Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

[sloane-cruise]

bellonaarbore​:

“I don’t know, I just found it like this,” she said, stepping into the room, though with cautious steps as if it might explode. “It feels like… I don’t know, it feels…” What did it feel like? A sign? An omen? “In my last Arena. My ally — she died on a bed just like this one, there was — there was blood all over the sheets… Maybe I’m being paranoid.” Maybe she was simply the type of person to draw connections that were not there.

She moved then, came to slowly stand beside Bellona, and with just as much ease to place an arm around her shoulders. At the garage she’d worked at in district six there was a master clock that chimed at the start and beginning of every shift. For weeks, months even, after her father had died she’d hear that booming and her body would betray her. She’d shake, or vomit, or fall into a full on panic attack. When someone would come to help, her voice would sound squashed; the weight of all those memories pressed against it. She heard that now in Bellona. “You think they’re playing mind games,” she suggested. 

[sloane-cruise]

amphora-helia​:

Amphora nodded at first, needing a moment to find her words. “Yes, um, but I was hoping I wouldn’t be alone for long.” She moved her hands to start picking at where she could feel the splinter in her hand. “It’s a hard to see if there’s anything useful here but I was hoping to stay here until it was light out. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s creepy,” Sloane said, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her tribute uniform kept her warm enough, but this kind of chill didn’t come from the wind. “But there’s plenty of places to hide. I-” She looked back down the path that she’d come, “I can’t stay. I need to find someone.” It was on the tip of her tongue to invite Amphora along. They were team members after all, but she swallowed the words. If Gauge was on the blue team, she didn’t want to send him scattering. “I can come back though.”

[sloane-cruise]

tommy-tankangine​:

Tommy just laughed. He was anything but sweet really, but he liked Sloane, and he didn’t like that she wasn’t on the same team, that was all. “It was pretty messy, I was trying to hide but I did see a few familiar faces. I think they all made it out anyway” he smiled. “What’s our plan Sloaney? Do we run and hide now?”

Run and hide. A decent plan. One that had served her well a century ago at least. They could leave the killing to the careers and hope that the odds remained in their favor when and if the gamemakers decided to take death into their own hands. “I can’t,” she said. “Not until I find Gauge. And Bella.” She peered over her shoulder at the fence and beyond that the baseball field. The lights of several other tributes were visible, but in the dark their faces and builds were indiscernible. “After that, I’ll go anywhere.” 

[sloane-cruise]

bellonaarbore​:

She jumped, grasping the edge of the doorframe with her hand as she spun around to see red behind her. But not red; not really. Not the type of red that meant death. It was Sloane. Just Sloane. And she didn’t look like she was gearing up for a kill.

“Sorry,” Bellona said, putting a hand over her heart, “you scared me. I — by the way, I promise I won’t kill you. I’m sure someone else is taking care of the whole… death thing.” Her words came out a mile a minute, looking for distraction or salvation from the scene before her which felt like some horrible omen.

Without Bellona blocking the view, Sloane could see the bloodstained sheets. Her gaze caught on them, her mind snapped to attention. Had she walked in on a kill? Not likely. Bellona looked pale, even peaked, but she didn’t look like someone who’d just done another tribute in. And there was the lack of a body. As she walked closer, she could see the room was empty. Just them, just the glow of their uniforms. 

She wanted to tell Bellona she believed her, wanted to start talking in that same way she often did. A mile a minute. A thousand thoughts a second. But she was exhausted, and too washed with relief. She simply nodded. Returned the promise and then nodded to the sheets. “What happened?”

[sloane-cruise]

amphora-helia​:

Amphora held her breath when she heard someone speaking. It was familiar, wasn’t it? Yes, it was! She quickly reached up to grab the booth edge, pulling herself up. She winced at a splinter dug into her skin, but that was hardly the worst injury in an arena. She was sure her smile was visible by the glow of her suit. “Sloane!” she called, then a second later covered her mouth, as if that would pull the loud noise back in. “Sloane,” she repeated, lowering her voice and lightly tapping the top of the booth. She’d navigated her way through several power outages and blackouts in her life to try to find a way to get the lights back on - or just to get a candle lit. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She winced slightly at the noise. Not for fear. At least, not at first. There was something about silence like this that encased you. Hearing Amphora call out shattered that in an instant. She picked her way across the rubble to the other girl, eyes scanning the booths on either side of her. The stuffed animals, the abandoned water guns, the stubbornly happy advertisements all crumbling about them. “I’m fine. I booked it out of there pretty fast.” Not as fast as some though. She rested her hands against the warped wood of the booth. “Are you alone?” Is Gauge with you? She couldn’t speak his name. Not now when there was a chance he was already gone.

