thecapitol | [open] CATCH ALL

"I do rather." Or, at least, Joly's opinion casted his friends as strong, considering what they had managed at home, and that, since then, Enjolras had been a victor once, before he'd been swapped out for Cosette and that Courfeyrac and Marius had gotten far in other arenas, and there was Venus too, though he would ask Enjolras for his opinions there, before involving her.

Combeferre had also lasted in the last arena longer than him, and on his first try, and besides that, he was perhaps the smartest person Joly knew, so that there was only that one answer he could give. "The strongest men I've ever known." He confirmed, with a firm nod. "And they've just taken one of us, along with several other friends captive. I cannot see them letting it stand without at least attempting finding something out. "

He meant rather more than that, but well, given the restraint they were placed under, saying anything more was rather stupid. "Surely, they'll find the real killer too." He added, using what he was sure the official channels would say about it. It was a slim chance and he did not entirely believe it, but better to look like he trusted in some sort of power at work here.

Well that was good at least, that he had strong friends, they would be useful. She understood that he meant more, it was hard getting back into the habit of watching what she said all the time. It was hard.

"Maybe they will be being, if they do be having all this technology they should be being able to be finding the right person."

She frowned, "If you and your friends do be needing any help I do be being really strong."

It was definitely hard. Joly hated this idea, the trying to speak in code when every single part of it could be observed, when they could almost read a Tribute's mind... It was stifling, it was difficult, and even using puns to convey messages as he had first considered did not seem likely to work on an enemy one had to out-think at every turn.

"They ought to, yes." He agreed with that at once. "I should hope that they find the culprit soon." Joly would like to buy that man or woman a drink, that was for sure.

And, at that message, Joly nodded, and he smiled. It was not a patronizing smile either. His district mate reminded him something of Gavroche, and Gavroche had proven to be rather strong as well.

"I will keep that in mind." He promised, nodding firmly.

Pruna nodded back and sat down on the floor. It seemed that rushing off was not going to be the answer. Though she hated it she thought it best to wait and then when everyone had had a chance to talk, or not talk since they couldn't, they could make some kind of plan.

She put duck down and took out one of her knives. "Be picking it up." She told the duck, with Sandy gone it seemed she would have to continue ducks training if he were to be any use to them.

Joly, too, thought that running around like a maniac, much as he wanted to do something right now, was an incredibly horrible idea. It would probably get everyone into more trouble, so now he sighed and tried to clear those thoughts.

The duck actually made a great topic switch. "You are, ah, training the duck?" he asked, curious in spite of his dim mood.

"Yes." She nodded, pointing to the knife again, "It do be being very useless still, but it do just be being a baby. I do be training it and Sandy did be helping."

The duck makes Joly think of Combeferre in this moment. Combeferre, who is so much steadier, who probably is handling Courfeyrac's arrest a lot better than he is, even if he is from the same district and probably witnessed the entire event. Combeferre might actually have a calm proposition for ways to help those captured. It's calming, somewhat, and Joly's little nod is a lot more normal this time.

"I suppose training ducks would take a while. But if one can train pigeons for message delivery, why not? What do you hope to teach him?"

That was true, she nodded. "To be attacking people, but I do be thinking delivering messages would also be being useful. He do be needing to be learning how to be flying first." She pointed at the knife again and this time the duck picked it up in its beak and dropped it in her lap.

Pruna grinned, and took some bread out and gave it to Duck. "You did be being supposed to be keeping it though Duck."

"Delivering messages does seem like a very good idea." Joly agreed. "I do not think that anyone would actually suspect a duck. There could even be some sort of arrangement." He did not say what while they were being watched, but made a note to let Pruna know, when they were alone, that a system with colors might work very well for that.

One could, perhaps, add colored feathers to the duck's wing on the inside. Red for danger, green to go ahead with something, and the like. More complex ones could come later, but that one was, at least, a start.

"Flying would help matters a bit I think." Joly mused, then he grinned, watching as Duck dropped the knife into her lap. "Oh now I'm QUITE impressed! My friend, Combeferre, he is a few floors down, but came here from my home, once said that ducks were something of a joke that nature played on them.

I would love to see your duck prove him wrong, and show that he commited a fowl offense in demeaning them. I suspect things will go swimmingly from that point on. It's good to see you are taking a quack at training him. Perhaps it will fit the bill quite nicely."

The puns had slipped out, though, perhaps on second thought, the phrasing Pruna used might mean that they did not make sense to her. Well, he had tried at least, right?

Pruna nodded, it was a tactic she had used before. Very few people suspected a little girl, they were stupid and their stupidity was all the opening she needed.

Of course it was a tactic that fell apart quite quickly, especially with everything being broadcast on to the technology screens, but she still sometimes took down new tributes that way.

Flying lessons definitely needed to happen and Pruna grinned when Joly said he was impressed. She blinked at his next words and though it took her a while to work through what he was saying and puns weren't something she had come across before she grinned as she understood and laughed.

"You do be being funny."

The damned screens did sort of ruin the advantages most people had over each other, except for the tributes who could rely on brute strength, sure. In arenas that played to other talents than that, well, it told everyone who to focus on getting rid of first. It was actually something of a mystery to Joly why the games didn't turn into the sort of group activity where a large group took out targets by very slowly narrowing them down, one by one. He did not think it would work BETTER by any means, because, really, people like him would be chosen as weak links practically right away, but even so, he was surprised.

