thecapitol | so here's my hope, my tired soul. ( open )

She's been here for a day now, enough time to convince herself that this isn't some kind of awful dream. In a lot of ways, it's almost surreal. For one, she's clean for the first time in months - actually, truly clean. In part, thanks to the efforts of her prep team, who had tsked at the filthy and matted state of her when she'd been brought in.

So here she is, squeaky clean and sitting in the corner of the common area in front of one of the many television screens. Watching one of the programs that seem to run around the clock. This time, it's highlights from the last arena.

Beth's no stranger to violence. Her life has been full of it for the last two years, ever since the dead stopped staying dead. She's seen a lot of it. But this is a full highlight real of awful, grisly murder being narrated by people with chipper voices like some kind of sick sports event.

"I'm gonna be sick," she mumbles quietly, mostly to herself.

TRAINING CENTER RESTAURANT

They give her more food than she's ever seen in her life, and Beth looks down at it like it's an alien thing. Like it can't possibly be real. She's perched on the edge of the bar on a stool with a plate heaped high and for a moment, she doesn't make any move to eat it. Because even before everything went wrong, they never had food like this on a farm where they grew mostly everything they ate.

She sort of just looks at it, fork in hand, like she's in shock.

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Honestly, it had been a little shocking to step into this restaurant and be immediately handed enough food to easily feed three people. She wonders if if has anything to do with her stylist's comments about apparently being dirty, unkempt and underfed, and not in the stylish way- whatever the hell that meant.

She doesn't really know where to start, so she'll spare the man who just slid up next to her an uneasy sort of smile. "Is that what happened to you? When you first got here, I mean."

Dropping his eyes to his plate - a small amount, considering his size - he nods once with a grim, rueful smile.

"Once," He says shortly, in the kind of tone that suggests it was once and once only. He ignores his knife and fork and slowly tears his bread up between his fingers. Pacing is key, apparently, when it comes to shovelling food in to a stomach unused to the Capitol's richness.

"They captured my image upon all-seeing eye," He adds in a low murmur meant only for the girl opposite him, and inclined his head to one of the ever-present TV screens mounted on the wall. "They turned it in to fucking mockery, to be laughed at by all..."

He slowly lifts a hunk of bread to his mouth but pauses to add warningly:

"The eye of the city does not blink, nor does it shed tears of pity."

The all-seeing eye. It takes her half a second to realize that he's talking about the television like he doesn't know what one is. Like he's out of place in a city with this much technology - Beth is too, in a way, but she's obviously not as badly off as he is in that respect. People have explained the idea of alternate universes already, so she figures he probably comes from one without television.

"I'm sorry they did that to you," Beth murmurs, and she really is. "That sounds terrible," she keeps her voice low as well, because it seems like he wants to keep this between the two of them. "I'm guessin' you...don't have anythin' like this, where you're from?"

so here's my hope, my tired soul. ( open )

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