thecapitol | other worlds than these

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other worlds than these

Who| Susannah Dean and anyone
What| Susannah thought she was going back to New York. This place is not New York.
Where| Tribute tower, all around.
When| Today!
Warnings/Notes| Possibility of Detta Walker showing up.

For gutless sons of bitches who were planning to send her into a death match, the people of the capital had been pretty cordial. They'd given her clothing--quality stuff, even if some of it wasn't really the kind of thing Susannah would wear outside of the bedroom--and even rustled her up an electric wheelchair.

She was riding it now, going from floor to floor and room to room in the tribute tower, trying to get the lay of the land--which definitely wasn't the Central Park, New York City, that her dreams had promised her lay beyond the door. Roland, she thought ruefully, had been right about it all being a trick.

What in the world was she going to do now?

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Cuthbert was bumming around in the District 3 common area trying to stave off boredom. Despite the fact that he didn't need them, he still wore his empty gunbelt to help keep some sense of himself. He was going to meet someone late for training so he didn't want to head down to that part of the tower and there wasn't anyone interesting around... at least no one who would let him babble at them. So he was left to his own fidgety devices, which now consisted of pacing.

He was therefore eager to see what the sounds of the electric wheelchair were and he was quick to stop pacing and greet this stranger. His eyes gravitate to the wheelchair immediately since he's never seen anything like it before.

"Halt, identify yourself and your beast of burden." He joked, ruining the serious atmosphere of the statement by smiling through it.

The first thing she notices about the boy is his empty gunbelt. The second thing she notices is that he looks a little like Eddie might have at that age and the third is that his accent is a fair sight closer to Roland's than her late husband's.

Echoes of the past, mocking her.

"Susannah Dean of New York," she replies, keeping her voice steady despite all this. "As for the so-called beast, it's nothing but a wheelchair that some clever soul made electric. Are you another tribute or...?"

Or one of the people running the games, she guessed. Either option was pretty awful, though.

"You put a soul in it?"

He's not sure whether to be upset or impressed, that is some dark magic, but if it worked; it worked. And he wasn't about to argue with someone who had that sort of power, so he shrugs it off and files it away to consider later.

She was the first person to introduce herself to Bert in a respectable manner and that was worth some points as well.

"Cuthbert Allgood of Gilead. Well met, Susannah." He gives her a bow, respectful of her introduction.

Susannah opens her mouth to explain that there's not really a soul in there, that was just her speaking metaphorically, but then the name the boy gave her registers in her mind.

"Cuthbert? Roland's Cuthbert? But you're so--" Alive? Young? She can't say either of those so she's reduced to staring at him. He looks just like she'd imagined him during Roland's long story of the Meijis.

Eventually she taps the fingers of her left hand to her breastbone three times, imitating the gesture of respect that Roland taught her once.

He starts at hearing Roland's name, he's barely spoken of his friend since being here and there really shouldn't be any way for a stranger to know it. And the gesture seals it. He returns it almost on instinct.

"You know him? But how?"

He's wide eyed and startled, this woman has taken the rug out from under him in a few short sentences.

"That," Susannah says ruefully, "is a very long story. Even summing it up'll take a while. You might want to find a place to sit down."

While she gives him a chance to do that, she adds, "And I'll warn you, the Roland I know is different than the one you know. Older. Forty years old, at least, and I suspect much, much older."

"You're in luck, I'm a man who will always hear a story. But why not follow me? It might be more comfortable in my room."

He leads the way back toward his room.

"All I can imagine when you say that is the man I know only taller and wider. He has seemed old for some time already now."

"My, Sai Allgood, how very forward of you," she teases, rolling after him. "We've only just met, you know."

It's easy to tease Cuthbert, she finds. Easy and comfortable.

After a moment, though, she laughs--odd that she can still laugh--and shakes her head. "I think Roland was born old," she agrees.

"We have only just met, but you know my dinh and that is worth a bit of faith on my part. And yours, or you would not follow."

He flops down on his bed once they get to his room. There's nothing all that special to see, he hasn't gathered too many personal effects yet, but his bed is unmade and it generally feels lived in.

"There was a time when he seemed young, but I think now that it might have been simply a mask he wore until he could be old believably. Now tell me how the two of thee crossed paths, I would hear of how he fairs in a time when I may not be by his side."

He doesn't really believe in his heart that he will walk with Roland to the Dark Tower, he has already accepted that.

"To tell you the whole story of my time with Roland," Susannah says, "would take hours if not days--and I can already tell that time here is not so soft as it was in the world we've both left behind. But I can tell you a little now and gradually a little more until you can piece it all together. I met him when he drew me from the world I was first from, through a magical door on the shore of the Western Sea. He'd done the same to Eddie, the man who was to be my late husband, already..."

