thecapitol | Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.

Entry tags:

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.

WHO| Wyatt and OTA
WHAT| Christmas Shopping!
WHERE| Various Capitol shops
WHEN| After getting the Secret Santa notes
Warnings| None at the moment. Will edit if anything comes up!

Like all the others, Wyatt had discovered the note in his room directing him to come up with a gift for one of his fellow tributes for Christmas. Never mind that he'd never even met the "Iskierka" listed on the card, or even known there was any kind of gift exchange going on in the first place.

...But he couldn't say that the idea didn't appeal, the more he thought about it. There hadn't been much to celebrate, that first Christmas of his in the Capitol, but this year....

Picking up the strange card he'd been given - trying not to think of the funds they'd given him as blood money - he cornered his escort for information (the man tried at least to look sheepish for signing Wyatt up) and then headed out into the snow.

Even armed with everything his escort could tell him about Iskierka, Wyatt still had little idea where to start shopping for a dragon. While he chewed it over, he hunted down some other gifts, knowing nothing would really be able to tell Max or Howard what they meant to him, but wanting to do something, all the same.

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"I have no been seeing most of them before." She wrinkled her nose, "I can no be even starting to be thinking of where to be starting."

He looked down at her.

"Well what do'ya say we give 'em a look see together?" He held out a hand to her and smiled. "We'll see if we can't find somethin' for both our friends."

She grinned and nodded, though she didn't take his hand. "Okay, who do you be looking for things for?"

He didn't take it personally, just patted her cushion of hats instead and steered her gently toward the nearest door.

"I got my friends Howard, he's jus' a bit older than you," he told her, not knowing if she'd ever met him. "An' Max, you know him a'course."

He slanted her an amused look. He'd missed it himself, but had heard about their adventures at the Crowning, Pruna cruising through the crowd from atop the man's shoulders.

"An' the Capitol says I should I get somethin' for Iskierka." The pull of his mouth turned wry. "I'm afraid I don't know much at all 'bout her."

"I do be knowing Howard too." She told him, "He do be being a stupid head, but he do be being alright sometimes." Her opinion on Howard tended to depend on the day of the week.

She liked Max of course and grinned, "I do be knowing Iskierka. I did be meeting her. She do be being a fire breather monster or alien."

His eyebrows shot up in surprised, caught off guard, but pleased. Quite the little goldmine, wasn't she?

"A dragon, so I'm told," he clarified. "Didn't ya have stories 'bout them where yer from?"

She shook her head, "No, I do no be thinking so. I have no never been hearing them." And she knew most the monsters of her world, had studied them in detail.

He pulled open the door in front of them, the little bell overhead jangling noisly, and guided her in ahead of him with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Inside he stamped his boots to shake off the snow -- and paused. Surveying the closest shelves.

"Where I come from, they weren't real. Jus' monsters from old stories, flyin' around, terrorizin' villages an' snappin' up maidens an' naughty little boys an' girls--" he shot her a teasing glance, "-- as snacks."

"There do be being lots of real monsters where I do be coming from." She told him studying the shelves, "And I would be killing any that did be trying to be eating me as a snack."

He chuckled, drifting toward a shelf of books, the bright glossy picture on one of the covers catching his attention. (A sunset, over a gently rolling plain. Inside District Ten, the cover boasted in big letters, A photographic tour.)

"Somehow," he told her, taking the book from the shelf and flipping it open, "I don't doubt that for a bit."

"I do no be knowing if fir... dragons can be reading." She told him, standing on tiptoes to look at the books on the shelves.

He glanced over, then, noticing how she stretched, lowered the book in his hands for her to see.

"Fair point," he agreed as he flipped through the pages - colorful flashes of horses and cattle, fields dotted with bundled hay, barns and fences flashing past. "But to be honest I was thinkin' of someone else."

The pages settled opened a shot of - what the book called - a typical home for residents of ten, a small, comely ranch home. The family in question bunched together in front of it to appease the photographer.

It wouldn't the be the same, Wyatt knew, but maybe Max... maybe it would be good to have something to look at, something to hold, to know it was possible. To know that retirement, that future, they talked about was out there.

She looked at the pictures, "It do be looking pretty." She told him, "Who did you be thinking of?"

He looked down at her with a smile, an eyebrow raised. "Promise not to say nothin'?"

"I do be being good at keeping secrets!" She grinned at him, she really was. Some of the secrets she kept could have cost her her life back in her world. "I will be saying nothing."

"I was thinkin' about Max," he admitted, touching the house in the photo gently before he closed the book and tucked it under his arm. "He was a farmer once, before comin' here, an' sometimes he talks about how he'd like to be again. Someday, when the Capitol don't need him anymore."

"Maximus did be being a farmer?" Her eyebrows shot up, she couldn't imagine that at all. Maximus was a warrior, fierce and brave. She couldn't see him planting crops and tending sheep.

Wyatt chuckled, recognizing her surprise and knowing himself how hard a picture it could be to paint.

"Funny to think, ain't it?" he said, grinning at her. "But it's true. An' I know, he'd like to get back to it." He sobered some and looked back at the shelves, eyes scanning over the titles.

Someday.

"What about Sandy? She like to read?"

"He do be?" That was even harder to think, that he would want to be a farmer again.

"She do be liking to be painting. She do be painting and drawing all the time."

"There's more to life than the Arena," he said softly, sounding more hopeful than certain as he moved slowly down the aisle. Reaching up again when he found a book about famous artists from District 1, a painting of flowers in a vase on the cover.

"Ya ever given any thought to what ya'd like to do, when ya grow up?" he asked, holding out the book to her.

She took the book, looking through it and trying to think whether Sandy would like it. Sandy often drew scary things like monsters and death, because she didn't like them being in her head. But maybe she would like looking at nice things...

"I do be having a job at home already. So I will be doing that unless my guardians do be deciding I do be having to be doing something else."

"Ya do?" He arched an eyebrow, head tipping to look gently over her shoulder as she flipped through the glossy pages of the book. He hadn't heard of tributes being allowed to do anything but serve in the arena, or mentor once they'd won. "What do ya do?"

Pruna stared at a picture of a hillside for a moment, in her own world what she did was a big secret but here it didn't matter. People didn't care about people killing, since the arena was based on people killing each other. She had told Sandy and Kevin and neither of them had got mad or hated her.

She had always been told that people would hate her if they knew she served the dark god, but the gods didn't even exist in this world. "I did be killing people." She told him, flicking the page and looking at a tree. "No like in the arena but before they did be knowing I did be even being there."

Wyatt took a breath, lips pressing together as he let it out, slowly through his nose. There were a lot of things he'd learned and heard in the Capitol that made him sad. The truths that developed somewhere in the span of years between his last day at home and his arrival here.

That children were often anything but, was one of those.

Pruna's might have started even before the Capitol had gotten to her, but that didn't change how he felt for her.

"...That was before," he said finally, after a long moment. "What about now? What would ya like to do when our turn in the arena's done?"

When the Capitol was finished. If they all lived to see it.

"I do be wanting to be going home." She told him, "Sandy do be wanting to be coming with me but I do no be knowing if that would be working with the technologies." At least she thought if they managed to stop the capitol they would get their hands on the technology used to bring them between worlds.

"And then I will be going back to my old job I do be guessing. I did be saying Sandy should be being a priestess and I could be being her warrior but I do no be thinking I would be being allowed to be doing that."

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