halfling race bonus: +1 to stealth check

[lasttosail]

WHO| Sam Gamgee and YOU
WHAT| Another goddamn crying hobbit in the Capitol
WHERE| The District 12 suites; the Tribute common area; anywhere else, if you'd prefer!
WHEN| Throughout the day of his arrival
WARNINGS| Will update as needed, but none expected!

A. District 12 suites

It's plain to Sam first thing - first first thing - that this country, and all its accommodations, were made for Big People and Big People alone. Which isn't new, exactly - of every place he's been, only in Bree and the surrounding country did people seem to give any thought at all to the smaller folk they shared the world with - but it makes him more small and lost than before, if that were possible.

But, well-- so long as he's stuck in this place, he'll take stock of it, and give himself one less surprise to contend with, maybe. He can't hope to take his mind off what he's left behind, or settle the fear in his stomach, or lessen the weight of his loneliness, heavy on his shoulders; but he can find out what he may, and that's-- well, it ain't much, in the face of all he doesn't know, but it's more than he's got now.

They brought him into his quarters through the common room, and it's to this he first returns. It doesn't look like any prison he's ever imagined - too big, too bright, too... lovely, even. He's drawn first to the great bank of windows on the far wall, with their blinds partly-shut against the bright morning sunlight. Windows mean a place to look out on, in his experience, and if he might get some idea of the grounds around this place...

He hurries over and stands on his toes to lift up one of the blinds gingerly (there being no cord that he can see), squints against the light--

--and promptly goes reeling back, tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away from the sudden dizzying impression of height, from the many fathoms between him and the ground and the thin window in between, the miles of glass and stone spires stretching seemingly to the horizon before him. It is so tall, and so vast, and so strange, that when he falls he stays down, and scrabbles backward until his back is against some piece of furniture - something to ground him.

"Imprisoned!" he cries aloud to no one, clutching instinctively at the chain around his neck. "Caught at the top of a tower! It's as sure a prison as any dungeon fathoms below the ground-- surer, even, for one might climb up a tunnel before he wills himself a pair of wings."

He draws up his knees, buries his face in his hands, and for a moment, lets himself despair.

B. Tribute Tower - common area

It'll be a few hours later at least that he's downstairs, perhaps more baffled than before by what seems the vastness of his prison. A prisoner he must be, for he's not where he should be, and none seems much interested in returning him to that place; but thus far no one's prevented his going anywhere in this particular tower, for all he keeps waiting for some reprimand.

But even lacking reprimand, there's been no explanation; and Sam's beginning to think he'd rather return right to the cold stair and the sound of Orc-voices round the corner, than suffer another minute not knowing. After months spent hiding from any sound made by living creature, the common area feels frightening, too big and open and full of people (and all Big People, too, he's sure).

"Well," he mutters to himself. "You're not trapped at the top of a tower, and that's more than you thought you had; so might as well try for something else, now you've got that! It might be your asking questions won't be to their liking; but better to know, than to wander around as lost as if you had your head in a sack."

Stepping out into the open space makes him feel still smaller, and the tile floor is cold under his bare feet, but he crosses the floor with purpose, and doesn't wait for anyone to acknowledge him with a glance. He's too polite to tug a sleeve, but he'll trot determinedly next to the next person to pass him, and raise his voice to be heard over the murmur of voices.

"Begging your pardon," he says, with determination-- the stern kind of tone he might take with some assistant gardener who'd failed to heed orders a few times already, and trying to ignore the cold fist of desperation tightening around his heart. "Begging your pardon, but--"

If he's ignored, he'll seek the next person walking by, and the next, and the next, if he has to. Short of grabbing them by the ankles and sitting on them, he doesn't know what else to do.

Comments

common area

[shenunigans]

There seems to have been a long and never ending flow of new people entering the Tower. Like inter-dimensional diarrhea, which a gross but entirely accurate way of considering it, Dave thinks. He's been pretty busy with the whole surprise death sentence party and the subsequent embarrassing death that followed soon after.

He has his headphones in when he strides through the commons, so the hubbub of other tributes murmuring is nothing to him. His lips are moving, just a tiny bit, as if he's talking along with the lyrics or just... talking to himself despite the fact that he can't hear himself. Sam is within his peripheral vision, but it would be hard to take note of that thanks to his shades. He barely sees him approach, let alone speak, so when the faint sound of someone fumbling around in front of him finally works its way past his headphones he can't help but raise his eyebrows.

