~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

It wasn’t Eddie’s fault that Orpheus felt more powerless than he had felt before, but he still found himself disheartened by the insinuation that he wasn’t doing anything. His music was the only action he could take, the only way he could pretend to make this any better. He knew it wasn’t working, but it still hurt to know that he wasn’t doing enough. He glanced away, eyes catching on the screen that Kelsier was looking at. He hadn’t thought the man would be the type to cry, but here they were, and the boy onscreen was muttering something under his breath, words that Orpheus had only heard a few times in his life before, but still knew by heart.

Without thinking, Orpheus’ fingers played the chords that went along with the prayers. Those he had played before, learned by heart because he wanted to be able to honor the dead, wanted to honor the people he had lost before he’d even been able to know them. Orpheus may not have been a hero himself, but he knew heroes. He knew men who were destined to get themselves killed in a tragic story, and he wanted to honor them properly. He wanted to be able to do that for them.

The young man took a few steps towards Kelsier, letting the man hear the soft chords. They tore at Orpheus, a sense of loss and pain hanging in the air around the chords, mixed with something else – respect, maybe. Honor.

He looked at Kelsier, searching for any sign that he was making this better, or worse, or… or anything. He needed to see that he was having some sort of impact. He needed to know that he was keeping his promise as best he could. He had to try. He had to keep trying.

“The words are slightly different,” Orpheus murmured to Kelsier, turning to glance at the man without ceasing his playing. “But that’s the way my people honor our dead. I don’t know how much of that is because he’s not from exactly where I’m from, or how much is because he’s changing it to better fit the House.” Orpheus fell silent after that, letting the final chord linger as Nico finished the words. Whoever Kelsier was to the boy, he was important.

“There are a few types of burial rites,” Orpheus went on, voice still soft enough to almost be nonexistent. “That’s the one we give to our heroes.”

| Victoria | Hunger Games Room | Talking the Aizawa in the Clearing |

"Mmhmm, that's me!" Victoria answered. She hovered away from him, friendly, but her normal impulse of going right up to people dampened by the seriousness of the situation. "Hey, you're... not gonna go after people, right? You're gonna just go camp and stuff? 'Cause like, if you are, we can be friends. 'Cause I got another friend in here and she really needs another friend right now, 'cause someone shot her."

Hange | Arena pt. 2 | Cloverleaf and Iceclaw |

Something was nearby, and it smelled of blood.

The vampire walked quickly and quietly through the woods, intent on catching up with the source of the noise and smell - they were, fortunately, upwind from Shade, so the blood they were detecting was from the traces on Victoria, not from the injured woman herself. They weren't aware of that, though. At the moment, they weren't aware of much at all.

They crouched low, creeping slowly through the undergrowth as it grew thicker, providing better cover for the edge of the clearing that had just opened up in front of them. Two living creatures twitched and moved in the clearing, drawing their eye. They crouched lower, pupils widening as they stared at their target, mouth hanging slightly open, a strand of drool hanging from their lips.

And then - CRACK. With superhuman speed, they darted into the clearing and leapt on Victoria, grasping her by the scruff like a hawk and tumbling to a stop near the foot of a tree. The wolf was dead before she hit the ground, her spine snapped, and the vampire held her firmly in one hand, panting slightly as they rounded on Aizawa, eyes wide and blank as they stared him down, unmoving for a split second, seemingly weighing their options.

And then, in a blur, they were gone.

Vincent | HG Room | Enj

Vincent nodded as Enjolras explained his thoughts on the matter. They certainly hadn’t seemed human in that moment...but they had been before this room. There were too many variables in the situation for him to try and puzzle out an explanation, which left him mildly frustrated. Luckily enough, the Frenchman’s ramblings perked his interest. “Have you been in rooms like this before?” he asked, eyes fixed on the more experienced blinker as they walked.

