thecapitol | it's a divine comedy! [open]

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it's a divine comedy! [open]

Who| Grantaire & OPEN.
What| Grantaire tries to adjust to not being dead, and probably more importantly, being alive in a place that certainly is not 1832 Paris.
Where| Tribute Center; Central Commons.
When| Some point shortly after his arrival.
Warnings/Notes| Will update as needed.

Initially Grantaire mistook it for a hallucination, elaborate and strange, yes, but surely a product of his own drink addled mind. He was asleep at that table still, drowning in the drunken miasma of his wild dreams, and soon he would wake and this would be forgotten, as dreams always are. However, the longer it persisted, the clearer his mind became, and the painful clarity in which this reality assaulted his senses eventually forced him to reconsider his earlier assumption and accept a new truth.

This was real.

If he accepted that then he must also accept that he had died, just as he remembered, standing beside Enjolras and showing himself capable of not only dying but dying as well as he knew how.
Yet apparently it hadn't took, which was troubling for a number of reasons he'd rather not dwell upon.

Instead set out to gain some bearing on his situation, which was how he had come to this point, standing in a great open lobby. He did not know precisely how he had done so; he had followed people, there had been a strange static journey within a box that closed on one place and opened at another, and now he stood here, feeling at once both awed and cruelly cheated. He reacted initially with unnatural silence, so struck was he by the outlandishness of his situation.

"A drink!" he cried abruptly, as suddenly as enlightenment strikes the puzzled intellectual, and he looked around wildly for any place that might provide him one.

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"Well, you certainly sound enthusiastic."

Molotov, who's been his constant companion in the Capitol lately, is out at a photoshoot, and that leaves Tom a bit listless. It's atypical for him to be so reluctant to engage in solitary behavior, but he supposes it might just be the general restlessness of captivity. As the days in the city have passed, he's become increasingly bored with what the Capitol has to offer, and as he sees no immediate method of escape he's started to worry that this burgeoning tedium will only amplify.

The answer, of course, is alcohol. Tom hopes that the lens of sepia liquids will lend a certain sharpness to what he is to do in this situations. It's certainly not as bad as prison, but Tom's never enjoyed staying in one place for long. It probably says things about him that he's looking forward to the next Arena with the closest thing to bated breath as someone with his demeanor ever manages.

Awful, awful things.

He settles a seat away from Grantaire and orders whiskey, trusting the bartending Avox will recognize the brand that Tom's been shilling as an official spokesperson for (the Capitol seems all too happy to trade on the novelty of a thick Irish accent). His cane, which he's been carrying more than using despite his limp, gets leaned against the underside of the bar.

"I'm going to hazard a guess and say that you're new here."

Courfeyrac was not in need of a drink. He'd imbibed himself with too great a frequency lately. With the loss of Enjolras and the hideous mangled skin on the side of his face present as always, it had been all too tempting to indulge and find some solitude in liquor. He held himself well enough, but he'd finally reached the thresh hold, at which point intoxication seemed only to lead to unhappiness. He needed a clear head. If Enjolras was really and truly gone, someone had to hold their sorry little band together. Why not Courfeyrac?

He had contemplated this prospect for several days, since his release from jail. A weekend spent in confinement could easily turn any man into a contemplator. In fact, he resolved that he would contemplate this further while strolling in the crisp, autumn air. There would be only a few more pleasant days in the season before snowfall. One might as well enjoy the cold before it became bitter.

He was just exiting the elevator, intending to walk directly to the front doors of the center when an familiar figure grabbed hold of his full attention.

"Grantaire?"

Surely his eyes were deceiving him. There was no other explanation for the vision before him, wandering through the lobby just ahead. He found himself tempted to rub his eyes, to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming. But he wasn't, so he didn't. Instead, he galloped toward the man at close to full speed. Never before had he been so glad to see him.

"My God, it is you! My eyes do not deceive me! Grantaire, what poor luck this is! And yet, I find that I am so happy, I might burst from joy!"

Grantaire chooses wine as his elixir, the drink that will rouse him from the shock of his situation. It is wordlessly delivered to him, a bottle that he can at least place his faith in, for it shall not disappoint him. He glances to the side when the stranger takes a seat beside him, a gentleman wetting his lips before replying.

