So I Found Some Ground to Stand [Open]

[yoknapatawpha]

WHO| Bayard and open!
WHAT Bayard adjusts to the modern day.
WHEN| Before and after the Crowning.
WHERE| Throughout the Tribute Center.
WARNINGS| There may be period-specific racism since Bayard's from 1863. Please let me know which prompt you're using!



I.

Ever since Sam showed him how to use a ballpoint pen, Bayard has taken it upon himself to be District Twelve's resident artist. That isn't to say that he's any good, but he fills sheets and sheets of paper (that seem to come to him for free whenever he asks it!) with crude sketches of men with swords and rifles, riding horses, of cannons and bears and dogs and sometimes of other Tributes. He doesn't throw away any of the pages, instead tacking them to the wall with another of the future's great inventions, Scotch tape.

It's a much better medium than drawing in the dirt with a stick, or begging Granny to use some of her pokeberry juice on a scrap of cloth, and the best is that it seems endless. Whenever he's done with one drawing there's an Avox who seems ready to bring him another fresh sheet of paper, in reams larger than any book Bayard's ever seen.

If anyone walks in on him 'at work', he's eager to explain to them that he drew that art on the wall, thank you, isn't it nice? He'll draw something for you too if you stick around long enough.


II.

Every few hours throughout the day, and usually once at night, Bayard can be heard running down the stairs from District Twelve, past every floor, and out the door to the lobby, whereafter there will be silence for a few minutes, and then he will return, bounding back up the steps to the twelfth floor with the indefatigable energy of youth. Because he has discovered how the kitchen sink works - what a fantastic invention! - he politely washes his hands when he returns.

"It's queer that they would build a bedroom so far from an area to relieve yourself," he says to the nearest person as he washes, as if trying to subtly brag that he's civilized, thank you. "And even more strange that they would make such a tall building and not put a single outhouse in the area."

He also hasn't showered yet, but one night he can be found getting towels wet in the sink and washing himself diligently with a bar of soap. He's decided that hauling pots of water up the stairs to the twelfth floor to fill the bath tub is just something he isn't up to doing.


III.

A wiser man than him, Bayard thinks, might stop making himself ill with all the food here. He's sure that Granny would chide him and remind him of the virtues of temperance if she could see him, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, sampling a little bit of everything. He mouths out the words, syllable by syllable, on every label, thinking that some of them sound like ingredients from the recipes Granny used to read him and Ringo for entertainment and some of them are words that look made up.

He surrounds himself with Chips Aha!, salsa, soy sauce, Froot-O's, canned tuna, Meataroni, sour sugar worms, and about ten different sorts of pastries from the drawers, once he realizes that they're hiding in plastic wrappers (how strange that they aren't in cloth or paper!).

Every once in a while, if he tries something and pulls a face, he puts it in a spoon with a sugarcube and gives it a second chance, thinking it's only right to give every strange delectable a fair shake. And just about everything tastes better with sugar dumped in it.

He has the decency to look a bit sheepish when anyone catches him in the act.

Comments

I

[revocation]

Cullen very quickly learned, on his return from the arena, that Adella has been assigned to district 12. Needless to say, when she's not visiting him in the district 2 suites, he's often taking the elevator up here to see her. Anyone who dares to comment on it, or the fact that Cullen is likely to occasionally spend the night in her room, will probably just be glared at.

But the sight of Bayard, head bent over a ream of paper, has Cullen stopping short - to say hello, as much as anything, because time spent in adversity in the arena was nothing if not good for forging strange sorts of friendships - also, he's a bit intrigued by the crude sketch of a dog.

"Hello," he says pleasantly. "What have you got there?"

Re: I

[yoknapatawpha]

"A drawing of a hound, Uncle Cullen," Bayard says, sitting back and flattening his paper with his palm to display for Cullen with all the glee and pride of a child showing off an art project from a particularly fun class session. He gets up, grin wide on his face, and scampers for another sheet of papers behind the couch.

