{Nøthing as it Seems}{Wolfea}

[aya]

Kale was not typically one to complain. The things that bothered most kids her age--having to work twenty-five hours a week on top of going to school, the heat, excessive manual labor--just didn't have as big an effect on her. She was a daydreamer. It kept her preoccupied, and it kept her sane.

In fact, Kale wasn't even at her worst when she was working in the orange groves, despite the fact that the hottest part of the day--the working part of the day--was typically the time when tempers flared. No, she was most prone to irritation when meeting new people. Sure, she did her best to be as nice as possible, even if she was a bit awkward at first.

But some people just didn't deserve it. Some people were looking for pleasant, idle chitchat, expecting Kale to take their personal questions poorly concealing their preconceived notions about her, about her family. She wasn't as she seemed to be, and no stranger had the right to make whatever assumptions they pleased. That was something she just could not take.

It was the uncalled for queries of her younger brother's latest girlfriend that had forced Kale out of the house and into the chilly winter rain on this particular occasion. Though she was two years his senior, it seemed as though Dill had brought home more girls than Kale herself had ever considered asking out. Their elder brother and his wife both agreed with Kale when she suggested Dill was the family Casanova.

And thinking of how she was the most alone of her family--though her mother had died, her father still saw some women upon occasion--forced Kale to shut her eyes and sigh, as if somehow that would keep the lonesome feeling out of her head. It was the one thing she had banned from her daydreams, the subject she repressed and repressed. She did not want to think about it.

It wasn't as if Kale didn't have friends; on the contrary, she had a good handful. They didn't hang out all that often, but they were good when they were there. She really was more of a loner, anyhow. She liked to keep to her thoughts, and didn't typically like to divulge them onto anyone else. But maybe that was something she wanted: someone to share with.

The winter storm had already soaked her clothes completely through, and Kale didn't particularly care that her fingers and toes were starting to get numb. Weather made her feel alive. A good many people would dash from overhang to overhang, or perhaps enter a shop or warehouse to wait out the storm. Not Kale. She couldn't get any wetter at this point, anyhow.

With another sigh, she slouched against the wood paneling of a nearby building. She wasn't particularly tired of standing, but had nowhere in mind to go, nowhere she needed to be. So she shut her eyes and shut her mind, letting the rain completely consume her.

OOC- Not my best... sorry.

[/size]

[WT]

((OOC- Endless apologies for the lateness. And a few more, while I'm at it, for the overbearing angst. :/ I couldn't get her to cooperate with anything else.))

There was no reason for them to have been able to make this wedding work. It helped, true, that they were out from under the claws of their parents; Cadia’s had been okay, but there was no way Lalik’s would ever consent to this. Even so, the laws on same-sex marriage in the Districts shifted back and forth so often that you couldn’t even get your wedding planned, let alone set up, before it was yanked out from under you. Even a small affair like this one- just themselves and some friends, mostly Cadia’s friends because Lalik wasn’t very good at making them.

All the same, she was standing here, and so was Cadia- and they were older than they were supposed to be, perhaps in their twenties. Age had been kind to Cadia; Lalik couldn’t tell what she looked like herself, but her friend- her fiancé?- was as radiant as ever. More so, in fact, and becoming still more beautiful with each passing moment- and if Lalik was biased, she didn’t care enough to change her opinion.

Even so, even with her most important dream coming true, Lalik was becoming restless. Cadia caught her fidgeting, and Lalik gave her a tiny, guilty smile; Cadia’s eyes twinkled in return, and she snatched her soon-to-be-spouse’s hand away from where it was messing with the pleats of her simple light green dress.

“I love you.”

It was a whisper, kept quiet so she wouldn’t interrupt the man who droned on and on in front of them. The whisper, the quietness and secrecy, made her sound younger, almost like a teenager again, almost...

It hit her, then, and she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. Cadia had never been able to watch her cry without tearing up as well, and Lalik couldn’t even put dream-Cadia through that.

Those had been her last words.

