thecapitol | [Open] Taking steps is easy

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[Open] Taking steps is easy

Who Clara Murphy and YOU
What Clara just arrived and is not taking it well.
Where District 10, Training Center, Central Commons Bar
When Following the arrival of the newest batch of tributes
Warnings/Notes Maybe some swearing? Also, as is mentioned in the post, Clara thinks this is all some crazy dream, but probably won't mention that to anyone.

Clara has no idea how she got here. The last thing she remembers from before waking up and being taken before some people who were going to evaluate her for a death match is stepping into an elevator while clutching her son's hand a little too tightly as she tried to figure out how to tell him that his father was dead.

Somewhere between then and now, the only conclusion she had managed to come to was that she had to have blacked out in that elevator and this is some sort of bizarre dream. It makes more sense then the possibility that this is real and someone had dragged her away from David to fight a bunch of complete strangers for their amusement.

[01 - District 10 Suite]
Clara's mostly stuck to her room, only really popping out to go to the kitchen to grab something to eat or drink. Something's different about this trip out of her room, and instead of retreating back as soon as she's grabbed whatever she popped out for, she's decided to grab a seat on a couch and watch whatever's being shown.

Which happens to be clips of previous arenas. Her snack and drink are left sitting on the table as she watches the horrors unfold on the screen, trying to wrap her head around the idea that (dream or not) anyone would find this entertaining.

[02 - Training Center]
Clara never really learned how to fight. The closest she ever came were some self defense classes she took in college at her father's insistence. Her best weapon has always been her words, not her fists. But words don't win death matches. And even if this is all in her head and she's going to wake up from it, she wants to win this. So to help with that, she's swinging a practice sword at a dummy with no form whatsoever.

[03 – Central Commons, Bar Area]
Clara was never really much of a heavy drinker, at least not since her college days. Sure, she enjoyed the occasional night. Hell, she had a glass of red wine almost every night at home. But she can't remember the last time she drank like this.

Maybe her 30th birthday? If not then, then before that.

So she can't help the fact that her head's swimming or that she's lounging on a couch because she's having trouble staying upright at the moment with a martini glass in hand.

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One of the clips on screen is of Clara's new district-mates. A solid slab of a man; his dirty, bloodied face cold, his eyes unblinking as he slit the throat of another tribute.

The same man who was, at that very moment, sitting at the table across the room, quietly taking his lunch. He was cleaner now, the blood and dirt washed away, and the unkempt beard had been tamed back into a neat, dark mustache, but there was no mistaking Wyatt Earp.

As the clip came to an end, one of the garishly painted announcers gushed about how he had known then that Wyatt's victory was only a matter of time and Wyatt paused, slanting the box a weary look.

"Not to intrude," he called over to Clara. "But is there any chance I can get ya to turn that off?"

The sound of his voice made Clara snap out of her horrified daze. While the idea of a death match was monstrous enough as it was, seeing highlights (which was boggling. Highlights of people murdering each other for entertainment? Really?!) from previous arenas was sickening, but for some reason she hadn't been able to bring herself to change the channel.

And the realization that the man on TV and the man at the table were one in the same was enough to make her fumble while she tried to turn it off and instead only changed the channel to a brightly colored cartoon before she finally managed to get the screen to go to black.

"Sorry," she murmured, glancing down at her hands trying to imagine herself attempting to kill anyone and felt her stomach twist at the thought. She closed her eyes and managed to will the thought away for the most part before looking back up at him. "They're serious about this, aren't they?"

It is the tape of Carlos's murder that brings him into the common area.

It took place in a planetarium, a dark and cavernous room, at the hands of a blond man with dark emptiness where his eyes should have been and a grotesque, impossibly-wide smile. Carlos had had the opportunity to kill his attacker, had been poised above him with a metal club, but had hesitated. Rather than take the shot, he had chosen to run. He hadn't run fast enough. Throughout the fight, a short audio clip about Pluto plays in the background, echoing a little in the empty room.

As the blond man takes Carlos by the hair and shoves him into a wall, Clara will see movement out of the corner of her eye, and the screen will shut off. Carlos is standing there, remote in hand, with a very uncomfortable look on his face.

"Sorry, I -- sorry. But do you mind if I leave it off for a while?"

The movement didn't quite take her focus off the terrible events taking place on screen, but the screen shutting off definitely makes her turn her head towards the man who turned it off. And tries not to panic because she just saw him die on the screen and yet he's here and she can't help but feel guilty for watching these things, except she feels like she needs to know what she's in for.

"Of course not."

She tries not to stare, trying to figure out what he is. She's never been the superstitious type, but the idea that he might be a ghost crosses her mind. Either that or this is all fake and she really has nothing to worry about.

Going off the look on his face, she doesn't think the latter's the case.

"How are...do they fake the deaths for drama or..." she cuts herself off, trying to figure out how to ask this without sounding like a moron, and decides just to go for it, "Are you a ghost?"

He could have lived with bouncing, squeaky-voiced blobs of color if she wanted to leave the strange show on, but he didn't complain when she turned it off as well.

"'Fraid so," he murmured, fork hanging over his plate as he looked across at her. "...Soon it'll be you they'll be talkin' about."

The word ghost is, to be perfectly honest, the thing that brings Carlos back to the present. The Pluto tape is still ringing in his ears and his pulse is still racing, but he tries to calm his breathing and answer.

"No, I'm not a ghost. But the deaths aren't fake, either." Any other time, he might have been amused, but right now, Carlos is fighting a panic attack and can't quite manage anything less than sober nervousness. "After you die in the Arena, they bring you back here. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, whether it's medicine, or cloning, or memory transference -- but the point is, we are all brought back to life after the Games. ...well, most of us," he adds.

"I don't see why they'd want to, I'm not all that interesting." At least she isn't here, in comparison to the few other people she's met here so far. After all, how interesting can a wife and mother be in comparison to super heroes and their ilk?

Really, when she thinks about it, the most interesting thing about her as of late is Alex and...well. He's gone, to the best of her knowledge, and even if he wasn't, he's not here. And she highly doubts the Capitol has the same issues as the US does in her time that's brought the spotlight on her and her family back at home.

The knowledge that, no, he isn't a ghost, is a relief. She's had her world thrown off its axis enough within the past few months, thank you very much. There's a sigh of relief that begins escaping her until she hears his explanation.

And, really, she almost would've taken ghosts over that. There are some things in the world that are kind of sacred and should remain untouched, and the life-death cycle was, in her opinion, one of them. Sure, there were exceptions to that, like a doctor swooping in and doing something that's the closest thing to a miracle that she can really think of. But this doesn't seem to come close to that.

"That's..." Insane? Horrific? "...that sounds completely unethical." Which is when the last thing he said completely hits her. "What do you mean 'most of us?'"

"I mean that there is a chance you won't come back to life," says Carlos. "I don't know what the determining factors are. I haven't been here long enough to tell what it is and my request to study the process itself was denied, but the fact remains that some of us are not revived."

Focusing on this discussion helps; so does the admission that yes, he is almost certainly going to die. It certainly takes the wondering out of the fear. Carlos moves to sit in one of the chairs, handsome despite his too-short hair and his clunky glasses, even with the worried and slightly nauseous expression on his face.

Edited (tenses--!!) 2014-05-17 18:32 (UTC)

There was a time when she would have wryly made note of how handsome Carlos is, despite the hair style that obviously doesn't suit him. Or would have tried to be warm and reassuring that things are going to turn out okay.

But that time has passed and Clara's so far out of her depth that she doesn't know what to do.

"How often do they not come back?" Her voice has a tremble to it, as if she's fighting something trying to break loose inside her.

Wyatt snorted gently, head tipping to shoot her a wry look.

"Don't worry 'bout that none, to them ain't nothin' more fascinatin' than a tribute." His fork returned to his plate, pushing some golden corn kernels in with the small mound of potatoes. "'Cept a new tribute."

On the screen, a young man in his late teens or early twenties peeled off his black silk pajama top and tucked it under the head of the green-skinned young man who'd just fainted against him.

"All right, all right, I look good without my shirt," opined a voice behind her. Whether she'd heard the owner of the voice approach depended on whether or not she tended to listen for cat-footed spy-types on a regular basis. "But was that loving pan entirely necessary?"

The young man in question was, at this point in time, wearing a shirt. He was also investigating Clara's snack.

"You can fast forward through the next bit, where we die. It's not all that interesting."

And, frankly, experiencing it once was bad enough.

"It's not very common," says Carlos. "Out of about a hundred Tributes, only a handful don't come back. Also, it's your first Arena. Your odds of survival -- well, continued survival -- are pretty good."

He's working through the panic attack, focusing on her, on clarifying this detail about the Hunger Games, about putting her mind at least a little more at ease about it.

"It's your first Arena, isn't it?"

Clara grabbed the mostly untouched bowl of cheesy popcorn off the table and stood up, crossing the room to sit across the table from Wyatt. After all, it would be rude to have a conversation with him from the other side of the room. "Should I want their attention?"

