thecapitol | [Open]

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Who| Thorin Oakenshield
What| Dwarf wakes up and disagrees with everything
Where| The Training Center and around the Capitol
When| During the Mini Arena, likely over the course of a couple days
Warnings/Notes| Nothing, so far

A. (Training Center & Outside)

[Thorin had always been prepared for hardships on their journey to Erebor. He endured running from orcs, almost being eaten by trolls and spiders, and getting captured by Thranduil's guards. And he dealt with multiple humiliations, because it was all leading up to something.

They were there. The door had been unlocked, and he was inside the mountain--his mountain--for the first time in over a hundred years. They had been waiting on Bilbo, and then a blackness that at some point stopped being the mountain and became the darkness of his unconscious mind.

None of it made sense. The name Panem, or the battle to the death that they kept talking about. Not even the seasons seem to match up. Least of all, how the importance of any of this could trump what he was doing in Middle Earth.

Thorin doesn't spend much time in the suite, taking the first opportunity that he has to leave. And it might be a struggle, but he still manages to get onto the streets of the Capitol, which is even more disorienting than the inside of the Training Center. Not only trying to take in all the metal and stone, but the nauseating barrage of color that is the people of this city.

He'll look a bit insane, dodging both architecture and natives. As for anyone that looks semi-normal (without whiskers or dyed skin or generally looking like an Easter egg on an acid trip), he'll address in an exasperated but demanding growl.]

You. [Stabbing a finger at the horizon.] What mountains are these?

[If he can gather some idea of where he is, that's the best place to start.]

B. (Central Commons)

[The elevator will take some getting used to, as does the tavern that is located in the center of the tower they all lived in, though it could hardly pass as such. Aside from serving food and drink, it stretched out like a courtyard, and smelled like dust or varnish more than ale or pipe smoke. As long as it served as a place to pick up secondhand information like a pub or a tavern.

Or if nothing else, the food and alcohol was free.

He chooses his seat based on where he can shield his back, but still keep an eye on things. Then he'll sit with his beer mug and his hair tied back into a loose ponytail, mostly concentrating on his communication device, what the hell it even was, and how it worked.]

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Arya had the similar thoughts regarding the credit card when she first arrived. The flimsy piece of plastic had no value to it, so it seemed like an odd thing to present as payment for anything. She still wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but she wasn't about to get rid of the magic card that let her get donuts on command.

She hasn't seen Thorin around the Training Centre before, and that plus the discarded credit card suggests to her that he's a new Tribute. She watches him for a moment before approaching, sliding the card back toward him.

"You'll want to keep hold of that."

Merlyn is perched on a steel bench near the Tribute Center, a sparrow sitting cheerily on the tip of his conical hat, a Thermos of tea at his side. His velvet robes (to his Stylist's certain dismay) are frayed at the cuffs, with dust and dirt scuffed up to the knee. In short, he is the very epitome of a hedge wizard, and probably answers a fair amount to Thorin's experiences with Gandalf.

He looks up at being hailed, harrumphs, and turns back to his work with an expression of great disinterest. "Some people," he observes mildly to the stack of notepads he's scribbling in, "would say please. Or at the very least, hullo."

[The wizard with his books and frayed cuffs is one of the least eye-catching people he’s seen in the last hour or so of being conscious—by his standards, he looks familiar. He even remembers overhearing Gandalf telling Bilbo that there were other wizards apart from him and the twitchy forest hermit that helped them escape the orcs. It does not seem unreasonable that other worlds would have other wizards…and those wizards would have the same habit of back-talking that Gandalf has.

Though Merlin wasn’t wrong about his rude behavior. A part of Thorin even acknowledges it, insignificant as it is when he’s focused on not getting the answer that he needs—and it was a very simple request. His chest puffs out and his nostrils flare a bit.]

Some people. [He repeats with an edge.] Have more important things to consider than courtesies.