"But that ain't the one I want you to see!" He withdraws a sheet of paper with multiple garish and anatomically-incorrect features, and hands it towards Cullen. The two drawings of people can't be recognized by skill, but possibly by the laboriously printed letters beneath them. Regardless, Bayard dispels mystery. "It's you and Miss Tabris, sir."

[revocation]

"Ah," Cullen says, though honestly he was ready to talk about the dog. He rather wonders what Bayard would think of the idea of Mabari - he'd probably like them.

Still, though, the (very) crude drawing of him and Tabris puts a little smile on his face. "That's a very nice portrait," he says with a solemn nod. "I'm sorry we couldn't do more for you in there, but it's good to see you out and about again."

[yoknapatawpha]

"Thank you, sir. You can keep it!" Bayard wasn't expecting praise about it, and the encouragement lights his face up like a lantern. "You did plenty right by me while I was in there. You know, I don't think I even died? I just closed my eyes and then, wow, here in 'the Capitol' or whatever they call it, just like I was there in that preparation room before the Arena."

III

[allyorfoe]

She nearly trips over him before she notices him. Luckily, give way under her heavy foot (how does a woman so small manage to stomp around so?), and the crunch elicits a squawk of alarm as she stumbles back. "What in the Maker's ball--" That particular phrase was fortunately cut off as she slowly turned to look down at the source of this medley of food. And at the center, a familiar boy.

Tabris' heart drops out of her chest. She's pretty sure it just gave up on her and hiked on out, because she feels oddly numb, looking at this child that she had allowed herself to grow so close to. The last time she had seen time, he laid dead before her, blood soaking out of a hole that was no longer there. Dead on the ground, and it was her fault, her fault.

There's even more crinkling and crushing as Tabris moves like a rampaging bull, grabbing Bayard, and pulling him to her, shoving him against her body, like she could protect him from the bullet that had already killed him. She takes a raspy, shaking breath, as she pressed her face into his hair. Her grip is iron tight, and Bayard will find it hard to move until she finally relaxes.

When she does, she tries to wipe away the tears first, before releasing him, and pressing her lips to his forehead, as if checking to make sure his forehead is whole now.

"...This is where you've wandered off to? You're going to get a stomach, Bayard." She mumbles, but the attempt at a lecture is rendered meaningless, when her eyes are still shining with unshed tears, and there's a fond smile that won't leave her lips.

Re: III

[yoknapatawpha]

Thankfully, perhaps, for both of them, Bayard makes no effort to escape Tabris' protective, desperate embrace. He hugs her back, not from fear but out of the clinginess of a boy who's found a caretaker in those scarce years before manliness convinces him that independence requires he eschew such holds. He's maybe a year out of being 'too old' for that kiss to his head, to finding it anything other than comforting.

He hardly pays notice to the way that her quick rush to scoop him up has scattered his sugary treasures across the tile floor. He's very near explaining to her that he's been told he lives here, thank you, and he's exactly where he's supposed to be according to the strange puff-haired lady with the white face paint, but then he catches sight of her face.

"Miss Tabris, are you well?" He can see the tears in her eyes, but as he hasn't seen anyone's death yet and is certain that his own didn't happen, he sees no reason for it. "Is someone dead?"

[allyorfoe]

There's a pause as she realizes that she's crying, and casts a furtive look around the room. Luckily for her reputation, no one else appears to be around to witness her tears. She gives a grumpy sniffle, and wipes her eyes with her palm. An emotion as raw as she was feeling was...not the face that Tabris usually showed the world, and she wanted it to stay that way, if she could help it.

She can't help but wonder, does he even know? The boy had gone from being alive one second, to clean dead the next, with that strange gun magic that she still didn't understand. It would be best, she decides, to keep that kind of thing to herself. Hopefully...literally every other person in the Capitol would do the same. Hmm. Maybe she can fob that off on Maxwell. He's better with. Talking.

