thecapitol | though you know so few words

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though you know so few words

Who| Jack Sparrow and OPEN
What| A fan decides the Capitol's resident pirate needs a fitting companion.
Where| District 8 Suites, the Central Commons, etc.
When| Sometime after the Binding plot.
Warnings/Notes| Swearing, probably drinking, parrot-related stuff, etc. It's Jack Sparrow.

Despite the mess of recent events, Jack had managed to keep himself out of trouble. He'd helped distribute supplies as discreetly as possible around the Capitol, and had finally taken up Swann's suggestion to do a TV special detailing a few harrowing (and some highly exaggerated) stories of his times at sea, with the intent of distracting a chunk of Panem. Nothing that could too concretely link him to the actions of the rebels, but enough to lend a bit of help.

The fall-out, thankfully, hadn't reached him too much, and Jack would rather keep it that way. He didn't know Initiate, or most of whom had been caught, and his role in it all had been overlooked. However, the people of Panem had watched his special. Which meant that one fan in particular had gotten the bright idea that, in order for Jack to be a totally proper pirate cliche, he needed to have a talking parrot too. One that spoke entirely in cheesy 'pirate phrases'.

It had arrived one evening in the middle of his suite room, a dazzlingly bright crimson and azure feathered macaw with a tiny black-and-white pirate hat strapped onto its head. The cage was huge and spacious for the bird, as well as ornate and expensive-looking. Taped on it was a note that read in fancy script: "Arrrr matey! I be enamoured of yer stories cap'n. Here's a mighty treasure for you xoxo"

On first sight, Jack had stared at the scene then immediately turned and left the room. Eventually, though, he'd returned to figure out what to do with the creature. Which clearly meant the parrot needed to be free, and perhaps needed to have a few curse words and colorful phrases added to its vocabulary.

(A. D8 Common Room)

Sometime later Jack can be found in the District 8 Commons, quietly humming to himself as he retrieves food from the fridge -- some fruit to snack on -- and sets it aside onto a nearby counter. He's busy picking out an accompanying drink, taking his time selecting what he's in the mood for, when there's a flash of color at the corner of his eye and a scratchy screech that sounds suspiciously like words: "Avast matey! Shiver me timbers!"

The pirate freezes, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed, then he catches sight of the bird as it flies low into the kitchen area. It lands atop one of the counters near his food with a scrabble of its feet, flapping its wings and shuffling its feathers back into place, then fixes him with a belligerent stare. Sure, he'd given it free reign out of its cage since it'd shown up, but Jack had been otherwise careful to avoid the bird's presence as much as physically possible. Even if someone had given him it as a present, he didn't much care for the responsibility.

He waves both hands at it, lips curled with annoyance. "... Shoo. Go away." It doesn't pay any heed to his movements but instead, still glancing over in his direction every once in awhile, hobbles closer to his bowl of fruit and stretches its neck to peek at what's inside. Jack swishes his hands at it again, this time more vigorously, not wanting to get too close to that large, sharp beak that it has. "Leave it! Shoo, damn you!"

The feathers on its neck stand up in defiance, but the bird doesn't look like it will listen -- it's way more interested in the food. And surely enough, a few seconds later, the bowl will topple over onto the floor and loudly spill out its contents onto the ground. The bird puffs up to flap its wings, then makes the leap down to the floor to begin picking at some stray grapes.

"Oi! OI!" The words from Jack are a clipped shout, and the pirate moves to the mess with a grimace and his hands splayed. Anyone who happens into the room will be greeted with the sight, and most likely a couple more squawked phrases from the bird.

(B. Tribute Tower Central Commons.)

The bird needed to go.

It'd tried -- multiple times, as if it'd been trained specifically to do this -- to land on his shoulder, and each time the pirate had nimbly dodged its attempt. A few times it'd managed to scrape its claws against his arm, wings beating against Jack's face, but had mostly been unsuccessful in achieving what it wanted. So after awhile the parrot had taken to following him everywhere with small jumping steps -- around the suites, into the elevators, through the Tower's Central Commons. And that's where Jack had led it, this time, using its obsession to draw it out of the D8 Suites and into the bustling lobby area of the Commons.

He'd gotten it as far as the entrance leading outside, one hand propping a door open and the other wildly motioning for the bird to leave, but it doesn't budge. "Look, bird, freedom! Escape!" And then, muttered sorely beneath his breath, "Come on, you brassy, overly ornate chicken."

Instead of taking to its new freedom, the bird hungrily eyes his shoulder and bobs its head, ignoring the trickle of people trying to nudge past this stand-off and to the exit. Jack isn't paying much attention to who's trying to get past, either, and stretches his boot out to try and gently push at the bird, encouraging it to get outside.