"What?" He cuts in abruptly, pulling out a headphone so he can hear better. What did he say? Sounded like garden. It might have been garden. Take a wild guess. "Kegging in the garden?" He looks a little queasy at the idea of it. "Nah, pass."

[lasttosail]

The relief of having got an answer is short-lived. By now Sam's gotten less choosy about who he chases down - his arbitrary standards for approachable have corroded enough that he'll take even someone going out of their way to hide their eyes (which speaks to him of shiftiness on top of strangeness). But at the reply, the hope in his eyes turns quickly to confusion.

"Begging your pardon," he repeats, louder-- if Dave's still moving, he's still trotting to keep up with him, but if he stops Sam will halt firmly in his forward path. "I didn't say nothing about a garden, begging your--" No, he said that already. Keep going, Sam. He reorients. "...Not that I've seen anything resembling a garden yet here, nor could say where they'd find the room for it, among all this glass. But it's your pardon I asked for."

[arrogantalloy]

Tony had come back from the speakeasy where he had been slowly putting together a scrap-built computer while Steve watched to encounter the hobbit bemoaning his situation.

He stands in the common room for a moment to hear him dramatically exclaiming what it's like to be in a penthouse suite. Tony's never really lived in anything less than a penthouse, outside of boarding school.

"Oh, another one." Tony mutters loud enough to be heard, before wandering away into the kitchen waving away at the ever present Avox in there, they make him uncomfortable so he habitually shoos them out of his sight, before pouring himself a large glass of milk.

"Really I'd only call this place prison when after 11pm. That. Merry? Pippin?...Bombadil?" He waves a dismissive hand at the names, deciding that close enough was near enough before continuing. "That's when they lock the tower down and we can't even leave our floor without... Being shot, I guess."

He puts the milk back in the fridge, then starts looking around for cookies in the cupboards, acting like the information he just handed out wasn't nearly so life threatening than it could be.

[lasttosail]

Sam startles hard. He leaps to his feet the instant he hears the voice, turning with the couch against which he'd slumped between him and the stranger. Sam, you fool! To be so caught up in moaning and sighing that he didn't see two people right there--!

He's already on the defensive, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand to clear the tears out of his vision, but his expression turns warier (and more confused) at the words he's hearing. Another one? Merry and Pippin? ...Bombadil? The names feel distant to him, out of another time and place-- it's been months since he saw the other hobbits, and more months since he slept in the house of Bombadil. (He doesn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved that Frodo's name is not among them.)

He hesitates. Should he admit he knows them? Demand to know how this man knows them? Are Merry and Pippin prisoners here, as well? Is this all intended to get a reaction from him? Hang it all-- if he knew only a little more--!

First things first: Sam gets out from behind the chair, and stands his ground properly. Takes a step or two toward the kitchen, even. Pulls a deep breath and sets his jaw for a questioning. This fellow sure does seem to know a great deal about locking up the tower.

"Are-- are you the jailor, then?" he asks, in the hope that simply not answering to any name will buy him time to figure out what one he ought to be answering to. His voice sounds small to his ears, but any louder and he won't be able to keep the tremble from it. "The one as keeps this tower?"

B

[wizardplease]

Haruto had come down to the common area with the intent of watching for familiar faces and attempting to enjoy a donut and some coffee, but it hadn't been working out for him. The coffee was alright, but the faces were unfamiliar and the only donuts they seemed to have on offer were chocolate. So he ordered a sandwich instead, ate the sandwich, drank his coffee, stared morosely out at the people as they passed... and then, having had enough of sitting still, he pushed away from the table and his half-eaten meal and set off for the elevator.

He didn't manage to make it before being interrupted by a stern voice coming from a general downwards direction. He stopped, turned around, saw no one... then tilted his gaze downwards and looked startled. "Huh? Me?" There's a brief flash of fear in his look, but it soon settles into a more regular sort of confusion. Who was this and why did they need his attention? What?

[lasttosail]

Sam, intent on the faces of the people whose attention he's trying to catch, doesn't miss that flash of fear. He's not sure what to make of it. He certainly doesn't feel fearsome, unarmed and unarmored in the strange soft clothes of this country, and goodness knows he's more than afraid enough himself.