He maneuvered around the branch in a similar fashion, glancing at the forest behind them for a moment. He didn’t have a particularly attuned sense of direction, not like he figured some of the more stone aged folks around here did, so he’d need to be cautious when he was navigating through the forest. He didn’t care for the woods much at all either, and knew little about the plant and animal life that surrounded him. His ignorance could prove to be a disadvantage if this room went on for too long, which was an annoying thought.

Shade || HG Room || Looking for,,, fallen pup RIP

Watching Victoria run off, she waited until she was truly gone before turning her attention to the backpacks and began digging through them. In the event her new wolf friend didn't bring someone back with healing powers, perhaps they'd be able to help her treat the wound at the very least. If she didn't bring back anyone at all, she could make due just fine, maybe Victoria herself could help her when she got back.

So far, the backpacks had yielded plenty of rope, some water bottles, bandages, thank lord, but nothing to properly clean a wound. Also some cups, and a couple of boxes of matches. Most of this she had no intention of keeping, save for maybe one of the boxes of matches. The rest of this she and Victoria would probably scatter the supplies for other people to find. Some of them... She had been planning on trying to track down Hook and give him some since she hadn't seen him anywhere in the center. After sorting everything, she put all the supplies she was keeping in the satchel she'd grabbed and the rest into the other two backpacks. This all had taken more than ten minutes, which was, in this predicament, a concerning amount of time for Victoria to be gone.

As much as she had hoped it wouldn't be a genuine arena... As soon as she'd been shot, that hope had been smothered. She breathed in hard through her nose and shouldered the backpacks, then began to push herself back to standing with the help of the tree she'd glummed onto. One good leg and half of a bad one would be enough to wander a bit, but she considered for a moment shifting form so she could use all of her limbs. Carrying bags would be harder, though, so she opted for just limping along.

"Victoria?" she called, pushing her voice into a harsh whisper and straining her ears and her nose to make her best effort of tracking her. The fact she'd gone straight back to the center made her sick with worry and she swallowed hard, pushing on with more effort going into her speed. The scent of other people was beginning to mingle, making it more difficult to try and distinguish her canine companion. The nearer she got to the center, the more her skin prickled and eventually she decided she wouldn't cross out into the open, not unless she had to.

Every now and then she'd hear a rustle, but none of it seemed significant enough to call it anything besides the wind. Or perhaps some other little creatures. Through the trees, she could see the center now, and here is where she stopped. Crouching, she tried to peer between the trunks for her missing company. "Hello? Victoria?" she called softly, quieter than before, figuring her canine ears would be able to pick it up, should she hear her.

Myrnin | Arena room p. 2 | Adopting Rue part 1 ®Hawkpath®

He'd stumbled across the girl.
Well, that implied he'd somehow gotten lucky enough to run into her clearing, perhaps even directly over her. His mind was wandering enough that he was thinking about expressions and their purpose.
He wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing. Was his mind going in odd directions to keep himself sane or was it a sign of his insanity.
But that was a different line of thinking all together.
He'd stumbled across the girl. He'd been running, but had managed to run across her scent trail while he had.
Stumbling to a halt, Myrnin braced a hand against a tree, neck bent, weight pressed into his shoulders. There was so much in his head that it seemed impossible that he had slipped. Impossible that he had allowed himself to be lost. It felt like all his fault.
His eyes scrunched together and he wiped his fading tears away. Then he rubbed his hand against his black shirt. The red blended in.
Rue.
He thought he recognized her scent, assuming he must know it from when they'd first ended up in the room. It brought back an image of a small child, eyes wide and knowing. Like she recognized this, like she knew how this worked.
Myrnin straightened and looked back the way he had come. He didn't know how big this room was. He didn't care either. He blinked, thinking back to L. Then he swallowed, the faint taste of blood still in his mouth, and looked forward again.
People would find her.
The child, that was. The scent was fresh. Hange was still in here somewhere. He wasn't sure where. He couldn't sense them anywhere close. Not like his sense for them was very good. They were still alive, that was about all he knew. He couldn't actually track them in any way. He was never good at that anyway - he wasn't Amelie.
Should he kill Rue?
He should. He knew that. It would have been better for everyone if such a small child didn't have to live through killing and murder. But he couldn't work up the will to think that way. He felt like his internal emotions had crumbled down to sand.
L.
His fingernails dug into the tree trunk. A wet, sad laugh choked in his throat. Why was it so hard to fall into what he had done before? Hadn't he sworn he would if this ever happened again? His feelings hadn't changed. He couldn't stand the thought of this room.
But maybe he was remembering the look in this child's eyes. The fact she'd already been corrupted by death. What then? They were on neutral ground. Both of them knew of death and the horror this room was.
What was left was the fact he would slip again. He knew it. He knew it like he knew the taste of blood in his mouth and the disgust in his chest. It was the way his thoughts spun, like they were hanging on to the places they were in only by shear force of habit. A little jerk and he'd be rolling off into oblivion. Seeing, hearing, and remembering, but not caring enough what he was doing was wrong.
"It isn't about what I do here," he said, biting the words out to himself, "I have to feel it. I have to know it's wrong, or it'll be worse than before. I can't go back to thinking this is okay."
But when he was like that, when his eyes burned gold, that was exactly what happened.
He drew his hand away from the tree and slowly started walking after Rue. He still wasn't completely sure what he would do when he got there, but he knew one thing ... he couldn't kill her.
...
And that was how, perhaps only an hour and a half later, there was something akin to a makeshift structure constructed around Rue. Things had gotten a bit colder under the trees, but by the looks of things, a tree was exactly one of the things which Myrnin had used around Rue. His coat had ended up over her, though he'd done his best to remove the evidence of Kelsier's blood on it.
He hadn't stuck around the area. He did come back, but it wasn't until later. He'd half expected Rue to have woken up by then, but she hadn't. He'd worked on the set-up of what was quickly becoming a passable camp. This included the beginning of a set up of logs, specifically picked out to make a fire that would burn without smoke and arranged for the same. He'd gotten food too. Hunting wasn't hard as a vampire. It was harder when he wasn't hunting humans. Humans weren't stupid. Animals were. There were birds and small rabbits though. He'd opted for a rabbit. Not that he'd intended to cook it. If Rue wanted to, she'd have to do that herself. He couldn't risk starting a fire. It was a bad way to go as a vampire. Berries. He'd found berries too. Other things which were edible. He could have kept a small collections of humans fed. He might need to, if he was feeding off them. That wasn't the case this time.
He was working on taking the extra pieces of wood off the logs. Larger ones would burn without a lot or any smoke, though it would be harder to get them started. But he did his best. At least for the time being ... he wasn't going to let anyone hurt Rue.
Apart from him. He might.
He shuddered, a tiny whimper running out of him mouth. He stopped working at the wood, eyes suddenly distant.
What had he been thinking of?
The thoughts were slow and he suddenly wasn't sure why he was doing anything here.
He glanced at the makeshift lean-to. Then back at the knife at his hip, still protected from accidental contact with his skin by a thin piece of cloth (his handkerchief this time).
Yeah, yeah, he'd been thinking about protecting Rue.
He'd stopped working. He felt sick again, terror tossing fresh waves in his stomach.

