thecapitol | (no subject)

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WHO | Ele [OPEN]
WHAT | Ele is hanging out in the central commons.
WHEN | Sometime after Arena 06.
WHERE | Central commons
WARNINGS / NOTES | None.

Growing bored of her quarters, the young grue has finally mustered up the courage to creep her way down to the central commons, avoiding people as best she can. Grateful for the room's higher ceilings, she's taken over a loveseat as far from people as she can get, so that she can watch from a safe distance. Occasionally, she casts the TV a curious glance.

Ele wonders where Some is for a moment before scowling with realization. Most likely with his pet humans. He smelled of them, spoke like them, moved like them, he even talked like them. But he was the only grue here, her only connection to her own kind. She would teach him to be a grue again.

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Daniel felt himself growing restless, and with that, made his way downstairs. Anything to stretch his legs and get out. Do something. Even though a cage was a cage, even if it was city sized.

Jack would put it best; 'they were screwed'. Royally screwed.

It wasn't the first time he'd died before coming here. He'd had more experience with that so far than anyone really should have. Dying still hurt. Of course it did. This time however wasn't as fast as the other times. Worse when it might not be the end; there was that uncertainty that came with not having a guarantee in coming back. There were some tributes he'd seen at the Cornucopia who never returned; there was no clue as to how the Capitol decided who to bring back, only that they had gained new Tributes since he'd gone into the Arena and lost some.

Either die permanently or go through Panem's equivalent of a sarcophagus, and get tossed back into the meat grinder.

The nervous energy had to go somewhere. Maybe he could hunt around for Eva. Daniel found himself in the common room, taking it in, hand pushing the door closed behind him. There was a TV. Love seats. And over there, taking up an entire loveseat, was a grey, vaguely humanoid shape, with multiple eyes and arms. It made him think disconcertingly of a spider and a human that had the bad luck to suffer a gate accident.

"Mind if I take a seat?" Daniel wandered in closer.

Ele has become transfixed by the TV, a bewildered expression on her face as the humans on it ride amusement park rides. Daniel gets closer than she intends before she notices him, the crest of fur on the back of her head rising in alarm. "No!" She replies sharply in grue. "Yes!" She quickly corrects herself. It still makes her uneasy that humans can understand grue here. That she can understand human.

"Please. Just give them a chance." Some had said. "Try to get to know one, just one."

Hesitantly, she changes her answer again. "Not too close..."

If those were hackles on his or her or what else this person's species might have when it came to sex, they went flaring up. Daniel held up his hands and remained where he is. See? They were empty and he was staying put, he wasn't going to push anything.

Surprisingly enough, he could understand the language. Part of him was the slightest bit disappointed; half of the journey was unraveling a language little by little, meaning becoming clear bit by bit, and bringing with it the same quiet excitement that came with uncovering a new treasure or artifact.

"I can stay right here if you want," Daniel slowly put his hands down. "Or I can head out if you prefer some peace and quiet."

She's caught off guard by the human's unexpected politeness. Cautiously suspicious, she points to a nearby armchair that she considers to be a safe enough distance. "You may sit there..."

Daniel obliged, taking care to sit down slowly. He didn't hold out a hand; for all he knew, a hand shake or offered hand might be something rude in her culture or a declaration of ware.

"Thanks. I'm Daniel Jackson, by the way."

Ele watches him carefully. She wonders if this is a human she will have to kill in the upcoming arena. "I am Ele. Do they put you in the arenas?"

Daniel found that he couldn't hope to meet every single eye, and switching from each one might be rude; he did the safe thing and concentrated somewhere on the middle of their face. "Nice to meet you. Yes, they do. Are you a tribute?"

"They are making me fight in the arenas." Ele says irritably. "What is a tribute?" They had explained when she first arrived, but little had truly sunk in. Or been comprehended.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the Tribute that he was sorry. Daniel bit that one before it could come out; sorry wasn't going to do a thing for them right now. What they needed was information.

"A tribute is someone taken from a District or another place or planet," or time, he thought, but better to keep it simple for now. "They're what Panem calls the combatants that fight in the Arena."

Even that is questionable, both the words district and planet being completely foreign to her. The rest she understands well enough. "Then... I am a tribute. And so are you."

Pruna spotted the grue, like the one she had spoken to at the party on the boat. This was a different grue though, Pruna couldn't remember the name of the other one. Sum or something. She had met a lot of people.

She sat at the other side of the central rooms watching her cautiously. Shuffling a little closer after a while.

Ele notices the shuffling, all eight eyes watching. After Pruna gets within a certain distance, she speaks. "Small human, what are you doing?" A human child like Pruna is much less threatening than all the adult ones walking around.

Edited 2013-05-20 13:56 (UTC)

Oh she had been spotted. Well having eight eyes was cheating. She closed the distance and came to stand in front of the grue.

"I did be doing nothing." She told her.

Ele looks a little uneasy at having Pruna so close. But the human is so tiny. How much of a threat can she be? "Why did you come to me?"

"Because you did be speaking to me." And she had caught her and usually What are you doing? coming from an adult (or an alien of undetermined age) meant she was in trouble.

"You were trying to get closer." Ele says. "What do you want?"

"I did just be walking through, that do no be being a crime." She wrinkled her nose again.

Ele is about to call her on her lie when curiosity causes her to switch topics. "Why do you speak like that?" She asks. None of the other humans spoke in the manner this human child did.

"Because it do be being the way I do be speaking, lots of people do be speaking like this. Humans here do be being stupid." She answered wrinkling her nose again.

Ele looks unconvinced. "I have not heard any of the other humans speak like you." She insists, sniffing the air. Pruna smells human enough.

"That's because all the other humans here do be being stupid." She told her, "Humans who do no be being stupid do be talking like me."

Ele doesn't appear to know quite what to make of that. "You all seem the same to me." She says.

"Well we do no be." Pruna told her wrinkling her nose, "We do all be from different worlds so we do be being very different."

"What are different worlds?" The grue asks curiously, utterly unfamiliar with the term or the concept. "Is this what you call your caves?"

She can answer this! She put on her best teaching face. "Do you be knowing what stars do be being?"

Ele blinks all eight eyes. "No." She replies. As far as she's concerned, the surface world is really just an enormous cave and stars are really just bioluminescent moss or something.

"Well if you do be looking up in the sky at night when it do be dark and you do be outside." She waved her hand upwards to indicate where the sky was.

"Then you will be seeing lights and they do be being the stars."

Ele blinks at her again. "You are talking nonsense, human." Was this what all the humans believed? It made no sense at all.

"No I do no be." She glared at her, "It do be being the truth."

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