[open] and when i wake up you'll be here

[laruetheday]

WHO: Clarisse
WHAT: Arrival + some quarantine stuff
WHEN: Now, ig
WHERE: Ferelden somewhere + the Gallows
NOTES: n/a

Arrival

Weird dreams are a near nightly thing for demigods, so Clarisse doesn't bat an eye when she finds herself waiting for the elevator at the top of the Empire State Building in her basketball uniform, other than to wonder what kind of weird symbolism it is and hope that it's not going to interfere with her midterms. Even when the doors open and she steps in and lands on nothing but empty air, she manages not to scream. It all happens too fast, anyway.

Clarisse only has time to think, oh shit, and then she hits the dirt hard. The breath gets punched out of her chest and she wheezes pitifully, wondering since when her dreams are realistic enough to hurt. She rolls onto her back, wipes at the dirt on her chin, and finds herself staring up at something she can't comprehend, much less identify. The air looks... torn open, and through the jagged green split, she can see patches of concrete and red rocks.

The view is interrupted by something moving—something humanoid but elongated, with a grin that spreads too far in each direction. That's comprehendible. She's not sure what she's looking at, specifically, but she knows bad news when she sees it. Clarisse pushes off the ground at a run, angling herself away from the whatever-the-fuck-that-thing-is and trying to put some distance between her and it.

Quarantine - Dining Hall

At least the food here looks... pretty normal. She should be thankful for that.

Clarisse is in the dining hall, sitting straight backed and uncomfortable and pushing a piece of beef (probably?) around with a fork. She looks a little bit miserable, but what else is new? Push, push, push. The fork never seems to actually make it to her mouth.

Finally, she can't stand it anymore, and says to whoever's nearby: "Is there a place around here I can make an offering?"

Quarantine - Training Yard

Maybe she'd been slacking off on training a little bit, before she'd fallen out of the fucking sky, but that's over. If anything, the practice gives Clarisse a sense of familiarity, even while she's stuck in a place that's the complete opposite. She knows the moves. She's done them almost every day, for years. Doesn't matter where she is.

For anyone who happens to walk by and see her, it's clear that Clarisse is no beginner with the spear. She handles it with practiced ease, and it seems like she'd have no problem showing anybody else what it's like to be on the other end of Maimer's barbed tip. But when she does notice somebody watching, Clarisse only gives them a terse nod.

"You waiting for the space?"

Comments

[armd]

It's definitely something you get used to. Abby remembers when she first arrived and she couldn't stop feeling the shard and brand new hum that it made in her blood. Now, it's well and truly part of her– damn, but she's thinking about it too much! It feels tingly.

Excited to be put to the test, perhaps.

"I might not," she admits, expression scrunching in amusement, "I'm not really a ranged weapons kind of person." But what about her physique gives that away, right. She extends her arms out in front of her, catching one in a good stretch, limbering up.

"Newbie's first," is definitely a taunt. She can be an asshole too, don't worry.

[laruetheday]

The look on Clarisse's face when Abby calls her a newbie isn't hard to read. It's exactly the thing she used to call new campers, once she'd established herself, and the fact that she has to start all over again here pisses her off.

She's already been running drills, so she doesn't need to stretch. She just passes the spear from one hand to the other, adjusts her stance, and goes for it.

What she'd been doing in the yard before Abby rolled up hadn't been anything too crazy, but now she goes after Abby pretty aggressively, striking at her torso and then trying to trip her up by sweeping her feet out from under her. She's faster than she looks, and strong. Any hit that lands with the tip of her spear leaves a painful tingling and numbness behind, clearly meant to stun and incapacitate, not to kill. That part's for Clarisse to do after her opponent is down.

[armd]

Wow, no preamble huh– Abby twists to the side and almost gets the spear tip at the waist of her armor, she's that fucking fast. It gets a curse out of her and some fancy footwork just to keep ahead of that ankle sweep, god damn-

Abby lifts her hand and fires in retaliation: a burst of green light. It crackles over Clarisse's head, arcing feet above her.

"Fuck-" Stupid thing, and she has to wait for it to charge again. Getting used to it might take a while, and it doesn't help knowing she looks like a bit of an idiot throwing her palm out to fire it like that. It's like being in an anime– god Manny would get such a kick outta hearing her say that. Anyway, let her back the fuck up and get out of range real quick...

