open

[ka_sera_sera]

Who| Roland and anyone
What| Hey, tributes, meet some of your newest competition. He's making a fabulous first impression.
Where| District 4 suite and/or anywhere in the Training Center accessible by elevator
When| minutes after Roland's arrival
Warnings/Notes| none so far?

The light overcomes him, and he screams "Please! Not again! Have pity! Have mercy!"  It's what he's always screams. The one moment in which he truly can choose to say anything, the one in which he is fully himself, and he always cries out the same thing. A part of him always knows this, and the rest of him is always too overcome to care.

He's too overcome, even, to take much note of the little details. No smell of alkali and dust here, no baking heat. White light instead, a vision amidst it, a single blade of purple grass. He sees these details, but does not really process them. He thinks of only the doorway, the pull of his body toward it in that moment before the light reaches him and begins to burn. Some time later, he'll think that Cort probably would cuff him for it. In a life full of important moments, this is the one that dwarfs them all, and he is too overcome by something as petty as his own horror and panic to deal with it in any manner befitting a gunslinger. When he thinks this, later, he'll wonder if it might be an offense worth giving up his guns for, and when he remembers that he already has done so, that it would be too late in any case, he will not laugh. What little humor he possesses does not stretch so far as that. But almost.

But that is later. In the now he is stretched out on a cold, hard surface, looking at cold, sterile walls and it is so unlike any moment that has ever come after that he just blinks up at the ceiling and thinks nothing at all. Waits for the dizziness to set in, the thirst, his own plea echoing through his mind and the smell of roses.

What happens instead is a pair of strangers who come, who speak, who take him by the arms and usher him into an ele-vaydor that opens into a set of rooms. In a scarred, two-fingered hand he clutches the small machine he's been given, feeling the cold of it bite into his palm and thinking little of the feeling. He stumbles in a circle instead, one shoulder pressing against the wall as he watches the ele-vaydor's doors close. His face is slack, surprised; he's amazed that he remembers what it is at all.

And if he uses it, just because he can? If he steps inside and presses a button or two, wondering vaguely if the doors will open again on somewhere familiar? Should you see this shocked, wasted man wandering around your suite, or the training room, or anywhere that moving coffin of a room can reach, know that he is at perhaps the most vulnerable point of his life, and please do be gentle.

Or don't. Hey, don't let me tell you what to do.

Comments

[dividedgirlofmine]

Susannah is reading a book in the common room of the District Ten suite when the elevator bell dings. A guest? Zoolander back from wherever he's been Zoolanding? Another new tribute for their district, like Sai Easter Bunny? But it's none of those things that stumbles out of the elevator. Instead it's--

"Roland?" The word tumbles out of her mouth before her brain completely processes that he's there. "Roland! Oh Lord, Roland, they got you too?"

And she's on her new mechanical legs (porcelain, blue flowers on white, forspecial) and running over to him so that she can wrap her arms around him. "Roland. I'm-- I'm sorry."

That he's here. For the way they parted.

"I'm so sorry."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Susannah?" He frowns down at where his arms have wrapped themselves around her, at his fingers, running over one of the curls of her hair. "I think I've lost some time somewhere," he murmurs, "I--"

There his voice catches, his eyes stop a little ways above the floor. They look like stockings, at first, except for the way the light shines off them. "I've never seen the like." He hasn't. His arms slide off her and he hunkers, running a hand behind one knee and then squinting up at her.

"Which time did you get these? I don't remember."

[dividedgirlofmine]

Time? "Yesterday," she says. "I earned the money by killin' in the arena. You shouldn't recognize them, honey, I never had 'em when I was with you." She crouches down--pleased she doesn't overset herself, like she did last time she tried to crouch--to where she's level with him. "Roland, honey, you sound delirious. C'mon. Why don't we sit down on the couch together an' I'll give you some water to drink an' we'll figure out how much you know about where we are."

[ka_sera_sera]

She's talking as if her time with him is at an end. Yet here they are. He blinks up from his absent study of those legs and the flowers climbing up them, and considers her words. Ever reasonable, isn't she? Ever kind. Ever strong enough to be kind.

