let the dead bury their dead [open]

[doesnotsew]

Who| Asha and you!
What| Waking up and getting familiar with all this technology
Where| District 11 suite and training center!
When| Backdated to either the day after Timaeus's party (so during Week 6!) OR after the arena's ended, but this can also be a catch-all post for whenever your character is around!
Warnings/Notes| how is technology formed

She woke up the morning after the night on the boat expecting it all to have been a dream-- maybe to wake up still in the arena, or find that it was a last-second hallucination before joining the rest of the dead. What she had instead was a hangover, which meant she was very much alive. The room she was in was too neat, not a hint of a draft or moisture in the air, everything about the surroundings slightly foreign in a way she couldn't put her finger on. She left the bed immediately-- still no wounds, besides her headache, and a quick glance about her body reveals that not only is she missing minor scratches that she knew she received, she's clean in a way that not even the golden twins in King's Landing could achieve. Even the smallclothes she wore were unusual, like those she wore during the battle. Better to wear the boiled leather, she thought with a laugh, but then remembered that her brother must be dead by now.

Judging by the view from the window, she was fairly high up-- that combined with the exceptionally clear glass in the frame put her in a particularly important keep. The rest of the sights were dizzying, and she turned away rather than fight the glare. She needed a drink-- preferably spring water, she added as an afterthought-- and some answers. One door yielded to a wardrobe, from which she took the closest to a tunic she could find-- more like a dress cut in a strange style, but it gave her the maneuverability she needed. Boots were more difficult, but she had no time to waste picking over her footwear; she pulled one pair on, ignoring an assortment of things that didn't even resemble shoes, and went to find the other door surprisingly unlocked.

She found herself in another room, with one of the strange windows still showing the arena. Was it magic, or is this just more of their 'technology?' She recognized the area, and once or twice a person-- had she been here too? The thought sent a chill down her spine, and she reached out to touch it, just to get a sense...

Five minutes later, the thing had shattered, and she had moved on to pacing the room in increasing frustration, trying to find the stairs, figure out the candles on the wall, and most of all, trying to find a weapon. If the crackling noise from the thing breaking and her heavy stream of curses didn't get the attention of anyone else in the suite, her trying to force her way into the other rooms just might.

---

She'd learned a lot in the next few weeks, but it still wasn't enough to get home. However, it didn't take her long to find the one place she had access to her weapons, even if she couldn't leave with them. She spent a lot of time in the training room, for the security granted to her by an ax and a dagger, but also as a place to escape the world she woke up in. Training was training, unlike everything else here.

She tossed the throwing ax end over end to catch it with her usual skill, something to keep her fingers busy and her mind on home, before whipping it at a target. Stannis Baratheon, it would be today; in her mind, she pictured the people keeping them here the same way. "What's dead may never die," she muttered, pulling the ax from the dummy, "but rises, again and again and again."

Slashing it felt good, but it would be better if he were real.

Comments

the training centre

[gluteus]

Maximus spent most of his time in the training center as well, for much the same reasons that Asha did. Somehow, however, they managed to mostly miss each other - the times they spent in training never quite lining up.

Until this day.

He recognized her instantly, of course. It was hard not to. He'd fought against a few germanic women, and a few female gladiators, but they were rare enough that they stood out in his mind. He remembered their faces. He found it sad, when he thought about it at all. When he tried to think of his own wife being forced to battle, it near broke his heart. (Though it would have been better, he thought, than what actually happened to her.)

Still, Asha was burned into his memory, along with the powerful swing of her arm, so when he entered the Training Center he paused, watching her in silence for a long moment, leaning against the wall.

[doesnotsew]

It was hard to forget the face of the man who killed you. Funny that the situation would arise, of course, but once it had, there was no denying it.

She didn't see him at first, too busy ripping the ax out of her effigy. Theon's death was assured, by now, likely had been for weeks, but it was still raw. She had had plans-- if the precious old gods delivered, she might have cleared him entirely-- but all it took was her being absent at the crucial moment to stick him with the worst death possible. No one deserves that, little brother, not even you.

There were people she hated, but they were ones who had done her and her family wrong; at most, the man she met had thwarted her chance at saving her brother, but there were so many with much and more fault. He was stuck here, same as she was, and by the time they clashed, her brother was likely already gone. She would not avenge herself on him, not when all she'd done was turn to glance over her shoulder and see him enter the room.

That still did not mean she was expecting to see him.

"Try and take this one, and you'll find it in your gut again," she said evenly, half of a sarcastic smile turning up the corner of her mouth. "We can see if it stays that way."

[gluteus]

The sarcastic smile from her mouth mirrored onto his, his lips twitching upwards. It was odd, he thought. He hated Wesker with a clear and burning passion, but for Asha...? Nothing. She was no Wesker. There was no hate to be had. She was a gladiator, same as he, not a monster.

