driftfleet | Action - Second Arena

Who: Aang and YOU
Broadcast: No
Action: Iskaulit
When: During the drift

[Aang has spent the last three weeks or so on 24/7 alert, hiding out in the desert and then hiding out in the trees and air ducts of the Iskaulit, waiting for some catastrophe that hasn't happened. It's driving him nuts. Is that what the Capitol is trying to do? Make him go crazy from paranoia?

Well, he knows the Capitol. He knows how to provoke them. If he does something really crazy, they'll retaliate, and at least he won't have to put up with this tension anymore. If there's no retaliation, then maybe, just maybe, the Capitol isn't as involved in this as he thinks.

He picks a lovely spot on the Iskaulit--out of the way, separate from the hustle and bustle of the most frequented areas, but still public and accessible. He carries out paint, rollers, brushes, and sets himself up like he's going to paint the walls.

Which is exactly what he does. He paints down a white undercoat in record time with the help of waterbending and airbending. Then he has a pencil, and he starts sketching out the bare bones of what he will paint. He blocks out the twelve different sections he wants to make, and then he starts writing.

He writes names. Name after name after name in each section, so many that Aang needs to balance on a ball of churning air to write them at the top of this planned mural. Each name is carefully, lovingly written, given the amount of respect and grace it deserves.

There are exactly 1,747 names. They are the names he memorized for his televised rebellion against the Capitol. They are the names of all of the Districter children who died in the Hunger Games.

Aang is tense as he writes, constantly aware of who is around him and what might happen, but his expression is stern and his mouth is fixed in grim determination. Come at him, Capitol.]

[OOC: Since The Games had lots of people AU'd in from other canons, feel free to assume that a name from your canon is up there if you like.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It is him. There's a part of him that knows it's a little bit awful, but damn is Sam glad to see him.

Both because it means he knows Aang is okay - as okay as any of them can be, when at best they've been pulled from Panem to star in a whole new reality show - and because it means there's someone else here who understands the Capitol. ]

You trying to draw them out?

[ An idea that sets Sam a little bit on edge, like pinpricks on the back of his neck from an unseen gaze, but it's brave. Brave and terrifying and smart and stupid and maybe a little bit necessary. He never got the chance to tell Aang what he thought of it the first time around, but it sticks in his throat now - the remnants of the Capitol's fingers in his mind. ]

Yeah.

[Aang isn't even going to try to deny it. He knows how dangerous this is. Last time he did it, he earned another kid a ticket into the Hunger Games. If this is an arena, and everyone can see what he's doing, he has no doubt that he will never be able to go back to District 4 again, lest his own mentors and stylist attack him. But he believed it was necessary then, and he believes it's necessary now.]

One way or another, we're going to know if they're in charge.

[And it frightens him to see Sam here and now, especially when he already knows that District 13's Bucky is here. People in District 13 shouldn't be in an arena. Something has gone terribly wrong if they are... or maybe Aang is lying unconscious again, his own drugged dreams being broadcast to Capitolites in dark rooms hoping he'll reveal more.]

[ Sam's not gonna try to dissuade him from it. He remembers - he's pretty sure he remembers - he told Aang that he didn't have to fight in the rebellion, that he deserved to just get to be a kid and there were other ways to help. But none of them deserved to have to fight; Aang'd been right about that, and he'd never brought it up again.

As dangers as this is, Sam trusts that Aang's thought through the risks and deemed it important enough to do again, and he doesn't disagree. ]

Okay.

[ He's been more on edge here than he has in a while. Being displaced from what should've been his home and thrown into something that has all the hallmarks of an arena - just a less bloody one - has stirred up the Capitol's hijacking, made it more of a struggle to decry it and align himself fully with the rebellion. But Bucky being here helps, and right now, looking up at the mural next to Aang, it feels easy to want to do more than just stand beside him. ]

Let me help?

[Aang looks over at Sam. Of all the people who've offered to help so far, Sam is the only one who knows the risks. He's the only one who knows what the Capitol does to people who defy it.]

Okay.

[Sam has every bit the right to fight the Capitol as Aang does. He offers a pencil and dares to get close enough to touch.]

Do you know the names?

[ Yeah, he knows the risks. Has them hard-wired into his bones, and his mind, and that's what makes waiting for Aang's response a hell of a lot harder than it should. He's tense, not sure if he's hoping the kid'll say yes or no. But his shoulders still relax a little at the answer, and he lets out a slow exhale. ]

Yeah. [ He takes the pencil, a little too careful, but they're both being cautious here. ]

We only doing the ones from - Panem? [ He falters, slightly, because he'd almost said home. Usually he'd just let it roll off, but it feels different in the context, with the distinction he's trying to make. ] Or anyone?

I don't think I remember all the offworlders. [Aang has to pause as he bends to pick up another pencil, steadying his hands before they shake too much. He memorized the names of the Panem tributes through watching each and every arena, writing down the names of the fallen, and meditating on them. He had to know them before painting them on bodies.

He never did anything similar for the offworlders.] I wouldn't want to start writing down offworlder names and leave someone off.

[ Sam does. Or at least - he thinks he does. But not the ones in the arenas before he got there, and even then, he can't be sure that the Capitol hasn't messed with it. Course, the same could be said for the Districters. It'd felt important with all the propaganda he was doing, with every District he fought in, but if they'd known that'd probably be even more reason for -

He pulls himself out of that thought, because he doesn't want to go there. ]

Makes sense. [ His shoulders straighten, and he steps forward to start writing down a name before he can think too much. ] If this doesn't bring them out - they're either playing a real long game, or we've got someone else who likes to pull the same shit to step right into their place.

Or maybe they're making us dream again so they can watch and find out our secrets.

[Aang blurts it out, because it's on his mind and it's feeding his paranoia, but he has his wits about him enough to realize that it's really not a helpful thing to say. He winces at himself, still writing names.]

Orrrrrr we're actually in an intergalactic reality show where the worst thing that happens is we land on a boring planet. Either way.

Action - Second Arena

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject