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Who| Roland Deschain and the Signless; Roland and you
What| nothing big, just roland waking up
Where| central commons, district twelve, district four
When| week five, a little bit after Roland's death
Warnings/Notes| no warnings that I know of. I hope the way I did the prompts is clear, but if not just have your character meet Roland anywhere.

The room Roland wakes up in is well familiar by now. The worry he wakes up in, though, that's new, and for a moment it shoves the more normal questions of where and when and what into the back of his mind. He wakes with Alain's name on his lips, already half-sitting up and looking around - but no. Alain isn't here, is he. That wolf is dead. Killed before it could do Alain any damage. This does not mean that Alain is safe.

He lets himself fall back, runs a hand over his jaw and stares at the ceiling. But there is nothing he can do for Alain, not anymore. His old friend will be interesting enough to bring back after this arena, or he won't. Roland steels himself to this, to the waiting, and then sits up, breathes. Heads out.

The lobby of this building is as busy as it usually is, newsmen and hangers-on and sponsors, people in all manner of outfit with all manner of things to say. It's strange after the isolation of the arena, life and movement all of a sudden everywhere, and for a moment Roland simply stands near the center of the room, not caring whose way he's standing in. (A)

After that he makes his way to the bar, spends some time leaning on the counter even after he's gotten his coffee. Just looks around, less focused on whether he accidentally makes eye contact with anyone (though that ought to be a real concern on this particular level of the tribute tower) and more concerned with stirring in a good amount of sugar. More than he'd usually use but, though his body is refreshed, Roland's mind is still certain it's spent the last few weeks sleeping badly, and it isn't as if this place doesn't have the sugar to spare. Witness Roland Deschain, indulging himself. (B)

Once he's got a better feel for this place he heads up. All the way up, almost, and doesn't bother to explain himself to any residents of district twelve who may see him wandering around there. He peers into the common room, the kitchen, then heads to the mentor suites and opens one of its doors with nothing more than a brief, brisk knock. This particular room is one he's been in many times, and the way in which the Signless has it decorated is intimately familiar. The most familiar part of that room, though, is missing, and Roland still does not bother to explain himself as he heads back out of it. Surely anyone living on this floor will be familiar enough with the sight of him. (C)

Finally, to the level for tributes of district four. Given all the floors are arranged the same and the avoxes quickly clean any identifying clutter, there's little reason for the familiarity that greets him here. But the fish in their little bowls all around the common room are familiar, the view outside is familiar. He spends a moment in just standing there and then snorts to himself, more focused on his thoughts on that familiarity than on explaining to anyone who may be around to hear. (D)

(closed to Signless):
The tea sitting in the kitchen cupboards too, thankfully, is familiar. There's more coffee up here, but he's made tea so often in this room that that is where his hands first head, and he lets them. That is, until the metal teapot slips out of a loose grip, bounces off the counter, and clatters onto the floor.

"Shit," he says, and the frustration in his voice is not at the noise nor at the spill, although he does watch the water spread for a second, lifting up his right hand and running his fingers under the small metal box sitting where his lack of fingers used to be. The skin there is red and inflamed, and the hand's two mechanical fingers don't curl as the other ones do, instead sticking out from the metal all still and stiff.

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Harley wasn't entirely sure Roland believed her. Heck she wasn't sure he even cared. But he wasn't trying to escape so that helped. She couldn't help but offer a rueful smile.

"Yeah I guess I did make it pretty clear how much fun I had. But I mean...I guess it's a matter of hindsight. Because on the one hand." She held up a hand as if she could indicate more clearly that way "You've got adventure, battle, sweat and tears and drama. Real human emotion. On the other hand, going pee outside and starving. Plus the inevitable dying thing which is only cool if it happens fast and flashy like when I saved Babs or took out Shepard after she clotheslined me. If it's slow and painful like...well both times that Susie Q put me out of my misery? Not so fun."

"Honestly? I don't even know. It's like...maybe I'm the one who needs to change right? But then if I do am I betraying everyone who died before me? Am I betraying myself by letting this place turn me into something different?"

Clearly she had too much time on her hands if she was thinking of things like this.

"Starving and peeing outside is the real part," Roland mutters, and his tone's absent because he's thinking mostly on what she'd said after. Heavy thoughts for someone who's come back to life not an hour ago, who hasn't quite shaken off the part of his mind that insists it's back in that arena with the trees and the pain and the wolves. Heavy, but important. Roland may not have any sympathy to spare for this woman or for her grief, but those are questions that could apply to any one of them, to Roland or any of those Panem calls 'offworlders'.

