The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

[civilobedience]

Who: The Militia, the city, and you.
What: The Arena Riots.
Where: The Arena, Griss Twist.
When: Newdi, Eliaderen 1. (Monday Oct 1st)
Notes: Companion post for questions and plotting is here.
Warnings: Violence, police brutality, disturbing content and imagery, graphic death.

It's apparent even before dawn that something out of the ordinary is happening. Canton sheriffs are roused from their sleep or pulled away from their work to be told that on no uncertain terms, today will be a day that they do not leave their neat lines on the map. That their individual offices will be responsible for all crime and unrest within their jurisdictions, with no help; the powers that be offer no details, but the creeping feeling in their presence suggests no questions would be tolerated anyway – the implication that they'll all be watched is a strong one. In Mog Hill, Sheriff Norrington proceeds as he always does under such orders. In Mafaton, leadership is stoic but one deputy laughs, sharp and bitter, while the Emissary of the Council merely checks his watch, unseen underground. Sir Hellsing is pulled away from her dinner in the Guild Hall, a Sobek Croix deputy anxiously relaying the news. The sound of shattered glass disturbs the pre-dawn silence in Flyside, a brick hurled by some faceless figure into the front window of Thames – and nothing else.

From the Spire, hooded Militiamen move quietly and uniformly south, to Griss Twist. They are followed by wagons, full of prisoners.

Comments

[lupa]

GG doesn't watch. The tang of blood on the air makes it harder yet to control her own shape.

She should feel more, she thinks quietly, then accepts that that's not going to work right now. She has locked herself down too tightly in her efforts not to shift or scream or cry.

It is some time before they tell her to get ready. She ignores the weapons, and takes off her shoes, all her clothes but her loose, smock-like shirt -- no one's staring at her. People pace, cry, rage, panic. GG is so tense she is trembling, caged in her own body, lifting up onto her tiptoes and rocking back down again; soon. Soon enough. She's going to die here.

The certainty is a sinking rock of relief and she closes her eyes to better hold onto it; she's going to die here. She hasn't had much to be sure of lately, not when her faith is crumpling and blooming all at once and no shape is big enough for everything she feels and this city teaches her to be afraid of everything but mostly herself.

And she thinks: do I get to go to heaven if I'm sorry for all of it?

She doesn’t fade out into white-out shock like some of the other fighters do as they’re marched out. Instead, everything focuses, becomes hyperreal. The ground beneath her bare feet is cold, and she can follow every scent in the Arena. Lea isn’t here, for which GG is painfully grateful. She’d have liked to say thanks, she thinks, for everything, but there’s no room for that in this world and Lea knows it anyway. There has never been a need for GG to express more than she shows or be more than she is.

The gladiator before her has a sword in her hands. GG's tall; her opponent is taller, broader. GG watches her with her feet shoulder width apart, her hands hanging by her sides. She raises the sword in a demand for a cheer; GG wonders if she loves it or if she loves the idea of freedom. They’ve told them to put on a show, haven’t they? If they haven’t, that’s what she’ll believe anyway. The gladiator smells bronze and black, the tang of sweat and metal -- fear? She glances up into the crowd with something like a sneer on her face, letting that slow burn of anger begin to bloom -- the fuck are you doing here anyway?

She crosses herself. People have their CiDs out, recording; she hopes they broadcast that, not her death, though she’s not sure why they would. I’m sorry for all of it. She thinks abstractly that they used to throw martyrs to the wild animals- damnatio ad bestias- but she’s not sure where she fits into that particular equation. That's definitely fear she smells. So? GG's scared too, and they have no choice. They will never have a choice, and they will never know a better way than this.

The gladiator swings. GG springs, and then she’s just lines of grey muscle and teeth. There are gasps that echo up from the stands; this form is the most monstrous, she knows, this huge halfway self. It’s the one she suits best and wears least.

(It’s quiet in her head when she’s fighting. The world consists of nothing but bodies and anger so basic and primal that it has no colour at all. It engulfs her and there is no need to question or narrate, only to do.)

And right up until the last she expects to die. Right up until the crunch of vertebrae and the slump, the loss of tension in the body beneath her, she expects to die. The world expands in a rush of colour to include things which are not the fight, and people are cheering and screaming and booing and she doesn’t know why or know the difference, only there are walls of sound closing around her and as every audience member imprints themselves on her mind, the Militia move like constellations of black holes -- she whips around and moves up onto her hindlegs and snarls with blood matted in her fur, a frightened animal. When the Militiamen unchain the starving beasts she is relieved to have a problem in front of her she can solve.