thecapitol | sorrow waited, sorrow won

Entry tags:

sorrow waited, sorrow won | open

Who| Bilbo Baggins & You
What| Bilbo goes exploring.
Where| Various places
When| Post Mini Arena until the end of the week (Saturday 11-15).
Warnings/Notes| Talk of child death, language, talk of murder probably. Hobbit feelings and food too.

[A - Training Center]

[After witnessing his first arena Bilbo found a new motivation to send him to the training center. If he had any chance at surviving this... game or even saving Frodo from other, more determined tributes, he had to be stronger than what he was now. It was easier said than done of course; he had no idea where to start. His own knowledge on how to use a sword were limited if not laughable and up until this point he had survived through sheer luck and cleverness alone. Now without his magic ring and even Sting he really was at the bottom with nowhere to go but up.

He stuck to times when the training center would be mostly, if not completely, empty. He still found it hard to be around others knowing what was in store for them later and after seeing the mini-arena that was all but cemented in his mind.

His eyes were drawn to the bow and set of arrows sitting against the weapons wall and without really wondering why he picks them up. In the past Hobbits were decent archers, when things like war and battle were known to Hobbits... Maybe this could work for him.

Throughout the week he comes here to practice with the bow and arrow and more often than naught his practice is riddled with quiet curses and missed shots, but he perseveres. By the end of each private session he sits down next to the wall, tired and weary.]

[B - District 4 Kitchen, before the Curfew]

[It's been hard work trying to get his appetite back on track and even now he still has trouble washing the taste of ash from every bite of food or drink he takes. Still, even with his severely diminished hunger it does little to stop him from cooking too much food out of stress for himself or really anyone with a normal appetite.

So during the day, usually after he returns from his time in the training center, Bilbo bustles around District 4's kitchen and busies himself with making all sorts of food. The food can be smelled from beyond the kitchen and into the hallways, beckoning anyone to come along and take it off Bilbo's hands.]

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[Bilbo isn't the only one who tends to cook for more than one, though it isn't clear whether he does so to try and attract company as Roland - mostly unsuccessfully - does, or merely out of habit. Roland lingers near the doorway, but if the man wants privacy he'll probably say so.]

Any room in there for me to make my own supper?

[Bilbo is currently staring at a pot of lightly simmering stew, lost in his own thoughts until Roland speaks up. He turns around, eyes wide with mild surprise.]

Oh- Yes! Of course I'm sorry I didn't mean to take over. [He steps off the stool he was on to watch the stew (the devices here used to cook with were fascinating to him).] You're free to anything I've made - I certainly can't eat it all...

Thankee-sai.

[Roland nods at him and steps into the kitchen, finding a bowl and spooning some of the stew into it. He leans back against a relatively clean space of the counter with it instead of finding a table - in this bustling, lonely place he'll take any good excuse to talk to someone, and eating someone else's food is a fair one.]

Are any of these recipes from your world? Or things you've learned since?

Edited 2014-11-15 00:04 (UTC)

[He smiles faintly as Roland helps himself, looking away to wipe his hands off on a spare kitchen cloth. Seeing someone else enjoy his cooking always lit a small bit of warmth in his chest.]

They're from my home, yes. I haven't had much of a chance to learn about what people eat here, but I'm most definitely curious! There are so many strange and new things here it's hard to know where to start.

Not only when it comes to food.

[He shakes his head, putting the bowl down and moving forward.]

Cry pardon, here I'm eating your food and haven't even introduced myself. Roland Deschain, of Gilead-that-was. [That latter he adds on impulse, holding a hand out to shake. Easier to announce his homeland here, where almost no one he'll meet will care about it as anything more than a name.] Seen you around a few times. How are you settling?

Several days in the hospital after the arena was more than enough time for Terezi to lie around. She's feeling anxious and restless. There's a lot that she wants to be doing, but she's under orders not to push it too hard, or she might be back in that hospital bed again.

