thecapitol | And all the people hurried fast, real fast [OPEN]

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And all the people hurried fast, real fast [OPEN]

Who; Rose and Open!
What; Rose exploring, attempting to make new friends??
When; The Days after Rose leaves the arena
Where; Mostly around the tributes tower, possibly around the capitol if you prefer I am coo with whatev
Warnings/Notes; Trolls are Rose's trigger, so. Be aware it's gunna be neg CR for any Trolls? And unsure face at any other aliens.

Rose has only been out of the arena for a few days, and it's a few days she's spent mostly by herself, reflecting as well as trying to find out what she can about this new place. The news of District 3's annihilation is still new enough that she hears it, stores it away. There's obvious unrest in this place and she can practically hear the whispers of rebellion. Good, she might need something to do.

Because reflecting is more just her beating herself up. She had lost controlled completely, let herself be devoured by a power she's tried so hard to tame. Se doesn't blame Bro for what he did, after all, when there's a rabid animal, you put it down. He did what he needed to do, and she can't hold it against him.

So Rose tries to occupy her time with wandering, exploring where ever she can get into. It's not too hard, she's a tribute, though she's quickly found the way the Capitol people so easily recognise her, the hushed whispered and obvious staring to be an annoyance, making her feel even more unsettled. So she spends little time outside of the tribute tower, prefering to go out in shades and a headscarf when she does leave.

But the tower has more than enough to study, from rooms to people, Rose studying anyone she runs into to try and judge if they'll be worth her time should she speak to them

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Towards the end of his journey, he had less and less of Rose as a support. Just increasing frustration and disdain for the fact that she wasn't listening and throwing herself down wells. Wells full of booze. It's plain weird not being able to talk about shit with her, even stupid shit. So in a sense, he feels like he's been without Rose for longer than he's even been here.

"You finally grew into your face, congrats." Is he saying she looks hotter? Absolutely not. Is he thinking it? A little bit. God, he hates himself. He perks up a little at what she's saying, raising his brows as if he's impressed before he covers his ears dramatically.

"Woah, spoilers." He gives her a dirty look before dropping his hands. "That far ahead?"

Edited 2014-07-08 12:38 (UTC)

A part of her is aware what happened, though the memories are distant and foggy, like looking through frosted glass. Into a dim room. But with what she knows of doomed Rose and her own self a part of her knows the true Rose is going to go through some substance abuse and the fuzziness of it all makes her think that it happened around the time Dave is from. She half wants to asks, wants him to confirm it, but she also doesn't want to jump into such dark things so quick.

"Rude," she shoots back, ever so quick, brow raised. She ignores all the ways she could twist that around, use it to needle at him and his mind because as much as she likes stirring him up she's not a creep. That or she's not that mean, though she can still be somewhat cruel if she wants. "You don't ever grow into your limbs sorry. Always walking around like some blonde slenderman typ-"

His next words register before she finishes and Rose cuts herself off and for a second she looks as if she's taken a physical blow. It's just so Dave she's so used to hearing it come out whenever she starts talking about the things she logically shouldn't know and the reminder stings so much.

She tries to compose herself as quick as possible but there's a noticeable lag, a noticeable stiffness in the way she holds herself, nod a little too sharp as she tries to keep going. "Yes... that far indeed." She swallows, deep breaths Lalonde, don't be such a loser here. "But you all must have known that, somewhat. That we succeeded, at least."

It's both funny and offputting how easily Dave finds that they slip back into their sibling jibes. It really only reminds him how much he misses his Rose, but he's not letting it show in his face or voice. He's trying to act like this is just another day and another conversation, though he's beginning to realise that this might be a pretty time consuming moment to have.

"Well we can't all be Adonis. Some ladies like a guy with no meat on the bones." He glances at his communicator, wondering when Terezi will be down and whether it's worth sending a message telling her to hold off on the meeting. He shrugs at Rose when she questions him, the usual response full of teen apathy.