[hollandwestbrook]

Her hand was still bleeding from being cut on the mirror and she had it pressed to her suit, trying to stem the blood, as she ran. It was still dark, cold, the air wet in a way that didn’t discourage but rather, invited her in, in some odd way. The truth of it was: it smelled like home.

She had come across the large, dark mansions, their bulks impressive even in darkness. She was beginning to piece it together that this was a town; she had run around the edge of it, past the backs of shops and homes, and now she had stumbled across the neighborhood.

She kicked the front door of one of the houses, expecting it not to open, but it did. She went inside; the darkness was more absolute and she had nothing, absolutely nothing, to light her path with. She felt around the edges of the rooms, felt her way up the stairs, not knowing now (she wouldn’t know until morning) how bowed the steps were, how warped the railing.

She found a bathroom, tried a faucet, but no water came out. The bleeding had slowed but she knew she’d need to get it wrapped in something, preferably washed out. Where she’d find water, though, she didn’t know. Still, there was something comforting about the home. Perhaps it was the quiet, perhaps it was the fact that this place most closely resembled her Arena. Her first Arena.

She found rest for a few hours in the bathroom, not wanting to move or leave lest someone hear her. Someone whose suit lit red. Morning came, though, and with it curiosity to wander. A bedroom, relatively small, with a twin bed in it and stars on the ceiling. An office with a large wooden desk, the windows behind it broken and vines crawling through the opening. The bedroom: a four-poster bed, and a massive bloodstain on the sheets. It was surprise more than anything that caught her, and she just stood there, tears welling in her eyes, something lodged in her throat. She was caught in a cycle, wasn’t she? She had walked into her own trap willingly.

@sloane-cruise​

[sloane-cruise]

Daylight. Among the earthy ruin of the mansions, it fell like a blessing. A congratulations of sorts. You have survived. Despite her fatigue, despite her fear, she took a moment to turn her face up to the sun.

Beyond these mansions lied unmarked land. She feared stepping off the path and getting lost in the trees. How would she find Gauge if she was chasing her own trail? How would she find Bellona? Or was searching futile? There were no cannons last night to mark the end of a life. She could not speak to the longevity of any of her alliance partners. Maybe she was better running after Silver and figuring out a spot with her assigned team. But no, she wouldn't let her fear guide her decisions. Not before. Not now.

She spent time in the mansions. A quick search of cabinets and drawers provided nothing edible and nothing she could change into. In the largest of the crumbling behemoths her search turned up Bellona. She was wreathed in blue and lost to what lay ahead of her. Sloane felt the urge to run to her, to throw her arms around her. Relief was warmer than the sun on her cheeks. She held back, lifted a hand and knocked it against the wooden doorframe to announce her presence. 

[sloane-cruise]

mandi2point0​:

Mandi dug her hells into the ground, refusing to lend salone even an inch of space.  what she wasn’t expecting was the fist coming, landing just under her eye. the force of it actually whipped her head a bit. her eyes opened, perhaps a bit comically, with her surprise, and she stumbled away. her hands were empty. she’d lost her grip of the tweezers.

fuck.

but alone hadn’t killed her. her face hurt. but she was breathing. instead of approaching again, trying to get into a fight with the bingger, stronger girl, she took a step back. level head, you need to get home, not show her up. but at the same time, she couldn’t go home empty handed today…

Mandi turned away from salone and the fucking tweezers, shaking her head to ward off the throb and running deeper into the fray.

It should have hurt. They said it would hurt. 

It didn’t. 

Not at first. Later she would feel the sting. The skin over her knuckles would tighten and pink, the bone ache. That was later though. This was now. Soft skin gave way and then it was all bone on bone. Her knuckles. Mandi’s cheek. The force knocked them apart. Sloane stumbled backward. She was free. Mandi’s surprised face flashed across her vision, was catalogued, and then tucked onto the shelf. Would she see her again? No time for that. She turned and she ran. She ran until there was nothing but her own feet on the concrete. She gripped her prize in a tight fist, feeling the sharp edges digging into her palm. 

Later she’d look. Later she’d realize that she’d fought over tweezers. Damn tweezers. Now she just needed space to breath. 