"Some people should learn," Merlyn replies, looking up over the tops of his glasses, "that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Manners maketh man, you know. Or dwarf, in your case. But since you seem to be new here, I shall forgive the impertinence. Sit down, won't you? Have a little tea. I have no sugar, I'm afraid, or milk, but the tea is perfectly palatable."

He smiles genially, gesturing to the seat beside him and proffering his Thermos. "If you can keep yourself from being temperamental and standoffish for five minutes, I can even explain to you where you are. Or at least, as much of it as I understand myself. It's a complicated situation, you see. You're lucky you ran into me, and not one of the natives of this place, who are far less friendly."

And you? No more than a Man? A wandering librarian, perhaps? [Now he's hedging between temperamental and glib, even if he's burying it deep inside a level tone of voice. The lecture and the deflection involving a beverage is a little too much like Gandalf.

He looks at the flask that Merlyn was offering him and frowns.]

I don't want tea. [It's gruff, but not hostile, anymore. At least there's that.] If you know my people, then you know why this question is important.

"I don't know your people, I'm afraid. I merely assumed, from the height and the beard." Merlyn pats the seat beside him, withdrawing his offer of tea in favour of pouring himself some. "I can, however, assure you with some certainty that you've never heard of those mountains. Or this city. Or, one imagines, this world. Do sit down, there's a good chap. This can all be quite a lot to take in." To say the least.

"As for librarian," he adds, after a moment and with a look of mild amusement, "that was only for a few months back in 1878. I am a scholar, a tutor, an advisor, occasionally a politician... but a wizard, in the general scheme of things. Merlyn, by name."

Ermac had lost his first arena in a thoroughly ridiculous fashion: poison. That was no death for a seasoned warrior. Poison was a coward's weapon.

And so, he finds himself in the bar, nursing a glass of the red wine he'd been paid to endorse and watching the end of the Arena, when he notices someone truly strange just a few chairs down from him. There was no doubt this one was a new tribute; no Capitolite would be caught dead in such rough furs, and they certainly didn't grow their beards out that long.

Rather than wave the strange little man over, Ermac just watches him and counts on his own strange appearance to catch the man's eye.

Edited 2015-08-20 17:10 (UTC)

[In Middle Earth, when he wasn't around his own kind, he was working in villages of Men, and then it's his height that he's accustomed to being the point of difference. He's still shorter than most people here (with the exception of children), but the Men of this city also dressed in a way that he wasn't accustomed to. There may be an accident with a zipper, at some point.

Eventually he breaks his concentration from his device in order to sip his beer, and whether it's a feeling on the back of his neck, or just a coincidence, his eyes happen to pass over Ermac and he notices that he's seen him, too. Or rather he notices there's a hooded figure with bright eyes looking at him. Even when he's been drinking for a few seconds.

Slowly, he puts the glass down (hand still on it, for lack of anything else to hold) and tilts his head.]

Is there a problem?

"Yes. You are a new Tribute."

If Ermac's appearance was off-putting to newcomers, then his voice is downright unsettling. No one should sound like they have several other people speaking quietly in perfect unison with them, after all.

What Thorin surely wants, beyond all else, is for some asshole of an elf to be on the other end of that accusing finger. Boy, is he in luck.

Admittedly, the elf is a bit different than the ones that exist within Middle Earth. She only scrapped 5'2 at best, and her hair was cropped short. But there was little mistaking the facial features, the pointed ears. The elf in question looked rather puzzled to have this demand given to her, raising a single eyebrow, before looking around, as if perhaps a mountain might appear nearby that she could direct him to.

Finally, Tabris turns back to him. A dwarf. There'd been one wandering around a bit ago, but a girl dwarf, if she'd heard right. Never met the woman herself, she hadn't made it back from the arena. A lot of Thedasians hadn't.

One of these days, she could think about it, and about others who hadn't come back without a pit in her stomach.

No use in breaking out in tears in the middle of the street, this poor sod clearly had no clue where the hell he was. If she had to guess, and Tabris was always more than willing to lump other races into neat piles, he sure wasn't a surface dwarf. And no brands on his face, so not a casteless, either. The way he held himself, she was going to guess warrior caste. The way he demanded answers, she was willing to take noble caste as a close second.