"It was pretty bleak, last I remember." He twists his mouth into a frown.

Terezi would typically consider herself punctual, not early or late. When Dave starts pinging her with passive aggressive comments about her being late, she starts walking a little slower, just for good measure. Time players can stand to have a little patience, she plans to tell him, but the comment doesn't make it past her lips.

There's an older woman talking to him--not that it's a problem, but she smells remarkably like Rose. Briefly, her thoughts skip back to something that Fraysong had told her in the arena...about the golden haired woman with needles who took his sight. The coincidence is too much.

But the arena is the arena, and she tries to make it a policy not to hold grudges unless it's something exceptionally cruel. She doesn't always succeed, but at least she's approaching the two without any obvious resentment.

"If this isn't the most awkward family reunion in history," she greets them, before giving Dave a light jab in the arm. "Late is late, and nothing else. I should give you two for whining."

They're both good at wearing a mask it seems, despite Rose's little slip earlier. She's more aware now to watch herself, pushing everything down, a trait she's had many years of practice at. It's easy, sling a few cutting remarks, act offended when it suits her and wait for something she can twist around.

"Do they? I haven't met any yet, you'll have to tell me where they're all hanging out so we can meet." She watches him check his communicator, raising a brow. Waiting for someone? She goes to ask but he beats her to her, Rose studying his expression for cracks.

"How bleak is pretty bleak?" She bites back the use your words Dave that sits so snarkly in her throat and it's then it slides up into view, and just like that Rose is on the defensive, the way the troll so casually jabs her brother only feeding into her defensiveness.

"Keep your hands off him," she spits, voice like ice and furious hatred in her eyes and Rose steps forward without warning, arms up to push the troll back and fuck how she wishes she had a set of needles. No worry, it's small, much smaller than the one in the arena, she's sure she can take it barehanded if she must.

Dave just rolls his eyes at her asking to meet all the hot broads who want his skinny ass. He would make sure to go into detail about all the macking he's gotten up to, but that's clearly not important now. Alas, he'll make shit up some other time. For now, he's focused on trying to elaborate on how shit just about everything is in the game, but it's interrupted by a jab to his arm and he jerks back.

"Excuse me for looking to book in a little more quality time." He snaps back at Terezi quickly, barely getting his sentence out before Rose intervenes in the conversation and he intuitively slips between them even if he doesn't understand what sparked the anger. "I think I can handle a jab to the arm, Rose. Even if it was totally unnecessary." He takes the chance to flash what seems like a dirty look at Terezi, but it's actually an expression of confusion. That she can't see. Brilliant.

Edited 2014-07-11 13:04 (UTC)

The sudden vitriol from Rose has Terezi's hackles raised as she stumbles back from the shove. It's a good thing that Dave is intervening because Terezi is more than a little defensive after that "greeting". She has no intention of attacking, but she's not just going to let herself be attacked, either. Her shoulders are hunched and ready for an attack, even as she gives Dave an equally confused expression in return for his.

"Wow, Lalonde. I am pretty sure that you are neither the boss of him or my hands, so consider your orders null and void! I will place my hands wherever I like." Which isn't to say that she's going to, that would be kind of awkward in their state of things, but Rose doesn't have any business telling her where to put her body parts.

"Get away from the troll Dave," Rose says, ignoring everything he tries to tell her, eyes fixed on Terezi. Her voice is still like ice, eyes narrowed and she finds her hand on Dave's arm, grip tight as she tries to pull him back behind him. She ignores everything else, the way Dave greets it like it's a friend, the way it knows her name like that, as if it knows her.

"I may not be the supposed boss of you and your limbs, but I'd be happy enough to remove them should you start considering placing your hands on either of us," she continues, glaring quite obviously at Terezi,and she can feel her fist bawl up, wishing for a needle or something, anything, just in case she needs to prove such words.

