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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"You seem lost, young man." Since learning that his money is taken from the Districts, Merlyn has made a point of not using his credit card where at all possible. He's living an increasingly ascetic life in the Center, and as such, rarely ventures out of it. But there are some necessities that simply can't be got in the confines of the tower, which is why he's currently walking down the street carrying two bulging bags of books and yarn.

He isn't in a hurry, though, and so it's not even a real decision to stop and help out someone who is so clearly out of his depth. He looks down for a moment at the fledgeling sparrow which, despite his urgings, has decided to live in his beard and is now cheeping impatiently. "Oh, do be quiet. I told you, if you will insist on nesting there, you'll just have to live with the consequences." Then, back to Fitz, with a warm, grandfatherly smile, "I take it you've just arrived?"

Although he cuts a rather queer figure, the old wizard looks no more a part of the city than Fitz does. He's persisted, against his Stylist's wishes, in wearing the same clothes day in, day out, and the rich velvet robes are getting a little the worse for wear. His beard, unsurprisingly, looks like a bird's-nest, and when he takes off his conical hat to scratch his head, he seems to be the only person in the street to be going bald entirely naturally. In fact, he seems to be the only person in the street to be old.

Still unused to walking around without his Wit-sense, and distracted by the glittering crowds, Fitz takes a moment to notice he's being addressed. He blinks and turns his attention to the old man in front of him. His eyes keep drifting down to the chirruping bird in Merlyn's beard. It's a whole other kind of strange to the flashing lights and unnatural colours surrounding him. The question of whether he's addressing Old Blood presents itself, and he wishes dearly that he knew whether this old man was also Witted, and, if so, whether his Wit has abandoned him as totally in this soulless city.

He realises he is gaping like an idiot again, and forces himself to focus.

"Oh. Yes. This morning, I suppose, though it's been a long day."

"Yes, yes. I should imagine so." Merlyn clicks his tongue disapprovingly, shaking his head. "I wish I could tell you it will improve with time, but no. This by-our-lady place is no less ostentatiously ridiculous once you get used to it." Replacing his hat on his head, he proffers one bony hand, gnarled as old wood. "I am Merlyn, late of old England, now, alas, thoroughly trapped in this dratted place. Welcome, for what it's worth, to Panem."

His tone suggests that what it's worth may be even less than Fitz thinks, and furthermore, that it is only getting less worthwhile in his eyes.

Éowyn is still deep in the frustration and depression that has dogged her since the Arena. Her time with Firo and Arya lately has dulled the worst edges of the pain, but she's still a bundle of pent-up energy and half-hidden grief, spending a lot of time with the horses and a good seven or eight hours a day in hard training. The old callouses on her hands have blistered, healed, blistered again. Her bad arm is giving her constant pain, a dull ache that demands rest she never gives it.

She barely looks at the stranger until he speaks to her. By that time, she's picking through the sword rack, shield buckled to her arm, back to the room. Her long hair is braided back, but messily, and her loose tunic and trousers are crumpled. She doesn't answer his smile, but only nods, selecting a longsword from the rack and turning to face him.

"Better a partner than a straw man," she agrees, dropping back into a defensive stance, handling the longsword with ease. "Whenever you will, I am ready."

"I was rather hoping not to be here that long," Fitz replies ruefully. He isn't sure whether he can trust Merlyn - they've just met, and he's learnt his lesson about underestimating people just because they look harmless - but he figures the Capitol's pretty well aware of his feelings on the matter. "I've things to attend to back home."

The word 'England' means about as much to him as 'Panem', but it hardly matters. He'll have to find his way somehow, the names hardly matter. He takes the hand Merlyn proffers, and shakes it somewhat awkwardly.

"Good to meet you, Merlyn. I'm -" And here he pauses a moment, because after the past year it feels so strange to introduce himself by his true name. But the Peacekeepers addressed him so, and so it's clear his captors know who he is, and equally clear that he's under their watchful eye even now, or they would not have let him out into the city. He cannot afford to waste an alias on this, or, for that matter, to let on that he's smart enough to lie, if he can help it. "Fitz," he finishes somewhat lamely. "Late of Buck, though I've travelled long and far from there."