His reply was immediate, and honest.

"Not likely," he said, scooping potatoes and corn onto his fork; but then he paused, knowing that wasn't entirely fair.

He was a mentor now, and this woman was one of his tributes. He owed her whatever help he could offer.

"But it's somethin' ya should keep in mind anyway," he added after a beat, looking across the table at her. "If they like ya, they're more apt to send ya things in the arena."

Clara jumps slightly at the sound of the young man's voice. Had she not had that...interesting conversation with Carlos earlier, she would have boggled at the idea of having someone who died eyeing her hummus and pita chips. And considering the past few conversations she's had with people who've caught her watching clips from previous arenas, you'd think that she'd have the sense to do it elsewhere. But she wants to know exactly what she's in for and the best way to get a sense of that is to watch the replays.

She leans towards the table and grabs the bowl with her snack and the remote, making the screen go black before offering Lyle some of her snack. "You make it sound so boring."

Which...he really doesn't, but he's just a kid from her point of view, so she doesn't want to accidentally bring up anything or dwell on it if he doesn't want to.

Well, at least there's a pretty good chance that even if she dies, she'll live. Which may be one of the oddest thoughts to cross her mind and she's spent the past five months. Which, really, is saying a lot.

“Yeah, it is. Is it that obvious?”

If the beginning of his reply was the exact opposite of what she wanted to hear, his addition to it was almost exactly what she was hoping for.

"When you say 'things' do you mean useful things, like food and first air, or do you mean useless things like those ridiculous wigs they seem to wear around here?" She asks, partially wanting confirmation and partially wanting to lighten the mood.

It finally clicks that she has no clue who this man is and that he probably doesn't know her from any other new person in the building. "I'm Clara, by the way. Clara Murphy."

Lyle flashed her a smile when she turned off the television, and vaulted over the back of the couch to accept a handful of chips. Both actions made use of the same hand, since the other was too busy being bandaged and splinted to be of any use at all.

"I wouldn't say it was boring," he said, dunking one into the hummus. "Life-or-death situations rarely are, in my experience. But the only real information you're going to get from mine is "sentients who are both very calm and covered with blood are bad news" and "don't stand on skylights"; and both of those are pretty obvious."

He paused, chip and hummus halfway to his mouth. "These are vegan, right?"

He had guessed. The escort had given him the list of new tributes and seeing as he'd already met the other, there was only she could be -- but it was nice to have it confirmed.

"Mostly the former, though sometimes the other," he said, thinking of the strange basket they'd sent him in the museum, claiming it was from Max.

He shifted his fork from hand to hand, and held out the right one out.

"Wyatt. Wyatt Earp."

"It's all right," says Carlos, and he does manage a smile. "I mean, it is, but that's okay. Listen, when you go into the arena, the most important thing to remember is that the Hunger Games are entertainment. They don't want you to survive. They want you to put on a show." He has leaned forward, his voice low and earnest.

"I honestly don't know." Are pita chips usually vegan? If they are, are they made the same way in the Capitol as they're made back in her time? "I know the hummus should be, unless they've started adding eggs or milk to hummus recently."

The fact that he's talking about life-or-death situations as if they're a semi-regular thing is making some sort of alarm go off in her head. "Do you end up in life-or-death situations a lot? Other than here, I mean."

There's something familiar about his name, but she couldn't quite remember why. Did she see it in a book? Did someone mention it once? Hell if she could remember, all she knew was that it's familiar for some reason.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Earp," she said instead of trying to figure it out, as she took his hand and gave it a small shake.

"So the useful things they send, are they specific or random? If I needed medicine or something like that, would I get exactly what they wanted to send me or would it just be random medication?"

The idea of trying to put on a show for the people watching her makes Clara feel more than a little uncomfortable. Though that could mostly be because at home in Detroit she was trying to keep the media's eyes off of her and her son. And while she doesn't exactly enjoy the idea of having that much attention on her, she's willing to put up with it, dream or not. "I think I can do that."

It suddenly strikes her that she's been talking to this man for a few minutes and doesn't even know his name and she'd feel like an idiot if she called him Dr. Perfect Hair to his face. "I'm Clara, by the way."

"Ugh, gross."

He considered for a moment, then licked the hummus off the pita chip, which he then delicately set down on the coffee table.

"Depending on your definition of--" he snorted. "No, I can't even say that without laughing. Yeah, fairly frequently, but I had a weird adolescence." He offered her another smile, and his uninjured hand. "Hi, Lyle Norg."

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[Open] Taking steps is easy

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