Here comes a candle to light you to bed

[homicidium]

Who| Wednesday Addams and you
What| Second place is just the first place loser. Also she kind of hates the Capitol.
Where| D7 Suites, Sublevel 1, the Roof
When| A day after the end of the Arena.
Warnings/Notes| Standard macabre Wednesday stuff.

I. Wednesday wakes up in her room, as everyone does, and takes a few moments to get her bearings. She throws away pretty bouquets, bright and beautiful, and figures out how to change her holographic window into a dark night scene with a full moon and bare tree branches swaying in the wind.

Then she can only do what feels natural. She goes to her bathroom and brushes her teeth and hair, braids it into her two sleek plaits. She scowls at her closet, at all the sparkle and embroidery and color, but then eventually settles on the least embellished dress in there -- it's black and simple, but there's still rhinestones on the white collar, and frilly ruffles along the hem.

She's equally as grumpy in the common area of the Suite, where she's forced to watch herself lose over and over again on the constantly-playing screen. She tries to find food, but it's all sweet and colorful, and none of it even moves or has eyes or occasionally emits a burst of flame.

Miserable, she finds a kitchen knife and sits at the table with her hand spread flat, sadly playing hand roulette to try and make herself feel better.

She misses the Arena.

II. She didn't really know what she'd find when she pressed the very bottom button on the elevator panel. It seemed worth it either way, since it couldn't be worse than the brightness and volume of the Lobby or anywhere else she'd seen so far.

It's not terribly surprising to find what looks like a large parking garage combined with a storage unit, but it's at least sort of dark and dank purely by virtue of being so far underground. It's the most comfortable place she's found in her time here, so she decides to stay a while.

Wednesday can be found here most of the day, sitting in a chariot by herself, curled up with her chin on her knees, quiet. She's sure that she probably shouldn't be here, but then they really shouldn't have given her access, should they?

III. The roof is only somewhere she dares venture after dark, once the sun is gone. The flowers disgust her, but if she sits in the right place and faces the right direction, she can see the mountain range in the distance, past all the city lights, and that's sort of comforting to look at, with the moon hanging low over the far off peaks.

Mother would like that, to go up that high and moonbathe.

Wednesday thinks about lost travelers and those crushed in avalanches, and she feels a little better, running her finger along the embroidery of the cushion she sits on, murmuring to herself.

"Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow..."

Comments

III

[glowygreendeath]

Ermac had come up to the roof in search of somewhere quiet and still to try to regain full communication with his many souls. To an observer, he simply seems to be sitting cross-legged near the edge of the roof in deep meditation. With his eyes closed and the darkness hiding his decayed features, he actually looks like a normal person in leather robes. As soon as he realizes someone else is on the roof with him, his eyes snap open, casting a dim green glow on his face.

He stares at her in silence, studying her every movement. He'd watched the Arena footage, and found her to be a true oddity. Children weren't supposed to be that dangerous.

[homicidium]

Wednesday has a talent for ignoring people she doesn't know or like, and the people sharing the rooftop with her are no exception. While she's no less dangerous, she does seem distinctly less happy here than she'd been in all the footage in the Arena.

There aren't any electric chairs here, and she's not allowed to play with axes outside of that gym place. The clothes and the food and the decorations are all horrible. She misses Pugsley and Lurch and Thing, has no one to play with. But most of all, she misses Mother and Father, their respective presences; how Father makes things fun and exciting and always has a smile and a hug. How Mother is so calm and lovely and makes everything right.

"Who saw him die? I, said the Fly, with my little eye, I saw him die," she continues, distantly aware of being watched, but not caring to address it. The patterns on the cushion are intricate, and she traces each flourish with diligence.

[glowygreendeath]

"We have watched many men die."

He furrows his brow a little as he puts the pieces of the puzzle together. Even just thinking was different now; he could converse with his souls as easily as he could other people and draw on centuries of collective experience, but now he was essentially alone. Every questions he asked his souls was met with, at best, murmuring and the occasional word or fragment of a reply.

Wednesday's stature, clothing, even her way of speaking seemed to suggest that she wasn't from common stock, and his souls manage to whisper something that sounds like it could be 'aristocrat.' That, or 'smells of rat.'

"You are a noble, aren't you, child?"

[homicidium]

She looks up only when she's directly addressed, and she frowns, mostly because she doesn't like being referred to as child. Everyone here seems to know her name, and she doesn't really like that either, but at home, most people at least conform to propriety and ask her what her name is.

"There were noble Addamses," she says, her expression blank in the face of glowing eyes and hidden features. "Mad Addams, Cousin Turncoat, Princess Millicent, Uncle Slackzel. Lady Penelope and Long John Addams, Father's grandparents six times back, were nobles too, but they gave that up to be pirates instead. But we don't have nobles where I'm from, it's not considered very modern. And after Cousin Turncoat and the war, well."

Wednesday doesn't elaborate on that.

"Anyway, that's not even how the poem goes. After the Fly is the Fish."

[glowygreendeath]

He waves a dismissive hand at her.