It hops back a few steps back with its wings flared, cocking its head sideways to look up at him, then cracks open its beak to warn him that it's about ready to bite. Then its mouth works, and it calls out, "Cut your -- heart out. You slimee -- squawk -- cur. Sod you!" It wouldn't be too hard to guess where it'd learned that.

(C. Any other prompts you want to do -- out and about, with or without the bird!)

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Roland didn't have to say it twice -- with his head protected by his hands, Jack freezes in place and waits. He can feel the breeze from the bird's furiously flapping wings, the rustle of feathers as it adjusts itself, then, finally, graciously, the bird finds a solid grip on his shoulder and stops.

It's still another full minute until the pirate moves from his cowering position, and only then it's to lift himself up partially and lean his head away from the parrot like it's bound to attack him at any moment. He fixes Roland with narrowed eyes, but it's more affable annoyance than actual true anger. "You did that on purpose, didn't you, you fiend."

Jack winces as the bird shifts on his shoulder, then slowly, cautiously, straightens further. He has the urge to jerk his shoulder to try and dislodge the bird -- because putting his hand anywhere near it was a horrible idea -- but his gut tells him that'll only make it start wildly flapping in his face again and using its claws. So he resigns himself to keeping it there for the time being, trying not to flinch as it starts to preen his hair with its large beak.

With a feigned put-upon huff, tempered with a slight hint of a half-smile, Jack answers, "Aye, sure enough. I could do for a walk."

Roland waits with him. And waits. With the waiting his expression goes drier, and he's actually reaching into a pocket for the yarn and small, blunt knitting needles that reside there by the time the Captain decides he's ready to greet the world again.

The dry expression goes bland at Jack's accusation, and as the man finishes adjusting himself Roland eyes his face. Doesn't see any real anger there, so when he speaks Roland keeps his voice just as bland as his own expression. "Bird was going to make a leap for you sooner or later." Come on. Roland was doing you a favor. Really.

"How'd you get the thing, anyway?" he asks, taking the first few steps onto the large main street. It's busy, lots of Capitolites wanting to at least pass by the building full of tributes to see if they can get a look at one. It's only as busy as it usually is, though, and Roland finds a spot near the street's edge easily, slipping into the human current taking them ever closer to - what else - shops. "Doesn't seem like you stuck that hat to its head yourself."

"Sure enough, but I was doin' me best to avoid that."

Clearly not a favor that Jack seems too entirely pleased with, by the stiff way he's started to walk down the street. The bird is going to attack him at any moment now, he's so absolutely sure of it. It doesn't matter that it'd calmed down enough to grab a strand of his hair with its claw and nibble lightly on it, this thing was unpredictable and violent.

The pirate follows him out into the crowd and pushes through, ignoring the stares of Capitolites around him as they passed. "It was left as a present in my suite room, from a Capitolite fan, stuck in a cage with a note on it about likin' me stories or some such nonsense." If there were ever a reason to regret doing that special, it was right here sitting on his shoulder now.

"Whoever it was taught it -- " His hand waves vaguely, and the bird shifts its weight on his shoulder, which makes him momentarily flinch. " -- a bunch o' stupid phrases."

"Oh? What kind?" He looks at the bird a second, then continues in a thoughtful tone. "Think I knew a man once who tried to teach his bird, his crow, ah- bible verse, I think it was. Learned a song about farts instead. 'More you eat, the more you toot' is probably much better than some of the things these Capitolites'd want their favorite tribute to hear."

"Have you heard many of the phrases yet? Might be happier not knowing whatever fan story they liked enough to send you a pet that quotes it." Roland, who even when he hears Capitol TV does not tend to listen to it, does not know the TV special that Jack is thinking of. What Roland does know is that Capitolite 'fans' are even more enthusiastic than he had, until recently, even suspected. He knows that they write their own stories.

The kinds of stories that, in a few hours, will probably be circulating about the two of them. The Captain and the gunslinger are naked together in an arena, and now together decide to take a walk. Obviously they're about to take each other to bed.

Let's ignore those Capitolite stares, maybe. Keep ignoring them. Giving them attention can come to nothing good.

That brings a laugh out from him. "I'd wager so."

He smoothly sidesteps a couple oddly attired Capitolites who shoot them excited stares, most of his attention still focused solely on the bird at his shoulder. Clearly the best method is to ignore them, but Jack hadn't even thought about how both incidents could be perceived by Capitolites -- and probably wouldn't realize it until later, when juicy gossip magazines would circulate a flurry of stories and speculation about it.

