thecapitol | 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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The question was unexpected and so blatantly child-like, innocent, he couldn't help but smile. (Somewhere underneath, Pruna was still a little girl and silently he promised he'd do what he could to give her chance to be one, as often as possible.)

"Back home I was a Marshal. A law-keeper." he told her, explaining as best he could. "Here..."

The book was heavy under his arm. He'd never been much of a farmer, despite his Pa's efforts. Max would have his work cut out for him, if he meant it. If he really wanted....

"So long as I those that matter to me, the rest'll work itself out. I've got faith in that."

"Like the peacekeepers?" Pruna wrinkled her nose, she had a very healthy wariness for any kind of guard. "Did you be throwing people in jail and cutting their hands off?"

His final words made her pause though, thinking. It was a strange idea that all you needed in life was other people, when she was still pretty sure that most other people were a liability. Another thing to think about.

"A bit," he allowed, shoulders rolling slightly in a helpless gesture. It wasn't a comparison he was especially happy with, but it did get the point across rather neatly. "When somebody broke the law it was my job to make sure they saw their punishment, but I ain't never cut anybody's hands off."

"Not even when they did be stealing?" She raised an eyebrow incredulous. Wondering what kind of guard had got to be as old as Wyatt without cutting someones hand off.

"That's not how things were done where I'm from," Wyatt explained. "Punishments depended on what ya did, an' on what the judge decided. Stealin' might end in a hangin', or ya might jus' have to pay a fine."

Pruna wrinkled her nose, "So they did be killing people for stealing?" That seemed unnecessarily harsh, though she knew it happened in her world as well, but usually only as a last resort.

"How do they be deciding who do be having to be paying and who do be having to be dying?"

"Sometimes," he nodded. It was something that he felt no guilt about it, compared to things he'd done in the arena. Those men had committed crimes and been fairly tried. He had no qualms about justice being served. "Depended on what ya stole. Some things are more important than others."

"And some people do be being more important than others." She nodded, understanding.

"So after the arenas will you no be being a peacekeeper?"

He was silent for a long moment, weighing her question. Asking it of himself again, a quiet echo in his ears.

"...It don't mean the same thing to 'em," he said finally, his drawl slow and soft. "...An' I ain't sure I'd have a taste for it."

Even if it were exactly the same, even if the role hadn't changed (a servant of the public, for the good of all, to a private force at the whim used to terrorize), he couldn't say it's how he'd want to spend his life once it was all said done.

He didn't know how much longer the arenas would last, how much he would have to fight, but he could already tell he was tired of violence, of blood and death.

Could tell that he wanted to rest. To know some sort of peace.

She wrinkled her nose, "So will you be going and being a farmer with Maximus?" She still wasn't sure about that choice, surely they would get bored really quickly. Sheep were really boring and stupid.

He snorted gently, one corner of his mouth curling.

"Maybe." He turned, moving down the aisle with slow steps, mindful of his stride compared to hers. His thumb tapped against the cover of the book, an unconscious rhythm. "If he'll have me."

Pruna grinned up at him, "You do be being brother friends, of course he will be wanting you." She stood on tiptoes to reach up for another book. Monsters of the arenas, that was more Sandy's art style but it would probably give her more nightmares not less.

His head dipped, just for a moment to hide the grin that pulled at his mouth beneath the brim of his hat, and then he nodded.

"I sure hope so," he agreed, reaching out to tip the book down toward her, moving it into her reach. (Somehow, after their chat about Iskierka, it didn't seem odd that a book about monsters would attract Pruna's attention.)

She grinned and took the book into her arms, looking at the different artist renditions of the monsters, some she recognised and some she had never seen before.

It had some information, such as what arena they had been seen in, names of tributes they had killed. Pruna wrinkled her nose, "It do no be being that useful, it do no be giving us any weaknesses or tips on how to be fighting them." She showed him the page she was on.

Wyatt snorted, seemingly unsurprised, head tipping as he looked down at the page. (The creature on it, a lizard sort of beast about the size of coyote with wicked teeth and claws prickled uncomfortably at his memory.

A muscle tightened in his back.)

"This is the Capitol, little bit," he reminded her wryly. "They ain't got any need for things like that. They don't go into the arena. Never did."

"I do be knowing that." She turned the page again, "But what if one of the monsters did be escaping, or another one did be attacking the city." After all they had to get the monsters from somewhere.

"It do be being stupid of them to no be knowing how to be fighting them. Do they no even be interested?"

"I'd imagine the Peacekeepers know." He hoped they knew, now at least, if not before, considering what happened just before the arena. "An' the rest... I 'spose they're content to let 'em."

"Yes they do be just making us be fighting for them and losing legs and almost dying because they do be being too stupid to be learning." She practically threw the book back on the shelf.

Wyatt exhaled heavily through his nose and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder - or the thick layers of fabric on her shoulder at any rate.

"Come on," he told, voice low, but firm. He understood her anger, knew it as his own, but there was nothing that could be done about it here. Nothing that could be done now. "Try an' let it go for now, Pruna. Let me pay for this, an' we'll get out of here."

Pruna clenched her fists but nodded and followed Wyatt obediently, still angry and the stupid capitol. But she had been lectured time and time again that she couldn't hurt anyone here or she would get into a lot of trouble. So her anger was mostly directionless.

Instead she just glared daggers at the cashier as Wyatt paid for her book.

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.

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