thecapitol | we walk in love but fly in chains

Entry tags:

we walk in love but fly in chains

Who| Roland, the Signless
What| gift giving and figuring out what 'going out on a date' actually entails
Where| vague places around the Capitol
When| recently, a little while after the space arena
Warnings/Notes| none likely, will update if any are needed

The thing about Panem - aside from the imprisonment, the death, the bloodsport and the perpetual, crushing lack of options - is that it is predictable. Once Roland had started to get a feel for the place, for the way the Capitol's attention moves, shifting from one imagined drama to the next but always locked solidly onto their 'tributes', he'd realized the attention felt familiar. Being known as the heir of Eld and son of the Lord of Light, in meaning, could not be more different from being a tribute of this strange, cruel land. In effect, however, the similarities are clear, no matter how little he likes to think on them.

Which is to say, when one knows the time of an interview, but not the name of the news-man doing it nor the place it'll happen, those latter are not so difficult to figure out. The reporters of this place fight for attention and fame the same way nobles and lesser diplomats used to tear into one another in those old, gone days to the same purpose. If one has been keeping track of the appearances made by his - well, his quadrantmate is probably the best word - and knows the pattern in which Panem's 'TV personalities' tend to tear into one another, then one can figure out where that quadrantmate is going to be with a minimum of fiddling with one's holo-gram wristwatch machine that one has not yet precisely figured the use of.

So it is that Roland crouches behind one of Panem's elaborately designed, perfumed dumpsters with a fair view of both the front and back paths out of this particular news-building. As vantage points go it was not his first choice, but so long as it keeps him out of sight of those few fans who've followed the same thought-path as Roland himself, he will stay in this spot and be grateful. He watches the two exits, ignroing the flakes drifting over his hair and shoulders because the snowfall is sparse and not a problem yet. Of course, if Signless is wearing a hood against it it might become one, but the shape of the man's body is plenty familiar. If a short, squared figure starts out either path, he'll have to risk leaving his cover to check.

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Signless is feeling, on the whole, just a little overwhelmed. This is more interest than anyone's shown in him in the past year-and-a-half combined and he's still adjusting to it. It's exhausting being in the spotlight, keeping all of his answers charming and interesting but also vague and unlikely to result in unexpected fallout. It's with relief that he steps out of the building, intent on heading back to the tribute tower and sitting somewhere quiet for a while.

He pauses outside to re-arrange his scarf and flip up the collar of his coat (black with fake black 'stones' sewn on in swirling patterns, meant to evoke thoughts of his assigned district). This is his second winter in Panem but the cold is still not exactly his favorite thing about the place. He's even given in and worn real shoes.

Ah, good. Roland stands and ignores the way his knees pop at the motion, walks toward Signless and ignores the noises of surprise from a couple hiding places to his left. His own coat's less decorated but still fashionable, its cut full of points and angles, because it's less effort in this city to give in and occasionally be a little bit fashionable.

Most importantly, it has pockets. Not false ones, like the ones on all Panem's damned jeans, but working pockets, just big enough to hold what he needs kept in them. "Signless," Roland says, catching up to him. Don't worry on how he might have seemed to just appear. He wasn't tracking Signless through the city and then hiding out for a quarter of an hour to speak to him. It's all very casual here. Totally seeing each other by chance. "I know how busy you've been, but I've something long overdue to give you. Do you have a spare minute before your next meeting?"

Edited 2015-01-19 19:12 (UTC)

It says quite a lot about the Signless and what his relationship with the Disciple was like that he doesn't seem too surprised to find his quadrantmate appearing out of thin air unexpectedly. If anything he'd expect to be pounced on and tackled to the ground, but it's something of a relief when that doesn't happen (and Roland doesn't seem the type, anyway). He doesn't fancy the thought of falling face-first into the snow.

"Luckily for both of us, I'm done for today." He catches sight of a group of Capitolites (a few of them in fake horns and gray makeup) advancing on them and decides he wants absolutely none of that. Time to make a hasty escape.

