thecapitol | Training and Iguanas

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torin byrd

Training and Iguanas

Who | Torin Byrd and you! Parts of the first prompt are specifically geared towards D2 Tributes.
What | Torin burns off a little steam after this last Panem Nightly broadcast and later looks for a lost iguana using the power of samba.
Where | Various, see prompts.
When | The day after the most recent Panem Nightly broadcast.
Warnings/Notes | Reference to heinous acts of fanfiction is probably the worst you're getting here.

[Training Center, OTA but especially D2 Tributes]
Torin Byrd is not a happy man today. Not by a long shot. Not when his niece Felicity has gotten onto Panem Nightly once more for this fanfiction drivel. And it wasn't just a namedrop, oh no, it was what was essentially an interview and gave her all manner of "interesting" titles...

He'd like to protect his niece from the cesspit that is the Capitol media, but she's not listening to him, he really has no idea to handle this, and it's not like he has any parental authority anyway since he's only an uncle. Still, his failure to stop this--as though it could be stopped--rankles, and he's in a foul mood today. It's not often that he spends a lot of time working out himself; he prefers to spend most of his efforts on his Tributes. But today, the bulk of his attention is focused on a very unlucky training dummy. He is quite literally kicking this dummy around, favoring powerful kicks to work out his aggression.

But if you're a District 2 Tribute, well, that's different. He'll stop his pummeling of the training dummy and approach, looking thoughtful. "How would you care for a little spar? Just to see where your skills are, of course." He can't really use his right arm. How rough could a spar with him be? "The practice swords are right over there."

[Around the Tribute Center, OTA]
So, a few months ago, when his sister and Felicity threw that Warlock of Om themed party as a sponsor appreciation thing, one of the sponsors in question had seen fit to gift Torin with an iguana to play a live version of one of the Warlock's signature winged lizards. This iguana thankfully was only wearing a little winged vest and did not have actual wings, but the result was still that Torin was now in charge of a live animal for the first time in a very long time. He didn't want that sort of attachment again, but he couldn't just abandon the poor creature. It's not like the iguana asked to be given as a gift. And so King, as the iguana came to be called, took up quiet residence in Torin's apartment. But unfortunately for Torin, that quiet residence was sometimes interrupted by a certain iguana getting out of his cage and going exploring. Like now.

"Come on, King, this is getting ridiculous..." And so, a stone-faced Torin is wordlessly walking through various areas of the suites, holding out a phone that is happily playing a recording of some samba music. Once he's found a piece of furniture the creature might be hiding behind or underneath, he'll crouch there, crank the music up, and wait.

He knows exactly how this looks. This looks stupid. Perhaps not unlike he's lost his mind. But it's got to be done--King the Iguana really loves this sort of music for whatever bizarre reason drives iguanas to love things, and Torin needs to coax the creature out from there somehow.

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Fitz is not dealing well with being cooped up in the city, after more than a year of living off the land, trekking across swamps and farmland and mountains, and barely speaking to humans. It's a big and claustrophobic jump from that to this antiseptic city and its inhuman crowds. Even when he lived in the city he grew up in, it was small enough a man could stroll out into the country, and living and human in a way the Capitol isn't. He misses countryside, and hunting, and silence, and the simple, apolitical life that animals lead. He hasn't met any animals in the Capitol that weren't preened and primped and spoilt beyond belief. It's depressingly artificial.

So when a huge lizard scurries over his foot and under his chair while he's sitting in the District 11 living room glaring out at the city, he jumps out of his skin, but is very quickly crouching by the chair, holding a hand out to the iguana.

Fitz isn't really a reptile person - he grew up with dogs and horses, and anyway the bleak climate in Buck isn't exactly a good one for cold-blooded animals - but right now any living thing that isn't complicit in the horrific mess that is Panem's state system is a welcome companion. Without his Wit, he has no particular abilities to coax the animal out, but he's always been instinctively pretty good with animals anyway, and it isn't long before King comes out to investigate him.