He's caught Haruto not far from the table where he was eating (in the hopes that getting the attention of one sitting down might gain him more). There's a queer look about the man-- a foreign sort of look-- but after all, beggars (of pardon) can't be choosers, particularly when they're imprisoned in towers in strange countries. The whole place is foreign, really.

"Yes, if you've got a moment to spare," Sam says, trying to keep up his sternness, and hoping it gets as favorable a reaction again. "Which I hope you do, because I've got a few questions! I've been here nearly a day now, and told not nearly enough to get on with, and-- and you're going to give me something to go on, if you can."

B

[bravelyplucked]

Odd. Sam's as short as a child, but he does not look like one, at least as far as proportions and facial features went. But at least he's definitely gotten Torin's attention, and Torin will be just as polite to him as anyone else. "Can I help you?" He'll even crouch a little bit so as to facilitate eye contact. Everyone deserves a bit of basic respect, after all.

[lasttosail]

Young he is, for a hobbit, but far from a child. And he finds Torin bending to him a favorable sign. Some might think it condescending, looking at it from afar, but Sam sees it as the behavior of one who knows how to deal with folk smaller than himself-- it's just polite, it being far easier for Torin to come down to him than for him to get all the way up there.

"I'm hoping you can," he says in reply, doing his level best to sound as if he expects this stranger can help him. "I've had little enough so far. A funny custom you've got here, to put folk up at the top of towers and leave them to find their way down, without leave or explanation!"

[silberfuchs]

There are Hobbits in the Capitol.

It stands to reason, considering characters from an even older book have somehow ensconced themselves into his life, that the Capitol wouldn't just stop at making ironic tributes of 1820's failed revolutionaries but of heroic literary characters symbolic of overthrowing oppression. Either the Capitol doesn't understand the irony at all or someone up there is too well read for their own good and having a laugh.

Albert hasn't crossed paths with Bilbo or Frodo yet, though he is aware of them, but Sam's fruitless attempts to get attention from the wandering masses motivate the German to take pity on the poor man and change his course to walk over, shuffling the book of blank sheet music to the crook of his left arm in order to beckon Sam to follow him out of the traffic and off to the side where there's a few comfortable chairs set aside for talking.

"I thought you might be tired of being ignored," he gives a small smile, the rest of his expression mostly hidden for the sunglasses blocking his eyes. It's bright outside, after all, and he'd just been shopping.

[lasttosail]

It's tough, deciding whether or not to follow someone who beckons one away in a strange place. There's no knowing these people's thoughts nor their intentions, and Sam doesn't like the look of one who chooses to cover up his eyes indoors. What's he got to hide, after all, in this great crowd of people?

But, well, he does want to be out of the press of the crowd-- and he's not being kidnapped to some other land, plain enough, just a bit off the main track. He looks over his shoulder; pauses just a second; and then trots determinedly after Albert.

"Oh, they paid me attention enough when they brought me up here!" he replies hotly, letting himself lean on one of the chairs without yet sitting in it. "All If there's anything you need this and We're pleased to welcome you that-- 'til suddenly they were gone, and no one in this place willing to look where they're putting their feet! That's the way of Big People, though-- begging your pardon," he adds, with a look at Albert that makes clear he appreciates that he is a big person, even among Big People, and furthermore that he doesn't intend to revoke his coming judgment in light of that knowledge. "There's such a great deal going on up there, they don't give a thought to what might be going on down here, if you take my meaning."

[gardienne]

Eponine has been trying lately. Trying to change herself. Trying to behave. Trying, trying to be everything the Capitol wants her to be, everything that Eva hoped - hopes - her to be in the future. It's difficult for Eponine to change: she barely knows who she is, and certainly doesn't recognise her destructive behaviour until she's landed herself in trouble again.

But change - well, she's trying. She's dressed in gym clothes; tight black pants and black trainers and a pink vest top which show off her bony frame, with her tangle of hair scragged back out of her face. Sweat glistens on her face, and she smells, just a little from her exertions in the training rooms. All she wants to do is shower and change and find some ice cream.

But she stops, of course, when Sam approaches. At first, she thinks he's a child, and she smiles, but her expression changes slowly to confusion. Sam's face looks much older than Eponine's own, and he speaks with the voice of a man as well. And yet, he is so short.