"Walk with me?"

"Mhm." Roland takes a second to fall into the rhythm of Signless' shorter steps. His expression's distracted, mind on the token in his pocket. He is not precisely nervous, because so far as Roland is concerned the only reason for that would be if Signless' regard for him were at stake. That, he is certain, would take a fairly extraordinary set of circumstances and it does not occur to him to even be concerned about it.

This is important, though. A gift of some significance, which ought to be presented with the right words. Those words have not been planned or practiced, because even when it comes to speeches Roland has always done best deciding his steps as he makes them. He opens his mouth, maybe to suggest they head somewhere less public and maybe to start right on in, but the world never finds out which because-

"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod." Which is not a way Roland would ever in his life begin a sentence. He turns. Near and getting nearer is a capitolite - you can tell because of the fashion - and they look thrilled.

These are the people whose favor helps them stay alive, Roland reminds himself. His expression goes blank, patient, and the way he eyes the approaching others is not too obvious.

"Were you really right next to me? I had no idea! You were waiting for him weren't you!" They don't wait for Roland to deny or confirm this, which is a good thing, as he was not going to. "Oh, those asswipes are never going to believe this, I need a picture."

With that they scrunch themselves next to Signless, holding one of the many machines in this place out at arm's length in front of them, and then pause, looking at him. "You smell really nice. Like, really nice. I bet someone's-" And here their eyes flick to Roland and back - "told you that already."

"I can't say anyone has," he says. As far as he knows he smells no different today than he always does. "But thank you."

"Well they should have," they say, snapping a second picture. By now the rest of the group has caught up with them -- mostly young women, a few young men, and one very out-of-place middle-aged man. Many of them sport horns, and none of the horns are the right colors.

"Are you on a date?" asks one of them, eyes wide. The others all perk up, clearly interested in the answer.

"Are we?" he asks, looking past the mane of bubblegum pink hair (out of which poke a pair of curly purple horns) that separates him and Roland to give the other man a look.

He raises his eyebrows, considers. He knows what 'date' means here in Panem. Not simply a prearranged meeting, as it might in his old home, but something reserved only for courting couples. Signless must know that too, and doesn't seem opposed to the idea. Is he asking for the sake of the fans or is he really asking?

No way to tell now. "I don't know how trolls go a'courting," Roland says, ignoring the way the explosion of pink hair draws back from between their shoulders so its owner can beam at them. "Is there anything-"

"You'll win, easy," interrupts the older man, and Roland looks at him for the first time. That face is familiar, isn't it? He's seen that high nose and the thin, small mouth somewhere before, heard that voice...

"Trolls fight for their mates with their horns but you're so fast, you'll be able to save Signless from his evil troll boyfriends in like two seconds."

"Hey!" comes a protest from another Capitolite. "Initiate isn't evil, we've talked about this!"

Trying to sort out that odd familiarity becomes suddenly less important. Of more concern is looking back at Signless, asking him a silent, blankfaced question. It's a question that won't get voiced, but if it did it would sound something like: What, and also possibly, the fuck.

Signless has a very quiet, fierce internal battle for all of half a second over whether he should correct the vast amount of incorrect assumptions in those few sentences. He decides that it's probably not worth it. Instead he returns Roland's look with an almost imperceptible shrug.

"He'll get evil when he finds out his boyfriend's been stolen by some old--"

"Excuse you--"

"Shut up, Steve, you know it's true--"

"He does already know," Signless points out in an attempt to stop this squabble from getting out of hand. He has not yet been up close and personal with his fans when they decide to argue amongst themselves and he would like for that to continue being the case. "And he approves. Thus-far it hasn't been an issue at all."

Then something occurs to him and his brows draw down in confusion.

"Troll boyfriends?"

Edited 2015-02-05 06:14 (UTC)

They don't care to answer the question. They're too busy gaping, most of them.

