(no subject)

[bindsthedead]

Who| Sabriel and you
What| Sabriel starts exploring the tower
Where| District 10, the training area, and the commons
When| After Sabriel's arrival
Warnings/Notes| Possible discussion of zombies and death.

(Option A: Initial arrival, Floor 10, Common Area and Roof)

They had taken away her bells and sword- well, it had been Touchstone's sword, but she'd been carrying it at the time. And then they had explained why they'd brought her here, and it had taken every last ounce of self control and memories of ettiquete classes with Miss Prionte to stop her from screaming at them and trying to blast them with a Charter Spell.

Instead, she'd given them a sharp, brittle smile and explained in a tone normally reserved for addressing lesser domestic servants. They hadn't been impressed, and so Sabriel found herself in a strange building, fear and shock and absolute, seething rage all shifting around inside her head.

Not willing to sit around and sulk, Sabriel explored the premises as best she could. She watched the peacekeepers and tributes and avoxes, quickly realized that the technology here was utterly beyond anything in Ancelstierre, and silently vowed to get to the bottom of what was going on. Then, she decided it was time to start asking questions.

"Excuse me, where is this place? I'm afraid I don't completely understand why I've been brought here." Sabriel's face and voice might be carefully neutral, but her hands were clenched into fists.

(Option B: Training Center)

Sabriel had entered the training center out of curiosity, and had stayed to investigate further.

She'd spent some time practicing with a training sword, getting a grasp of the weight and feel of the weapon- not exactly what she was used to, but it was easy enough to adjust to- but wound up spending most of her time watching other tributes and spending time at stations that taught about skills that weren't directly related to combat- recognizing plants, knot-tying and the like.

Occasionally, she'd approach another tribute or mentor- mostly asking about if one skill or another would actually be useful in the arena, and what she should watch out for.

(Option C: Common Area, a few days later)

They'd given her the bandolier back, but the bells inside were not her own. Sabriel frowned, running her fingers over the handles. The materials were right, but these were powerless copies- there was no magic, Charter or Free, within them.

Carefully, she set each of the bells on the table, in order from smallest to largest. Then she began to ring them.

At first, it was simple peals, just to test the sound. Then she upped the tempo, sounding two bells at once and sometimes tossing them into the air and catching them by the handle, just to get the right sound.

It was strangely soothing, and Sabriel felt some of the tension that had built up over the past few days fade as she focused only on the bells- hitting just the right note, creating just the right melodies and harmonies, and not thinking about death, or the arenas, or anything but the sound.

Comments

[the_marshal]

Wyatt had known it was coming, he just hadn't realized it would be so soon. It seemed like the last arena had just ended.

He still had the scars to prove it.

The escort pointed him in the young woman's direction and even though he didn't know what she looked like, he had to figure he had the right stranger when he came into the common room and found a woman talking to an uncomfortable looking Avox.

"He can't help ya," Wyatt said, his smooth, low drawl as gentle as he could make it. "...Not with that, anyways. He's a mute."

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel turned to look at the man, and drew herself up to her full height before turning the the Avox and hastily apologizing. Then she stared at Wyatt.

Sabriel was still scared, still stunned, but the practical part of her mind was whirling as she regarded the man.

"Can you?" The tone was polite, but Sabriel's fists were still clenched, "This- this isn't-" This isn't right, this isn't what an Abhorsen is supposed to do!, she thought, but the words died in her throat.

"I was taught how to fight-with and without magic, but to protect the living- not to kill them!"

[the_marshal]

As strange as it sounded, her declaration helped settled him some.

He still couldn't say he'd be of any worth to anybody as a mentor, but surely it had be easier if they saw the Games the same way.

"Been there," he murmured, nodding wryly.

He took a step closer and held out a hand.

"Wyatt," he introduced himself. "Wyatt Earp. I've been here a while now, an' I'll do what I can to help ya."

[bindsthedead]

"Sabriel," Sabriel said, taking his hand and shaking it. Her palms were calloused, and her hands had the same unnatural pallor as the rest of her skin. She didn't feel like calling herself Abhorsen, or explaining what the title meant. And she didn't want anyone calling her by it either.

"I think," Sabriel said, "I'm going to need as much help as I can get. Why- why were we brought here? Simply to fight? And if they win, will they- will they return us to where they came from?" Sabriel doubted this would actually happen, but she asked anyway.

[the_marshal]

He gave her hand a shake, his grip steady and warm, palms as rough as hers, though the skin was far darker. A golden brown from all the time he'd spend in the sun, save for the pale scars, some very old, some rather fresh, between his fingers, across his knuckles.