Time shimmered; she wasn’t sure how, exactly, but suddenly they were in the Arena. Everything had happened, she remembered everything; the death, the murder, the desperate flight and the reaping in District Eleven, and yet they were still standing here, Districts One and Eleven, somehow still in their dresses even though they were the last in the Games. But they wouldn’t kill each other, and they wouldn’t let each other commit suicide; they were stuck, so the Capitol sent something- some kind of insect that they had to run from, but they were too fast and they stung the tributes over and over, injecting venom into them until Cadia was writhing on the floor screaming, until Lalik, sobbing in terror and barely able to move, managed to take control of one hand just long enough to shift its knife into the girl’s heart. The Arena was silent then, the insects having killed their quarry and been called back by some hidden hive leader, and Lalik took up the screaming herself, not because she was in pain but because someone needed to, someone needed to make it didn’t end, because if it ended it meant that Cadia was really... dead...

She woke with tears frozen on her face. That felt wrong, like she wasn’t really crying and was mocking Cadia’s death, and she desperately tried to sob faster than the cold could claim them. It took a moment to realize that that was counterproductive, because crying more just upset her more and she wasn’t thinking clearly, which was never a bad thing. Trying to stop just made it worse, though, so she gave up and lay there in bed crying.

It was just a dream. It was just a dream.

It didn’t matter; the specific events had been a dream, but the fact of Cadia’s death, and of Lalik’s own inability to fix it, were real, and suddenly as fresh and painful as they had been over a year ago when they had stolen her will to live.

She couldn’t stay here; she had to run. Blindly she threw the covers off her bed and jumped out. She ran, not even bothering to pay attention to where she was going; normally she would head for the forest, but she didn’t bother because she didn’t care where she was going. No place was worth bothering with if the person she wanted to be there wasn’t there, and that person was nowhere. She didn’t even notice the rain that she usually cursed at; she just drove right through it, letting it augment the tears on her face without troubling to try and keep it away.

Her legs gave out somewhere along the way in the middle of some road in the District. She sat where they put her and lay her hands on the ground; she wanted to keep crying, but the tears wouldn’t come, so she just sat and let the raindrops take their place. Just then, she didn’t have the will to do anything more.

[aya]

Clothes soaked completely through, Kale finally mustered the will to do something remotely productive--or, at the very least, wander. People were often more interesting before you got to know them, and there were still a few strangers left on the streets--the ones like her, who were beyond caring about the weather, who weren't bothered by the chilly winter rains.

Kale--storyteller as she was--loved to make up things about the people she'd never met. Most of the time, it cheered her up to create an interesting back story about the people she passed on the streets. She would name them, give them a past, and decide their destination. Sometimes she would even plot out the entirety of their lives, from birth to death, if the person was interesting enough.

Passing a gaunt man in his early thirties, Kale began her work. Leed Newson, the eldest of four, she started in her head, but only he and his youngest sister still live. Their parents and middle siblings--twin brothers--were killed by diphtheria when he was nineteen, leaving him to care for his sister.

Maybe it was impolite to fabricate such a tragic story about a stranger, but such unfortunate events were so common in District 11 that it really wasn't a big deal. Still sad, but the effect was greatly lessened by the frequency of these things. Either way, Kale decided that Mr. Newson's story was not the mood-enhancer that she needed. She resolved to make the next several more uplifting, or at the very least more interesting

She carried on with her games for a good several blocks, passing merchants entangled in secret love affairs with peacekeepers, depressed siblings of tributes from years past, and rebel spies on dangerous reconnaissance missions. As she had when she was little, Kale liked the spies the best.

The imaginative Kale had just turned the corner onto another street, scanning the road for new subjects when she found the most interesting of the day. There in the middle of the street sat a girl about her age in obvious distress. At first, Kale thought this girl might have collapsed from hunger--ironically, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence in the agriculture district--but it did not seem to be the case.

Intrigued as she was, Kale could not bring herself to put a back story to this stranger. Even if she could, a pit in her stomach told her that it would more than likely pale in comparison to the real one. No one broke down like that without cause.

Though never a social initiator, she took it upon herself to see what the matter was. It was more out of intrigue than anything else--pessimistic though it was, Kale doubted that at this point, nothing any stranger could say or do would make a difference. And something of such apparent magnitude would not be given up to a stranger. So Kale had to stop being a stranger.

The trouble was, she was a bit awkward with people--especially people she didn't know--even in non-emergency situations. How could Kale possibly know what to say? She shuffled over to the girl with the strong suspicion that she would be completely ignored.