"The ot4 is real," someone near the back of the group whispers, reverently. Roland, who has no idea what that means but who has seen a fair amount of religious fervor in his time, takes the pink-haired Capitolite gently by the shoulders and, smiling politely, moves them out from between him and Signless and more toward their brethren.

"Oooh, so that means the Psiionic--" This one interrupts herself to nudge the boy grinning beside her, then goes on. "You were right! Him and the Initiate must be about to get back together, I mean, it just makes sense!"

"You're going to meet them, aren't you?" The boy grins back at her for a second and then starts digging in his pack, darting eager looks at Signless as he talks. "I have a fanmix for that, just one second- it'll set the mood like you wouldn't believe, if you know what I mean."

He looks like he's just about to give some sort of exaggerated, knowing wink, and if Roland thought he could successfully interrupt at this point he might do so. But some situations, like runaway trains, are like to flatten anyone who doesn't get out of the way and let them run right off the tracks. This conversation, he's fairly sure, is one of them.

Edited 2015-02-07 01:38 (UTC)

Signless, sensing that Roland is perhaps out of his depth, decides to put the brakes on this train before it rolls itself into a ravine. He has more than enough experience with keeping groups far larger and more dangerous than this under control.

"You keep it," he says. "Initiate is the musical one. You ought to give it to him. Personally." Sorry, Kurloz. The boy, apparently satisfied with this, sets his pack down again. The fanmix remains safely tucked away.

"But we are on our way somewhere and we really ought to get going. If you want any last pictures you should take them now."

A few other members of the gaggle crowd in for pictures. One demands that he sign her horn. While they're distracted holding up their devices next to each other and comparing photos, he takes Roland's hand and starts walking away at what he hopes is a pace both slow enough to not draw attention and brisk enough for a hasty escape.

Before that escape can be complete, Roland needs to shift the keen gaze of that one they'd called Steve. He does this simply by meeting the man's eyes and then seeming distracted by whatever photograph another capitolite is showing on her little device, leaning toward it and looking interested, and watching Steve turn toward whatever Roland is looking at. In this way he manages not to hear whatever it was Steve looked like he'd been about to say, and will hopefully manage a quick and painless escape.

Roland thinks the key to that is the same here as it is when running for your life: don't look back. So instead he looks for a quick corner to turn down, trying to match the streets to the map of the city that he's got in his mind and find something that isn't a dead end. Soon he sees a likely one, and nods toward it.

"That was well done," he says, and you can bet your ass that the fact that Signless has a friendly way with crowds has been noted. "We ought to make sure we've no followers but there's still something I'd like to give you, since you've time, and I'd rather not do it in an alley. Though I suppose the place makes little difference." Letting Signless decide the place feels right, he thinks, and doesn't quite notice how his free hand has settled in his pocket again, absently brushing at what it finds there.

Edited 2015-03-02 15:54 (UTC)

"I've dealt with groups far larger and more insistent than that," he says. It's not something he really thinks of as notable, but then he wouldn't when it was such an ingrained part of his existence for so long. "And I've had a lot of practice."

He considers, briefly, giving in to curiosity and saying he doesn't mind the alley in order to see whatever it is that Roland has for him sooner, but then he remembers the fresh snow on the ground and their easily-followed footprints and thinks better of it. He can wait.

"We could always do what they assumed we were doing and go out somewhere. There are plenty of places to choose from -- and I haven't eaten since this morning." It's a marvel to think that his body has grown used to eating regularly instead of on a schedule of careful rationing, and that it won't unlearn that with his next death. He isn't going to die again.

Edited 2015-03-03 04:16 (UTC)

"Food first, then." He leads Signless by their clasped hands down the alley, watching the snowfall for a second. Cold he's no stranger to, occasionally even ice, but snow's a good deal more rare, especially falling slow and light like this. It looks like ash.

