thecapitol | Closed

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Who| Roland Deschain and Firo Prochainezo
What| Observing the rebuilding and helpfully offering some doses of skepticism
Where| A run-down former-District town
When| About a month or two after the end of the war
Warnings/Notes| Will update as needed

There are some Capitolites who needed to find a niche after the war. The few skills they have, if they have any, aren’t best suited to the jobs many of them have to find for support. So they scramble to fit in elsewhere. As Roland and Firo make their way into town, they’re treated to the sight of one such misfit.

Right around the border of the town stands a precarious tower of building rubble, torn fabrics, and other unidentifiable items. Junk, Firo assumes. The woman beside it isn’t dressed as flamboyantly as pre-war fashions would allow, but sharp eyes could note that her dress is just a little too tight and too lacy to be practical—an old Capitol dress repurposed, probably. She gestures to the sculpture with both hands whenever someone passes by. “Isn’t it lovely? These poor, poor people need something beautiful to look on.”

One of the good things about living in Panem now, Firo thinks to himself, is that you’re allowed to openly insult Capitolites and whoever the hell you want. Right now, he’s so baffled that he can’t even think of one. He just stops several feet away and looks between the display and Roland. “What?”

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Roland considers her. It isn't hard to see where she comes from, and it could be useful to try and gauge just what the attitude of the Capitol's people might be, these days. Besides, Firo might not be able to let this go until they get an explanation for it.

"Beautiful," he says, more as a question than agreement. "Do you say so?"

"Oh, of course! Finally, after living in awful poverty for so long, these stricken souls finally get to see some kind of standard of living! Isn't that beautiful?"

Roland just shrugs, looking over at Firo. 'Beautiful' isn't really a concept Roland knows much about, especially not as it pertains to Panem. This, so far as he's concerned, is a question for Firo to answer.

All through her explanation, Firo rolls his eyes. Of course--she's like a bunch of the 'nice' ones. One of those who likes to talk about the poor little Districters even when they were totally okay with sometimes watching them die. The Capitolites aren't so different from people back home, he supposes, but the pageantry of caring is almost insulting.

When Roland looks his way, Firo blinks back at him. Me? He's supposed to be the one passing on questions to Roland, not the other way around. But, fine, he's got an opinion anyway. He's never needed an invitation to share his opinions, but he'll take one when he gets it.

He'd almost been looking forward to when he'd finally be able to tell Capitolites just how he feels about them, but now... Well, the anger is still there, but it's mostly towards specific people. People who happen to not be this lady, as annoying as he's already decided she is.

Still. She asked, so he'll be honest. "Nah. Looks pretty dumb to me. Wouldn't it be more useful to, I dunno, build a house or whatever?" Not that he really knows the first thing about construction. The crumbled bits and pieces are too small to really be of much use there, which might account for at least some of the puzzled look the lady gives him.

"If you wanna keep these guys off your back, you should probably learn to do something actually useful." He jerks his chin back to gesture at the town before them--full of Districters, Firo presumes. Maybe it's kind of a mean threat, to insinuate that her fellow citizens need a reason to keep her around. but... hey, it could be useful advice.

She stares back, then looks between the two of them and laughs nervously. Is this a joke? Perhaps offworlder humor just doesn't translate very well.

Roland thinks of Signless, for a few seconds. The revolution itself wasn't terribly busy - quite a lot of waiting, interrupted by brief rushes of excitement and death. Much the same as any war. The aftermath, though, that's something Roland's never seen before, and it has proven to be very busy indeed. So there hasn't been much time to talk, no knowing how the end of this land's war has or hasn't changed him. But before, before all this really came to a head, Signless was always very patient with the Capitolites. Very understanding. He liked them. Genuinely liked them, which had always baffled Roland a little. That'd be useful here, having someone to take her aside, speak gently, insistently. Even if Roland had any ability to do that himself he wouldn't want to, doesn't think this Capitolite woman is worth the bother, no matter how genuine her desire to help. But he recognizes that it would be useful.

Well. Just now, just here, it is only them. He stares back at her and her laugh peters out, dying a slow, hesitant death under the weight of his stare.

