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He dreamt, before he awoke. He dreamt of endless fields, of his son riding a new horse, of his wife smiling as she welcomed him home. He dreamt of a door...

And awoke to a cold cot and a cold room.

He had been dead. He had felt it, felt his life slip away from him. He'd felt his wife's arms reach out to take him. But as he stared at the ceiling and sucked in a breath, he knew he was not to rejoin them yet. He wasn't surprised. He'd lost. Obviously he was meant to continue in these games until he won, until Commodus was brought before him, until he killed the man himself. Had he not said "in this life or the next"? This was surely the next - or some form of it - and he would not be dissuaded. No. Not even if it meant dying again, and again, and again.

The games, he expected.

The Capitol, he didn't.

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In the living room, Javert is pacing. He knows that the last member of their district was returned last night, and out of respect for their recuperation he's been quiet and not investigated their identity or peeked in on them. He's sure he'll meet them eventually, and since after his revival he wanted peace and quiet for a few hours to try and process everything, he's sure the man in the last room probably appreciates his privacy as well.

Given that most of the objects in the living room somewhat baffle Javert, it's not as if he's bored. But he's pacing more out of a sense of not knowing where to start - with the strange contraptions in the 'closet', with all the unusual metal boxes in the kitchen, or with the many different pumps in the lavatory? After tangling with the microwave and getting into a futile argument with a radio advertisement, Javert's found himself paralyzed.

The truth is that the Capitol is too overwhelming to be taken in large doses. The sheer amount of things that don't make sense have turned from incredible to infuriating, now like sand in clothing much too tight. As such Javert's retreated to the suite like a hermit crab to its shell, unwilling to deal with others when in such a vulnerable hapless state.

And unwilling to subject himself to another surprise just yet, he's taken to pacing. It's a safe, relaxing thing to do. Nothing whirring, or lighting up, or beeping, or flashing, or anything like that.

He hears the door to the new roommate's room open, and stops in his paces. He fully intends to introduce himself, but then he sees Maximus' face and that impulse is temporarily forgotten. His mouth opens slightly, almost an expression of "oh?", his eyes widen, but for the second he finds his name has been forgotten in favor of the all-too-recent memory of those hands around his throat.

"Good morning," he manages to get out, although it's a stilted, flat croak more than anything.

Edited 2013-02-09 07:30 (UTC)

He hadn't slept, though he had tried to, and eventually he had stood and stepped to the door. He had no guards shoving him around. No chains. Not even an owner, to tell him what to do. He was surprised to find he almost missed Proximo. But he was alone, and it seemed that this new world would not come to him. So he must go to it.

He stepped through the door and immediately saw a ghost. Good morning.

He sucked in a breath, hard and fast in his chest, before he remembered that he, too, was dead. If he was forced to live these games over and over, why not another?

"... The man on the ice," He said, breathing out. He regained his composure. "Did you come for revenge?"

"No. I live in the room over there." He gestures with a nod of his head, also trying with slightly less success to regain his composure. While he finds it reasonable that he didn't expect to see Maximus so soon, he does chastise himself for not planning for the possibility at all; if he can be revived in a matter of hours, it stands to reason that Maximus would be as well.

It's as if the reality of the situation - that they're meant to live together, them and the other man and the unmarried woman - is starting to stretch out before Javert, and he doesn't quite know what to do with it. His arms hang loosely by his side instead of taking a more decisive pose and his tongue sneaks between his molars in uncertainty.

"Did you..." He takes a breath. "Did you rest well?"

His eyes narrow, fingers rubbing against themselves unconciously. He'd never before had to face a man he'd killed. That was, of course, part and parcel with killing them. He was not much enjoying the experience.

"Well enough," he answered after a time, before slowly stepping into the room, glancing back toward the door that Javert had indicated. "... What is this place?"

Javert makes no move to attack Maximus. Aside from that being a dishonest move, he's also not keen on being choked out again, thank you very much. Instead he turns a bit and with a few steps, finds his way to the couch and takes a seat, although he doesn't really relax into the position.

"It seems to be our quarters. Baffling place, if you'd ask me." He gestures with a hand to the row of doors. "There are two other people living with us too. We're to stay here until the next arena, when we'll do it all over again."

There's no menace in his voice about going back to the arena, no hint at vengeance.

"So that was why there we no guards on my door." This was all for slaves. He nodded deeply as he understood. "Yes. As I suspected. Penance. Or punishment, perhaps, but it appears we cannot leave the cycle until we have proven our worth and won."

He watched Javert moving across the room and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. At least the man didn't seem violent. But then, Maximus thought, he had no intention of seeking his own revenge. Death in the arena wasn't personal. Even against monsters.

"You're not from Rome." It wasn't a question.

"I presumed it was a punishment at first, but the people here have told me it's something more of an honor. We're here to keep the peace, of sorts, by sacrificing ourselves."

At least, that's how Javert's managed to cram the whole idea into his rigid and overwhelmed way of seeing things. He folds his arms, one side of his mouth twitching to the side, as if he's been trying to convince himself and failing. He doesn't take his eyes off Maximus.

"And you are not from France." It isn't an insult, but it's clear that Javert seems unsettled by the lack of French-ness in this place. He's always been devoted to protecting the good people of France and to be so displaced is yet another tribulation atop all this madness.

