thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who | Fitz and YOU!
What | Fitz has been dragged away from his Extremely Vital Quest and dumped in a weird city. This does not please him.
Where | Around and about
When | A few days after the Crowning
Warnings/Notes | None yet; will update if needed

A: The District 11 Living Room

Fitz awakes aching and exhausted, and lies for a while in the darkness behind his eyes, feigning sleep as he pieces together what he knew. He had just come from the Elderling city, mired in the tug of the Skill, when suddenly he had awoken in a cold, bare room, foreign in its strangeness. Awareness of the severity of his situation had come in waves; no Skill river in which to reach, not a flicker of life showed to his Wit-sense, not even an awareness of the distant bond with his wolf. He had no weapons, and they had taken his clothes and his pack, and with them his elfbark and herbs. Locked up, alone and unarmed in a strange land, it's no surprise that when the Peacekeepers came for him, he hurled himself into them, trying to get past them and away. He had, he recalls with a flicker of pride, knocked the teeth loose in one’s mouth, and kicked in one’s knee with a force that would not soon heal, but in return he received a solid beating, and a blow to the head which sent him spiralling down into one of his seizures, to awake here. The bed is soft and silk-sheeted. There is blood in his mouth where he has bitten his tongue, and the area above his eye feels tight and bruised. At least one rib is bruised if not broken. But mostly, he felt wreathed in the unbelievable sore tiredness that followed a seizure. And mostly, he’s bone-tired, stiff and sore from his seizure, and cursing himself for showing that great weakness.

Without his Wit, he can’t tell if there are others in the room with him. Certainly, he’s no longer in the cell he woke up in before, but was he moved by his captor or rescued by someone else? Either way, it seems likely that as soon as his hosts know he’s awake, someone will come for him. And unarmed and disorientated, he has little chance of escaping this room if they do. Best to move fast. Cautiously, he cracks open his less-sore eye. The lights hurt his head something awful, brighter and harsher than firelight or daylight. The room is empty. He lies still a moment longer, gathering his thoughts, eyeing the room from under his lashes, then moves sharply.

He swings himself out of the low, soft bed, ignoring how the room swims around him, and, lurching slightly, makes for the door. To his surprise, it opens easily. The first door leads into an odd ceramic and silver anteroom, walled with mirrors; a dead end. The second leads into a hallway, and from there into a glass-walled room, laid out with low tables and soft chairs. He moves into the living room near-silently, warily, like a caged wolf. Distracted by a combination of concussion, Skill-headache and exhaustion making his vision blur, and lacking the familiar warning of his Wit-sense, he doesn’t notice there’s someone else sitting in there until he’s already moved out of the cover of the corridor.

B: The streets of the Capitol

Later, after having this place explained to him (however loosely) and after his test, he is surprised to find that he is free to leave the building. On the pretext of visiting the market, he has determined to find the edge of the city and plot his escape before they throw him into this deathmatch. But now he’s out in the city, he finds it almost distracts him from his plans. If the magical tower with its sourceless light and great glass walls and self-opening doors was strange, these streets are incomprehensible. He recognises not one in a thousand things that the huge glass-fronted stores display in glittering mounds, there are vehicles that make no sense, and even the people passing him, with their impossibly colourful hair and skin, and shimmering, shifting, oddly-cut clothes, are so alien as to be barely recognisable. They seem barely human. Elderlings? he wonders briefly, but puts the thought from his mind. If they are Elderlings, they seem hardly likely to come to the aid of the Six Duchies, when they are so venal and sick as to battle humans for sport. What’s important is to gather what information he can, then return to his friends and to Verity.

Admittedly, that currently mostly seems to take the form of standing, rather dumbstruck, in the street, looking very lost. This place is so confusing.

C: The Training Centre

There is one place in this odd city that seems almost familiar, and that’s the training centre in the building. The room itself is as strange as everything else, but the familiar weight of weapons in his hands is oddly comforting, especially when, bereft of his weapons, his Wit and his poisons, he feels much more vulnerable than he’d like in this strange and hostile place. And, having decided it best to present himself as a predictably aggressive soldier, he feels no qualms about being seen here. Not to mention, the more he sharpens his rusty skills, the better his chances of survival.

