[open] Shame, such a shame...

[shiftingurbulls]

Who| Ellis and open to anyone!
What| El is assmad at being killed so early and then furious at Nick the Dick's death
Where| D4 Suite, D7 Suite, and everywhere in between!
When| Starting Week 2
Warnings/Notes| El's use of the English language is a wonder to behold, mentions of death by fire and zombies

[District 4 Suite]
Dying on the first day was so not what Ellis had planned for this Arena, as he woke up and thrashed in his bed. Within that room is a tornado of anger as the mechanic wished he would have done things differently. He promised Nick and Rochelle that he'd be helpful, that he wouldn't be a burden....and now he was back here and useless to his friends and those he considered family. He was absolutely livid at himself.

So yes, he'll be sitting in the common area for his assigned District, fuming along with the reports and the bloody spectable. This was unfair! He wanted to get out there and keep the promise he made at the bar!

[District 7 Suite]

When news of Nick's death came along, the first thing Ellis did was rush up to District 7 with a weary but still optimistic grin on his face. Death wasn't permanent here, right? At least that's what the mechanic firmly believed. That sourpuss must be raising hell too, he thought as he walked along the hall and knocked on the door.

"Man oh man, yer lucky Coach ain't here to have seen yer fairy-ass, only me an' Ro! " he called out to the closed door, hoping for any sort of response, hell even an insult, but would get none. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Ellis leaned his ear to the door, and let out a small whisper, "Nick, are ya there? Talk to me...you're scarin' me. Are ya screwin' around? Because tha's wha' tha' diva Compson's for, cut it out!"

He sat against the door, not unlike a hopeful dog waiting for his friend, waiting for an answer from his suit-wearing survivor. He couldn't be dead for real, right? "Nick, please don't be gone...please..."

For once since the Green Flu, Ellis was alone again. And it terrified him more than any Tank, Witch, or monster the Capitol had in store for the Tributes.
[Put your own prompt!]

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[conifer]

"...Ah." Her face falls a little, and she steps out of her room fully, leaning on the door frame in the corridor, seeming to not care that a complete stranger is seeing her in her pyjamas. "I'm sorry, but he hasn't made it back yet. We're still hopeful," she adds quickly, thinking about how long it had taken Dorian to return from the last Arena, "but right now he's not ... here."

[shiftingurbulls]

"We're still..." Those words brought no comfort for Ellis as he realized what that meant: that Nick, his Nick was lost to the Arena permanently. His skin lost its color, and he began to rattle for a bit.

"I-I'm terribly sorry then ma'am, fer disturbin' ya, I, uh, I can getcha coffee if you want? I don't mind fetchin' ya a mug, no need t' drag an Avox person outta bed for this. My-my name's Ellis an' I kinda already met Mr. Compson over here."

The young man was trying to fill his head with noise, lest he fully realize the loss.

[conifer]

Emily holds up her hand at mention of Jason, as though she's scared that alone will summon him, even though she knows he won't have left his odd, ramshackle mausoleum of a home to get over here this early. She's tired, it's true, but she can't help but feel bad for Ellis, and tries to offer a small sympathetic smile, but it freezes on the way to her lips as she realises just how shook up he is.

"I have a better idea. How about you go sit over there on the couch, and I'll bring you coffee, okay?"

[shiftingurbulls]

Ellis can't refuse her offer and he settled down on said couch, letting his hands play with his hat. "I'd rather be a real gentleman an' help ya but...well you're the boss here."

And boss she was as there was no sign of the camphor smelling escort anywhere. "You're a Mentor right? You're the one sendin' gifts too."

[conifer]

Her mouth quirks up into a smile, endeared by his need to be chivalric as much as she's refreshed to hear someone refer to her as the boss in the very place of Jason Compson's tyranny. She waves away an Avox who automatically goes to take over the coffee making when Emily steps into the kitchen, wanting to keep her hands busy and thinking that this, at least, she can do. "That's right. Although it seems I haven't done too good a job of that." She'd thought there'd be sponsors queuing up to buy extravagant weapons for Nick, after his performance in the last Arena. She can't help feeling that she's done him a disservice.

[shiftingurbulls]

"Eh, first week's not always the best, I got more fried than a chicken dinner if I'm honest about shit like this," El tried some humor, even if its' about his own death, "You've been doing great!"

He does turn to her own, "You're from here um, District 7? Eh, not the best with y'all Capitolites and Districters. You probably think the same thing too!."

[conifer]

"Yeah, I'm from Seven." The sad nostalgia in her eyes as she mentions it suggests that she misses it there very much. "It's pretty much the opposite to the Capitol - not much, but it's home."

[shiftingurbulls]

Whatever Emily tried to dissuade El from asking, it didn't work as the curiosity he was known for took over, "What's it like? If it's the Lumber district, does it have evergreens an' pines? Are the people there nice? Heh, my momma told me tha' it don't matter if you're from th' Big City or th' farmlands, it's wha's inside tha' counts."

He caught himself, "Sorry about that, the rambling..."

[conifer]

She brings over two steaming cups of coffee and places one in front of him, seating herself next to him and tucking one leg under her, leaning back on the arm of the chair. She doesn't mind the rambling, though now he's cut himself off she feels a little put on the spot, not wanting to break the idyllic image of Seven that he's laid out before her.

"It's mostly pine forests up in my part of the District. Anything you see around the Capitol that's made of wood, it most likely came from Seven." She glances perfunctorily around the room, taking in both the larger items of furniture and the odds and ends of wood that made up the suite. It was like being surrounded by parts of a forest that had been taken and dissected, stripped of personality and shoved in to support the Capitol. She deliberately doesn't look over at the Avox in the corner, a little frightened by the comparison she was drawing for herself.