[laruetheday]

"Can't aim, huh?"

Clarisse follows, keeping Abby at the same distance, not letting her get too far back or too close. She's watching her hand, waiting for another shot of the... whatever it is, energy pulse. She shifts impatiently, grinding her boots into the dirt. She wants to see if she can deflect the next shot with her spear, and kind of also wants to see how bad it would hurt to get hit by it. Just so she's prepared.

"You going to shoot me or what?"

[armd]

Flatly, "I just said that it's new," while she waits for it to get going again. At least it's a quick, the time between only enough to stop her from shooting it constantly like she might a gun. A quick shake out of her hand, fingers shivering, and then she lifts her palm again, all too aware that Clarisse has been waiting for her the entire time.

Rude.

"You gonna move or what? It's not exactly practice if you stand there and let me hit you." Come the fuck on.

[laruetheday]

Exhaling sharply, Clarisse takes a step closer, then stops again. She doesn’t raise the spear, although she’s still holding it in a way that suggests she might go after Abby again at any moment.

“Hold on,” she says, because the fight’s not over but she’s calling a time out. “I want to know what it feels like.”

Like a cop getting pepper sprayed during training, or soldiers crawling through mud while their superiors shoot over their heads. Practical experience. Whatever.

[armd]

For a moment the two of them just stare at each other with legs in a dropped stance, waiting for the other to move. When Clarisse takes a step forward Abby mirrors the movement, backing up, eyes on the spear tip. Nothing happens. She squints, and straightens up, "Seriously?"

But it's- funny, actually, because, "I wanna know what the spear feels like."

Pause...

"One free shot each?"

[laruetheday]

For the first time since meeting Abby—for the first time since she fell out of the sky, probably—Clarisse smiles for real. Lame, maybe, but it's nice to feel like she's on the same page as somebody else for once. And shooting each other with electricity or whatever-the-hell is just the kind of dumb shit she and her brothers would get up to back home.

"Sure. Losers go first." She points to Abby, in case there was any doubt about who she meant.

[armd]

"I'm the loser, and so I get to hurt you first?"

Sure, that tracks. Whatever, Abby's grinning too. This is way more exciting than any usual sparring session. She won't fire point blank on Clarisse's face, she's no asshole; she aims the shot at her torso. Probably feels like half a punch? And it crackles with a weird electricity that doesn't linger.

Really, it's for catching people off guard, or from keeping mages from using spells at a distance.

[laruetheday]

Huh. It's kind of a letdown, after all that. She was anticipating something that would hurt worse than that. Clarisse makes a face. She can see how it might be useful for catching someone by surprise, at least, but...

"That's it?" She sounds disappointed. She wanted to be maimed, or burned, or something, not... bitchslapped.

[armd]

Abby looks disappointed, too. She's frowning at her hand, "I guess?"

Really... all that fuss, for that? "Maybe it'll get better the more I practice with it. Or maybe it hurts more if it hits you somewhere else-" and then she goes ahead and blasts Clarisse a second time and right in the face, because she can, and in the name of the practice, and because she's a bitch.

[laruetheday]

"Ow! Fuck!"

Clarisse's head snaps back, more in surprise than because she's actually injured. Still, getting smacked in the face hits differently (no pun intended) than getting smacked in the stomach, and she can feel her eyes watering. Her nose hurts, dammit. Before she's even fully recovered from the hit, she's tackling Abby to the ground, trying to pin her down so she can give her a taste of her own fucking medicine with the spear.

"We said one free shot each, asshole!" Mostly she's just pissed that she didn't think to cheat first.

[armd]

"Whoops," Abby wheezes, and doesn't sound sorry at all- holy fuck this girl is strong, and there's something about the fucking audacity of her trying it on somebody like Abby (who is physically much bigger than her) that takes her completely by surprise. They wrestle like that for a moment, down in the dirt-

Then the spear brushes past Abby's ear and shocks her, enough that her eyes roll back in her head.

A brief spasm, and she blinks out of it, pushing herself up on her elbows.

