exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Date: June 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings. Now with 200% more People-Seeking lists!
Warnings: None.

You've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities. Now and then around you you might spot paper fluttering in the faint wind from somewhere relatively dry. It looks like a list.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She can't take being confined for one more day.

That's the pure and simple motivation behind why she's here, out and about among the crowd. Maybe it's a little early. Maybe she's running the risk of pushing her foot and its current delicate situation; the recovery timeline for the injury she'd sustained, after all, hasn't quite yet been reached. But there are some things that are worth the risk, and avoiding suffocation is one of them. The walls of that apartment had been starting to close in on her, more and more with each passing second.

(Tick, tock, tick, tock)

Getting out of there, finding some semblance of fresh air, had been the only option. If she hadn't, she might've gone insane. Or worse.

After a time, though, it becomes apparent that she has pushed it too far, too soon. The light beginnings of an ache in her foot morph into shooting pains before long, and she's forced to stop walking. It's then that she notices what's just a short distance from her. What she recognizes in an instant.

The pain isn't the only thing that prompts a sharp intake of breath.

She should've been expecting this, expecting the pattern to keep going. It's possible that a part of her has, because she doesn't have the energy for any kind of intense wave of reaction like she experienced just one short month ago. Things, instead, come to her in flashes. The old resentment that she hasn't quite fully managed to put to rest, even after all these months. Relief that there's some form of familiarity she can cling to, when so much has been shattered, even if in that familiarity is an equally familiar revulsion that's usually associated with Haymitch (and especially Haymitch-plus-alcohol). Deep down, some relief at the sight of her mentor himself, associated with a kind of fleeting hope that maybe he can make sense of what she can't....--

It feels like an eternity before she can open her mouth.

"Already?" Her gaze drifts to the bottle of vodka in his hand. Something has to fill in the silence, and it's honestly the first thing she can think of to say. She knows words can't be avoided forever. Words, which she's never been good at and never will be.

In a lot of ways, Peeta would be the better choice to handle this.

She's limping, just a little, favoring one foot. It's the first thing he notices, and it's completely ridiculous, considering where he is, what's happened, this whole new shining world of revisiting old miseries instead of creating new ones. He probably should've reacted to the fact she's even here, not back on the hovercraft heading home to an empty house with her shredded skin and too-thin body. Or maybe the fact she's healthier-looking if no less dead in the eyes.

But no, the first thing he notices is that Katniss is limping, and she doesn't seem very happy to see him. Not that it matters much, because she's not often happy to see him and when she is it's because something so bad has happened she's got no one else to turn to. It doesn't bother him, never has.

He lifts the bottle, saluting her, a little toast to Katniss Everdeen before he takes another swig and gives his head a shake, "Figured it was for the best to get started right away." he said, voice a little raspy, "Seems I've gone right back to the start of the war. And here you are, sweetheart. What a joy for both of us."

It's sarcastic, but it's mostly because, of all the places they could be, a rebellion in a world they don't know, stuck between another incarnation of the Capitol and District 13, is the last place either of them would want. It's no joy seeing her in a place like this, he'd rather see her home and healing, for once. If it sounds different than that...well...Haymitch has never been good at expressing himself.

It's funny how five, six, maybe seven months can become irrelevant in a matter of seconds. How what once came to her in flashes can now come to her in waves. How memories can be transported into the present, seamlessly recreate experience, to the point that the time passed isn't just irrelevant; it's gone.

"Sweetheart." That's the word she hones in on. The clincher, what opens the gates and allows the waves to come together and form a flood. Fleeting relief stands no chance of winning against what's always been stronger, and what's stronger, some amalgamation of resentment and disgust, floods her entire body from tip to tip. Settles into her cells as easily as if it had never left.

"That was nice of them to let us have it." If his tone is sarcastic, then hers is flat, close to deadpan, even, with just a noticeable twinge of bitterness.

Joy. Maybe she could find that in wrenching that bottle out of his grip and smashing it on the ground.

But she keeps her hands by her sides.

He can't help the twisted smirk on his face when she mimicks back his term of endearment all vitriol and spite, and his smile is as close to real as he can manage in this state of intoxication and unpleasant nostalgia, bearing up under the heat of the girl who was on fire as she spits that word at him. There's some heat there, still, for just a moment, and that moment is reassuring before she goes flat and deadpan again.

She's mad at him, he can tell that much, because one of the big differences between them has always been that he lashes out when he gets mad, violence unleashed by lack of self-restraint under the dizzy, swaying siren's call of liquor. Her inhibitions set her apart, and that's why she's doing better than he ever was, among other things. He tries to resent her for it and can't quite bring himself to, so he takes another swallow from the bottle and smirks when he sees her eyes go to it, can imagine what she's thinking.

"I see you're limping, but you look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you. Seems a little...funny, all things considered. You wanna try explaining?"