Sam had no idea what the odd man - Eddie - meant. Orpheus at least seemed to be slightly better, though Sam was just talking about mood. He'd never had any case where someone had played music in the House.
Then, in relatively quick succession, several people blinked in. At least, Sam assumed it was blinking, until he realized that two of the screens had gone black while he hadn't been paying attention.
This was when he actually started to understand what was happening.
"No," he whispered, ignoring any of Eddie's questions. He backed up, away from the screen, and shook his head several times. He looked over at Kelsier and L and then around at Orpheus. "No. What's going on?"
He knew now, and he spun around, looking at all the screens.
Myrnin, Nico, The Doctor.
His hand feel to the counter and he started to tremble. He recognized others too. Dipper, Enjolras, Rue, Victoria, and Vincent. The rest he didn't recognize, but that didn't matter. He didn't care that he didn't really know a lot of the other minor blinkers in the room, only their clones. It still made him sick.
He looked at L. He'd only known L's clone, so he wasn't even sure if the actual blinker would remember anything about him, but the situation still stood.
"Can we do anything?" Sam asked L. Then he turned and shot at Eddie, "Can we do anything?"
Orpheus' music was nice. He would probably have been in full panic mode without it, but he wasn't aware of that yet.
Victoria appeared a second later, while Sam's back was turned, and Sam flinched. He turned to the screens again, seeing a ... another vampire ... with Victoria's ... body.
"Are you okay?" he asked the wolf, voice small and his eyes wide, almost red with distress.

Dipper | Arena room p. 2 | not anyone in particular

Could you blink out by will?

Some say if there's a will there's a way. Some would say they would choose to forget things they saw, terrible things. Horrible things. Dipper made due with what precious time had been given in the oh so generous moment before his thoughts vanished to desire. Desire to grab the Journal which had been taken by him presumably by magic? The House? Whatever, the book was the main priority.

By thinking such a thing he took of by a start, where his heart should have been resting now replaced by his stomach. He wanted it back so badly - given the nature of what had happened it'd be no stretch someone would destroy it if he couldn't get to it in time. He began to pant his mind wavering when the others began to block the area just by being there.

He couldn't piece together what they were doing but thew journal was merely a few moments away garnering a sigh of shoft lived relief. If anything the faces and identities of those in the room blurred no longer identifiable to the young boy who lack of sleep had gotten to him. A frail body could only get him so far that Grunkle Stan would tease him for what littl muscle he had to show. Running he'd gotten used to but the feelings, the tightening of his chest had begun to unravel what his lungs could normally sustain.

Foolishly he stood there crouched by the entrance of the odd structuve, gripping one of the edge as he got onto his knees. The book, yes, it was the book that would get him out of this situation if anything he could learn a thing or two. The author would have approved of such an action, if they'd ever met maybe he'd thank him for protecting his research. Acting on the thought the noise began to blur, vision fading by the second. The lull of sleep called to him like sirens fishing for men.

On that quiet little thought in the back of his head - to protect the research he needed to stick around in order to see it through. Dipper shakily grabbed the sturdy journal into his possession tucking it into one of the many pockets of his puffy, dark blue vest. On that note, his knees were shaking, sweat glistening off of his forehead, the position he assumed was that of a crouch slowly moving back into what he had sworn was a wall. In mid of rising up he fell back into what should have killed him, swallowed by a flimsy plastic like material. What remained of his conscience led him to believe that everything would work out in some grand scheme, some rest would be required. His movements stopped dead, his body tucked away behind a set of thick, pitch black curtains. In the corner of his eye, a man laid there sleeping, he wanted to smile, maybe the house blinked in the uncle his family abhorred. At this time he thought he saw the man breathing and resting in a strange position. What was the name that eluded him? Stan? Stanford? No it was...

Stanley.

He slept.



Dipper slept on his back, a sound that harbored a lingering feeling of dread that he couldn't place was what awoke him. His first action was to cover his ears at such a disturbance. He groaned irritably what a rocky past few hours it had been, "Mabel, did you...? He turned his head towards the left speaking to the wall. An aura of confusion began to dissipate upon realizing why that wall was there to begin with. His eyes stared at it before registering what he had vanished in his lonesome.

At this time Waddles would scream at him for snacks like a pig would. Mabel would have greeted him warily no matter how grumpy it made him. Grunkle Stan would have called them down to eat in the kitchen even if the pantries were empty. Soos would have joined them some time later, Wendy would relax on the shift showing him and Mabel the coolest things. There was the daily problem that would have been solved through silly hijinks. They all be happy and smiling even if they got onto each others nerves. How could he do any of that when everyone was the exact opposite? Why was it difficult to remember this is everyone's fight to battle, not against each other but against the house?