Hefting a suitable sword, he goes through familiar drills swiftly and neatly, one by one. The physical exertion frees his mind, takes him back to a time before everything went so wrong, running the same drills again and again out in the yards before Hod the Weaponsmaster’s sharp eye and critical tongue. By the time he pauses, panting, and notices that he isn’t alone, he feels almost cheerful despite his situation. The exercise is good, and he is feeling the benefits of relief from the constant guard he has had to keep on his Skill for the last few weeks on the Skill-road.

He throws the newcomer a wolfish smile, tossing his sword from hand to hand. “Looking for a sparring partner?”

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"Cut out their tongues." Éowyn lowers her longsword, not without some relief, and moves to unbuckle her shield - her arm, sore as it is, can't bear that weight usefully for very long. Besides, it gives her a reason to look away, and thus stop him from seeing the haunted look in her eyes. "They do something else to them, as well. To their minds. I know not what it may be, but they seem unable to fight, to even contemplate disobedience."

She manages to keep her voice steady and matter-of-fact, but it's an effort. The Avoxes represent everything she fears becoming. Trapped in their own bodies, unable to fight, unable even to speak out - the ultimate imprisonment. She would rather die a thousand torturous deaths than face a day in such a state.

Settling her shield against the rack, she rolls up her sleeve and prods experimentally at her arm, which is a little swollen. There's nothing to be done about it that she can see, though, so she pulls her sleeve back down and wipes a little sweat-damp hair out of her face. "How much did they tell you, ere you tried to beat them down?"

Fitz swallows, slicking loose hair back with one hand. He's heard of similar punishments meted out to slaves in Jamaillia and the Chalced states, but it has always been far-off barbarism. He curses himself for only now thinking about how awful it is, even as he realises that he will have to be even more careful than he thought. His jaw shifts, a combination of hate and fear naked on his face. What she describes, the way in which they enter people's heads, makes him think uncomfortably of the Skill-imprint he found on Burl and Carrod's minds, the way the magic had been used to push people into actions against their very nature. He had sworn once, and now inwardly swore again, that he would die before he let that happen to him.

He realises his knuckles are white on his sword. Carefully, he lays it back in its proper place, and sets his back to the wall as he answers her, probing his ribs as he tries to assess the damage. It really fucking hurts.

"Very little. They opened the door and I threw myself at them." He winces, comes to the conclusion that it's just quite bruised, and lays off. "But the escort for my District met me when I awoke from the beating they gave, and explained something of our situation. And then they returned for me, to take me to the show circle."

"Let me see that," Éowyn says briskly, noticing his probing, and slides her own sword back into the rack. "I was a Healer ere I came to this place. I may be able to do something to help, if I have hurt you." She strides closer to him, her businesslike attitude a good cover for the sick disgust that the discussion is twisting up in her gut. It also makes it easier to keep her sympathy in check. If she slides into a persona that lets her be useful, then she can push away the need to think. As if that hasn't been the exact process that's led to her blistered hands and damaged arm.

"Which District is it?" she asks, after a moment. "If I can ask."

"It wasn't from you," he hastens to reassure her. "I caught a boot with it when I arrived. I thought perhaps it was broken, but the pain isn't that bad."

Nevertheless, he peels up his shirt, both so she can look and so he can. He hasn't really taken the time to sit down and look himself over, beyond a cursory glance, and it looks a bit worse than he expected, now purpling and swollen up the left side of his chest. Other, smaller bruises have started to colour on his back and side, but he doesn't particularly mind those. He's had worse beatings, even excepting the ones dealt out with the intent to torture or kill. It's just annoying, more than anything else.

"District 11," he says after a second, realising he didn't answer. "Does it matter?"