And she tells him about the Drawing Roland had done, though she glosses over Detta's involvement in the events as much as she can, lest her presence in the narrative make things too awkward. She'll explain more about that bitch later.

Bert listens to the whole story and only makes comments when absolutely necessary, which is a lot less than one might expect. And finally when she's done talking about being brought through to his world.

"Some part of me always knew I wouldn't be walking with Roland to the tower. That was something only he could do. Unless you're going to tell me next that you and he and your new tet met up with the rest of us somewhere further on."

But he doesn't sound sad, he's always known this wasn't his fight and he is proud to know that Roland is still out there kicking ass somewhere.

She shakes he head. "I'm sorry, honey. I think Roland lost you and Alain and Jamie DeCurry and all the rest before he met with us. He was alone for a long time." She gives his hand a squeeze. "We did meet Sheemie later on, much later. He and his friends Ted and Dinky helped us save the Beam and the Tower. I could tell you that story too, if you don't mind me bouncin forward in time a good bit."

"Sheemie? Oh, but I'm glad to hear that!" It was the least he could do to focus on the good and ignore the bad right now.

"I have time and then some, bounce all you wish."

Because it just wouldn't be Cuthbert (or Eddie) without trying to squeeze a joke out of her words from time to time.

When the elevator opened on to the 3rd floor, Eddie looked up from the drink he was nursing. It was, by this time, nearly three, and he hadn't had anything to soften the blow of existing quite yet today.

Plus he had a nasty headache.

Still, a woman like that? Could soften any blow.

He grinned. "Are you for me, or just visiting?"

He meant a new Tribute. But you know, whatever.

It's him.

It's not her him, her him is dead, gone to the clearing at the end of the path, but it's a him. It's an Edward Cantor Dean here on the floor where she ran into Cuthbert before, it's him, it's him.

"Eddie."

She rolls forward, to get a better look at him.

"The one and only." He said, completely unaware of the irony behind that statement.

Though he wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some knee high Eddie's running around in the Capitol now. A victors name was always the newest baby naming trend in the Capitol. Horrifyingly thought.

Still, he wasn't sure what to make of this woman's intensity. She wasn't some Capitol groupie, clearly. So he tried to play it off.

She shakes her head, as she rolls closer. No. No, he's not. She opens her mouth, then shuts it. She's not entirely sure if she trusts herself to speak. Up close he still looks like Eddie, although he's thinner than when she last saw him.

He doesn't recognize her.

She doesn't know why she almost expected him to.

"Are you here as a tribute?" she says finally in a low voice. She hopes not. She doesn't want to be forced to fight him, no matter whose Eddie he is.

"Nah, I already did that song and dance. And won."

His mouth hooked up in a familiar, cocky little grin. One she knew well, even if the setting was slightly different.

"And you are, I'm betting?"

That grin breaks her heart.

"I am," she says. And then, because she'll have to tell him sooner or later, "I'm sorry. I knew someone very much like you back in the world I came from. His name was Eddie too."

"Oh yeah?"

He was, as far as he knew, the only Eddie he had met. So someone like him, named Eddie?

It made something on the back of his neck stand up.

"So you got a name to go with that face? Cause some of these Tribute don't, so if I'm gonna give you one I better start thinking quick..."

She could tell him Odetta Holmes. That was the name she was born with. But that's not her anymore.

"Susannah," she replies, "Susannah Dean." She takes a deep breath and then a familiar voice inside of her decides fuck dat shit.

So she tells him.

"You reminded me of my husband."

"...you're husband named Mr. Something Dean reminds you of me, Mr. Eddie Dean?"

He really does not like the way this conversation is going. he's heard these people are from other worlds. He doesn't understand that, but he's starting to get the feeling he's going to understand a bit more way more than he wants to soon.

"My late husband," she corrects, wondering why she told him, except she's going into a death match and she doesn't feel like lying or avoiding with this Eddie who doesn't even recognize her. "Edward Cantor Dean--not that he'd like the middle name spread around."

She's said too much. She knows she has already. "I should go."

And she nudges the switch to make her wheelchair turn.

He was already mentally bracing himself for it. But it's still a shock to the system. Another him.

A dead him, apparently.

He tries to stop her. And to give condolences. And to make a joke to make this all easier. And none of them really win out, and so instead her say.

"That's not good."

Brilliantly.

"No," she says quietly. "It's not. But it's how it is."

Something makes her hesitate from rolling back to their elevator, though.

By this point, he should really be much better at dealing with people who had lost loved ones. He hadn't even been doing this that long, and he had a nice, hefty list of grieving family members he ran into far too often, given the size of three. And that list didn't even touch his Victory tour.

But none of those people had lost him.

"I'm sorry." he finally said quietly. "I don't know...but if I can do anything...I'm here."

