thecapitol | Proclaim the truth [OPEN]

Entry tags:

Proclaim the truth [OPEN]

Who| Merlyn and OPEN
What| The Capitol finally does something about that grumpy old man who keeps arguing with the staff.
Where| Central Commons
When| Directly after Snow's post last week (backdated because LOOK I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF EXAMS OKAY?)
Warnings/Notes| An old man getting publicly beaten up. If that isn't enough warning, well... shame on you.

"...happen to feel that whatever the benefits in subjugation, they must be grossly outweighed by the socioeconomical cost to the nation. It's the height of bureaucracy. Bolshevism, I say, sheer Bolshevism!" Merlyn glared ferociously at his communicator, as if he could stare President Snow into submission via hologram, and swatted at the Peacekeepers again. "Oh, go away, do. Can't you see I'm trying to have a conversation? Ah! And that's another thing, Mr So-Called-President! Do you have any intention of teaching debate skills at this school of yours? Philosophy? The premises of logic? Surely you cannot fill an entire curriculum with... hey!"

This was to one of the Peacekeepers, as she grabbed his arm none too gently and pulled the communicator away from him. Merlyn pulled back, with surprising strength for someone so skinny and elderly, and got to his feet. "Show a little decorum!" he demanded, raising his free hand to wag his finger at her. "Do you really mean to make such a scene in a public place?" As if he wasn't making just as much of a scene now, his conical hat askew as he struggled with two Peacekeepers in the middle of the common room.

She backhanded him across the face, almost casually. Deceptively strong or not, Merlyn clearly hadn't been expecting that; his head snapped to one side, his hat spilling papers and fishing flies across the floor as it went flying, and he felt his lip split. Wiping the blood away with his sleeve, he tried to regain his dignity as best he could. "Police violence," he started, in a rather heated tone, "is a sure sign of a government in..."

"Shut up, old man," the other Peacekeeper suggested, and struck him in the stomach. It was at least an effective way to shut him up, since it drove all the air out of his lungs, leaving him wheezing. He rather lost track after that, to his shame. They took the communicator off his bony wrist ("Two weeks", the woman said shortly, so presumably not permanently), locked a Traitor's Cuff in its place, and gave him a couple of kicks for good measure. One part of him was already composing a sternly-worded piece on bystander's syndrome, looking around at the commons at the significant number of people not raising a hand to help. The other part - which for all his pride and education, was rather more significant - was busy trying to avoid breaking a hip when he fell, and protect his face from being too badly-beaten.

And then they were gone, and he was left in an undignified puddle on the floor, his face bloody and his stern, professorial appearance gone. For a few moments, he just lay there, wheezing and feeling more damnably old than he had even in the worst days in his cave. At last, wincing - he was pretty sure the female Peacekeeper had sprained his wrist, if not broken it - he started groping for his glasses. One lens was cracked. He'd have to get that seen to.

"If someone could get me some raw meat to draw the bruising," he croaked, rather less loudly than he'd intended, "I would appreciate it."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Roland has been one of those bystanders for a couple minutes. He's standing back, face wearing no particular expression, and watches with the rest of the gossip-mongering crowd until the peacekeepers are gone from the room.

Only then does Roland pace forward, squat next to the old man - the great Maerlyn, or some version of the one whose stories Roland'd grown up on. A man who'd defeated evils untold, who must've once struck a figure awe inspiring and terrible. A small, quiet figure twisted on the floor. Roland holds out a hand. "No need for that," he says, in a tone that exactly matches the even, unremarkable look on his face. "This place's got poultices and packs that'll do the job much better. Can you stand?"

"Perhaps?" Merlyn's voice is rather thick, his lip swollen and seeping blood into his beard. He takes Roland's hand with some gratitude, carefully pincering his broken glasses into the pocket of his robes, and with an obvious effort, struggles to his feet. His chest aches abominably, as does his stomach. Still, a little beating isn't enough to stem his righteous indignation. "Thank you, Roland. Good grief. Somehow, I didn't expect quite such blatant..."