"Ow." She bit her tongue??? "Fuck you." But she looks impressed. She's also shouting because half her face went numb and there's a buzzing in her ears.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse scoffs. "You wish."

She takes Abby's shoulders and gives them a rough shake, just to rattle Abby's head around a little more, then drops her down on the dirt. She plants herself on Abby's torso, sitting there as she holds her spear and making a show of waving the barbed tip over Abby's face. "Hmm. Have you ever thought about getting a neck tattoo? I could carve something for you."

[armd]

"I really don't."

She's all scrambled. Hold on. It takes a moment of blinking to realise Clarisse has taken advantage of the situation to sort of pin her down, and once she figures out which way is up again, Abby bucks her hips, trying to throw her off, spear tip be damned.

"You dick–" And yet, weirdly, she's enjoying herself. Even as she jabs an elbow quite viciously into Clarisse's solar plexus.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse is grinning, even as the elbow hits her right in the perfect spot and knocks the breath from her lungs. She reels back, but doesn't quite fall all the way off of Abby, and pushes one hand off the dirt to reposition herself.

"Nice one, mortal girl."

Spear momentarily forgotten, since this is a free for all now, she uses the same hand to punch Abby in the face.

[armd]

"Excuse me?" is breathless. She's pushing the advantage while she has it, but Clarisse's legs feel like fucking concrete blocks, for all that Abby can shove them away with her hands. And then knuckles slam into her jaw so suddenly she yelps, so she stops trying to do things by halves.

She grabs Clarisse's shoulders to try pull her off to the side, kicking.

[laruetheday]

She's laughing even as Abby grips her shoulders and pulls her off. Clarisse hits the ground on her side and flips herself over, turning to aim a kick at Abby's ribs. Her spear is lying a few feet away, in reach if she lunges for it, but she doesn't. She's having fun just wrestling.

"You heard me."

[armd]

She catches that kick on her forearm, ouch, grunting. Grinning. It is fun.

Frustrating too; she tries in vain to get an arm around Clarisse’s neck to put her in some kind of choke hold. She does not look strong, but she is. Wiry almost.

“You’re cheating,” Abby accuses, almost out of breath. She doesn’t know how but she knows that she is!!

[laruetheday]

“I’m not cheating,” she says—wheezes really, since Abby’s arm finally manages to lock around her neck and squeeze. This girl may be a mortal (or whatever; she’s assuming), but her strength is no joke either. And maybe it’s just because she’s being choked out, but Clarisse feels a little winded. Tired, almost.

“I’m—a—demigod.” She squirms, tries to jab an elbow back into Abby’s stomach.

[armd]

The elbow slams into her gut and Abby grunts, but she doesn’t loosen her hold. She’ll be bruised there tomorrow for the effort. They’re still half-scrabbling around in the dirt, kicking up the dust, so she could be sparring with any member of the WLF back home. The instinct is uncanny enough that she can sort of feel eyes locked on the nape of her neck.

She is trying to bend Clarisse back by the neck, in a concentrated effort to force her into tapping out. She is not really listening to her. “You’re– a what?“

[laruetheday]

Clarisse would rather die than tap out. Like Arrhichion. She simply refuses.

"What are you, fucking deaf?" ... To be fair to Abby, though, it's kind of hard to understand her right now. She reaches back, fingers snagging in Abby's braid, and yanks as hard as she can. If she's gonna get choked out, she at least wants to pull some of Abby's hair out while she goes.

[armd]

Guess she'll have to die.

Except that Abby lets go of her the moment she yanks on her braid, letting out a yelp of indignation. She grabs Clarisse's wrist instantly and pries her fingers off, growling, "Okay smartass, that's actually against the fucking rules-" No pinching no biting no hair pulling, this is sparring 101. C'mon!

[laruetheday]

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Clarisse squirms away from Abby's grip, not to go after her again but to be Very Indignant about being accused of cheating. "You started it when you blasted me in the face with your stupid hand powers after we both agreed on one shot each!"

[armd]

"Yeah?" Abby challenges, enjoying herself now, god, it's been far too long since she's hung out with somebody her own age. Everybody here is really nice and they'll talk about anything but some of them are old enough that they could easily be parents to her. She can be more of an idiot around Clarisse.

"What, like this?" She shoots at her again.