"And I shall hazard that you are not. Do you see? I too am able to make obvious presumptions, a skill that I frequently demonstrate but often find derided, as my opinions are generally worthless and few welcome my grim honesty. I dislike this air of depressing compliance you have about you, it does not bode well for my future and I have too many questions about this place to put into good order, so I seek to drown my confusion. This is the best answer I have for them presently." He took a long drink and then frowned deeply, as if the taste had offended him. It had not, and he had instead been distracted by a more troubling realization.

"Am I speaking English?"

He was, he could feel the shape, different and clumsier than his native French and he took another drink, longer, his expression darkening.

He recoiled, surely the most reasonable of reactions when faced with the man before him. Courfeyrac looked frightful, so poor that Grantaire did not immediately recognize him, if not for his voice, and he staggered back with a faltering step, staring at him with openly horrified wonder.

"You look terrible!" His exclamation was deafening. "I am turned to stone, you gorgon, if not in body than in mind! What has happened to you? Do not take offense, I am happy to see you, I am, though suspicious that my presence would affect you similarly, and troubled more so by the look of you. None of it bodes well for me and I am suitably disturbed."

However, this could not stop Grantaire from reaching out, gripping Coureyrac's arm and thus reassured by the solidity of his presence. If he was trapped here than he could at least he was not alone, however unexpected a pair they made. "What is this place, Courfeyrac?"

Oh, dear. This man can talk. Tom watches his ramble and wonders if the hinges in his jaw have been so oiled by alcohol already.

"'Depressing compliance'? Just because I'm not burning up the streets in some ill-conceived bid for expression doesn't mean I'm compliant." He's near grousing. He thinks of the girl in his District, Korra, and how she assumed that anything other than immediate action was weakness. Tom raises his eyebrows and takes a drink.

"You are. Everyone here is." It didn't strike Tom as terribly awkward when he arrived here, but that's because it's his mother tongue. He's slowly come to find it more and more grating as he can't rely on his many other languages to impress. It's a small peeve, but Tom's always had an affection for showiness and flaunting his education, and having one fewer tool in his verbal kit doesn't please him. A villain needs his flair.

Edited 2014-11-23 23:28 (UTC)

Grantaire was not drunk, though he was undeniably upset, and seeking to drown it in the bitter sweet waters of wine. His current state would change soon enough and when his companion tired of him he would stay here, still drinking and feeling sorry for himself. He was familiar enough with the steps, it would be no great trouble getting there.

He sighed deeply, an exhalation of useless wind, for it seemed wind was all he was capable of blowing. "My death has been robbed from me, and now my language too, this is a fine joke! As for your lack of revolutionary fervor, I find it depressing only because I once warmed myself often around the embers of such pointless conviction, and to find it absent is more painful than anticipated." Or perhaps it came as no surprise at all, if one were to reflect upon the reason for his death.

"I myself am too well acquainted with that softer side of rebellion, the weak underbelly that avoids any great show of true dedication; the one who notes that what has come before will come again and so on, why not enjoy some nice thing in the meantime? Until, of course, you reach that moment where you may stand and die for something or remain sitting and die just the same, from worthlessness. When I first awoke I had hoped this was some fever dream, but as the vision has yet to fade I am chastising myself for not having seen something like it coming." He trailed off, bitterness evident in the twist of his mouth. His eyes roamed over the people who milled about them and he appeared for a moment as if very lost, before the openness of his expression shuttered and he focused more plainly upon his companion.

"You may call me Grantaire, if you wish to call me anything at all. I sign it with the French R, an amusing little pun in my language that falls tediously flat in English."

It isn't difficult to spot a new person around the Tower. Not only because they are unfamiliar, but because they are unfamiliar, dazed and confused. Generally they're wandering about with or without aim, making themselves terribly apparent. Quite a few new people had been arriving lately, as if a steady stream of them set them all to show up one day after the other. Thor has almost actively begun to seek them out, but sometimes they make it just that little bit easier.

He starts just a bit when the cry comes abruptly, but his surprise is soon replaced with amusement and he smiles. He veers off his course toward him, as if summoned to him by the siren song of booze.

"You aren't far off." He points out with a friendly tone to his voice. "Look no further than the corner onward. Surely they will provide you with what you desire." He gestures vaguely toward the direction of the lobby bar, he knows it's location all too well.

He did not mind for a second that he had just been insulted, not at all. Rather, he was elated, over the moon with happiness at the sight of his beastly friend, for it occurred to Courfeyrac that if Grantaire was around, then Enjolras must surely be nearby. That was how things worked in the set, wasn't it? Grantaire would not bother to attend if not for Enjolras's presence. He had to hope, had to pray to whatever remnants of God were left lurking in his soul that this would hold true in this other world.