He tilted his head.

"I'll take that as fair warning. I've no reason to bring the Arena here, unless you do."

[doesnotsew]

"Perhaps I should. One less competitor couldn't hurt, since we're apparently to fight again," she said, eyeing the edge of the ax-- but there's no bite behind the words, at least not at him. "Tell me, does the winner at least return home? Or should I even bother, if everything's taking this long?"

Maybe it was better to stay here, where at least she could return if executed.

[gluteus]

He frowned, his eyebrows furrowing, before he shook his head. "No one returns, that I am aware. The winners are required to stay, as we are. No escape is certain, even death. But not all return."

[doesnotsew]

She didn't respond for a second, turning it over in her head, before slamming the ax back into the dummy in a burst of anger.

Fine. Good. There was nothing to return home for anyway, not at this point. She'd been away for too long, there wouldn't be time enough to stop anything. All she was was stranded in an unfamiliar time and an unfamiliar place, one which no one seemed to have as hard a time grasping as she did.

"Then what difference would winning make? At least this way I get the fight," she said quietly, not trusting herself to turn around.

[gluteus]

"Then don't win," Maximus said, calmly. He didn't pull his eyes from her, could read the frustration and desperation in her shoulders. "You can fight, unlike some. There are some for whom the games are an endless torture. You never have to win. There is always forfeit."

He spoke evenly, even though what he meant was in essence suicide. Just because there was a chance you could come back, did not make it certain.

"But as said, not all return. Sometimes your life is forfeit with the game."

[bangbangkerpooow]

Between arenas, Billy felt like only half of a man. It was worse after his own arena, once the Victor's glow wore off and life slipped into a new sort of routine, but it was always present, that nagging restlessness. Watching other people fight and kill provided a nice little distraction, but without it, he was aimless. Agitated. In his diary, he had crafted a list:

Things I will not do today:
1. Start a fight
2. Steal anything (valuable!!!) gum etc ok
3. Ask Marty about his new speech

-- and although he was doing pretty well at 2 and 3, itch number 1 had pulled him to the training center. Billy was a man of distance weapons himself, and so Asha caught his eye in particular. As did her mumbling.

"That a religious thing?" he asked, his hands deep in his pocket, his back lounged against a nearby dummy. He rolled a stick of gum in his mouth, guiding it from cheek to cheek. "Or is it a poetic musing on your current, you know. Situation."

[doesnotsew]

She didn't mind that people watched, at least not in the training room-- it made far more sense to her than knowing that they were (somehow) watching during the fight itself. Half of the point seemed to be making a statement for the others here.

She glanced over to him as she dislodged the ax from the dummy, stepping back and flipping it end-over-end with a twist of the wrist that looks (deceptively) casual. She didn't recognize this one; that wasn't saying much, considering how many people she hadn't met, but at least she didn't kill him. "You must hear some terrible poets, if that's what you think. Mine are terrible sermons."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"So the first one," he said, bringing his finger to his mouth. Billy, as a man of vices, was not adverse to biting his nails. Sometimes he did it out of anxiety. Mostly, he did it out of boredom. He was in the process of evening out a hangnail this time, and he could taste coppery flecks of blood in his mouth.

"Aren't you from, like, ye olden days or something?"

[doesnotsew]

"One can still be the other." Particularly when certain family members were involved. She wouldn't say she was religious; she believed in He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves, but he might as well be sitting blind and dumb for all the help he did.

She had realized by now that, while most of the fighters were from less 'advanced' places than the one they ended up in, they were still more advanced than hers. "Is that what I'm known for here? How disappointing. It's been 300 years since Aegon's Conquest, though this seems to mean little and less here."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"Yeah, that's what you're known for," he said, and then he cracked a smile, small hisses of laughter escaping from between his teeth. It was like he was telling the beginning of a joke, but his mind was already on the punchline. "That, and killing a whole bunch of people."

He drew his nails away from his teeth and rested his hand against the dummy. He pushed it just slightly, and the plastic and foam swayed like a pendulum.

"Kind of a rarity these days."

[doesnotsew]

She maintained her smile, though she watched his carefully; there was something about this one that seemed off, just slightly, and she would have to look out for it. Not enough to be a threat, down here where she had an ax for the first time since waking up in this damn city-- and where death had little meaning, she tacked on belatedly-- but enough to stay on guard for.

"That was considered a lot of people? I had thought I'd done poorly." She glanced down at the edge of the ax, turning it slightly to inspect the edge. "But, given the equipment available..."

[acro_bat_ic]

It wasn't until the arena was almost over that Barbara finally arrived back in the capitol. In the suites, to be particular - she didn't stick around to talk, either. It was all too much at first.

