thecapitol | [OPEN]

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[OPEN]

Who| Dirk Strider and YOU. Yes, you with the face.
What| Dirk's arrival.
Where| Out in the Capitol, then the roof.
When| After his briefing.
Warnings/Notes| None that I can think of!

Dirk was... angry, to say the absolute, very least. After the trickster debacle, everything had gone to hell. Or rather, it was already hell and had only gotten worse. He had no way of knowing if Jane or Roxy or Jake were alright, thanks to being teleported away.

And then he'd woken up here. Told he had to play some sick and twisted games. It was bullshit. He has no intention of doing what they say- but he's not stupid enough to actually make a move against them right now. They took his weapon, and the only remnants of his godtier are the clothes on his back, which he's currently wearing. So that cuts flying away out of his list of potential ways to get out of this shit.

Right now? He's roaming the capitol, taking it all in and trying to look for some way to leave, even if in his gut he feels like it's pointless to even try. At the same time, he's getting gross deja vu simply from observing the capitol people. It's like reliving trickster mode all over again, with the vibrant colors and the weird sense of fashion. The only thing missing is candy in people's hair. Even their personalities seemed weirdly enthusiastic, though he never stopped to converse with anyone. He would much rather watch from a distance instead of have to talk to any of them.

Eventually when he really starts to feel like there's absolutely no way he's going to find a way back home, he stops at a nearby bench and just kind of... lays down on it. He's done. This is all bullshit, and he's just done with it all. So he's just going to lie there and stare at the sky for a while. His mind is racing though, wondering how the fuck he's going to get out of this shit and get back to his friends.

[OPTION B: Roof of the training center.]

It's hours later when the sun's finally setting and casting an orangey glow over the Capitol that Dirk makes his way back to the training center. He doesn't stop at his room though, and just decides to go up to the roof to watch the sunset. He's feeling frustratingly hollow, as if he's used up every ounce of his ability to give a fuck trying to find a way to get out of the city. Or maybe it's just that he's tired, and it's not really sunk in completely yet.

Either way, he feels simultaneously nothing, and like complete shit. So when he's on the roof, he sits down and stares out at the Capitol, the way the dying sunlight reflects over the buildings. He'd be lying if he said the place wasn't gorgeous. Absolutely so. But it wasn't for him. It was too fancy, too... foreign. He'd rather be back in the Medium than be here.

After a while, he lets out a sigh and runs a shakes his head. "Son of a dick, this is stupid," he murmurs to himself. He's angry- mostly right now, at himself. For all of his intelligence, he should be able to find a way back home. Instead, he's resigned himself to the roof watching a goddamn sunset. It felt too much like giving up. But what else was he supposed to do? It would be suicide to do anything else at this point. All he could really do is... wait, and hope an opportunity presented itself.

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Eridan isn't expecting to find anyone on the roof - but, really, with these ninety-some odd tributes running around it shouldn't surprise him as much as it does.

He sighs to himself, staring at the other boy glumly. He's not any of the tributes he recognizes, but that doesn't really mean much. He barely recognizes the tributes he's supposed to be mentoring, much less sorry saps assigned to other districts. (Which is something he really, really doesn't understand - but it's not something he can question.)

Oh well. He's not going to let this new loser ruin his plans for the night. He gathers his bag, looking around for a place to sit that's not an awkward position when he hears...something. He can't make out the words, but he knows somebody said something. "What was that?"

At the voice behind him, Dirk whips around and is on his feet as fast as possible- which isn't nearly as fast as he's used to moving. Everything feels sluggish right now, and it's going to take some adjusting to get used to the fact he can't move at the speed of light like he could back home. He takes a defensive position though, as months in the medium have taught him to be on guard, even if he doesn't have a weapon.

He looks the boy up and down critically, taking in everything he can about him. "I said, and I quote, "Son of a dick, this is stupid." Dirk says after a moment, relaxing slightly when he feels like he's not about to get attacked. "Who're you?"

Karkat almost walks right past the guy on the bench, except the symbol on his chest catches his eye and Karkat has fucking seen that symbol before. He creeps up to get a better look at it.

A heart, one side hollow and the other side filled in. That's... that's the Heart symbol, Nepeta's Heart symbol. From Sgrub. He'd seen it once or twice over the course of the game, on the rare occasion when all their symbols had been assembled in some puzzle or code or whatever. And what Karkat initially thought was just a stupid capitol outfit looks a fucking lot like godtier pajamas.

What the fuck is a human doing wearing Sgrub godtier pajamas? And if he's godtier then where the fuck are his wings?

Dirk can feel the eyes on him. It's not the first time he's been stared at today, but he sort of expects them to pass by after a second or two of their nosy gawking. Except... They don't. And he hears Karkat approaching. Still, he just stares up at the sky without acknowledging that he knows Karkat is looking. It's not until a few seconds pass and he's still being stared at that he finally decides to actually say something.