Unwrapping the soiled bandages from one hand, Éowyn wipes the blistered palm on her shirt and starts to examine his bruises, slow and careful, watching his expression for signs of pain. "It matters in some ways," she says as she works. "Who takes responsibility for you in the Arena and out of it. Where you live, and with whom. Who profits from your success and suffers for your failures. Hold still, this will hurt." This as she drops to one knee, steadying herself on his side, and begins to press more firmly at the rib he was worried about, feeling for any irregularities or give that he, distracted by pain, may have missed.

When she's done, she straightens up, jerking her head towards the exit. "There are medicine boxes in the rooms, and I have been gathering what herbs I can. It may be we can do something to bring the bruising down." Still matter-of-fact, her training not forgotten but put aside for the moment. Her training has been working off nervous energy, but that is precisely because she hasn't been able to be useful. Which means Fitz is getting medical attention whether he likes it or not, for her own sake as much as his.

"I am in District 10," she tells him, starting for the stairs and beckoning him with her. "The floor below yours. Should you need a friend, you will be able to find me."

He stands still as she prods him, his face set. There isn't any give - if there's a break, it must be a hairline fracture, but it's mostly just puffy and tender.

"I looked through the medicine box in my rooms," he says, tugging his shirt down to cover his bruised and scarred torso and following her. "But I recognised little in it. I have some little knowledge of herbs-" which he is vastly understating, very deliberately, because it would be stupid to show his whole hand to his captors, but he suspects many of the herbs he's familiar with don't grow in this place anyway, just as elfbark is unknown in the Inner Duchies - "but the labels on these tinctures and pills show strange words, and I have little knowledge how the names of things differ here. I would welcome your help."

"I am no more a native," Éowyn says over her shoulder, "yet I have been here some time now, and may have a little more familiarity. Some of the tinctures and ointments they leave us are, by my estimation, but different ways of sharing the same - 'aspirin', to my best guess, has the same effect as powdered willow, and 'K-cream' as arnica. Others I know not, but I have asked after their effects."

She considers the elevator for a moment, weighing her hatred of the tiny metal boxes against convenience, and then starts up the stairs, looking back at him.

"Some herbs I have managed to grow on the roof, or beg from others. Others are nowhere to be found. Were I yet allowed to be a Healer, it would grate far more sorely. But they would have me be a warrior, so it is less my concern." She frowns a little. "I did not give my name, did I?"

He lopes after her, considering what he found in the box. He'll have to look for some sort of herbal, do some research into the plants they derive these medicines from. He'll look into that shortly, he decides, and then realises once again that an answer is required of him.

"No, my lady. Only the tip of your sword." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he realises how rude he sounds - especially since it was him who had asked her to spar - and flushes hotly. "Not that I'm complaining! Sparring with you has done me a power of good." Smoothly covered, he tells himself sourly as he stammers to smooth over his thoughtlessness.

If Éowyn is insulted, she gives no sign of it. Weeks spent with people like Firo and Jack have dulled her expectations of manners, and in a way, she appreciates it. She'd rather have truth than manners, in any case. She does feel a little bad for how he stammers and blushes, though, and pats his arm in an attempt to silently tell him she doesn't mind.

"And me," she says, with a thin little smile. It's true, though the relief of sparring comes as much from his newness, and the distraction that offers, than from the fighting itself. "Éowyn they call me. Lady of Emyn Arnen, ere I came hence, and a daughter of the house of Éorl - yet such words and titles hold little meaning here, and Éowyn alone I am."

His smile is rather shy and awkward, and he sketches a bow. "Fitz. My name's Fitz. FitzChivalry Farseer, as was, but I'm not sure I've ever lived up to my father's name."

"I know many who fear the same," Éowyn tells him, not without warmth. "My own husband among them. I should lay such fears to rest, for it is my experience that those most fearful of failure in such regard are those least prone to it." She gives him a little smile. "But if Fitz is all of that name you would keep, then Fitz it shall be."

"One way or another, FitzChivalry Farseer died some time back," he tells her. It's partially that he instinctively trusts this woman who is so full of pain and anger, despite himself, and mostly that his name means nothing here. Nobody here knows about the legends springing up of the evil Witted bastard, who clawed his way out of the grave. It's liberating in a way he's never felt before, and certainly not in the tense fucitive life he's lived of late, to speak freely of his name and his birth without fear of the consequences. "I'm what's left. As soon call me Nameless, for all it's worth."

