She Pulls a Razor from Her Boot [Open]

[fearisinthemind]

WHO| Penny and open
WHAT| Poisoning pigeons in the park
WHERE| A Capitol park
WHEN| Week 2 of the Arena
WARNINGS| Animal death. Also, she's a sadist torturer.

Penny doesn't see sunlight often. It isn't an avoidance thing; she just works six days a week and tends to have her servants make grocery runs for her when she isn't feeling like subjecting herself to the faces of others. She loathes smalltalk, and truly only enjoys Katurian's company these days. That he hasn't answered her phone today has put her in a foul mood, and she wafts through the park like a wisp of a thunderhead signaling a storm in contrast to the bright lighting.

An Avox, one of her personal servants, carries a bag of birdseed for her. Penny sits on the park bench (the Avox must stand) and picks out one piece at a time, holding a cup of hot coffee with one hand and occasionally meting out dead-eyed stares at passers by. Her gown is too elegant for a simple park visit, even by Capitol standards, and her slippers are perfectly clean, having been brought by the Avox in a purse and substituted for more comfortable footwear.

The first pigeon seizes up six minutes in. It flutters and tries to flap away, only to fall from a height of only a few feet and collapse to the ground. Its feathers puff, it makes little chirping sounds, and it expires. The other pigeons examine it, and then another suffers the same fate. Then another. It's not long before she and the Avox are surrounded by tiny corpses.

Penny smirks and drinks her coffee.

Comments

[revvinguptheharley]

A sigh from behind her.

"Just like one of my first dates with my Puddin."

Harley was on a stroll through the park trying to shake off her blues when she caught sight of a familiar face. She recognized the girl from the TV broadcast and couldn't help but want to know more.

[fearisinthemind]

Penny glances up, surprised to be talked to. Her lower lip flattens slightly, elongating her mouth into a froggish scowl. "And I have any interest in your romantic life why?"

Tributes. They're the Capitol's cloned sheep, as far as Penny's concern - a cute little experiment that gets trotted out at the expense of giving credit to the real brains behind the system.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Oh no interest really. I mean unless you like to ship tributes in the arena but something tells me you're not the type." Harley spun around and draped herself over the back of the bench hanging upside down and looking up at Penny.

"But seeing you here, watching those little rats with wings kick it just brought back so many old memories." She cooed.

[thatwasme]

One of the seizing pigeons falls back to the ground further out on the pathway leading past where Penny sits, beak open, tongue hanging out as it gasps for air. The distress it feels as it passes is a palpable thing: the confusion at how its body could so suddenly betray it expressed in chirps and the fruitless tapping of wings against stone.

Barbara takes a step back, wary of anything that acts like that in a place like the Capitol. She'd be as wary back home -- dying animals were prime carriers of disease, especially when you didn't know the cause behind their distress. She lets her eyes go wide, her mouth opening in a quiet gasp as she scans the area.

It's not the only bird suffering a similar fate. The sporadic trail leads back to one woman -- one Barbara recognizes even as she exclaims, purposefully thoughtless. "Ma'am, I think there's something wrong with the pigeons in this here park."

[savedbyasong]

Shion is bundled up warmly and walking through the park, mostly because the constant stream of footage from the arena was getting too much for him. Even though he worried whenever he wasn't watching it, like just his watching it could stop something terrible happening to Rat.

It couldn't he knew, but he still worried. So he was walking in an attempt to take his mind off such things, the park was a calm place and he could mostly avoid any staring citizens.

He rounded the corner to see a bird fall to the ground, he blinked and rushed forwards turning it over expecting to see a wound of some kind. There was nothing, then he saw the other corpses. He went over to another, it was dead as well, no wounds. A feeling of foreboding settled over him, since things being dead for no reason, in a city such as this, was probably not a good sign.

It takes him a moment to see the woman and another moment to place her face, since the last time they had spoken she had been wearing a mask. He blinked at her, "Did you see what happened?" He couldn't imagine anyone deciding to drink their drink on a bench surrounded by dead birds...

[fearisinthemind]

"You'd be correct." Penny looks at Harley with disgust she doesn't even bother to veil. Her lower lip flattens.

"Don't sit so close to me. I loath it."

[fearisinthemind]

Penny glances up from the dying bird to examine the woman surprised by it. The marked wariness of Barbara's face delights Penny.

"I hadn't noticed. I thought they were supposed to die like that." Penny gives a girlish giggle, and then, after that's died down, looks to the Avox beside her. It laughs, made all the more terrifying by the fact that no sound but a soft gurgle comes from its mouth.

[fearisinthemind]

Ah, Shion. Easy-to-intimidate Shion. Penny remembers him, although not much about that party except how angry she was at Katurian for focusing his attention elsewhere. Penny doesn't even turn her head to look at the boy.

The last pigeon spasms and dies.

"They died." Penny snickers and takes a long sip of her coffee. "What does it look like?"

And then she laughs whole-heartedly. It's a strange hee-haw, donkey-like but high-pitched and teetering over notes. She slaps her knee with glee.

[savedbyasong]

He picks up the last pigeon, staring at it in horror as it died too and looked up at the woman. "Yes..." He tried to keep his voice steady, hard when she laughed like that amidst so much death. "But how... what killed them..."

