[002] i wonder when the night will reach its end [OPEN]

[amourtician]

Who| Jay and YOU! Special invitation extended to Insomniacs Anonymous
What| Jay has insomnia and is stargazing. Feel free to bug him.
Where| the park
When| now-ish, at night
Warnings/Notes| Jay's been drinking again, so things to do with alcohol. Other warnings will come if needed.

Jays lost track of how long he's been awake and he's just now starting to feel tiredness nibbling on the edges of his brain. He thinks he might be approaching twenty hours awake, but he can't be sure -- he never got into the habit of carrying a pocketwatch, back home, and he hasn't had a chance to find one he likes in the Capitol (he's as picky as he is vain, which is inhumanly so). He's more than a little drunk, too, but it doesn't seem to be making him sleepy at all (because, unknown to him, the last think he drank was the Capitol equivalent of a vodka with Red Bull and the caffeine's doing its job).

Right now, he's back in the park, somewhere towards the heart of it. He's lying on his back in the middle of a rosebush -- one mercifully genetically modified to be free of thorns. He thinks it's an awful waste of a perfectly good and deeply metaphoric plant. He also thinks the roses -- neon pink with black leopard spots -- are the tackiest thing he's seen in the Capitol, which is saying something, especially given the amount of mirrors he passes every day.

He's stargazing, trying idly to find familiar patterns in the unfamiliar sky above. He found a distorted version of the Fiery Eye and something that looks like an upsidedown Cradle of Rivers and he feels almost comforted, in an absurd way. The alcohol and the hours spent with his stylist, buried in fabric samples and haute couture magazines and the endless lure of the televisions have buried homesickness, but not very well or very deep. It's starting to claw its way back to the surface. He misses Mara. He misses the bookshop. He misses Raimut, though he'd never admit how much relief he feels upon being away from him.

Absurdly, he misses his twin most of all. She always was everything he never could be and he admits, grudgingly and only to himself, that being athletic and brutal would be far more useful here than being beautiful and clever.

While Jay's trying to prevent his mood from swinging to "maudlin", what are you doing?

Comments

[amourtician]

Jay doesn't notice Pruna, but he sits up to stretch his back and pick some twigs and petals out of his dreadlocks. He starts whistling something through his teeth -- it's a half-remembered traditional Tulun song. He keeps losing his place and starting over.

He looks entirely harmless. And also drunk.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna's used to drunk people, having grown up in an inn and she sneaks closer. She isn't sure if this was a tribute or a someone from the city, she thought maybe the latter because of the hair.

She skipped a bit closer, and closer still. Making it into an exercise, how far she could get before he noticed her.

Again it was disappointingly easy and soon she was right behind him. She could see why they needed to send other people into the arenas, they were all stupid and useless here.

"You really should be paying more attention to your surroundings." She told him in a lecturing tone.

[amourtician]

Jay is too drunk to overreact. He merely pulls an exasperated face at Pruna. She's a tiny kid. What does she know?

"Why, dearest? It's not like there are bears here or something. Well, there might be tame ones. You know, in the homes of Capitol citizens. They seem like the type to keep pet bears. But, ah. That's ... besides the point."

He grins, akwardly, and blushes, aware that he's rambling. "Your concern is touching, but I'm not sure I'm in any danger, right now."

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkles her nose, "Well I hope their bears do be eating them." Serve them right, she thought he was right though. They did seem the type, like how they kidnapped people and forced them to kill but then brought them here to live and gave them nice food in the meantime. Trusting that they wouldn't turn round and kill them.

He was mostly stupid though, she rolled her eyes at him. "I can be seeing three... no four ways I could be killing you now, and if I did be actually wanting to be killing you and did be having a knife I can be seeing ten more. You could be being in a lot of danger."

Because surely even a place such as this had assassin's, or cut throats and street thieves.

[amourtician]

Jay shrugs. He's too drunk to care, right now.