"This is Panem and it is hell on Earth." He steadied himself on Grantaire's arms, grateful that the man didn't vanish into thin air as he reached out to him. "Or perhaps it is not Earth at all. It is a savage place and we've all been cursed to live and die here, again and again for the amusement of our new rulers. That is the plainest way I might explain it. But before I go on, you must first tell me when you arrived! It's been almost a year for me since I died at the barricade and I do not recall that you were there with us."

Grantaire turned at the voice and found himself looking up at a giant of a man, broad and powerfully built, an Achilles in living form. He recalled with sudden and unsettling clarity what he had been told: they would be Tributes, fighting one another to the death. If he were doomed to face this man he did not imagine he would last very long. Any entertainment he was meant to provide would be a pathetic and poor show for the natives of this world, that he was sure of.

He found himself bitterly satisfied with that little truth.

Of course, this man did not look like he meant to kill him now, and naturally such possibilities were tempered by the kindness the other man had just done him. He looked to where he'd been directed before returning his attention to the stranger. "Join me!" he declared. "Drinking alone encourages melancholy and there will be time for that later. Have you been here long? How did you overcome the shock? I seek to drown mine."

"Speak more plainly, I fear I mistake your meaning" he murmured dryly and then laughed, tipping his head back, wild with amusement. "New rulers! New rulers, you say? How easily the old are struck down and forgotten, how nicely they are transplanted. Or maybe it we who are transplanted. We escaped that government you all so opposed through death but are resurrected here, we citizens, so well suited to serve. Oh, poor me, I have hardly had time to mourn losing our last king, I do not think myself ready to face a new one so quickly, please give me time to breathe, and a drink to more easily swallow this all down with! What do we call him; Citizen? King? Emperor?"

He waved his free hand grandly, and then lowered his voice as his posture relaxed into one of affected indifference, a front for any shame he felt for sleeping through the death of his friends.

"You have fine timing, I have just arrived and you missed me at the barricade because I was not there, but fear not! I followed soon enough, though a year has not passed for me since last I laid eyes on you. My memories tell me I saw you just last night, you were full of fervor then, such excitement had seized hold of you all and look at the result. I awoke and you were dead, and then I died and awoke again and here you are! How things change, and yet I fail to feel any surprise!" He paused, and looked around them briefly.

"No, I will amend that claim, this is surprising. Where are the rest of our friends?"

There's no drink to be found here, alas. What there is however, is a sight that is most likely a strange one indeed - the streets of Paris very rarely include dragons. Fortunately, this one appears to at least not be too terribly interested in attacking straight off the bat, which is perhaps a decent start.

"I suppose there ought to be somewhere they can be found, if you had meant to be looking for one."

Grantaire blinked and then did so again, for good measure. Perhaps he had been wrong, perhaps this was some wild vision, for surely what he saw before him could not be real. Perhaps he was still yet living, lost in some dizzying opium dream and he would regain his senses tucked deep within some secluded den.

A dragon, European in look, speaking to him as if it was a perfectly natural thing to do. And why not? What was normal here, after all? How could he possibly know, he was only a poor ignorant prisoner, uneducated in what was natural or commonplace. Perhaps dragons were native, and next he would find satyrs running past, followed by any other manner of mythological oddity.

"A relief, I fear I have an increasing need," he murmured, distraction lending a weak quality to his voice, eyes fixed on the creature before him. He pressed his hands to his face abruptly, rubbing at his eyes and willing any illusory visions to dissipate. When he refocused the dragon was still there.

"Fortunately for both of us, I don't consider it my divine directive to warm the charcoal of your soul." Tom takes a deep breath and pulls out his pipe. "No offense meant, of course. I simply hardly know you. I can't say I find your dichotomy between adopting a cause and being entirely worthless all that convincing, though. Isn't personal happiness a worthy aim?"

Grantaire doesn't mean to stir resentment in Tom's chest, but the metaphors of fire and embers can only keenly remind him of how his powers are suppressed. How once he could snap his fingers and bring fire to his hand, and how the Capitol doesn't trust him with even that. He doesn't blame them - certainly the other Tributes have done nothing to engender trust - but it still chafes that a part of him so integral has been stripped from him without his consent.

Still, Tom laughs, because he does understand the joke in the name. He once spoke French, in addition to plenty of other tongues. "Tom Cassidy."