He pauses, partway through smoothing out his beard, and looks down at his fingers. There's blood on them, but that's not what he's looking at. Rather, he's focused on the little piece of dark-speckled eggshell clinging to his fingertip, sticky with egg-white and strung through with little threads of blood.

"Oh," he says, more quietly, and his large blue eyes begin to mist with tears. "Oh, dear."

Roland watches a moment, noting that the only thing that'd kept Merlyn speaking against the Capitol even more is the discovery of whatever it is he's looking at now, whatever else it is that beating had broken. He waits a second, giving what Merlyn's just discovered time to sink in, then jerks his head toward the elevators. "Come on," he says, businesslike, and starts toward them. "The training rooms'll have something for those bruises. Anything worse than that anywhere? Can you tell?"

The Peacekeepers and Daryl cross paths with mutual indifference, his eyes not so much as flickering toward them as he makes his way through. What does catch his notice is the crumpled form on the floor, an ancient old codger by the looks of him, whom the majority of the gathered crowd watches as one might observe an especially interesting insect. Detached, apathetic. No one is inclined to help.

It's profoundly unsurprising.

"What's all this?" He moves toward the figure without hesitation, pausing beside him to take in the bystanders. Some are already losing interest now that the entertainment's over, returning to their inane chatter, their drinks. "Nah, lemme guess," he mutters dryly as he stoops to get a better look at the fellow, "you expressed an opinion."

And had the misfortune of presenting himself as an easy target, if he's truly as frail as he looks. Not keen on grabbing at him and potentially worsening the situation, Daryl refrains and instead offers an arm to help the man stand. "Unless you're hungry, let's pass on the meat. I can round up somethin' better."

Merlyn takes a deep, rather rattling breath, and dabs at his eyes with the hem of his sleeve. Maybe not all the eggs are broken, he thinks, without much hope. Maybe one or two may still be able to hatch. Or the hatchlings, if they weren't crushed, maybe they are developed enough to survive out of the egg, given close enough care and attention.

But it seems thoroughly unlikely. With a final dab at his eyes (in itself rather painful, since the bruising is already starting to rise over his eye and nose), Merlyn sighs and follows Roland towards the elevators, leaving his hat and its contents on the floor - he could bend to pick them up, but in his current state, he isn't entirely sure he could get back up afterwards. His back is sending dull, sullen throbs of pain out across his hips. He hobbles rather than walking, moving slowly and gingerly.

"My wrist may be broken," he allows, looking down at it. "At the very least, sprained. And I do believe I dislocated my hip. The perils of old age, when the falling does more damage than the beating..." Especially to the poor sparrow hatchlings. He looks at the egg white on his fingertips again, and heaves a sigh.

"Multiple opinions. In close proximity." Merlyn winces, unfolding himself to take the proffered arm, and, steadying himself on it, carefully starts to get to his feet. At one point, he accidentally puts weight on his other hand, and sucks in a sharp breath, wincing visibly. "Dear me. Definitely some muscular damage, there. Ouch."

But he manages to get on his feet eventually, dusting off his robes and giving Daryl a little nod. "Thank you, young man. I - ah! - I appreciate the help. Goodness knows the milk of human kindness runs a little thin around here." Letting go of the younger man's arm, he reaches up to probe cautiously at his split lip, which is swelling at an impressive rate, and the bruises starting on his eye and cheek. "Be a good chap, would you, and get my hat? I'm quite sure I could get down there to pick it up, but not so sure I could stand again, you know?"

Emily had seen the Peacekeepers round the corner, smirking to themselves in smug satisfaction, a spray of crimson staining the white of their uniforms. Her blood runs cold, and while she freezes and turns her eyes to the ground as they pass her, the second they're out of sight she follows the direction they'd come from, bracing herself for what she might find.

Merlyn's the last person she expected to see, though given the way he'd criticised the Capitol so openly before, she supposes she shouldn't be surprised. And if the Capitol had been happy to send children to their deaths, beating up an old man shouldn't shock her as much as it does, but she feels sickened. She drops to her knees next to him, finding her hands are trembling as she places them on his shoulders to help him stand.

"Let's get you out of here."