"I'd be surprised if you could avoid it," he decides, moment of thought completed. "People change. Time changes them. When Cuthbert-" He pauses then, looking more surprised than he should to hear the name of that old dear friend aloud, considering he's the one who said it. Surprised that he's saying it to her. But the situation he's going to speak on does apply, it isn't as if he's saying it just to share. "We were boys together when I knew him best. He was a boy when I knew him here. And I wasn't. Foolish of me, to try and keep him close as I did expecting that nothing had changed."

Roland realizes he's looking more into the distance than at anything in the room and focuses, looking back over at her. "You've changed, even if in ways you don't know about. We all will, before our time here is done. Will it bother you so much, at the end of all this, if some of that change has been deliberate?"

It was always of fascination to Harley how sometimes the truth can seem so obvious when someone else says it, but when you're alone it simply can be seen.

"You've got a point. I once knew a guy, he used to say the greatest power humanity had was it's ability to change." She smirked nostalgically. "Funny thing was this came from a guy who wore the same five polo shirts every week to class because it provided him with stability. I guess we all cope with stress different ways."

But back to the topic on hand.

"Someone asked me real early on in all of this to do what I did best back home. Turn things on their head. Be baffling and weird and annoying. Drive everyone around me as nuts as possible. Sounded easy at the time but the only people I've done that to are other tributes. So I guess I'm afraid if this place changes me I'll never go back to that girl who used to run circles around the best and brightest back home by being looney tunes."

"And lets face it, I dunno who I'm gonna be. And people are always afraid of what they don't know."

He grunts, nods, and takes a drink of his coffee, then takes a moment to appreciate the taste before he replies. "That fear's doing you no favors, but it's no business of mine what you decide. Is that why you decided to speak to me? To see if you could without driving me as nuts as possible?

She smiled once more and it spread into a full grin.

"How'm I doing so far? Should I throw in more serious gazes and self deprecation? Maybe an anecdote about how you remind me of a professor I had once or how Susie forgave me in the Mall arena?" Unless he'd already seen that on the recordings of course.

"You're doing alright," he says, responding not at all to her smile. Roland's expression, if anything, goes a little more focused, and he leans an elbow on the counter to turn more fully toward her. No point in pretending she hadn't caught his attention, there. There's no way she doesn't know a winning hand once she's got one.

"So long as that wasn't a lie. Or a joke. Tell me of it. Tell me how it was between you." And know I'll be checking your story after, Roland thinks, but only distantly. He's too hungry to hear more to think too much on threats. His own memories of Susannah's time in the Capitol are familiar, old ground, and to hear a new memory from the mouth of someone who, in their way, loved her - well. There really is no point in pretending his attention isn't caught.

"Well..." And this was the part she really thought was funny "By the time we were friends again she killed me. And would you believe that was the second time? That girl really knows how to put someone out of their misery."

She waved the bartender over and ordered a stronger drink. She'd need it to work through this next part.

"Susie was still steamed at me for trying to get her to embrace her Dettaside. And I can't blame her. I was a real louse and pretty blind that I couldn't see that Susie was the best parts of Detta and her other bits."

That had been the biggest bone of contention for them.

"She found me in a toy store and finally explained to me why I just couldn't work it out. I was so sure that it would make Susie happier if she was at peace with the parts of her that she hated. But she didn't want peace with Detta she wanted to push Detta down deep and hate that part of herself forever."

Something Harley didn't see the logic in even to this day.

"So we had an imaginary tea party and I cried a lot because I wanted my friend back, but she wasn't willing to forgive me so easily. Finally she found me nearly dead and promised that she'd meet me back here in the Capitol and we'd have pie together."

Receiving her drink she took a long swig from it.

"Then she put me out of my misery and drove off into the night. After she died in the arena she never came back and I never got my pie or my friend." She bemoaned.

She managed to say the word died without making it obvious she knew Susie had been swept up by D13. Whatever they were doing out there though she hadn't responded last time Harley had called and she feared the worst.

Roland, on the other hand, is determined not to fear the worst about Susannah's silence. He is taking what Wyatt had told him about Susannah having gone on some sort of distant mission a while back and about district thirteen's habit of playing their cards very close to their chest, and he is holding on to it. Perhaps he should rather know for sure one way or the other, but whenever he thinks on that idea a deep down part of Roland quails at it, shrinks away and reminds himself that people lose contact in war, sometimes for a very long time. That this is just the way things are, and even all the magnificent things that Panem's machines can do can not completely prevent it.

So Roland believes that Susannah is alive. Or rather, that there is no way to be certain whether she is or isn't, and so that she and the strange, chaotic creature in front of him may again meet some day with one another. Which is why he decides to poke his nose in. There is something in that trouble between them that it does not seem to him that Harley has understood, and it may do Susannah some good down the line if he can, by some slim chance, get her to see it. Although if she gets too far into that second drink before he does it, it may be a lost cause.