"No," he said, rather flatly, exhaling a long breath as he released her. "No, I'm 'fraid not. On both counts."

He glanced at the Avox, now looking calm again that Sabriel had turned her attention elsewhere - now that she wasn't asking for something he couldn't give her - and then back at her.

"The Games - the fightin' - that's the biggest part, but they'll expect more of ya."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's been a shadow in District 10. He's waiting for word on whether his petition out of the Games will be approved, whether or not he'll have to face death again soon. The stress has run his body so ragged that he appears halfway there already; typically, he uses the time between Arenas to recover, to fatten up his bony body and exercise in ways that aren't running for his life, but he hasn't been able to sleep or eat well for weeks now. He's been, to take a coined phrase literally, sick with fear.

He doesn't belong to this District, but both Orc and Wyatt do, and as such he slinks around the corners like a feral cat who's been let into the building. He wears long sleeves that, given his tiny body, go to his fingertips. He slips around the doorway from Wyatt's room and stops, listening to the sound Sabriel makes. He runs his tongue over his chapped lips and for a moment, lets the sound soothe away the thoughts of his petition nagging at the corner of his mind.

"Those aren't all the same key, are they?" He stays there in the hallway, peering at her from under the hood of his sweatshirt.

[bindsthedead]

"They- they're all the same," Sabriel says, looking down at her surcoat, "It's my family's crest.

The sight of him was- unnerving. She'd seen desperate, destitute people in her time in the Old Kingdom- Howard reminded her of them. Perhaps in terms of death and despair, Panem wasn't so different from the Old Kingdom.

"Have you- have you been a Tribute for a while?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Six Games. Why, does it show?" He smirks, all wry sarcasm, and slips into the room as if he's afraid to disturb it. He ends up sitting on the couch, looking at the bells like a magpie watches bits of shiny garbage.

"Your family has a crest? That sounds fancy." She sounds English, he thinks. She's pale, but looks healthy enough. He tries to remember what it was like being thirteen and not noticing those things, not looking at people's hair as if trying to determine if it's brittle, their fingernails to see if they're cracked. "Are you the new person in District Ten?"

[bindsthedead]

"You could say we're nobility of a sort," Sabriel admitted, "But we don't actually rule over anyone."

Sabriel regarded Howard with a sympathetic yet clinical look. Repeated exposure to Death could take a toll on unprotected bodies and minds, but his skin lacked the bleached look that was a normal symptom of such a malady. She paused when he looked at the bells though.

"Do you like music?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"People with money always rule over people. It just don't always got to be legal."

He pauses, raising an eyebrow. He can see his reflection in the largest bell's polished metal. "If I say yes, will you make fun of me?"

Option B!

[sithcretapprentice]

Starkiller was in the the training center a lot- probably every day. Training was pretty much all he knew, and after his death in his first arena, he wanted to make absolute sure that his skills were top notch. Of course, he was used to a lightsaber, but within the last few months he'd adapted to the swords almost as well as the lightsaber.

His fighting style was the same as ever, with it's reverse grip and aggressive attacks. He could reduce a training dummy to tatters in a short amount of time. There always seemed to be a sense of something missing, though. For so long, he had the Force to back him up. He could sling objects around and throw them aside. At first, there were many times he would reach a hang out to grip something only to realize he didn't have the power anymore. He'd finally stopped doing that, though.

So now, Sabriel would just see him aggressively taking down dummies, until he happened to notice her. His blade stopped just short of the dummy's neck, and he gave her a once over.

"You're not going to learn much by just watching. Take action. If you want to learn a thing or two, then you have to get physical." He lowered his blade and stepped toward her. "How much experience do you have?"

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel responded by lifting a sword from the weapons rack. The balance wasn't quite what she was used to, but her grip and posture spoke of long practice with a similar weapon.

"A considerable amount," Sabriel retorted as she headed towards an intact dummy. The way she moved gave an impression of controlled force, and she brought her sword up into a guard position before launching into a series of strikes. Her style wasn't as aggressive as Starkiller's, but there was a kind of precise brutality to it- every strike aimed at either killing or disabling.

As she extended her arm, skewering the dummy through the neck, she frowned and turned to Starkiller, tilting her head and waited for his reaction.

"Everything I actually fought was a Dead creature though. Sparring with my classmates doesn't exactly count," Sabriel admitted. She'd never had to think about killing a living person- not until she'd summoned a flood to wash away the Dead, and caused more destruction than she'd realized in the process.