Dipper mourned the day he would never be bound to experience. Getting himself up had proven a handful the pain started to pulse from everyone little nook and cranny. "Why is everyone stupid?" He mumbled pressing his face into his scratched up hands. "Why are they so stupid?" A violent noise came from the distance. The sound was not like that from earlier if anything it shook his skeleton whole. Nosily the investigator poked his head out keeping his trucker hat balanced. If it hit the ground it would alert somebody if the noise didn't. His ears hurt more than the previous time, eyes squinting in curiosity at the parts laying across the grass. A few seconds of staring whatever the scraps were the connections clicked in his head. One of Wendy's action movies explosions happened in the blink of an eye but if there was anything that was a plus to watching you didn't have to smell it in person. You wouldn't have much to look through the haze, the head was all that was needed to confirm his fears.

A sight to behold it made him crawl back into the tiny hiding spot he'd discover by accident. Would that be him in a few more seconds? Maybe someone went on a rampage forgetting to clean up the mess they made? No, more likely they were sending a message that people were going to actually di-. An agonizing pain coursed through him causing the skinny pre-teen to sit there tugging his knees to the core of his chest. A panic flooded him first through his chest, his heart, and then it enveloped his mind. He let his head sit atop of his dry knees letting his headwear tilt at an awkward angle, his breathing stopped at times he forgot out of pure fear at its finest moment. This is what he'd been fearing.

The urge to forget.

Vincent | HG Room | Enj

Vincent continued to mimic Enjolras’s movement under and around obstacles, intently watching the man as he spoke. All the conversation seemed to be defusing him, suggesting his talkativeness could be an accommodation for his nervous energy, or he just enjoyed the sound of his voice. Fortunately, it wasn’t terribly annoying, and it seemed to be entertaining him when the blond chose to keep his mouth shut.

“Where you in that one?” He asked when he mentioned a room with powers, curious if he was referencing the room from personal experience or not. He’d come to the conclusion that Enjolras was one of the human blinkers, which would make it practical for him to be excluded from such a room. That didn’t seem the case this time, however, as Myrnin had already demonstrated the perks of his unnatural speed. He glanced back up at the man as he recalled the Murder Mystery Room, smirking to himself. He waited until the man finished, then smiled. “Are you asking if I’ve ever been in a room where I had to kill another blinker, or if I’ve been in one where other blinkers chose to kill me? Perhaps the answers differ.” He cocked his head a little, bitterness from the Murder Room creeping into his tone - though he still flashed a smile.

When the man stopped, he did so as well, maintaining their distance. He seemed to have no interest in what the man pulled from his bag, and kept his attention on the woods around them. His pale eyes restless, knife rotating slowly in his hands. There was a slight itch at his throat, though he kept his grin.

Gin | Arena pt. 2 | mintedstar/fur Razzle Dazzle --cato phoenix |

"Not my first deep woods either," confirmed Gin shortly, continuing his forward march into the forest. "If this thing drags on till night, we'll need to build a shelter, at least for the kid."

How long could they survive out here? Gin on his own could survive indefinitely - he'd gone weeks in the woods on his own before, he'd be fine. But he didn't know how far they'd make it dragging a little kid along. She was gonna slow them down, attract attention, and definitely increase their chances of getting killed. If they wanted to survive, the smart thing was to leave her to fend for herself.

Well, he'd never been smart. If they all died, they all died. No skin off his nose. Besides -

"Wait," he said suddenly, interrupting his own train of thought. He threw out a hand to stop the Doctor and Ononoki in their tracks, his other hand flying to his sword as a stranger stepped into the clearing. He brandished the weapon threateningly, no taking any chances. "Stop there. Don't come closer."