"Why would you want to kill me, darling? I'm a fop lying in a rosebush. Entirely harmless."

[knifewithnoname]

"I do no be wanting to." Because there was no point, "But someone might be wanting to be killing you for your fancy clothes." She hadn't seen any but there must be people who weren't as rich as nobles in this city, it didn't make sense otherwise.

Actually if she had a knife she would have been tempted to kill him, just to prove him wrong. But she didn't.

[amourtician]

Jay laughs.

"These old rags, darling? I hardly think so. Anyone who lives in the Capitol and isn't one of the poor tongueless suckers can afford much nicer things."

[knifewithnoname]

They looked fancy to her, hers were just as fancy, they made her feel like one of the nobles she sometimes saw. She had snuck into a few noble houses before, on missions, not even their money could keep them safe from harm.

"You do no be knowing everyone in the Capitol. How do you be knowing that." She sat down next to the rose bush, as he really did seem harmless.

[amourtician]

Jay sat up so he could look at Pruna. Hearing a voice come from an unseen source was setting off all sorts of memories he did not want to process while sitting in a rosebush, drunk.

He glanced around and, satisfied that they were alone and the park was unlikely to be bugged, replied, quietly, "haven't you noticed? All their poor seem to be slaves. Except you didn't hear me say that, all right?"

[knifewithnoname]

She'd also done her own checks and she wrinkled her nose at his words, she plucked a rose and began ripping it apart. "Well I do no be seeing any rules to be saying slaves can no be robbing other slaves."

[amourtician]

Jay paused to examine this statement, because hell, Pruna is right. He just never thought of it that way.

"I ... suppose," he said. "I mean, I hardly have experience with such things. No one in Tulun owns slaves, any more, and I never did live in places where such things are common."

"I'm a little disturbed by ... how no one seems particularly disturbed by it," he admitted, after further silence. "Or even ... ah. Confused."

He looked rather uncomfortable, mindful of the fact what he said could count as anti-Capitol.

[knifewithnoname]

"I guess if they do be being used to it. It do be normal." She shrugged, slavery hadn't been all the common in Gauig either, it was usually a personal matter, of debts and such. But she knew in other countries they just grabbed people and sold them, Kant had told her. Kant had been to almost all the countries in the world.

"They do only be needing to be being disturbed if it do be being them who do be being slaves."

[amourtician]

Jay chews on his lip, unsettled by what Pruna said. She's right, of course, and of course no one cares unless it involves them somehow. He's usually all right with that. It's just the way things are. But right now he's drunk and homesick and this simple fact of life is nagging at him.

"I suppose," he finally says. "Urgh. How ugly."

[knifewithnoname]

She shrugged, not seeming too bothered herself. "Well there do no be any point complaining about it. It do no be being too bad, they do be giving us lots of food."

[amourtician]

Jay laughed, a touch nastily.

"Food really isn't the be-all and end-all of well-being," he said. "But they do feed us well. I do hope it won't make me gain weight."

[knifewithnoname]

"It do no be?" Pruna blinked, a little confused. Yes they had to kill and die but Pruna had had to do the first anyways and they recovered from the second. Yes she wanted to go home, but she didn't think they could claim to be treated badly. "You should be running round lots."

[amourtician]

Jay laughs and reaches out to ruffle Pruna's hair, perfectly unaware that this might well cost him his hand.

"Peace of mind, darling," he says "is just as important as food. And no, I shan't be running. I'll do plenty of that in the Arena!"

[knifewithnoname]

She stiffened, her hand going for a dagger that wasn't there, but made no further move, yet.

"What do peace of mind be meaning?"

[amourtician]

Jay gave her a long, bewildered and very sozzled look.

"Darling," he drawled, sounding accusatory. "It means exactly what it says on the tin. It's when you don't have to worry about anything important."

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkled her nose, "The only people who do no be needing to be worrying about anything do be being the dead ones."