It's not like Dave doesn't trust Terezi to act rationally, even if trolls are fucking nuts. It's Rose he doesn't trust at this point in time. She looks just like his sister and acts like her for the most part, but there's a huge degree of separation between them. This is why he fucking hates timelines, this is why he hates it when he isn't the one ahead of the game.

"What? Nope." He makes a face of confusion when he turns back to Rose, brows knitted together at the order. "You need to back up a few steps and take a breath, Rose. We both know Terezi, don't we?" He's staying stubbornly still in his place between them. Again, it's not because he doesn't think either of them could hold their own, but he really doesn't want a fight to break out over a misconception.

Terezi really has no idea what she did to set off this Rose. She's clearly older than the Rose she knew, but whatever happened to piss her off this much, Terezi hasn't lived through it yet. She notes that Rose is trying to pull Dave away, and the protectiveness of the gesture is kind of sickly hilarious. She wouldn't dream of hurting Dave. Ever.

Still, she holds her hands up, showing her palms in a gesture of good will. "Okay, friendly warning for you, Rose: if you start trying to remove limbs around here, you are going to have a lot of Peacekeepers to deal with. Lots of humans with the authority to throw you in a cell and possibly torture you if they don't like your face. Neither of us want that, so listening to Dave is probably your best course of action until we can figure out what future me did to ruffle your eldritch feathers."

"I'm not in the habit of making friends with genocidal maniacs," she spits back to Dave, her eyes still on Terezi even when he turns to her. She won't give it the opportunity of her looking away, she'll watch and see every little movement it makes and she'll be ready for it.

"So then, where is she," she says and it's a sneer, Rose's chin jutted out as if that will fix the slight height difference the troll has over her. Every other thing Terezi says she ignores, writes it off as the troll just trying to confuse her, put her off focus or something else. She's not foolish enough for that. "Your little fish bitch Empress. I'm sure she's terribly pleased that she managed to finally succeed."

"Well then you'll get along great, genocide isn't on the menu here." He raises his hands when he shrugs, still trying to grasp the situation. Something must have happened, but it can be explained when people are calm. People being Rose, since he's fine.

"She's right, Rose. They only want us to kill each other in the arena, outside they can be kind of anal with it." He really hopes the logic there is sound enough to get her to back off, hopefully before someone else intervenes.

"Empress..? Like Meenah or the other one?" He didn't really know enough about Feferi to know her name. "What the hell did Meenah do? Or is there a bigger fish bitch out there? ..Rose, you aren't squaring it all on Terezi because she happens to be a troll, right? If something happened, I'd know. Trust me, alright. Terezi has had my back from the start, I probably wouldn't be alive at this point without her hand holding me through Sburb."

The Empress? Wow, that's someone that she hasn't thought about in a long time. She hasn't exactly forgotten the conditioned fear that comes along with that name, but it's not as bad as when she actually lived on Alternia. Neither has she forgotten the last time that a human had such an extreme reaction to someone that they shouldn't know.

"You're from Jake's universe. And Dirk's." The one that the Empress apparently ended up in somehow. She's still not sure how that happened, just that it did and she wrecked a lot of things--at least according to what she heard Aranea tell them.

"Wow, that sure is a misunderstanding." She's not even sure where to begin to sort all of that out. "But I am getting the distinct impression that Dave's right. Newsflash! Not all trolls are like our lovely Empress! In fact, I'd say a good portion of us are about as pissed off at her as you are. We wouldn't say that within a billion lightyears of her, since she has about five different ways to cull dissenters without actually being present... But the sentiment is there. Usually." There were always the higher castes that basked in the luxury of their place in life, though. They didn't seem to have a problem with the Empress...but they still feared her. Everyone did.

"Trust me. She wasn't any kinder to us than she was to you."

Dave is clearly confused. It's all she can let herself think because she refuses to consider the option that Dave is honestly friends with one of these things. Trolls have access to psionics that humans do not, she's witnessed it first hand and whose to say this isn't something similar.

