calledmenasir: (Do not call me little)
Nasir ([personal profile] calledmenasir) wrote in [community profile] thecapitol2014-03-22 06:31 pm

We are all strangers in a strange land [Open]

WHO| Nasir and others
WHAT| Nasir decides the best way to cope with being brought to Panem is to try and hit people a lot spar.
WHEN| The same day as Nasir's arrival, lasting for most of the day.
WHERE| Training Center
WARNINGS| Violence, probably some cursing

Nasir knew he should get his bearings and explore the new city he found himself in but it was overwhelming. There was simply too much to process. Everything was unfamiliar from the clothes to the people to his own room. While it was more comfortable than the tent he’d lived in for months, he missed the tent all the same. As he missed many things, not the least of which his friends and lover. Even if he returned he didn’t know if he would find them: if Laeta and Sibyl had convinced Agron to move on beyond the grasp of Rome without Nasir or if he stubbornly remained waiting for him, at risk of his life.

Nasir's anger at being torn away-- enslaved again-- brought him to the training center. The journey there had been interesting to say the least and he did not care for that elevator room. But as soon as his hand grasped a spear he felt more at ease. Now if only he had something other than a target, someone who could give him a proper challenge.

Looking around, he spotted a figure and quickly approached them.

“I would spar with you, if you are of desire.” Nasir himself did not appear to be impressive. Short and lithe, he went shirtless and wore a necklace of what, on closer inspection, were three phalluses. But he had a determination in his eyes and he handled his spear with surety.
orestes: (07;)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-05 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
He did succeed. Enjolras tumbled backward, arms splaying wildly to try and recover his balance. He fell hard on the mat, the padding being the only thing to keep his wrist, which absorbed the brunt of the fall, from twisting painfully. He cursed, the French escaping him instinctively. By the time he looked back up, Nasir's weapon was in his face, just below eye level. It was over.

"I yield."
orestes: (pic#7217139)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-06 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
"No," he replied, moving to pick himself up again now that he wasn't facing down a spear, blunted though it may have been. "Or not in any way for which you should feel responsible."

He found his feet again, dusting off the knees of his sweatpants as if there was anything on the practice mat to merit such an action. "You fight well. I told you that I would not be a match for you, monsieur."
orestes: (07;)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-10 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
The phrasing caught him for a moment. Even with the translators, there were always things from their peculiar languages that stuck and made them distinct to their place and time. "I prefer to do my fighting with words whenever possible. To me, violence should be our last resort."

Enjolras drew himself up again, realizing the hypocrisy in that assertion. They were, after all, in a training center, and he was, after all, a mentor of a game predicated on violence. He frowned, searching for the words to clarify that claim. "Which is not to make the option unavailable entirely. Simply to say that I would prefer if it were unnecessary."
orestes: (Default)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-11 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"I refuse to believe that men are incapable of conducting themselves in a civilized fashion." There was an absolute conviction in the assertion. Even after everything he'd seen in the Capitol, it didn't seem to be a mark against human nature as much as a mark against so-called progress.

He looked over Nasir appraisingly, not so subtly attempting to suss out the man's opinions on the subject from his body language. He hadn't been outright critical, but such a position probably wasn't common to someone who had been enslaved by Rome all the same. "We do not have to be the animals our oppressors would like to cast us as. Violence is a means to an end, but one which we must be careful to control. It taints everything, devaluing even the best of intentions."
orestes: (pic#7217137)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-12 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
"I would ask what your intentions would accomplish, and from what are they motivated." The look didn't falter at all. In fact, it only intensified. Enjolras had thought, perhaps a moment ago, that he'd had an understanding of this man. Perhaps that assessment had been premature. He pursed his lips in disapproval. "If we kill them, we become no better than them. We must strive to serve both justice and mercy. Clemency can be granted without sacrificing the right."
orestes: (14;)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-13 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"I judge you no more severely than I judge myself." Enjolras leveled Nasir with a firm expression. It wasn't quite a frown, but it held an impassivity to it, all the same. "I have fought and died for my freedom and freedom of my friends as well. I have been made to fight here and died repeatedly. Nevertheless, I maintain that nothing will come of vengeance. That is how this nation has ended up in its sad state and it is a curse upon the idea of progress."
orestes: (pic#7217202)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-16 08:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"And what then?" Nasir's sentiment was sadly familiar to him. In another life, Enjolras could have seen himself in the same position, of the same opinions. As they were, however, he held fast to his ideology, tone firm, but with no condescension. If they disagreed on the particular degree to which violence was required that was fine. At least they agreed that it was required at all. "What happens after your revenge is had and you have no one left to kill? Do you allow them to haunt you from beyond their graves by poisoning your future? I prefer to leave blood in the past."
orestes: (07;)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-17 04:59 am (UTC)(link)
Enjolras had never bothered to think beyond the revolution and, in retrospect, that had been a mistake. Personal ends put very much aside, there was also the matter of the rebuilding of society once any hypothetical revolution was completed. To up end the world, one had to be prepared to set it right again. Enjolras had simply trusted that task to Combeferre. That, it turned out, was profoundly irresponsible.

"And what now? You have been denied the life you would choose, but you have not been denied any life at all." His eyes hardened. To have a mind for revenge was unconscionable, but to see the necessity in progress, to have it presented so empirically, and not to act? That was irresponsibility taken to a new level.
orestes: (pic#7217136)

[personal profile] orestes 2014-05-17 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Enjolras blinked impassively. The smaller man was powerful, but somehow he managed to be driven without having a true direction. He focused too much on immediate problems and immediate satisfactions.

"I have heard them. I did not find them to be particularly satisfactory. You want revenge, and you have no mind for what will happen to either you, or the rest of the people here once you have attained your goal. What I want, monsieur, is a new world. And I want that new world to come not tainted by bloodshed, even if it must be won through it."