"Aye, I have. 'Arr' and 'shiver me timbers' and 'walk the plank' -- " When Jack says the last one, the parrot almost instantly repeats it with a squawk and gentle flap of its wings. " -- I imagine most of its how Capitolites think pirates normally speak. There's stories, from what I hear, books and such, about pirates in this place. Romanticized nonsense, o' course -- " says the man who totally looks like a pirate with a parrot perched on his shoulder, " -- All fluff and such, but I wager that's where most of it came from."

Roland grunts, agreeing. "And the fluff and nonsense is the best of it." Oh Jack Sparrow, pray you never look in the back of one of these Capitol magazines to the 'fan submissions' section. Pray you never find your name there. Pray the word 'moist' enters into matters not at all.

"Pirate," he murmurs, thoughtful. They'd had the word in his home, yes, but little as they'd had to do with the sea it'd almost never been used, and it takes Roland a moment to dig through the old tales and place it. "You're a harrier? Hm, well, suppose I didn't expect you to be a merchant." He says it more or less without judgement. They're all of them tributes here, after all.

Oh. It's bound to happen and when it does, Jack will be confused. Very, very confused.

He doesn't exactly recognize the term 'harrier', but Roland appears to know what Jack means. "Aye, a pirate." The last bit elicits a partial smile from him, because most times he'd be hesitant to so smoothly and openly admit it like that.

"No real use in hidin' it in this place. It doesn't matter much, an' most Capitolites view it as an oddity to gawk over." Which wasn't entirely bad, because Jack got to enjoy the notoriety and attention of being a pirate without any of the drawbacks.

Roland nods. "I expect most here think the idea very romantic, a tribute who made his living with robbery and murder." Again, no judgement here, but neither is Roland going to shy away from the reality of what a harrier does. What men have always done, whether on foot or horseback or on large boats over his world's old and endless sea. "So long as he does neither of those things to them."

"Strategy on your boats must be something else," Roland continues, thoughtful. "Odd that these arenas haven't included it. What kind of weaponry did they tend to have?"

A thin, humorless smile. He isn't surprised that Capitolites would idealize such a sometimes incredibly brutal life; their notion of entertainment was to regularly send people to be slaughtered in front of millions of hungry eyes, then shamelessly celebrate the spectacle.

"O' course. The notion is only excitin' and proper on paper, or when it's done to Tributes in front of an audience. Elsewise it quickly loses its charm." He responds dryly. He wouldn't have been offended, even if there had been a judgmental tone to Roland's words. He held no delusions about his line of work and what it took to be a pirate -- even if Jack, himself, wasn't too keen on murdering in cold blood like some of his less discerning brethren.

"For certain, it was somethin' else." His eyes light up at the question, because Jack loves to talk about this sort of stuff. "The weaponry, that mostly depended on the ship's size and what sort of damage the crew intended for their enemy." His hands are lifted, gesturing into the air as he talks. "Smaller ships would use cannons, most times 6- or 8-pounders, while greater ships would have heavier 46- or 36-pounders equipped on 'em. Standard way to shoot them was with a round shot, but if casualties were the aim the captain could have grapeshot loaded in -- " A light, faint grimace. " -- which were smaller shots, ones that scattered about when used. Effective against an enemy crew, but nasty stuff. Chain-shot could take a mast or rigging down, if slowin' down the other ship was the intent."

The other man couldn't have done a better job convincing Roland he finds murder distasteful if he'd tried - and why would he try? In this place, as they've just agreed, murder is what helps you get ahead. The right sort of murder, anyway. There is little reason to lie about something like that, and Roland is so convinced because Jack spent no great effort protesting those essential facts of the profession in which he has placed himself. Similar facts, as it happens, as the profession which Roland's world had called gunslinging, if there put to a very different purpose.

All that means now is that they have similar interests. Not murder, but the combat which sometimes surround it, the thrill and the challenge. Roland has little idea what a mast or rigging is but he still listens very closely to Jack as he lays the weapons out, thinks on them. Glances at the bird on Jack's shoulder briefly, and spares a moment to note that at least the topic seems to have distracted the man out of his nervousness about it. "I haven't seen your ships move but I imagine it can be slow; there's quite a bit of difference between a six and a forty-six pound cannon. And moving in water. What kind of strategy did you favor, Captain? Which was your ship built for?"

There's few better ways to distract Jack than to ask him questions about himself or his interests; the bird has nestled quite happily -- and nearly forgotten -- on his shoulder, lightly clenching its talons against the pirate's shoulder and balancing its body with each step.