"That sounds fine." Instead of rising and following through with her suggestion, Roland stays squatting there, spends a moment taking in her face. "You look fine. And fine it is to see you again. You deserve a better sendoff. A gunslinger true and brave as you. Perhaps I'll try to give you one."

[dividedgirlofmine]

Of course she is. She'd left him to go through the Unfound Door--only to be snatched away as soon as it had shut behind her.

She reaches to touch his face, to caress his cheek. "Okay. We'll sit together for a spell. I'm guessin' since you're talkin' like I left you that you're from after me. They can grab people from anywhen, Roland, but I don't think they're Sombra. I-- I don't think the Crimson King had anythin' to do with this, this is pure human awfulness." She breathes out slowly. "You can tell me about reachin' the Tower, if reach it you did."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland turns his face toward her hand, just a little, but when she reaches the end of her sentence his whole body goes still. After that one still moment he reaches up to grasp her hand, leans back a little until he's sitting on the floor and tries to pull their entwined hands down to rest on his knee. "You remember. Tell me how much you remember."

"I think--" He stills himself, deliberate this time, and takes a breath. "I think I may be missing much. Too much. You may have to go slow."

[dividedgirlofmine]

She sits down with him. The floor's a bit cold, but she's sat on worse and her skirt's just long enough that she doen't end up with bare skin touching it.

Well," she says quietly, "last thing I remember before I came here, I went through a door that Patrick drew after you warned me not to go through it. I was hardly on the other side before the people runnin' things here snatched me up. I'm afraid--" She doesn't want to say it, but she owes the truth to him. "I'm afraid they took the gun you gave me before I came to."

She squeezes Roland's hand. "I remember pretty much everythin' that happened, sugar, from when you took over our body and wheeled us onto that beach to Patrick drawin' me that door. Good times and bad. I missed you, you know. Wouldn't have wished this place on you, not ever, but I missed you."

[ka_sera_sera]

A part of him notes the our, of course, wonders how close Detta is to the surface, but right now it feels like yet another detail, one that can wait. Too many details right now, too few ways to sort through them.

"Then you remember everything. But that can't be, Susannah, because I-" Roland realizes he's leaning forward, that he's about to grip her shoulders, as if she's some broken machine that must be shaken before sense comes out. He breathes out, sits back. "Because I remember everything too. I'm not hearing sense here, so I must be the problem. I need to speak true with you. But I'm not sure where to start."

He draws his bent knees down into crossed legs, and the movement pulls his eyes toward the empty space at his hip. It's as good a detail as any to start with, isn't it? "I don't begrudge you the lost gun. How could I, when I've willingly laid down my own so many times? And will again, if I can only find it. Someone snatched you?" Roland frowns down at her knees, seemingly unbothered by his own abrupt subject change.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Closer than Susannah would like, truly, even here, in the Capitol, where the parts of her that were Odetta once have of necessity gained ascendance. Thankfully the bitch seems willing to bide her time now--she's been mostly quiet since that the sleepover at Harley's.

"The Gamemakers," Susannah says. "They're the people who run this place. They send us out to fight each other to the death an' they bring us back to life so we can do it all over again. There's near a hundred of us now, all stuck here, snatched up from our own lives."

She gives his hand another squeeze. "What's the last thing you remember, Roland? Before coming here."

[ka_sera_sera]

He nods, slowly. "Gamemakers." His head's beginning to clear, he thinks, fog he hadn't known was there starting to lift, and his mind grasps clumsily at the facts she's laying out. "Took you from behind the door. I remember- I remember serving the Tower's purpose. Surely I must be, still."

He's not ignoring the mention of her death, not at all. But again, if he's going to get through this, it's got to be one thing at a time. She's here in front of him, so clearly talk of death can wait.

Roland's free hand runs over his face, the other still holding tightly to hers. "Cry pardon, Susannah. I'm not sure of my memories yet, or I'd speak more plainly. How many..." He searches for a way to say it. Fails. "How many times do you remember?"

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Times?" She's looking at him worriedly. She is worried for him--worried and reminded of how he'd gone a little mad trying to reconcile the memories of Jake and not-Jake. "Roland, what do you mean about times?"

[ka_sera_sera]

He sees the look on her face, but doesn't protest at it. Perhaps she's right to worry. "I mean... Damn it all, I don't know what I mean!"

