Thalia Grace (wasatree) wrote in thearenas, @ 2014-04-15 18:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | ⊗ rose hathaway, ⊗ thalia grace |
WHO: Thalia Grace and Rose Hathaway
WHERE: Training Centre
WHEN: Apr 12
WHAT: Meeting
RATING: PG
STATUS: log; complete
The pack of hellhounds circling Thalia was only growing in number. She stood there with shield and spear in hand, alert and at the ready, while her heart thundered in her ears. Don’t let them take your legs. If you let them take your legs out, you’re done. She knew that from experience. That was how she’d died the first time. With a roar, one hellhound leapt at her, and she had her spear in its throat before it could close her mouth. That instigated the rest of the pack, and almost as one they attacked. Just like before. Thalia was a lot more powerful than she had been when she was twelve, however. Her spear flashed over and over again; her shield blocked and swiped both; and lightning flashed, turning hellhound after hellhound to golden dust. By the time she was done, she was surrounded by mounds of gold dust. And after a moment, they too disappeared, replaced by the black and yellow grids of the Training Centre’s simulation room. She stood there, sweating and panting, her heart hammering in her chest. Here, she won more often than not. But none of the victories made up for the first time she’d lost, when she’d been turned into a tree and set forth the chain of events that landed her here, on an alien world, with a boyfriend who didn’t know he was her boyfriend and a world she’d told had been destroyed. Exhaling, she went and grabbed her towel. She was still standing there, staring blankly at it, when the door opened. *** Rose still didn't know what to make of this place or the fact that she and Adrian were trapped here. She had no problem fighting, but the notion of fighting for someone else's entertainment rubbed her the wrong way, especially when it she was at the mercy of some unseen force. She had been trying to get a better understanding of how things worked though. If she was going to survive and keep Adrian safe, then she needed to know exactly what she was up against. The training center had been a great find, allowing her the opportunity to keep her skills up and run simulations of previous arenas so she knew what kind of trouble the aliens in charge were likely to throw at her. Working out also helped keep her mind off of everything that had happened recently. Her experiences in Russia with Dimitri were still fresh and killing him had been the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life. Finding out that she hadn't actually succeeded was a blow in so many ways. Especially since she was trying to make this relationship thing work with Adrian. When she arrived at the training center, she hadn't even paid attention enough to realize the simulation room was in use and she stopped in her tracks when she saw another girl standing there. "Oh, sorry," she apologized. "I wasn't paying attention." *** Still wired from her simulation, Thalia snapped her head up when she heard the sound of the door opening. In a flash, her spear was in her hand again. But when she realized that the newcomer was another trainee and not one of the monsters, she relaxed and let the spear collapse back into the shape of a mace container. “Oh, no, it’s fine,” she assured the other girl. “Sorry, I should’ve been outta here. It’s yours if you want it.” *** Rose had immediately fell into a fighting stance when she saw the other girl's spear. She only relaxed slightly when the spear shifted into a smaller container. "How did you do that?" she asked, staring at it. There were still a lot of things about this place she needed to get used to apparently. *** “Oh, this?” Thalia glanced down at her mace. She’d had it for so long now she barely thought about it anymore. “It’s just a….it’s magic.” Because magic was the best way to explain something that your deadbeat dad had sent a goat to give you. She held it aloft again, resisting - as always - the urge to shout “By the power of Greyskull!”, and it expanded into a spear again. “It’s pretty travel friendly this way.” *** That wasn't anything like the magic the Moroi used and it fascinated Rose because it was a pretty friendly way to transport weapons. Sure, her silver stakes were pretty easy to conceal, but a sword like that would come in handy. "I've never seen magic like that," she said. "It's pretty awesome. I bet it comes in handy here." *** “When there were monsters running amuck around here, yeah,” Thalia acknowledged as she shrunk the spear again and tucked the container into her back pocket. “But most of the time it’s not like we’re even allowed to have our weapons or powers in the arena, as you know.” Thalia just assumed that Rose was a seasoned gladiator, seeing her drop into a defensive pose upon seeing her spear. There were a lot of people here she hadn’t really encountered or met yet, after all. *** Rose blinked in confusion at that. "Wait, what? We can't have weapons or powers? What the hell are we supposed to do then?" She had been operating under the assumption that she'd be able to carry stakes and maybe a sword when she went in to fight. And even though she was planning to try and keep Adrian out of it, she figured his compulsion could help him survive. The monsters running amuck were also a concern, but she'd come back to that. *** Thalia frowned in confusion too. Apparently her assumption had made an ass of her. "Sometimes they give us different powers - and it's a hoot trying to learn to use and control them on the fly, let me tell you - and sometimes they just give us guns." Her lips twisted in distaste at that idea. She grimaced and gave the other girl a sympathetic look. "You're new, huh?" *** Rose nodded. "Yeah, got here about a week ago. Still not really sure what the hell to think about any of this, but I need to keep Adrian safe." It still wasn't automatic to refer to