The words shut up are sitting on her throat as Terezi makes her guess, a correct one and now even more of Rose's attention is on this troll. Dave was one thing, but Dirk is a name only few should know and she doesn't recall cc-ing a troll in on that.

If Dave wasn't between them she knows she'd have the troll by the shoulders, because how does she know that name how and what does it mean for the boy she was going to call nephew. "How do you know that name." It's not a question it's a demand and she feels her fingers curl to fists, even as Terezi's other words start to break through to her and yet still she laughs, the sound bitter.

"Did she make it her mission to wipe your entire race our to try and re-cultivate her long dead planet?" she says and it's biting because it hurts. It's always hurt Rose, to know what's going to happen, to know that whatever she does it won't really be enough. She knows, she's looked, all the fates seem to end the same sort of way for her.

At this point, Dave doesn't feel particularly helpful beyond being a meatshield, but he will continue to do that to the best of his ability. Terezi is better at explaining this, she's already figured it out better than he has. He can't help berating himself, but that's all in his head. He's just going to fall silent between them and let Terezi do the talking while he does the separating. If she can get it across to Rose, with him there to prevent her from lashing out, they might be able to handle this without a peacekeeper dragging his girls away by their weaves.

He gives Terezi a little nudge with his elbow to let her know that she can answer that one, that he's just here to support her argument.

Terezi gets the hint from Dave, even though she's not sure what to say to Rose's question. Did she make it her mission to wipe them out? Well, no. They did that themselves with their session. If they hadn't wiped out their own universe, the Empress probably wouldn't have migrated to Rose's. Probably not a good point to bring up, though.

"Not our entire race, but she was pretty keen on murdering vast quantities of it on a whim." Terezi gives a little shrug, showing the palms of her hands again. "I'm pretty sure that there have been dozens of uprisings and rebellions, but no one ever hears about them. She literally wiped them out of history. That's what she does. If you speak up against her or don't do exactly what she expects you to do, she culls you. If you're lucky, that's where it stops. If you're not? Your quadrants, your neighbors, your entire caste and any of the castes beneath you. Her lusus had the ability to psychically murder millions of trolls. Just a whisper from that thing could wipe out the lower castes alone, and everyone knew that it wasn't an empty threat."

"Yeah, it sucks that she ended up on your planet. It would have been better if she'd bit it with the rest of our species, but she didn't, and there's nothing that we could do about that. When we left our universe, she was effectively stranded in dead space because everyone else was dead. I really have no idea how she even got to your planet. But just because she's got some genocide-happy plans unfolding in your time doesn't mean that we're all about to take up our swords and hop on the murder train. We're not a hivemind, okay? She's just a bitch that no one wants to deal with."

But if she ever shows up here, Terezi hopes that Rose has the brains not to relay all of that to her. She's rather fond of not fearing for her life outside of the Arena, too.

"I don't care."

It's blunt and curt and she doesn't care. Because it's true. She doesn't give a single fuck, not right now, not when Terezi's completely avoided the more important question Rose has. Any other time she might consider it, it's intel after all, intel she hasn't had access to but right now she's single mindedly focused on one thing.

"How do you know about Dirk?" she repeats and her words are pure ice, making it clear she wants the answer now.

"Cold." Dave can't help chipping that in. Sure, his Rose could be a huge bitch, bluh bluh, but this is a terseness he isn't used to. It's awkward, really awkward, given his tenuous refriendship with Terezi. This would be how hanging out again goes down, all death threats and callous ignorance toward Troll suffering. God, he never thought he'd be picketing for trolls. Sign him up for Green Peace already.

He thinks he gets this, but he needs to sort of glance over at Terezi to figure it out. "Dirk is my Bro, right? And Jake was having conniptions about- uhuh. Yeah, now it makes sense." He turns back to Rose. "Dream bubbles. Sleep express travel for chitchats. We met him for about half a second." Or so he thinks.

