thecapitol | [OPEN]

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[OPEN]

Who| The Psiioniic, the other trolls, and YOU! It might lean heavily towards trolls, but anyone is welcome to join them!
What| Watching the final week of the Games.
Where| The Training Center common area.
When| Final week!
Warnings/Notes| Trolls everywhere. And also mentions of violence, death, and etc in passing.

It's probably not unusual for people to group together and watch the violence unfolding. The Psiioniic certainly doesn't see why it would be strange, and he looks remarkably unimpressed as a recap plays some especially gory scenes. He seems to be prepared for a crowd, with plates of food nicked from the District 2 suites scattered around him. He even prepared a sign for his little shindig:

Of course, most people won't be able to read the sign, and do you even know how long it took him to find a marker even close to the proper shade of yellow? Too long, that's what. But now he's prepared for the final cullwatch, and ready to spend time with members of his species. And people who might be curious as to what the hell he's scrawled on the sign.

(You would think something like "fiinal cullwatch" is pretty self-explanatory, but you could never be sure with aliens.)

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Shion had been slowly getting used to the world he had found himself in. And by used to he really mean more and more disgusted by. He had only ventured out of the tribute home once and came straight back.

It still reminded him of home, just more colourful, more loud. And in many ways worse, being unaware or uncaring of suffering and death was one thing. He would never forgive himself for having been part of that, of being unaware that people were so hurt by his home, but here they delighted in it. The screens, the shops selling merchandise.

It was a different kind of control, of brainwashing. And he felt sick thinking about it. At least in the tower there were those who seemed to react normally. They watched but they didn't cheer, they hid their disgust behind neutrality and that told Shion a lot about the level of surveillance here.

He blinked as he walked into the lounge, seeing a gory scene, a lot of food and a sign in a language he didn't understand.

He concentrated on the sign, it was easier than taking in the rest and what it suggested.

The Psiioniic hasn't ventured outside of the Training Center, so he doesn't know about just how much of the Games is a spectacle. Regardless, he wouldn't mind that much. He's so old that he's desensitized on top of the typical troll like acceptance of violence.

His focus doesn't stray from the monitor as he watches a recap of the dragon, a piece of fruit dangling from his lips. He's more fascinated by the food this center offers then the scene on TV, because he really doesn't see how a dragon is anything new or strange.

It doesn't take him too long to notice Shion, though. He's a human he hasn't seen before, but that doesn't mean much. Why is he just staring at the sign...? Can't these people read. "What are you doing?"

He jumped at the voice, turned round in the direction of it and jumped again when he saw the troll. "Um... sorry... I didn't mean to."

He frowns, not sure why the kid is so jumpy. What was up with people seeming so shocked and surprised by him? "It doethn't matter." He waves a dismissive hand. "Ith there thomething wrong with the thign?"

"No." He tried to pretend his voice isn't a squeak and shakes his head. "It's a nice sign, what does it say?"

He gives Shion a blank look. "It thayth 'final cullwatch'," he snickers, purposefully not bothering to translate the spoken words as well. He's kind of an asshole, and he's definitely got no warm feelings towards humans. It's their fault they don't know Alternian, after all. Sheesh.

Shion blinks, why didn't he understand that? He had understood the other troll who spoke to him.

He frowned for a moment and opened his mouth to reply before pausing. There... the language he had been speaking... That wasn't his. Shion only knew one language but now their were two and now he thought about it...

"Somehow we were taught their language." Of course since that's in Shion's native tongue Psiioniic wont understand it, it's no earth language that exists, or rather a hybrid smush of them.

He switched back to the language of this place. "That is amazing, how did they do that? How do they have that sort of technology, to have us understand them with no lessons whatsoever?"

It's something the Psiioniic had been wondering ever since making the sign. He had almost written it in writing he had never seen before, and it was starting, to say the least.

"I don't know how they have any of the technology they do," he says bluntly, brow raised in confusion. Shion's language is strange, especially compared to Alternian. He's not sure what to make of it, and the boy himself is stranger then any of the other humans he's met. "Do you really think they couldn't have anything to make thure we underthtood what wath going on? The technology they had to bring uth here could be more the powerful enough to alter our brainth."

