thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who| Signless, Gary, and anyone who needs a distraction!
What| Signless and Gary do what they do best: draw a crowd, so that nobody notices the actual important things going down.
Where| A Capitol park
When| Backdated to the day of the break-in
Warnings/Notes| Nothing in particular; will add if something comes up.

In one of the largest available Capitol parks a stage has been set up. It's festooned with colorful fabric, riddled with microphones and wires and lights, and surrounded on either side by stalls with food and drink (there are, of course, funnel cakes). Most of that was Gary's doing, but Signless deferred to him on the logic that Gary knew better how to do one of these things in public than he did. All of his experience was in keeping these things quiet and secret, which is the exact opposite of what they need to be doing.

Guests are invited to take a seat on the grass before the stage. First on the program is an 'authentic' troll sermon much like one of the ones the Signless would have given back on Alternia. It's billed as a way for those not familiar to participate in a piece of troll culture and history, though the subject is less radical rebellious philosophy (for very obvious reasons) and much more Capitol-appropriate and safe. He speaks for a good while, often inviting his listeners to contribute to the discussion, and after the sermon proper is finished there is a short question and answer session. True to his word it really does follow the same format one of his talks might have back on his native planet.

Of course not everyone is here to listen to a troll ramble in a park. For them there is the debut concert of Gary Epps which takes place after a short intermission so everyone can grab a funnel cake or a corn dog or two. The grass in front of the stage is now a makeshift dance floor and the guests are encouraged to let loose and enjoy the very, very loud and very, very upbeat music. It may be bubblegum for the ears but it's fun and the beat is good -- perfect for drowning out thoughts of why there are so very many parties all going on on this day in particular.

[This is going to be much like a crowning: a party-style post where you can put up top levels and tag around to others at any point during the festivities. Go ahead and mingle, and have some fun before everything crashes and burns! I'll be putting up a transcription of Signless's sermon shortly for characters to react to amongst themselves, and Gary will also of course be joining in!]

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Psii noted the understanding Roland's voice, but not his eyes on his scar. He was too busy looking at the sky or the distant crowd, trying to push aside the memory of burning off his slave brand. Roland inadvertently helped by joking about hair again.Psii ducked his head, instinctively trying (and failing) to hide his grin. God bless him, Roland had wanted to think well of him.

"Maybe you should have hung out and burned people'th hair with me thooner. SS thayth there'th not a lot of people who could put up with me for long, tho you don't have anything to apologize for. Even the people who do know me well call me an athhole." It was part of being a troll that he sounded oddly proud of that fact, tilting his chin up and grinning. "But they keep telling me they want me around, tho I thtay."

His voice lowered, half out of seriousness and half out of secrecy. Talking about his past always ran the danger of sounding rebellious.

"Thometimeth I wish I wath jutht athhole joketh and annoying people. I'd have a lot leth on my mind that way.... I thpent a lot of my life being forthed to keep my mouth shut, even when my vithionth would have warned people. I think I'm jutht making up for lotht time. You should count yourthelf lucky, though; I'm not alwayth thith bubbly," he warned wryly. Just because he knew he had downswings in mood didn't mean he could prevent them.

Roland watches, listens expressionlessly, notes the Psiionic's warning about his moods, if a warning it is. "If that's all there was to you I think you'd be dead now. A few times over, likely. Before that it'd've been easier, sure, but what good is easy?" Roland's tone there at the end is dismissive. He knows, academically, that there's some sort of draw to the idea, to the dream of a world in which a person has no values, no cares, no particular goals that aren't purely their own. He does not understand it, though, and does not care to.

"But I doubt even then that you'd play the same prank twice. Be surprised if I saw you with a flame near anyone's hair any time soon. Besides which, I haven't been one for mischief making for..." He pauses, looking faintly surprised. The whole exercise with the Capitolite has put him back, at least a little, in the mindset of those old times, and it's strange for a second to realize just how old those times actually are. "For a very long time. If your mischief needed a partner, the Signless may do a little better. I'm sure the two of you've plenty of practice making it together."

"I'm sure you've plenty of tales to tell about those times too," Roland adds, now eyeing the Psiionic in a curious, faintly eager sort of way. It's just occurred to him that the Psiionic does have quite a few stories about Signless' past. Not that Signless wouldn't share if asked, but if Roland hints at it now and the Psiionic decides to share a few himself somewhere down the line, well, Roland won't be complaining.

"SS ith a thtick up my ath. Motht likely he'th the object of my prankth, not the partner. 'Old' ith a mindthet, not an age, Dried Protein Face. Take it from a member of a thpethieth that can live more than a thouthand thweepth--thome of uth, anyway. Being old getth.... well, old."

He pounced on Roland's hint like Disciple hunting her game. His face brightened, eyes lighting up (figuratively).