him as her boyfriend because their relationship was so new and, well, she was still hung up on Dimitri. "I take it you've been here a while?" *** "Good luck with that," Thalia said cynically, because she'd been here long enough to know that keeping anyone safe wasn't doable. You could sacrifice yourself for them in the arena, but if the aliens really wanted them dead, they'd just off them when you were. "But yeah. I've been here for about a year and a half now." *** Rose's eyes went wide when she heard how long the other girl had been stuck here. "How is it possible you've been stuck here that long and no one has come looking for you?" She knew that it was unlikely anyone would come after her, but a missing Ivashkov would get the Guardians in gear. *** "I don't know if anyone can," Thalia said regretfully. That realization had been crushing when she'd first come to it, but she'd come to accept that now. If there were some way to escape, it would have to come from herself and the others who were stuck here. "We're cut off here, and honestly, I'm not sure if anyone back home even knows we're missing. It's like time is frozen there when we're gone." *** That was a crushing blow to Rose who had been expecting some kind of rescue to be imminent. How the hell was she supposed to keep Adrian safe and sane in this place for some undetermined length of time? For that matter, how was she supposed to keep herself safe and sane? She was already getting headaches from the effort it took to keep the ghosts at bay. "This whole thing is beyond fucked." *** "Tell me about it," Thalia said, shaking her head. "I mean, best case scenario, we bore the watchers so much they send us back. Because even if we can bust out of here, there's no telling how far we are from home, or what state it'll be in. The aliens are telling me our homes have been destroyed and they're saving us or some crap like that, but I refuse to believe that." *** "My home was definitely not destroyed," Rose said. "I mean, yeah, we had some attacks recently." Unprecedented attacks since the Strigoi had used humans to break the wards around St. Vladmir's, but they certainly hadn't been destroyed. She shook her head and realized she hadn't actually introduced herself. "I'm Rose Hathaway. I was living in Pennsylvania." *** "Thalia," the Hunter replied, offering her hand. "And my world was fine last I was there too. We'd just finished saving it, for the love of the gods. I'd be so pissed off if it got itself destroyed again." *** "Saving it from what?" Rose couldn't help but ask, even as she shook Thalia's hand. "We had a Strigoi attack at my school a few months ago." As soon as she said it, she realized the other girl probably didn't know what a Strigoi was. "Those are undead vampires." *** "The Titans wanted to destroy the world, but Nevermind that. Isn't that redundant to say undead vampires?" Thalia asked, confused. "I mean, I'm not a vampire expert, but I've watched lots of movies. *** Rose had a lot of questions about the mother earth thing, but she figured it was easier to answer Thalia's question first. "Not in my world," she said. "We have two kinds of vampires. Living vampires, the Moroi, aren't evil. They only take blood from willing donors." Which reminded her that Adrian probably was going to need to eat and she had no idea where they would find a feeder. It might fall to her to do it, just like she had for Lissa when they were on the run. "They also have elemental magic." She wasn't going to get into Spirit and how that worked for now. "The Strigoi, the undead, are killers. They kill for immortality. They can't enter holy ground or wield magic." *** "Ah, okay." That made a little more sense. Thalia was still wrapping her mind around the idea of a a living vampire, but she supposed it could happen. "And so the Strigoi came after your school? That sucks." *** "Yeah. It's a school for the Moroi and the Dhampirs. We're half human, half Moroi and we train as Guardians, essentially bodyguards, for the Moroi," she explained, figuring there was no harm in outing herself given that the other girl had used magic in front of her. *** "Okay, so they actually targeted your school, not just kinda randomly stormed it? Makes sense." Thalia shifted from foot to foot; even after her exhausting fight with the hellhounds, she couldn't stay still long. "I don't think there are Strigoi here, but you never know. The aliens like to mix things up." There was a note of bitterness in her voice. *** "How so?" Rose asked, curious to learn as much about this place as she could. "And what did you mean when you said The Titans were trying to destroy the world?" *** "I mean, aside from the arenas, there are the monsters they unleashed on us when they thought we were getting bored, and then there was that time they made my formerly evil best friend go evil again. That was a barrel of laughs." Thalia rolled her eyes, her casual disdain covering just how hard it had been to face Kronos again. "As for the titans...you ever heard if the Olympians?" *** Rose made a face, thinking about facing Dimitri and how difficult that had been. "From mythology?" she asked, vaguely remembering something about the Olympians in one of her classes before she and Lissa had left St. Vlad's. *** "Yeah, the twelve gods of Olympus," Thalia said. "They took over the world from the Titans, the titans got mad and decided they were going to take it back. Bam, war. That's the short version, anyway. The long version will take waaay longer to tell." **** "Sounds like something we'd need to discuss over a beer," Rose said wistfully. She knew that drinking here was going to be a no go so she could keep Adrian safe. "I should probably actually get my work out in though. Sorry again for barging in, but it was nice to meet you." *** "Yeah, maybe we can get together some time," Thalia said, giving the other girl a small smile. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Catch you later, Rose." |