"We'll make an evening of it," he says, turning his gaze away from the small, pale flakes and back toward Signless' profile. "Though doing that here - when they said date I don't expect they thought we'd be going out. If this were a date to court a lady back in Gilead - hm. Guess we'd be on some long, chaperoned walk around a garden path."

"And, ah-" He searches his mind. "Alternia." Roland's memory of the pronunciation isn't clear, and he goes at the vowels a little strangely. "Are your world's 'dates' anything we could replicate in the here and now?"

"I've never really been on one," he admits. "Meulin and I made do with what we had, but it wasn't as though we could walk around freely in more populated areas if we wanted to have a day out. Many of our dates were just finding a private place where we could be sure of not being bothered."

Which was harder to accomplish in the vast empty desert than it sounded, and even harder once they started wandering through forests, and completely impossible when their journey took them out to sea in that damned little boat.

"I think the truly important thing is doing something enjoyable with the person you're with and not so much the specifics. I don't know where we'd find a chaperone right now anyway and frankly I don't think I'd enjoy the intrusion."

He snorts. "They always were better for getting out of engagements than into them." Especially if you chose the right - or rather, wrong - chaperone. Gunslingers are so crude, aren't they? This one's true threaded as it gets but he's simply got no manners.

Fond memories. Not particularly relevant right now, however. Roland slows as they reach the end of the alley, looking first in one direction, then the other, then back to Signless in a way that might make it clear just who it is who is choosing their path tonight. "Meulin?" he murmurs after stopping, his tone and expression going careful. If Signless shuts that topic down here, that tone says, Roland is not going to try and open it up again.

Signless gives himself a few moments to answer, busying himself instead with choosing the direction they take (he picks left). The few moments aren't to decide whether he wants to talk about her or not -- why wouldn't he, when she meant so much to him and still does and probably always will? They're just to decide how to begin.

"My Disciple. You've probably heard me call her that more often, it was the title that she took. Meulin was the name she hatched with, and we were close enough that she allowed me to use it. I think you would have liked her. She had that way about her that made it hard not to."

"I remember. She, the Piionic, and your mother. Your family." He could try the closer word there, but struggling with the High Speech when he knows that no matter what some other word completely is going to come out of his mouth seems disrespectful, here. He gives the collar of his jacket couple sharp tugs closer to his neck, wondering vaguely if he should have given in completely to the stylists today and worn the scarf that one'd been shoving at him. He's sure he's got a half knitted one somewhere, little though that helps now.

Nevermind. Signless' hand against his is warm enough to be getting on with. "I'd like to hear more of them, if ever you tell. Even the Psiionic." A corner of his mouth twitches up. He doesn't really dislike your friend, Signless. Even if he is composed at least fifty percent of dick.

"There's quite a lot to tell if you wanted to listen -- even about him." He smiles, though his eyes are elsewhere, scanning the storefronts they walk past (and carefully not meeting the eyes of any of the native humans around them). Surely he'll find somewhere that looks promising.

"He told me that you threw a sword at him. I think it made a good impression, though it takes quite a while for him to open up to anyone."

Finally a place catches his eye. It's a little less over the top compared to most Capitol restaurants (though that's saying very little), but what draws him to it is the massive fish tank visible through the windows, brightly-lit against the low lighting of the dining room. Seafood is one of those things he had very little of on Alternia: even on the boat they ate mostly dried meats and fruits and nuts and other things that would keep for the long journey. He's also as a consequence grown quite fond of it in Panem.

"What about that one?"

He slows to look over it, seeing the place less with the eye of someone who wants to eat and more of someone who has something to say and kind of wants the setting to be right for it. Fish is as good as any other food - hell, maybe fish means this one'll suit his purpose even better. Or at least as well as he can expect. In this city any place that sells something which he can recognize as food is probably a lucky find, the more typical food hopefully equating to a more typical kind of meal. No heavy thump of base coming from the building either, and hopefully no scarcely dressed Capitolites writhing around to it. "It'll do," he decides and heads up the steps, the hand that connects him to Signless trailing behind.