[sithcretapprentice]

Any doubts Starkiller had in regards to her were slowly fading away as he watched her attack the training dummy. He'd gotten used to people watching him hoping to pick up skills or techniques and rarely showing any actual skill when it came to it. But she was different, and he could tell that she'd handled a weapon before and that she did it pretty well.

He wouldn't give much of a reaction though, but he did give an approving nod. "Better than I thought," he said. Her last words, however, had him raising an eyebrow. "I'm going to assume that a "dead" creature isn't what first comes to mind."

Because beating up dead things wasn't very impressive.

"So, elaborate?" he added a second later.

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel freed her sword from the dummy with a quick jerk, and bit her lip.

"Yes and no. Sometimes, when a person or animal dies, their spirit seeks to return to Life. When they succeed, they may inhabit a corpse- often not their original body, or they're remain a bodiless spirit. In either case, they must steal life by murdering the living in order to stay out of Death," Sabriel explained.

"Before I was brought here- I could sense them, because I had a connection to Death. But I don't have my magic now." It was frustrating, to say the least.

Option C

[googledox]

The thing about bells was that they were loud. They were the kind of loud that jangled in your head even if they weren't the loudest in terms of decibels. And while he was sure she had a reason she was doing it (hobbies could be comforting in unfamiliar places and he pegged her as new immediately since he had the Tributes largely memorized) he really didn't appreciate it happening in the Common Area, while he was sitting there trying to slog his way through hundreds of mindless, vapid, bits of Capitol media for research to make his online Capitol persona convincing. Learning how to pretend to be someone that grew up reading endless articles about the joys/perils of chunky sweaters was literally a matter of life and death.

Between "10 Hot Tips On Getting That Wild End-of-Arena Look" and her acting as a one-sentient Bztlgian Veterans' Tabernacle Bell Choir, he was about ready to punch a wall. And, of course, too stubborn to just leave the room. (But could you blame him when he was still feeling battered?)

But as he was the type of person to hold it in until it wouldn't stay put anymore, there was total silence at first.

It was when she was giving the fake Ranna a good ring (and when he'd hit "Could you Fall For a Guy Wearing Clogs?") that he finally exploded, turning around in his chare to glare.

"Do. You. Mind? Does this look like a concert hall to you? Is there an orchestra pit hidden by some furniture that I'm missing?" He mimed looking around, even nudging the floor with his food as if expecting some floorboards to slide away.

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel looked up, with only the faintest hint of pink showing on her cheeks.

"Everyone's allowed to be here," Sabriel pointed out as she used her hands to muffle the smallest bell, "And even if these bells are fake, they have a good sound." There were pages in the Book of the Dead that she could vaguely recall- but even as she focused, they blurred and slipped away.

"So I decided to practice with them," she continued. To her ears, the sound was soothing, anyway, though with how the... green... boy in front of her looked, she paused.

"Are you all right?"

[googledox]

He was just about to go on a full sarcastic tirade but then she asked if he was alright and that took the wind right out of his sails.

She was new and he was yelling at her over something she was probably trying to do to self-soothe. Just because he was acting like a selfish, abrasive nasshead to further his plans didn't mean he had to do it all the time.

That was how he'd once been in the past and at heart, he didn't want to go back to being that way again. Not for real. It was easier, sometimes, to do it, to be cold and unfeeling and cruel.

The "unfeeling" part was what made it so appealing. Because if he was honest with himself, even if he'd long since moved past his unending desire for the affection of the parent that had abandoned him, it still hurt that the only thing she had to offer him was suffering.

But that still didn't give him the right to inflict that anger on someone else. if he was going to present his villainous face to her, as part of the facade, he shouldn't do it now when real anger and sadness were boiling right near the surface. His cruelty was supposed to be a well-controlled act, designed to hide his true self without causing real damage. He couldn't maintain the balance right now.

So took a deep breath, reined in his irritability and answered truthfully.

"No." He sat down primly, looking back to his magazine. "I am not in the best of moods at the moment. You're new - when you're here longer you'll understand how easily that becomes a never-ending constant so I won't apologize for wanting some peace and quiet. But this is a common area, so I suppose I can tolerate your presence or leave if it gets too irritating."

He spoke in a tone that made it sound as if it was a very magnanimous gesture. In truth, he was feeling like a squaj for taking his pain out on someone else when they'd just been forcibly introduced to an entire world of hurt.

[void_whereprohibited]

Cecil was glad to be out and about again. The week before had been... harrowing, in many ways, but life went on, didn't it? Stress was, in the end, just another sign that one was alive and engaging with a complex and unpredictable world, and it was no excuse to shirk one's duties as a broadcast journalist. And so, he'd come here to the Tribute Center - to remind himself what he was here for, who he was here for, and how fortunate he was to be... well, where he was.

He sat at a table in the common area, microphone in his pocket and a cup of coffee from a nearby cafe in front of him, and looked fondly into and over and through the crowd. He knew so many more faces than he once had, Tributes and Mentors alike.

...Not this one, though. Not the face of the woman walking toward him with such purpose. By her question, he thinks, she must be a Tribute - a new Tribute. A new face, a new voice, to learn.

"Well!" he said, with a broad and welcoming grin. "This place is the Capitol Coffee Company! Among the less mediocre of the local coffeeshops, though perhaps not my first choice, most days-- even if they do make a mean gingerbread latte." This with a knowing lift of his eyebrows-- Sabriel was free to consider that a recommendation. He spoke as though to an audience larger than just her, in tones too measured, too carefully enunciated, to be quite natural. "However, due to its convenient location and the patience of the baristas for translating the requests of those whose home worlds do not share our own definition of coffee, it is rather popular with Tributes-- of whom, I assume, you are one."

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel hesitated, staring at Cecil for a long moment.

"Yes," she said, "I am a tribute, and my name is Sabriel- although I have to admit, I actually prefer tea."

Thirteen years of etiquette training had, if nothing else, taught Sabriel how to smile sweetly and speak politely even when she didn't feel like it. She suspected that this would be just as useful in Panem as knowing how to swing a sword.

"You're... Are you an Escort, or one of the stylists?"

[void_whereprohibited]

Sabriel. Cecil liked the sound of it-- it was a graceful name. A name that was pleasant to speak aloud. His smile widened.

"Neither!" he said brightly, and put out his hand to shake. "Sorry, I should have introduced myself-- my name is Cecil Palmer, and I am the host of the local community radio show Welcome to Panem." It was spoken proudly, like an announcement-- clearly, this was the aspect of himself he considered most important to any conversation. "And that's exactly what I'm here to do-- to welcome our new Tributes to our beautiful country of Panem, and to this, our glorious Capitol."

He let that hang triumphant in the air between them, and concluded: "So-- welcome!"

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel was familiar with radio. She'd listened to news reports and dramas with her friends back at Wyverly, so she smiled softly as she said, "My classmates and I loved to listen to the radio at school- I'll make sure to listen to your broadcast." Mostly to see if there was any information to be had.

"Panem is certainly... lovely," Sabriel said with only a slight twitch in the corner of her eye, "Although there are some things that seem strange to me- your views on death for example." It took every last bit of self control for her to make it sound like an innocent observation on cultural differences, rather than an angry condemnation.

Option B! :3

[saisamour]

Marius had been flipping through a botany book, and was on a page detailing the structure and markings of a certain poisonous berry, when the lady approached him.

His brows were knotted as he stared at the illustration; it was not difficult for him to identify that particular dark berry, for it had been the very same one he had ingested in a past arena soon after he watched, worthlessly, as Cosette died in his arms. It was not a painless death, but perhaps he deserved it. He had failed her, and the agony was his punishment.

His mind had started its descent into these dark thoughts when her question snapped him back to reality, and he blinked at her, glanced over his shoulder, and saw no one there. Convinced that he was, in fact, the intended receiver of her query, he turned back to her and rather sheepishly replied, "I-It may be helpful to study which fauna may aid you with wounds, mademoiselle, or perhaps are edible or dangerous." A pause, before he added, "Sometimes, there are those that may even be capable of choking you."

Re: Option B! :3

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel nodded, and looked at Marius carefully. He didn't look particularly intimidating, but appearances were not always a good guide.

"I understand," Sabriel said, "I have some knowledge of the flora of the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre, but I'm not sure how useful it would be here- do you mind if I look at that?" she asked, pointing to the book.

[saisamour]

"Yes." He realized his mistake the very moment the word left his lips, and he vigorously shook his head. "I mean to say, no, I do not mind, and yes, you may have a look."

He flustered as he pushed the book in her direction, so she could have a better view. All the while he avoided her eyes as much as possible. He wished he was better at striking a conversation about her world—he had never heard of an Old Kingdom or an Ancelstierre—but he felt it impolite to pry.

[bindsthedead]

"Thank you," Sabriel said, as she flipped through the book, comparing it to what she already knew and trying to memorize as many as she could.

"Have you- have you been in many arenas?" Sabriel asked, hoping the question wasn't too rude, "And have you found knowledge of botany useful in them?"