Roland presses a fist to his temple. Takes a breath. Tries again. "There was a word for it. I know there was. But I can't remember that either. Vannay would be disappointed, I think." Though probably not surprised. But nothing of that is anything like an explanation.

"I mean I remember meeting you. Seeing you for the first time." His eyes close, a part of him going back there. "I remember that first time twenty times over." His brow furrows. "More. I've met you, trained you, led you and begged you not to leave more times than I can count. And it always ends at the Tower, and always begins there, in the desert."

He opens his eyes again and frowns at her. "I remember begging you. And you remember it, too. So I must be at the end. But here you are, and we haven't yet met. I've never had this conversation before." That's plain enough, isn't it? Surely.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Susannah listens closely, trying to parse out what Roland is saying. "Sugar, are you tryin' to say that you've been livin' things over an' over again?"

It sounds-- ridiculous. Awful.

Just like the kind of thing that man who wrote the book about them would do.

She slides an arm around his shoulder. Squeezes it a little. "They-- they take you out of where you're supposed to be in your life. It doesn't matter ka says you should be somewhere else. Whatever they do to us, it takes us right out of the path ka's laid out for us. I know, Roland. I-- I've met a boy who I know is gonna grow into a man, who's goin to die in maybe ten years time, and he's here instead. That's... that's probably why we haven't had this conversation before, Roland."

[ka_sera_sera]

He leans against her, shaking his head. "I thought I was out of ka's path too. I told you. Didn't I? I remember I told you we were beyond ka." Roland pauses a moment, and when he continues, his voice is hard. "I'll not make that mistake again."

"If I'm here, Susannah, if you're here--" His hands grip her shoulders a moment, then slide down as he sags, leaning back against the wall. "Oh, I don't know. There must be something." All the hardness has left his voice by now. Mostly, he only sounds tired. "You say those who took you have nothing to do with Los' or his ilk?"

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Don't think so," she says. "Can't rightly say for certain, but..." She shrugs. "I think if they were I'd have run across somethin' more or less familiar by now an' I haven't. There's no sign of low men or taheen or vampires or anythin' like that. None of the codes Pere Callahan taught us. An'... I don't know, this just has a different feel to it to me."

She gives his shoulder another squeeze. "It's a small comfort, I guess. That we're only being held captive by particularly wicked humans."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Held captive together." He rests his head back against the wall, lets his gaze rest on nothing in particular. Starts to take the room in for the first time. A very pretty cage.

"It's usually a sign of overconfidence." Here his gaze shifts to her and holds there a moment, curious. He doesn't truly think that's the case, not if she's been trapped here long enough to speak of it with such familiarity. What he does think is that he'd like to hear her thoughts on the matter.

"We don't need to worry about the forces of the Red, anyway. The time for their work is done." Roland gives his head a quick shake, brow furrowed.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"That so?" Susannah expects he's right. They saved the writer and stopped the breakers and Roland--Roland must have got at the Crimson King somehow

"I know a little 'bout these games we're stuck in," she says, looking at him. "From people I've talked to. They've been doin' them for about seventy-six years or so, but until about a year or so ago, they just did 'em with their own people. They divided the country up into twelve parts an' this city an' they imported boys an' girls from those twelve parts an' they'd all fight until only one was left. Now... now they take people from other worlds--I 'spect it's with doors--more an' more of 'em all the time, an' they bring some back from the dead if they think they're sufficiently entertainin'."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland shakes off the disquiet from his statement, pushes it back - he's not sure why he said it, only that it's true - and listens very carefully to Susannah's explanation. Once she finishes he turns the words over in his mind, and doesn't particularly like what he reads between them.

She'd said something similar earlier, hadn't she? Something he hadn't noted at the time. Something about bringing the dead back to life. Something about killing. Earning money for killing. His gaze rests a moment on her fine new legs but then he prioritizes, looks up carefully into her eyes. "And how entertaining have you been, Susannah?" It's not a question so much as a suggestion, a low murmur, his voice very gentle.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Fairly," she admits quietly. "Maybe not as much the first time when I mostly just hid in a cave and then taunted a dino into eatin' me. The second time, though, I got seven people before the end an' that's a respectable number even for people with legs."