"A good impression?" he asks, pushing a door open and for the moment ignoring the shining marble desk beyond it, as well as the person standing there. "I don't doubt you, but he seemed less than interested in being impressed last we met."

"He wouldn't have been. The more he likes you the less polite he gets."

With the Psiioniic it's always difficult to tell the difference between genuine derision and fond teasing. It takes a practiced eye, something only gained with time.

"He'll have appreciated your bluntness, if nothing else."

As they step up to the marble desk the host titters excitedly. Heads in the dining room turn. The Victor, here, and with his lover? How interesting.

They don't even have to wait or ask to be seated. Another host in a suit with bright glowing inlays made to look like jellyfish markings trots up holding two menus and beckons for them to follow, looking both excited and curious. They're led past the desk and through an archway built into the grand fishtank which separates the dining room from the foyer. As it turns out, the fishtank is the majority of the restaurant -- not only does it line the walls of the circular dining room but the floor and cieling as well. All of the light comes from the tank, which throws the dining room into a shimmering mottled blue and green twilight. Tables with pearly white tablecloths are set out on circular black platforms and booths are built into depressions in the glass around the back wall. They're led to one of these.

The table itself sits on another raised black platform, ringed by a seat made of black leather. Signless sits when their host indicates he should, his black coat blending with the black seat while the inset stones gleam. For as long as he's been in Panem he's avoided spending too much time in Capitol locales, but this might not be so bad. There are no screens playing footage from the last arena. The only sounds in the air are the soft murmurs of the other patrons and light piano music coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. No screams.

On the table, instead of a candle -- no need with the ambient lighting -- is a tall straight glass with a single betta fish inside.

Edited 2015-03-12 04:57 (UTC)

As they make their way through the room Roland lets himself look - well, not impressed. Knowing the rot that lies underneath all this city's marvels, feeling the consequences of it so dearly, takes a good bit of the wind from that particular sail. Awe, then. For all his distaste for the attitudes of these people, for their excesses, he is still sometimes reminded that these may as well be the Old Ones of his own world's history. They've reached the same heights, produced the same wonders that, before Panem, he'd only heard of in legend. There's life in these walls, in the ceiling and in the floor, sea unnaturally brought to land and held in place with technology his world hadn't even begun to understand for centuries. Centuries or, maybe, for much longer.

Of course, to the rest of the people here this is only a place to eat. The very excess that created this marvel makes its creators numb to it. The real wonder, so far as the owners of the low voices that follow them to the booth are concerned, is Panem's latest gossip. Which, for the moment, happens to be the two of them. If this room had a table that carried sound more than any of the others, he's sure they would have been brought to it. As it is, their 'host' has had to settle for one from which he and Signless can both see and be seen by nearly every other table in the room.

Once they sit and their host begins to move away, Roland leans forward. "Would you eat first, before I show-"

He pauses. Looks at the Capitolite, who started moving away but didn't quite finish. "Oh, are you ready to order already?" The woman says, in response to Roland's total lack of expression. "There's no need to hurry, I'll be ready whenever you decide."

Roland does not look away from her.

"Or would you rather start with drinks?" she says hurriedly, swiping her finger over the glass screen of one of their menus. With a few taps pictures of different colored bottles appear on it, alongside names. She's recovered already, and now looks more eager than anything else. "These two are particularly suited to that intimate night out..."

Signless's expression is not blank like Roland's is, but there is a certain fixed quality to his polite, patient expression. Perhaps if they make their decisions quickly they won't have to deal with too much overeager hovering. He doesn't hold it against her, not really, but that doesn't mean he enjoys it.

"Drinks sound excellent," he says decisively and she turns to him with a smile that looks just a little grateful. "I would prefer something lighter, personally, though I admit I'm not well-versed in wine."

