thecapitol | Come away little loss, come away to the water [open]

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Come away little loss, come away to the water [open]

Who| Clementine and OTA
What| Catch-all for Clementine things since the end of the arena, Clementine dealing with her canon-updated memories
Where| The Tribute Center and out in the Capitol, choose from the prompts or make your own
When| Anytime between the end of Arena 12 and now
Warnings/Notes| Talk of violence and children in harmful situations probably.

It's been a strange few weeks for Clementine, how do you describe the sensation of waking up with a whole new bunch of memories in your head? It made the usual disorientation in coming back from the arena pale in comparison.

The memories were... good, bad. A lot of bad. The good was Kenny, alive, really alive. The bad was everything that had happened after that discovery, Carver and his camp, the things Clementine had done and witnessed in the span of just a couple of days. Things she now had to reconcile and fit in with her memories of Panem, ending with everyone surrounded by Walkers and Sarita...

So it's not all surprising that Clementine has been a little reclusive since coming back. She hasn't actively avoided people, far from it, but she has taken a little more time to herself and her thoughts.

Prompt A: District 6

There's nine people living in the District 6 suite (not counting their support staff) and only one big television to share between them in the big lounge area. That can lead to some squabbles over what to watch and a general first-come, first-serve attitude to grabbing the remote whenever it was spied outside of someone's hand.

Clementine takes advantage to temporarily being on her own to set up the gaming system she'd asked for after spending hours at the arcade downtown, putting in a rather bright and colourful racing game which has nothing to with violence or horror. She'll settle for racing against the computer controlled characters for now but if anyone else wants to join in she probably won't say no.

Prompt b: The park

It's extra cold out in the Capitol today and despite that Clementine still ventures outside of the Tribute Center.

She's wrapped herself up in a thick coat and scarf, got a cup of hot chocolate from one of the many, many coffee shops dotted around the Capitol and come to the park with a bag of bread in hand. The ducks here are probably pretty spoiled already by visitors, looking well-fed despite the season, but they still come swimming over the moment Clementine crouches by the bank and sets down her drink on the frozen ground.

"Alright, hang on." she mutters at their insistent quacking, opening up the bag of bread to start tearing off small pieces and throwing them into the water where the ducks immediately set in on squabbling for the food.

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"Nothing's really changed since we last talked. You? You been keeping outta trouble?"

More bread is tossed out and Tess pauses to watch the ducks move about.

"Can't really blame 'em for being hungry. We were in their place once."

"Some things have changed. Some of my friends from home were brought here." Clementine tells her. More than that were the new memories but she doesn't mention those, not yet. "And other people I think are from my world too, but I never met them there."

The Capitol seemed to have taken a heavy interest in her world though if the number of people they were bringing here was any indication. At least the citizens did, which might have spurred the Gamemaker's to do it to start with. Maybe her own popularity was what caused it.

"They get fed a lot by people here."

Well, there was one thing that had changed and that was the loss of Ellie in the last arena. But Clementine should know that. Tess just doesn't want to bring it up, it's been hard enough for Joel with that particularly loss that Tess doesn't know what to do.

"I met a girl, a little older than you. Her name's Beth, she... brought up a few things that made me think of you. And what you'd told me." The whole turning into an undead even after death. "As for your friends, I might've bumped into them already, though not in the arena."

Tess' time in the previous arena, she had stayed to Joel's side like glue and hadn't much bumped into anyone she knew.

"Is that right? I haven't come by here since I got in months ago."

"Beth, right. She's from the same world as me. There's Luke and Nick too, Jane now as well." but she hadn't actually met Jane here to talk to her yet. "They brought a lot of people all of a sudden."

Clementine smiles a little, "Yeah. I've seen it before, that's why they're all so fat."

"Jane is the one I'm not familiar with. The other two though, took one out in a pillow fight and the other, did his face up real nice and pretty." She smiles to herself as she remembers how Luke had looked after she'd finished applying all that make up. "You know... It might be a good thing if you and Beth... had each other's backs. She's a good kid, like you."

Tess reaches for her hot chocolate, pausing in feeding the ducks. "Maybe they could use a break from all the gluten then."

"You did?" Clementine blinks and then her mouth curls up in an amused smile. "I wish I could get a picture of that." she doesn't even care who it was, Luke or Nick, either would be funny to see done up pretty. "Yeah... I'd like to. She's really nice, we made cookies together."

