thecapitol | Little girl, little girl [open]

Entry tags:

Little girl, little girl [open]

Who| Clementine and OTA
What| Clem wakes up from her first ever death in the arena, then goes up to the roof with her thoughts
Where| District 6, then the roof
When| End of week 5 of the arena
Warnings/Notes| Inevitable angst

Prompt A: District 6 Suite

Clementine wakes up, that's the nightmare. Not the six weeks proceeding it.

She never thought she'd be so unhappy to discover herself alive. It's not just the shock of it or the horrible memory of dying, it's the fear of what she did in the space between dying and waking up. Clementine remembers a girl who tried to save her and then she remembers trying to warn her but she's can't recall clearly if she actually got the words out before she died.

The fear of it overtakes her as she sits up on the bed, pulling up her knees to bury her face in them, arms wrapped tight around her legs to muffle the sound of the first sob. She should be stronger than this, better than this. Instead she'd been stupid and possibly gotten other people killed. Nevermind what the Capitol did to the food, she's still going to blame herself now for her actions.

Prompt B: The rooftop garden

Hours after waking up Clementine has calmed down but in desperate need of fresh air, a space to clear her head away from the view of any screens. She's started to get a picture of what's happened since she died; what happened after, who else she knows who's died and who is still left alive in the arena.

Joel, Sabriel... they took care of what she'd become. She'll have to thank and apologise to them when they come out but all of that seems very far away as she looks out at the gleaming city from the balcony, her chin pillowed on folded arms over the railing.

It's so wrong, those people out there enjoying the spectacle of the games, not understanding the real horror of what the tributes go through. Clementine doesn't understand how they can be so removed from the suffering happening under their very noses.

[[ooc: Prompts are in prose but reply in any format you wish!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Easy would just be killing ourselves at the start." Clementine snorts softly, she doesn't get a lot of what Mindy says sometimes, the older girl has an odd way of speaking. "I'm as clueless as you."

But she thinks about it for a moment, "... well I'm hungry. We could start with that." Dying apparently works up an appetite.

"It wouldn't be easy for me," Mindy said. "That's one thing I'd never do, no matter how fucked up things got. I never give in without fighting, even when I'm dying."

Which Guy had witnessed first hand.

"Man, we suck at this. Ok, food it is. What's your favorite?"

"I've seen people choose it before. I wouldn't either though, no matter how bad things get." It was one thing she'd never been able to understand, just giving up like that. You found them occasionally, the remains of suicides in houses or other places. Once they'd passed a man who'd tried to hang himself, clearly in the early days before the news that you came back no matter how you died got around.

It'd been bizarre watching a Walking swinging around like that.

"Pizza." Clementine decides quickly enough. "With everything."

"I knew someone who would. The Capitol decided to put a stop to it by torturing someone unrelated as punishment. You can imagine that he decided not to do that anymore. It's what people forget in the Arena or outside of it: they own you. You can't pretend its not the case no matter what you do: eventually, the shit they do will leak down on you. It always does."

She laughed. "Everything? That's a lot of shit, Clem. You sure about that?"

"Figures." Even the 'easy' way out really wasn't here.

Clementine allows a half-smile to show on her face, shrugging a skinny shoulder. "I went three years without pizza and a lot more stuff before coming here. Trust me, I can eat anything now."

"Try going to break the kid out and getting a scalding for your trouble," Mindy said, groaning. "Not fun."

Good point. "True. So we can go and get it somewhere downstairs, or I could try my hand at making it. Don't know if we have anchovies though."

"Do you know how to make it?" she asks her. It'd be kind of interesting to see. "One missing topping isn't so bad." Clementine allows, teasing.

"Yeah, had to a few times, we and dad trained intensely, so, you know, its not like money was pouring in. Good though. I don't like 'em, too fucking salty."

She grinned. "Now for the heavy question: do you fold it or not?"

"That's cool, I'd like to know how too." And if it means not going out to where people might stare or talk about her so much to better.

Now the question confuses her, "Why would you fold a pizza?" Calzone is clearly a unknown mystery to Clementine.

"That's cool. If you want to be lazy about it, you can always do the English muffin method where you throw on some sauce, topping and cheese. It's a quick way to do it. My way, MUCH longer."

She grinned, "Good girl. No reason at ALL to fold a goddamn pizza, don't know why so many New Yorkers do it."

"I think we should do it your way." Clementine decides, it's her first meal out of the arena and if Mindy's going to be nice enough to make it for her she wants it do be done properly.

"Is that where you're from?"

"You know what? I think we should too. It's been way too long since I've made something with my own hands, let alone for somebody else."

She nodded. "Yup. It's loud, dirty and full of horrible people, but its mine."

"Alright, it's a plan."

Clementine looks mildly interested. "I remember seeing it on tv. it didn't seem that bad, probably more interesting than Atlanta."

"It's got some really nice parts, but I tended to work the underbelly, if you catch my drift."

She chuckled. "Certain key cities have their people who swear by it, and so do I." She was already starting to get the flour, and was estimating how much dough she'd need. "Where are you from?"

"Sort of." Clementine answered honestly. "Georgia. I lived just outside Atlanta with my parents, then after the Walkers happened I was always on the move. We were heading north before I got brought here."

"Oh, Georgia. I think dad said it was nice there. Never been."

She paused as she started kneading the dough. "Though I bet it was better before the Walkers and shit, right?"

"It was quiet." she answered her. Clementine comes forwards and leans over, watching Mindy's actions thoughtfully. "Much better. It's kind of hard to sightsee when you're trying not to get eaten all the time."

"Not the Atlanta I recall hearing about," she said, continuing to work on the dough, then shifting to the sauce, adding some garlic and parsley. "No, I hear you. Just like New York is much nicer when you aren't by yourself at night."

"Maybe just where I lived then. I don't remember it so well as the stuff that came after." Sometimes that bothered her, that she was forgetting the world before the dead rose. "You were allowed out that late?"

"I wish I could relate. Sometimes I wonder if our worlds are just separated by time rather than, I don't know, alternate time lines or whatever. But yeah, we don't have a curfew or anything like that. I'm guessing you do?"

"To be honest I don't understand any of that stuff. It's like... did your parents ever read you The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Except there's no wardrobe."

Clementine shakes her head. "Used to back when things were normal, not anymore."

Mindy blinked. "I saw the movie. It was really weird. Oh, wait, you mean, like, how time passes all weird and fucked up in one place? I think I get you now."

She nodded. "Yeah, that has to be weird. Not that things are so normal now."

"Yeah that, and going to another world. I guess it's a little like Alice in Wonderland too, except it's not really wonderful in any way." she snorts. "I'd prefer some talking animals."

"Well, last I saw, Wonderland wasn't wonderful, it was just fucking weird. So I guess it fits in pretty well with this place. I can only imagine what that duck of Sandy's might say. 'Quack, these crackers are bullshit, quack!'"

It's so unexpected for Mindy to come out with that that Clem also chokes on thin air. "Is that what a duck sounds like?"

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