"I'd recommend this one, then," she says, tapping on an expanding one of the images. The screen fills with information about it that he doesn't bother to read. "The White Fence Chardonnay. It's one of our most popular, pairs well with our entire menu, and is a very good introductory wine."

"That one, then, please."

She seems pleased in the same way a mother might be when their child takes their first wobbly steps. Look, the Victor is assimilating as we speak! He's becoming civilized right before our eyes! I'll go get the camera! But at least it gets her to leave for the moment.

"Now," he says, dropping the fake smile for a more genuine one. "You were saying?"

[ooc: So I could cut this post into two parts too, let you do whatever with the waitress and give Signless a chance to respond to the first half, so if that would work better I can edit.]

He had been about to ask if Signless would rather eat first, but Roland's patience - deep as it can be, when it needs to - is not infinite, and what patience he's got stored for Capitolite nonsense is partly used up. ('Shut up, Steve.') And the longer he waits, the more likely they'll keep being interrupted by that same Capitolite nonsense. So now what would be nerves in anyone else Roland decides in him is impatience, and decides finally to give in to it.

"Some time ago, you gave of me a gift." He feels it in his pocket, turns it in his fingers, but it isn't time to take it out. Not yet. "So that I would remember, regardless what else may happen in this place. A symbol of you, and of us, in the manner of your people. I remember. I know you'll do the same, but I've left you too long without a token of my own. I'd hoped it'd be done before this last arena, arranged to have it delivered to you, just in case."

He leans back against the soft material of the booth, shrugs a shoulder. "But you'll see more in it after I've had the chance to explain. My people have symbols of their own, you see. Or, had, though many still remember the old ways." The waitress returns then and Roland sits in silence, watching Signless' face as if their conversation has simply hit a natural pause. There's a moment, then glasses are set in front of each of them, drinks are poured, and a bottle thumps onto the table. There's another moment, briefer, and then he watches with some approval as she walks away. She could have stalled there, hovered on the pretense of waiting for their dinner order, but she didn't. Any Capitolite who can learn so quickly to take a hint - quickly for this city, anyway - is probably worth keeping track of.

Later. For now he's got something more important to focus on. "Time was, among other things, was conceived of in my home as a great wheel." Signless has his own teaching voice, and Roland has his - a little of it's slipping into his voice here and it feels familiar, he knows he's explained his old culture in this voice before, but that was some time ago and it's a risk to think too deeply on it. He thinks of the wheel itself, instead. How it was imagined, how to explain.

"The water of-" Of ka, damn it, but he doesn't feel like stuttering and stammering around a failed attempt at the word, not right now. "-of fate push against it and time moves." The two fingers of his right hand rise, sketching a lazy circle in the air as he speaks. "A man may build a city, see it gather people and knowledge and land, and as time moves that civilization reaches its peak-" His hand pauses at the top of the imaginary circle, then starts down its other side. "Crumbles, falls into darkness. Then another man builds another city, gathers that same old knowledge, and the process begins again."

He leans forward, one hand slipping back into his pocket. "Some used to claim that people are pushed in the same way. That those k-" He stops himself, then. Grimaces briefly. "Those moved together by fate do so too in cycles. That love may meet its end, but only for a while. If the worst should happen-" His hand pulls out of his pocket, reaches for Signless', and gently sets a small piece of blue-grey metal into his palm. The metal is shaped into a small water wheel, its inside and the bottom of each little spoke coated in the same marbled red and white stone that makes up Roland's own necklace. "-then turn this, and know that time is turning in the same way. That if you meet a man one day, and he reminds you a little of me- Well, who can say?"

His hands cover Signless', trying to curl his fingers around the wheel. "Keep this, dear, and remember: Even if things should fall down around us now, if it should happen that we fail and lose everything- the wheel will turn. We'll meet one another again."

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we walk in love but fly in chains

i figure roland can just gently intercept him before he gets too far

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