But please don't. Regal's jeering words never quite leave his mind - you have but to scratch yourself to find Nameless the dog boy. Well, here he is. Without purpose, without meaning, without identity. Here, then, is where he will find out if he's right to fear that Regal was right about him.

Éowyn is quiet for a moment, ascending the steps with a thoughtful expression drifting over her face. "Sometimes," she says quietly, with the air of one speaking from experience, "that is when we are most ourselves, and most worthy. When names and houses and family are stripped away." She's thinking, of course, of her time riding in the ranks as Dernhelm. But it doesn't go beyond notice that she's in much the same place here, where all that held meaning to her has been taken, and what she says is as much in reassurance to herself as to him.

Either way, she shakes it off quickly enough, pausing on one of the little landings. "It sounds as if hardship has dogged you. If I could, I would hope for you that it could end here."

She echoes his thoughts, and he shakes it off, laughing dryly. It isn't as though he made a particularly good showing when he was Cob, or Tom Badgerlock, why should things change now he's Fitz-away-from-the-Duchies? And he won't correct her, tell him he has no house and no family and now no name. Why explain it at all? It's meaningless here.

"From what I've been told, that seems unlikely. But I thank you for your courtesy, nonetheless."

She nods a little, agreeing with his assessment. "Unlikely indeed, I fear. Yet there are wonders in this place that may ease some hardship, at least. I have been here for some months now, and still stand amazed at some of what they take for granted in this land."

It isn't a lie. It is, in fact, the only good thing she can really bring herself to say about the place, and she feels that he may need that little reassurance, however slight it may be. That's also why she bites back some of the things she wants to warn him of: how nothing here is stable, nothing can be trusted, how they will offer you loved ones and take them away just as suddenly, how every word and move and tear must be watched, how after all that they expect gratitude.

A little digging brings up another rare bright side, memory reawoken by the smell of her clothes as much as anything else. "There is good horseflesh here, too," she says after a moment. "Their care is abyssmal, but if such things are to your interest, I could show you the stables later."

"I had a taste of that, when I arrived. Wonders to preserve food, to cook without smoke or flame, such tall windows of clear glass, bright lights and clean paper. Little things, such as one would never think to wonder at." Though it all seems sterile and limiting to him, he nevertheless is smart enough to realise how wonderful he would find these things divorced from their hideous context.

The sudden brightening of his face betrays his interest. While he sings the praises of the little amenities offered by the Capitol, the whole place is alien and unwelcoming. The awful shadow of the Arena and the tearing away of his friends and quest and world and Wit-partner aside, he has felt so isolated and closed-in by this world which offers no glimmerings of animal life save pampered pets treated as little more than accessories. Stables and horses, the smell of leather and warm bodies and fresh hay and manure, hot horse-breath and stone and straw underfoot, would do much to, if not soothe him, then at least ground him. Something more familiar and more homely than even these weapons drills.

"Yes," he says hoarsely, trying not to betray his enthusiasm too much. "I never thought them to have horses here. I'd expected them all to have been replaced by some marvellous clean-burning machine that folds into a tiny box when not needed."

"I feared the same," Éowyn says gravely. Then, with a flash of visible anger that actually comes as something of a relief to her after so long holding it back entirely, "Though for all the compassion they show them, they might as well be. They are fed as one feeds a fire, without care for diet or amount, and kept ever in their stalls, brought out only for parades. I warned their keepers of it, and their masters, ten times or more, yet when that mare's colic began to show, not a one of them seemed to react but with panic. 'Tis only lucky I was not still in the Arena, or I am certain she would have died."

With an effort, she shakes that anger back, running one hand over her face, and offers him a polite, apologetic smile. "Forgive me. The blood of Éorl's line runs hot at times, and I was raised among horse-breeders and riders of some renown. It rankles to see so little care given to such splendid beasts. But it grows better by the day," she hastens to add, conscious of the ever-present eye of the Capitol, hating herself for bending to that knowledge. "I will show you, when we have seen to your hurts."

