Samwise Gamgee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lasttosail) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-01-14 03:31 pm
lasttosail) wrote in thecapitol2015-01-14 03:31 pm
Entry tags:
[closed]
Who | Sam Gamgee; Arya Stark; Dorian; Thorin; Aragorn
What | Sam's not in the best of places following his sad, dramatic space-death, and experiencing a sad lack of Frodo. He's working on distracting himself.
Where | AROUND? ABOUT? PLACES. AYYYY.
When | An unspecified number of days following the Arena.
Warnings | Potential discussion of Arena death; otherwise, will add as needed!
He keeps dreaming of it. The... groundlessness of it. He dreams of being weightless, of suddenly finding the earth shrinking beneath him, of kicking his feet and moving his arms and finding that it does nothing. Sometimes, he's in the Capitol, moving slowly up between the great glass towers and tipping with the breeze; sometimes he's back in the wilderness of Middle-earth, with the clamor of Orcs under his feet and his stomach sinking as the great Eye begins to emerge from the surrounding mountains; and sometimes he's simply back in the Arena, floating useless and helpless toward the stars, flailing with every limb and crying Frodo, Frodo--!
He keeps himself busy, as best he can, so that at least his waking hours will be free of it. He visits the markets and the shops, and uses the coin they've allowed him (though it's invisible coin, and not altogether trustworthy) to buy things, food he knows and food he doesn't but thinks he might find a way to cook. He's small, but many of the ones out buying are Avoxes, come only with a list to give the salespeople, and-- well, they're easy enough to shout his order over, anyway.
He buys himself a couple of books (one a children's history, and one a book of local flowers, with pictures, and a cookbook called District Cuisine: Rustic Chic in the Outer Districts!) and sits in sunlit places in the commons areas and reads them, slowly, with furrowed brow and lips moving. He draws his feet up on the chairs, which all feel to him much too big, and sometimes just sits on the floor instead, quiet and out of the way and concentrating so, he hardly notices who comes and goes.
He goes afield some evenings and finds welcome reception in a few bars around the Tower, themed on various Districts or other such gimmicks, and gets into discussion (sometimes heated) with folk about the oil they use on their chips, and whether a pale ale should be properly counted as beer. He doesn't usually stay longer than it takes to finish a single drink, though; it's hard not to look around at the people gathered there, and wonder how many of him look at him and think, Well, look there, it's him that died when that room with all the windows exploded--!
And, well-- sometimes, when Mister Bilbo's not about, and the kitchen's occupied, -- sometimes he finds himself a place in a garden, whether in some park near the Tower or even (though he's loath to do it) up, up, up on the roof, past even District Twelve's nauseatingly high suites. He walks in them, and bends to prod at the soil (which smells unpleasantly of chemicals, to him), and turns leaves and petals over, and tries to see if he recognizes any of them out of his book, pinches dead stalks, and shakes his head at the gardeners' every small mistake, and sometimes says it aloud: "You'd think they had no one looking after it at all, to see it!" This is, of course, never true - the gardens are magnificent, taken as a whole - but it's a familiar complaint, and therefore comforting.
Sometimes, no matter where he is, he looks into his cup, or his book, or just down at his hands, and sighs, deep. But mostly he just-- just keeps on moving. For what else can a body do, really?
What | Sam's not in the best of places following his sad, dramatic space-death, and experiencing a sad lack of Frodo. He's working on distracting himself.
Where | AROUND? ABOUT? PLACES. AYYYY.
When | An unspecified number of days following the Arena.
Warnings | Potential discussion of Arena death; otherwise, will add as needed!
He keeps dreaming of it. The... groundlessness of it. He dreams of being weightless, of suddenly finding the earth shrinking beneath him, of kicking his feet and moving his arms and finding that it does nothing. Sometimes, he's in the Capitol, moving slowly up between the great glass towers and tipping with the breeze; sometimes he's back in the wilderness of Middle-earth, with the clamor of Orcs under his feet and his stomach sinking as the great Eye begins to emerge from the surrounding mountains; and sometimes he's simply back in the Arena, floating useless and helpless toward the stars, flailing with every limb and crying Frodo, Frodo--!