Hunger Games Room | Kelsier

Kelsier turned, the silent tears on his face far from the only indication of what he was feeling. His whole body was tense as though the pain he was watching through the screen had reached out and grabbed him in its cruel talons, and he almost couldn’t look at Orpheus. The music that reached his ears was the only thing that seemed to sooth him a little, but when his hazel eyes finally rested on the younger blinker’s features, they looked tortured,

He knew, deep down, what the chords meant even before Orpheus told him. He knew they were for the words Nico was saying, because what else could they be? What else would be filled with such sadness, while also giving such a sense of peace? He didn’t answer, not at first, just looked back at the screen as Nico curled up to sleep.

He breathed out. It was a sigh, or maybe a gasp, and the rage he felt at the House subsided to a dull murmur in his brain, something he couldn’t escape and didn’t want to. He was still going to find a way to make this...this thing pay for what it had done to them all today. But for now, he just needed to keep breathing.

“I don’t deserve that.” He murmured, shaking his head incredulously as Orpheus explained which rites Nico was giving him. “I don’t deserve that from him. I am a hero in my own world, but here? To him? No. I’m not a hero to him.”

He couldn’t understand. Nico, of all people, who should hate him. Who had every right to be celebrating his death, and yet here they were, hurting for each other, wanting to make it alright somehow even if they didn’t know how. Maybe they didn’t know exactly what they were to each other yet. But he knew that he cared for the boy, deeply, and he knew now that Nico cares for him. And maybe that was enough to start.

His head snapped to the screen suddenly and all his thoughts flew from his head, his body tensing up as he heard the yell. At first he thought Nico was being attacked, and his heart sped up, but no...no, it was something else.

Something, perhaps, worse.

Nico could tell, somehow, that someone had died. Kelsier didn’t understand how, but he didn’t have to. Nico was sobbing now, and Kelsier realized he’d never seen him cry before, not like this. Not with so much pain in him that it had to overflow. He reached out and touched the screen, then pulled his hand back and curled it into a fist.

“Hold on. Just...hold on.” He murmured, and put his face in his hands, his own tears coming faster now. He looked at Orpheus, and for once, there was no trace of humor around his eyes, no curves of a half-smile at his lips. He didn’t speak, but his eyes seemed to beg the man for something, anything to sooth the pain.

Hunger Games Room | L

L couldn’t stop watching the screen, his fingers tearing bits of lemon cake off and putting them in his mouth without him paying them any attention at all.
He was watching Myrnin at the moment. The vampire had stopped, finally, and he still seemed to be in control. L didn’t know what was happening to him or why, but he knew the gold eyes when he saw them and he knew they were bad news. He also knew that it wasn’t really Myrnin, when he went like that. The vampire probably would have argued that it was him, really, but L didn’t believe that for a second. Myrnin killed, yes, but he didn’t do so without regret. He didn’t do so without caring.

Myrnin with gold eyes didn’t give it a second thought. Or a first one, for that matter.

L pulled his unblinking gaze away from the screen at last, forcing himself to look at the other people in the room instead. There were more now, he realized with something like horror spreading through him, more dead. The mechanical wolf, he didn’t know her name. Only now he did, because it was on her black screen: Victoria. He looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before he looked back at the others.

Can we do anything?

“There’s an extremely high probability that no, we can’t do anything.” He answered, voice low and ragged with something deep inside of him. He wanted so badly to give a different answer, but there was no other answer he could give, nothing else he could say. He shook his head slightly, looking back at the screens in time to see a Myrnin find a child.

He didn’t want to watch this. But he couldn’t look away.

Myrnin didn’t kill her.

L blinked. He watched in silence as Myrnin began to build a shelter instead, protecting the girl from...well. Anything. His eyes widened slightly and the cake pinched between his thumb and index finger fell to the floor. He blinked again, and again, and still the vampire didn’t harm the girl, didn’t even hesitate. Why? What was different this time? As far as L knew, he hadn’t hesitated last time. As far as L knew, Myrnin had one solution to this problem, and it was unlike him not to take it.