"I think you've gone as far as beauty can take you." Signless, wherever you are, that was Roland's try at an explanation to the ignorant, for your sake. His one try.

She stares at Roland. Roland shrugs. If she doesn't understand it after that, it's no problem of his.

"Do you- Well." She flounders a little, then waves around her. "Isn't beauty useful, though? I mean, now of all times. Doesn't everyone need something lovely to look up to?"

Firo doesn't envy anyone taking the brunt of that look, and he has to smile in amusement as he watches from the sidelines. It's nice not to be on the receiving end of it for once.

That smile fades when she keeps at her argument. She really is serious. "No," he replies, stunned. "I don't really know what else to tell you, but no."

Wait, who is he kidding. Of course he has more to tell her. When has he ever been confronted with some poor, clueless sap and let them off that easily? There's not much pity to be found in Firo, if any, and he's not wasting it here.

He takes a few steps forward. "Come on, have you really thought this through? Really think about it? What, is somebody gonna look at the pile of junk and magically get a job? Is it gonna bring back somebody's dead family? Put food on the table? Did you think about any of that? Actually, did you even ask if anybody wanted your help in the first place? How come you don't go rebuild your own city?--it was lookin' pretty shitty last time I saw it. "

She purses her lips, not wilting so much any more, though she seems to be avoiding Roland's eyes now. "Well, if you two... 'gentlemen' don't appreciate it, would you please get out of the way so that those who do can see?"

(ooc: tell me if you'd like them to keep talking with the Capitolite, if so I can edit this or we can work her back into the conversation, whichever.)

Roland shrugs, again. What is it to him, one way or the other? There isn't too much that would make him argue with a stranger or take a stand for anything save immediate physical need, not these days. The war is over - not all of Panem's troubles, but the war itself - and Roland's journey is over, too. His old one, anyway. Anything a Capitolite says or does does not tend to move him, and this one doesn't, either.

But he knows the company he travels in, and knows that, for Firo, this may not be entirely the case. So he takes a few steps off, then looks behind him to see if Firo is going to do the same. "How angry would you be if I told you she's not wrong? In a sense. A fairly misguided one, put into practice badly - but she's not wrong."

Edited 2016-07-02 11:34 (UTC)

[ooc: This is perfect!]

Firo pulls himself away from the argument to follow Roland, and, difficult as it is, doesn't offer a word back to the Capitolite.

Roland has never struck Firo as a man who appreciates useless things. If he's right in that judgement, then it seems that they both have very different definitions of useless. He nearly stops in his tracks when he looks back over his shoulder to glance at the woman they were just talking to--Roland couldn't possibly be referring to her, right?

He raises an eyebrow and fixes his friend with a skeptical stare. "Wait, what? What the hell're you talkin' about? She's totally crazy--and she's just wastin' everybody's time with all that."

He thinks a second, still walking, and then his voice slips smoothly into a tone Firo might recognize. Firo may not want a classroom-style lecture today, but he's getting one.

"Panem was a great civilization, once. Long before we ever got here. I'm sure that it was, because there was a people in my world, too, who went the same way. Their creations were mighty and beautiful, each more awe inspiring than the last. I've seen many similar things here - more wonderful even than most of the relics the Great Old Ones left in my world. They both went the same way, I think. Rotted from the inside out and destroyed themselves, as all great civilizations must eventually. To remember what was, to hold onto some of the light her home once brought into this world, there's no shame in that. Done right it might even inspire, keep spirits high. Gods know Panem's people could use the morale boost. Or they will, once the rush of freedom begins to wear thin. I don't know how your Family kept their men's morale high but there are ways to do it, and not all those ways involve drinking and women."

Firo keeps pace at his side, sighing quietly when he hears that voice. Not this again. Not now. What could possibly be important enough for a lecture? Then again, Roland always seems to jump into these things when Firo doesn't expect it.

