The Gladiatorial Meme!

[steahl]

Gladiatorial Combat Meme!

Who doesn't like fighting? Characters, players, the heat of battle is a great place to gather CR! So we bring you the crowd. The rush of the scene, the thrill of battle or the sated daze of boodlust. Version 1.0, bring it on ladies and gents.

This meme may contain triggers
(also may be processed on machinery that has touched allergens be warned)

• Basic RP courtesy rules apply
• Post with character/canon/preferences (starter optional)
• Tag and be cool to one another
• Those with powerful characters/insta-winners may choose to be limited in some way. Power repression collars, fields around the arena, battle gods saying 'uh no' what ever!

Location, location, location!

1. Space/Alien planet: Just what it sounds like folks. You woke up after the worst hangover of your life and you weren't in Kansas any more!
2. Rome: Who doesn't like the classics? Welcome to low tech and brutally unfair!
3. Criminal Underground Games: Could be in a city, could be in an abandoned barn, what matters is that it's illegal as hell, makes a profit of your pain, and the not-so-upstanding citizens pay through the nose to watch two guys with bats go at each other in a razor wire cage.
4. The future: This is legal, somehow! You may be a criminal with the option to fight your way to freedom, you may be the next best thing to a bleeding celebrity!
5. On TV: None of this shit is real but you put on a hell of a show!
6. Mix n' Match: Or choose your own adventure! Be creative little buggers!

Situations!

1. One-on-One: Fight your way to the top! Easy huh? Except when your opponent is, well, not a push over.
2. Group Smash!: It is all of you guys vs. all of those guys! Team up, smash things, repeat until your hammer breaks!
3. Fresh meat/Training: You've never seen the main arena, you arrived and you've been down in the training grounds since! You may be the newest punching bag, you may be a rising star, you still have to bow down before the arena winners!
4. Matinee special!: Nobody takes you seriously, you end up in fights against the local Nuns After Prayer club with weapons like rubber chickens and foam bats!
5. I'm an apprentice!: You arrived in the latest shipment of arena slaves but let's be honest you have arms like wet noodles and they'd feel bad sticking you in the arena. You are now apprenticed to the arena healer/doctor/sawbones/weapon smith whatever!
6. Decompressing: Life is hard as an arena combatant, sometimes you just have to unwind in your chambers under/around the arena.
7. Blue Plate special: There's just something about a strong fighter...you may be a rich patron purchasing a few hours of time with a gladiator, you may be the paid for combatant, have at?
8. Spectator:You are in the stands, lucky you! Do you know the person on the field? Did you bring a friend to watch the blood being spilled? (it's okay we understand the appeal)
9. Monster Mash!: Sometimes people just need to see others torn apart by vicious monsters. Lions, tigers, mutant gila monsters, they have teeth and claws and such and you have...hands. Lucky you.
10. Death Match: Oh my, can you kill? The match isn't over until you do. Two on two, one on one, are you hard enough to follow through?
11. Choose your own!: Same as above, have at and wreak havoc!

Comments

[homeless_pard]

"I fear you will learn a great deal of mediocre problems and the lack of dignity many have in the face of minor ills," she chuckled softly. "Many can be brave in a fight but quail in the face of infirmity. It may not be a...flattering...set of stories you hear."

[itachi_san]

But boring? No.

And really, what choice did he have?

[homeless_pard]

No, certainly not boring. The walls were certainly not soundproof, not by far, and the clamor without would try the patience of a saint. And a saint Khemrys certainly was not. It got bad enough at a point that there was the rather loud sound of a door slamming and a stressed sounding healer saying "You, you , you and you! Yes, you are hardly injured, go about your business! And you three there have the unguents you need, be gone. And you lord guard if you do not leave I will send the next frantic, pregnant woman to your door!"

She would, too.

Probably.

"There now, you and you, you have some rough training. You are to bandage." She was not a forceful woman but sometimes a Healer was NOT to be ignored. Truth told she preferred her halls in the evening when very few were about in the dark.

She only hoped, in the mêlée, that she did not miss anyone attempting to enter her sick rooms.

[itachi_san]

It may not have been the stories he was used to hearing. For one, her language was far less vulgar. But it was peaceful to Itachi as he drifted between periods of rest and wakefulness.

[homeless_pard]

It was a sad truth that even the harshest words she knew would barely approach the level of vulgar. In a sense that worked in her favor because her words were never mistaken for those of another in this place, in others, well, she had been told there was a great deal of stress relief in such language use.