When he got the laugh, Joly actually felt a bit better in spite of the horrific things that had gone on tonight/this morning and the horrific things that were likely to be continued now. The fact that he could still make a child laugh, a hardened child at that, showed that there was still a BIT of good somewhere in all of this.

"You are one of the only ones to say so. Mostly people groan at me."

"Most people do be being stupid." Pruna told him, going back to trying to make the duck pick up the knife. It felt good to laugh, she hadn't laughed in what felt like a long time though really it could have only been a week, maybe two.

The only person she could laugh with at home was dead, and now her only friend here was captured and Pruna hadn't even told her she was back before she had got arrested. She wondered if she was allowed to laugh after all that but then thought she didn't care. She decided she liked this man, he wasn't stupid.

"Do you be having a name?"

"Sometimes, they truly are." Joly agreed, because, really. Puns were, perhaps, the highest form of humor ever invented, so far as he was concerned. It was a shame, really, that most of the time,now, he managed to get eyes rolled at him. Then again, they HAD all heard most of his material before. Well, to a degree. There were the new ones that he pulled together and saved up for special occasions sometimes.

Either way, someone who really appreciated them, besides Zoidberg, was welcome. Really. Could he keep her?

As far as being allowed to laugh, well, sometimes laughing was the only thing that did help. Joly had found that one out a few years ago himself, coming down from the first attempt at Revolution he had been involved with, and watching as it fell before him. All there had been BUT to do was find the smallest, stupidest things to laugh at. Or rather, L'aigle had found that out and demonstrated for him at the moment Joly had been about to snap.

That was probably part of why the instinct for it rushed to his mind now. It certainly did not change anything for good in what had happened, but it also did not do the same for ill. Good enough, wasn't that?

"Ah yes. I am Joly. And you, my dear?"

Pruna nodded fiercly because people being stupid was something she felt strongly about. She figured the world could be a much better place if less people were utterly stupid.

"Joly." She copied how he said it, "I do no really be having a name, but they do be calling me Pruna here so you can be calling me that if you do be wanting to."

Another thing she remembered, being confident enough just to introduce herself as Pruna. But the name felt fake again to her, not like she was last here when it had became a bit like a proper name, or as close to one as Pruna could imagine.

That was very likely true, in all honesty. Joly was lucky when it came to other things with his friends. Only one of them was truly stupid, at least when it came to things like functioning socially or taking care of himself. But there were so many others who just...sometimes he wondered how the human race managed to keep itself breathing, honestly.

"Miss Pruna, then." He nodded, frowning a little at the replacement of 'Mademoiselle' . He managed to forget, most of the time that he had lost his languages, but then, there would be a reminder. "if that is what you would prefer, of course."

She nodded, "Yes it do be being alright." She had lost her language too even if she had kept her dialect, it was strange speaking as normal and hearing her words in a language she understood but had never learned.

She was quiet for a moment before she remembered her lessons from last time she was here, on manners and such. "This do be being Duck. Duck this do be being mister Joly." Duck didn't acknowledge him, she wondered if manners were something she should be training him in, but she wasn't sure she was the best teacher for it. She forgot a lot of the rules all the time.

"Good then." Joly's smile grew a bit, glad that things were going along, well, fairly decently, given the circumstances. There was still something human enough in him, and in this girl, even after facing the arena (he did not know much of the world that she had left, after all) every time that they had done it. There was something human there that could not been stamped out, and how he was relieved to find it.

"And Duck," Joly agreed, nodding to the creature in turn. "I suspect you may like me better if I were another duck," he mused. "But I am pleased to meet you, all the same." It would have been considered a bit of silliness perhaps but seeing how the last thing Joly remembered from home was watching and speaking about a cat, it probably was natural, somewhere.

"I think he might be being. But he do also be liking anyone who do be having food." Duck quacked in response.

"I do be thinking he do be being pleased to be seeing you anyways."

"We might be able to find something for him." Joly suggested. "Bread, or something, perhaps?"

Feeding a duck might very well help to calm the nerves that he felt would stick with him for a while.

"Though that is very well, too. It is not everyday I can make friends with an animal so intelligent."

"There might be being some in the kitchen." She jumped up and clicked her fingers to try and make Duck follow."

She was happy that Joly thought Duck intelligent though his words made her wrinkle her nose a bit. "I have no been hearing of a human and a duck being friends before."

"Well, then this may be the first case of it. Stranger things seem to have happened, lately." The Capitol was a good example of that. Even the parts of it that were not horrible were pretty weird as far as Joly was concerned.

"And perhaps we should go and see. Would that affect his training too badly?"

"I do no be thinking so." She shrugged, "I did be being gone for a long time and I do no be knowing what Sandy did be teaching him."

She gave up on trying to make Duck follow and just picked him up. "We can be going and looking for some."

"That IS right; you were here for a time before."

Joly had been rather afraid then, honestly, and had found himself sticking closer to his friends, and to Venus, for the better part of a few months. He had not quite paid much attention to anyone or anything else, then. Now, a while later into this, he was trying to stretch his wings (ha. Bossuet would have laughed at the pun there) a little more. He did remember being shocked, at first, when he'd first realized they had children pulled into this thing. Now, it was sadly becoming second nature to him. He shook off the dark thought for now, in place of something easier to think of and discuss.

"That sounds like the best plan, really."

She nodded and frowned, she sort of remembered him as well, but she had dismissed him as just another stupid person. She was glad that she had learned otherwise. "Be coming on then." She told him leading the way to the kitchen.

Edited 2014-08-28 07:10 (UTC)

[open] CATCH ALL

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fade out or did you want to do more stuff?

Looks like a good spot!