Instead, she shakes her head, and smiles at him, though her eyes still shimmer with tears unshed. "No one's dead, Bayard. And that's why I'm crying. Because I'm really happy that we're all alive, yeah? We're here and alive and not in that fu--forsaken arena." Swearing. Always the swearing.

II

[lex_paciferat]

It's later in the evening when Quintus encounters Bayard in the lobby--he's headed home, actually, when the sight of the boy draws his attention. Puzzled, he takes a few steps to the right and grabs him by the arm to stop him.

"Hey, no running. Don't want you crashing into anybody." He regards him curiously. "What were you doing outside?"

Re: II

[yoknapatawpha]

"Right, sir." Bayard squirms a bit, the way he would if Louvinia or one of his other caretakers took him while he was running and playing. There's a slight bit of offense there, like he's sheepish at having been caught breaking a rule but thinks that the rule is stupid anyway.

"I was relieving myself. Ain't a fellow allowed to do that?"

[lex_paciferat]

A born-and-bred Capitolite might not have grasped his meaning right away--but Quintus, who's served in districts with rudimentary sanitation, immediately realizes what Bayard is getting at. And it's one of those things he'd really rather not give the media a chance to film. He leans down to address him seriously.

"We've got flush toilets here. Have you never seen one before?"

III

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn is starting to come to terms with her imprisonment here - at the very least, she's resolved to keep her head down when it comes to her rage. And with that comes a new urge to explore her cage, and all the wonders it has to offer.

So, really, her reasons for being in the kitchen aren't that different to Bayard's. The food she's had here is like nothing she could imagine back home, and she's curious. But she still gives the boy a slightly odd look, because at the very least, she has the sense to moderate herself and the manners not to sit right in the middle of the floor. Then again, by the looks of him he can't be more than thirteen or fourteen, and she isn't so cold as to scold him for manners. Least of all not in a place like this.

Instead, she drops to one knee beside him, looking at the packets strewn around him, and gives him a smile. "You seem to have gained a start on me. Aught you would recommend, boy?"

[yoknapatawpha]

"This one, ma'am!" Bayard, eager to share even before he sees Éowyn's identity, has his hand on a box of puffy molasses cookies before he even sees her face. He holds it out to her.

Even from his seated position, he can tell that she is, perhaps, the tallest woman he's ever met, and has a sort of intensity about her that reminds him of his cousin Druscilla. He doesn't stand up, but he does straighten a bit, as a gentleman is supposed to do around a lady.

"I wouldn't recommend this one. It wasn't only terrible, but I reckon it outright hurt me." He points to a jar of wasabi.

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn takes the box of cookies with a genuine smile, eyes following his pointing finger. "I'll bear it in mind," she says gravely, and means it. She doesn't trust anything here, really, and there's plenty to wonder at and try as it is; she's not going to risk something that she's been warned against, even by a child.

The cookies, on the other hand, she's more than happy to try, nibbling cautiously at the edge of one. Her expression changes rapidly, and she wolfs down the rest of it in a couple of bites, then laughs at her own over-enthusiasm. It doesn't stop her taking another cookie, though.

"A good recommendation, I should say. Am I to take it you have none such where you are from?"

I

[cigne]

While she may be incredibly disappointed over the Arena results, Swann is sill, at her core, a polite woman. And that means that she has to congratulate the Escort responsible for Tony's win. The best way she knows how to do that is another gift basket.

The one she carries is practically half her size, filled with candles and fragrant sprays and bottles of champagne along with the expensive chocolates and other little bits and bobs.

She's surprised when she walks into the District Twelve Suite, having not at all expected it to be covered in children's drawings. "Oh my," she murmurs, looking around at them all -- they seem to all be in one color, which is a bit odd, but clearly Effie has an actual child in her District, and Swann isn't sure if she's jealous or not.

She loves children. But to have one here...

Gently placing the huge gift basket on a table, Swann slowly wanders from picture to picture, touching them and smiling at the dogs and bears. Her skirt brushes against the drawings lower on the wall, and she pauses to make sure ink isn't rubbing off on the ivory lace, and that's when she sees the 'artist'.