She turns the chair around, looks at Eddie's face. "What are you doing here, sugar?" she asks quietly. "Are you here to fight too? Or... is this the world you belong in? Because if it is, I'm sorry to say that it's a pretty rotten one."

It was weird, the urge to defend Panem. Panem was a shit hole. She was right.

So instead he looked down at his feet, and shrugged.

"I'm a victor. I fought awhile back."

They explained mentors to her, sort of. "So they make you babysit the rest of us? Oh honey." There's a sense of relief, though, that she won't be expected to have to kill him or be killed by him in the arena to come.

"I'm sorry. I asked you that twice, didn't I? It's been a long day. It's been a long year. And I didn't expect to come here anymore than I expected to come to Roland's world."

She wonders, suddenly, if where they are is something that Sombra and the Crimson King's people set up. She thinks it could be. They had those doors to Mr Lincoln's and Mr Kennedy's assassination--they had VISIT CIRCUS MAXIMUS--why wouldn't they have an interest in maintaining a regular death match like this?

"I'm not making much sense am I? But this isn't my first strange world. You know Cuthbert, don't you? He lives on this floor, I think."

He wants to reach out, to lay a hand on her shoulder, but he has no idea what the protocol for that is. For her in that chair, for him as her sorta dead husband, for them as actually total strangers and this being too weird a situation to mack on someone with. So instead he laughs, awkwardly, and nods.

"It's rough. I'm sure. The whole damn thing...at least we're raised with it."

When she mentions his tribute, he latches on to that significantly more comfortable subject. ~~Sucker.~~

"Yeah. He's one of mine."

Harley had been out shopping again, the spoils of today's quest hanging from bags in each hand as well as an unfortunate escort trying to balance a stack of boxes.

"Nothing like a little retail therapy to give me the warm fuzzys!" She declared happily to no one in particular.

She was feeling so good she even gave a little spin.

It was almost enough to make her forget the cuff on her wrist made the citizens hate her.

She made a B-line for the elevator eager to dispose of her new prizes.

There's a black woman in an electric wheelchair in the elevator. She's very pretty, although if Harley looks closely she might notice that there's nothing there below the knees.

"Is there still a department store left?" she asks, her tone wry.

Harley just laughed gleefully and joined her in the elevator, "Aw this is nothin'! I just like to have lots of options and toys ya know? Plus they have some of the best candy every out there!" Her eyes twinkled like she was buzzing on the sugar.

"Mmhm," says the woman. "I'll take your word for it. I haven't left the building yet." She looks over Harley thoughtfully. "You another tribute?"

She grinned a wide grin, "Rightaroonie! Harley Quinn, pleased ta meetcha! I'm a district nine girl but Gotham City is my true home~" the last part came off whist fully and with a touch of longing.

"Susannah Dean of New York," the woman--Susannah--answers. "I think they put me in District Ten."

She's obviously new.

Harley set her bags down and gave an elaborate and silly bow.

"Pleased ta meetcha Susie!"

Her hand darted into a bag and she produced a fistful of former flavored lollipops offering them to her.

"For you, a bit of sweet to help you choke down the crappy situation."

She likes Harley, Susannah finds. Likes her a lot. (If she thought about it too hard, she'd realize that it's probably because the woman's irreverent humor reminds her of Eddie--but she isn't trying to figure out why she likes her, just resting easy in the fact that she does.)

Susannah takes the lollies and tucks them in her purse. (For along with the clothes they'd given her, there were also a couple of nicely made purses that seemed like they'd been picked to go with the maximum number of outfits.)

"Thank you," she says. "I appreciate the sentiment."

"Hey anytime! Just because we're gonna have to fight to the death later doesn't mean we can't be pals!" She reasoned leaning against the wall and taking a blue cotton candy flavored sucker of her own to lick seductively in case anyone else was watching.

Susannah did wonder who Harley was giving show for, since as far as she knew they were the only ones in the elevator.

"That's an interestin' way of putting it."

Harley had long since adjusted to the idea she was always being watched...then again she had also gotten used to flirting with just about everyone.

"Interesting is the word of the day here." She giggled. "They do stuff that boggles a normal sane mind. Lucky for me that's not so much an issue. And the longer we stay here the less it's an issue for the rest of em."

Maybe it ought to alarm Susannah that her new friend is no saner than she is--and possibly a good deal less--but she supposes this might be one of those places where sanity isn't all that useful. "We're all mad here," she finds herself quoting under her breath.

"Oh you too?" Harley pulled on her own ponytails wrapping them around her head like a scarf "What's the diagnosis? I've got a pretty long list starting with "adorable" and ending with "extremely bipolar!"

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other worlds than these

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I'm sorry this is so late bb

Re: I'm sorry this is so late bb

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