thecapitol | A neverending tunnel

Entry tags:

A neverending tunnel

WHO| Mindy, open
WHAT| Total brooding and evaluation of life choices here.
WHEN| Week 5
WHERE| Training room and the tower
WARNINGS/NOTES Mindy, so good amount of swearing, thoughts/talk of deaths

The riot should have been the easiest thing. What did Mindy want more than burning, breaking, smashing and shooting any living thing she could spy with her eyes? It should have been like putting on a second skin, and really, it would have been, had she stayed in the Capitol. She'd have finally had her chance to show the Capitol what she really thought of them and all the shit they'd put her through all this time.

Then, of course, they tortured her and right after that, threw her into the Arena. After a temporary good time with some friends, she watched each of them die, even the ones she'd sworn to protect, right down to Ellie, her bestie, and getting killed herself by some murdering cyclops bitch.

And then, back here, where Eva fucking pulls a black out on the Capitol, something Mindy could not stop but admire. The sheer bitchitude she showed, her treachery for the Capitol, only to fuck them balls deep in the ass for three hours.

But that, obviously, spelled Eva's end, and knowing Eva, she wouldn't go for some spectacle execution where they disemboweled her or gunned her down after torture. No, she'd die alone, private, and that was that.

And here she was, three hours of madness in her hands, and she....fumbled. Those memories, that self hatred dragged on her, pushed her down and she doubted herself and everything around her. She wanted to burn things and cause mayhem but for the first time in her life, she feared the pain.

Well, not entirely accurate. She didn't want anymore, not right away for fucks sake. She was still having nightmares of her torture, only now she had to deal with dead Hotaru and Chibi Usa floating around in her dream, along with Ellie falling through ice. It was only the Arena, she knew that, but that didn't stop her smothered yelling, her body taut as the pain came again, swallowing screams and breaking into closed mouth sobs she suppressed. She began to lock her room and not sleep (again). She was in her room, and honestly?

She could use the company.

_

Now numbness was replaced with anger. Chibi Usa was gone, which made her angry, but was doable. She didn't want a girl that young watching people scream and die. But Riley. She was in her district. She was a friend. She was ELLIE'S...something (girlfrined? Friend with benefits? Main girl?), and now she was dead. Again.

Shittiness. At least Ellie had closure, even if it was in the most fucked up way possible.

So Mindy's frustrations went into her obstacle course, jumping through rings, punching bags, seeing how much further she could jump. Her body was tight, screaming at her, and this, after all this time, was comforting now. She was sweaty, bruised, but all by her own hands.

She felt, at least, like herself again, concentrating on how pissed she was.

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"I've been called that before," she said, smirking slightly, "though not always in the nicest way."

Mindy found herself strangely in awe of the man. There was something...weathered about him, like he'd seem and felt a lot, and that was corroborated by eyeing his missing digits. Watching his accuracy isn't surprising: she expected him to have pinpoint accuracy. Something about him told her he didn't miss a thing.

"Nah, sometimes there's luck. Just as useful is survival instinct and daring. You pretty much need all of that to have a sane head in a place like this."

That decides him. Roland's been waiting for her to ask, to try and find out what exactly Susannah said about her, but as patient as he can be it doesn't always come natural to him. "Did Susannah ever mention that she's a gunslinger?" he asks, walking toward the targets he'd used and collecting the bolts from them. "Has she told you what it means?"

"She's mentioned it, yeah," Mindy said, "but I'm going to be honest and say that it means more than just being able to shoot some stuff, doesn't it? I've met people who are good shots, and if they are, they'll just say so. This is something different."

"It is. In my world it was... Hm. Meant more than being tough, being lucky, more than being a living weapon - although it included all those things." He walks back toward her as he speaks, looking thoughtful. "We served the White. We protected knowledge and order and light."

Roland stops a little ways away from her, looking solemn, and doesn't think too closely on the fact that his explanation is all in past tense. "Susannah said you could be one, and so far as combat goes I think she's right." When he'd found Eddie he'd known fairly soon what the man could be, but it does help to be inside someone's mind to make that sort of discovery. Susannah had taken longer, needed observation, and if he truly wants to know about Mindy he thinks that'll probably be what it takes. He watches Mindy a moment, expression very focused as if he's trying to look a little ways into her.

Mindy pondered this a moment. When she thought of "the light" in that way, she was thinking the good boy scouts: Superman, Spiderman. The ones that upheld good and didn't toe the line. Mindy knew damn well she could: she SHOULD have, conceivably, in this Arena if she hadn't chosen to opt out of direct killing and protecting instead. It was a choice that had, in the end, not worked out too favorably.

