[Open]

[freedomscall]

What| Anders trying to adjust to a new environment.
Where| Around the capitol.
When| Now?
Warnings/Notes| None at the moment


Everything was too big. He should have felt relief: this city was larger than anything he had seen before. There was so much grandeur, all glittering and beautiful and so easy to focus on. A man like him could have been swept away, swept under the rug, swept up in everything and easily forgotten. He could hide in the crowd. With so many people, no one would notice just another man.

Anders, however, felt nothing but suffocated. Every glance caused him to flinch and bury himself deeper within himself. The knot in his stomach pulled tighter, and tighter with every turn he made and every person he passed.

He had no idea how long he had been walking, or even where he was anymore. A heavy sigh escaped him as he rubbed his forehead.

"Andraste's tits...What is going on?" . For a moment he let his situation consume him, let the whole Capitol consume him.

It was the sound of footsteps coming up behind him that snapped the mage out of his stupor.

Comments

[needlebearer]

Arya doesn't leave the training centre very much, disliking the celebrity status that came with being part of the Hunger Games, especially as someone who'd been used to keeping herself anonymous for so long, and disliking the brightness and artificiality of the Capitol even more. But ever since Joel showed her the wonder of cheeseburgers, she's been going out from time to time, finding that the ones the Avoxes made up for her didn't measure up to the ones from the burger joint he'd taken her to. She's walking quickly, hands tucked in her pockets and head down to avoid the flashes and screens that gave her such a headache, not particularly paying attention to where she's going, on a direct collision course with Anders unless he notices the girl behind him.

[freedomscall]

“Careful!” the man exclaimed, stepping back to avoid the girl plowing her way through the city. “If you keep on like that you're going to get yourself hurt!”

[needlebearer]

Arya skids to a halt as he addresses her, blinking up at him. "I won't get hurt," she reassures him, a little cockily. After all she'd gone through both in her own world and the Arena, she doesn't think anything out here will cause her too much harm.

[freedomscall]

Anders blinked, taken aback by the little girl. “You're quite confident”. She'd clearly been through something. He could see a darkness behind her eyes. A sadness, maybe.

His eyes glanced at her food. It smelled quite unlike anything he had experienced before. This world was filled with all sorts of strange things.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at the foodstuff.

[needlebearer]

She sounds a little more enthusiastic as she returns her glance to the food. "It's beef between bread, with cheese melted on. It's the best thing in the Capitol." She fishes around inside the burger, pulling out a pickle and wrinkling her nose. "Although they always put these in them. They're horrible."

[freedomscall]

Anders frowns at the strange green thing in the girl's hand, holding his own out to her in a motion to take the strange thing from her. “What is that? It looks like...slime. They don't really serve slime on food, do they?”

[needlebearer]

"Only on these." She frowns at it, then tosses it onto the sidewalk, offering Anders the burger to try a bite of.