thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Elsa and whoever might be up fairly late
What| Elsa goes up to the roof to admire the Capitol
Where| On the roof of the living suites
When| Present day, sometime after midnight
Warnings/Notes| N/A

The weeks following her time in the arena have truly been the hardest that Elsa had ever experienced in her entire life. Not even losing her parents had been as painful as the knowledge that she had killed Anna. All of her life, she had avoided her sister in order to keep her safe and yet when she finally felt like she could be around Anna without hurting her. She had been wrong- her powers had returned and everything had gone horribly wrong.

Ever since then, she'd done exactly as she had her entire life; shut herself in her room and keep everyone out. It was painful and lonely, but she knew it was what she deserved for hurting Anna.

But even those who felt like they were monsters grew restless sometimes and as the days ticked by, Elsa found herself wanting to get out and explore a little. This world was new and foreign and her brief glimpses of it before had been intriguing. The technology was confusing but fascinating all at once.

Finally, the curiosity got the better of her. Late one night, after the noise outside died down and it seemed like everyone had retired for the night, Elsa made her way out of her room. It was too late for her to want to leave the building entirely, so she opted instead to go somewhere she thought she could get a small taste of what she wanted.

So eventually, she made it to the roof. It was the first breath of fresh air she'd had in weeks as she stepped out into the cool night air. Elsa stepped forward until she was near the edge of the building. The view was absolutely breathtaking, she could hardly believe what she was seeing. It was so different from Arendelle, with it's lights and large buildings- to be honest, it was a little overwhelming on top of beautiful.

Suddenly Elsa felt really small and alone. She wrapped her arms around herself and let out a small sigh, closing her eyes. There was no sense in missing Arendelle. She didn't belong there now- if they knew she had killed Anna, then they would shun her- or worse. In her opinion, now she belonged here. With the murderers and the monsters, because that was exactly what she was. If anyone deserved to go back to Arendelle, it was Anna.

Elsa continued to stare out at the twinkling, colorful lights of the Capitol, arms folded over her chest. As horrible as she'd started to feel, she didn't have any particular urge to go back to her room at the moment. So she allowed herself to zone out, imagining what each of the buildings might have in them. So lost in her thoughts, anyone could come upon her and she wouldn't notice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I meant more that meeting people in the Arena is less fun than advertised, but I understand." He turned to look out at the skyline, but kept an eye on her.

"If you decide you don't want things like that to happen, however...I'm representing District 10, you can look me up."

He reached back into his memories and cracked the seal on the metaphorical box where he kept the one of when he was thirteen and EarthGov made him tell the Foccarts one lie after another about how their son died. As he stared out at the Capitol before him, he let the old pain and bitterness etch itself, however briefly, on the bones of his face.

"I know what it's like to not be in control."

Elsa wasn't sure she intended to look him up any time soon. The conversation, in her opinion, hadn't gotten off on the best track. She didn't particularly want to talk about what happened in the arena and she didn't like the idea of so many people knowing just what had happened.

But the last part had her reevaluating the situation just a little bit.

"Unless you have powers like me, you don't know what losing control is like," she said, if a little bluntly.

"Oh, mine aren't nearly so impressive," Lyle answered. "But even the most modest power can be put to all sorts of unsavory ends given a ruthless enough authority and a naive enough child."

He wondered, sometimes, if his time in the Black Hole would have been different if he hadn't been the son of two diplomats. His parents had been oblivious, but they'd have noticed if he'd been vanished; and there would have been more of an inquiry if he'd died than when Jacques had. He'd been so sure of himself at the time, that EarthGov was on the up-and-up; he hadn't figured out about the things President Chu was up to until years later when Rokk got himself involved.

Grife, for a genius, he'd been pretty sprocking stupid.

Elsa softened slightly, if only because his words had a deeply disturbing implication behind them. She could consider herself lucky- no one had wanted to manipulate her and make her use her powers for anything evil. Rather, they had simply wanted to hide them away and not let anyone find out about them. So she had been sheltered, but thankfully unused.

"What can you do?" she asked after a moment of trying to figure out what best to say. It was really all she could think of, and she was rather curious to know what other powers someone might have.

Lyle extended a hand palm out against the skyline and stared at it, wiggling his fingers inside his glove.

"I disappear," he said softly, as if he was distracted by the details of the backstory he'd just hinted at. She seemed like a good person, more likely sympathize with vulnerability than to try and exploit it. He let the words hang in the air for a moment before curling his extended hand into a fist and bringing it back in towards himself again.

"Which is quite handy in a number of social situations," he said, giving her a crooked smile, "but fairly unimpressive when the twins in line behind you generate lightning."

Though he mentioned people who could generate lightning, Elsa was much more impressed by his ability to disappear.

"I think your power sounds a lot nicer," she said. Not even because of the fact that lightning would obviously cause harm to people, but because being able to disappear would make life a lot easier sometimes. "I would have loved to disappear sometimes. It would have been a lot easier to avoid people if I could do that."

Maybe it was just her tendency to run away from problems talking, but it would've been wonderful.

"Oh, it definitely has it's perks," Lyle agreed. "I wouldn't swap with anyone on my team -- not long-term at least. The princess I know would argue that her power works out to be about the same thing as invisibility, only better because it fills in for senses other than sight, too -- but hers can be foiled by technology, and then someone has to explain the snake-lady."