"I guess not... there would be no point in bringing those who couldn't even understand them."

But the idea that anyone could alter his brain terrified him and he stared at the troll for a moment.

He reaches for an apple, shrugging. "We're more entertaining when we know what'th going on, I gueth."

He gives Shion another look. "Are you jutht going to thtand there or are you going to join in?"

More confused blinking. "Join in?"

He still has no idea what is going on.

He makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh. "Join in on watching. It'th a party, with food and drinkth and violenthe on the lookthcreenth."

Duh.

A party... a party for violence. Shion stepped backwards feeling sick. It was one thing for this to happen, for people to send them to their deaths, and though the attitude of the capitol citizens sickened him he could sort of understand that they had been brainwashed. But this was another tribute.

"You want to watch that?"

"Why not?" To the Psiioniic the Games are nothing. He's seen far worse things happen to people, he's seen entire cultures be destroyed on a whim. He seen war and executions that make the Games seem like child's play.

He doesn't know why everyone keeps being delicate flowers about it.

"Because..." He stared at him with dark purple eyes, not even knowing how to put it into words. It wasn't the death, or the cruelty or how many people were dying. It was that the capitol enjoyed it, took entertainment from seeing their suffering.

"It shouldn't be like this." He waved his hand at the snacks and such.

"Then what thhould it be like?" His response is immediate and defensive. The Psiioniic doesn't understand what the problem is. There's no reason to be so upset but something like watching what's happening, because it will still be there, and the violence isn't anything new or depressing. What happens to the tributes isn't even all that horrible.

"It should be..." He thought about it for a moment, trying to put words to concepts that were new to him and alien to the place he came from. Concepts he had learned in West Town, from Rat, from Dog Keeper.

"We can't stop it from happening but we should respect the people it happens to..." He frowned, "This just takes away... everything. It's bad enough they die."

"I died too. I've theen my death being replayed. Not watching, and not watching together, ithn't going to change the fact that thith footage eckthithtth and that thomeone, thomewhere in thith plathe, ith watching it."

He grimaces, hands curling into his fist as he remembers his encounter with the muttation. He didn't let it kill him, but seeing his suicide over and over just because the Capitol was fascinated by his powers made accepting everything worse.

So he did this. If he had to watch himself die, he would watch it with people who weren't so sensitive to violence. (Which pretty much boiled down to just the other trolls, he was realizing.)

Shion was silent because the troll was right. It didn't change anything, somewhere someone was watching it, enjoying it. Finding entertainment from their suffering.

Dragging people across worlds to die for your entertainment, Shion had thought he had seen the depths that humanity could go to. Yet he realised he hadn't even scratched the tip.

He looked down, "I can't tell you what to do..."

He still thought it was wrong, that this was celebrated.

"Tho why try to argue?"

He sighs, fingers flexing. Just standing is a strain on him. He's starting to feel weak, and there's a tension in his muscles that shouldn't be there just from standing upright.

He can't abandon this conversation, though. He sees it as a fight, as something the Psiioniic needs to win, that he has some mysterious thing he needs to prove to this little kid who's name he doesn't even know.

"Because." He took more deep breaths, "Sometimes standing up for what you think is right is the only thing you have left."

And he had promised himself to never ever again let a regime such as this get away with their crimes, to never let himself live in ignorance of others suffering again.

People didn't even life in ignorance here, they knew.

And that made it even worse.

The Psiioniic laughs. He can't help it. He's lost everything, everything he ever believed in was proven wrong, and now he truly has nothing. He has no reason to keep moving forward, except maybe the desire to find a reason.

"Perhapth you thhould thtart a rebellion then, wiggler."

Shion blinked, "Perhaps." He kept it at that, afraid that he had said too much. Probably, if their surveillance was anything like No. 6.

"I don't know enough yet."

He blinks. He wasn't being serious at all, and now...

Well, now he hopes Shion is good at being subtle.

"Good luck not getting athathinated, then."

"Thanks." He took the luck as serious, he would need to be careful. Subtle, learn everything he could before he even thought of rebellion.

He wanted to curl up and cry at doing this all over again, alone this time. But he wasn't some naive kid anymore.

"I hope you enjoy your party."

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