"Thingth SS won't tell you? Juithy thtorieth he'th too embarrathed to share? I can provide. I'll have you know, SS ithn't nearly ath cool ath anyone thinkth," said Psii, the epitome of cool, in his eye-searing yellow and aura of nerd.

"Hith tattooth cover it now, but if you look clothely, you might thtill be able to thee a funny mark. Let me tell you about the time your boyfriend tried to give himthelf a tattoo and realized his pain toleranthe wath utterly crap. Now he jutht hath a shitty black mark on his forearm. He thtarted wearing armthockth long ago thpethifically to hide it."

"I remember it," Roland nods, but he doesn't look particularly like someone sharing in a juicy secret. He looks thoughtful. There are two facts there that are very interesting to him, one a little more immediate than the other. "He can't bear pain? I didn't know." Roland considers this, snorts. "Guess I wouldn't. Things done in arenas tend to be more than any one man can take, anyway."

He looks thoughtful a moment more, then moves on. It's not good news, in a strategic sense, but there's not much that can be done about it. Nothing Roland will do, anyway, or that'll make enough of a difference. "As to your lifespans, I've heard of demons living so long, but anything with a true body -" He shakes his head. "Care to elaborate?"

Roland's calm reaction deflated Psii's enthusiasm. He had more fun ripping into Signless when he was actually there to receive the burns.

"Back then, anyway. He wath young. He'th toughened up by now. But you could alwayth give him a good pinch and find out for yourthelf.... Actually, let me do that. I will report my findingth." Once again he looked pleased with himself.

"Highbloodth live the longetht. A tyrian could go for thouthandth of your human yearth. Me, I've only got...." he frowned, doing more math, "thlightly longer than an average human. Of courthe, I'm only talking about natural deathth."

Early deaths were easier to talk about than about his own lifespan, considering back home he was fated to have his suffering extended to match the length of their tyrian empress. Talking about his best friend's impending mortality wasn't much better, but he felt that Signless wouldn't mind a bit of transparency about it:

"SS ith off the thpectrum, tho we've never really known how long he would live."

Roland nods, expression focused but not on anything in particular, almost visibly filing the information away. He does grasp the implication there, the fact that the Signless' blood color is not only off spectrum but below that spectrum, but this implication is not held onto very tightly. It's a difficult thing to worry too much about for Roland, a possibility so distant. Especially as he's never really expected to grow old, himself.

"Average human dies much sooner in some whens than others," he notes for completion's sake and then, perhaps purely because this topic may seem out of place enough to surprise the Psiionic into honesty, Roland quotes something the Psiionic'd said earlier, while they and the Capitolite had still been talking. "'Swapping spit on the floor'?" he asks, using a far-more-than-passable imitation of the Psiionic's tone and cadence before switching back to his own voice. "You and the Signless? Since when?"

"A human that liveth here. I wouldn't know about other planetth."

It took him a moment to realize why Roland was talking that way (rude!) and using those particular words. Psii colored almost instantly, cheeks and ears going a bright gold. This protein jerky bovine herder didn't miss a thing.

"He thtarted it!" he protested, like a kid caught fighting. "We were—We were arguing, he wath being way more contentiouth than uthual. Then he pushed, and I had to drag him down with me. Who wouldn't rethpond to that? I, uh, don't know how our lipth got involved, but when you hate thomeone, thometimeth you jutht want to attack their fathe with.... your fathe...."

The concept of a kismesis seemed so simple to him, but he knew humans didn't really go for it. He also knew that whatever was between himself and Signless, it was a bit more complicated than just textbook blackflirting. He hesitated to say anything definite, because he wasn't sure himself what was going on.

"I don't really know how to exthplain thith to a human. He wath being king of the athhole brigade that day, and it may have been kind of hot...."

Golden blush. Interesting. By now Roland knows, of course, that most trolls have oddly colored blood, but knowing and seeing are entirely different creatures. Roland watches the Psiionic's blush closely and watches his manner, too, as he talks. "He's explained your black quadrant. What was it, ah... Kismesis? I don't know it well, but I know a little. I know that when you say hate you mean something very unlike a human saying the same word. Anger has something to do with it, I think, but also a great deal of respect. And fucking, of course. Have I got that right?"

To look at Roland, you'd think he's just asked about the accuracy of some new pastry recipe. There's no inkling in him at all that this might be anything other than a reasonable, casual question. Why wouldn't it be?

"Yeah, fucking."

Psii wasn't so embarrassed about talking of pailing so much as the feelings associated with it. He was used to having to hide the squishiest parts of his center. He and Signless already had so much between them as friends, it was hard to pass this dalliance off as just a whim. He tried to think of what he thought kismesitude was supposed to be like.

"Thomeone'th jutht tho much of a pain, you want to pail them. They're great, and you admire them, but thome of their qualitieth make you want to punch them in the fathe. There'th altho rivalry involved, competition which helpth make both of you thtronger." Talking about it as a hypothetical example made it easier.

