thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who| Maximus and YOU, OPEN for Mingling - All District 3 will be 'Asked' to attend, but everyone else is welcome
What| Come get Combat Training from the Cyborg Gladiator
Where| The Training Center
When| Two days after the Motorcycle Races
Warnings/Notes| Nothing so far! Maybe violence, but nothing with gore since it's just training weapons.

Maximus was a regular in the training center, but today was different. Today he had set up a good portion of the hall exactly as he wanted it - a large training mat (one of the better inventions in the last few millenia), a large rack of swords, shields, and spears. He couldn't find pilla, but spears would do well enough. The day before, he'd gone around to each of the rooms in district 3 and told them to report to the training center the next day, or face consequences. He also, however, asked Wyatt to attend, and mentioned it to anyone else he thought could use some training.

It didn't really matter who showed up, he would treat them all the same.

It took more than a day to make a soldier, but perhaps at least he could begin to get some of the tributes thinking like one.

Or maybe they would start seeing the benefit of working together.

His Sabertooth Tiger, Ferox, prowled around the edge of the training mat, watching the tributes as if one of them might make a good dinner, and occasionally coming up to rub its large head against Maximus' prosthetic leg.

[OOC note: Each tribute will be greeted, have a rough assessment of their skills taken, and then given a series of instructions for training. Trainees of a similar level will be grouped together, for team activities. Feel free to either tag in for the greeting/assessment, or create an open post for other people to tag you for mutual training.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She forgave him for Bert. That stung nearly as much as being called a gunslinger. As if he'd been the one to start that ruckus out on the grass. As if he'd been the one hurling slurs.

He glanced over, eyes finding the young man where he trained with Max, and then look back, forcing himself to exhale. A long breath through his nose.

By the tone he could guess she didn't mean any offense, and he had promised a peace with Bert. So, he nodded.

"Only one I know of."

She'd said the wrong thing. She can tell right away and curses herself for botching this. "Well! Guess I've met a real historical figure, then."

She casts around for something to say to explain herself. "I-- I feel a bit responsible for him," she settles on finally. "Since I'm the only person here with even a nodding acquaintance with the world he comes from. And-- the closest thing to kin he's got besides--sort of, it's a bit complicated." A tet was like a family and theirs were linked through Roland. It was kind of like kin.

"I'm not sure why he's got such animosity toward you, Mr Earp. We haven't interacted much, but you seem like a gentleman."

He'd acted better than she'd expected of him, really, given when he'd come from.

If it helped, he felt about as uncomfortable as she looked, mouth pursing, mustache twitching.

"Ain't sure what I did to get myself remembered for so long by so many," he murmured. "Ain't even sure I really aught to know."

He shifted, a small movement of weight on his heels, and took another breath.

"But I 'spose I do know why he an' I don't get on. We had a bit of a disagreement some time ago 'bout the games."

"Ah," she says, as if it explains everything. Maybe it does. "That'll probably do it." She hesistates for a moment, then adds, "Well, I don't want to be your enemy, Mr Earp. I don't want to be anyone here's enemy if I can help it."

Well, not among the tributes and mentors, anyway.

That brought the first beginnings of a smile to his face. One corner of his mouth twitching slightly, turning up by a fraction.

"That makes two of us, Miss," he replied. "The way I see it, the arena's are more than enough. No need to be pickin' an' bitin' at each other out here."

Especially when they were on the same side.

She answers that ghost of a smile in kind. "Exactly. We're not really each other's enemies, out of the arena. Just a bunch of people in a situation we never really planned for."

His head tipped, eyes moving to one side to glance at Cuthbert again.

"We already made our promises to keep the peace," he told her. "I can't promise what'll happen next time we meet in the arena, but out here at least, I trust we've got room enough to let one another be."

"Good," she says. "And-- I'm sorry for his... Cuthbert." She waves her hand. "He can be very Cuthbert even with people he likes."

"No disrespect, Miss, but..." He paused, searching carefully for words, knowing he could all too easily sound rather rude. "...Why? I mean, is there any particular reasonin' for it?"

He couldn't promise it would make Cuthbert any easier to swallow, but maybe he could understand him.

"Mmm, that's a tough one. I wish Roland were... no, I don't really, but he was the one who knew Bert all his life. Before I came here, I just knew Bert through his stories."

She shrugs. "I'll try, though. And... I'm sure part of it's just the way he was born. My late husband was like him, always joking and teasing--he had a hard time being serious unless things got really hairy. You know Eddie Dean, the Three Mentor? He's the same way. So the overdeveloped sense of the absurd and the inability to know when to stop jokin' around... that's just the kind of boy he is."

She sighs and shakes her head. "The rest... well, this is just me putting my experiences together with everything Roland told me about their boyhood together, but... I suppose part of why he's like that is his dad. From the stuff Roland said, it sounded like Bert was a disappointment and that's the kind of thing that gets to you, never bein' good enough for your dad--and never being as good as your best friend either. And I suspect part of why he's such a pain is just plain homesickness too. I'm the closest thing he has to someone from his world--and I was only there a year or so and when I was Gilead was dust in the wind. And-- so was he."

