[open] 'cause if this is the life

[wickedgoogly]

Who| Rose and OPEN
What| Rose returns from the arena and adapts to life in the Capitol.
Where| Training Center and the city; various prompts.
When| The weekend of week three on into week four.
Warnings/Notes| Brief mentions of avoxing and brainwashing, nothing else expected.

After her death in the arena via painful lightning strike, Rose eventually revives in time to be hauled off for a sit-down and explanation of how exactly she fucked up, and how she's not allowed to again or else. They show her videos and pictures of two people she's never met, men older than her, who lost a tongue or his own free will for pulling stunts like hers. She is lucky, they tell her, to be let off with only a warning, as if the images won't haunt her for time to come.

Afterwards she's returned to the tower, and sent to the District 5 suites she'll be living in. She only barely looks over her new room before retreating to the showers. Wrapped in towels, for she doesn't trust there not to be cameras, she sits under the cascade of hot water until her fingers turn pruney, and then a little longer after.

A. District 5

It's after clean, dry, and dressed in new clothes that she finally gives her new living quarters a proper look. Her room is comfortable enough, and no one thinks to mention that it used to belong to a recently avoxed traitor. The thought of personalizing it occurs to her, but she holds back yet, not ready to engage with the idea of making a home out of a glorified holding cell.

The rest of the suite isn't so bad, with its kitchenette and common area for sitting in. She sits there from time to time, either to watch the games with an expression tight and unreadable, or with the TV off to engage a hobby. (She likes reading, and it's only so long before she picks up knitting materials.)

B. Out in the Capitol

She doesn't stick in the tower for long. Back in the arena she only heard of what lay outside, and so she sets to seeing the Capitol for herself. She strides along streets, gawking plainly at the buildings and extravagantly fashioned people, and pokes her head into shops.

Some she lingers in longer, like bookstores with their many offerings, or a singular craft store. Merlyn did promise a shopping trip when she first met him, and while she's not so sure of their standing after her violent end, she'd rather not discard the opportunity if it still stands. Still, she admires the selection, and leaves with some nonthreatening wooden knitting needles and a couple skeins of yarn.

A music store eventually becomes host to a show as, requesting to test one of their wares, Rose settles into an impromptu violin solo. It's all improvised and it shows, starting from curious tests for tuning, slipping into short melodies, then progressing steadily into an aggressive torrent of sound. She skitters up and down scales, plays notes short and harsh, then drags out others like agony made to sing. There's no direction but the feelings of the moment, and as a result it ends rather abruptly as the tide of feeling breaks. She lowers the instrument, breathing hard, and soon after asks if the credit card she's been given will be sufficient to purchase the instrument. She's told yes, and one afternoon can be seen walking back to the tower with the black case at her side.

At other times she stops into sandwich shops of cafes for snacks, either in afternoons after the classes they send her to or on the free days of the weekends.

C. Training Center Roof

It's in the evening that she ventures up to the roof to take in the view of the city and the various plant life set about. It's nice up here, cooler than she expected in the June evening, but pleasing for that reason.

She's brought her violin, and it's up here that she sets to playing it properly in short, sweet pieces.

D. Training Floor

It's only so long before she goes down to see the floor for which the center has been named. Here there are the many weapons and stations set up for learning, and while she could try her hand at something new, she mostly sticks to the teaching areas. Edible plants, trap-making, fire-starting: these are important skills, ones she wishes she'd known more of during the arena, and she is studious and attentive to each.

Eventually she does try weapons. With knitting needles not on offer, she takes instead a pair of stilettos - the knives, not the shoes - and practices against a shapeless dummy with them instead. She feels rather silly facing a featureless, immobile target, but she refuses to face the humanoid ones. Still, she ends up mostly poking at the thing, unable to motivate herself to practice serious attacks.