"Are you well, Sir?" She has to prevent herself from asking the question she really wants to know the answer to: are you like this Davesprite? She bends down to Sam. "Are you lost? New here?"

[lasttosail]

If Sam notices the smell, it's only in contrast to the general perfume of the rest of this place. He can only guess how he must have reeked before they bathed him on his arrival, weeks out from his most recent bath and covered with the ash and muck and blood of Shelob's lair. Anyway, he's pleased enough to have caught somebody's attention that he'd forgive her a good deal more than a bit of sweat.

"Certainly the second, and more than a bit the first, begging your pardon," he says-- he has her pardon already, of course, but it feels right to beg it a second time of a lady (however queerly she may be dressed). His voice doesn't belong to a child, nor his manner of speaking. "As to well-- well, I'm cleaner than I was upon coming here, and better-fed, but little use it is to me, when I've no idea on whose account it is, or for what purpose! Which isn't to say I'm not glad of the rest, in a way-- but I'd be gladder to know how far out of my way I've been taken to get it, you see."

That's his most nagging worry at present, because he must choose something to be most worried about, out of everything. The name of this place means nothing to him, and he can't remember any place fitting its description in any story he's ever heard.

B

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi hasn't been out of the hospital for very long. All of a day, perhaps. There's still bandaging wrapped around her torso, making her shirt a little more bulky than she might like. And she's been instructed to take it easy and not over tax herself--easier said than done.

She happens to be sitting in a corner of the common area, taking just such a break, when she overhears someone trying to catch the attention of a passerby. And then another. And another. Her ears twitch as she leans to the side a little, trying to catch the scent of the persistent inquirer. A few more self-important Capitolites hurry by before Terezi finally realizes who is trying to catch their attention.

How cute. Another Tiny-Human.

Pushing herself up from her seat and leaning on her cane, Terezi wanders a little closer. Once she's in his field of sight, she grins sharp and wide. "You are never going to catch their attention like that. You have to yell more. Be aggressive. Being taller wouldn't hurt, either. Do you need a box to stand on?"

[lasttosail]

Sam looks up at the sound of the voice-- and blanches pure white. He stumbles a step back, groping instinctively for a sword he doesn't have and cursing in his own head when he remembers it's gone. Stands to reason there'd be Orcs here, in this strange and cruel place, and him left defenseless--!

...But it occurs to him, before his terror can really get itself going, that no one else around them seems to be raising any sort of alarum over the sharp-toothed gray-skinned creature addressing him. They just sort of... walk around it. And, well-- it's not an Orcish sort of place, this, with its tall glass spires and open spaces-- and anyway, it's full daylight through the great windows.

Sam registers these things, and fitting them with what he's seen of Orcs (which is more than he'd like, and more than enough to base a comparison on), he finds that it doesn't match up. All those things together don't say Orc, necessarily, but nor does it say normal, and while Sam neither jumps to the attack nor flees in fear, the suspicion is plain on his face and in his voice. He hangs a few steps back from Terezi, his jaw set and his hands in uneasy fists.

"Of course help would come first from where it's least wanted," he says, with an effort at fierceness. "See here, you Orc, or-- or whatever you are-- If you've no mind to help, you can clear off!"

B

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland tries to follow the voice to its source. The room's crowded at this time of day, tributes and servants moving in and out, reporters and fans milling around and trying to snare anyone who seems to even glance their way, and movement and sound are a tangle. This voice, though, strikes him differently. It's the tone that does it; the people of this city tend to try and simper and pry their way into your graces, and anything even a little different is worth paying attention to.

He does find the voice's source not too far away. Not speaking to him, but the person it is aimed toward takes no notice. "You'll find no pardon there, I think." Moving through the crowd instead of with it is a little slow but Roland makes his way closer anyway, eying the owner of the voice curiously. "Unless that's not truly what you're looking for."

[lasttosail]

Sam falters in his tracks when the man approaches, looking up at him with a wary and appraising eye. There's something about the way he talks - his words, not his manner of speaking them - that calls to mind someone he knows, a little. Someone he'd been loath to trust at first, and wrongfully so.

It's that memory that tempers his defensiveness a little, though his voice is still guarded.

"...No," he says. "Not all I'm looking for. But I must start somewhere, and I suppose pardon's all I can expect to get for any begging I do." He pauses. "Begging your pardon--" It stands in for so many formalities, why not use it again-- "--but if you're a man of this place-- then perhaps you might help me find what I'm looking for."