He keeps himself busy, as best he can, so that at least his waking hours will be free of it. He visits the markets and the shops, and uses the coin they've allowed him (though it's invisible coin, and not altogether trustworthy) to buy things, food he knows and food he doesn't but thinks he might find a way to cook. He's small, but many of the ones out buying are Avoxes, come only with a list to give the salespeople, and-- well, they're easy enough to shout his order over, anyway.
He buys himself a couple of books (one a children's history, and one a book of local flowers, with pictures, and a cookbook called District Cuisine: Rustic Chic in the Outer Districts!) and sits in sunlit places in the commons areas and reads them, slowly, with furrowed brow and lips moving. He draws his feet up on the chairs, which all feel to him much too big, and sometimes just sits on the floor instead, quiet and out of the way and concentrating so, he hardly notices who comes and goes.
He goes afield some evenings and finds welcome reception in a few bars around the Tower, themed on various Districts or other such gimmicks, and gets into discussion (sometimes heated) with folk about the oil they use on their chips, and whether a pale ale should be properly counted as beer. He doesn't usually stay longer than it takes to finish a single drink, though; it's hard not to look around at the people gathered there, and wonder how many of him look at him and think, Well, look there, it's him that died when that room with all the windows exploded--!
And, well-- sometimes, when Mister Bilbo's not about, and the kitchen's occupied, -- sometimes he finds himself a place in a garden, whether in some park near the Tower or even (though he's loath to do it) up, up, up on the roof, past even District Twelve's nauseatingly high suites. He walks in them, and bends to prod at the soil (which smells unpleasantly of chemicals, to him), and turns leaves and petals over, and tries to see if he recognizes any of them out of his book, pinches dead stalks, and shakes his head at the gardeners' every small mistake, and sometimes says it aloud: "You'd think they had no one looking after it at all, to see it!" This is, of course, never true - the gardens are magnificent, taken as a whole - but it's a familiar complaint, and therefore comforting.
Sometimes, no matter where he is, he looks into his cup, or his book, or just down at his hands, and sighs, deep. But mostly he just-- just keeps on moving. For what else can a body do, really?
no subject
It's not as pretty a book as Sam's used to, but then, he's not read many of them - most of the one's he's read out of were all in Bilbo's handwriting, save those few he'd been able to look at in Rivendell and in other people's small libraries. It's nice in its own way, he supposes, with its even lines and glossy pages.
"They wouldn't like that sort of hero much here, would they." It makes him sad, that that's what a child would be looking for in a storybook. Stories teach lessons, of course they do, but that isn't the sort of thing you're supposed to take from them. It's no fault of hers, but of the Capitol's, he's sure in his own mind.
"...There's one in here who survived by hiding," he says, with a look back down at the book. "For eight days, beneath a waterfall. Though he starved when he was taken back, before they could save him. And there's another who survived by-- by digging out a hole, under snow, for others to fall into; and she took 'em when they froze there, and ate 'em." He looks back up at Arya, troubled-- "Is that the sort of help you were looking for?"
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Arya nods, encouraged by that. It was possible, then, to win by keeping a low profile and outlasting everyone else. She could do that. She'd be useless in a contest of bare strength, she knew that, but she was good at staying alive, and she was no stranger to taking the opportune moment against her foes.
"Yes. Apart from eating them." That was a step too far even for her. It was the sort of thing the wildlings north of the Wall would do, she was sure of it.
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Hiding was among Sam's favored Arena strategies, as well, though when he tried to picture himself digging a trap and waiting for folk to fall into it, he just felt a bit queasy.
"...What District are you in, then?" he asked, in an attempt to move the conversation away from what she would be willing to do, short of eating someone. "I suppose I ought to know who to avoid, if it comes to that! Or who to inquire for if I find myself at the bottom of some hole, at least."
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The assurance, though, got a smile out of him, and a laugh disbelieving but not at all unfriendly. "I know my way around holes, having grown up in one," he says. "So if I'm caught, I'll be sure to shout, and if it's your hole I'd be much obliged if you'd pull me up."
"--Though I warn you," he added, "There wasn't anywhere to dig holes in the last Arena. It was all up in the sky, like, in a great flying house, flung up right against the stars."
no subject