"Not Orzammar, that's for sure. There's no mountains around here, really. Everything's on the surface. Is this your first time on the surface? Don't worry, I've helped train dwarves on dealing with this shit before." She rubs her hands together, and then slowly pointed up to the sky. She could recall just how Oghren had been, the first time that he stepped out. The way he'd stared up at the great big blueness of it all with awe, and a little fear. So her words might carry a tinge of teasing, but they were sincere enough. "That there? That's the sky. Don't worry, your feet'll stay firm on the earth, people don't often float up."

[Even with the pointed ears and bone structure, he struggles to pin the word "elf" to the woman he's singled out. The elves of Middle Earth were known for being the "Fair Folk," tall and eternally youthful (or as the dwarves would say, pompous and incapable of even growing a prepubescent ghost-mustache). But she's not a hobbit, either. It creates a bit of friction in his mind as he tries to work around the contradictions.

Though he isn't as interested in what race she hails from when she starts talking. A few steps past talking to him like a simpleton and going into what sounds like dwarf racism, implying that he's never been outside before. Even when he had Erebor, there were battlements.

He doesn't interrupt her, but his expression seems more and more like there's some very loud screaming is going on inside his head.]

I'm familiar with the sky. I haven't met a grown dwarf that hasn't seen it--or needed to be trained by an outsider.

[And that part is as leery as the first, considering how closed off dwarves were as a species.]

Tabris isn't pompous, but only in the strictest meaning of the word. An over-confident asshole who has spent her whole life fighting to win and succeeding. That'd be a little closer. Egotistical, for sure.

Such is clear enough when he speaks, and she raises a single eyebrow. The outsider bit sure did make him sound like a regular Orzammar dwarf, but to say that he adn't met a grown dwarf who hadn't seen the sky...He must be a surfacer, then. As far as she knew, her world was the only one with dwarves in it--None others had bothered to mention them, and while a few had elves, none appeared, and she only knew of them through off-handed mentions. And many of them were...not flattering.

There had been an incident with cookies. What the fuck was a Keebler, anyway.

"No offense meant, my good dwarf. I can't hardly tell who's a surface dwarf and who's not, but you seemed pretty confused. Which is a common reaction to when you pull a fresh dwarf up to the surface. And I'm hardly an outsider, you know. At least to the non-surface dwarves..." She gave a little sigh, rubbing her shoulder thoughtfully. "I'm a Warden. I'm the Warden, if you want to get technically. The one who picked out your king, yanno. You're welcome."

After a pause, she flapped her hand around. "Well--Not your king, obviously. I'm not a part of any merchant guilds or anything like that. Dunno how that stuff works for you. Anyway. No mountains. Just this crazy ass city that watches your every move and kills you if you talk shit about them. So. Watch out for that."

Was it time to play the welcoming committee song and dance already? Congratulations, you are the brand new contestant in a horrifying and traumatic death match against everyone you know and love!

Thorin is not, precisely, the first dwarf that Iskierka has met. But with him seating as he is, it doesn't occur to her that he might - in fact - but another of the various subset of people who have a very good reason to not like dragons, much less ones that happen to be red besides. Instead, all she sees is an unfamiliar Tribute and one who is having trouble with the communications device besides; neither of which are anything out of the ordinary (she had trouble with the communicator too, when she'd first arrived) and the latter of which she figures it can't hurt to help with.

"It is meant to help us speak to each other, if you were wondering what it is for," she comments as she draws near. "Although it is hardly the easiest to understand even so."

[Thorin had been bracing himself for a dragon before coming here--though Smaug was bigger, his reaction is the same. Tension that works its way through every part of his body but his right arm, which jerks like he's reaching for a sword that's not there.

It's an effort to hold ground and look composed. Buy time and not show his fear. His heart is trying to push itself through his ribs and he feels naked without anything to defend himself (even a sword is nothing compared to a dragon's hide. The best he could hope for is being able to duck in time).]