"And the beetle makes the shroud."

He frowns when none of the names sound familiar to him. He'd at least heard of most of the major families in Earthrealm, Outworld, and Edenia, but 'Addams' brought nothing to mind.

"Which war?"

[homicidium]

Her pout is more at being cut off than anything else, adults are always so eager to have children stop talking.

"The Revolutionary War. There were a few others, he was a professional traitor, but that was the big one. Now America doesn't have any nobility at all, and so none of the American Addamses can have titles, can they?"

It seems simple enough to her. The branches of the family in Europe, some of them still lug around the name Lord or Lady, and occasionally a cousin will marry into one of the withering royal families, but most of the noble ones are dead, buried out in the garden among everyone else.

Death treats everyone as equals.

[glowygreendeath]

"American? Then you are from Earthrealm."

A formerly noble family in America could escape his notice, especially if they weren't active in the Netherrealm War. He gets up from his seat and approaches her. This was an interesting specimen, if nothing else, and he wanted to know more.

"Were you trained as an assassin?"

The Arena footage didn't lie; this girl knew what she'd been doing, even if her size was obviously an obstacle for her.

II

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn has been in the stables, and the route back to the main Center passes through the sublevel. She smells of horse and sweat, a heavy, down-to-earth kind of smell that sits oddly on someone who holds herself so elegantly. Her hands are bandaged, her hair coarsely pulled back into a braid, and although it isn't obvious in the dark, she's been crying.

When she sees the figure in the chariot, she stops dead, her hand instinctively going to a sword that isn't there. When she sees who it is, her face tightens, her lips pressing together. If Wednesday had been an adult, that look says, Éowyn would happily have slapped her. At least.

As it is, all she does is say tightly, "It's you, isn't it? You're the one who killed Arya."

[homicidium]

By the time the woman comes around, Wednesday manages to have procured some figs from the servants, short, not-as-fun Lurches, as she's come to think of them. She's eating them while sitting on the floor of her chariot, having relaxed a little to cross her legs lotus-style and lean her head back against the wall.

She only even knows who Arya is because of the constant footage playing everywhere, and she doesn't know why this tall lady even cares so much. It was a contest, right? Wouldn't she have killed the Arya girl too, if it meant not dying herself?

Wednesday looks up at her with an expression of confused disinterest, taking another bite of her fig. "Yes."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn moves a couple of steps closer, to get a better look at the girl in the dim light of the sublevel. "She ought to have won," she says at last, rather curtly, and closes her eyes. "I had hoped she might. And not only so I might have another chance to strike down that traitorous cur who now calls himself Victor. You could not at least have killed him too? I weakened him as best I could."

After a moment, though, she repents of her sharp tone. After all, the girl in front of her is just that - a girl, by the looks of her younger even than Arya. If Éowyn, who struck down the Witch-King and fought in the Ringwar, fell to Black Tom, then how can she blame this child for doing the same?

Yet that doesn't kill the bubbling resentment inside her. It only brings the remembrance that it is misaimed. It is the Capitol who drove them to it, and the Capitol who killed Arya... and Black Tom who betrayed Aragorn to his death and saw Éowyn fall.

She doesn't apologise, but when she speaks again, her voice is a little less harsh. "Did it upset you, to do it?"

[homicidium]

"I tried," Wednesday protests, wrinkling her nose. "And I don't think it matters who you want to win. I'm not going to let someone kill me just because you like her better. I don't even know you."

She huffs and harrumphs and takes another bite of fig, red juice pooling in one corner of her mouth like blood until she wipes it away with a pout. The woman keeps talking, and Wednesday rolls her shoulder indifferently, her face blank again.

"No. She was trying to kill me too. It's not as if I chased her down for the thrill. She came looking for a fight, and she lost."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn considers this for a moment, then, rather reluctantly, nods. Wednesday has a point. In a kill-or-be-killed situation, the girl chose not to die. Éowyn, even at that tender age, would have done the same - although she would probably have felt at least a little upset by it, which this girl doesn't seem to.

"Why are you hiding down here, in any case?" she asks at last. There's still a little hostility in her voice, and a fair dose of mistrust, but they're overlaid by something a little more friendly. "We aren't really supposed to be on this floor, or so I have been told."

[homicidium]

To be fair, Wednesday rarely seems to feel much of anything, but that's just an external thing. However, she finds it difficult to find it upsetting to have killed someone who isn't dead.

"I don't like it anywhere else," she says simply. "I hate it up there, everything is bright and sparkly and ugly. At least it's quiet and dark down here, and I can hear the water dripping from the pipes, and it doesn't smell like flowers." It smells slightly moldy in the basement, damp and musty.

She wraps her arms around her knees and balances her chin between them. "I want to go back to the Arena, it was nice there."

I

[shiningeyes]

Freshly returned from a fitting, a meeting with some TV producers, and an entirely too light lunch, Gritta's out from beneath Jason's gaze and intent on doing something for herself. That something being sneaking a quick snack. She's padding into the kitchen as quietly as a lady of her stature can, but stops short and watches with a faint alarm as Wednesday plays with knives.