Eventually the crowd thinned out naturally as such was wont to do in the evenings. One of her long term patients in the room beside Itachi's was declared fit for returning to his own quarters, and then she was knocking softly on his door before poking her head to check if he was sleeping even yet. "Lord? We've bandaging to check and the another meal," two meals a day she could provide without unduly watering the soup. Despite that tonight's stew was still more potato and carrot than meat. "And then if you wish I will have time to sit with you awhile," barring emergencies.

[itachi_san]

He had dozed slightly, but nothing deep. Old habits were hard to change. He sat up a little straighter, exposing the bandages that she would need to peel away.

He glanced at the second meal with a mix of surprise and gratitude. As a prisoner, there was no such thing as unduly watering down the soup. It was mostly water, all in all. And sometimes, he just didn't care to question what might have turned the water that disturbing color of brown. This was a feast.

"All right..."

[homeless_pard]

There was a point, as she had explained to the Ringmaster before, where a meal became useless and she did her best to avoid that. Still, she often had to make the choice between bartering for herbs or staples from those that supplied the arena and it oft seemed in her mind she made the wrong choices. Emergencies rarely timed themselves to the schedule of her supplies.

"It is perfectly alright to tell me you do not wish company as well," She chuckled and set the food beside him at his words, intent on carefully peeling away the bandaging. The salve she had applied to help combat infection also aided in keeping the material from sticking too harshly, but she did not wish to cause undue pain regardless. "This room is your home for as long as you may stay and as such you have as much say to the actions within as I might."

[itachi_san]

Itachi simply looked down for a glimpse at the damage that had been done. He couldn't see it clearly, but he could draw conclusions from the sheer size of the discolored areas.

"Is it... healing?"

[homeless_pard]

"It has been a day Lord," she chuckled softly. "It is trying to recover, healing will begin when the damages have faded somewhat. The flesh is as healthy as it may be, no signs of infection..." She laid a warm hand just above the wounds made to set bones, letting power trickle under his skin to help reinforce that which was holding the bone shards. "Despite your illness you have never truly been harmed? Even as a child you escaped broken bones and scraped skin?"

[itachi_san]

Itachi winced a little at the warmth of her touch before realizing exactly what it was.

"For the most part..."

He was touted as a prodigy from infancy onward, and had learned the art of combat as easy as most children learned to walk. (He fought in the war when he was four, as unbelievable as that was.) Yes, he had escaped major injuries, save a cut or scrape here or there.

The ringmaster's boasts, the crowd turning out night after night to see if anyone could actually take him down... there was truth to it. Real truth.

[homeless_pard]

She would have to maintain that bracing along his bones; she had no other way to ensure the smaller bits wouldn't slip. Even so she didn't care for his chances if he caught another blow to the same ribs later.

"That seems so strange," she admitted, salving once more. "Even when I was young I was a constant source of worry to the Dames, and I had far fewer childish adventures than most. Before this event I might even say I carry more scars than yourself."

[itachi_san]

"...Not all scars... can be seen... on the outside..."

Outwardly invincible. Inwardly broken. It was rather ironic.

[homeless_pard]

"True, Lord, fair true. Lean forward as you are able?" To rewrap, then he could lay still once more. "I believe I promised tales in time. What would you care to hear?" She would not ask he talk overly much, but if he had questions of her she would attempt to answer them.

[itachi_san]

He leaned forward as best he could while the bandages were once again wrapped around him. They were tight enough to put pressure on the wounds, but loose enough that he could breathe, as labored as it often was.

"Tell me..." he replied after a long thoughtful pause that, as it usually did, focused mainly on Sasuke. "Tell me... about your family..."

[homeless_pard]

"Ah, that would be a long tale," she admitted. "Grant me a moment to fetch work? I find I sit still for long tales far better if my hands are busy." And she had his shirt to mend; she'd foolishly left it in her stillroom, drying with her other linens.

Still, it was but a moments time to fetch it and her small basket of sewing things. When she was resettled by his bed she...tried to decide where to start. At the beginning perhaps. "Many years ago now the Dales were invaded, swarmed by men of ill intent and horrid alliance. They brought machines none had ever seen before and laid waste to many holdings. One such was my mother's, Lady Tirath, of noble house born but that counts for little when the keep lies in ruins beneath the boots of invaders. As she fled she met my father, a strange man of dark appearance and Old Blood, and he was named Herwyrd. He had become separated from his brothers, and in each other they found comfort and a love strong enough to destroy them." Perhaps she had a very odd idea of love given her truest example lived as a ghost after her father's death.

"I never met him, or rather had no memory of such. When I was but a babe my mother rode into Rhystead abbey with her dying man across her saddle and me swaddled upon her back. He did not live beyond the night having suffered many grievous wounds. My mother became a quiet, haunted thing after that and the Dames of Rhystead took it upon themselves to raise me as she faded away. Of the Dames I was closest to Dame Rimia, she taught me stillwork and healing, but as all the dames there she was elderly, and in time she too passed. I am glad she was not present to hear the new abbess set hunt upon me."

