It takes him a second to parse what she means, mostly because his head is foggy. He knows Seven is big - it has to be for all that lumber - but the exact geography is lost on him. He's pretty sure it's designed that way, so no one District knows anything useful about another besides what they produce. Contact is minimized, grasp of territory certainly is too.
"You live by the ocean?" That's his takeaway.
He used to live near the water, but Victor's Village is far more inland. Now it's just streams or ponds, a large chunk of them man made for irrigation.
"Yeah, the Village is on the coastline so they didn't lose decent planting land." Saw had raised her after her mother was murdered but they'd remained in the Erso homestead -- still near enough to the water since evergreens can grow in sandy soil. Jyn had only ever been to the Victor's Village once before she moved in herself, alone, but she'd always been by the chilly water.
She pauses at an intersection of corridors, trying to remember which way is toward the lift before she leads them in that direction.
"It's on the other side of the Capitol, from you." They'd had to go up and around and through the mountains just to get to the Justice Building for the reaping, loads of children bussed in to stand in their best, cleanest clothes to be chosen to be murdered once a year and then bussed back to their hometowns to keep working because the Capitol may demand they watch the highlights every night but it also demands not a second of lost productivity.
"I used to," he says. Used to live near the ocean is the implication. He's quiet for a second, remembering the breeze. "We lived on a coffee fruit orchard. But I could smell it."
He gets more coffee now than he had the fruits as a child. Even the mangoes his mother would occasionally bring home are far more plentiful, but he doesn't enjoy them as much anymore. They just make him think of her.
Jyn leads him to the elevator, and the doors closing up behind them make him think of Eleven's Village locked away somewhere in the middle. Like they're locked here in the Capitol. "I suppose that is what happens when your District is presumably large."
"I never knew how big Eleven was until I took the train through it. Lando says Four is big too." Saw used to mumble about how the Capitol kept the districts apart, kept them down, but Jyn hadn't listened. That was the whole point of the Games, she knew that. Now she thinks he might have been talking about a different way of keeping them down all together.
She presses the button for Cassian's floor and the lift jets them up with a soft whirr.
Her arm is still looped around his waist and when she looks up at him she is struck by how close he is. The dusting of hair on his jaw does little to soften the sharp lines of his face, but Jyn finds herself appreciative that his district's stylists don't insist on shaving little designs into his stubble.
"You were right, about Albina. Once I figured out how she wanted me to look it was easier to suggest something less offensive." Her stylist struggles with her, she knows, because Jyn doesn't fit into any of the categories the Capitol wants her to fit in. She is just a lonely girl, but that doesn't make for good viewing, so Albina has tried her best to make Jyn look like a softer, innocent looking woman. What was the word? An ingenue. Maybe that way the Capitol citizens she is begging for help will actually help her. As such her hair is in her normal long bob, slightly curled, usually pinned back with a sprig of holly or pine needles or some other tiny remnant of her home -- today it's a cluster of tiny white flowers.
Jyn doesn't think it is working, maybe because of how she won her own Games, but the dresses the put her in are a hell of a lot more comfortable than what she was wearing before.
"Eleven, Four, Seven. Ten is fairly large too." He took note on his Victory Tour; it was easier to focus on the landscape than the idea of confronting the families of dead children. They don't like any of the Districts to know details about each other, but naturally that hadn't stopped him from paying attention. From doing his best to chart out a map in his head.
Cassian recognizes she's taking him to his room, he's not so far gone that he can't tell.
It takes him a moment to remember the advice he gave her, but he blames it on the fuzziness in his head. In combination with how close she is. Was she always pressed in like that? Was it so comfortable that he hadn't noticed? He could walk the rest of the way on his own surely, but maybe he wants to see how long she puts up with him.
"We have to do what we can to make it bearable where we can." A beat. "They have... ideas for us. Before our Games, during, after. I am glad it worked for you."
"They couldn't figure out what to do with me after my games. They made me too innocent and then..." She puffs out a breath which will have to make do for an explanation of her games. She was so covered in blood when she won that they couldn't run with innocent anymore.
"Well you saw it."
The elevator zip zips up and Jyn thinks they're close to his floor but she doesn't want to turn away from Cassian to check. Does he always smell this good? How does he smell so good.
He snorts, though it isn't at Jyn so much as the Capitol's self created dilemma. It happens time and time again, pictures of innocence ruined in the arena. "You bloomed from girl to woman under the cameras, and they will take credit for that. Is that the angle they are pushing?" He hasn't quite been able to figure it out, but after the Victory Tours are over, he doesn't particularly pay attention to the other Victors in the interim period. "They wanted me to be touchable. Instead I am untouchable. A dream."
With familial graves to prove it alongside the form fitting suits and colors that draw their gazes into a dream he will not allow to come true. He is probably being a little too free with his words, but he blames the drink. It's not in public, at any rate.
"Yes. They all do." He'd been so fascinated by them as a child, in those last few days before he stopped being a child and committed his first murder. Now they just sort of exist, and only on occasion does he choose the citrus bubbles when he can handle the reminders of his mother.