Edited 2015-07-17 22:30 (UTC)

Fitz looks her over, tucking back a lock of dark hair that's escaped his warrior's tail and rolling his shoulders as he settles into a similar stance. She looks hard and confident, and he almost laughs thinking about how utterly outclassed he probably is. After all, the sword was never his best weapon - it tends to end up on the ground as he brawls, and his fighting method consists mostly of hurling himself as hard as possible at his opponent and taking less harm than he deals - and it has been a good year or so since he did regular drills and sparring. This has the potential to be very embarrassing and rather painful.

He smiles crookedly. "My lady, you'll forgive me if I make a poor showing. I have been on the road for some months, and not practising as I should."

The sword in his hand is well-balanced and weighted, though not a patch on Hod's workmanship. He adjusts his grip, lowers his stance, takes another moment, then more or less experimentally feints to her left and brings his sword up into her right, keeping his guard tight.

"I will forgive you, my lord," Éowyn agrees, and flashes her teeth for a moment in a smile that doesn't touch her eyes, "but not spare you."

She is relieved, however, to see that he knows the basics. She is not opposed to teaching - has been doing just that with Firo, Gary, and Bayard - but it isn't what she wants to be doing just now. Teaching takes patience, steadiness and gentleness. All her patience, just now, is tied up in not waging open war on the Capitol.

So she attacks fast and hard, not pulling her punches; her shield comes up to counter his feint, her sword to match the second blow, and she presses the attack, trying to catch his sword with her own and striking out at his gut with the edge of her shield. There's a vicious kind of satisfaction in being able to fight - really fight, against an enemy standing solid in front of her, even if he isn't the one she's angry at. She fights with skill, but not finesse, like a soldier rather than a knight, nothing flashy or impractical about it. She looks, from her fighting style, less like a lady of the court and more like someone who would kick you in the crotch and cut you while you were doubled over.

"You are new-come, then?" she asks, pivoting away and slashing low at his knees with the blunted practice sword.

This suits Fitz fine; he's much better at fighting like a soldier than fighting like a lord, and it's a relief to feel that she's tough enough that he doesn't need to reign in and stick to formal swordplay. He catches her sword with his as he dodges back, trying to push her swing further to the floor as he slashes upwards towards her belly.

"Difficult to tell, in this place. The lights are so bright there seems no day or night. And I was unconscious for a time." He breaks off to focus on warding off her attacks, and continues after a moment, "No more than a day or two. I suppose I am new enough."

China waits until the man comes closer into view before speaking up from her seat in the common area. "Hello."

She shuts the book on her lap as she looks him over, eyes quickly assessing him as she would one of her wares.

"May I welcome you to Panem? Assuming you that are new, of course."

It's entirely possible that he isn't the new Tribute 11 is to be expecting, but she finds that unlikely. There are always visitors from other floors, but she tries to keep up to date on all the faces.

When she addresses him, Fitz stops moving, but neither relaxes nor sits, standing stiffly with his hands flexing by his sides, ready to attack or defend if necessary.

"That's a kinder welcome than the men who greeted me in my cell thought to give," he observes rather bitterly. His voice is hoarse - his jaw shifts slightly as he tries to soften his dry throat. "Where am I? And why?"

The corners of her mouth turn down slightly. "They didn't even tell you that? They truly are becoming lax--my apologies for that."

She shakes her head at the sorry state of affairs. Beckoning to the far corner of the room, she calls forth an Avox, murmuring to them to please bring the gentleman some water. She looks back to him.

"Would you care to sit? The news may be received better if you allow yourself to relax."

The Avox is quick in returning, silently offering the glass to him.

Since he has no intention of telling her why the Peacekeepers were interrupted in their task (it's bad enough he managed to introduce himself to his enemies by massively failing to fight them and then having a seizure at them, without everyone who might want to hurt him knowing about it), he doesn't bother to explain. Nor does he sit, although his legs aren't the steadiest right now, and drinking what she offers him would be sheer stupidity, much as he wants to. He pretends not to see the glass being offered to him. His hands are shaking with tiredness anyway, which he disguises by clenching his fists hard; he'd probably slop water everywhere, based on how his day's been going so far.