She chuckles, "Ducks on a diet."

"I did. It was pretty great. Luke was a good sport. A little jittery - couldn't blame him." Her brows lift. "Oh yeah? So that was you and her? They were good. You two should consider a little cookie shop in the tower for the others."

Tess remembers those cookies being pretty good.

"Imagine that. All that bread. Bein' weaned off of it."

"I would do that, maybe I could argue that I can't go into the arena's because I need to make cookies instead." she jokes. "If they're good enough the Capitol will buy into it, right?"

Not a chance in hell, but oh well.

"Yeah then they'd have to eat--" she stops, "Actually I don't know what else ducks eat."

"Hey, you never know unless you tried. Worst that could happen is those bastards would say no." Clementine might be joking about it but Tess is giving her a serious look. Really though, Tess is just joking with her.

"You know... neither do I." Something to think about. "It's only ever been pieces of bread. They're nowhere near as bad as seagulls though."

"Miss Clementine, your cookies are so divine, we can't do this to you any longer!" Clementine exclaims, putting on an outrageously high and fake Capitol accent. "You simply must stay here and open a bakery instead!"

She's visibly holding back from laughing as she performs.

"We went to the beach one time, one tried to steal my dads fries."

Laughing at the little show and exaggerated accent, Tess' earlier serious look falls into a wide grin. "That's pretty good. Imagine it, your cookies could change the world."

She looks to the ducks again and is grateful there aren't any seagulls around at the moment. "I remember seeing them fight over a hotdog someone had dropped in the parking lot years back. They can get pretty savage, if they wanted."

"Yeah, I wish." she says, dropping the accent and shrugging, though still with a smile on her lips. "That's too good to be true."

Clementine stops to think for a moment, lips pursed as she tries to recall the information, "... wasn't there a movie someone made about evil birds?"

Probably like the one's the Capitol would make for the arena's.

Tess looks over to Clementine again at the question, seeing the look on her face as though she's trying to recall. She joins her with her head tilted in thought, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"I think so. Think they just called it 'Birds' or something. It was a weird one."

"That's a really boring name. If I made a movie I'd try to call it something cool. Calling a movie birds is like..." she has to think for a moment for an example, searching through her childhood and realising actually that a lot of movies she'd watched had very straightforward names.

"Uh... if you called Dumbo 'flying elephant'."

"Or calling Peter Pan 'The Lost boy'," she agrees and now she's thinking back on all of the movies she'd watched before the apocalypse hit. Discussions of movies always seem to come up with Clementine, must be how young she is.

"101 Dalmations, 'Spotted dogs'" she grins, then shudders at the memory. "The bad lady in that movie was really scary. She was like a Capitolite."

The thought of which just sets Clem off laughing.

"You mean Cruella de Vil?" Tess thinks about it for a second and follows along with the laughter, chuckling. Her hot chocolate comes up and she takes a long drink, letting it warm her chest and belly.

"I can see that. Though the lot of them here aren't as bony in the face as she was."

"Yeah! That's her name. That hair would make her fit right in." she says, once her laughter is under control. "I'm pretty sure I saw some people with hair like that around. They'd probably want to wear dogs for coats too."

There doesn't seem to be much of anything the people here wouldn't do in the name of fashion. Clementine could think of a lot more important things to think about than looking good.

"Wouldn't be surprised. I mean, with all the other crap they come up in the arena and out? For all we know whatever fancy meat they're eatin', it could be dog."

Not that that is something she wants to think about.

The bread bag is reached for and Tess returns to passing out bits of it to the ducks.

"Never ate dog." not knowingly anyway and the last dog she met... well. Less said the better. There'd been times though she was sure if they'd ever found a dog they'd have considered eating it, given how hungry they got and how scarce real meat was.

"I don't think I'd want to either."

"Might taste better than rat. Heard it was chewy. Not my thing though." No way could she eat a dog, no way could she consider it, no matter how starved she was for meat.

"You ever had duck?" said with a nod toward the bunch floating around in front of them.

"Never ate rat either, they're too hard to catch." she grinned, "Walkers made them learn to run away as soon as they heard people. I ate rabbit and one time we caught this thing I think was a weasel."

Clementine nods, "A while ago. Probably shouldn't eat these one's though."

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Come away little loss, come away to the water [open]

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