicked the chair and never got to the whole stick sharpening thing she asked Anna to teach her about before she told him Dave was around.

The press to ask about it fades out too when he starts bringing up fictional characters. It sounds absurd, doesn't it? But then she thinks back to the couple she met on her way to the castle, and her eyebrows press down to normal.

"It would explain some things. There was a guy who claimed he had a chimera in his stomach, and a large, purple... young lady, I guess, who identified herself as some sort of shadow being." She shrugs. "My skepticism's a little busted after Sburb."

He makes a good point, though, and she hasn't forgotten the point of this game. "I'll watch out," she promises. "Tell me what those two look like, and I'll be sure to steer clear."
wickedgoogly: (083)

[personal profile] wickedgoogly 2015-06-25 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
She feels almost like she should ask if he's kidding, but gets the feeling she'll just wind up with a headache if she tries. She rubs at her temples. This is stupid.

"I'll keep an eye out," she says, tired but not in the physical way. She even lets him off the hook for the gesture.

"Is there anything else I need to know right now, or should we get a move on? I doubt we'll last if we stay holed up in a rotting shack the whole time."

She hates that she has to think about it like that. She'd like the chance to sit down and absorb it piece by piece. Sburb might have happened in a day, but the stakes were higher and there were guides everywhere pushing them along a path preordained by Paradox Space. And that's it, too--it was all one day, a very long one she's just come off the tail end of, and now she's here with yet more to figure out and worry about. She wishes there were somewhere she could register a support ticket to the equivalent of fuck this, I want to go home - whatever 'home' is, after the death of their universe.
Edited 2015-06-25 03:38 (UTC)