Comments

[fusshionable]

Rose's reply doesn't put Porrim off; she doesn't bat an eye. She's used to these conversations. "I'm glad you aren't," she replies honestly. "Because there are far worse things to be afraid of than little old me." She levels her gaze at Rose. "You're young, but I intend to treat you like an adult, because to do otherwise would be unfair. You're going to be in a lot of rather adult situation, and coddling won't do you any good."

She pauses, shifting to cross one leg over the other. "You'll be in the spotlight quite a bit, and I expect that you'll get used to it, but it'll take time." Porrim leans forward, giving Rose a smile. "And although I don't blame you if you're wary or untrusting of me, I will urge you to see me as someone you can confide in while you're here."

[wickedgoogly]

No coddling? She felt fussy before; now she feels like she's trying to hard. As if Rose doesn't know there aren't worse things, as if she hasn't faced them down personally. It comes off as condescending, regardless of however Porrim might have meant it, to the point of something stifling and claustrophobic. There are expectations ladled in with everything she says.

Rose crosses her own leg in mirror, but does not return the smile. "Is that an earnest encouragement, or a requirement disguised as such?"

It wouldn't be the first time, and not the first here either. She's not particularly interested in a disjointed conglomeration between fussy mother, no-nonsense talent manager, and pushy therapist, and she finds to no surprise that her steady roil of anger at being here hasn't gone anywhere, only eased off from a boil.

[fusshionable]

Porrim's trying so hard to do the right thing here; to be what's best for her Tributes, what they need her to be. It doesn't even cross her mind that she might be trying too hard.

"An earnest one," she replies decidedly. "That's not exactly my Escorting style."

[wickedgoogly]

"Mm." Her legs keep folded, and her gaze slips off to the side, expression impassive. Better an encouragement than a requirement, but it doesn't mean she's any keener on opening up.

"Have you lived here your whole life?" she asks after a moment. She looks back. "If you're willing to answer questions, that is. I'd like to get a better read on your perspective."

Already she's assuming Porrim is nowhere near the right position to understand all she's been through, but she would be curious even without that issue. She's someone who's going to be handling her time and promoting her and generally sharing some part of existence with her now that she's here. She might as well figure out what makes her tick.

[fusshionable]

Porrim can't exactly begrudge Rose her impassiveness. She'd be the same, if the shoe were on the other foot. Feigning indifference. But the question takes her a little by surprise; she's not used to being asked about her life, not by Tributes.

"Mm, all twenty-nine years of it," she replies. "I don't mind." The Escort gives a little shrug. "I grew up here. My father is a scientist. He actually helped invent the tech that brought you here." Something she used to be proud of. Now...not so much. "I have a mother, and a sister--Kanaya. Just a normal family, a normal life, really. Nothing special. I went to school, I graduated, I found a job."

[wickedgoogly]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Rose takes the rest with interest enough and a raised eyebrow at the bit about her father, but that name snags her, bringing eyes wide. Then again, no--it's surely a coincidence.

She smooths her face and says, "I had a friend named Kanaya. Not from here, obviously; she wasn't even human."

It's an easy comment, no strong thought to it. She can't wish she was here, because who deserves this? But she wishes she could speak to her still, if only to learn more about her future, for all she wouldn't be able to jump into the relationship Dave mentioned.

She brings her thoughts back to the present.

"What's it like, growing up with the father responsible for this?"

[fusshionable]

Porrim cocks an eyebrow at that. Is it possible that this girl is from the same world as the trolls? Only one way to find out. "She was a troll, right? Kanaya Maryam?"

It's probably a bit of a truth bomb, but Porrim's own curiosity about her other self, and her kind, make it hard to consider that.

And anyway, Rose is dealing out the harsh questions, and Porrim forces herself not to cringe. "He's a loving father," she says evenly, "and a good man. I don't know that he anticipated what use they would put his technology to." It's a sensible answer, but she has to be sensible. Anyone could be listening.

[wickedgoogly]

This conversation is rapidly progressing in two ways both fascinating and alarming. Her eyebrows scrunch down, and if Porrim thinks she's buying the second then Rose has a bridge to sell her in return.