"Hi," she started gently, cheeks burning from shyness. How were you supposed address something like this? Kale tried her hand at asking the obvious. "Rough day, then?"

[/size]

[WT]

((OOC- What is this I don't even. o.o Seriously, I have no idea where this came from.))

There are some people who, when really upset, want to talk it out. There are others who want someone to hold them and tell them it’s okay, but who are overwhelmed by the thought of talking. Some of them try to pretend that everything is okay, and smile for the world even though they have no idea what to smile about. And there are others- and the girl sitting on the ground pretending that she was the only one for miles around fell into this group- who just want everyone to f*** off and leave them alone.

To the detriment of everyone who has ever been upset around strangers, it is impossible to determine which of these types someone is, if any, by looking at them. You can usually tell if someone isn’t the smiling type, because the smiling types rarely let anyone see that they’re upset, but that’s about it. And while normally this wouldn’t be a problem, because the people who know the upset person will probably know which type they are, it is definitely a problem when that person doesn’t know anyone. This isolation generally means that they’ll be crying to screaming or freaking out alone, and doing any of the above draws pity and attention, both of which draw people.

These were the unusually eloquent ramblings that went through Cadia’s mind as she saw someone approaching out the corner of her eye. She was reminded distinctly of the other Cadia, who cared about other people enough to have figured that out years ago; Lalik-Cadia hadn’t even thought about that conversation in years, but she could remember it very well now. They had met that way- child-Lalik had been crying, and child-Cadia had come over to her and started talking. This girl seemed to be trying to do the same thing, but she didn’t seem to be quite so good at it. Still, the resemblance was enough that though her hand reflexively went to the knife at her belt, she didn’t pull it out.

She didn’t snarl, either. Instead she just looked up and watch the other girl through the rain for a moment, staring through the sheen of water at someone who reminded her just too much of a dead lover to be uncomfortable, but just too little to warrant that discomfort.

The stranger said something other than “Hi,” but it took a moment for Cadia’s mind to process it. She was, understandably, a bit brain-fried, and on top of that wasn’t really all that used to sympathetic words. When she did manage to figure out what the other meant, she almost laughed, but it came out as hiccups instead. Rough day. Rough past couple of years. Yeah, that sounded about right.

She did her best to smile, because it seemed appropriate, but it came out as more of a strained grimace. She stopped that quickly. Smiling put people at ease; grimacing made them thing you were angry and put them on edge. (Even now, even like this, the paranoia was just active enough for her to not want to do anything to provoke an attack.) “That obvious?” she asked dryly, ignoring how her voice cracked and threatened to fail her on the second word. “Or are- are you just- observant?”

More to avoid talking than anything else, she glanced down at the street. There was a dip in the bitumen where some hot day had once softened it, and she watched as raindrops plunked into the small pool. The purling water was a good distraction, and she watched it gladly, imagining the thoughts in her mind swirling in the same circular patterns. Patterns were nice. Patterns made sense. This- life, death, leaving, tears- didn’t.

“You can go away, you know,” she whispered. “You don’t have to stay. No one ever does.” Not her parents, not the few friends she had managed, not even her girlfriend. Everyone went away, sooner or later; the only way to keep them from leaving was to stop them ever arriving.

Though it was hard to tell in the rain, the tears were slowing. She was grateful for that; she didn’t like crying, because it was a display of weakness and a reminder of times that she’d usually rather not look back on. But the hurt remained, because heartbreak, unlike weeping, unlike people, was the one thing that never left.

[aya]

Under normal circumstances, Kale would be more than willing to go away. She'd made her effort to be a social person, which was something she never went out of her way to do. So why should she stay? There was no obligation to the girl on the ground, no debt that needed to be repaid. She wasn't wanted here, so Kale should leave.

But it was the Ground-Girl's last comment that prevented her from leaving. Kale took it as a challenge. "Oh, I'm well aware that I could leave." Her tone was more patronizing than she'd intended, but maybe it would serve its purpose. "But, well, I've got nothing better to do for the moment, and it looks to me like you could use some company."

It wasn't arrogant, how Kale had said it--or how she'd meant it--but didn't feel like something she's say. She almost never took the mightier-than-thou attitude, even with her little brother. So why had she just implied that the only reason she stuck around was because she was bored? That needed to be fixed.

