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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"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."

Obediently, he peels off his shirt. The old, gnarled scar where a chunk of flesh is gone between his left shoulder and neck is very noticeable, and his arms are a patchwork of old and new scars, but what he's concerned about is the still-red arrow scar that stands up between his shoulder blades, only a few months old. He's covered it up as best he can, but there's evidence of fluid leakage on the bandages. He folds his shirt carefully and puts it beside him, then turns to see her reenter the room.

"I've known the head of a stone rolling pin used against a solid worktop," he suggests, "or the use of a sharp knife followed by a clean rock in a heavy earthenware bowl. Neither are as good as something built for the purpose, but it suffices, if you've a need to use ingredients that are as well not swallowed unmeasured, like arnica or carryme." Or any of the many poisonous herbs that are his usual purview, but the medicinal herbs and the poison herbs have a lot of crossover.

Still, he takes the leaves she hands him, bruising them a little and sniffing them before he puts them in his mouth. It isn't that he doesn't trust her, but it's silly to chew on anything when you aren't sure what it is, even if it looks familiar. "Parsley, sage and comfrey? That's a sensible array of herbs to keep, if you're limited in your resources. Might I borrow a little of the comfrey, later?" He folds the leaves together and puts them in his mouth, chewing with his throat closed to stop from swallowing too much of the juices.

"Their only rolling pin seems to be wooden," Éowyn says, heading back over to the kitchenette to make tea and retrieve a bowl. "The side of a knife does some good, but so long as all I have to use are herbs one can cook with..." Striding back over to him, her stiffness starting to show a little in her gait, she holds out the empty bowl. "Spit. You may have as much comfrey as you will. If you wish, and if it has not withered in my absence, I can show you where I have grown it on the roof."

Still holding the bowl out for the mash of leaves, she looks down at his back, her expression dispassionate. She's seen worse scars, some of them on her own body, although the sheer profusion of them is awful. "Your back weeps, but I do not see blood on the bandages. If you would have me stitch it for you, though, I can have it sealed better, and bind it with... well, yarrow would be best, but I have none. But the comfrey will do it some good. Would that I had a little kingsfoil..."

He spits the wad of chewed leaves into the bowl, running a finger around his gums to dislodge any chunks left behind and shaking them off on top of the rest of it. "It's been stitched as well as it may be, but the scar's yet young and easily split. It doesn't feel so bad, but it took a bad infection a few months hence, and I'd as soon avoid another. Vinegar, perhaps, to draw the wound? It would improve the poultice for the bruises, as well." He makes the suggestion humbly, aware he's trying to take control despite her avowedly being a trained healer. "I would have done it already, save I have little supplies, and reaching that part of my back without further stretching the edges is all but impossible. But what of you? Your wrist has taken some injury. I'm no healer myself, but if you'd have a second eye on it?"

"Vinegar would be a good idea," Éowyn agrees with a little nod. She'd already been planning to add it to the mix, but there's no need to say as much; she's proud, but not so proud as to defend herself against something that's no great slight. "But my wrist has taken little enough hurt. It will bruise, and little more. I'd sooner keep it as a lesson." This with a sidelong little smile, as she takes the bowl back over to the kitchenette, adding vinegar and honey and a splash of boiling water and stirring it with a fork.

She leaves it on the sideboard, bringing over a large cup of yellowish, cloudy tea and handing it to Fitz. "Linden, willow, fennel, and honey. It ought to ease the pain, and help you rest a little." Then, with a little smile, "Are you sure you are no healer? You seem more conversant with poultices and bindings than most soldiers I have met."

"As long as you are not flung back into battle before it heals," he concurs, settling slightly as he takes the tea. "You're a consummate swordswoman, but even the best fighter is safest unhindered."

Her words remind him that he's flaunting knowledge he'd as soon not show off. "My mother," he extemporises, remembering that they know something of his life, so avoiding an outright lie whilst not speaking of his time with Chade. "She had a love for gardens and herbs. Many's the hour I spent with her hanging herbs from her garden - 'this for swelling, that for pain, these to stop a woman conceiving' - or poring over herbals with her. She had me copy out pages of her old herbals, painting copies of the faded illustrations, too. I've always had a head for such things, and so I learnt a lot from that, and from working in the stables. And it's stood me well. But no healer I, no. Just a man with some little knowledge of the common herbs."

