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

[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.

[gardienne]

"You don't know why you're here, Sir?" Out of all of the Tributes Eponine has seen arriving in the Capitol, Sam is about the first to be ignorant of their purpose there. She bends down so that she is on eye level with Sam, a sad expression on her face.

"You're here to die, Sir, and to kill. Perhaps it shall be you who kills me next, or me you. I do not know. And over and over so that the people here may enjoy it. It is not fair to put a half-man, a dwarf into the arena though, I do not think. This is your home, and where you must train to fight, as I do now, Sir. And you must welcome your death over and over and make it to be entertaining for these people here."

It's awful even saying any of it out loud, and she can't understand how such men can fight against real men here. It's not fair.

[lasttosail]

Sam swallows, and feels a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach. They'd told him that, the ones who brought him here (he presumes they must be). This isn't the first time he's heard those words. He'd just-- not got to them yet, is all. He'd not got past the rest of all of it yet. He's not ready to have a purpose here, given him by someone else. He's already got a purpose, and no time for another one.

"Begging your pardon, but there's a couple of things I ought to set straight," he says, and puts artificial courage in his voice, as much as he can. "I'm no dwarf, nor half a Man; I'm all of a Hobbit, though perhaps that's not much in its entirety. And this ain't my home." Of that he's confident. "I don't know where my home might be, in relation to this place; but I'd never call a place home where I'd been brought without leave, whatever I was meant to do there."

He tries his best to be firm about this. If she's wrong about those things, she might also be wrong about the rest, after all, mightn't she?

[gardienne]

"What is a hobbit, if you excuse me, Sir?" She looks at him, completely blank. She has never heard that term before. She debates if he's part of the circus, as Davesprite is, but this little fellow seems far too worried and solid, almost, to be part of one.

She brushes her own ignorance aside though, to correct Sam's. She shakes her head. "Home? Well, no. No, you are not from here and neither am I. The roadside is my home, an alley or a ditch or under a bush, Sir, in a place of Paris. But this is where you must live now, for we are locked in at night. It is not a home, proper like, but it is shelter. You understand?"

[lasttosail]

"A Hobbit is..." He's never actually had to explain this before. "Well, it's-- folk like me. Out of the Shire." Someone else might have been able to say more, he thinks-- someone with a little more learning, who could say where they'd come from and who they were related to and what other people thought of them-- but this is about all he has. He can't communicate everything that Shire means to him; he doesn't know what to do when that word doesn't bring to someone else's mind the picture it brings to his.

"That's where home is," he tries, and knows his attempt was clumsy. "Not here." He doesn't know Paris, but then, he knows as much of the cities of the South as most Men do of the farthings of the Shire. "And where I come from, shelter means a place that's safe-- a place where you can lock the dangerous things of the world out, rather than the people living in it in. It seems a pretty poor shelter to me."

[gardienne]

"It keeps you dry. It keeps you warm. There is food. It is better even than my home were, you know?" Whoever this man - Hobbit - whatever he is - might be, it seems that he has not lived such a difficult life as she, if he cannot define even a shelter. And that saddens her, because good, comfortable people - is he still a person? - like him should not be dragged into such a mess as this.

"I do not know this Shire, Sir, not so well as you should know Paris, I should think. But i know that you can't go back there no more, and that you must forget it, for you are stuck here until they grow bored of you and do not bring you back from the dead."

[lasttosail]

One mess into another mess, that's all it is. This place is far fairer than the place he left, it's true; but he isn't supposed to be here. And at least on the stair of Cirith Ungol, though the way out was shut, he knew what world lay beyond it - that there was still safety and beauty somewhere familiar, though it were far away. He has no such assurance here.

"Forget it!" The incredulity in his tone makes clear what he thinks of that. "Forget the Shire! I think not!" He'd not forgotten it, though he'd been parted from it for so many months-- it'll take more than imprisonment in another country, no matter how strange, to drive it out of him.

"But, look here," he goes on. "I-- I know what they said my purpose is here. To fight, and-- and to die, maybe. But--" But he doesn't want to believe it. "--But if they wanted me dead, why wouldn't they have had done with me already? It would have been easy enough, I wager-- there's enough of them."