"Besides, you haven't given me a good reason to leave yet. If anything, I've got another reason to not go away. If everyone else doesn't not go away...thing. Ugh." She'd managed to confuse herself. Making speeches had never been her strong suit. "What I mean to say is, don't you think maybe no one ever stays because you tell everyone to leave?"

Kale sighed, worn out from her botched paragraph. She hated how she could make words sound nice in her head, how she could put them in just the right order, but then her mouth would mess them all up. She knew what she was talking about, usually. But somewhere between her brain and her vocal cords, something got lost in translation. It was frustrating.


OOC- Sorry it took me so long to get back! -murmurs lame excuses about sports and the Games and forgetfulness- Also apologies for the sub-par level of this post... -more lame excuses involving muse-

[/size]

[WT]

((OOC- No worries, particularly not in the face of this and the amount of time I made you wait for it. :/ Life (in the thread and real life) caries on though, yes?))

There were a lot of things Cadia really didn’t like, and being patronized was one of them. (Actually, being talked to at all was one of them, but she was a little out of it right now.) The other girl’s tone sparked a bit of her usual attitude, and a glimmer that might be the edge of a dagger flashed across her face. “I don’t need your pity,” she half-whispered and half-snarled, but her heart fell out of it halfway through and she went back to wiping her face. (She had to wonder briefly: since when was being mad hard for her?) If nothing else, maybe she could at least stop this whole thing with crying in front of a stranger.

It turned out to be a good thing she’d stopped talking, because otherwise she and the stranger would have been talking at the same time, which would be a problem for both of them- Cadia because she didn’t like being interrupted, and the stranger because she seemed to be having enough trouble getting her words out without distractions.

“I guess,” she said, furrowing her brow a little. This was rather deeper into her own thought process than she generally bothered to go, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it. “But it’s usually better that way.” Hold on, had a usually slipped out there? She tried to think back on the sentence, and couldn’t quite remember. Maybe, maybe not. “Always,” she clarified with a slight shake of her head, just in case. “I- I’m fine on my own, my parents made sure of that even if they regretted it later, and people die right and left so there’s no point in getting attached, although for that logic I may as well not get attached to myself, because I’ll die, but that makes no sense, so- wait. What?” She blinked madly and rubbed her eyes, as though hoping that clearing out the remaining saltwater would also clear out her brain. She had hoped her thinking would clear up, but it was just getting fuzzier. She had even, she realized with a slight jump, forgotten to keep a hand on her knife- something she quickly fixed. The small gesture didn’t do much, but it was the only thing she could really do just then to comfort herself (she was just glad she slept with it- she couldn’t imagine walking the streets without it, and there was no way she’d have remembered it on her way out earlier).

She sighed, wiped her eyes again (this time with one hand), and shook her head. She no longer had any idea what she had just said, and right now it wasn’t worth the mental energy to figure it out. This girl seemed to know what was going on better than she did, anyway; if it was worth figuring out the stranger would know what to do, and if it wasn’t worth it they’d just move on.

[aya]

It was a depressing speech that Ground-Girl had just given, but one Kale had made to herself over and over. Don't worry so much about other people, she'd say. Why live if you just have to die? But every time, Kale had managed to get herself out of that slump and go on as usual. Some times it was easier not to question things, not to think about things. If you always had your eyes on the future, then how could you possibly enjoy the present?

She voiced this opinion to the Ground-Girl. "Well that certainly is a depressing take on things." Kale gave a solemn nod before trying to lighten the mood. "As difficult as it can be to ignorant, in some aspects, ignorance is bliss, I find. Why worry about the inevitable? It never helps anything, and it even may mess some stuff up."

Ground-Girl was case and point to this. Kale was certain she had a reason and a right to be upset--she didn't question that--but look where all the preparing for the inevitable had gotten her: no where good. "Don't think," advised Kale, a bright note in her voice. "Makes life much easier. Trust me."

It was ironic, of course, for her to say so--she was the champion of over-analyzers, the king of deep thought. But a nudge to think more was clearly not what Ground-Girl needed at the moment. Maybe in due time. If Kale could knock the pessimism out of her. If the other girl would let her.