There's a little smile playing around his lips as he thinks of balancing precariously on a chair in Patience's cluttered rooms, hanging bundles of herbs as she alternately fusses and nags below. She wasn't, in truth, his mother, only his father's wife, but he realises he considers her such. An ache of loss stabs him, as it does whenever he thinks of home, and he sips the tea to hide his face.

"In that case, it is the least of my injuries." Éowyn shoves her sleeve up, showing him the ugly knot of scar tissue that makes up most of her upper arm since the fight with the Witch-King. "That will hinder me. A bruised wrist, less so." With a little half-smile, she twitches her sleeve back into place and goes to retrieve the bowl of greenish mush.

"It must," she says at last, going down to one knee beside him and gesturing for him to hold still while she undoes his bandages, "have been a great boon. To have a mother so wise, and to spend time with her, learning her ways." Her own mother lives only in hazy memories, and the predominating image Éowyn has is of her death, wasting away in bed while they all reeled from her husband's slaughter. She envies Fitz a little, having had a woman in his life who would teach him and linger with him and watch him grow. Much as Éowyn loves her family, she has often felt the lack of a woman in it. But perhaps that would not weigh so heavy on a son, in any case.

Dipping her fingers into the poultice, she begins to smear the warm paste over the most obvious cuts and bruises, working in thoughtful silence. At last, she says softly, "You might make that known to your Escort. They can teach you a little of the herbs native to this place, as mine did."

Fitz grimaces at the mess of her upper arm, but does his best not to stare. It does rather put his scars in perspective.

"She wasn't my mother, in truth. By blood, at least," he admits, for something to say and because, though he doesn't want to share too much of himself, he wants Patience's goodness to be understood. "I never knew my mother. But she was my father's wife, and she loved me as a son. And she taught me a great assortment of odds and ends, though our time together was shorter than either of us had hoped."

His voice trails off, thickening with pain. She thinks he's dead. He's broken her heart, and it was only in his death that he realised how much she truly, deeply cared for him, and how much he loved eccentric, strange Patience, who loved him as her boy, not for his blood or his position or his usefulness or his father.

Despite her instruction to stay still, he shakes the thoughts away physically, a full-body shiver, and picks up her other thought. "I hadn't thought to speak to her about it, in truth. Though she offered me use of her library, and I had thought to find some herbals there." He did, of course, decide not to tell anyone about his prowess with herbs, but from what China said, he's forced to treat anything he says to anyone in this place as public knowledge. So perhaps it's best to seek education, and downplay his knowledge as he does - admit to knowing the common healing herbs, but be baffled by anything unusual or deadly. "All medicines here seem to come in little white pills or liquids. It seemed almost magical when I first encountered them, though I suppose they're only the usual herbs, perhaps rendered more potent by some magics of this place. But I doubt my little knowledge of a few potted herbs is of much use, next to them. I was given two pills when I arrived, for exhaustion and for pain, and they worked so fast and well."

"I am told," Éowyn says slowly, in a voice that says she isn't sure how much she believes it, "that some of the pills are herbs, some are not. 'Tis these ones, I think, I have been told are made of the same willow bark I would use in teas and ointments for pain." She indicates one of the white pill bottles in the first-aid kit with one hand, the other still gently massaging the poultice over his injuries. "'Tis a place of wonders, as we have said. Their medicine most of all, for they can bring a man back even from death."

If they choose, she adds bitterly, but has the sense to do so in the privacy of her own head. The loss of her friends is still a raw, stinging wound, one she cannot exactly forget no matter how she tries to distract herself. Aloud, she only says, "Raise your arm while I dress this scar anew."