“Why?” He asked, so quietly he didn’t expect anyone to hear him. “Why, Myrnin?”

Hunger Games Room | Rue

When Rue slowly drifted back to consciousness, she didn’t move right away. Her eyes stayed closed and her chest continued to rise and fall steadily, her body curled against the forest floor like a cat. Her mind slowly came around, but she didn’t recognize the smells of her surroundings, so she didn’t move.

This wasn’t her small bed back in District 11. She smelled trees, and the ground under her was rough and covered with leaves. She was alone, as far as she could tell, though with her eyes closed she couldn’t trust that instinct as much as she wanted to.

Then she heard something move, and despite her best efforts, her whole body tensed. Someone was here. Someone was moving something close to her, and she was defenseless and lying on the floor and she remembered now where she was and what was happening. The arena. The House. The two most dangerous things she was aware of, combined into one sick game she didn’t want to play. She cursed herself for being so stupid as to fall asleep, cursed herself for being weak and defenseless and the easy prey she’d sworn she wouldn’t be. Now she was going to die, and it was her own damn fault.

Well, she wouldn’t die with her eyes closed. The little girl opened her eyes and sat up, trying and failing not to tremble all over with fear and the knowledge that as soon as she moved she was likely to die. She looked around and it was then that she realized there was a makeshift shelter constructed around her, leaves and branches arranged as though to protect her from the sun, and prying eyes. There was a cost placed over her as well. She stared at it for a few long seconds, then moved to crawl out, and that was when her dark eyes found Myrnin.

He was moving wood, which was what she’d heard. She froze in place, her face a mask of horror and shock as she realized how much bigger and stronger he really was, not to mention that he probably wasn’t even human, knowing the House as she did. She didn’t move a muscle, like a deer in headlights, staring, staring, far too aware that if she ran he could catch her with ease.

Then he whimpered and stopped working, and suddenly Rue wasn’t so sure he was a threat. He looked...she couldn’t place it, could decide whether she was more or less afraid of him with that look in his eye. She wanted to back away, and she wanted to come closer, and she didn’t move, because there was nowhere else to go.

Except she couldn’t stay there, frozen in place, forever. She wanted to let him make the first move, but from the look of him, she didn’t know if he would. Her eyes strayed to the rabbit and the berries on the ground, and she realized with a shock that she knew those berries. Those were the berries she stole almost every day, the berries she’d taken a life over, years ago. Her mind filled with images and she shook them away, swallowing hard to try and get rid of the sense that she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Well, if he had wanted to kill her, he could have done it while she slept. She wasn’t very comforted by this thought, though, because it was all too possible that he simply wanted to see the look in her eyes when he killed her. But she’d stayed frozen for much too long already, so she forced herself to crawl slowly out of the shelter and get to her feet, her hands shaking so badly she had to fold her arms over her chest to hide it.

She wanted to run.

But she didn’t. Instead, she waited, eyeing Myrnin, waiting for him to make the first move.