B

[crabmunicator]

When Sam begging-your-pardons Karkat, it's probably not going to be the sort of person he was expecting when he turns to face him. Grey-skinned, yellow-eyed, with teeth pointier than necessary and a pair of bright horns amongst the snarls of his hair, he's decidedly no man or elf, not even with the pointed ears. Missing it wouldn't have been hard from the back; grey hands aside, he tends to long-sleeved shirts, and his horns are short enough that a low angle wouldn't help spot them above his excuse for a hairstyle.

For just a moment he stares. Sam is short. Shorter than him, even! He's never been terribly tall, just a scant few inches above five feet, and here's someone who looks downright tiny as humans go. Which is what he thinks this - Man? Boy? Age is hard to tell - must be when he's never so much as heard of a hobbit.

"What do you want?" he asks. His voice is scratchy with the ingrained roughness of someone who shouts way too often, though his tone (if brusque) at least implies he'll listen. He wasn't going anywhere important; he'd just been at the training center, and would have continued back up to his district's floor had Sam not stopped him in his path.

[lasttosail]

No, not man, nor elf, nor dwarf, nor hobbit-- the closest thing Sam's ever seen to a creature of his like is Orcs. ...Which is not to say that Karkat looks exactly like one, or even a great deal like one, being too small and too clean and hornéd, which no Orc he's run into has been-- but the gray skin, the sharp teeth, the rough voice-- they all say more than they don't, in Sam's estimation.

He pulls his outstretched hand back like he's been burned, and takes a quick two steps back. They took his sword off him when he arrived, and he feels its lack keenly-- but the creature doesn't seem to be armed, either, which is--

--confusing, actually. That's another thing no Orc he's ever seen has been.

"Well-- I'd asked your pardon," he says, and counts lack of manners as another strike against the creature, having little enough else to go on. "But as I'm not likely to get it, I'll have instead an answer from you as to what manner of creature you are-- whether Orc, or Man, or something what never made it into any stories in the North-- and-- and some sign of good faith from you, though I'll not hold my breath for it."

He talks boldly, but he's thin as well as short, in a wasted way that speaks of former plenty. They'd bandaged what hurts he had upon arrival, but all the Capitol's arts haven't fully closed every cut and bruise on his face and arms, and he looks pale and frightened, though his jaw is set.

B

[elfstone]

He had not heard Sam approach, not in the commotion of the common area -- it was crowded enough right now that the soft tread of hobbit feet eluded even his senses. When he hears the small voice, he turns around, and his face falls.

Another Hobbit.

"You have it," he says. Though Strider knows him not, he is prepared to give Sam his full attention, for if hobbits are to be brought to as cruel a place as this, they should not be without help.

[lasttosail]

It is not a healthy-looking hobbit who stands before him. Sam's been bathed and the wounds he came with tended to since his arrival, but they've not healed completely, and there are still the ghosts of cuts and bruises on his skin. He's thin, too-- almost starved, especially for a hobbit.

His expression when Strider turns to him is, at first, determined-- but then his jaw drops and his eyes go wide, as though he can't believe what's before him.

"Bless me," he breathes, and there's wonder in his face, and relief, and no little confusion. He thinks he could weep. "Strider."

He takes a step closer, and then hesitates-- doubting himself suddenly, longing to hope, but cautious against some trick. "...Looking as I've never seen you, to be sure-- from behind I took you for one of them, in those clothes-- and less like you've been sleeping wrapped in a cloak under a tree as ever I've seen you!" His smile, already unsure, wavers further. He's looking for recognition in Aragorn's eyes, some sign that their plight is, at least, better known to him than to Sam. "But if it is you-- then I've never in my life been gladder to see anyone, and that's the truth."

B

[iflipmyhair]

Homura's head slowly turned, looking...down...at the newcomer. Ah. One of the little people they'd brought in.

"Yes?"

[lasttosail]

Sam faltered a bit. He wasn't sure of the extent to which this indicated a granting of pardon. He found himself wondering if he was intruding - something about that slow way she turned to look at him...

"Begging your pardon," he repeated, with half a bow (more just a duck of his head), and let the courtesy bolster his courage. "But if you've half a moment, I'm looking for..."

He faltered again.