"I think the eggs are broken," Merlyn says, wiping blood off his lip, and looks up at her. One of his mild blue eyes is already swelling shut, bruises starting to mottle his papery brown skin. "How on earth does one explain that to an expectant mother? She was so glad to find a nest, and now she'll be heartbroken, poor thing."

He smiles sadly, although it looks more like a wince, and lets Emily help him up. When he straightens out his spine, something goes click loudly, and he lets out a little yelp of pain and dismay. His back's always been good to him, considering his age. Now it aches bruisingly all around his hips, a tight knot of pain in his coccyx and another in his gut. He gives up on standing straight, instead bending forwards and holding his damaged wrist against his stomach.

"I would consider it a kindness," he says at last, coughing into his hand, "if you would pass me my hat. Thank you."

"Raw meat would do nothing, old man," Leonidas stood along the strange old Tribute, eyes locked and strong. "Come on, you're in worse shape than the staff tells me to. You're in District 2, correct?"

Merlyn had been one of those Tribute arrivals that the coach thought to be a joke, a flight of fancy by the Gamemakers. But even he, a man raised in the system that nearly broke the old man, could see that the Peacemakers went too far. But if there was proof that underneath the Career there was a somewhat decent man, it was in the way that Leo handed all those papers and how he sent an Avox to get the lens fixed. "They tell me you had birds in your beard. As stupid as that Offworlder tradition is...are they all right?"

Offworld or not, animals got a free pass from Cora: they were bystanders in this lunatic's mistakes.

"It isn't a tradition," Merlyn retorted, his huffiness rather spoiled by how thick his voice was, his fat lip making him slur. "She needed somewhere to make a nest, and your stupid city is rather short on those places." But Leonidas' words reminded him of the nest, which in the heat of the moment he had forgotten, and with a sick sense of dread he looked down and started probing at the tangled mess of his beard.

The change in his expression was slow, but immediately obvious; the hardness melted out of his face, replaced by a look of immense grief and guilt as his fingers found, first the sharp edge of a broken shell, and then something slick and warm. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he drew out the crushed sparrow egg, and the chick it had held, limp and bloody in his hand.

"Oh," he said, quietly. "Oh, dear. I'm rather afraid they aren't."

The coach sighed and gently took the dead bird from Merlyn's hands, "I suppose you can give it a little funeral or something." He had a bandage come and wrapped the tiny corpse in it, before handing it back, "Even if it never came to be the bird it could have been."

Cora then had two Avoxes help Merlyn stand, not caring if they were too rough, "You've been here long enough, old man, to know that was idiotic. This is not your forum to squawk your opinions, and if you were so intent on making a scandal, there are better ways. You're lucky you're alive."

Merlyn grimaced, letting himself be helped up, and tucked the dead bird into his sleeve. Although he was struggling to see out of one eye, which was swelling quite impressively, he still managed to fix Leonidas with a sharp glare. "It doesn't seem," he said rather sulkily, "that there is a forum for one's opinions. And I happen to believe it is the duty of every inhabitant of a land to hold opinions, and make them known. That doesn't justify police brutality. Which, by the by, is a sure sign of a government lacking control over its people."

"Only if you're a citizen of the Capitol, and surprise, I'm not." The words were bitter in Leo's mouth, returning the glare with interest. There wasn't dissidence in the coach but it irked him how Tributes could just think that their being here awarded them more rights. As favored as District 2 is, none of the inhabitants were citizens, none protected by the same bylaws.

"You're causing a riot and you had a casualty. Stand down or they will try to come for you again. I can only hold them off as long as you're in the Tower or in my presence."

"It's terrorism, that's all it is," Merlyn muttered, still glaring. "Government-sponsored terrorism. Without even the justification of radicalism. Besides, it's hardly my fault if nobody here's been brought around to the idea of universal suffrage like any civilised society ought to have."

It was pretty clear that he hadn't learnt his lesson. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had learnt a lesson, and that was not to keep fragile things on his person while arguing with the state. That was something, at least.

But he was damned if he was going to bite his tongue and pretend to agree with a corrupt system, just because they threatened him.

That'll do it. Having an opinion.