OOC- I feel like all of our posts include an OOC post about lateness... they can just be implied from now on, I think^^

[/size]

[WT]

Now that she had gotten the humiliating crying thing under control, Cadia trusted her balance enough to stand up. She did so quickly but deliberately, balancing on her hands while she got her feet out from under her and then rolling onto her feet. The world tilted a little and threatened to spin around, but she kept her eyes fixed on one point for a moment and the feeling passed.

There, that was much better. Now she was on level with the other girl, and saltwater had stopped dripping from her eyes, which allowed her to pay much better attention. Not to mention, fighting and running were a lot easier when you were on your feet- and while Cadia didn't think this stranger was going to attack her, it was always better to be safe. That said, there was no attacking going on at the moment, so other than keeping a gentle hold on her knife and giving the area a quick scan for exit routes, she gave the girl (who was speaking again) her full attention.

Listening didn't actually get her very far, though. Within two sentences, Cadia was trailing hopelessly behind, unable to listen and puzzle the words out at the same time. She gave up quickly, and settled for nodding as though she was following along and jumping in when the other girl paused.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cadia asked. For once there was no hostility in her voice- just utter and complete confusion, and possibly a trace of amusement. (Let it never be said that it takes Cadia a long time to recover from emotional episodes.) "This is way too deep. You lost me somewhere around 'ignorant'."

A few more sentences sneaked their way through (geez, this girl was a talkative one), and Cadia blinked a couple times. She wasn't sure whether to be amused, annoyed, or (still) confused, but amused sounded like the best option (it was the one original!Cadia would have liked, back when she was still alive), so she went with that. "Don't think," she agreed, a small smile playing at her lips. "Got it. I can handle that." Actually, it wasn't bad advice; thinking got very confusing sometimes. It wasn't like she didn't act on pure instinct sixty percent of the time anyway.

[aya]

Kale couldn't help grinning at the other girl's confused response. She knew that she didn't make a lot of sense most of the time. Her thought pattern was somewhat difficult to follow for other people. Her neuron synapses fired differently than other people's, or so it would seem. She didn't know if that was actually a possibility, but it sounded nice.

It was good that Ground-Girl had stood up, Kale decided, although Ground-Girl was no longer a suitable nickname. She opened her mouth to ask for Ground-Girl's actual name--and then stopped. Kale didn't make any mention of the other girl's hand, which stayed attached to her knife, and did not verbally note her shifty eyes--but she noticed them. Kale was hardly a threatening person, yet Ground-Girl seemed ill at ease.

And then she had an idea. Kale did not go out often. Her family rarely had the money for anything more than the basic staples. But she had been working hard. Saving a little bit to herself, at her father's insistence. And she'd meant to spend it on food for the family, or a new pair of boots for her littler brother--who had worn his soles thin--but her father had been adamant about her spending it on something that she wanted, not something that they needed. It was a meager sum, still, but it would probably be enough for a few drinks.

She didn't drink normally, but this seemed like the right occasion. The trick would be convincing the other girl, who clearly did not trust people. She probably didn't trust Kale enough to go anywhere with her, and Kale would be willing to put money on the other girl not trusting anyone else to serve her anything. It would be difficult, she decided. But she liked a challenge.

"Hey," she started, unsure of exactly how to phrase her suggestion--aside from carefully. "D'you... want to go somewhere else, maybe?" She paused, choosing her words very cautiously, trying to lay them in just the right order. "Go and not-think somewhere... somewhere that isn't the middle of a street?"

She raised her eyebrows and adorned her face with a small, hopeful smile. It would be fun, she'd decided, and it seemed like the other girl could stand to benefit from a few drinks.

[/size]

[WT]

"Uh."

Very nice, Cadia. Very eloquent. Sure to make a good impression.

Really, Kale should be applauded. It's not very often that someone takes Cadia off her guard for any reason, and this particular way of doing it was particularly unusual. Mind you, that was primarily true because she chased almost everyone off long before they even thought about asking such a thing, but it was still true, no matter the reason.

"Um. I. I- um."

For the first time in longer than she could muster the brainpower to remember just then, Cadia was staring at someone not because she was wary of them, but because they had just completely blown her mind. She didn’t think anyone had every made quite that sort of proposition to her, and she had no idea how to react. Normally in this sort of situation she would think that the person in question was trying to lure her off someplace so that they could kill her or something, but... well, this girl just wasn’t very threatening. If anything, she was very unthreatening, to the point where it was disconcerting. For god’s sake, why wouldn’t she just pull out a gun and shoot? Cadia knew how to react to anger, knew how to handle danger. She did not know how to handle friendly invitations to go places.