Fair enough. So instead of training her strength, she settles for working on dexterity. There's a rope hanging loosely in her hands as she wanders the Training area, tying it into various knots with relative ease. It was never a difficult task for her, but it keeps her hands busy, even when she'd much rather have a sword or staff in them instead.

Eventually, she comes across the hobbit resting against the wall, and she pauses to observe him. Not exactly one of the older Tributes that she's met wandering about the tower. He seems woefully out of shape, to boot, if he's this tired.

"I didn't know it was nap time."

Less tired and more frustrated, but it's close enough. He holds an arrow in hand, inspecting its point with frustration feeling very tempted to throw it like a child when suddenly there is a very small orc- troll child standing across from him. Her appearance is different from Signless, but close enough that he can safely guess that they are of the same race.

He hopes.

"Ah- I wasn't napping." A pause. "If I wanted to nap I would take it elsewhere, not anywhere close to so many sharp objects."

"That seems like good napping advice for someone as squishy as you." Which isn't necessarily any kind of comment other than a harmless observation. Trolls are pretty used to sleeping on whatever they have to--sharp objects be damned. Humans--and tiny humans included? Not so much. Beds are a strange kind of comfort that she's rather fond of, even if it's not necessary.

"If you aren't napping, then what are you doing?" She steps closer, sniffing at the other Tribute curiously. "Playing with arrows?"

Joly's not one prone to practicing around a large group of people himself, his own skills still rather lacking as far as actual fighting goes, so he takes advantage of the quieter moments, and on one such occasion, finds himself tripping a little over someone he hadn't noticed when passing close by the wall.

He's muffling a curse of his own as he realizes this is a person, and drawing himself up. looking apologetic at once, and horrified at the same time.

"Oh dear. I did not notice you there, sir. I beg your pardon."

Bilbo had been too busy being frustrated with himself, too lost in his own thoughts, to pick up on the sound of someone approaching until he was practically knocked over and yelps in surprise. The metal arrow in his hand clatters to the floor, the sound ringing out loud in the mostly empty space.

He blinked up at Joly before scrambling to stand up, feeling a touch uncomfortable to be so close to the ground now. The tips of his fingers are red from practicing with the bow earlier with little result. "No, no it's alright. I tend to go unnoticed very easily, even without my meaning to."

That yelp made Joly feel especially bad at that. It was an accident, of course, but even so, he frowned a bit, offering the smaller man his hand, to help him stand if he would like support.

"I would imagine that can be a problem." He commented, not quite having had that particular experience throughout his life, but very sure he would not like it very much were their circumstances changed. "...Are you quite all right?" He asked, a moment later, catching sight of those fingertips and frowning.

For a long time that night, it's only Punchy and Bilbo in the Training Center, the only sound the occasional huff of exertion or Bilbo's muttered curses, the clatter of arrows against the floor or the thwock against the target. Punchy doesn't know what he's doing. He's always functioned perfectly fine on four hours of sleep per night, usually spending his free time in the gym or coding, endlessly coding, on his home-built laptop.

Now, he wants to do nothing more than sleep. Everything else feels kind of pointless. Why code when it only means he'll get caught, that the people close to him will be tortured so the Capitol can crack his precious viruses? Why exercise when he's a Victor now? He won't be able to play the hero. He'll be trapped on the free side of the television's cage, watching everyone else fight and die. Muscles do him no good here.

The weed relaxes him, but it doesn't really help him sleep. A few hours into exercising he realizes that he's only really managed half a workout in twice the time. He sighs and gives up there, heading up to the viewing area of the Training Center. He sits in the same seats the Gamemakers do when they cast their judgment in scores. He puts his feet up. He rolls one up and burns it.

Bilbo is less of an athlete than Punchy. The quest did its job of wearing away the layers of softness gained from living his entire life in complete and utter peace, leaving him with the beginning muscles and callouses and a deep set weariness starting in his bones. Hobbits were not created for battle or war and this is something Bilbo has learned much before his arrival here, but he is stubborn if nothing else. As tired as he may be he still clings to weak optimism that not everything can truly be as bad as it seems.