In a place whose main form of "entertainment" is children murdering each other in arena death matches — even if the death is no longer permanent or limited to children, now that they've captured offworlders — this is all simply par for the course. An elderly man thrashed in public, no one willing to step in. It's a sorry state of affairs. He wishes he'd gotten there sooner, consequences be damned.

"Yeah. Opinions. Those ain't popular around here." The hat (and its contents) is collected and passed to its owner without comment, though Daryl does look over the man's robes with muted curiosity. Definitely not standard Capitol fare, that. But, then, neither is his own attire — worn jeans, fraying sleeveless shirt underneath a black leather vest. And that's about the easiest method of spotting other Tributes in the tower: the lack of ostentatious clothing.

"Think we'd best get you to your room while you still have your tongue," he suggests with a gesture toward the elevators, and he remains beside Merlyn, again offering an arm, in case he needs assistance walking. He's certainly not looking too good. "What's your District?"

"Hm." Roland pauses in front of the elevator, looking back at the bruised old face. "I wouldn't be my first choice to try and mend that, but I might be able to do some little. The medical room'd be far better, if you think you can control your mouth long enough to be treated there."

This is delivered, for the record, with the same tone and expression he has been wearing since he came across Merlyn a minute ago. The words are simply there, for the man to interpret as he will. If there's anything in his expression, it's curiosity. It'll be interesting to see the reaction of a man used to as much power and authority as this version of Maerlyn likely is to having his mistake called out into the open.

Edited 2015-05-18 17:42 (UTC)

"Thank you." Dabbing blood off his lip, Merlyn carefully rearranges the contents of his hat and settles it back on his head. He takes a couple of steps, wincing, then gives up on pride and allows the younger man to help him. His back, belly, and ribs are all aching abominably, and the last thing he wants is to fall down again.

"Two," he says after a moment, clearing his throat. "District Two." With a bitter smile (which reopens the split in his lip, and makes him wince), he adds, "I suppose someone thought it frightfully funny, to assign the pacifist to the District which trains the state's hit-squad. That seems to be about the level of wit around here." He frowns, limping towards the elevators.

"I can control my mouth quite admirably, thank you," Merlyn says, the sharpness of his voice rather muffled by his fat lip. "I have been doing so since I arrived. That is generally how one forms words, you know." Which is his way of saying, with his accustomed level of sarcasm, that he doesn't plan on stopping any time soon. If anything, this beating has hardened his resolve to speak out. Someone has to, after all. A government which rules by fear is not a government that should be allowed to rule unchallenged.

He steps into the elevator as it opens, sighing. "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends," he quotes after a moment, rubbing together his egg- and blood-stained fingers, "than that good men should look on and do nothing." He sounds as if he's talking to himself as much as to Roland. Reassuring himself, perhaps, of his own position. Still, he fixes the other man with a steady look, as if challenging him to disagree.

Edited 2015-05-18 18:28 (UTC)

Roland's frown as he steps into the elevator after shifts into surprise, almost disbelief. Almost, because although he'd wish it otherwise, if Roland were the sort of person to wish such things, many people truly are this stubborn and stupid, and that this man should be too is no great shock. Someone really should, in this moment, tell Roland about the phrase 'never meet your heroes'. He might not disagree.

"They need nothing from you one way or the other," he says, and his voice now is just as sharp as Merlyn's. He presses the button for sublevel 02, and the room starts going down. Training room it is. "If you had your power, that little display just now might have sent a message. Made them wonder if they should act how you wish them to. As it is- what's changed?" His eyes flicker over Merlyn's beard and settle for a second on the tips of his fingers, still sticky with whatever it was whose breaking had brought the old man to tears. "Tell me, sorcerer. What is it that's different now that you've made your stand?"

"Then what the hell do you call what that traitorous troll bastard did? Hm? Isn't that terrorism? Or just a heroic sacrifice for the selfish needs of the few?" For being a coach, Leonidas had a rather passionate vocabulary. "Stand down and, I don't know, write a letter of grievances to President Snow, but do not cause another riot or they will kill you. They were toying with you, I know at least one of them was holding back."