"Aye, mostly it depends on the size of the ship, the gunnery loaded onto it, and the haul packed in its hold. If a man were inclined more towards speed, he'd p'rhaps forgo a couple cannons or trade them in for lighter ones. 'Course, that'd leave the ship open to more unsavory and dangerous encounters out on the sea, but that's a risk you'd have to be willing to take in return."

Jack had come across that issue when he'd sailed for Beckett, and had needed to convince the EITC Director that it'd be wiser to load the Pearl -- or the Wicked Wench, as it'd been called at the time -- with more (and heavier) guns to protect against the pirates that preyed the open water. He'd been right to do so, too, because they'd been attacked on the very same voyage.

"The Pearl? She was originally destined to be a merchant ship, meant solely to haul cargo. And most times we had cargo aboard to sell off, once we'd made port. But she was light an' swift for a ship her size -- " Unusual for most pirate ships in his day, as most pirate crews favored smaller ships. " -- which made it easier to catch up or run off, if the situation called for it. I'd use that to me advantage, most times, and preferred finding ways to outsmart the other ship." He adds a light grin. It's unspoken, but Jack's clearly proud of his ability to outwit his opponents.

Roland meets that grin with a faint twitch of his own lips and thinks the Captain's pride pretty appropriate, even if the battles he'd won with those smarts were probably less than honorable. "I've found that's usually what it comes down to. Times come when there's nothing to a showdown but who's got the better weapon, but the man who lives is often the one who thinks the quickest. And a man who knows that often the most dangerous enemy."

The twitch at the corners of Roland's lips is back now, and pointed, because if they ever end up opposite one another in an arena Roland intends to remember that fact about the other man. It doesn't seem terribly likely, with the way neither of them seem to look for fights while they're in there, but neither is it impossible. "The land around you, the people, your opponent's state of mind, any change in those could turn a battle in a second. I expect fighting in your Pearl on the open water would be no different, depending on what kind of outsmarting you tend to favor."

Care to tell Roland more about your strategy, so he'll know how to fight you? It isn't that he intends to use the knowledge if he gets it, but Roland is a gunslinger down to his bones, deeper than that, and a part of his mind will always be moving over these things.

If it wasn't clear before, pride in himself was definitely one of Jack's biggest faults -- to the point that, with the right words and enough encouraging praise, he'll easily blather on about things like this to his eventual detriment.

Even moreso, now, because the two of them had already built a bit of a rapport with one another back in the Arena, where things had been so desperate.

"Aye. All the biggest weapons in the world won't do a man any good if his opponent has the intelligence to outmaneuver him." Although it did help, of course. "And that's true enough, mate. You've always gotta be mindful, with your opponent, what's happenin' here -- " He taps a finger to his temple. " -- and what's happenin' around you, as well."

"And what's in his mind, too. If you can talk to your opponent, put thoughts in his head and distract him, that can make a great deal of difference. Though I expect that's harder on the sea - your ships have to stay a ways from one another, don't they?"

Speaking of distracting a person, Roland tilts his head and leans to get a better view of the Captain's new pet. It sits much easier there than it did when they'd started their walk. Or maybe its perch is simply easier to sit on. "He seems to be settling in nicely."

"They do, aye. But if you've enough experience sailing, mate, you being to get a knack for anticipating what measures a man's liable to take against you." It was a bit like playing chess, in a way. A thoughtless strategic choice, magnified by the fact that mistakes were hard to correct the further along a chase went, could spell doom later down the line.

It paid off to plan ahead and think of your opponent's next move in relation to your own. But sometimes, risky and bold behavior could pay off as well.

Then Roland brings Jack's focus back to the bird on his shoulder, and a grimace inches back onto his mouth. "Surprisingly enough." The macaw is obliviously preening itself, claws digging into his shoulder. "Still expect the beast to attack at any moment, fickle as it is in mood." Most likely when he'd least expect it.

"Mhm." Roland doesn't argue there, studying the thing when Jack does. Although he's curious, he does take care not to lean too close. "The hawks we used to train were the same, especially toward someone who couldn't read them well; bit like doing battle in your ships, in that way. I'm sure I still have a couple of David's scars. He was a hunter, though, born to strip the hide off creatures like me. I'm not sure about that thing, though I guess its coloring could just be Capitol-bred. May be worth tracking down whoever sent it. If it's is native to Panem, your admirer might be able to tell you what you need to know to manage it. If they were able to calm it well enough to attach that hat I'm sure they've advice to give, if you're willing to risk the asking."

Because talking to 'fans' is always a risk. He studies that ridiculous little hat, though, and thinks it might be worth it. Much as David had, in his way, almost trusted Roland, if he'd tried to put something like that on him David would probably have given Roland some new and interesting scars.

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though you know so few words

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