"I dunno about that," she finally said. "My way's always been about a sliver between going crazy and getting really ugly with my enemy. The world I live in, they need that. They're very comfortable that way, letting other people who may or may not get bought, fight their battle. To them, its impossible a crazy fuck could up and shoot the fuck out of them one day, or slaughter their loved ones for kicks. But to do what I do, stand by all of it? Yeah, it comes down to what I'd rather see in the world."

She gestured to her brand. "It's sure as hell worth more than this, even if it too a toll on me."

"It's not a simple calling, not a clean one." He turns the crossbow over in his hands, figuring out how to put the bolts back inside it, and doing so carefully. "To serve the light, we must be able to move through the dark."

He sets the crossbow back where he'd gotten it, turning back toward her and changing the topic with no thought to things like emotional whiplash. "Susannah spoke of me, you said? What did she say?" Not that he doesn't know well how she thinks of him, but he is curious, faintly.

"Don't imagine that it would be. Best thing I could call myself is an antihero, or maybe a true neutral by nerd standards. What I'm saying is the kind of fighting I do can get my hands dirty, and I do shit some people would't want on their conscience if it means getting the bad out in the end."

Which, Mindy saw, she was going to have to start leaning on in the coming days, even with all of the people she'd befriended.

Mindy restrung her bow, taking careful aim. "You're her teacher, but more than that. I think I heard her call yousai before. I don't get it all, but I can gleam what it means, in a way."

"Sai is nothing much. A term of respect in my world. Like mister here, or missus." He doesn't move any closer, just watches her restring her weapon. That isn't anything he could do now, at least not without far too much time to make it worthwhile, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know it well enough to be curious on a professional level. "What I was was her - something between a leader and something a very little bit like a father. My world had a word for that too, but I don't think it matters now."

"You may be getting tired of hearing this," he adds, "but being willing to act as an 'anti-hero' is something a gunslinger knows well. If you're expecting me to be someone who's never dirtied his conscience in all these long years you're going to be very disappointed."

"She said she was a part of your k-ka-kit kat, something like that," Mindy said sheepishly. She let the arrow loose, hitting her mark, but was already setting up to do it again. Mindy was very unhappy with the Arena results, and wanted to make damn sure that she would never rank that low again.

"Glad to hear it," Mindy said. "I usually don't get into the nitty gritty of what I've done for obvious reasons. Glad to know that sometimes people have to come to terms with not being able to take down someone as nice and clean as they do with in the movies. Last thing I am is disappointed."

"Something like that," he agrees, still watching her. He's not assuming that's the fastest she can go, not at all, but it's worth watching anyway. "I don't know much about your movies, but I catch your meaning." Quite a few references in her speech that Roland doesn't understand, but he's well used to that by now. Don't need to understand all of a person's words to understand what they mean, to start to get the measure of them. "I'll leave you to it, then," he says, nodding at her target. "I'm sure we've both got a lot of practicing we'd like to do."

Oh it isn't. If she were in the arena, she definitely wouldn't be anywhere near as slow. If it was a GUN, she'd be even faster than that, but she worked with what she had.

"Hey wait," she said. "You don't have to go. Susannah really wanted us to talk, and I don't think she would have said anything about you if she hadn't thought I might, well, learn from you. I don't really know how you ask this from someone who's seen as much shit as you have, but I want to learn. How to be a gunslinger."

"You do?" It's a surprise, that much is clear in his voice. "To be honest, I don't know if I can stand to be anyone's di-" His tongue stumbles. That damned implant, he'd forgotten. Just as well he hadn't tried to explain those other words to her earlier; couldn't have said them if he'd wanted to. "-mentor-leader again."

Roland pulls a bit of a face. Clumsier than the actual word would have been, but that'll serve well enough. "And it seems you already know quite a bit of what a gunslinger ought, anyway. There's no way to know what you'd need to learn without watching you a while. I think you mentioned being taught, earlier? What sorts of things did your teacher do with you?"

"What was that?" Anyone's "di-"? That seemed like kind of an important thing he was just going to say, and even more bothersome that he chose to suddenly not say it now. What exactly was going on?

"Surviving. Shooting. Jumping buildings. How to test how far you can go, and then go a little farther than that. I don't know how much a gunslinger goes through, but I know that I've at least done my fair share when it comes to staying alive. My teacher even lost his life teaching me a final lesson. I owe a lot to him."