He listens closely enough, frowning skeptically all the while until the very last word. And at that word, Firo feels his ears burning as his whole face turns red. How could Roland just say something like that?! It almost sounds like an accusation, as near as Firo can tell, in content if not in tone. “Wha—we never got involved in stuff like that! The drinking, yeah, b-but not the other stuff!”

He looks down at the ground and shakes his head. Focus. Be normal. “A-anyway…” He’s eager to get away from that topic, now that he hopes he’s set Roland straight. “How do you think that pile of junk’s gonna raise anybody’s morale? And who cares about that anyway? That's gotta be the last thing on a lotta people's lists. People care more about gettin' a job and havin' something to eat than they do about anything else--that's how it always was in my neighborhood growin' up."

Until he met the Martillos, Firo had hardly seen anybody smile in his neighborhood, because they simply had no reason to. It wasn't exactly what he'd wanted--then or now--but they got by.

"Yes, they do - but they never stop wanting more, Firo. In my world, even when it was at its worst there was a bar in every town, men out of their heads on some drug or other, that sort of thing. People want more, even if they don't know it. Now that Panem's dead - Panem as it was, anyway - the people left will find other ways to get what they need."

"Some of those ways may even involve houses full of those women you're so afraid of. Whether you like it or not. Why is that, Firo? Is that not the way of things in your world?"

As one of the people who supplies the booze--and the gambling--Firo nods along to Roland's examples, though he wrinkles his nose at the thought of drugs. But it's all stuff he's seen.

"I-I'm not afraid!" He protests, despite his stolid refusal to look Roland in the eye.

"A-and wh-why're you askin' me why people do stuff like that? F-fine, yeah, it's what some people do where I'm from, b-but I don't know anything about it. And it's got nothin' to do with some lady and her weird art!"

Just like the lessons, Firo wonders if this is some weird way of Roland torturing him, by continuing to divert the topic to such unspeakable things.

It'd been an honest question, because he knows well that not even all the cultures in his own world see - well, saw - that matter in the same way his own did, and there's much about Firo's world that Roland has yet to learn. Even so, he's not insulted by Firo's reaction. He's interested.

"Not afraid, then," he says, and takes a moment to eye Firo, thoughtfully. "Buying a night with a woman serves the same function as that 'lady and her weird art', that's my point. It takes men outside themselves. Or it would, if that sculpture looked any friendlier than the ass end of a mule. You don't think so?"

Not afraid. Firo keeps his eyes carefully away from Roland's as the man looks at him; he needs to let the subject die, and then maybe the red in his face will die too.

"If that's how you wanna put it," he grumbles. Sounds awfully charitable to act like a bunch of creeps getting their jollies are just looking for beauty.

"Depends on what you're talkin' about. If you mean people drinkin' to forget and all... ugly or not, no sculpture can do that." It's simply a practical difference; beauty can't physically deaden you the way booze does.

When he finally looks up at Roland, he's scowling. "And on top a' that, even if you're right, who said it's her business anyway?"

"I didn't say they wanted to forget." But it's a tricky subject to describe, at least for Roland. That there is a light in civilization, in knowledge and learning and in the creations which spring from from that, making sense from what once was unknown and senseless, this is something Roland knows, deep inside of him. He knows that there is a difference between holding onto the past and holding onto some of that light, the light which once held itself up, steady and strong, against the dark. He knows the deep importance of that latter, and has never questioned that doing so, insomuch as he can, is part of his duty.

"I don't know that I can explain it to you, Firo. I don't know that I have the words. I know that if I could resurrect some wonder of old Gilead up here, it'd do about as much good as that woman's pile of junk. But if I could pull one of those wonders back up in my own world, where all the men and all the women all of their children still remembered it, dreamed of it, grew up with at least some of the old tales - then it would have done some good. Do you see? It's about the people, setting something alive in them. Something which was, and will be again. And perhaps that's not her business. But if not her, who? I don't know if anyone in this land is charged with remembering it as it used to be. If not hers, whose business is it?"

Firo's eyes pop open wider in pure surprise, “You seriously think..?” Of course they want to forget. Firo wonders what kind of people Roland’s thinking of, if he thinks that they wouldn’t. Dreaming and bringing something in them to life? That’s simply not something people yearn for, in his experience. He sees no reason to look beyond said experience.