He blinked at her fearfully, not sure that he wanted to know the answer. Tears pricked at his eyes at the thought of so much pointless death, even if they were just pigeons, they had been alive earlier that day and now they weren't.

[revvinguptheharley]

"Aw but you're so pretty!" Harley cooed "And kind of evil which is great because honestly I could use a few more people who wear their more creative fun sides on their sleeves." She didn't move but studied Penny with her bright manic eyes.

"How am I supposed to appreciate the whole package from far away?"

[fearisinthemind]

"What - or who - does it look like killed them?"

Her teeth are like barbed wire when she smiles. They are too human to be fangs - cruelty is such a human emotion.

[fearisinthemind]

"I'm not evil," Penny says, although with neither conviction nor offense. Any fire that would have been stoked in her was quickly extinguished by the flattery.

"I don't remember your name. Couldn't be bothered."

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley just chuckled like it amused her that Penny would say that.

"Well why would ya bother? But now that I'm here, Harleen Quinzel! Harley to my friends."

She was leaving Penny wide open for a joke there.

"So! I know why I like to knock off winged rats, but why are you here ? If I may be so nosy and curious about the motivations of such a fab lady?"

[savedbyasong]

Teary purple-black eyes turned to look up at her. Understanding and recognising the cruelty in her smile. He should not be surprised, he had seen her kill before. But that had been her job, whatever Shion thought of that. This was different, this had no reason.

"Why?" If he hadn't been sure he wanted to know the answer to who? he was certain he wouldn't like the answer to why? but he asked anyways, because he had to live in this city, and that meant he should at least try to understand the people here.

[fearisinthemind]

"What do you want?" Penny doesn't snap the question; it's not soaked in her usual hostility. She appreciates the attention, as long as it's this fawning. She settles back into her chair and takes another ship of her coffee.

(She won't remember Harley's name in twenty minutes).

A squirrel runs across the trail and picks at some of the birdseed. Penny watches it from hooded, dark eyes.

[fearisinthemind]

She loves his tears. She savors it, the fear and confusion. She hoards away this emotion, this pride at being able to strike that sort of feeling into someone without even intending it. It draws tight muscle lines into her smile like gashes.

"Why not?"

[revvinguptheharley]

"Oh lots of things." Harley rocked on her seat as she considered the question for a moment. "I'd love to be able to play around the arenas in my old costume, I'd adore having more of my friends brought here. But at the moment what I want most of all is to get to know you! Who you are, how you're so fun and pretty. Is killing people your main business or is it just a hobby? You looked super glamorous on TV ya know?"

She babbled and bubbled with glowing praise for Penny, seemingly sincere. Harley was hardly known for holding back her praise when she felt it was deserved.

[thatwasme]

Barbara looks to Penny, then back to the birds. She doesn't look to the Avox at first. When the gurgling continues, she glances up, but her eyes slide away.

Staring won't aide anyone right now.

"I wasn't much expectin' any to be dying at all," she admits. "It's usually a bad sign, not a, well, expected one."

[savedbyasong]

"Because..." He took a deep breath, trying to calm down and breathe and think, all of which proved to be impossible feets that Shion was not capable of.

"Because... it's cruel..." And he doubted she cared, and so it was a stupid reason to cite. "It's..."

He blinked at her again and shook her head, "What did you learn from it?"

[fearisinthemind]

"Who said I was learning anything?" Penny sniffs and finishes her coffee. She tosses the empty cup to the ground and the Avox goes and retrieves it, spurred by fear that compels it to drop to its knees and muck up its uniform in the dirt.

[fearisinthemind]

"Dying is a natural part of the life cycle. I'm just accelerating Mother Nature." Penny suddenly frowns, displeased with her choice of language. "I'm supplanting Mother Nature."

Credit must be given where it's due.

"Who are you?"

[fearisinthemind]

Penny's about to snap at Harley when she's disarmed by the compliment. She pauses, letting the feeling of irritation and anger wash away.

"Well. Red is my color." She giggles again, and it's like metal shrieking on metal.

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley's laughter joins and it's like a car accident where both the cars are made of chalkboards and the drivers are cats.

"You got that right! It really brings out your eyes." Harley fluttered her own eyes in her usual over dramatic fashion.

"Have you ever done any interviews? I'd watch a whole reality series based on you."

[thatwasme]

Barbara continues looking troubled, but she shakes it off, sending Penny a big smile and waving her hand from close against her body. "Barbara, ma'am. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss...? I reckon you have a point with death being part of the cycle of livin' and all. Supplanting Mother Nature is a kind of art form."

She sounds admiring. It's amazing how the Capitol has turned out a consumer marketplace for those who did exactly that: augment or supplant the role of Mother Nature.

[savedbyasong]

Shion watched the Avox with sad, slightly frightened eyes, though they flickered back to Penny every so often, watching her.

"No one... I just thought..." It would make more sense. Shion could understand awful things if they were to learn something, if they were to make progress. It didn't mean he condoned them, nor would he do such things himself but it at least made more sense than... whatever this was.

"It doesn't matter..."