"I don't know if Susannah ever explained to you what being a gunslinger means," he says after a slow drink of coffee, because like hell is he forgoing that particular indulgence no matter what they happen to be talking about. Besides, there's that caffeine in it, and the sugar. He needs it. "Some of it means taking those parts of ourselves, the Detta parts, and keeping them clean and in good shape. Ready to use. And then not using them until we see that the time is right. You have something like Detta in yourself, too. Not the same, I think, but almost similar. But you're no gunslinger. If Susannah was angry at you, unwilling to trust, it isn't because she wanted to know that you liked the Susannah part of her better. Do you understand?"

It's honest, that last question. He's willing to try a couple more times to explain, if he sees Harley genuinely try to think over it. It isn't an accusation of any kind, or at least it isn't meant as one. Roland really does want to know.

Harley listened...really listened. Listened harder to Roland then she did to most people because not only did she long to understand Susannah but he was actually giving her the time of day when so few people did anymore. The attention starved part of her was actually coming in handy.

"I think so. I know that Susie explained to me that what I did was a huge violation of trust. And even if I was just trying to help, and even if that would have helped which...go figure it didn't...I went about it the wrong way. Which ain't a huge surprise looking at my track record."

If she was honest with herself, since her psychological break she only really managed to help half of her "patients" the other half she made worse.

"Heck it took me till that next to last talk to even understand I had the whole thing backwards. But she never did get around to telling me what it is you Gunslingers did. I always figured it was like those old west movies. Travel around, shoot people, get paid. Mysterious, usually stubbly."

"There is always a price to be paid once the shooting ends, but we were never the ones to collect. Your movies about your west steered you a little wrong. There's never been a gunslinger, at least not a genuine one, who works as a mercenary." There isn't really any offense in his voice, because she'd have no way of knowing. There is some arrogance, though, that Roland neither notices nor thinks about, disdain of the very idea of shooting for pay. "We served. Kept peace, where it could be kept. Where it couldn't -" He shrugs. "We saw that such matters were settled. At least, in my father's time, and his. Even mine, to some extent."

"And yes. that's it. Trust. I don't know what it was that drew you two to one another, but I do know a gunslinger has to be able to trust - or at least roughly predict - the things around him. Anyone who might at any moment compromise the gunslinger's self could never be kept close. Perhaps the person you're afraid of becoming could be, depending on whatever changes it is that you're trying to make. But it's no wonder Susannah resisted all your pleas so. All you ever offered was the fact you still cared."

He pauses, runs a hand over his face. "But without speaking to her, I may never know. There's much about her I don't know. It's possible you saw a side to her I never knew was there." The words aren't a question, but his expression is. He's still hungry to hear more about Susannah, as hungry as Harley is.

"Yeesh." Harley looked impressed, so impressed that she was still sipping her drink even though it was empty.

"You guys really are a bunch of goodie goods in a way. Not even getting rewarded for doing the right thing? I've got a guy who dresses like a bat who'd probably love you all if he didn't hate guns so much."

And now she was imagining Susie in a Batgirl costume. That was delightful.

"I dunno...I always thought it was her Detta side that was drawn to me. Spirit of chaos and mischief or whatever. But maybe it was just...Susie. Maybe something in her crazy little heart thought it could help me out and she just got burned for trying." She slid her empty drink back to the bartender who took it away to clean the cup.

"All we can do now is swap stories and watch the videos. And I'm sure we'll each keep some parts of those stories to ourselves." She winked and offered a mischievous smirk.

But if nothing else they'd managed to once again find a common ground despite their differences. Susannah. And with a little luck maybe she really was still out there in District 13 just waiting for her friends to catch up to her.

The bat thing does get Roland to raise his eyebrows, but the conversation swiftly moves on and he slots it into the category of things people say that he will probably never understand. He listens, though, is listening much more closely than he had been when Harley had first come up to him.

"I'd watch some of those videos with you from time to time, if we can find them," he says, sounding cautious. He feels cautious too, but if she does do it he'll be able to keep an eye on her and whatever changes she says she's trying to make in herself. Or he can try. Besides which, it happens to be true. Roland does want to listen to Susannah's voice again, hear about her from someone who knew her. That he wants to do this with Harley surprises him a little, but he does not question it. It'll be good for him.

Her eyes light up at his suggestion.

"Are you kidding? I've got ALL the best recordings stored on my tablet up in the district suite. We can totally watch them together. You just name the place and time scruffy. I'll even bring a pecan pie! It won't be as good as the kind Susie made but I bet she'd approve of it."

Sometimes all it takes is a little effort, proving that you're willing to try and be better.

Or sometimes...like with Susannah, it takes more then just good intentions.

But one way or another, Harley's going to improve herself or go crazy trying, and maybe just maybe Roland can help with that...

...is she doesn't drive him insane first.

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And /end <3