"Are these all yours?" she asks gently, beaming, brushing some of her hair back over her shoulder.

[yoknapatawpha]

"Yes'm!"

He sits up, away from his current drawing of a horse with buck teeth and uneven legs. He would be small and sweet even for one of the Panem Tributes, back from the days before offworlders were pulled in. He's vaguely malnourished even under the puppy fat, with wide eyes and calloused hands that look ten years older than he is.

He looks over to the giant gift basket.

"Oh. I'd have been obliged to help you carry that had I seen you, ma'am." His Granny would give him a whooping for allowing a lady to struggle without Bayard pulling equal weight, and Swann, in her frilly coats and tall shoes and dark lashes, is clearly a lady in every sense of the world. When Bayard imagines the female sex - not women he knows, but females as an abstract concept, one composed not just from life but from stories and expectations and hopes - they would look like Swann, with her porcelain skin and petticoats.

[cigne]

"They're lovely. Do you always use pen, is that your tool of choice?"

She's teasing a little, and sends a nearby Avox for markers and crayons and colored pencils -- watercolors too, if they can be found. Any artist as determined as this little one should have a range of choices at his disposal.

"Oh, it's all right. I was only bringing it up for Effie, and it's here now, isn't it? So don't worry. I'm stronger than I look, you know." Swann sits near him -- not next to him, she doesn't want to frighten him, but close enough that they can still speak. "I'm Swann, the Escort for District Eight."

I

[needlebearer]

It had taken Arya a while to encounter in person the boy she'd watched on the screens, after she'd been killed in the caves and brought back to the Capitol. The sketches are crude, true, but still better than anything she could have done herself. She remembered Sansa and Jeyne Poole snickering when she'd tried to draw a picture of herself and Jon using a stick in the snow, saying that it looked like the frightful monsters beyond the Wall in Old Nan's stories. She's not sure if it's remembering that which annoys her, or the fact that Bayard is sat here quite contentedly drawing when they're going to have to fight to the death sooner or later - she's spent most of her own time training to become stronger, and it grates on her that someone who's even more vulnerable than her, who she'd spent what few credits she had buying a present to help out, would spend his time like this rather than preparing himself, too.

If she stopped and considered it, she'd realise that she's actually jealous that she can't lose herself in such an innocent pursuit any more. She misses it, longs for that childishness back.

She doesn't say anything, she just sits nearby, legs crossed over one another, peering at what he's drawing.

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard doesn't notice her for a few moments, absorbed as he is in his clumsy art. He's working his best on a drawing of the mammoth he saw in the Arena, mostly from sheer memory because his only reference for an elephant was in a picture he saw once in a book at Hawkhurst. He thinks there might have been elephant in the poster for the circus that would be traveling to Mottson, but he doesn't remember.

He doesn't recognize her when he looks up, can't put her face to the name on her gift to him.

"Hello." He smiles and sits back, little scrubs of ballpoint ink on his knees. "Obliged if you'd join me, Miss. These walls won't decorate themselves."

[needlebearer]

Arya wrinkles her nose up at how he addresses her. She knows he's only trying to be friendly, but she still can't help how she replies. "It's not Miss, it's Arya." She scoots a little closer, looking from Bayard to the drawings and back again. "How long have you spent on these?"

I

[lasttosail]

The nice thing about Bayard's pictures are that most of them are about eye level for Sam. He can browse them like a patron of a museum, make a slow circuit of his ever-expanding wall, and halt in front of the boy to look with gravity at the work he's in the process of completing. Better he has the pen than cleaning out the kitchen - he imagines everyone in the District owes Sam Wilson one, for having saved them from stepping in half-dried puddles of mustard and blueberry jam.

"What are these, then?" he asks, pointing at the rifle being held by one of the men on horses, next to a drawing of a cannon (equally foreign to Sam, even had it not been drawn by a child only as tall as him). "Are they all holding spears? You've left off the spearheads."

