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

[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..."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"Given the competition, you mean," he corrected, turning the gum in his mouth. "Given the competition. You've got, like, five guys who know what they're doing, and then you've got fifty fucking dickholes who couldn't give less of a shit."

It took him a moment to notice his descent into vulgarity. He grimaced, tonguing his gum into his cheek.

"Sorry," he said. "But I don't like to go easy on -- whatever. Mediocrity." He dusted his hand against his leg, then extended it for a shake. "Name's Billy. Former Victor."

[doesnotsew]

She didn't bat an eye at that; it was a little refreshing, actually, after being surrounded by children.

"Then I did especially shamefully, if there are so many easy dickholes." The particular phrase is new to her, but she tried it and found she liked it. At least this place had some interesting vocabulary.

She considered his hand for a second before taking it with her own, shaking firm and confident and most importantly, brief. "Asha, of House Greyjoy, current loser." It was good to know another victor, though. "And did you win back when losing meant death?" Or rather, the implicit question: are you one of us, or them?

[bangbangkerpooow]

He ducked his head as though to hide his pride, but his eyes still flickered with glee when he met Asha's eyes. His lips still formed into the faintest of smirks.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I played back when we were playing for keeps. None of this resurrection bullshit." He shook his head as though to dislodge the very idea of it. How sour. How cheap. "But I like you, Asha, so I'm kind of glad you're sticking around."

And it was true. She was a good fighter. She had poise. She used his curses like they were honey on her lips, and when she shook his hand, he could feel her personality in her fingers.

"I guess that means you're gonna have to do less 'shamefully' next time, yeah?"

[doesnotsew]

Well, he's proud enough of that. She couldn't much blame him; dying in battle was one thing, but being rescued smarted. She had her excuses in mind, but it didn't change the fact that she had lost, and it was just a quirk of God that she was back.

"Bullshit indeed." Religion was intolerable enough when it wasn't literal. "But I'm honored. With your token, I could rid the arena of mediocrity and name you queen of love and beauty." Tournaments and death battles are essentially the same, right?