[sloane-cruise]

tommy-tankangine​:

“Oh same, I was always picked last” Tommy admitted with a shrug and nudged her shoulder with his own. “Of course we’re still us, Sloaney, I’m not going to hurt you” he told her with an honest smile. “I don’t care if you’re red, blue or fucking snot green, you’re my friend and that’s that”

Sloane felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. She pressed her forehead against her knees to hide it, before looking back to Tommy. “You really are too sweet for your own good,” she told him. And boisterous and reckless and funny. Impossible to overlook. “Did you see anything in the fighting? Anyone? Gauge? Or Bellona? Apple?”

[sloane-cruise]

@silverfierro​

If she’d had the time, or the chance to go unnoticed, Sloane would have ducked behind the dining room wall. The space there was tight, but it she could fit herself between these crumbling foundations. She was skinny enough. But that was all useless. Silver had seen her standing there in the first splashes of post-dawn sunlight. The color of his bodysuit was washed out, but she could see the halo of red around him. Her team member, according to the gamemakers, but the idea didn’t match the reality. He was a wolf and the leash they’d put around his neck wouldn’t be enough. Her eyes searched the area around. Looking for other tributes. “Are you alone?” she asked. 

[sloane-cruise]

mandi2point0​:

Mandi needed to get something. something that would help the group. she was in a group now, a team. she needed to be able to do her job. real medical equipment was closer to center, but she spotted a pair of tweezers. those could come in handy. she could do a lot with those. and there was a force feild. she had to get them now, unsure if the gamemakers would let her come back. so she ran full speed at them, even when they were in someone else’s hand.

she grabbed, huffing angrily, at the girl’s hand she needed those tweezers. she kmew how to use them! she processed that the girl was bathed in red- salone, this was salone- but she kmew that she needed those tweezers too. so she didn’t let go. not for the first second.

Mandi was tiny, but there was enough pull there to stop Sloane in her tracks. Her heart shouldn’t be making that sound. That pulse, pulse, pulse. There was that taste as well. The bitter almost metallic flavor of fear. But she wasn’t standing in the bright sunlight with Gauge anymore and the ground beneath her wasn’t sand. 

She used what she had. Her height and weight on the girl. She yanked hard on her arm, trying to free it from Mandi’s grasp and at the same time swung her open fist toward the girl’s face. Quick and sharp.

[sloane-cruise]

tommy-tankangine​:

Anybody else might be offended, but Tommy was too buzzed, too excited to be, and he was glad to see Sloane, even if she was wearing red, a sworn enemy all of a sudden. “Everybody is a little crazy, Sloaney” he sang, and moved closer to her, crouching like she was, although he wasn’t sure what they were hiding from. His team, or hers. “You’re wearing the wrong colour, love”

Her mind was a mess at that moment, trying to sort out faces to colors, and actions to consequences. There were so few names that she could lump into a team, so few answers when everything was a tangle of manufactured blue or red. She looked at her bodysuit and then at Tommy’s. “Team sports never really suited me,” she admitted. It’d happened so infrequently that she’d get the chance. A game of dodgeball in seven. Or baseball in ten. Kids were reticient to pick a skinny little import. “Are we still -?” she didn’t know how to ask it. Allies? Friends? 

[dolly-nova]

Amphora’s goal was to stay out of the fray but close enough to keep an eye on Lucius. That quickly went to the wayside when someone ran too near her with a knife, and she took off in the opposite direction. She didn’t know where she was going or what lied ahead, but the towering frame of a ferris wheel was her guiding light. By the time she was close enough, she was utterly breathless. Her heart was pounding so hard she was certain she wouldn’t be able to hear another tribute nearby. Trying to find a moment of peace, she ducked behind one of the strange booths and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. She’d never seen anything like this before, outside of pictures of ferris wheels. She couldn’t quite figure out why the Gamemakers decided to make it all look so rundown.

@silverfierro 

@sloane-cruise​

@lionelse​

[sloane-cruise]

She kept moving, kept putting one foot in front of the other, until the sound of metal on metal faded into the distance. In the dark she was clumsy, her feet catching on roots and misplaced bits of concrete. She fell once, scraping a layer of skin off the heel of her hand. The pain was a revelation. A reminder that the time for fruity cocktails, kisses, and friendships had ended. Her knuckles stung still. Another reminder of Mandi’s face in the dark. 

The carnival bloomed outward before her, as rusted and broken as the baseball stadium. She’d been to one before when she was very young. Smaller, simpler, and thrown by a traveling troupe. She’d scarfed down three cones of shaved ice and passed out beneath the bleachers. This was the inverse of that day. The only sound came from the creak of the ferris wheel. The only sound until she heard the shuffle of feet and movement from the corner of her eye that was. A quick flash of red ducked out of sight. 