He does as he's told, though now he's stopped moving and started stiffening up again, it tugs on his bruised rib to lift his arm. "So I've heard." The thought thoroughly horrifies him, but he tries not to show it too much. His jaw does clench a little, though. "I've so much to learn," he repeats instead, trying to keep his conversation neutral. "Though that's not a trick I'd care to study. But the pills and powders, oh, those I would know more of. If we'd had those in our pack when we fought for our king..."

"Or we, when we fought for our people," Éowyn agrees, with a little smile. "I have sought to learn what I can of them, but I fear that here, they are as little-regarded as tansy or kingsfoil, and less understood. Most of those native to the land know no more of how they are made than you or I."

Noting his slight wince, she's careful not to bind the bandages too tight. Her movements, while practised, are a little clumsy thanks to how hard she's worked herself lately, the scabs and blisters on her hands cracking under the effort.

"There'll be writings somewhere," he asserts with a confidence he doesn't feel. "This seems a literary society. Long have I argued that the world would be a simpler place if more masters would record journeyman scrolls to pass on their knowledge, and surely in such a gleaming city where all seem so prosperous, such a thing must have come to pass, as it already has in cities like Jhaampe."

He doesn't speak his true thoughts, which are that a city which feeds off the back of abused peasants, where all seem to fear their government, has much to gain by limiting knowledge. He's just trying to make engaging yet neutral conversation, and hopefully see more of Eowyn's true feelings, if not in her words then in the words she avoids or the look in her eye.

Éowyn looks away, pressing her lips together, as she ties off the bandages. She doubts, in all honesty, that he feels so positively about the city, but she's unwilling to draw that conversation out unnecessarily. In the state she's in, with anger burning so raw below the surface, it feels dangerous to discuss the Capitol more than is necessary.

"I would not know," she says at last. "My own land is not so attached to the written word. What we cannot learn by song and story, we learn by watching others; it is Gondor, not Rohan, where they write of every exploit in a dozen languages." Then, with a bitter little half-smile, "I should direct you to talk to my husband on such matters, were he here, for such writings are his passion more than mine."

Fitz turns his head to catch the tension on her face, and notes it, as well as her mention of her husband, but all he does in response is offer a slightly rueful smile.

"We, too, have long relied first on minstrels and bards, with scribes there only to record for posterity. But I've always been a proponent of the written word. There's a security to keeping information solidly recorded. My wife had no letters until she was grown, but since she learnt them she's been keeping notes on her trade, and our daughter can follow well enough in her footsteps with those." If she lives that long, and if she isn't stolen away for a Farseer heir or taken away from Molly or...he shudders the thoughts loose again, trying to keep a genial smile, and flexes his arm, pulling his chest tight against the bandages. "Thank you."

"I should rather thank you," Éowyn says courteously, getting to her feet. "I have had little to fill my days of late. Fresh company is a gift." Her smile, though taut, seems genuine. Picking at the scabs on her knuckles, she comes around in front of him, looking him up and down to see whether any other of his injuries need attention.

"I am sorry," she says after a moment, putting the poultice dish down on the coffee table, "to hear you are so separated from your wife and child. 'Tis a burden indeed, to be away from those we love."

His laugh is short and miserable, more of a bark. "I wouldn't worry too much. Long before I came here, life conspired to keep me from them. I'll get back to them soon, though. From here or from where I have been travelling. They deserve better of me."

Éowyn is quiet for a moment. "Few of us get what we deserve," she says at last, her voice soft. "Especially in hard times. But you will return to them, I do not doubt it, and if they love you, they will forgive your absence."

He doesn't reply, just stares down at his hands, now folded in his lap, in silence. His mouth has gone flat, and his dark eyes are unreadable. He isn't at all sure if he deserves to be forgiven.

"Your hands are like to get infected like that," he hedges after a moment. "I'd wrap them before you next train, if I were you."

Éowyn looks at him for a long moment, then sits down beside him, her eyes concerned. It strikes her to say something, to assure him that all will be well, though her own often-pessimistic nature is not so sure. In the end, though, she just looks away, down at her hands, and nods.

"I ought to," she agrees quietly. "I have let such things fall from me of late. A weakness I should remedy."