Cora then had the Avoxes settle Merlyn on a nearby comfy chair, "If I have to put you under house arrest until the Arena, I sure as hell will because, guess what? You're not in any position to argue and if you end up dead, you'll be swept under the rug just like all the other Rebels."

Cold hard truths that he's seen in his life.

Merlyn is quiet for a moment, following Roland's gaze down to his fingertips. He does feel guilty, horribly so, over the death of the chicks. A few more days, and they would have been hatched, ready to shift into the little woollen birdbox he's been making. And now they're crushed flesh and fragile bone, mashed to uselessness. Little lives, gone so fast. Because of him.

And yet...

He looks up at the gunslinger, his swollen lips pressed together. "You think you're counselling caution," he says, quietly. "People often do, when all they really mean is inaction. Settling in and accepting the status quo. Let me be clear, gunslinger. I am old. I know what caution is. I know when a fight is a hopeless one." He raises a finger, trembling a little with emotion, but there is something darker and colder in his eyes, something Roland might more readily recognise as the Maerlyn of legend. "I know that Might wins over Right, that lone voices are crushed, that cities fall to darkness and iniquity. I know that as well as ever thou dost, Roland son of Steven, and I will not have thee stand and lecture me on it. Do not think me rash. Do not think me childish. Do not for one moment suppose I plan to change this world and its wrongs alone, but I will not make myself part of it, do you hear me?"

Some of the deeper timbre fades from his voice, and he lowers his hand. "Hopeless as it may be," he says more softly, as the elevator shudders to a halt, "I mean to hold this city to account. And if it kills me, well. I am old. And I doubt I shall be the first."

"Tell me when I ever said that I agreed with the Initiate's methods," Merlyn retorts, wincing a little as he settles into the seat. "Or, indeed, his politics. I don't hold with all this violence around here. Nor should anyone, if you ask me. It's all very bestial, with that particularly human streak of cruelty."

He fusses for a moment, carefully picking through his beard for the rest of the nest. Pieces of eggshell and a couple more dead birds, and then - miraculously - an intact egg. He looks at it long and hard, then tucks it back into his beard, taking a deep breath.

"As for writing a letter of grievances," he says, in a slightly calmer tone, "that was all I was doing. You may note that I dropped it. I don't believe I ever incited a riot, thank-you. Well," he adds, because sometimes one has to be honest, "not for a couple of centuries, at least."

As soon as Leonidas saw the man put the egg back in the beard, he punched the bridge of his nose. "You're not bringing that egg to the Arena, you know that right?"

Ah yes, the exact reason Merlyn was here and not in his homeworld with still-living birds on his person. "It's this exact violence that keeps us from engaging in another major war. It ensures the strongest survive." Even as Cora spilled the indoctrination from his mouth, he still hands the crazy codger his papers.

Roland's mouth is open, his brow is furrowed. He is ready to meet the steel in that old voice with his own, Merlyn or not, and for a second- "Does thee really-"

Panem's eyes weigh down his tongue. There are spots where they wouldn't, spots he could find some later excuse to take Merlyn to, properly explain things. But with a man this determined to be outspoken, this determined to make a stand just as soon as he can get his lips working again? No. It would be foolish. This old man is the same as any other of his type Roland's ever met. Stubborn enough to refuse to question whether he's actually thought of everything, arrogant to drive everyone around him into flames when he refuses to step aside.

Roland can not counsel patience. Not aloud. Can not tell this old man what all that time with all that power has clearly led him to forget.

Well. So be it.

"Take solace in your righteous pride, then. I'm sure it will be enough once they cut out your tongue." The spirit of dramatic exits is with him then, because that is the moment the elevator doors decide to open. Roland strides out them, making toward the little closet housing the training room's medical supplies. He means to patch the old man up with movements firm, but not rough. He means to ask a couple questions, make wordless noises in response. Beyond that, he does not mean to speak.

"Okay, just hold on here." She guides him over to the wall so he has something to lean on, then wanders back to retrieve his hat. She bites down on her lip, breathing slowly and heavily to try to quell some of the rage she feels, knowing it's the last thing that will be helpful right now. "District Two, right?"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 6

Proclaim the truth [OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject