thecapitol | Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

WHO| Deckard Shaw and You?
WHAT| After six years away, Shaw needs to get a lay of the land
WHERE| Around the Capitol
WHEN| After The Binding plot, post new-Celebrus issue
Warnings/Notes| There's some different locations and setups below. Pick whichever you like.

Shaw had been ready for trouble at the crossing, but his new papers had scanned smooth as silk, and finally, after six long years, he was back.

Outside the station he paused and drew in a long, deep breath. The colors, the noise, the smell... The city wasn't his anymore, the word home didn't even cross into his mind, but there was something about it.

In the distance, down the grand boulevard, Snow's palace gleamed, and nearby, Tribute Tower winked in the late morning sun. They looked different, especially the Tower - remodeled how many times now? (Fires and fights and ever more tributes, he heard.) But they were still the biggest, grandest things around.

Still the best places to start.

Shifting his bag, he waited for a gap in the crowd, then merged seamlessly into the herd.

~.~

He set himself up at a cafe across from the Tower, a new communicator (a ridiculous, but necessary expense) propped against the napkin holder in front of him. He listened with a single earbud to the news, and watched traffic over the edge of the device.

Traitors and brainwashing and paranoia, oh my. Throw in a few explosives and a mutt or two, they might actually have a party on their hands.

The camera shifted to one anchor, the one with a bright yellow beehive, and a inset popped up, reflecting back against his sunglasses. How to Tell Your Loved One has Been Brainwashed:

He snorted and lifted his coffee cup as the waitress neared.

"I'm gonna need another one."

He had a lot to catch up on.

~.~

As eager as he was to get on with things, he knew practically that he needed a place to stay. There was simply too much to learn, too much to plan -- it was simply too big a job to pull off in a few days.

A search with his communicator had turned up a few possibilities and he was going to check them all before making a decision. He wanted to see the places themselves, and the area around them. The ins and outs, the lay of the land, and what he'd have to work with.

At the second place, something caught his eye.

Walking past the entrance, he paused in end of the alley, head tilting slightly.

Someone had painted a Mockingjay on the inside wall.

"Interesting."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Depends on who you ask."

He looked back, and pegged her quickly as a tribute, even if he couldn't recall her from all the footage he'd dug through earlier. The map, the clothes, and that she had to ask at all, especially, sealed her as an off-worlder.

(He'd been living in a hole for six years and he still knew what it was.)

"It's good to some good, bad to others."

"But what does it mean?" She steps forward to get a better look.

"Looks like a bird."

He didn't move when she did, just the same place on the sidewalk, but in the back of his mind, he measured her. Judged her, and readied himself.

While he didn't buy everything he'd read and heard that morning, there was no denying that these off-world types seemed to be an antsy bunch.

"That's because it is. A Mockingjay."

A Capitol Failure with a capitol 'F,' but lovely singing voices - when the feathery assholes weren't giving away your position.

"Our last native Victor had a pin of one as her token."

"Oh." Is that all? That doesn't sound particular good or particularly bad to her. "So why're people drawing it on walls?"

"That's when everything started to change," he replied simply. "And some people like to see more of that."

His head tipped, chin tucking low enough for him to look at her over his sunglasses. To really see her.

"You're very new here, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." She tears her eyes away from the symbol when she realizes he's watching her, and studies him right back.

"They said I'm a Tribute. Are you a Tribute?"

He almost laughed, snorting a rough sound through his nose.

"Have I been away that long? I don't even look like I belong?"

Though he knew it wasn't just that. Even before, the Capitol had been a strange fit after awhile. After the Districts, after the things he'd done.

Like a corner edge of a puzzle, he didn't mesh with most of the other pieces.

"I lived here, a long time ago."

"I don't know if you look like you do or not. Do Tributes not belong?" They're celebrities - they have to belong, right? Being worshipped and celebrated is, to her, the very definition of belonging.

"You weren't born here." It's the technical, cut and dried answer, and the only one that really matters to Shaw.

Do, don't, live, die he didn't give a damn.

The off-worlders weren't his problem.

"So you have don't have the same rights, or any claims to them."

"Well, what rights are those? 'Cause... we're given lots of amazing things; I'll tell you that." She glances over her shoulder, back in the direction of the Training Center. "You ever seen the place they put us up in?"

"Not recently."

He'd been called in once or twice, for this and that, but that was least four remodels ago.

"But prisons are prisons, whatever the thread count in the curtains."

She smiles a little at that, shaking her head.

"This ain't prison."

His mouth pulled at one corner.

"Can you tell 'em no?"

"I don't know, I haven't tried. But there's people you can't say no to out of prison, too. You know, there's laws and stuff."

"True," his head head bobbed in agreement. "But laws for citizens are the ones you'd expect." (Don't overthrow your government.) "I can call a bastard for what he is without wondering if I'll starve to death in the arena."

"I'm gonna starve if I call someone a bastard?"

"Depends on how much of a bastard he is."

He folded his arms, settling into the conversation.

(His first with an offworlder, he made a mental note. He was curious about some of them. Those names that came up over and over again.)

"A mentor or escort could get real forgetful about your sponsor gifts. A sponsor might just refuse to support you."

And if she were really unlucky, the Gamemakers might take time out of their busy day to show her special attention.

She takes this in, noting the words he's using - mentor, escort, sponsor. She still only knows about them in theory, not having met any of her own yet - but from how much people talk about them, they must be incredibly important.

"Okay. So I'll be nice." Or, more accurately, she'll do what they want her to do.

"Mind your 'p's', and 'q's,'--" and be ready to stab your districtmates in the throat, "--and somebody will pony up the dough."

Until they got tired of her and decided to retire her too.

He looked at the Mockingjay again.

"So be nice to... the right people? And be hard and harsh to the rest?"

...Why hadn't they painted over it? Was it that fresh, or....

He almost started toward it, but the woman's voice snapped him back to her. Dryly, he looked at her again.

"Look, you're basically a pet here. When you're with your masters they'll want to purr and speak and mind the leash, but when you're in the arena, they'll expect you to be the biggest, meanest guard dog in the yard and they'll be paying good money to watch you try and probably fail."

She listens, frowning. "So be nice to them, and only them - that's what you're saying? They want me to be a bully to everybody else?" Not just a bully - a killer.

"What about you? What am I supposed to be to you?"

"I don't care what you are."

And that was the truth of it, evident in the simple, flat way he said it.

Not to him, not to her fellow tributes, not to the Capitol.

So long as she wasn't in his way.

"I'm not here to play Games."

"So you ain't one of the people I'm supposed to impress? How do I tell who they are?"

"In my experience, most of 'em will let you know. But if you want a head start--" he nodded over her shoulder to the Tower in the distance, looming over the skyline, "--ask your escort. I'm sure they've already got a list."

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tucky - 2015-05-01 00:54 (UTC) - Expand

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