She touches the top of one of her fine new legs. "The money you get's per kill. It's added incentive, I guess, 'cause there are plenty of people who just refuse to, even though the only way out is death or bein' the last one standin'. They'd rather have the arena stretch on forever and everyone die starvin' with clear consciences, but I can't do that, Roland. Hunger's is a terrible way to die."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Yes. It is." Roland slides his arms around her shoulders, pulls her close. "You've done very well, Susannah Dean of New York. You've done what you needed." His cheek brushes her hair, his lips press briefly at the top of her head.

Using the skills of a gunslinger as if the word simply means 'mercenary', it's a perversion. Worse than that. It stirs something deep inside him, something hot and angry, but that anger won't turn toward her. Not for this. "I can't quite recall, but I think our ka-tet must be long broken. So I can't give you the pardon of a dinh. But if you'll have it, I can give you the forgiveness of a friend."

[dividedgirlofmine]

She closes her eyes at the touch of that kiss. It's something she's badly needed, more than she ever even realized. "You're still my dinh, Roland, tet or no tet. I'd cry your pardon anyway." She's shaking a little. She hadn't expected that.

"I'm glad, glad you understand. I don't-- I have to do something, Roland, I can't just refuse to act an' then pat myself on the back for making the moral choice while I wait for someone else to kill me. There's killin' or there's suicide an' if I kill I can at least try to make it that they die fast an' clean an' that's better than a slow death of poison or drownin' in tar."

She should have refused the money, like she did when she'd accidentally shot Eddie in on the dino island, but she'd wanted legs so bad, had watched Maximus walking his metal leg with a deep, clear envy that had startled her in its ferocity.

[ka_sera_sera]

"You did what you needed," he repeats, feels the shaking and tightens his arms a little. He knows well enough the sound of someone who needs to talk just to talk, to hear themselves speak and try to soothe their conscience.

"If you need to speak of it more, I'll listen." He'll listen as long as she needs him to. There's more to the situation he needs to learn, his mind has cleared enough to know that, but as long as there's time for this then it comes first.

[dividedgirlofmine]

"It's just-- they're callin' me an 'aspirational figure' down in the city. I heard that newsman, Mr Flickerman, say that. Because I didn't let havin' no legs keep me from killin' a mess of people who'd never done me wrong. An' none of 'em had, Roland, they were all just people I came across in a vulnerable position. I couldn't do anything to anyone who actually deserved it!"

She draws a deep breath and lets it out. "An'... an' I have to keep smilin'. Now that I'm out I have to stay smilin' and be gracious and charmin' and pretend that what they're doin' here isn't a goddamn travesty. Because I want to keep coming back, I need more time if--"

And then she stops, because she can't say that she wants to take them down, for Eddie of District Three's sake and because the Games themselves are a mockery of justice. She doesn't know who's listening.

So instead she just leans her head against Roland's and hopes that they're still enough of a ka-tet that he'll know anyway.

[ka_sera_sera]

He waits a moment more, but that seems to be it. He thinks it's enough. There are people, he knows, who wouldn't want to keep living through something like what Susannah's described. But none of them are gunslingers. The steel inside of her has been honed into a fine, deadly edge and his is the hand who honed it.

"I know well what it means to do anything to survive. Who'd know better than I?" Memories proving that statement true begin to crowd against his thoughts. A few at first, then too many, each varying only a little from the last. He breathes a harsh breath out, turns his head slowly back and forth against hers. A hand on the back of Susannah's neck helps push them away, the skin warm and real under his. "I only wish you hadn't had to learn that lesson quite so well as you have. But here we are."

"Something will come, Susannah. Now that the both of us are here. What evil has there ever been that two gunslingers together couldn't vanish?"

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Three," she corrects, softly. "An' that's at minimum. There's people here who'd make for good gunslingers, I think, if it were possible to train 'em. One of the last people who won the old games, Katniss, she's one of the best shots with a bow an' arrow I've seen. An' there's others." Eddie. He'd been a gunslinger once and could easily be again. And Wyatt and probably that Mindy girl. And if she watched the arena footage more, like she'd promised Howard, she'd probably be able to pick out more of 'em.

She closes her eyes. "I've missed you," she says, although she said it before, earlier. It bears repeating.

Another thought strikes her. "Patrick, Oy, how were they when you saw 'em last?"