[shiftingurbulls]

Emily can see how rapt El is at the description, being able to lose yourself in the forests and not have anyone interrupt your reveries. Whatever comparison the mentor was making, Ellis would add something a little more positive. "Sounds like tha's good timber, long lastin' an' people will enjoy for generations to come."

Avoxes were strange for the mechanic who would literally talk to a wall if he could. But something does come to mind as he watches the servant walk around, "Can Nick be turned into one of those guys? Or issat for political enemies an' shit?" As if he missed the Initiate's avoxing.

[conifer]

Emily looks uneasy with the change of subject, especially imagining that she'll lose her tributes to avoxing just as she's lost those from her District. The image of the Peacekeeper with his mangled face torturing rioters for all of Seven to see flashes up in her mind, and she grips the arm of the chair a little tighter. She was sure all those men would be Avoxes now, if they'd survived.

"They wouldn't do that to Nick. The whole Capitol loved him, he was our most popular Tribute in Seven." Which made it make even less sense as to why the Capitol hadn't resurrected him. "Avoxing is for people who are a threat to the peace and structure of the Capitol. It would be bad publicity for the Games to start doing it to Tributes for no reason."

[shiftingurbulls]

"If...If I've learned anything," Ellis spoke in a hushed tone, "Issat this place is fickle an' always changin', evolvin' if I were to be respectful."

He then looked at Emily with such a guilty, lost look, "Wha' if Jason was right? What if bein' so openly friendly to Nick got him killed t' preserve the purpose o' the Hunger Games?"

It was a possibility that gnawed at him ever since he came back and found the room locked away from the population.

[conifer]

"The purpose of the Hunger Games is to kill." She knew she was being oversimplistic, but she says it with a darkness in her tone, thinking back to her own Games. "That was something Nick seemed particularly good at. I don't know why he hasn't come back - and he might still yet, Dorian didn't reappear for weeks after the last Arena - but one thing I do know is that you should never think Jason is right. About anything."

[shiftingurbulls]

"It's a shared skill," Ellis admitted in a forlorn voice, "We used to slaughter Infected by the hundreds, but he had th' capacity to kill someone who was still a thinkin' person. I don't think I ever got tha' far."

But it's the sudden refusal of Jason being right that catches the mechanic off guard, "But he's a Capitolite...right?" To imply anything else is an insult.

[conifer]

Emily can't keep herself from laughing at his surprise, though she glances around to make sure Jason really isn't in the suite before responding. "That doesn't mean he's some font of divine knowledge."

[shiftingurbulls]

Her laughter is sweet, that was noted, and El joins her for a moment, "He certainly knows his way around a suit though." Well, at least the handlers did, and Ellis took a few sips of his coffee, "Have ya been here long? You look a bit spooked an' I know if yer a Victor, yer made o' steel."

Well good bark in her case.

[conifer]

"I've been back around six months now. Everything changed in the time I was gone." Not all of it for the better, though as much as everyone complains about Jason at least he does his job, unlike the last Escort she was teamed with. She smiles at his compliment, trying to hide her unease at it, knowing that Victors were not made of steel but of flesh and blood just like anyone else, and were more fragile than most too. It hadn't been steel or even good bark that had made her survive both in the Arena and up to now, but her own fear.

[shiftingurbulls]

"Ever think about visitin' yer folks? Take a break from all this noise an' chaos? I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could see my mom an' my friends," Ellis sighed, "Guess they coul' see me if I had a way to broadcast th' Games there...tell 'em it's just a game an' tha' I'm safe."

As brutal as it was to have the Hunger Games be some sort of solace, he was trying to spin it as positively as he could.

"Okay, no, terrible idea. Mom don't need to see me killed."

[conifer]

She shakes her head sadly. "There's not much in the way of annual leave now, with the Neverending Quell. At least with the old Games it was only a few weeks a year I had to be away."

[shiftingurbulls]

Ellis knows he shouldn't ask what he's asking, but his mind couldn't catch up with his mouth as the words left him, "How are these games compared to yers?" And he immediately regretted the question. Emily looked spooked, like a once-proud dog beaten but still trying to hold her head high in the midst of everything that can break her again.

[conifer]

"They're..." She trails off, taking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly as she focuses her thoughts back to her Arena. "In some ways they're much better. Far more of the new Tributes have a good chance of winning, the competition seems more evenly balanced than it just being the Career Districts with more of a hope of winning year after year. Then there's the fact that most of you come back to life afterwards. I wish that had been in place in my Arena." She says the last part rather bitterly, then remembers the very reason he's here at all is because his friend hadn't made it back, and looks over at him rather apologetically.

[shiftingurbulls]

"I...I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am..." Ellis felt as if his presence, him having returned from the dead and her own left to rot in the Arena grounds. He looked at his mug and took one last sip. Nick seemed less likely to come back now, and all he and Rochelle could have were the memories. "I should leave ya be, don't need me muckin' up yer day." He knew that bringing that up was a terrible idea.

[conifer]

"No, it's fine, don't worry about it." She gives a shrug, a self deprecating smile. "I have to face it every day for work, it's not like I can escape it anyway. And you haven't done anything wrong."

[shiftingurbulls]

"Really? Are ya sure? I..." He sighed, "I guess...and yer not exactly helped by Mr. Compson. But you, uh, you've got guts, an' lord I woulda-" Ellis stopped short of telling a Mentor that he's dropkick her coworker, "I woulda written a strongly worded letter to whoever's in charge o' this place an' have him take a sensibility course."

Let that mental image sink in.

[conifer]

Emily can't help but laugh a little at the image. "We did all have to go on training during the last Arena. Team building skills and things. I don't think he took much of it in."