Terezi sighs and fights the urge to give Rose the stink eye. She can't really, but she can do a damn good impression of it if she tries hard enough. Dave chiming in saves her from making any sort of snarky remarks that might send this conversation spiraling into worse territory.

"You met him for half a second. He was actually there for that whole embarrassing encounter, but he was some kind of weird dreaming brain ghost. He smelled really good. Like orange creamsicles." Not the point, Terezi. She tries to focus back on the important stuff.

"He showed up with Jake and Aranea. You know, after we spent that embarrassing length of time strifing with Meenah over how was not okay to use the sleep-floating teen Lalonde as harpooning practice. Or the rest of us for that matter." Her attention shifts from Dave to Rose in the middle of that sentence. She really doesn't know if that's going to set Rose off again, but she's very clearly trying to make a point around the fact that she's all for not impaling random people with tridents. "Aranea gabbed about our ancestors a bunch, and when she started in about Meenah, Jake started having an intense whispered debate with the brain ghost known as Dirk. Then Jake flipped his lid, yelled something about Fish Hitler and tackled Meenah. I chatted Dirk up a bit while everyone was scrambling to separate them. Then Dirk popped into the land of the corporeal, grabbed the snoring Lalonde's hand, said he had to jet, and dragged her back into the void of the medium. Said that he was taking her home. And that is my entire encounter with the mysterious Dirk Strider."

Until he managed to show up here. But that's another can of worms that she doesn't feel like opening right now.

Edited 2014-07-18 17:12 (UTC)

Dave catches her attention with a snap, and for a second there Rose had almost forgotten him. It was easy enough to do, he'd gone quiet, she isn't as insync with him as the Dave she's used to and there was a troll right there. A troll who knew of Dirk.

"Not dead," she asks and while it's not entirely a question there's a trickle of uncertainty in her voice, one that she can't fully mask. It's one of her greatest fears after all, that all they've done, all they've planned for will never amount to anything, and Roxy and Dirk won't be able to live.

And she's back to Terezi, shoulders tensing again at the sharpness of her voice and while some part of her knows why, logically, she still can't help her irritation at it. How dare she, she was the one from a genocidal race, not Rose. "I never met him," she snaps back, too sharp because she's still so worried. "I am not the Rose who played the game, I just have a lot of her memories. But there are parts that are blank to me, especially after the Scratch."

Snoring Lalonde. She recognises who that is, there's only one person it could be and Rose doesn't know whether to be elated or... something. She doesn't know, and she's torn at least three different ways, between getting rid of this troll and asking her for more information, more, anything at all on her daughter and she hates that this troll has seen more of her than Rose ever really has. She's seen her in person and it stings.

And for the first time Rose is really silent, fingers curled to fists with the slightest shake in them because she doesn't know what to do or say anymore and without her Sight she's struggling to find a direction.

"Whatever." Dave can't resist getting that in when Terezi lays down the facts. He's glad he didn't see Dirk anymore than he did, he hadn't enjoyed the moments he got already. His mind just rejected the idea of another Bro, another expectation to live up to and another confusing conversation to get through. At least, that's what he's telling himself, though there's a part of him curious to get those things aside and learn about Dirk as a person and not an obstacle.

It's true that he spent most of his time there stopping Meenah from slashing the life out of people, but he won't mention it. He also spent it with Rose, watching the debacle happen and scoping the new hottie, but he won't mention that either.

"So, shit went down in your world, alright. You're from another side of the disc." He just exhales in relief as things are starting to clear up through all the lengthy explanations. "Roxy and Dirk are alive and handling their shit on their side, we're doing what we can on ours, but like I told you it's.. pretty bleak. Right now. If we didn't have the trolls on our side we'd have fucked up well and truly long ago." He hates to admit it, but it's true. Especially Terezi. "It's different here, I get that. I'm not saying you have to be best friends or date them, whatever. I'm just saying that flying off the handle like that is the shit that gets us all muted and murdered for kicking up trouble. If you're gonna go slap happy, keep it in the Arena, but be a pal and leave Terezi out of your grudgewank." He draws in a breath and gives them both a moment before he continues. "So can we all take a step back now? It's my birthday, c'mon." No it isn't.

"It is the middle of summer, Dave. It is the furthest thing from your birthday," Terezi deadpans at him. He's just trying to lighten the mood or ease the tension--and she's trying to help. Sort of. Ribbing him a little is helping, right?

"Dave is right. If we weren't working together through that game, none of us would have made it as far as we did. My session would have been stuck in our Medium for pretty much forever. Dave's session would have died before they ever started the Reckoning. And your offspring are stuck in their session until both of our sessions get there to bail them out."

How, she's not exactly sure. Rose--their Rose--wasn't very clear on that part. But the fact was that they were needed in this new session... most of them, anyway.

She fixes her attention on Rose: "I'm not going to fight you. Sure, you're pissed off at me for things that I can't change. And you're not the Rose I know, but you're still Rose. Which means you're still Dave's sister and my friend. And my floor is already in enough trouble, I don't need to give them another reason to haul me off."

They're alive. They're alive, she hadn't fucked up, she had calculated it all correctly and for a second Rose cares about nothing else. She feels warm, she feel happy, happy and relieved and it shows for that one second, all her features softening. She's always tried to ignore her fears and concerns, that she was wrong, that she was looking at the wrong fate and to be told it isn't so... It's a relief she never thought she'd get.

But it fades. It fades as soon as that troll opens her mouth, and Rose can recognise the differences in how it speaks English and after years of despising one, despising them all, it's impossible to not feel at edge when Terezi speaks. It's behavious she'll have to unlearn and in truth she isn't planning to. Dave may be trying to vouch for her, but she knows Dave. She knows that he can be a fool, that he doesn't always see what she sees. And he's so young now, he hasn't dealt with them the way that she has.

"I'm not your friend," she finally says, sharp like a blade, and Rose draws herself to her full height, chin raised proudly as if she isn't the shortest one here. She doesn't look to Dave, won't let him try and talk her into being kinder with stupid jokes and incorrect thoughts.

Her inhale is steady and she holds the silence before finally continuing. "But I'll keep it until the next arena. If only to ensure Dave doesn't get dragged into this." A pause, only a heartbeat. "But that does not make us friends, and you'll be wise to stay away." From her, from Dave.

"Woohoo." He imitates the weakest, least enthusiastic fist pump ever. He can't even pull it together to do an insincere excited one, he just feels so drained from the conversation. He warily moves out from between them, though he's still keeping close to Terezi.

"Baby steps." He murmurs, before they can antagonise one another again, intentionally or not. He's not sure where to go with this now or what to do, but it's all weighing on him like some fat fucking elephant on his chest. What happens next, he thinks, will be up to Terezi.

It stings a little, when Rose snaps that they're not friends. It's hard to dislike your boyfriend's sister, even if her mere existence did make Terezi feel a little superfluous. They weren't bosom chums or anything, but Terezi at least considered them passive friends. This Rose clearly had other ideas, but she wasn't going to let that sway her. They were still friends. End of story.

"Suit yourself. I'm still not going to fight you." Terezi smells when Dave steps to the side. She wants to give him some sort of reassuring gesture, but she doesn't know if that might set his sister off again. She settles for leaning forward just a little and bumping her shoulder against his.

"I get the feeling that now might be a bad time to run off and blow up our plastic currency squares on cheap entertainment like we're at some shitty human Vegas strip." Which is clearly the best way to describe going to an arcade on Panem. "I can catch up with you later. No hard feelings."

She doesn't want Dave to think that she's bailing because Rose scared her off. It would take a lot more to do that, but Rose is at least right. Neither of them want to drag Dave into this.

And all the people hurried fast, real fast [OPEN]

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