"Yes," she says. "On both counts. But unless your surname is Maryam too, I don't see why it should be relevant."

Her legs uncross and she sits more forward. "What did you think his technology would be used for? It's hardly a normal thing to snatch people out of their worlds and lives."

Sburb might have done that as a part of entering the game, but she counts it differently. That was temporal predestination, unavoidable and unalterable, whereas this circumvented the system entirely. Dave made that clear in the arena when he told her snippets of her own lost future.

[fusshionable]

Porrim almost laughs. "Unless it is. Which it is." She pulls her staff ID out of her clutch, and hands it to Rose. There's a photo of her, from almost a year before, and the name PORRIM JUMANA MARYAM, DISTRICT FIVE stamped in embossed gold underneath.

"Sorry to break it to you like this, darling, but apparently I'm some sort of alternate version of someone from your world. And so is my sister."

The second question has her shrugging. "I wasn't involved with the development, alright? I don't think my father fully understood the ramifications of how it would be used. But I'm not here to make excuses for him, or for myself."

[wickedgoogly]

The thing about this place is that one thing after another keeps being weird as hell. Some was easier to take, but then, she did expect this place might be a pre-death hallucination when she first arrived. This, though--it's a bit too late for that, and she already had her sort-of breakdown in the arena. (If one counts getting pissed off enough to blow up a castle a breakdown.)

She takes the ID with hesitance, like it might disintegrate under her touch, then holds it close to scrutinize. MARYAM it reads, print solid and clear. Alternate version, she says. Her hand trembles, but she hands (half thrusts) it back to her.

She hears not here to make excuses and takes a clunky brush-off that she shouldn't be asking about something so important to why she's sitting here.

"I suppose this is my hint from the universe that I should give up on trying to understand anything," she quips in a tight tone, less at the father subject than the prior one. "Kanaya never mentioned a Porrim, but that must be yet another thing relegated to the future I didn't get."

It feels like a shitty consolation prize, the kind that looks cheaply made and falls apart in your hands two days later. Sorry you can't live your own life. Sorry you can't get to know her in person. Here, why don't you settle for the sister of her shitty Capitol knock-off?

She'd like to set something on fire again, but she knows that's the last thing she's allowed.

[fusshionable]

This is probably all far too much for Porrim to have dumped on Rose all at once, and she realizes that now. She sits back on the Ottoman, taking back her ID and slipping it back into her pocket. "Sorry," she replies ruefully. "I ought to have eased you into it a bit better, I suppose." Escort School never quite prepares one for the possibility of alternative universe copies of oneself and one's family.

Porrim sits forward, bracing her hands on her knees as if to begin standing up. "If you'd like, I can let you alone."

[wickedgoogly]

Her mouth twists subtly. She supposes. Yeah. It's kind of a joke, isn't it? They bring her here and then don't know how to deal with her. They expect her to be okay, to take it all at once and easy, like she shouldn't be mad as a whole nest of hornets at almost everything around her.

"Do what you want," she says simply. "I think I'm going to head out for some fresh air." To get away from this.

She stands and brushes her skirt straight, waiting only for some sign of acknowledgement or, more cynically, permission.

[fusshionable]

It's all Porrim can do not to heave a sigh, watching Rose stand up before she can even get a chance to. Of course. So she just watches with a neutral expression.

"All right," she agrees pleasantly. "You've got your credit card, I assume? That ought to take care of anything you might need while you're out."

[wickedgoogly]

"Yes. Someone explained it earlier." She has it in her pocket in lieu of a sylladex, and it feels strangely quaint and antiquated in such an advanced city.

"I'll see you another time."

She doesn't imagine she has much choice.

Turning on her heel, she heads for the door. She has no more goal in mind than a walk for now.

[fusshionable]

Porrim doesn't get up, or make any move to stop her. She's merely left watching after Rose with the profound feeling that she just fucked that whole thing up really, really badly.