“Don’t you- I don’t even-”

Don’t think, a little voice reminded her.

She almost told the little voice to shut up before she murdered it, but something stopped her. Hadn’t she just called that good advice a minute ago? And she really was over-thinking things.

She still eyed the stranger askance, but she nodded slowly. “Sure,” she said. The just-squashed wail of paranoia surged back to the front of her mind, and she soothed it carefully, pointing out that if this turned out to be a bad decision she could always fight her way out of it later. “Would you like to define this mysterious non-street place?”

[aya]

Perfectly done, thought Kale, although she knew it was too early to celebrate just yet. She stuck her hands in her pockets, feeling for her few coins, the ones she kept on her person at all time. Just in case. She gripped one, then released it again, but kept her hands stuck in her pockets.

Kale raised her eyebrows in amusement at the question. Would she like to tell this girl where they were going? Yes, sure. But did she think Ground-Girl (she still had been unable to formulate a better temporary name) would like that information? "Not particularly." She grinned. Messing with people was just fun.

The Ground-Girl really did intrigue her, though. What has to happen for a person to become so suspicious, so untrusting? Especially someone her age. What made someone not feel comfortable without one hand on a knife? Kale almost didn't want to know. And she felt like she probably wouldn't find out, or, at least not for awhile. Something of such apparent magnitude was not the sort of thing people--much less people so wary of others--shared with people they'd just met, sober or no.

Slowly, carefully, Kale started down the street. She did not break eye contact with the other girl as she went, trying to silently pressure her to follow. Her slight smile never faltered. "Coming?"

[/size]

[WT]

((OOC- She hasn't. ^^ Hence why the only time I used it was while in Narrator-POV.

Ah... this will totally become a post in a little while. >.> There we go, a post.))

In Cadia’s world, ‘frustrating’ usually referred to an animal that ran off before she could put a knife in it. Frustrating people didn’t exist, because all people fell into two categories: threats or unimportant.

This stranger, though, was most definitely being frustrating. (Apparently she was doing it on purpose, too, if that smile was anything to judge by.) Cadia wondered how one went about showing that they were annoyed, and settled for a heavy sigh. The idea of stabbing the information out of her came to mind, and she toyed with it briefly, but that would probably ruin whatever was going on- and even if she didn’t really like this whatever-it-was, she was interested enough to follow it through.

In any case, she honestly didn’t really feel like stabbing the girl (who was now to be called Not-Stabbed, because she was getting really sick of these annoying ambiguous terms). Cadia was brutal, but not without morals, and Not-Stabbed hadn’t actually done anything to warrant an attack.

“Is it at least going to be someplace that will be okay with my wearing pajamas? I don’t happen to bring clothes with me when I have a panic attack and flee my house in the middle of the night.” There was also the issue of money, but she could always pay the girl back later. Or- wait, never mind. There wasn’t going to be a later, of course. This was a one-time deal. Maybe she could figure out where Not-Stabbed lived and sneak some money to her in a few nights? Then again, why should she even care?

So slowly that Cadia hadn’t even noticed it, her hand had began to detach itself from her knife. She noticed and returned it, but she wasn’t even really holding the hilt anymore, just resting her hand on it.

Not-Stabbed began edging away. For a moment Cadia thought she had changed her mind and was going to run off, but then she realized that her counterpart wanted her to follow. Slowly, almost but not quite involuntarily, she began to pursue. Her eyes flickered around a little, trying to figure out where she was being drawn, but mostly they remained settled on Not-Stabbed.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” she consented dryly. “Are you giving me any choice?”

There was always, of course, a choice, particularly when you were armed and the other person wasn't (or didn't seem to be). That was beside the point, though.

[aya]

Realizing that the other girl had started to follow her, she picked up the pace, from the previous collection of tentative steps to a slow walk. The fact that her plan had worked caused Kale felt a thrill of success, followed by a brief period of questioning. Why was it that she was trying so hard to get Ground-Girl to go somewhere with her, anyway? From what Kale could remember, she'd never seen the other girl before, and, for the most part, their conversation hadn't been too pleasant--in fact, it had been rather depressing.