And so before too long Fitz's lap is serving as a nice warm spot for King to sit, blinking lazily as he gently pets its head and back. He is aware that this lizard probably belongs to someone - what he's seen of the Capitol doesn't suggest a place where lizards of this size would just run free - but he's still enjoying the weight of a living creature on his lap. So he's quite disappointed when the iguana perks up suddenly at the sound of samba music coming through the door, and clambers up his chest to hang off his shoulder, claws prickling through his shirt. But he knows better than to try and hang onto an animal that doesn't want to be petted any more, so he supports the iguana's weight with one hand and turns to see the source of the reptile's interest.

Torin really doesn't like poking around in another District's suites, but when he'd explained the situation to the Peacekeepers working on that floor, well, not having to deal with the escaped lizard themselves was well worth letting Torin roam freely today.

But hey, it looks like the roaming reptile has been found. "King! There you are!" Torin holds out the phone playing the music, which urges the iguana to scamper--or at least move in as close a fashion to a scamper as an iguana is capable of--to him. "I do hope he wasn't bothering you."

Fitz hunkers down to give the iguana an easier job of clambering off him and over to his owner, and smiles rather awkwardly. "Bothering me? No. Not at all. He's been keeping me company. I didn't mean to take him away from his owner, though."

Bereft of his new friend, he stands up and brushes off his legs. Force of habit, really - it isn't as though King was going to shed on him. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is he? Some sort of lizard, obviously. We, uh, we don't really have them where I'm from."

As it turns out, the samba music has, in fact, drawn a lizard to come and see what's going on. Less fortunately for Torin, said lizard is not, in fact, an iguana. Instead, it's the Capitol's resident dragon come to see both what exactly the music and just what's going on.

(Nor is she stopping to consider that seeing her in person is not always the same as something like watching the arena footage, much less that not everyone is used to even slightly-giant lizards in their daily life.)

"I cannot imagine that is the easiest way to do anything," she offers as soon as she draws near, but in all fairness, her immediate assumption is more that Torin just wants music to accompany him wherever he goes and less that he's actually looking for a missing pet.

Edited 2015-07-21 21:26 (UTC)

"I think I did that to myself when I neglected to latch his cage shut securely." Torin's moving the lizard up to one of its preferred perches on his shoulder.

"Oh, no, I don't mind. He's an iguana. They're quite interesting creatures, though King here is a little on the mischievous side." There's a smile. "But surprisingly good company, yes. Thank you for watching him for me."

That is most certainly a lizard Torin has drawn out with the samba music, though it is much, much larger than what he was expecting.

If he freezes for a moment, well, he's not seen a reptile that large in person in decades. Not that he's afraid. Far from it--for a moment, he looks rather like he's seen a ghost. A familiar ghost that he'd missed. His Arena run had centered around taming the dinosaur mutts that populated it in order to survive, after all. He misses them. But he recovers quickly with a little shake of his head. "No, it's not. But my friend likes it, and since he's gotten himself lost, I thought this might help him find his way home."

It's not the first time someone has frozen up on seeing Iskierka. It's probably not going to be the last either. Admittedly, Iskierka doesn't pay much mind to the cases where people do, but this is mostly because she's gotten sufficiently used to the idea back at home to mostly treat it as business as normal.

(And when so very little of the Capitol is like anything at home she finds it all the easier to cling to the things that do remind her of home.)

"Oh. But can he not find his way back on his own?"

She has yet to realize, quite, that Torin's friend is more along the lines of a pet than actual person, not that this would necessarily stop her from asking either way.

"I...have my doubts." Torin chuckles. "He might be reasonably intelligent, but he's still just an iguana. Can't read directional signs."

Normally, people might take this to indicate a pet or other animal that is generally incapable of reading. Not so Iskierka, who had spent a good while of her time in Panem quite unable to read and not minding - she's managed to start picking up a few things, but by and large she's never going to be particularly literate.

"He must be ever so curious, to have gotten so far as to not be able to easily find his way back."

She has also never seen an iguana, and this is probably not helping matters anyway.

"Oh, he's very curious. I should really take him out more often, though sometimes I wonder if that only encourages him." He pauses, thinking on this a bit. "I suppose that's what the leash is for." ...which probably sounds not at all right if this isn't a pet of some sort he's talking about.

Fortunately, Iskierka manages to make the jump to 'probably a pet' as opposed to anything else. Less fortunately, she still isn't aware that people can have pet lizards, leaving her to assume Torin has something a little more normal. Or a tribble, like she has, but that's near enough to normal, by now.

"Oh! You ought to have said you had a pet - I should not have asked nearly as much as I had, had I known earlier. Although I cannot say I have seen any here lately."

Torin actually has to laugh at that. "I'm sorry; I sometimes forget to mention details like that. It's nothing to worry about. I enjoy talking about him." And he moves the phone around to try to blast the samba music in a different direction. "I'm not quite sure what he'd make of you. Whether or not he'd try to hide or to make friends is anyone's guess."

"I do not see why we couldn't find out," Iskierka answers with a shrug. Admittedly, this not only involves actually finding the missing iguana but also hoping that it's not the former, but this is something that Iskierka doesn't much mind. The tower is certainly well-familiar by now but that hardly means she isn't willing to go looking all the same, if Torin wouldn't rather do things on his own.

"I'd appreciate that help, if you're willing." Torin gestures in the direction he's come from. "I searched over there; I'm thinking he's possibly come this way."

Iskierka bobs a nod at that. If Torin hasn't found him where he'd been looking earlier, it's perfectly reasonable that he's probably somewhere else, and she's as glad as anyone else to not need to look through quite the entirety of the Tower.

"Is there anything else he likes, beyond that music you are playing?"

"He likes food." Torin laughs. "He eats leaves, mostly. Sometimes I give him fruit as a treat. I wonder if someone left a salad out somewhere..."

"I do not think they would have done so intentionally," Iskierka answers. "But it would certainly explain where he would have gone, if not where we might find him. After all, we certainly cannot go about asking if anyone has misplaced a salad."

Or, well, they probably could. But it would be slow and probably inconvenient and not particularly helpful in the attempts to find Torin's missing iguana sooner rather than later.

"No, I don't think it would be quite so easy." Torin laughs. "Unless we were to hear someone complain loudly about their missing salad."

Fortunately, the sound of the samba music actually is drawing the wayward iguana closer. A large green lizard pokes his head around the corner and stops, taking the much bigger lizard taht is Iskierka in. Unfortunately, Torin has his back to the iguana, and he has failed to notice its entrance.

"It could hardly hurt to listen for such, at the least."

Not that Iskierka really expects to overhear anyone bemoaning the loss of a salad, but she figures it doesn't particularly hurt to keep a metaphorical ear out. In fact, she's very nearly about to suggest they move closer to where salads might be inclined to go missing from, when she spots the approaching iguana.

"Oh! Is an iguana something like a very small wingless hatchling?"

"Small, wingless..." Torin trails off as he turns to look in the direction she's looking. "Yes, I suppose he would; that's him!" He crouches down to get more on the iguana's eye level. "King, where have you been?"

Really, it's not like he's ever going to get a response to that question. The iguana just blinks at him as it takes its sweet time in walking in that direction as it seems torn between wanting to give Iskierka the stinkeye and wanting to go for that samba music.

Iskierka, for her part, seems to be mostly glad to remain where she is, although it's less because she can recognize the look the iguana is giving her and more because there's no immediate need to go anywhere now that they've found the lizard in question.

(Admittedly with no particular help from Iskierka but this doesn't precisely stop her.)

"Wherever he had wished to be, I suppose. And you may tell him that I certainly do not mean him any harm, besides."

How Torin is going to indicate such, she hasn't any idea, but she figures that's no reason to not at least mention it.

"Now, King, she's not going to hurt you..." Well, he can try verbalizing it as he shifts his grip on the iguana. The iguana will not stop looking at the large dragon, but it's not like he's wriggling to get away, so...progress?

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Training and Iguanas

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