 “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m on the same team as you. I’m no danger.”

[sloane-cruise]

@mandi2point0​

In the dark, there was no time to orient herself. No time to anchor herself against Gauge’s familiar features. No time to locate Bellona or Tommy. Around her the tributes were accented in faint lines of red or blue. She absorbed the information tossed out at her and then took a breath. She remembered sitting in the bomb shelter, hearing the world shatter apart. Remembered thinking that if she could get through just one more than it would be over. She’d pop from the ground like a daisy, a breath the air again. Same philosophy now. One breath. Then two. One moment. Then two. 

When they were released, she ran for the exits, bending only briefly to scoop up something gold and shiny off the ground. A tiny little victory that she could take into that next moment. She was just passing the podiums, just starting to make a break for the dark beyond the fences when she felt someone slam into her. 

[vix-holt]

“I’m part of a winning team” Tommy grinned, only delighted to be part of a team at all. He thought he’d have to work hard to establish allies, but here they were, handed to him on a silver platter, wearing the same colour as him to make it even easier. “Hear that Ma? I’m strong and ready” he said, looking for a camera before he turned his attention to the person beside him. “This is fun, isn’t it?”

[sloane-cruise]

Sloane crouched low behind one of the abandoned vehicles, her eyes trained out on the dark abyss beyond them. Her ‘little victory’ in the fighting turned out to be a pair of tweezers. She could think of some practical uses for them, but as a weapon they were basically useless. Well, unless she wanted to jam them straight into someone eye socket. And then there was her uniform, the faint red glow wouldn’t be useful if she wanted to stay hidden or go unnoticed. She’d need a change of clothes. Or, her mind provided, she needed to swap uniforms with a corpse. Her stomach rolled at the idea. How many in that bloodbath would be categorizing their faces with their colors? It’d been so dark. If she wanted to go that route it would have to be before sunrise. 

“You really are insane aren’t you?” she asked. There wasn’t any malice behind the words, simply shock at the glee on Tommy’s face. 

[sloane-cruise]

Task 007: Skills

Hand to Hand- Basic to decent. Sloane has worked with Gauge on this throughout training, but already had a brief knowledge on this. Her father taught her to throw a punch and how to protect herself, and her sister, if he wasn’t around.

Edibility- When you grow up scrounging for scraps you learn a thing or two about what can be eaten and what can’t. Sloane has a solid foundation for the edibility of plants in many different climates.

Fire Making- A skill she learned in childhood when a fire was needed to cook up some roadkill or whatever else they might have hauled in. She brushed up on this skill during training.

Weapon Making- Ok. She worked a little on this during training and is good at figuring out what type of material may be used to create a weapon.

Endurance- Good. She has lived through hunger, pain, death, and humiliation. She has the strength to keep moving when things get rough.

[sloane-cruise]

Born: Erudite

Chose: Amity

Sloane’s parents were engineers working to bridge the gap between science and society. They built with their hands and their minds and instilled their curiosity in their daughters. Sloane has a deep well of respect for this work but doesn’t feel her soul was meant only for this work. She would have chosen to move to Amity, to live outside of the city walls and to make connections beyond the realm of physics.

[sloane-cruise]

Task 011. The Arena

What sort of terrain/climate is your tribute hoping not to find?

      “A desert. When I was ten the caravan shuddered to a halt in the middle of absolute wasteland. I stayed with Harp and dad went out on foot to find help and I was alone out there for two nights. There’s something about being in that climate. It makes you feel like you are under a giant magnifying glass.”

What types of animals is your tribute the most afraid of?

     “Travel enough, and you get to see all kinds of animals. Some that have now been filed away as extinct, though I suppose I am a prime example that extinction is no longer the end. I don’t tend to fear many types of animals. I respect them. They belong to the world in ways that we don’t. But if I had to choose sharks have always sent goosebumps over my skin.”

Aside from the threat of the other tributes and ploys by the Gamemakers, what is your tribute most afraid of in the arena?

    “I can deal with fear and I think now even with pain, but I’m most afraid of letting those around me down. I don’t want to be the iron ball attached to their ankles or the one the helps drag them into danger.”

Is there anything else that scares your tribute that they may encounter in the arena

    “Disease. I’ve seen it tear through a city with as much force as a bomb. I’m not one for pride, but I’d like to die on my feet not bowed down by sickness.”