"Today I was spirited from my companions without warning, by no mechanism I have found, to be locked in this...place," he points out. "I doubt sitting will do much to relax me. Why don't you explain, and I'll receive it how I will."

She waits a moment for him to acknowledge the drink, but finally waves the Avox away when he seems intent on refusing it.

At least this seems to be going better than her last wild Tribute introduction; this man hasn't tried to break any windows. Yet. She nods what she thinks is a very gracious nod. "Whatever suits you."

"You are in the Capitol of Panem, our beautiful and prosperous nation. You have been taken from your world through means about which I know nothing to represent District 11."

She stops there, though it's not much information. Better to ease them into it.

He processes this for a moment. He's never heard of Panem, but he wouldn't expect to have. It seems very likely he's stepped through another Skill stone, or been brought through one somehow, and they could lead anywhere. Perhaps they could even move him in time - he doesn't know, he isn't at all sure how they work. The fact is, wherever Panem is, if he got here he can get out.

He pricks his ears up at the second part, though. "Represent District 11?"

Éowyn brings her shield down to meet his sword, side-stepping as the wooden edge crashes against his blade. Her longsword kisses the floor, then it's back up to fortify her guard, and she presses the attack with both sword and shield: quick, sharp slashes and thrusts, using her shield as a weapon no less than the sword.

"It is difficult," she agrees, her tone sympathetic even as she aims a vicious blow at his gut. "The light here is strange, too bright and too sharp, just as you say. But the Sun and the Moon yet hang in the sky, though you may have to go up to the roof to tell time by them." Now it is her turn to fall quiet and focus on fighting for a moment, before she says, "Welcome, then." Welcome to prison, and to gaolers with even the scraps of humanity gone for them, and to being ground down into nothing every day that passes without you fighting back. She cannot say that, of course, not with the cameras watching. She would not admit to such weakness to a stranger anyway. Yet there's something of it in her eyes.

Fitz doesn't respond for a moment, because he's being driven back by her onslaught and it is taking all his attention to guard against her blows. He throws in a few attacks, but she deflects them easily and it takes him a moment to get back on balance and return her attack with equal ferocity. He slashes and parries for a solid minute or so in silence, the only sound the clashing of their weapons and the shuffle of their feet.

As they fight, he considers. He recognises the look in her eyes, and the bitter edge to her words. It's fairly worrying that she thinks him deserving of sympathy. "I could be better come," he admits half-jokingly, and ducks past her shield blow and swings up towards her arm. "I've aquitted myself pretty poorly since arriving."

Éowyn snatches her shield-arm back, but a sharp jolt of agony awakened in her old injury slows her, and the blow connects. She reels back in clear pain, her shoulder and upper arm hurting more even than where the blow actually struck, and her shield sags, though she falters only a moment before raising her guard again with her sword.

Now it's her turn to be put on the defensive, and to fall silent while she fends off his attacks, her shield-arm clutched close to her chest. "Did you fight them?" she asks, as she pivots and ducks under his sword. "When they brought you from the cell?" She had, but with even less effect than him, and had quickly learnt her lesson. That wasn't to say she didn't relish the idea of someone landing a few blows, however minor, however misdirected, on the regime that had trapped her here and mocked her pain.

He slows his attack for a moment, concerned by her pain, but decides she'll tell him if she needs quarter, and redoubles his efforts, though focusing his attacks more on her sword side now.

"For all the good it did me," he says, rather bitterly, as he brings his guard back in a little too slowly and catches his arm a glancing blow on her shield. His ego has been pretty bruised by his experience. As has his face and ribs. But he smiles suddenly, savagely. "I took down three men before they took me. One won't be walking on that leg again. Another may miss eating solid food for a while." A slash down, around her knees, opens up his guard for a second because he isn't as paying much attention as he should. "I was unarmed and unprepared, and they were many. If they come again, I'll not be so easily bested."

Éowyn darts aside, her face taut with pain, and catches his sword with her own, twisting the blade. For a moment, she smiles - a smile as hard and vicious at his own - at the news. She bears no love for the Peacekeepers. Any enemy of theirs, until proven otherwise, is a friend of hers. But her smile fades almost as soon as it comes, and she shakes her head, striking out at his chest with the pommel of her sword.