For the first time, Firo wonders if maybe Roland’s just idealistic. Even when he was a child, Firo didn’t believe in things like this.

But no, no, that’s probably not it… still, he smiles in amusement at the thought of Roland being naive. “I don’t think I can explain it to you either.” Besides, there’s a part of him, foolish as it is, who wouldn’t want to burst Roland’s bubble on this. This isn’t the kind of error that could get him killed, probably.

“What I meant about her was, who asked her to come in here with her ‘poor little Districers’ schtick? People like that have no idea what they're talkin' about.” Here--this is a topic in the argument he's sure he'll win on.

If someone ever asked Roland to describe himself - well, first of all, he wouldn't. But if that someone could convince him to go along with such a pointless exercise, 'naive' would not be the first word he used. It would not be in the first thousand. If he knew Firo was thinking it of him now it'd be almost a novelty, if it weren't for the implied insult against beliefs he holds so deeply that he does not think of them as beliefs at all.

Roland does not believe. He knows.

What Roland knows now, though, is that Firo has agreed that this is something neither of them might be able to explain, and since Firo kept the rest to himself, that is enough.

In reference to what Firo has actually said, he shrugs. Who asked her to come here isn't something either of them have any way to know. That is not, anyway, the point he knows Firo is trying to make. "Why does it irk you so?"

It's not that Roland doesn't agree. But agreement, as is sometimes the case with Roland, is not really the point.

"Doesn't it bother you? First off, I bet she didn't care so much back when she was watchin' 'em get offed." She may seem nice on the surface; Firo's sure that at least some of it is an act to try to absolve herself of guilt or to protect herself from the districters who're now her peers.

Whether he's correct or not is something he'll never know. But he thinks he knows, and that's good enough for him.

The next part might be just a little petulant. Perhaps Firo realizes that subconsciously as he sighs before launching into it. "Second, I don't get why people're always tryin' to make us feel bad for 'em. Even when you put the death and the hunger together, it's not that different from how people back home lived."

Roland nods. "That's how it was in my world, too. But it wasn't always. At least, not for some of us. Do you know, someone from my barony - especially the barony seat, Gilead, where I lived - might be looked at by those we called outworlders in the same way you looked at that woman just now? Some of my fellows might have acted the same as she did, I suppose, if they'd ever had the chance. I never thought much on the outer baronies one way or the other myself, so I can't say. I assumed they were loyal, when I thought of them at all. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it."

"It wasn't, of course. Things are seldom so simple." Roland's gaze goes more thoughtful and distant the longer he talks, less trying to make a point and more exploring thoughts and memories he hasn't had any reason to think on much before now. "I saw this land's war take some of the Capitol's people entirely by surprise. Seems like willful blindness, now."

"I don't know," he goes on, in the more alert tone of one waking himself up from long, distant thoughts. "Maybe it doesn't bother me so much because it doesn't have to. The Capitol doesn't have the power it used to. Maybe it never will again. If any Capitolites like her really tried to make any district do things their way, embracing beauty, building statues, I expect they'd be made to regret it in short order. They always did make a show of pity for the districts, though, didn't they? A way to build themselves up, I imagine. Soothe their deadened consciences. You tell me if you see any Capitolites acting similar, though, full of generosity, full of pity. I'd be interested to see just how long that attitude lasts."

Firo tilts his head and watches Roland curiously when he compares Gilead and Panem. Firo can't--won't--superimpose Roland and his friends over the Capitolites in his head. There are enough differences that he can let himself do that, though the reason he does that is because he simply doesn't want to think of Roland that way. For now, he just listens and marvels a little over the fact that there'd be any similarity at all.

At that final instruction, Firo grins. He's thinking along the same lines as Roland, and he, personally, would be eager to see the logical conclusion. "Five bucks says she changes her tune the first time a drunk pukes on her shoes or a scabby kid asks her for money. That's how these people always are."

He bobs his head once, as if conceding a point. "Of course, most of 'em back home don't even pretend to care. But that's better. At least it's honest and everybody knows what to expect--not that I'm sayin' they deserve any credit for that.