"...that's going to upset someone." Not her, not particularly. She'd hardly dare do the thing herself, but who is she to judge someone's hobbies? Especially the hobbies of someone so talented in the art of murder? She'd been watching the arena recaps. She knew. But it's the sort of thing that's liable to set Jason off and no one wants that.

[homicidium]

Wednesday can only pause, knife tip wedged slightly in the wood of the table, and look over her shoulder at the person speaking. Then her brow knits in confusion, because Wednesday has a very extensive knowledge of monsters, and this doesn't appear to be any of the ones she knows.

"What are you?"

The question is innocent, but thanks to Wednesday's demeanor, it comes off unpleasant, stand-offish. But there's nothing except curiosity in her eyes.

[shiningeyes]

Wednesday's tone gives her a moment of pause, but just a moment. She's been asked the same question much less politely since her arrival here. Being the bigger person here is easy. (And not just because of her weight.) She stands a little straighter, head lifted.

"I'm a Shadow Monster. From the Shadow Line." Which is a perfectly true explanation, but probably explains very little. Still, she watches for the young girl's reaction.

[homicidium]

"I've never heard of that. You don't look much like a shadow, though."

The knife stands straight on its own as Wednesday takes her hand off the table and turns in her chair, resting her arms on the back of it. She looks at this monster with a vague aura of interest, almost examining her.

"What do you eat? Is it people, or only their shadows?"

[shiningeyes]

No recognition? That's fine. It's hardly surprising. She holds in a bit of a giggle, advancing further into the kitchen. "Most haven't. It should be that way. Humans don't know about us, and most have a hard time even remembering us once our darkness has faded." It's a little sad to think about, but perhaps that's for the best. If they're ever to regroup and try again, leaving the humans clueless would be helpful.

She does actually laugh a little at Wednesday's questions, though there's a bit of a shocked gasp and she raises a hand to her mouth. "I eat food, just like anyone else! I absorb darkness to make myself stronger." And then, with a little aside glance and a lowering of her voice, "...I only devour people when it's absolutely necessary."

[homicidium]

Wednesday tilts her head to the side, angling her face to better look up as the shadow monster, which Wednesday is still vaguely suspicious of, comes closer. "So what do you do? Just lurk around in the dark? Since you don't eat people unless you have to. Most monsters eat people. I don't know if it's because we taste good or just because they can, though."

I

[conifer]

Emily emerges from her room late in the morning, looking pale and tired and trying to muster up the energy to stay positive, especially now that more and more of her Tributes were returning from the Arena. She eschews the bright, Capitol colours herself, but instead favours earthy greens and browns, colours evocative of life and growth rather than the absence of it, and she's still holding a phone in one hand, her voice aching a little after spending the morning pitching to sponsors, wanting to capitalise on the buzz of this Arena while she could.

She's been a little nervous about meeting Wednesday in person, given her impressive body count and the ease with which she killed, but that's balanced somewhat by her hope that with her, District Seven has a good chance of a Victor, a hole that had desperately needed filling since Nick still hadn't come back from the Arena - and Emily had long since stopped hoping that he would.

When she sees Wednesday she paints a bright smile on her face. "I'm glad to finally meet you. I'm Emily, your--" It's then that she notices the knife dropping dangerously close between her fingers, and rushes forward to try to grab it from her. "You shouldn't be playing with that."

[homicidium]

The fact that Wednesday is perturbed at all is more due to the abrupt snatch of the knife, which ironically is what causes her to get nicked, the side of her ring finger bleeding just slightly. She ignores it and turns to look at this Emily, finding herself unable to care all that much about who she is.

"I know that, but I don't have much of a choice. There isn't a revolver around."

A drop of blood falls from her hand to the kitchen floor.

[conifer]

She's annoyed with herself for causing exactly what she was trying to prevent, quickly placing the knife on the counter and rooting around for a band aid. "Crap, are you okay? I'm sorry."

She looks even more uncomfortable about the idea of her brandishing a revolver in the suite. "If you had a revolver you'd only put bullet holes through Cassian's decorations." Although they couldn't look any worse for it. "Save that for training."

[homicidium]

Wednesday doesn't seem particularly pained or interested in cleaning up her finger -- she just watches another drop fall to the floor, then turns her attention back to Emily. Her face is flat and expressionless.

"I wouldn't put holes in the wall. I've been playing Russian Roulette since I was six. I only ever get holes in the walls when Pugsley lets the apple fall off his head, but those are arrow holes, not bullet holes."

[conifer]

Emily winces at the idea of her armed with a bow. It had been difficult for her to watch one so young kill so easily in the Arena; it was too close to the old Games for her. "Ground rule number one: no weapons in the suite."

[homicidium]

"That's a ridiculous rule, considering I was brought here specifically to kill people. And that knife came from the kitchen." Wednesday just watches Emily with an unnerving sort of intensity, like she's looking through the woman more than at her.

"So there's nothing to do here except sleep and wait until I'm supposed to start killing again?"