"...I'm looking for... well. I suppose one as carries some authority around here, if you know where I might find him."

I have to confess...I've wanted to tag him for a long time I just haven't gotten around to it.

[justoutrunyou]

"What's all the noise?"

A child came shuffling out of one of the rooms clad in shorts and a loose hanging shirt that had the words "I will be taking your fucking eyes" written on it.

She wore a wool cap, hand knit with a flower sewn onto it and from the bits of paint on her arms and fingertips it was clear just what she had been working on.

Scanning the room Sandy settled her eyes onto the newcomer and frowned. She'd seen other little people in the games but she'd never spoken to one yet.

"Hey...pull yourself together."

A bit crass perhaps but she was rough around the edges these days.

I'm glad you did!! :D

[lasttosail]

It's not that there's any one thing Sam is or isn't expecting of this place. Thus far near all of it's been unexpected or unfamiliar, and there's been no five-minute span that doesn't offer some new surprise. But still he starts when he sees a child come out of the room, and not some-- some warden, or jailor, or fellow-prisoner.

As for pulling himself together, though-- he looks up at her in helpless bewilderment, and his face is red and tear-streaked. He scrubs a hand across his eyes as he staggers to his feet, resting a hand against the chair next to him for support, but that's all the effort he'll make toward pulling himself together. (His eyes narrow a second as he pauses on her shirt-- he's never been the quickest reader but he knows there's at least one word on there he's never even seen before.)

"You'd ask nothing of the sort, if you knew where I'd been," he says roughly, in a voice that breaks. "If you knew what I'd lost--! But here!" And like it or not, he is pulling himself together, standing up straighter, his voice turning gruff instead of choked with tears. "This place is too big for either of us-- meaning, it's a cruel prison, that's built for children and hobbits and no others."

It's a cruel place, and he knew that before; but it's a strange cruelty, one in which he can see no rhyme or reason. He half-expects the child before him to be some sorceress in disguise. It would make about as much sense.

[somethingprecious]

Bilbo isn't approached by Sam directly, but he hears him from across the room and that thinly veiled desperation rings familiar to him. He only wanted to pass through, never feeling comfortable enough to hang around so many Big Folk at once. The Peacekeepers in their utter whiteness and large weapons didn't help very much either.

But he sees Sam there and recognizes him for what he is - a very displaced Hobbit. His chest tightens at the thought of yet another poor being being stuck here in this torment and seeing that it is a Hobbit makes him ill. Straightening up he quickly navigates through the sea of towering people and reaches out to gently take Sam's arm, tugging him away towards the wall.

"Come with me. I'm sure I can help you a little easier than some of this lot."

[lasttosail]

Sam has a few thoughts all at once. The first is: I'm caught again, and he has it just as he feels the hand on his arm. He's done it, hasn't he-- found something forbidden. It was their mistake to let him out at all, and now they're going to--

--Except then he has his second thought, which is more a realization: Namely, that he's looking into his captor's face and not his belt buckle. It's a Hobbit. There can be no mistake. And that takes Sam so heartily aback that he follows without protest-- lets himself be tugged along, his errand forgotten in the flood of mixed confusion and relief that threatens to knock his feet right out from under him.

"Another Hobbit," he breathes as they halt, and he couldn't put a name to the feeling in his chest, warm and heavy and relieved and sad, as he meets his rescuer's eyes. "Bless me-- I was sure I was the only..."

He falters. The sentence dies on his lips.

It is then he has his third thought, which is a name: Bilbo Baggins. For a second, he can't think where it came from. He narrows his eyes, momentarily lost, looking into the stranger's face-- too thrown to think of his manners or the sentence he's left unfinished. Because it's impossible, of course-- but the resemblance is... it could be a brother, or a son, or even...

"...Mister Bilbo," Sam says, hesitant and uncertain. Convinced even before he speaks that he's wrong. "I-- begging your pardon, but you look just like..." He trails off again, doubting himself once more.

FINALLY SLAMS INTO THIS

[famousest]

Frodo doesn't spend a lot of time in the common area. He's had his fill of this place and its gaudy big people and the way it treats outsiders and children. He's not sure that he's getting well-- with two Rings somewhere in this city, they exert twice the influence on him. He feels them, and it's just gotten worse today for some reason. Still, he tries to keep busy and keep distracted. He doesn't want to worry his uncle or Aragorn, and he doesn't intend to be a burden.