"I guess that's the big difference. People here wanna pretend like they don't know how the world works."

Again, Roland thinks of Signless. It's the topic, he thinks. The boy in front of him couldn't be more different from the Signless, in action too but mostly in outlook. Firo says things like 'how the world works' with complete acceptance and Signless, in another life, saw the way his own world worked and died to change it. Or, to try.

Not particularly relevant to the here and now, but interesting, anyway. He notes the fact, the contrast between two of those closest to him, and then puts it away, tucking the thought alongside other such thoughts gathering dust in the long and sturdy storehouses of his mind.

"I'm sure they mean well," he murmurs, but it's habit, something he heard regularly back when he was called a tribute and kept in a tall, luxurious tower and there was little to do but argue over such things. It's a sentiment Roland'd heard spoken at him fairly often and he's echoing it now, lifting his chin and looking into the distance, pretty clearly losing interest in the conversation.

After a second his gaze sharpens, and he jerks his chin somewhere in the distance. "Do you see that? Hear them?"

It isn't the first time he's wanted to test how far someone's vision and hearing goes, which is why he asks. But if they walk quick enough it'll soon become clear: a building, not a raised up ramshackle house like many of these but something deliberately destroyed, and people searching through it. What he heard was a shout of pain, and what he thinks he sees is someone in that rubble sitting back and clutching at their arm. Not, perhaps, anything to be concerned over, at least not for anyone but the unfortunate who just got themselves hurt. But it might be. It's enough to have him alert.

(ooc: wanted to add that I'm not sure whether that makes the situation clear enough so if we need to talk over what firo would see/what the people would say to him/what's going on, let me know)

Edited 2016-07-15 13:01 (UTC)

They mean well. Firo can hardly believe he's hearing such a baffling, annoying thing coming out of Roland's mouth. People don't mean well. And so what if they do? Doesn't mean he has to give them a pass when they screw up. Firo never got a pass out of anybody growing up, and he sure as hell doesn’t intend to start giving them out himself.

He looks up at Roland with an open-mouthed scowl, a mixture of surprise and disgust. Just as he’s done gaping and starts to explain, Roland gestures off into the distance.

Firo turns to look, forgetting the other topic for the moment. He need--or had needed--sharp eyes to work the casino. This commotion may not arise from a suspicious win at cards, but Firo catches it nonetheless. He shrugs, "Looks like trouble."

As they near the site, Firo jogs a few steps ahead and calls out to the nearest person. “Hey. What’s goin’ on here?”

An older woman standing on the fringes turns and explains that they’ve been searching for supplies and now poor Wheat has gone and gotten himself hurt somehow. She clucks her tongue and moves in closer with the throng around the injured man.

[ooc: I think that works! Let me know if I’ve got it right here.]

Roland watches the man a moment. He eyes the skin around the wound, and the sweat on the man's brow. "Find us some gloves, if you would. Thick ones. Perhaps you ought to go back to that Capitol woman, too, ask her if she'd like to come and be of help."

Roland looks back at Firo, smiling a little, amused with himself. That, for the record, was a joke.

"I'll find out a little more about this."

Whether Firo decides to do as asked or not, what Roland finds out is nothing surprising to him. Injuries, sicknesses, those sorts of things are going to be even more common now, with so many buildings destroyed, plumbing wrecked, waste harder to get rid of, water harder to find. This district used to be closer to the Capitol in terms of infrastructure and advancements - technology, isn't that their word for it? So the wake of the war's hit it harder. This particular building in front of them used to be a laboratory, one of the places the Capitol's scientists kept secret until the war exposed everything, and so it's well stocked in the kind of equipment these people count on to treat the various ills and hurts that the wreck that was Panem has left.

This particular situation, though, if not surprising, is urgent. Some kind of building collapse. What these people are looking for is medical supplies.

"Can't promise to recognize any of that when I see it," he says to Firo, once he's finished summarizing what he's been told. "My world knew maybe a quarter of what this one does when it comes to doctoring. What about you? Think you'll know something useful if you see it?"