"If they come again," she says in a low voice, "you will be more easily bested. They treat dissent gently, when it comes from new arrivals. Keep fighting, and you will find a fate worse that imprisonment awaits." She swallows, her hesitation momentary but obvious before she drives home the attack again. "Keep your eye for the Avoxes. You will see them here. And if you do not bridle your tongue and your fists, you will join them."

The Fitz of a year or so ago would have laughed that off, and paid for his rashness. But he's learnt a lot from the suffering of the past year. He sets his jaw and nods, his mouth a thin line, then turns his attention to her attack.

He twists partially out of the way, but her blow catches him right in the rib he currently suspects may be broken, and he stumbles back, gasping, doing his best to keep his guard up while spots dance in front of his eyes. Given that both of them are in some pain, and he would very much like to focus on what she's saying, he lowers his sword and raises his hand. "A moment."

Fairly pathetic, he tells himself, and both Burrich and Hod would have little patience for it, but it has been a long, confusing and most of all painful day, on the tail of weeks of hard travel and little sleep. He can hardly qualify anything he's done since coming here as sleep - it's been almost exclusively unconsciousness of the knocked-out variety. So perhaps he's justified in needing to catch his breath.

As he leans on the weapon rack, panting, he adds quietly, "The Avoxes are their silent servants? What do they do to them, to make them so compliant?"

"Never heard of it," Merlyn says briskly. "Though that's hardly unusual here. There's quite a range of worlds they've dragged us from. Come over here, do," he adds, beckoning Fitz over to a nearby bench and sitting down. The bird in his beard lets out another disgruntled little peep, scrambling out and up onto his shoulder. Merlyn gives it a Look over his horn-rimmed spectacles, digging in his shopping bag and coming up with a thermos.

"One advantage of this place," he says, stretching out his long legs and pouring himself a mug of tea, "is that one can take tea wherever one goes. And it doesn't even leak, as they used to in my youth!" He proffers the flask to Fitz, sipping at his own cupful. "We can talk a little easier in the street. There are still cameras and whatnot, and of course there'll be people watching us in the crowd, but the noise does cover what we're saying a little. Come along. Sit down, do. I'd offer you a biscuit, but I left them back in the tower."

"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?"

Slightly baffled, Fitz obediently follows his lead, joining him on the bench and taking the flask. He doesn't drink until he's watched Merlyn take several sips, being on the cautious side, but after the day he's had he appreciates this little kindness hugely.

The warmth of the tea suffuses and revitalises him, and he actually manages to relax slightly, visibly. It's an odd flavour to him - familiar enough, but he's more used to herbal and fruit teas - but it is good. And it's good to know that the old man is as conscious as he is of their watchers (and...cameras? He files that away for later investigation. Obviously that word means something he should know about).

For a moment, he leaves aside the desperate situation they're in, focusing on mundanities. "This flask is good," he muses. "I could do with one of these, on my travels." He can imagine that his life would be much improved by this - having to hand the elfbark tea which is so often the only thing propping him up would make life a great deal easier.

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."

"Mm. Quite." Merlyn closes his eyes, holding his cup up so that the sparrow on his shoulder can dip its beak. "Though I'm very much afraid, my dear boy, that your travels may not resume as quickly as you'd like. Do you think I would still be in this oligarchical hellhole of crass consumerism if leaving were so easy?"

Well, yes, he probably would. But that's only because Merlyn is irresistibly drawn towards hopeless situations - most particularly those caused by people being wrong. Give him a door to leave through, and the knowledge of all the people he would be turning his back on would probably keep him here. He'd never say as much, though, certainly not where the Capitol can hear him.

He reaches over, patting Fitz's shoulder sympathetically. "I'm very sorry to be the bearer of bad news, my boy. Arriving seems to be hard on all of us, but I imagine having something urgent to get back to makes it worse. It might comfort you to know that time seems to work oddly in the process."

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Imagine I have a fighty icon (it's on my list)

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I only have that one. to my shame.

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