After awhile, many attempts and failures later, Bilbo sets aside the bow with reddened fingers. He didn't expect to start off with any promising results, but the little progress makes it hard not to become frustrated. So he takes a break, knowing at some point he should eat (and the fact he must remind himself of such a thing disheartens him greatly, secretly) until he smells something familiar.

Well... not completely familiar. It isn't Old Toby by a long shot, smelling closer to the pipe weed Bofur carried with him up until the Goblin caves. He looks around trying to pinpoint the source, but what he'll do when he finds it he's unsure. Maybe if he asked nicely the fellow carrying may be inclined to share...

He doesn't see Punchy up in the booth until he finally looks up and sees the small wisps of smoke coming from him and hesitates. Those are the seats for the Gamemakers and he wonders briefly if it's even wise to engage the man at all.

Oh bother it. "H-Hello!" Bilbo waves up to him, voice carrying his uncertainty.

When Punchy was young, toking up in his dormroom at the Seminary, he had a lock on being able to shove a blunt into a hiding place and spray Febreze in the air in the short time period between hearing steps in the hallway and hearing an R.A. knock on his door. He feels no need for such vigilance in the Capitol, especially not around other Tributes. What does he care if they judge him for blazing it a bit? He's a fucking Victor; his autonomy is limited, and pleasures should be taken where they lie.

He just stays where he is with his feet up and his weed in between his index finger and his thumb.

"Yo, dawg." If this guy weren't, well, a guy, Punchy would call him 'shawty' and laugh at the wit of it. Punchy stands at about twice Bilbo's height and change, and even sitting down is above equal eye level. He supposes that could explain the stammer in the greeting. "I'm chill. I ain't gonna mollywop you or anything. You tired of like...?"

Punchy makes a gesture like he's shooting an arrow, including a muttered 'pyew!" sound.

Did... Did this man just call Bilbo a dog? Of all the things to call someone, especially a Hobbit, Bilbo has never been called that. In fact he's too surprised to really find insult - if that was Punchy's intention - and instead just blinks up at the man clouded in wispy smoke.

"I'm not- It's Bilbo and I just would like- Well- " He huffs, frowning at the odd choice in words that leave him with the feeling there is a little lost in translation. His eyes catch the pyew movement and he waves a hand quickly. "I only would like to know- Oh bother, what is that?" He motions to Punchy's blunt. "It doesn't smell familiar at all and I'm just... curious as to where you might have gotten it."

"This? This is just some green." He waves a hand in the air, then holds his blunt out to Bilbo. "You want? Shit's some mad cheech. I got chewed on the skunk weed last week so now I only buy from peeps with a good rep."

And now that he's a Victor, he has more money than he knows what to do with, and all the spending in the world doesn't seem to be able to make it feel okay.

"Have some. It'll help you mellow."

[He approaches quietly, towards the end of the session, only a minute or so after Bilbo has sunk against the wall, worn out. His tone is mild when he speaks; it's hard to read what he's feeling.]

Do you mean to learn to shoot?

[He didn't see Bilbo try, but he's guessing from the arrows scattered around the targets, and the bow resting by his feet.]

[It says something about how distracted Bilbo is when he jumps up in surprise, knocking one of the quivers resting against the wall to the floor with an echoing clatter. He swallows his heart back down and looks over to Aragorn with widened eyes.]

What- Oh! Yes I... Well, I'm trying without much success. [He glances down to his worn fingers with a frown.] I've never tried to learn before now, but I've seen a few who do know but that doesn't... mean much when I try to practice myself.

[Distracted indeed! Thorongil laughs, and waves a hand, and bends to pick up the quiver.]

It's very unusual for a hobbit to seek to learn such things.

[He rights the quiver and sets it back against the wall.]

Tell me. Why do you do it?

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sorrow waited, sorrow won | open

B

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A (towards the end of the week)

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A!

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A, finally, sorry for the delay!

lmfao...

shhhhhhh