Eddie | Watching Room | @victoria and sam

"Look I asked you something nicely if I have to remind you again..." Eddie's hand lingered over the smaller screens tapping it on occasion, nothing came about despite his numerous attempts, far too focused on making things "work". He let a frustrated sound, a low growl that didn't sound human once heard. To the man himself, he only wanted to work things out without issues. Sam seemed clueless as the rest of the folks even those whose faces appeared on the screens, the sections dedicated to them now blacked out entirely. A tired sigh escaped him his chest heaving while it began to sink in, something bad had happened parts of his face began to distort in something monstrous.
A flood of regret began to seep into the deepest recesses of his mind. The tunes strung by none other than Orpheus himself eased him up quite a bit. At the heat of the moment the teeth that had began to poke out from the left side of his face sunk back. No longer enraged as before he turned back to Sam, his back against the screens laid out in the white table in the middle of the room. "The best, and I mean this, we can do is find some key to shut everything down." He wanted to bet on what ridiculous quest the house would put them through to earn its scraps of mercy. Even then he could feel something nagging at the back of his head, the panicked kid's eyes turned color.
Mutants were fairly normal but austrsized more often than not by the public. More often than not it was the youth who had it bad out of most, he hoped for everyone's sake this wouldn't become the arena room too. Again he felt something urge him not to turn his back if he wanted to end up dead, but he turned anyhow. A familiar face greeted him all the while another screen turned black as the pup appeared. "Victoria!" To this day he didn't think to be blinking back inside the house would make him content.
"You're back! Oh god please tell me that's you in one piece." It was a brief smile, almost giddy when he first saw the immortal back on all four legs breathing once again. That of course changed when Sam opened his mouth again Eddie's smile began to gradually fade away. "Why wouldn't she be okay?" It was an honest question, his head tilted, arms folded against his broad frame at such a query. A triumph it was to know the Life Foundation hadn't been truly behind this, his friend freed from the impending violence. He couldn't possibly foresee anyone in particular wanting to do the veteran ill will much less make her suffer in any manner.

The Doctor | Arena Room: Forest | Razzle Dazzle --cato phoenix <Raintalon>

"Come down," The Doctor said lightly to Gin. "I know her."
That didn't mean much. She knew a couple of the people in this room. She couldn't claim that this wasn't going to backfire. What if Arlo was going to attack them? What if? What if? What if?
The paranoia in the back of her mind was getting worse, but The Doctor still managed to push it aside and said with conviction, "She's save. Leave her be."
She glanced sideways at Gin (he seemed the most willing to attack), but otherwise remained standing.
Ononoki, at least, didn't seem to be affected by all the tension going on around her. More indifferent.
"Arlo, Gin, Ononoki," The Doctor introduced again, gesturing around the circle. Arlo had already said her name, but The Doctor figured she should reinforce it.
Carefully, she got Gin back on track. "Shelter? Do you have any suggestions?"

Orpheus was not renowned for his intelligence, or his problem solving. Frankly, he wasn’t renowned for anything yet, but his strength wasn’t in figuring out how to solve impossible problems. His strength was in seeing things differently than others did, even if others claimed he was idealistic and naïve. Maybe his way of seeing things solved the occasional problem, but he knew it wasn’t going to work against the House. Anything he thought of had certainly already been tried, and though writing things down might make it a little easier to keep track, who other than Orpheus ever regularly blinked in with a writing utensil? Probably not many. Besides, even though Orpheus did often blink in with a pen, it wasn’t like he had any ink to refill it with, and he needed to do that after just a couple of words. Naturally, he assumed this was how writing worked for everyone else who blinked in as well.
“If someone is going to get us out of here,” Orpheus murmured, “I don’t think it will be me. Though I’ll keep what you said in mind. You’re right, if someone has an idea they don’t voice, we could lose our ticket out.”
Orpheus knew what L had said about the House. He knew what he and Kelsier had experienced. And yet, part of him didn’t want to leave. Part of him wanted to stay in the House, to get to know as many people as he could, to help them where and when he could because who knew what realities people were returning to? Who knew how many people needed a friend here when they didn’t have any in their own world? Would Orpheus leave that behind to ensure that he didn’t get hurt anymore?
“How do we know there isn’t another group of people that already found their way out?” Orpheus asked. “If we find a way to leave, but can’t leave behind any instructions… then more people will get pulled in.” Though he didn’t say it aloud, he wondered if it was fair to leave a new group of people to figure it out on their own if they made it out. He wondered if at least one of htem would have to stay behind in that case, to help guide new blinkers.
“Hm?” The poet had been so buried in his thoughts he hadn’t heard the beginning of what L was saying, but what he did hear surprised him.
“I just hope I’m up for the challenge,” he admitted. “I would hate for people to die because I can’t do what I was asked to do.”