[gardienne]

"Look - look, Sir -" She puts her hands out, as if warding off his outburst. "I do not say so out of malice, honest. It is just... well, if you like a place, I should think it would be sad to remember it here. Is it not? I know when I went to Paris, I did all I could to pass Montfermiel from my mind, for that were so heaven like when I think of it against that stinking city. You know? It helps you to just get through the day, Sir. As for not killing you,"

She shrugs with a regretful smile still on her face. "Because they like to play with us first, Sir. It is not enough for death. We are as dolls to them. They will perhaps let you go when they grow bored of you. But you are new, Sir, and with a spirit. You shan't be allowed to go for a while, I shouldn't think."

[lasttosail]

It's clear from his face he doesn't think much of that. He finds it alarming, and cruel, and-- and he can see, a little, why she should have lost hope so completely, if that's what she's been living under. And her only a child, and all!

But it's not to this part of her talk that he responds. Partly because he doesn't know what to say to it - he hasn't quite got it all the way through his mind, and that'll be a moment yet - and partly because he finds he doesn't agree.

"Look here," he says, and his expression is troubled. He looks away from her a moment, hearing her words again in his head, and then back up at her. "When I was at my very lowest-- in the damp pits of the Marshes, and sleeping on stones under naught but a cloak, and in places where the sun never shone, by morn or by noon-- it was then I thought of the Shire most." That'd been what got him through the days, and the nights, and the mornings and the evenings and all of it. "It wasn't always easy to call to mind, when the wind out of the East pulled at one all the night, and stank of burning rock, and we'd had nothing to eat since the evening before-- but the thought of it kept one putting one foot in front of the other. For even though we were walking away from it, perhaps if we kept going, we'd someday find ourselves walking back."

He isn't sure if he meant this to be chiding, or encouraging, or a bit of both, and he lets it go with a shrug of one shoulder. "I shouldn't like to forget, is all."

I'm sorry! I lost this!

[gardienne]

"Then don't you forget it." She says, fiercely. With nice memories of this Shire, she can see why he clings to it. "Don't let nobody take it away from you, not wicked women like me, nor this awful Capitol who seek to make you rotten all the way through. Keep thinking of your Shire, and I shall forget everything, and perhaps, one day when we are together, it will be to a happy place. But for now, I think no, for I have not known a happy place at all, and I fear I never shall. But for you - hide your hope, or they will try to take it, Sir, and you will become as disgusting as me."

no problem at all!

[lasttosail]

Sam wants to protest that she doesn't look disgusting to him, not at all-- oh, she could use some feeding, perhaps, and someone to teach her a more proper way of talking, but she doesn't put him in mind of any of the truly evil folk he's met, in his time.

"I don't aim to," he says, decisively. "I don't aim to forget. And you-- well, I don't know about disgusting, nor wicked, having only just met you." He's willing to be judicious on this front. "But I wish I could show you the Shire. I couldn't do it justice-- I've never been the cleverest with words. But it'd give you hope, too, to see it."

He pauses, a second, knowing full well the futility of that-- of course she can't call to mind the Shire, nor see it. It's a poor hope he's offering. So he adds, a little uncomfortably: "...Well-- forget it I may yet, I suppose. But give me your name, and I'll not forget that, at least, if I can help it."

Re: no problem at all!

[gardienne]

"My name, Sir? My name is Eponine." She thought about giving a false name, or a false surname, at least. But she decides against it. What is the point? Her picture is too often in the newspapers, her name plastered too often in gossip columns to hide who she is and what she's done to hide her identity from anyone. Besides which, how many people are called 'Eponine'?

"And you... Sir? Are you a Sir? What am I to call you?"

[lasttosail]

"Eponine." He likes the sound of it as he says it, even if not as pretty as she says it-- it's a pretty name for a girl, if rather foreign to his ears. "You can call me Sam, for that's my name - Samwise Gamgee, and no need for any Sir." It would feel like putting on airs, for someone of his station to demand such a thing.

"I'm just a gardener," he adds. "Or... was, I suppose. I've done little enough gardening in recent months."