Re: I

[yoknapatawpha]

"Those are bayonets and muskets." Bayard gets up, leaving a drawing half-finished, and points to one drawing that has a splash of red coming out of the end of the muzzle. "See? Here it is firing a bullet. And here's the blade on the bayonet, it's longer than a spearhead."

He stops, realizing he forgot something, and then turns to Sam.

"I reckon we ain't been properly introduced." Bayard holds out his hand, every bit the young gentleman. He's seen Samwise around a few times, but they've mostly been ships passing in the night - usually Bayard's been on his way downstairs to relieve himself or been ushered around by the District Twelve Escort, and he and his new roommate haven't even gotten to exchange a handful of words.

At first, he assumed that Samwise was another child like him, even younger, but after hearing his voice and face he came to realize that this is, in fact, a miniature man. He's heard of such people in things like traveling circuses and sideshows, men and women who never get larger than a doll, but he's never seen it because his Granny and Father have always said that you shouldn't travel into a town just to feel pity. There's plenty of pity to feel on your own patch of land if you're aware enough of your surroundings.

"Bayard Sartoris. Much obliged to make your acquaintance."

[lasttosail]

All of the pertinent words in that sentence - bayonet, musket, and bullet - are foreign to Sam. The last one he's heard since coming here, but he hasn't got any understanding of what it is.

--It can wait a moment, though, for introductions, because Hobbits are always prepared to set aside time for courtesies. Sam takes Bayard's hand (pleased that he's not stretching his arm over his head to do this, as is so often the case), and shakes it, with a polite duck of his head.

"Samwise Gamgee, at your service-- and much obliged, indeed! Someone's learned you your manners proper, young Master Sartoris, and no mistake."

He's smiling - why, it's courtesy of a kind he'd expect to hear from a young Hobbit allowed into polite company for the first time, all earnest and correct. It reflects well on Bayard, whom Sam's had only a peripheral awareness of up til now, in the way he does most of the folk coming and going from the Suite.

1

[justoutrunyou]

Resident artist? Oh please boy you're just getting started.

Case and point Sandy's door opens and the smell of paint fumes leaks out as it often does. In some loose shorts and a T-shirt with the words "I will be taking your fucking eyes" on it the skinny girl comes drifting out into the common area with paint on her hands and cheek. She makes a B-line for the kitchen and only after she's peeling an orange does she notice the boy with his drawings.

She knew there was another kid in District 12 but she had selfishly been avoiding him. The thought of someone else near her age range being in the District just sent pangs of pain through her and reminded her that Pruna appeared to be very truly gone this time.

Still she knew she shouldn't ignore him just because she missed Pruna. He might need help some day and she'd want him to know she could be trusted. So she slips around the counter popping an orange slice into her mouth and watches him work.

Re: 1

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard doesn't notice her for a moment, being so intensely focused on his drawing of a dog, on trying to get both eyes the same size (a valiant if futile effort). As a child, he grew up in relative peace, and it's only been the last two years that have imbued any sort of vigilance in him, scanning the horizon occasionally in the nigh-hopeful anticipation of seeing a Yankee and thus being part of an adventure rather than just endlessly waiting and looking for nothing.

When he does glance up, he looks surprised, but smiles at the newcomer, barely noting the paint immediately.

"Hello. It's a right wonder that they have such fresh oranges this time of year, isn't it?" For him, oranges are a rare treat, brought from orchards he's never seen on occasions when his father can preserve them during travel. Bayard's never tasted anything so sweet and tart as the ones he's had here.

Re: 1

[justoutrunyou]

"Huh?" She looks back to the orange in her hand, having forgotten about how rare oranges had been back home, but he had a point.

"Yeah, the food here is the best part. Have you tried the ice cream yet?"

She instantly regretted bringing up the ice cream. That had been her and Pruna's tradition after all but it wasn't as though the young girl was the only one Sandy had gone for ice cream with.

"Or they make this really good berry pudding with like...bits of jelly and cream."