Wyatt listened, a steady, attentive ear, giving her time to get through the whole thing before he spoke. Giving himself time to chew it over and digest.

Disappointed fathers he understood - Lord, knew he understood - and living in the shadows cast by good men, too, but something still nipped at him. A pup round the heels.

"An' the killin'," he asked softly, brow furrowed. "The sport of it? That's his way of showin' he's jus' as big an' tough as anybody?"

"A little, yes," Susannah says softly. "That an' he's been trained to it, all his life. That's what they did, in Gilead, to the little boys who were sons of Gunslingers. Not that-- not that the arenas are really a proper place to be a Gunslinger. Killin' for entertainment... it's not what we're for, not at all."

She looks up at Wyatt. "We're-- like King Arthur. Like King Arthur and his knights, except with guns. That's what we're supposed to be, but I guess the world's moved on from that."

It was the first time anybody had explained what gunslinger meant to them, as opposed to what it meant to Wyatt. Where he'd been from, it had been one and the same with 'cowboy,' an' 'rustler,' murderer and thief. Those lawless souls that he'd worked so long and so hard to stop.

The way Susannah explained it just then... Wyatt could see the appeal in it.

"Not every world," he murmured. "We were lawmen, were I'm from. Guns were the weapons'a choice too, though I tired to only ever use mine when I had to."

"Bert-- he's from right at the end of the age of Gunslingers," Susannah says, very quietly. "He and his friends were the last group of 'prentices trained back in Gilead. I was trained long after it fell, by an old man named Roland, the last of 'em. Bert grew up with him."

Wyatt exhaled, pausing again to collect his thoughts before he opened his mouth.

"When we first met, we got on well enough, but when talk turned to the games - his first - he told me how he was lookin' forward to it. To the killin'. The way he said it, the way he smiled..." He trailed off, jaw tensing just at the memory.

"I had a woman, before. She was murdered by a man who killed for sport."

"The kind of man who'd kill for sport is no true Gunslinger," Susannah says, flatly. "He'd have forgotten his father's face, as they say where Bert comes from. I don't think Bert's like that, not at all, just--" She hesitates, before saying, "Just, if you've got something you're good at and you know you're good at it, there's a certain pleasure in doing it and doing it well."

"That's the problem though, innit?" Wyatt asked her, leaning back against the table, hands gripping at the edge, boots crossing one over the other, heel up. "Most'a the folks here, like ya said, ain't got any mark against 'em. They didn't ask to be here. Don't deserve it. Takin' pleasure in their deaths makes us no different from the ones runnin' things."

"He's a boy still," she says. "I don't think he thinks things like that through. And-- and I'm sorry about your woman, Wyatt. I understand, a little. I lost my husband almost a year ago."

"My condolences," he replied softly. A moment stretched, silent, his head ducking. "It's been two years, an' -- I got a chance to see justice done before I was brought here."

And he'd found happiness, love again. Unexpected, but full and true, and stronger than anything he would have thought possible.

Perhaps he should have felt guilty about that, should have continued to mourn, but he just... couldn't. Not anymore. Not the way he felt.

"I'm gettin' better," she tells him. "Eddie... helps. A lot." More than she could really explain to most people. That her boyfriend was another world's version of her husband was one of those things that was kinda beyond explaining. "Like Maximus does, I guess."

Wyatt's mouth opened... then closed, feeling a little foolish as warmth curled in his chest. Love-struck, like some silly boy.

"I wasn't expectin' it," he said after a moment, clearing his throat. "Wasn't lookin' for it, but I'm glad I found it."

More than he could say.

Susannah has to smile at Wyatt's expression. "I suppose you guys are kinda cute together." (Which is nothing she'd ever expected to say about a pair of homosexuals but there you go. Life had a way of surprising you.)

He couldn't help a laugh at that, a rough bark of a sound.

"Jus' what every man likes to hear," he rumbled, flashing a handsome smile.

She chuckles. "Oh, I'm sure."

She likes Wyatt, honestly likes him. She'd hoped she would get along once they talked--they were suitemates--but had mostly just come over to him in the first place to mend Bert's fences.

And that was good. She needed to have people she felt friendly to in the arena. It gave her reason to stay in control when it would be so very easy to lose herself in there.

He chuckled again, softer, then as the conversation seemed to have reached a natural sort of a point, and as he wasn't one to push on just for the sake of it, he nodded toward the training stations around them.

"Well, now that we've sorted that," he smiled. "Is there something I can help ya with? Wouldn't want Max to think I was slackin' on him."

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sorry, suze can be kinda early 1960s about some things

No worries, Wyatt's 1870, so.... XD

they're winding down a bit though

Wrapping up?

yep

(no subject)

and cut!