"Thometimeth he actth pale with me though." He abruptly stopped walking. He was aware that Signless and Roland were sometimes pale, and he didn't want to encroach on that, but it was a thing that seemed almost compulsive. Signless was overly concerned for Psii's mental health, and vice versa. Psii also wanted to protect him a little more than a kismesis should. These things were amorphous in his mind, hard to put into words, so he didn't.

"That'th like.... the oppothite of what he'th thuppothed to be doing, but he never really did what he wath 'thuppothed' to in hith life anyway, even if it meant hith thafety. We'd argue about that whether we were pale or caliginouth. We—well, I wath taught that quadrantth that vathillate back and forth were not good. He thayth they're more thimilar than I think, but then again, he managed to make it work with Disciple in all the quadrantth."

He hadn't expected the Psiionic to explain the concept of a black quadrant to him, but he's glad of it. Explanations from Signless are well and good, but you can only learn so much of a people from one source. Like many concepts Roland grew up with in his old home, this seems like one of those whose definition differs depending on who you ask. None of it disagrees with what Signless has told him, and he makes a note of all of it.

"He's told me of her," Roland nods his understanding and eyes the Psiionic, having stopped walking when his companion did. He's not qualified to give romantic advice, not to a man of a culture which does things so differently, but he's talked a few humans, at least, through this sort of thing before and slips into that frame of mind now with no hesitation. "But their relationship, I think, differed from his with anyone else. And you, Psiionic? Do you feel pale for the Signless?"

He asks it with no particular tone or expression, not reassuring the Psiionic at all that he isn't asking out of jealousy because it does not occur to him to do so. Roland is only thinking that this is a matter which needs to be gotten to the bottom of, at least so much as possible. The Capitol's gossip magazines, advice columns on its resident's love lives, those are frivolous things, but not because of the topic. Love and advice on the practice of it is very important, and there hasn't been a moment in Roland's life in which he has doubted this. It's that those gossip magazines and advice columns treat such an important matter so abysmally. Come sit down with grandpa Roland, Psiionic. Have a cup of tea, tell him all your problems.

Roland and Signless were a couple of peas in a botanical cocoon, probably sitting in his block painting their claws and talking about romance. Bluh. But Roland's plain, no-frills questioning lulled Psii into the calm realm of logic, and he found himself actually answering instead of clamming up.

"Should I?" he murmured. When he felt confused or vulnerable, he lapsed back into his habit of being concerned about what he should and shouldn't do. "Doethn't looking out for him tho much water down our contentiouth feelingth? Am I not rethpecting hith ability to drive me up the hive barrierth?"

He rubbed a hand over his face. This was getting to be too much. He should discuss this sort of thing with his moirail, except the subject of this conversation and the person who felt most pale for him were one and the same. How the hell did Signless manage this sort of multi-quadrant bullshit? Normal by-the-book troll relationships were hard enough, at least for Psii.

"No, I can't think about thith now. I have tho much to do, and I have to keep my head thtraight, at leatht for tonight."

It might sound like he was talking about Signless's stage event, but it was really the current rebel plot that had his attention. He would have to return to his computer station soon, as another pair of digital eyes.

Roland nods. "As you say. I'll give you my thanks for your earlier help, Psiionic, and let you to your business. But I've one bit of advice, if you'll hear it: I know very little about your quadrants, and less about what it takes to practice them. But I know that should tends to count for very little, especially in matters of the heart. Figure out what is, and work from there."

Roland considers the Psiionic's posture, the way he'd run his hand over his face, and decides to set a hand on the man's shoulder, which he'll let fall if the Psiionic moves away. He hopes, vaguely, that he isn't accidentally flirting, but cross-cultural trap doors or no, the Psiionic is a friend - more of one than he'd known before this conversation'd started - and some things ought to be said. "Focusing too much on should will only trip you up. Think on it, once you're able. Aye?"

Psii tensed as Roland announced his last bit of advice, afraid it would be some sort of parting jibe. It would serve him right for exposing his feelings like this. But his words were worse than that; they confirmed Psii's suspicion that he couldn't just take the easy way out. It was kind of hard to figure out what was the truth when he was right in the middle of the mire. Hell, he was a participant, a player who couldn't possibly be an impartial referee.

He allowed Roland's hand to rest on his shoulder for the duration of his words, then sidestepped away. Roland himself didn't make him uncomfortable, but his own unsettled state of mind did.

"....Eye. Or whatever. Yeah."

Roland nods, studies the Psiionic a moment. "Take care, Psiionic." From anyone else, that phrase might be meaningless. Here and now? From Roland? It's plain on Roland's face that he means it. He steps back toward the crowd, raises a hand, and turns away. They've all got their part to play, here. Best let the Psiionic get back to his.

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protein jerky bovine herder would make the best username

tmw troll slang turns two words into four

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and fade