The elevator pings open, but Cassian only wobbles in place. "It surprised me, when I first got here."
"You smell nice." Which is a normal thing for normal people to say in a normal conversation. Even Jyn, who has the social skills of a porcupine, realizes that this is largely inappropriate, but she doesn't take it back.
He does smell nice.
"Come on." With her arm looped around his waist, she tugs him out of the elevator. He's higher than her, almost the penthouse, but the apartments are all the same according to Lando and Bodhi. She likes Bodhi, a sweet and incidental Victor who managed to win almost solely because he outlasted everyone else in a frigid desert. He'd won the year before her, gentle compared to the sheer violence of Jyn's win. Both of 12's tributes are still inexplicably alive, but Baze and Chirrut is mentoring them this year. Jyn thinks he and Baze are giving Bodhi a break, as if it will soothe his shaky anxiety.
"Which side is yours?" She can't remember if there is another Victor from 11. Maybe he has the run of the place.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
realists) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ohnofeelstho2018-12-08 12:59 am
no subject
"You live by the ocean?" That's his takeaway.
He used to live near the water, but Victor's Village is far more inland. Now it's just streams or ponds, a large chunk of them man made for irrigation.
no subject
She pauses at an intersection of corridors, trying to remember which way is toward the lift before she leads them in that direction.
"It's on the other side of the Capitol, from you." They'd had to go up and around and through the mountains just to get to the Justice Building for the reaping, loads of children bussed in to stand in their best, cleanest clothes to be chosen to be murdered once a year and then bussed back to their hometowns to keep working because the Capitol may demand they watch the highlights every night but it also demands not a second of lost productivity.
no subject
He gets more coffee now than he had the fruits as a child. Even the mangoes his mother would occasionally bring home are far more plentiful, but he doesn't enjoy them as much anymore. They just make him think of her.
Jyn leads him to the elevator, and the doors closing up behind them make him think of Eleven's Village locked away somewhere in the middle. Like they're locked here in the Capitol. "I suppose that is what happens when your District is presumably large."
no subject
She presses the button for Cassian's floor and the lift jets them up with a soft whirr.
Her arm is still looped around his waist and when she looks up at him she is struck by how close he is. The dusting of hair on his jaw does little to soften the sharp lines of his face, but Jyn finds herself appreciative that his district's stylists don't insist on shaving little designs into his stubble.
"You were right, about Albina. Once I figured out how she wanted me to look it was easier to suggest something less offensive." Her stylist struggles with her, she knows, because Jyn doesn't fit into any of the categories the Capitol wants her to fit in. She is just a lonely girl, but that doesn't make for good viewing, so Albina has tried her best to make Jyn look like a softer, innocent looking woman. What was the word? An ingenue. Maybe that way the Capitol citizens she is begging for help will actually help her. As such her hair is in her normal long bob, slightly curled, usually pinned back with a sprig of holly or pine needles or some other tiny remnant of her home -- today it's a cluster of tiny white flowers.
Jyn doesn't think it is working, maybe because of how she won her own Games, but the dresses the put her in are a hell of a lot more comfortable than what she was wearing before.
After a pause. "Thanks."
no subject
Cassian recognizes she's taking him to his room, he's not so far gone that he can't tell.
It takes him a moment to remember the advice he gave her, but he blames it on the fuzziness in his head. In combination with how close she is. Was she always pressed in like that? Was it so comfortable that he hadn't noticed? He could walk the rest of the way on his own surely, but maybe he wants to see how long she puts up with him.
"We have to do what we can to make it bearable where we can." A beat. "They have... ideas for us. Before our Games, during, after. I am glad it worked for you."
no subject
"Well you saw it."
The elevator zip zips up and Jyn thinks they're close to his floor but she doesn't want to turn away from Cassian to check. Does he always smell this good? How does he smell so good.
"Does your shower have the scented bubbles too?"
no subject
With familial graves to prove it alongside the form fitting suits and colors that draw their gazes into a dream he will not allow to come true. He is probably being a little too free with his words, but he blames the drink. It's not in public, at any rate.
"Yes. They all do." He'd been so fascinated by them as a child, in those last few days before he stopped being a child and committed his first murder. Now they just sort of exist, and only on occasion does he choose the citrus bubbles when he can handle the reminders of his mother.
The elevator pings open, but Cassian only wobbles in place. "It surprised me, when I first got here."
no subject
He does smell nice.
"Come on." With her arm looped around his waist, she tugs him out of the elevator. He's higher than her, almost the penthouse, but the apartments are all the same according to Lando and Bodhi. She likes Bodhi, a sweet and incidental Victor who managed to win almost solely because he outlasted everyone else in a frigid desert. He'd won the year before her, gentle compared to the sheer violence of Jyn's win. Both of 12's tributes are still inexplicably alive, but Baze and Chirrut is mentoring them this year. Jyn thinks he and Baze are giving Bodhi a break, as if it will soothe his shaky anxiety.
"Which side is yours?" She can't remember if there is another Victor from 11. Maybe he has the run of the place.