thecapitol | HOMEBASE

Who| Homebase and any character who did not pick a team/showed up late/are refusing to participate.
What| Alien attack
Where| Mainly within the commons of the training center, but also through out the whole building. Please specify location if you are not in the common area.
Warnings/Notes| Please post any warning in your threads subject header when they become applicable. Please shot any questions/concerns to mod through PM. Here is the plotting post for reference.

The atmosphere was tense. There were tables stacked with easy to make food rations, and basic Capitol medical supplies. Some of those supplies, however, would be considered way beyond basic for those from other worlds; spray on skin, a pen that stitched in sutures as you drew it along the wound, a powerful spray anesthetic, a compact splint that stabilized broken bones until they could be treated, and the burn and wound healing cream.

Radios were set around, and the screens that normally showed the games instead flickered between various security cameras places around the neighborhood. The largest screen showed the camera aimed at the training centered front door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Blaine was pretty anxious about all of this stuff, but he was doing his best to maintain his composure. This entire thing just seemed like one more reason to believe that the Capitol didn't actually know what it was doing. He wasn't at all surprised by that, but still it was disheartening.

He avoided the screens as he normally did and worked on making sure that their supplies were neatly organized. Being neat was one of the few things he knew he could do.

Unfortunately, a petty, peeved girl was messing up his supplies. Eponine was fed up with the Capitol, and dreading returning to the arena after the last time. So she was making her own act of rebellion, nothing big enough to get her in trouble. But enough to cause a little annoyance, and to let her vent her frustrations.

She didn't look at Blaine, acknowledge his presence, as she knocked over neat stacks and pocketed a few interesting bits and pieces. It wasn't his fault. But she wasn't sorry.

"Why did you do that?" Blaine asked her, frowning just a bit. He wasn't angry or anything, because he was too worried to be angry. "We need this stuff if any of the people out there get hurt." He bent to pick up the mess she had made.

"The same people you will be killing soon enough, Monsieur?" Eponine laughed bitterly and sneezed. "Why should you make them better? Leave them to die now and you will have fewer to kill in the arena."

She made no effort to help him, but instead shifted from foot to slippered foot whilst she examined the supplies.

"The same people who I've been forced to face in the Arena. People who are in the exact same situation as I am. If you're mad, be mad at the people who put us here," Blaine points out. His voice is gentle as he spoke. He didn't blame her for thinking that of the other Tributes.

"I am not mad, Monsieur. I just think it is stupid for them to have you heal the people we are to kill, perhaps in a week or a month, but soon enough. And I think you are all stupid for helping these people. Do you not see it?" She wasn't particularly angry either. She just couldn't understand why any of the tributes were so willing to help. Eponine sneezed again and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"Have you been here long, Sir? I think I remember seeing you with the boy who tried to help me in the last arena when they poisoned me."

"I've been here through three arenas," Blaine answered. "And there's huge difference between dying in there and dying out here. Not all of the people who are going out there to fight that monster are enemies. Like Kurt for instance. He's not going out there, but if he was would you honestly just sit by and watch him die? Even after he helped you?"

"A long time then, Monsieur." She smiled sadly. "Almost as long as I. And still you are willing to help them." She didn't understand that.

She said nothing to his question about Kurt. Would she let the boy die after he had tried to help her? She wanted to say 'no', but in her heart, she knew that that was a lie. She knew she would watch, albeit uncomfortably, whilst Kurt died, if it meant keeping herself alive for longer. Kurt had helped her, but he wasn't someone she would sacrifice herself for. Not yet.

So she stared at Blaine, lips pursed, expression hard, until she rolled her eyes and dropped her gaze.

"We would be better letting the monster win. At least it says it is a monster. I like that better."

"If it's a monster, it's going to hurt innocent people," Blaine pointed out. "I'd rather they send their army to fight it, but... We might be able earn some of their favor by helping out. Maybe they'll see us more as people?"

"But it is honest of what it does, no? I would rather an honest monster than one that lies, Monsieur." She shrugged. "I do not think so - I think they will just use us the more then. They already change us and put us to fight to make fun for them - and now we fight their problems too. Shall we clean the streets with our tongues next?"

More than a little cynical, Eponine slipped a packet of tablets into her pocket.

Blaine looked a little heartbroken for a moment, but he let it pass. He didn't expect sympathy from this woman. "I'm pretty sure they have robots for that," he said instead, trying to at least make a small joke about this in an effort to break the tension there.

"That is probably so." She didn't know what a robot was, so she imagined Sigma, with his strange limbs.

"You're cross with me, aren't you?" She was observant, Eponine. She noticed that little look. "Do you want me to go, Sir?"

He shook his head. "I'm not," he admitted and some of the tension left his shoulders. "I'm just annoyed at the situation. We're stuck in a place where people are left thinking it might be better to let others die from a monster attack than to face them again in a death match. That's not on you, that's on... Well, them." He gestured around towards the screens.

"It's not so different, is it? Where I am from, Sir, there were no monsters. Well, not real ones. Only in my head, you know? And there was no arena. But still, the rich people, they sat back and watched us fighting and thieving, and when they could, they would lock us away in prisons - horrible, horrible. They are almost as bad as the arena, Sir. And the smell - horrible! And sometimes, they would kill some of us. It was horrible - and whilst they had everything, we thieved and begged for a crust."

She paused, eyeing Blaine specutively. "I do not say this for pity, Sir. Truly, no. But in Paris, I learned to lump it, for I certainly didn't like it. I would do as my Pa said. He would say, "Eponine, take these letters to this man or that man and do whatever you must to get a coin from him. Do not come back without it." or he would say, "Eponine, wait on the street for me outside. Watch for the bogies and scream loud for me." and I would do it. Whatever he asked, for there is nothing else to be done. And it is the same here. Except - Sir, I am tired of playing their game. I tire of it. They pretend to be nice, but that is the worst of all. I prefer the monster, for it says it is a monster at least. And perhaps if enough die from it, I will not have to fight again."

Blaine listened to her and let her say her piece. When she was done, he wasn't sure what to say.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually. "I'm sorry you had to suffer through all of that. I wish that there was some way that I could make it better for you. The only thing I can offer, though, is friendship. Both in and out of the Arena."

Kurt had already tried to be there for this woman, so he could try to do the same. "I don't know how much that is worth though."

"You want to be friends with me?" Eponine looked completely flummoxed. She still didn't understand why people wanted to be friends with her.

"Why? Say it isn't for pity, for if that is why, I would rather not be friends with you, if it's all the same. I don't want your pity, Sir."

"No. It's not pity. It's... we're all in the same boat. I don't want to consider people my enemy, no matter what we have to do in the Arena."

HOMEBASE

Blaine OTA

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