"'Keep the peace'," He repeated, a strange look on his face before he frowned, and turned his eyes to the window. The strange, impossibly tall buildings disconcerted him. "A sort of peace, I suppose. What better way to control the mob than distraction."

He didn't know where France was. He thought of Wyatt, on the ice, and wondered what year this 'france' man hailed from.

"... Do you have a name?" He asked belatedly.

"That seems to be the idea." Javert glances out the window too, then away. It bothers him to be so high up. It's not a fear of heights so much as a dislike at being reminded of this strange new world impressing itself on him.

"Javert. And you are?" His name feels a bit naked without the title before it, that verbal token to symbolize what he's devoted his life to. "I know of Rome. These sorts of games are like your history, are they not?"

"Maximus." He doesn't give his full name, but neither does he give 'The Spaniard'. He sighs, looking back over at Javert, a name obviously with some sort of Gaulic influence, and he wonders (not for the first or the last time) whether Gaul ends up taking over the world.

"A long history of them, yes. They were ceased by Emperor Marcus Aurelius for a time - at least in Rome itself - but his son... has since renewed their place." It was impossible to keep the dark turn from his voice. "There are similarities, but they are not the same."

"No, I suppose they wouldn't be. I'm familiar with tales of lions and individual combat but not...snow and gifts from the sky."

If Javert had more of a bent towards history, or more of an education in that regard, he might recognize the name, but as it stands he doesn't. He looks around the room, at the flooring of some sort of rug he's never seen, the broken 'talking picture', the lamp that is bafflingly turned off by a tiny lever near the doorway.

"You wouldn't happen to know more about the, ah, amenities of our quarters than I would, perhaps?"

Maximus glanced around, following Javert's eyes. Certainly, there were objects he didn't recognize and could not discern their use, but such was always the case in a culture not one's own.

"I'm sure we'll acclimatize in time," He said after a moment, looking back at Javert. "You have been misplaced too, then." He paused, frowning. "A man I met said that he hailed from a year numbered 1878. At my best calculation, he and I were a millenia apart."

He's noticed that the technology here is different, but it hasn't even occurred to him that it's because he's in the future. "The year is 1821."

After a pause, with a much more uncertain tone and widened eyes, "or, it was when last I checked."

"I doubt, from his words, that it is that." Maximus said, and then shrugged. How would he know the difference between the 19th century and now?

"Either way, it matters little. I doubt time has much importance, here. If it did, we would not stand across from one another."

"Most of the general rules of the world seem to lack importance here. Death, for one." Not that Javert isn't happy to be alive, but in a way he'd prefer if he didn't have to find a way to rearrange his concept of death. He likes his world neat, orderly and predictable.

"And you died also, I presume?"

"Yes." The word was final. He did not with to relive it.

He turned, making his way through the living room, glancing toward the main doors to the hall. He wanted to get a look at the guards...

But when he got there, and pushed open the door, there was no one. Maximus frowned, and turned to look back at Javert.

"What's through here?"

"A corridor, and then the city, which is..." Javert frowns a bit and rests his hands on his knees. "'Perplexing' would be the word, I suppose. It's a bit much to take in all at once."

Even in comparison to all of this in general. Out in the arena, the ideas are hard to pin down, but the basics of snow, battle, food, survival are straightforward enough. Here everything seems to be threaded through the circuitous needle-head of new technology.

Maximus had been awed by a city once before. When he had first set his eyes on Rome it had nearly taken the breath from his lungs. In a way, even though the Capitol was grander, even though it was stranger, it did not awe him the same way Rome had. Instead it felt alien.

"And we can just... walk out into it. What of the guards? Are we escorted?"

"We have Escorts, but they don't seem to be stopping us from doing much. One helped me to navigate the kitchen." He gestures towards the room in question, which he finds somewhat hellishly overstimulating between the microwave, the radio, the propane stovetop and the freezer. "I don't think we're under any sort of supervision right now, or any sort of restrictions beyond our own good morals."

Maximus let out a dark chuckle after 'good morals', and looked back at Javert.

It was extremely strange, to speak this way to a man he had choked to death on the ice.

He wondered, vaguely, if in Elysium he would meet all his former enemies, his former opponents - if every man with honour he had killed would then become compatriot.

"How far have you walked, from this place?"

"Not far. Probably less than a mile westwards. It seems incautious to go much further without a guide. Everything here seems so...active. The carriages all move much too quickly."

Restless, he gets back up and starts pacing again. The suite may be a nice respite from the chaos of the city, but Javert recognizes he's also making a cage for himself of it.

"It seems that death once has made me no more eager to try my luck again."

"I saw some from the balcony. With no horses." He says it flatly, glancing out the door again. He looked back at Javert.

"A guide would probably end up being a detriment, if we wish to know the true nature of this place."

"It's a mystery."

Javert pauses near the doorway to the hall outside. "We are already at such an informational detriment that a guide would have to lie quite a lot to make us even worse off. As it stands it's nearly impossible to separate any discrepancies from mere...cultural differences, between our homelands and this one."

Maximus shrugged. "Does it matter? Nothing here is like home. But I'd rather know the truth of the place than the glossy surface a guide would show."

He paused, then arched an eyebrow.

"We should scout."

"I would rather know both. The latter could be a tool for understanding the former, and valuable information in its own right."

He arches an eyebrow back. "I agree. And we would do well to combine our skills."

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