I'd like to phone a friend [Open]

[bringinghopewithme]

WHO| Bunnymund and whoever you are.
WHAT| Bunny tries to get help from below, by contacting a local Earth spirit. His attempts are failing to yield results.
WHEN| As soon as he got out of the Training Center into the city.
WHERE| The park at the center of The Districts shopping center.
WARNINGS| Child-friendly swearing, attempted magic.



A giant rabbit lighting fires in a park draws attention. Which is all the more frustrating for Bunny, since he SHOULDN'T be drawing attention, no matter what he does out in the open like this. Every adult who stares at him with open confusion hammers home just how wrong something has gone, that whoever's in power in this city has the ability to suppress him into as close a state to mortality as he's been in many hundreds of years.

He could grumble about his situation, but that would get in the way of trying to get help. So he ignores the stares and keeps at work. His work, so far, is a hole in the ground, a pawful of pulled grass, moss, and flower petals stolen from various topiary on his way in search of the most natural place he could find in the midst of the city. He strikes a shard of flint he uncovered in the digging of the hole against the metal of his communicator, lighting a fire in the dry moss on a patch of earth he's cleared of grass, and dropping the flower petals onto the heat.

The way he kneels over the smoldering plants has all the look of a ritual, and the words he intones over them in a language that hasn't been used in the Capitol in much longer than 75 years do also.

All his kneeling and chanting isn't yielding much, though, to his frustration. With a growl, he jumps to his feet over the smoking flowers, still looking at the ground. "I know you're there, and I know you can hear me! You might not recognize me, but I'm close enough to being one 'a yours and I need your help. Wake up."

Still nothing. He stamps the ground, impatient, and growls again as no hole opens, no flowers grow, nothing happens except that he garners a few more bewildered looks from the humans who shouldn't be able to see him.

"Strewth."

Comments

[capitolprivilege]

Oh, it was an angry rabbit.

Stephen blinked at Bunnymund, quiet for a long moment as he processed all that. The molten-nickel threat wasn't quite as shocking to him as it could have been: after all, Stephen had been watching children murder one another since he was very small. Threats of creative and deadly violence were common on Capitol playgrounds, so...the bottom line was, Stephen still thought the rabbit was cool.

Stephen looked down at the smoking hole, then back at Bunnymund. "I don't think it's anything we've done to the world," he said, thoughtfully. "The problem is you. Capitol scientists do something to Tributes with magical powers. They make it so that Tributes can't access any superhuman abilities they had on their own worlds. You know, to even the playing field."

The rabbit did look angry, though, and Stephen did realize that he wasn't safely on the other side of a screen, so he added:

"There are ways of getting them back, though."

[bringinghopewithme]

At that, Bunny crossed his arms and breathed out, calmer. "Keep talking."

If the kid would tell him how to get his spirtuality back, that was his easy button out of here. Maybe the Capitol knew how dangerous he could be, but this guy probably didn't.

[capitolprivilege]

"Okay, well," Stephen began animatedly, "there's not much you can do about it right now, but when you get into the Arena proper, you might have a chance. The Gamemakers sometimes put things in that let Tributes access the powers that were taken away when they were brought to Panem. For example, in the last Arena, there were masks on the walls, right? The Tributes who put them on discovered that as long as they wore the masks, they could use their old powers." There was clear admiration in Stephen's voice: what a fantastic mechanic, gosh the Gamemakers were brilliant, and hardworking, and experts at taking full advantage of the opportunities offworld Tributes presented.

"Obviously it won't be masks again. The Gamemakers wouldn't recycle something like that, so if they do it again, the mechanism will be new. But if you keep your eyes open in the Arena, you might have a shot at that nickel pit after all."

A bright, unconcerned smile.

[bringinghopewithme]

For a moment Bunny could do little more than absorb Stephen's words with a disbelieving expression. If the gamemakers had captured him, what other powerful people had they taken? And what was stopping those tributes who'd gotten their abilities back from attacking the gamemakers straight away?

It couldn't be as simple as that. By some miracle, perhaps the Gamemakers were as foolish as their audience, and the next arena would give him just enough power to escape, but until then, he could only hope.

"I'll keep an eye out," he muttered, glancing away from the young man, who either had no comprehension that the people Bunny wanted to drop in a nickel pit were his leaders, or just didn't care.

Still, he considered the human a little more.

"What are you, a fan of these Games?"

[capitolprivilege]

Truthfully, it was that Stephen fully believed that the Gamemakers and the citizens of Panem would be completely safe from the nickel pit. He was just raised to be bloodthirsty, like the rest of the natives of the Capitol, and thought that it would be very exciting to watch that sort of power in an Arena. Also, he'd wanted to pacify Bunnymund, because very tall, very strong-looking angry rabbit.

"Everyone in Panem is a fan of the Games," replied Stephen smoothly. "For me, though, they're part of my job. I'm what's called an Escort -- it's my job to help the Tributes navigate their lives here. You wouldn't happen to have been assigned to District 6, would you?" he asked, tapping his chin.