Drinking cinnamon coffee, or decaffeinated tea.

[seestheman]

WHO | Clara and OPEN
WHAT | The first meeting of Clara's breakfast club.
WHEN | Present time.
WHERE | District 10's suite
WARNINGS/NOTES | None right now, will add any if they crop up!


Clara's been meaning to do this for a couple months now, round up her collective of friends/various adopted kids/Districtmates and have breakfast. After waking up far earlier than she has in weeks and shooing a couple Avoxes out of the kitchen, she sets to work, getting the prep stuff out of the way and organizing all the various ingredients on the counter so she can knock out each dish as she goes.

Depending on when they wake up, residents of 10 will most likely smell something cooking, whether it be hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, a variety of breakfast meats, or other breakfast staples. The sight that will meet anyone who comes into the kitchen is one of organized chaos (that will most likely devolve into something much more unorganized as more people join in the food-fray).

Comments

[needlebearer]

Arya doesn't need any further invitation, she pulls out a seat at the table and scrambles up into it, legs crossed beneath her, piling food onto her plate as though she's never had a decent meal and never learned any table manners. Her mother and Septa Mordane would be aghast.

"How do you do it?" she asks between mouthfuls. "Win. Everybody keeps telling me different things and they all contradict each other."

[seestheman]

Truthfully, Clara's a little aghast at how fast the girl's eating. Sure, she's seen people dig in like this before (like Alex if he was crunched for time, or David and his friends after a hockey game), but still...it's a little unsettling. "You might want to slow down. You won't be able to get much training done if you're sick from overeating."

She has to stop and think about that for a moment. She doesn't exactly have the best answer to give her, considering her win was a fluke. "Well, there isn't just one way to win. I won because I had a lot of people who were supporting me and a friend who decided I should win instead of him." Which is the nicest way that she can think of putting it. "There are others who've won from brute strength, or cunning. It all comes down to luck, really." Which may not be the best thing to say, but it's the truth.

[needlebearer]

Arya reluctantly slows down, but only a little. She was still getting used to the novelty of the amount and variety of food available here, and wanted to get as much as she could inside her to regain some of her strength before it was taken away from her. She'd been warned she wouldn't get anything like this once she got into the Arena.

She looks rather disappointed at Clara's answer. She knew that she wasn't exactly the strongest participant, and had hoped that there'd be a specific plan she could follow to stay alive. She'd been forced to improvise since she left King's Landing, but there was a difference between doing so to keep her head down and remain unnoticed and stay alive, and to do so to actively win this. She's been told that the people who lose come back to life here in the Capitol, but that's something she's rather afraid of: she'd seen how worn out Beric Dondarrion had been from his multiple resurrections and had decided it wasn't for her, even if she still selfishly wished that she could use the same magic to bring back her father and mother and Robb. Besides, Syrio and Jaqen had instilled in her that death was something permanent and not to be taken lightly. Everything here seemed to go completely against that, and she felt very uneasy about it.

"I'll need more than that. Luck doesn't like me."

[seestheman]

There's something Clara could say to that about how, obviously, the girl doesn't have much in the way of luck considering she was brought here. But that's callous and kind of cruel and Clara can't bring herself to say that to a girl who looks like she's maybe only a year or two older than her son. Instead she gives her the gentlest smile she can muster and says "That makes two of us," before she begins to wrack brain for something, anything, that she can give in the way of good advice.

"A lot of it depends on the type of arena and if you have the right skills to survive in that situation, or if you ally yourself with people who can help you if you don't have the right skill set." Clara glances towards the kitchen, knowing that there are things that she needs to do, but instead sits down across from the girl and begins putting some jelly on a piece of toast. "Knowing how to fight is helpful, but having allies gives you the best chance. That and appealing to sponsors so they'll send you what you need. That's what I can really help you with, finding you sponsors and introducing you to the right people for alliances."

Of course, and she doesn't have the heart to say it, it comes down to so much more than that.

[needlebearer]

Arya listens closely, nodding between mouthfuls of food. She doesn't think she'd be too good at forming alliances; she's aware that she's among the weaker of the combatants, and isn't sure what she'd really have to offer.

"So you need to make me look good."

She's aware that's quite a task.

[seestheman]

Clara nods at the girl as she takes a swig of her cup of coffee. "That's the general idea," she says as she puts the mug back down.

She shoots Arya her most disarming smile as she says, "Lucky for you, the Capitol seems to love kids. You guys probably reminds them off the good old day." Though from the tone of her voice, not enough to let them off the hook.

[needlebearer]

"They can't love chi-- kids," she replies, the word strange on her tongue. "They wouldn't want to watch me die otherwise."