He holds out his hand to shake. Despite debonair affectations, he has callouses on his palms; he isn't the type to do paperwork. He spends time in the field, with gunpowder and wires and fire.

'A drink!' - that voice. Eponine knew that voice, though from where she was sat, curled up on a chair with a book in her hand and fiddling with the heavy locket about her neck, she couldn't place it.

And yet... yet, there weren't so many men with French accents here, and certainly not that hateful Enjolras, nor Joly or Marius or Courfeyrac. Not Marius, no. Nor the others, but...

She twisted in her seat, craning her neck to see who this man was, and like the voice, the figure was one that she dimly recognised from those foggy times in Paris. One of the companions, perhaps? One of the students she had watched so often without taking the slightest bit of notice of? She had no name for him, yet she knew it must be one of them.

She got up carefully, straightening her oversized hoodie, pulling it tight down of the leggings that seem to have replaced actual pants in her wardrobe. She probably looked different to Paris as well, with her skin scrubbed clean, her hair somewhat tamed, her left cheek marred by a huge, raw-looking brand of the Capitol insignia, which started just below her eye and just caught the edges of her lips.

"Sir?" She came towards him, eyebrows raised in a questioning manner. "Would brandy do? I know the good stuff, nasty as piss but good to make you sleep, Sir."

Still there and apparently entirely unconcerned about any concerns that he might have over the fact that a dragon might be neither a familiar sight nor a welcome sight. Sure, she knows that there's a good number of people who don't seem to be familiar with dragons until they meet her, but that's not entirely any of her concern. Instead, it's the conversation that holds her attention.

(There aren't likely to be any dryads as far as she knows, but things might well have changed if they're bringing people in again.)

"We could look together, perhaps. If it's as pressing as all that; I have little else that needs to be done, at any rate."

Edited 2014-11-28 23:46 (UTC)

Calendius was preparing for his afternoon jog. He'd already done his warm up stretches and was preparing his bottle of water --frozen, in a container that would thaw out at about the half mile mark-- at the bar in the Commons. The Avoxes knew him well enough (everyone did) and were working, well as well as could be expected for tongueless, mindless servants. There was something vaguely off-putting about them, something Cal couldn't name or really put a finger onto. But like a good Capitolite, he shrugged it off and took his neon pink water bottle from them with little to know acknowledgment. That wasn't what was bothering him, however. No.

His ugly-senses were tingling.

He cast wildly around, looking for the offending creature in the sea of beautiful people. The Tributes were generally attractive, and their prep teams all had the altered look of those made better by modern chemistry, sometimes multiple times a day. Finally, Calendius' dark eyes landed on Grantaire, as if drawn by some unknown force (and not at all his cry for liquor). What an awful looking man. There had to be something they could do about it.

"If I looked like that," Cal declared loudly to the Avox, which stared vacantly at nothing in response. "I'd try to drown myself in booze, too. Poor thing."

"They call him President Snow, but he is not a man elected by his people. He is a despot, a tyrant, and all in this world are at his mercy." How quickly his elation seemed to disappear and the despair seemed to seep back into his expression. Oh, how he would murder that man if given the weapon and a clear shot. Courfeyrac was already dead, he'd made peace with his soul. If only he could put his second can to good use and spare these people the agony of life under such an unjust leader.

But there would be plenty of time to share that bit of misfortune. There were more urgent matters to discuss, such as the plight of their friends. "Our number here is presently four, and you now make number five. Myself and Combeferre, Joly and Marius." His expression went dim then, eyes briefly catching the sight of the massive statue which served as the centerpiece of the lobby. He wondered if Grantaire had noticed it yet, and if he had, if it's resemblance to Enjolras had been noted.

He cleared his throat, averting his gaze quickly, but perhaps not quickly enough. "Let us go someplace else. We have so much to discuss, Grantaire, that I fear we may become... distracted."

Grantaire took his hand and noted the roughness with casual disregard. He was no stranger to dandies and Tom Cassidy looked like he fit the bill well enough.

"Oh, to many, I warrant it is. And easy too, for those who favor simple pleasures." He raised his bottle with a meaningful look to follow, though his eyes glint with a darker emotion. He took a slow drink and set it back upon the bar.

"But who can say the same for the impoverished masses, where happiness is a reliable loaf of bread, but who starve to death in the streets instead. Or the bourgeois love for material wealth, who can never be happy long as there is more to be had. I suppose you could call that pursuit worthy, the Americans thought it important enough to Declare it, but look to their example and see how well they valued ever man's right to it. I hate fooling myself and someone will always suffer for your comfort, I speak generally so I mean no offense, but this is why I make a point to never be happy. It also saves me from ever being disappointed and look where I am! Addled and fearful I am hallucinating, yes, but disappointed? Never!"