So today he's going out. A little fresh air should help, and maybe he'll meet someone interesting. It's when he's heading through the common area that he hears a rather unexpected voice, though, and for a moment, he's frozen stiff, eyes going very wide and stunned in his face. He's afraid to turn around. If he's just hearing things, if it's just some long-distance trick of the Ring--

But that can't be anyone but Sam. That rising frustration, the very tone of his voice--

He whirls on his foot, pushing his way through people with half-gasped apologies, only to practically fling himself on the other Hobbit.

"Sam! Oh, Sam, dear Sam, I thought-- I cannot believe that you're here!"

YES HELLO WELCOME TO THE PARTY

[lasttosail]

Sam gives half a yell when someone leaps out of the crowd onto him-- it near stops his heart, and he thinks immediately both of his sword, taken and locked away somewhere, and how he'd not be able to reach it anyway, with his arms pinned this way--

--until it occurs to him that his head's level with the other's head, and that's-- his name--? In a voice that he...

...that he knows. That he could not mistake. That he would know just as well if it were shouting to him over a canyon, or whispered under the wind, or come to him in a dream. It's a voice he'd not expected to hear again, in this or any world.

"Mister Frodo," Sam breathes, and he takes half a step back-- just enough to look into Frodo's face. To confirm that it's him (as if he could possibly mistake him). His voice is trembling.

It's a trick. It must be some sorcery. Frodo's lying dead on Shelob's stair with Sam's sword laid across his breast and his coffin made of her foul ropes; Frodo's body was never going to be found. He'd been so pale, and so cold, and the poison turning his face livid even as Sam had walked away. He can hardly reconcile what he's seeing with what he remembers - there's too great a contrast between Frodo as he appears, clean and dressed in strange clothes, surrounded by light all reflected off glass and stone, and the picture Sam has of him, wasted and weary in the gloom and heavy air of Mordor.

"Mister Frodo," Sam says again, and this time his voice breaks. He falls to his knees on the tiles, taking Frodo's hand in his, and holding it between his own as though to make sure he's real. As though to keep him from disappearing. "It's a trick; it must be a trick, and I can't bring myself to care." His voice is thick with tears, and he looks between Frodo's face and the hand between his as though he can't decide where to set his eyes. "It's that good to see you again--! When I left you, I thought-- I thought--"

He clutches Frodo's hand tighter, and loses the end of his sentence in a sob.

common area

[smarterthanthem]

"What?" finally there's someone Sam's size around to catch his bid for attention. Actually she's still somewhat taller than he is but she's closer than anyone else in height, if not age, to the Hobbit.

Clementine turns to see the person speaking to her and it's only by merit of having met Frodo Baggins before that she recognises what kind of person she's looking at right now. He's another Hobbit, she'd bet anything on it, from curly hair to pointed ears to (when she glances down further at him) furry feet! "Oh! Hi. Are you okay?"

Actually she'd say his current mood was frustrated, if the tone of his address was anything to go by. Maybe he was new still, that would explain that. Clem only knows of two Hobbit's in the Capitol so far and, while she only met Frodo, she doesn't think this one is Bilbo.

[lasttosail]

Frustrated is a good word for it. By the time he gets to Clem, he thinks he might be running out of voice to call with. It's like the sound of it doesn't get up above a certain height, it seems-- like something in the air is holding it down.

Maybe he'd looked for someone nearer to the ground on instinct, or out of habit; he's not sure if he should be relieved or disappointed to have run into a child. On the one hand, there's less reason to be wary of a child, even one who might have been born into this strange country; on the other, he's not sure what help he might ask of her.

But it's the only help he's found, and she's neither ignoring him nor dismissing him; and that's a start, anyway. He's glad not to have to be shout to be heard, either. Taller than him she is, but a sight smaller than anyone else walking briskly by.

Her question does trip him up a bit. Whatever tongue they speak here, it's near enough to the Common he knows not to give him too much pause, but okay needs a second to get through the translator he doesn't know is in operation.

"...I'm--" He starts to answer; pauses; starts over, from where he left off. "Begging your pardon-- but I'm many things at the moment! Chief among them lost. I've come from there--" And he points in the direction of the glass elevators-- "--but where I was before, I'm sure I don't know, and where I am now even less."