I fail to see how it's necessary. [They communicate just fine without them.]

[Perhaps fortunately, Iskierka doesn't read the sudden jerk of Thorin's arm as being a reach for a sword. She might be from an era where swords are still sometimes used, but they're absolutely terrible for the kind of combat she usually sees and most aviators only really keep them for hand-to-hand combat in the case it becomes necessary (and most of the time it doesn't). As such, she notes the way the tension doesn't really seem to reach that part of him but doesn't comment either.

(She wouldn't know where to start, really.)]

It is for if we aren't in the same place, I suppose. And it is convenient enough besides, although there is hardly anything saying we must use them.

[Mostly, she treats it as something halfway between a luxury and an oddity and for it works out pretty well.]

[You have a weird idea of who looks semi-normal, Thorin.

Then again, Aang really does look normal compared to Capitolites. He's just a skinny Tibetan boy with blue arrows tattooed all over his body. Also, he has a bat hanging out on his shoulder despite the fact that it's barely dusk.]

Mountains? [Aang spares them a glance, then looks back at Thorin. The short man looks and sounds familiar, but he can't quite place his finger from where.]

You won't recognize any of the names. You're in a different world now. [Or, well, Aang is assuming so, but usually it's pretty easy to tell who's an offworlder and who isn't. For example, natives tend to not growl at people and ask where they are.

He gives the man a sympathetic smile, seemingly not put off at all by his abruptness.] This is the Capitol. We're not allowed to leave the city unless they take us out.

[The point is that Aang doesn't look like this this. There's a happy medium. But even as far as the tattoos go, Thorin sees the points and it almost looks Dwarfish to him (not as geometrical as their designs, but still in a similar vein). And though he hasn't seen his father in decades, he remembers the blue peaks that he had inked into his forehead. Much like the mountain range that he was pointing at.

So it's not his appearance that throws him off, but his smile and the overall passivity of his approach. It's better than being patronized, but it's still unnerving how calm this child is about everything.

He drops his hand and listens to Aang's explanation with his head at an angle.]

By whom? [Starting off uncertain, and then picking up the same barbs as before.] The same sorcerers that took us from our own homes and dropped us here without one word. Now we're not permitted to leave this place?

[If you're thrown off by smiles, Thorin, you're going to have a doozy of a time with this kid. He gestures for Thorin to follow him to the side of a building, out of the way of foot traffic, before he puts his hands in his pockets, still unfazed by Thorin's barbs and anger.]

Basically, yeah. They say they don't know how to send us back. [They say. He's stating what he's been told, but despite his mild and pleasant demeanor, he obviously doesn't completely buy it.] They keep us here and have us play in the Hunger Games. They punish anyone who does or says anything against it. One person I know was brainwashed until they couldn't do anything but follow orders and then had their tongue cut out. Another person was brainwashed into being really scared of all his friends because he thought they wanted to kill him. [It's still said with the friendly, informative tone of voice, but there is a very thin undercurrent of urgency there. I know you're angry, but you can get in a lot of trouble. Be careful. He's trying to pass on a warning to the new guy.]

Garrett, on the other hand, is completely at home in the city. It's not his City, but it's a city, and the endless stone and metal is almost comforting to him. And so, he's out on a walk, making a truly heroic effort not to pick any pockets as he makes his way through the crowds. The sudden command catches him off-guard and stops him mid-step.

"Mountains? What mountains?"

[Once there's an adjustment period, he might appreciate that it's more stone and metal than forest. Stone and metal are two things he's more in-tuned with.

A harsh couple blinks in sequence, and then he gestures again with his index finger, stabbing in the direction of the Rockies in the distance.]

Those mountains. [Are you blind, bro?]

Edited 2015-08-20 22:03 (UTC)

He glances at where the short man is pointing.

"Oh, those? I think they're called the 'Rocky Mountains.' Uninspired, I know, but accurate."

He turns back to the stranger and tilts his head slightly.

"Why do you care about some mountains?"

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