thecapitol | (no subject)

Who: Nux and OPEN
What: Alive is good....maybe?  Having no money is...what is money?
Where: District 8 common area and training
Warnings: TBD?

A:  DIstrict 6 Common Area:

Nux is probably hard to see, because he's sitting on the floor. Because, yeah, what is furniture? They didn't have that in the Citadel. Even cars had most of their seats stripped out, except for the driver's.

He misses driving, but after a few pokes at the tv remote, he's figured out what it does. And so he's found a racing show--sure they're not cars, but they're racing around that track for sure--while he's gotten a toaster dismantled into pieces between his legs.

B: Training Room

He's feeling waaaay better than he probably has a right to feel. Especially, you know, after being killed and all. By a little girl!  He always KNEW females were weird, but, yeah, didn't see that one coming! So he's on the far side of the punching bags, where he can view anyone coming in, noticeably trying to avoid anyone of the female persuasion, as he shifts between punching the bag and throwing knives. They're not quite lances or thundersticks, but they're close enough, he figures.

"Be better if they exploded, though," he muses, heading down range to retrieve them. Because, well, anything's better if it explodes.

C: Random Wandering In the City

Yeah, the City kind of weirds Nux out. It's so big. And there's like...open space. And there's shops, which are places that sell things! Things like...stuff he's never seen before! Like apple peelers and spaghetti tongs and....boxer underwear and big foil packets filled with air and something called 'potato chips' and little things that play music...the way he stops and stares into shop windows, or at people, it's probably really easy to run smack into six foot four of pasty War Boy.

Or, conversely, having him run into an innocent bystander as he runs out of a shop, hands full of plunder. Paying for stuff? Wh-what's that?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's good that Nux does resist, actually, because in addition to having just had abdominal surgery, he's one of the Victors who's a little particular about being grabbed suddenly.

"The Quell..." Linden pauses for a moment, annoyed that it appears no one else has filled in Nux. "The Quell is the reason you were brought here, along with all the other Offworlders. Every 25 years, in Panem, Games of a 'special significance' happen, and this year... that's what it means."

I'm sorry, he doesn't say, even as his glassy eyes reflect it if one's looking very close at just the right split-second.

He climbs off and away from the couch, lowering himself to the floor next to Nux and taking a slow, careful seat next to the socially insubstantial young man. "I know," he says, a little too intensely, but he's not talking about using it to stay warm. "Oil, gasoline, or alcohol to ignite, perhaps. Anything else in the toaster you'd use or recombine?"

Well, to be honest it was more 'sitting in a puddle of toaster parts' that kept him from hugging than anything like, you know, respect for personal boundaries or anything.

People probably tried to fill Nux in, but he's a War Boy! They're not known for their keen attention spans. "What's so special about it?" Hey, he could handle being 'special'.

He looks down at the toaster parts. "Well, you've got some armor, here, I mean, if you need it. And the timer, could be useful, you know? Something with a fuse or something."

Linden has a special kind of respect for people who are patient, attentive and capable of listening and absorbing information for long periods of time. It's likely that he'll discover fairly quickly that Nux doesn't even begin to cover any of those things remotely, but for now, he's looking at someone with an Offworlder's innocence who doesn't want to blow up the Tower... just take apart a toaster and fling some hypothetical scenarios around with him. Totally harmless.

"You like machines, do you? Tell me about where you're from."

Yeah that's a checklist of things that Nux is Not, sadly. He's just good at only one thing: making stuff to fight with. Well, two things: driving, too.

"LIKE machines?!" That is an understatement. Nux is going to sit back, so the new guy can admire the engine that's been carefully, painstakingly scarred onto his chest. "Machines are eternal! People...aren't. They're all we have from before the world ended."

Everyone's good at something, and at this point, as Nux's Mentor and an opportunistic member of a Rebellion, Linden's trying to suss out what this hairless young man's talents are. He thinks he's starting to get a pretty good idea.

He stiffens slightly at the enthusiasm in Nux's answer, but recovers quickly, nodding, eyes wide. He's a very good listener, an excellent skill to have if one wants a person to open up and get loquacious and maybe spill something useful. He peers at the scarification on Nux's chest, taking in the detail, practically memorizing it with his overlarge, dark eyes. "Machines aren't eternal. They break," he points out. "Without people to fix them, they're just as mortal as we are."