[seestheman]

Clara tries not to laugh at the girl's reaction. "Maybe love isn't the right word for it," Clara says with a darkly amused quirk of her lips. "They don't love us like people, or even pets. They love us while still remaining somewhat detached. That way they can try to show us affection with gifts while watching us go through hell."

Not that Clara sounds at all bitter about that.

[needlebearer]

"Like how someone can give someone a flower one moment but then hit them the next?" Or play the gallant prince while getting boys and direwolves killed.

[seestheman]

While that's definitely not the analogy she'd think up, it's definitely a good one. "Something like that," she says with a nod. "Or...like reading a story about a character going through some huge trial. You enjoy the adventure and you root for them, but at the same time you can close the book and walk away. That's how they feel about us."

[needlebearer]

"That's stupid." She stuffs some bacon in her mouth, talking through her chewing. "Just because we don't come from here we're still people." She imagines that if something like this were possible in King's Landing, though, the Court would love it.

[seestheman]

Clara can't help but quirk a small, tired smile at her. "I don't think they even consider some of the people who come from here as people." Considering how she's seen them treat the Avoxes and what she's read about the original Hunger Games format. "If you keep talking while you chew, you might choke," she says pointedly, completely unable to help it.

[needlebearer]

Arya rolls her eyes at the warning, but she puts her fork aside and swallows down her food before talking again. "How do they do it? Bring us here, I mean."

[seestheman]

Clara's a mom, it's basic instinct for her to give warnings like that. And to give nods of approval for listening. While her face doesn't exactly fall in response to the question, her smile does vanish as she tries to figure out what to say. "I'm not sure," she finally responds with a shrug. "Probably something highly scientific. What I'm a little bit more interested in is finding out how they keep bringing us back."

[needlebearer]

It takes Arya a second to cotton on to what she means there. "...From the dead?"

[seestheman]

Clara gives her a nod, realization starting to creep in. "Yeah. Has anyone told you about that part?" About how something that should be so permanent isn't and it's so wrong, not that she's going to mention that part.

[needlebearer]

Arya shakes her head vigorously, looking in equal parts intrigued and dismayed. "They can really do that?"

[seestheman]

Clara nods, trying to figure out the best way to go about saying it. She remembers when she found out and how well she didn't take the news. "Yeah," she says softly. "None of us are completely sure how they do it, but they do somehow. Most of the people here have been through multiple Arenas." Herself included, though somehow she only managed to die once despite her low score and all the odds against her.

[needlebearer]

She feels sickened and outraged, realising that she's almost certainly going to die in there and they'll keep bringing her back. It makes a mockery of death, which is the one thing she believes in any more. But then something else occurs to her, and she looks a little hopeful. "Could they bring back other people? Ones that aren't in this world."

[seestheman]

That isn't the kind of question a child should be asking, and Clara tries not to show how much it hurts to be asked that by a girl who looks so close to David's age. "I...I'm not completely sure," she finally says after a moment. "They might, if they brought them here to fight in the Arena. They've brought people here from the same place, but different times." She doesn't add that she has first hand experience with that, instead only adding, "Would you really want them to bring someone here just to go through this?"

[needlebearer]

Arya doesn't answer for a moment, because she knows how selfish and callous her honest answer would be. She desperately wanted her father and Robb and Yoren and Syrio to be resurrected here, confident that they'd beat all the other Tributes too. Her mother and Bran and Rickon, though... she couldn't bear to think of them being butchered all over again in a foreign land for entertainment.

"No," she says finally, though it pains her to do so. "I just want to know how they do it. So I can take it back to Westeros with me."

[seestheman]

Clara can't help but try to subtly watch the girl's face. When she answers, Clara gives her a warm, but sad look with a not-quite smile. "I can understand that." Clara would be lying if she said she hadn't thought the same thing, not to bring back the dead, but to fix Alex, as selfish as that may seem. "They probably do it with some sort of weird piece of technology. I doubt they'd willingly let it leave the Capitol."

[needlebearer]

Arya's frustrated to hear that, but she didn't know what else she'd been expecting, really. She decides not to push the subject too much, knowing it wouldn't get her anywhere.

"Does anyone ever get sent back? Or are we here forever?"

[seestheman]

There's a bizarre sense of deja vu that comes with that question. It's one she asked in her early days, almost a year ago. It's one that she still doesn't have a complete answer to.

"I don't know. I like to think that they send us back when we die," she finally says softly. It's the one thing she has to console herself, that David's life hasn't been thrown into upheaval all over again because she and Alex are here.

[needlebearer]

Arya doesn't believe that for one minute. It's the sort of answer that she might have told a younger child to placate them. "Dead is dead," she says a little bitterly. "They just stop choosing to revive you, that's all."