He laughed, amused despite himself, and took another drink.

Grantaire was as good as indifferent to the form of address and did not note it, at first, but when it became clear the slip of a girl who had approached him was speaking to him he drew himself up, standing straighter.

He did not recognize her as any acquaintance of his but that hardly made any difference. Besides, she had not called him by name and so he assumed she must know him as well as he knew her. The way she spoke was familiar to the Paris he knew however, and he snorted on surprised laughter at her crude shape of her words.

"It will do well enough if I can forget the flavor by the third swallow. If it is good, as you say, then that shouldn't be too hard a task. But I don't know if I want to sleep, I reject it as it has so cruelly rejected me, what say you to that?"

"That you have not tried hard enough to find it, Sir." She allowed herself a brief smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. It faded as quickly as it had blossomed and she grew serious again. "It is best to embrace it, Sir, or the Peacekeepers shall smother you with it and put a needle in your arse so sleep. It is better with the brandy, I promise."

"I would say it is pressing, yes." He turned, distracted, looking with mounting anxiety back to the metal box that had brought him here, considering a rapid retreat but then his expression pinched and he whipped his head back, brow furrowed in focused confusion.

"What? How will you drink it, by the barrel?!" The question was baldly spoken and debatably rude. Ordinarily this would trouble him little but he was unsettled in the presence of a creature he had thought entirely mythological and reconsidered his tone.

"On account of your size, of course," he added. "Being so magnificent and impressive I doubt any glass that I can swallow down would bring you any joy."

His brows climbed, alarm pricking him as sharply as the needles of these peacekeepers she spoke of. He realized too that she had misunderstood him and sought to clarify.

"Oh, I believe I tried as hard as a man may possibly do, on account of referring to that peaceful sleep of death. And yet here I am! So, having failed so spectacularly I need a drink to comfort me. Suggest me something that will keep us awake and merry and I shall love you for it. I warn you, though, it shall be a fickle love and dependent upon that madness only Bacchus inspires."

He crossed his arms, looking down at her. "Are you still willing to help with this caveat set before you?"

Her grating laugh turned almost into a bark as she cackled. "You ain't half so bad, Sir, as some of them what I know. I shouldn't mind going with you, if you do not mind my company, Sir. I am not wanted as much here as I were at home." She chuckled again. "You will see a thing from Paris - the shop keepers still chase me away. You are of Paris, no? I am sure you are one of the students, aren't you? And you think you died, as they all did, but no. Am I right?"

"A President, what an excellent snub," he remarked dryly and then watched Courfeyac with interest as he listed their number, his brow furrowing at the small number and then further when he listed the names. His attention as it was he did notice when Courfeyrac's eyes shifted and he followed it with some small curiosity, wondering what would have caught his eye.

And then he found himself speechless, staring openly at the statue, sorting through the cascade of thoughts that had suddenly collapsed upon him. He found himself approaching it with no word to his companion, pushing past people until he stood before it, looking upon it with thoughtful intensity.

"A fine likeness but too peaceful a pose, a poor choice to model him after. If they had asked me I would have suggested Apollo Belvedere, with his bow drawn back." He turned, gesturing to the statue with a flourish and his voice rose. "Or Theseus, with his club held up over the Centaur, that expression terrible and still beautiful. Even Michael, with his sword angled downwards! This soft piece does nothing save show off a pretty face." He was scowling and turned to Courfeyrac swiftly, drawing close.

"If five are our number than where is he? His likeness in marble says he was here and yet I died beside him less than a day ago and you didn't say his name among ours!"

Edited 2014-11-29 21:04 (UTC)

"Right you are, dead and living again, all sadly done in Paris, so I should know you. Should, but do not, so let us remedy it. You know me only as one of those students, now you know me as Grantaire, or R, if it is more to your liking, I hope you hear the joke. Not Sir, never Sir, there are too many Sirs and I hate to be one of them. I am unique and one among many!" He ended his words with a little flourish of his hand, his lips quirking wryly as he gestured to her with a twist of his wrist.

"What shall I call you?"

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it's a divine comedy! [open]

Tribute Commons Bar

i hope this is ok c:

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this is perfect ;w;

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huzzah!!! :3

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laaaaate

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