Eventually, though, she did come back to the suites. That was when she saw her district mate, and froze - less than certain how to approach the intent looking woman.

[doesnotsew]

It was hard, sometimes, to know whether a room was unoccupied or if the person living there was just better than she was. That rankled, just a big, but she tried not to take it personally.

This led to the position where she was trying to break into what was, apparently, this girl's room. These doors looked flimsy, but there was something in their frame that made them stronger than she would have expected, and she didn't have access to weapons here.

It took her a second to notice, at which point she glanced back casually. "Another resident, is it?" she asked, as if she hadn't been trying to force her way in.

[acro_bat_ic]

Right. Because that was totally a believable thing. Her pretending to be... whatever. An innocent? She'd just been breaking in a moment ago.

"Which would make you... what exactly?" she asked, lifting a brow as she took half a step forward.

[doesnotsew]

"The same as you, it would seem," she said, turning to lean against the girl's door with her arms crossed-- casual, but still in the way, and still maintaining the dynamic that it was the girl who was intruding, not her. "Though I suppose it would seem you've lasted longer than I."

There was a hint of curiosity there, too; she wouldn't peg this girl for a fighter, and yet here she was.

[acro_bat_ic]

"Someone who lives here?" she challenged, side stepping any question of her skills. She was a gymnast - though she had learned something about fighting, mostly from experience.

"I'm pretty good at surviving."

[doesnotsew]

"Here, in particular? Not so. I've taken up that one down the hall," she said, jerking her chin towards her room casually, as if she didn't know that she was leaning up against the girl's door. "Evidently, as there's not many left now, are there?"

[celebrityskinned]

Venus isn't used to handheld weaponry. Usually she relies on her energy blasts, but those seem to have gone with her old body (if you could call it that). She's starting to realize, now that the buzz has worn off, that there are certain things that she misses about her old form, and her ranged attacks are definitely part of it.

Never is that clearer than when she's trying to learn how to throw a knife. The little throwing knife blade seems to be intentionally trying to thwart her, and refuses to stick in the target. Instead, it bounces off, or goes wide, or somehow clatters to the ground in a way that seems to just be mocking her.

She throws it again, and while it cuts her hand during the release and misses the target by a few inches, it sticks in the wall behind the dummy.

"Ha! That counts!" she yells, then claps a hand over her mouth as she realizes someone else is training with her. Someone carrying an axe.

"Sorry."

[doesnotsew]

She doesn't so much turn to look as just glance over her shoulder, eyeing the girl who had thrown the knife. She hadn't been quiet about it, that much was for sure. She was probably just a normal person, brought in to fight with countless others and a few who were comfortable with it-- but she's trying to improve, at least, and that makes her reevaluate for a second.

Even if she's reevaluating, though, she can't help but show off some. After all, it could make fighting her later a lot easier. She flicks the handle of the knife sticking out of the wall, then tugs it loose and throws it easily back towards her, plunging into the ground a few inches in front of the girl.

"No trouble."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus puts her hands on her hip and rolls her eyes. She's seen enough terrorist leaders and supervillains to know when someone's trying to be casual about their intimidation tactics.

"Bet you can't do that again." She picks the knife up and tosses it over. It lands flat on the ground near Asha's feet. Venus quirks one eyebrow.

[doesnotsew]

Her smile is almost patronizing-- not because she expects most people (or most people here, anyway, this was not the Iron Islands) to be able to do it, but because the girl's reaction is so funny. "Very close," she says, picking it up and examining the point of the blade. She flips it a few times, just simply tossing it and catching it with the same hand. It's not just to appear casual (though it certainly doesn't hurt), but also to try out its weight.

She has it after a few flicks of the wrist, so the next one goes out and into the ground, a smidgen closer than the last. She meets the girl's eye and sees no point in hiding her smug look.

[celebrityskinned]

"So." Venus yanks it out of the ground and tosses it behind her, on a table of other bladed weapons. "You're good with knives."

Venus knows how these sorts of things play out in reality TV. They like rivalries, they like girls fighting with each other. She managed to get a few whole episodes out of snarking at Dead Girl, and they didn't even dislike each other.

So she smirks and leans against the knife table. "How are you with hand to hand?"

[doesnotsew]

"I'm good with knives," she repeats, still smiling. (She knew a boy, once, who smiled at the wrong things, and when she thinks of him she turns as if to go back to her training so no one sees the smile falter.)

That gives her the opportunity to look over her shoulder again at the girl, and the smile comes back with its cockiness. "Better."

Because bravado is nothing without emphasizing it, she hefts her ax, turning fully to give the girl another look over. She's not too surprised to find herself warming to her. She knows how to talk, at least. "I hope yours is better too, or you'll have a short time here."