"That?" He realizes what she means, crosses his arms and tightens his lips in an unhappy, resigned sort of look. "Tributes have a chip of some very small machine inside us. I don't know how strange that will sound to you but it's the truth as I've managed to put it together. A while back one of the Capitol's men - women, rather - was angered enough to rewrite the duties of those machines. Everything but the Low Speech - what you probably call English - is closed from me. 'That' was a word of the High Speech, and I couldn't speak it in full to you no matter how I tried."

"And as to your teacher..." His voice goes quiet for a moment. "Losing a teacher is hard. Let's see. I wouldn't take his - their - place, and I wouldn't take another student even if I thought you needed to be hardened any more than you have been. But I don't mind making you an offer. I'll sharpen whatever skills you might name - far as I can, and within reason. But if you're to call yourself a gunslinger, I'll have your word that you'll serve the light. That those tactics we discussed, the ones that darken men's consciences for the rest of our lives, won't be a first response for you. That you'll think before you use them, and never only for your own gain. That so far as possible, you'll act with honor and respect. Does that sound like a vow you'll be able to keep to, now and ever afterward?"

"Oh right, that bitch," Mindy said, a look of steel on her face. Funny, for all of the bullshit she had to go through when that fucking cunt died, no one had even found out who the fuck killed her. What a lesson to be learned: the Capitol were assholes. As if they already didn't know. "So it was another word. Sorry you couldn't find the equal. I think Susannah managed it sometimes, but it ended up a little broken up."

"No one could take his place," Mindy said, thinking of her dad, who should be dead, somewhere in District 5. It was a thought that angered her, but made her hard where she needed to be. If anything, it was enough to draw her out of her funk, however painful it was. "This place made what I used to do impossible. Even in the Arena, any death was a weight on me. I've killed, gladly, because a motherfucker deserved it, and some tributes get a kick out of those ways. I'll kill them gladly, because I know they'd sleep like a baby after slicing me up. But mostly, this place makes a mockery of the life I had. I don't kill because killing random people is awesome. I do it because some fucking bastards deserve to have their shitty controlled world falling apart around them because of what they've done. I don't know if someone would call that noble or psychotic. It depends on who's asking."

"Not particularly noble," he says blandly, and shrugs. "If you'd rather focus on punishing people than helping them I'll help you train anyway. I could use another hobby. But think on my offer in the meantime, if you would. And let me know if anything occurs to you that you'd like a little training in."

Mindy gave him a sad smirk. "I was already trying to help people in the Arena. I discovered by accident I'm pretty shit at doing that. Killing people though, I'm pretty damn good at. I'm not going to say it's the only thing I am good at, but it was what I was trained for. It's where I shine, I guess. For the moment, I'll take what I can get. Training is what I want."

"Takes practice, trying to help without leaving pain and death in your wake. It's not always possible." Or even usually. But Roland isn't invested enough to push the point. If she wants to think on it, she will. "My schedule's open, as they say. Do you know yet where you'd start?"

"Never used to be so hard," Mindy said, sounding irritated. "Was a time I could do what I do unseen even, going quick in and out and no one knowing the wiser. There's no way to camouflage around here. Not easily, anyway."

She chuckled. "As open as you like. I'm not exactly busy."

And here they begin to near a topic that could get them in trouble, should anyone special be listening in. Roland decides not to take that first topic any further unless she does, and lets it pass by. "Aye, but first I'd need to know what it is you'd like to be taught. Any weapons or techniques you'd like instruction with? Or would you like to think on it?"

It was casual enough that she was saying it, but she wouldn't expound on it more than that. After all, they were starting to crack down on them, and even vaguely hinting how much she hated the Capitol would give her trouble.

"I think I would. The bow and arrow I'm getting pretty good, but there are other weapons I need to get better with...maybe something up close."

"Alright. I'm in district four, once you decide and need to speak with me. I may stay around here a while longer, too - I'll try not to throw anything at you this time." He shifts his weight, waiting for her response but ready to move back to the other room and try that obstacle course again, hopefully this time a little more cleanly.

"I'll be looking for you," she said. "Hey, if you see Suze, tell her I said hi, will you? I haven't seen her in a minute, trying to make sure that I know where all of the people I'm cool with are actually still around."

"She's still in the arena, far as I know. But I'll tell her. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear from you." Roland nods to her, then moves to the other side of the room to continue his work.

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A neverending tunnel

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