[itachi_san]

Itachi merely listened.

It was a sad tale, and he pictured it in his mind as vividly as she weaved it. Perhaps it was just as sad as the one Sasuke had been forced to weave. Your family dying, one you love turning against you... In the end, he was no better than the abbess, though their intentions were probably as similar as night and day.

"I'm sorry..."

[homeless_pard]

"Hnnn?" she lifted her head curiously, bemused by that apology. "Do not apologize for a life you did not know. I was the one who said I would speak of it." And even so there had been little detail in the story; how could it sadden so?

"And your shirt is fair tattered. I will have to add to it to make it whole. Would you prefer leather or rags of color differences?" She had the skins of the rabbits she ate and other odds and ends in her sewing basket so best to ask.

[itachi_san]

It reminded him of something, that was all. The apology simply came out, even if it didn't directly aply to the story.

"Given that... It is unlikely I will be... given any new armor to replace this... leather would provide more protection..." He answered hesitantly. "If... that is all right..."

[homeless_pard]

"I would not offer what I cannot give freely," she admitted softly. "Do not worry that I will gift you beyond my means. That said, it is soft tanned, not boiled, so I do not know how much more protection it will be..." she was not, alas, an armorer.

"In kinder times I use the skins to make..." she pause,d tilting her head as she felt the wards on her stillroom pulse. "We are to have company." Only the Ringmaster was so bold as to try her personal room without the warning of a knock.

[itachi_san]

The way she stopped her sentence short sent a chill through his spine, though he couldn't explain why. But he could at least gather that the company she mentioned wasn't exactly welcome.

[homeless_pard]

She settled her hands, and the evidence of her sewing, in her lap and did her best to appear decorous. "The lord guards may stay without, Ringmaster," she called when the door handle to Itahci's recovery room turned. The man who entered scowled to hear such a command but...

...there had been complaints about the guards at times so he nodded and stepped within. His lips thinned to see her seated so close to a violent criminal, she would be a hard asset to replace without warning. "Khemrys, step aside. You are to keep a distance from him," he growled softly, then glared when the healer did not comply. "Woman..."

"I am aware of the risk, Ringmaster, even as you are aware of my protections. He has offered me greater kindness than your own men to this point."

[itachi_san]

Itachi eyed the Ringmaster with the subtle rage befitting a member of one of his most notorious criminal gangs. How much of it was real and how much of it was merely a facade was impossible to tell. And that was as it should be.

"Had I wanted to kill her... she would already be dead." he spoke coldly, so unlike the tone Khemrys was used to hearing, and with more stength than anyone preceived him capable of. "...What do you want?"

[homeless_pard]

The fine hairs on the back of Khemrys's neck rose at that tone from her patient but...otherwise she did not react. It would be far, far too easy to be swallowed by fear trapped between these two men and so she set her resolve to avoid such. She would be free to be shaken later.

In answer to Itachi's challenge the Ringmaster stepped forward to wrap a hand in Khemrys's hair, tugging her aside so she might sit in the far corner for this. "She is worth a great deal more than you, and I have paid far less for her than you have cost me. If she comes to any harm from you or your gang, Traitor, you will all be executed." No fighting to the death, simple, clean beheading and burial in the far field. "And you finally took a blow, you should be dead. Since you're not obviously you'll be able to make your next fight in a few days."

Khemrys curled her fists in her skirt, angered beyond words at that statement. "No."

[itachi_san]

His composure didn't slip when he grabbed her hair, nor when he was threatened with his own execution. After all, his composure never slipped.

"So..." Itachi forced himself to speak firmly. "He made the challenge."

There was heavy emphasis on the word 'he,' and both men knew exactly who was being referred to. Sasuke Uchiha.

[homeless_pard]

The Ringmaster snorted, darkly amused. "Every day since he arrived," he admitted, "but you're not facing him." Sasuke was the last of the Uchiha line. The world had a bit of an obligation to keep the boy alive.

And Itachi was a sneaky, underhanded bastard. He wouldn't risk the boy even if fight odds would draw people from all over the country. "Woman, ensure he can stand three days from now."

"You swore upon your honor and your blood that I would be granted the full rights of a healer; the right to treat any that come unto my care and the right to step in when a foolish lord would demand that which damages my patients," Khemrys spoke darkly from her corner.

"He is an exception, he's a dead man walking. If you disobey me in this Khemrys it won't go well for you."

She closed her eyes, taking those words as one would a slap, "and if you force my hand in this, Ringmaster, you will stand forsworn before one of the Old Blood." And she sounded as if that were a far greater curse than mere words.