Humor. Firo should appreciate this, and yet he doesn't. He just scowls at Roland, though he's already walking away to look for the gloves, and calls back over his shoulder, “Why, so she can tell me to buzz off and we can prove you wrong?”

The quick departure is both due to a sense of urgency and maybe just a bit of a desire to get a word in and leave before Roland can retort.

Some searching turns up the kind of gloves that Firo'd associate with factory workers (those rare humanely-treated ones) or mechanics. Should be thick enough, he thinks, even if they're a bit oversized. He comes back with a few pairs, some extra, and holds them out to Roland as he listens to what his friend's uncovered.

Firo snorts when Roland finishes. "You think I look like a guy who'd know anything about that?" Immortality aside, he spent a lot of time without even access to medicine. And then dodging it when he did have it. "I know what a first aid kit looks like, but that's about it. And that's if they still look the same as when Sena was chasin' me around with one."

Roland shrugs, taking one pair of gloves and looking them over. He decides much the same thing Firo had, that they're sturdy enough, and slips them on, flexing his fingers a few times. "That won't do. We'll need some description of what we're looking for. That Wheat fellow, the one who was hurt. Ask him what he was looking for, exactly what it looks like. I'll start moving the debris out of the way."

It doesn't occur to Roland to mention exactly why he'd like that one to be the person Firo talks to. Firo will see any symptoms the man's got from that injury clear enough anyway, there's no need for Roland to tell him to look out for them. And if it's only a normal injury after all, and no strange symptoms to speak of, all to the good.

"Got it."

Wheat hasn't been moved too far by his companions, so it's only a moment's work for Firo to find him. He asks what he hopes are the right questions and notes with a sideways glance how bad Wheat already looks.

He's slipping on a pair of gloves as he returns to Roland. He picks a spot a few feet away and starts poking through the rubble. "They said it's a metal case. Should have the number '5309' on it. It's really important medicine or something."

He tosses a few chunks of brick aside. "It's not lookin' great for him. He's sweatin' bullets, like he's got a fever or something. I didn't think infections happened that fast."

"They don't." Roland stands, casting his eye around for a glimpse at anything through the rubble that looks likely. He sees a glint of metal, although it's over by where the injured districter'd been looking. He does walk over to look there, but when he moves the rubble aside, it's done carefully.

And then the rubble shifts under his feet.

It's the right foot that does it, that one missing its big toe. Something shifts under his left, and his right foot's the one, for a split second, that's got to hold him. It'd been a bastard to walk on after, Roland finds himself thinking, not because it'd been healing but because of his equilibrium. Something about not having that toe there'd thrown all the fine and careful workings of his body off balance. He shoves that thought back where it ought to be, knowing how dangerous thinking of that time can be to him even now, but that one moment does not help him regain his equilibrium at all.

He has to kneel or fall, and when he does his gaze first goes to his hands. The gloves are just as thick as he'd thought, they've taken no damage.

There's a sharp pain, he notices, a little below one knee. As he watches, blood begins to soak a little oval of red into his pants. For some seconds, a silent and still few seconds, he only keeps on watching it.

Men have died from less, he knows. He's known some. Why, even Sheemie- At least, there were times, and times when he- and when he didn't, too- and when he-

Roland shoves that thought back too, pressing the heel of his hand hard against the side of his forehead. Then he moves a little, leans back, and starts to uncover a little more brick from around the twisted, discolored metal sticking up and out where his leg had been. It's not only his blood the thing's discolored with; there's something else too, some strange combination of colors, some liquid shining on it iridescent in the noonday light. That metal makes up part of the door of some cabinet, the more he uncovers the more he's sure of that. Best find out what's inside.

"It's these pants," he says over his shoulder toward Firo, although he almost sounds like he's talking to himself. "Forgot I wasn't wearing my old jeans. I just forgot." He sounds disgusted with himself. He shakes his head. "Those were thick as these gloves of yours, but these. These came from the Capitol, gods damn it!"

Edited 2016-07-22 23:20 (UTC)

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