Without looking towards Karkat, he says, "If you took a picture, it'd last longer. But hey, feel free to keep making me out to be a circus animal. I'm far from the main attraction in this city."

Karkat rolls his eyes. "Bite me. You have no fucking idea what it's like to have these Capitol humans see you as an animal and if you think I'm circus you have another fucking think coming." Seriously, what the hell? How does he even come across as a clown cultist?

Still. It's bugging the hell out of him. "Since when did humans play Sgrub?"

"Relax, dude. I never said I thought you were circus." Dirk hasn't even looked at him. "I was talking about everyone else, so take it down a goddamn notch."

But when Karkat mentions 'Sgrub', is when Dirk finally decides to look over at him, pulling himself into a sitting position as he does so. He's a bit surprised to see that he's a troll, but whatever. He's just gonna roll with it, because why should he be surprised when everything else is fucked up as it is? "If you mean Sburb, then since a while ago."

Eridan can't say he's that thrown by Dirk's reaction - he's known lots of kids who were skittish as hell. He can be pretty jumpy himself...It's just how kids tend to be, when they know that one day they can be chosen to fight to the death to maybe make their lives easier for one year.

Though now they don't have to worry about that.

"Interestin' phrase." Eridan scoots forward, nudging at the ground before sitting down heavily. "Name's Eridan. I'm one a' the mentors here."

Dirk just kind of watches as he sits down. When it becomes clear that Eridan isn't going to attack, he relaxes fully, though he doesn't sit back down himself. Not yet. He can't help but quirk an eyebrow though, at the last bit. "A mentor?" he asks, his tone skeptical, and for a variety of reasons. For one, why the fuck does this place need mentors? And two... "Aren't you too young to be a mentor? You look fifteen."

"I'm sixteen," he grumbles as he pulls out a ball of yarn. Get a talent, they said. Something to show the Capitol what you can do without slaving away, they said. Something that reminds you of your arena, they said.

He pulls out a set of knitting needles as well, not bothering to look back up at the blond. "An' age ain't a requirement for that shit. Didn't they tell you anythin'?"

You look like a raging idiot, Dirk says. Like wow, a total grandma, he says. Dirk folds his arms and continues on with the skeptical air. "They told me I was gonna play death games or whatever. They didn't say any mentors were going to be involved. Unless I tuned that part out. It's pretty fuckin' possible that I did." He listened, he just kind of didn't take everything that was said to heart, considering he was too focused on trying to figure out how he would get out. "Care to tell me more, granny?"

Ugh. He can't believe this. Eridan rubs his temple, sighing heavily. His life is hard. "A mentor is a previous victor a' the Games. They lived, while the twenty-three other bastards all died. They then get roped into helpin' the next kids who're reaped." He casts on some yarn, getting to work on another scarf as he talks. "They talk to sponsors an' offer advice an' all a' that shit."

Your life is never going to be as hard as Dirk's. He was taken from a very important point in his life. That's hard. But still, he listens as Eridan speaks, because now that he knows Eridan has been a part of these games, suddenly the guy is a lot more interesting. At least this means he can learn a thing or two before he's got to do anything. "That sounds like a goddamn depressing job," he says after a moment of thought. "I mean, if I'm getting this all right, doesn't it mean you just end up watching people you get close to die?"

His life is so much suffering, though. Eridan shrugs dismissively, focusing on his knitting. "Usually, I guess? But you know they're gonna die unless you're from a career district, an' than it's like anythin' you tell them doesn't matter because they probably already know it. An' normally the tributes aren't around long before they go into the arena. Maybe a week or so I saw my mentor?" He finally glances up at Dirk for a moment, squinting at him. "But when I was in the Games, death was permanent."

This place is so fucking morbid, Christ. He doesn't understand how a government like this even functions. It seems more defunct than the Batterwitch's regime. Everyone eventually died out then and yet this place is apparently thriving when it's fucked up beyond belief? It makes no sense. "Huh," he is all he says for a moment, just kind of taking it all in. It's really the last part pings him though, more than anything else. "What, are you saying death ain't permanent now?"

Tell him about it. It's only been this way for decades. He scoffs, lowering his knitting so he can stare at Dirk. "I mean when you die in the arena, it ain't over. The Capitol brings you back so you can do it again an' again."

He's beginning to feel like coming to the roof was a horrible idea. "But when I was in the Games, if you died you died for good. They didn't bring 'em back. It woulda defeated the purpose."

Just when he thought it couldn't get anymore fucked up, Eridan goes and says that. Ah, what a predicament he's found himself in. So if he dies, then that means he's going to just get brought back again so he can play the games again. Wonderful.

"This is bullshit." He says it in a casual sort of tone, but there's also a hardness to it. Like he's completely done with this. "What if you refuse to play, what the hell do they do then?"

Welcome to Panem, Dirk. Enjoy your stay.

"How would I know? I didn't go through the same shit you're goin' to go through. I had a reason to fight, but I imagine they'll find somethin' to make you." The Capitol had ways, after all. He sounds pretty Done, too, like he's just tired of having to explain all of this.

Which, he is. Nobody is happy about being in the Games, but nobody really understands why they were started in the first place, either.

Yes, he will enjoy it very much. Except no.

Dirk can tell that Eridan sounds just as Done as he does, and he has to wonder if it's because he's sick of this shit, or if it's something else. But he's not just going to stop asking questions. He's found someone to answer shit, and he's going to soak up the only resource he actually has.

"What reason is good enough to kill innocent people, though?" his voice is a little less edgy than before, as if he's legitimately curious. Killing skeleton monsters and Derse agents is a lot different than killing actual people.

Too bad.

Eridan doesn't have enough patience to get sucked dry. He really doesn't. Plus everyone he's explained shit to just hasn't understood anything, and he's tired of it.

"A long time ago there was a war," Eridan starts, sounding every bit like someone who's repeated this over and over. "Thirteen districts rose up against the Capitol to fight for freedom. They lost. District 13 was completely wiped out durin' the war, an' the Capitol decided that they needed a way to keep the districts in line, to keep 'em subjugated - so they started the Hunger Games to do just that, an' every year for seventy-four years they would go on as the Capitol had planned."

Ah what a good info dump. Dirk just listens and takes it all in, as if eating it out of a spoon. He wasn't expecting a history lesson, but hey, he'll take what he can get. It... still doesn't make much sense to him though. This seems like a damn extreme punishment for a war. Usually wars are started for a reason. He can only imagine why they must've needed a war back then.

"That's nice and all," he says after a few seconds, "But it doesn't answer my question, regardless of how interesting it is. I asked why you fought. Why you apparently had such a good reason to kill people. Or are you just sayin' you believe everybody deserves this for the war?"

For the same reasons they need one now, pretty much.

Eridan blinks up at him, pushing his glasses up. "Because I got Reaped. Every year, when it's time for the Games, an escort from the Capitol comes an' picks the tributes at random. A boy an' a girl, an' it could be anyone in the district. Some districts get people who volunteer, but that's normally just one an' two, an' one a' their tributes normally wins anyways."

Sheesh, does he have to tell you everything?

"So I fought because I had no choice."

"Oh, is that all?" he asks when Eridan is done, feeling as if that little explanation was a bit anticlimactic. "The way you phrased it earlier made it sound like you had some big, special reason for fighting." Dirk shakes his head, "But you're no different than me and the rest of the people brought here from wherever-the-fuckville. We're being made to fuckin' fight just like you were."

Prowling the city has become a daily occurrence for Terezi, if only for a few hours. The colors and sounds are too amazing to pass up, even if they eventually result in a numbing sensory overload. It's really difficult to resist.

On this day, she hasn't been out for very long before stumbling across a relatively familiar figure lying on a bench. She doesn't even know his name, just that she recognizes him from that dream bubble clusterfuck as Dave's older brother... or at least his alternate self.

She approaches from behind the bench, leaning against the backrest with her forearms and "peering" down at him. She sniffs lightly, partly because those godtier jammies smell amazing and partly because it agitated him so much last time.

"Hey Mr Brain Phantom. I didn't know they let hallucinations play here, too."

Edited 2013-06-17 17:17 (UTC)

Sunset is, by all rights, really far too early for Nepeta to want to be up. True, there hadn't really been anything like a proper day/night cycle on the meteor, but even so it was hard to get used to the fact that almost everyone here seems to prefer being diurnal. Perhaps in the days to come she'd get the hang of it, but for now, she doesn't see any real reason to not stick with the schedule she knows best. It's not like it's actually hurting anything, after all.

All the same, she hadn't exactly expected anyone else to be up on the roof. It's early by troll standards and she doesn't really know a whole lot about what sort of schedules humans like to keep. But even the surprise of finding someone else on the roof pales in comparison to what he's wearing. She recognizes that symbol, and the colors that go with it. Why he doesn't have the wings to go with what is clearly a godtier outfit is another question entirely, but she figures she can ask about that later.

"I didn't know there was human Heart player."

"Yep." He snorts, tapping his needles together. "It was just luck a' the draw an' the desire to stay alive that had me fightin' and killin', just like how it is for you." He slowly returns to working on his scarf, dropping his gaze. "But like I said, you get to come back. The people who died in my games didn't."

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HI DIRK I HOPE YOU LIKE TROLLS STARING AT YOU (LOL NO)

His dream has come true!

Re: His dream has come true!

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i had to review act six act three just for you, i hope you're happy :p

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