"I would think less of you had you reacted otherwise," he assures her, an echo of her anger in the set of his shoulders. Raised by a man as meticulous about the care of horses as only Burrich could be, it rankles with him to hear of beasts ill-treated. "But there again, I'd little expect the people of this shining city to know the proper care of something so primitive as a horse. Raised among devices that bring such ease, who is prepared for the daily toil of seeing to the needs of their animals?" That's skirting very close to outright condemnation, which is annoying, because he's trying very hard to rein it in. But he's firmly of the opinion that anyone who won't watch their horses' health and happiness has little right to keep horses they don't need. "At least you are here to teach their stableboys proper care."

"I hope so," Éowyn says softly, and moves to lead him further up the stairs, towards her own suite near the top of the tower. "I would have my stay here be of some service beyond battle. Healers they have, and with more wonders at their disposal than I could ever have imagined. Warriors are in no short supply. It is some comfort to think that I have other skills that may be of use." Though she carefully doesn't specify to whom. Politic care with words is one thing, outright lying quite another, and she tries to avoid the latter where she can. Not least because every time she says she supports the Capitol or anything they stand for, it feels like forcing venom between her teeth, a little more of her honour, her pride, and her self leeching away each time.

Fitz strides after her, a step or two behind. "To have saved the life of that mare, if indeed you make no other mark on this place, is a thing which has made this place a little better." He truly believes that. After all, the horse isn't responsible for the sins of its owners, and while he's cut down horses in battle he's never been willing to throw away their lives. "If she's alive because of you, your presence is doing good."

Éowyn smiles a little at that, a more genuine smile than before, though thin and sad. "A small enough mark, yet I am glad to hear it spoken of it that way. Would that I could have saved my friends so easily." That last bit is mostly to herself, and wasn't really meant to be aloud, but she doesn't take it back.

His mouth twists slightly in sympathy, but he walks on in silence. He knows that feeling well, and as well knows there's no words to take away the sting.

The silence is hardly comfortable, but nothing has been in the tangled, rage-filled days since the Arena. Éowyn doesn't break it, striding up the stairs with only occasional glances at him, leading him all the way up to the tenth floor without a word. Even when they reach her District's rooms, she doesn't say anything, just steps aside to usher him in.

"Sit down," she suggests at last. "I shall fetch some herbs from my chambers, if you wait here. A tea for the pain, and a poultice for your bruises. There is nothing to be done for the rib, I suppose. Are there any other hurts?" She's already moving to put on the kettle (a thing that's still strange to her, a kettle without fire or obvious heat), looking back at him over her shoulder. As it boils, she fetches the first aid kit from under the counter, carrying it over to him. "There are bandages here, and some of the pills may help with pain and weariness. They have strong healing gifts here - though I am as yet unsure what can be most trusted, and cling to my own ways."

It's a relief to be able to bustle around, to have something real and tangible to do. Looking at it rationally, she suspects she's making mountains out of molehills, but it's a great improvement on standing about in the stables longing desperately for an escape, for home, for anything but this.

Fitz sits somewhat uncomfortably, perching on the edge of the seat. "Little enough that's not been worried at enough. There's little that needs bandaging, and what there is I took care of when I returned from my...introduction." He turns to watch her, and feels the tugging between his shoulders. "Oh. There is that. There's a scar on my back I can't really reach, and I fear it pulled open a little. It's nothing, though. I dressed it as best as I could, and it's no longer bleeding. Still, to have an eye on it would ease my mind."

"One moment, then. Take your shirt off, I will look to it when I return." Her tone is brisk and businesslike, and she wipes her hands on her thighs as she turns to stride to her own suite. Inside, herbs she grew and gathered before the Arena hang from the curtain rail, a sadly small offering. She lingers there a moment, considering, then gathers a couple of the strings of dried leaves and rejoins Fitz in the common area.

"They have no mortars and pestles here," she tells him, with an apologetic little smile, and holds out a little selection of leaves. "Chew these. They will do you no harm, but try not to swallow; I only need them broken down."