That was it, though, wasn't it? That Ground-Girl needed it? She'd said herself that no one ever stayed. That in itself was a depressing prospect for Kale, who despised the mild form of loneliness that afflicted her from time to time. But coupled with Ground-Girl's apparent mistrust for people in general, Kale decided that the other girl needed a friend, or an acquaintance, at the very least.

"Of course I'm not giving you a choice," she informed the other girl, voice bright, wry grin still sitting on her face. There really was no way for her to force Ground-Girl out, which they both were probably aware of.

"And you're fine," she said, referring to the clothing remark. In fact, Kale hadn't even noticed what the other girl was wearing up until she'd pointed it out. Kale herself was hardly prim and proper at that moment--ratty old flannel paired with torn up jeans, hair and clothes completely soaked.

"This is District Eleven, after all. Hardly the classiest." No one had the time nor appetite--and certainly not the money--for fashion or propriety. It was too impractical to divulge any attention to clothes. As long as you weren't stark naked--and Kale had seen that, too, from time to time--you were acceptable. Too fancy and you were haughty, and a future victim of a mugging. Below that figurative line--a line which neither Kale nor her family were ever in danger of approaching--was safety from robbing, in the form of mild poverty.

"Not like it's District One or anything, now is it?" Kale wasn't sure why exactly she invoked the name of the luxury items District. Probably because the mere prospect of anyone living in the Capitol--the only place that, in Kale's mind, would rank above their lapdogs in terms of wealth--was so unfeasible.


OOC- "Not-Stabbed?" I like it^^

[/size]

[WT]

((OOC- I thought you might. ^^))

They were walking with a bit more purpose now, Cadia noted. They still weren't going very fast, but the pace had been picked up a little, and it seemed that her companion had a place in mind. She still couldn't figure out where that place was, but she supposed she would find out soon enough.

It occurred to her to wonder why she was allowing herself to be led to an unknown place by someone who was such a stranger that she didn’t even know their name. She didn’t have to follow Not-Stabbed; she could cut and run at any moment. And yet she didn’t. Why not? Maybe she was actually starving for contact, after pushing everyone away for so long?

No, that was a stupid idea. That dream must have addled her mind.

“Fair enough.” Had they gone to Cadia’s home to change, she actually probably would have come out of it looking worse. When it came right down to it, Cadia’s pajamas were in better shape than most of her other clothes, because she didn’t wear them as often. These were pretty scruffy, but they were at least not torn or dirty beyond recognition, which ended up being the fate of most of your clothes if you were the kind of person who hung out in the forest during most of your time. Or who passed on laundry soap because things like food and medicine were more important. Or who lived in District Eleven, basically.

There were times when she almost missed her old home- if nothing else, because it had been more comfortable. She had never been much of a ‘bling’ person, but she had always been able to find clothes that fit her better than most of her current ones did, and they had always been clean. On the other hand, Cadia wasn’t a very material person, so she was more or less okay with giving up such luxuries. And she would do almost anything for her safety; losing a somewhat more affluent lifestyle was very little in the face of losing her life.

Not-Stabbed’s next comment gave Cadia a serious jolt. Her footsteps, which already sort of slow because of the pace her companion was going at, stopped completely. Only years of learning to mask her thoughts kept her eyes from flying open and her jaw from hitting the ground. What had that been about? Was Not-Stabbed some soft of secret mind-reader or something? No, that was impossible. So... what, then? Had she guessed that she wasn’t walking with a native of this place? She hoped not, because Cadia didn’t want to have to kill her new friend acquaintance. How would she have figured it out, anyway? Cadia was always so careful... No, reviewing the situation, she couldn’t come up with anything that would point to her flight from District One.

Maybe- this was a new and somewhat astonishing thought- it had just been an innocent comment, made in order to use District One as a foil to further emphasize the poverty of Eleven.

Yes, that was probably it. Cadia started walking again. She tried to smile, but it felt terse- and probably looked it, too. Maybe she’d get lucky and Not-Stabbed wouldn’t notice. “Yeah. Definitely not District One.”

[aya]

The District One remark seemed to have some kind of an effect on Ground-Girl, though exactly what kind--or why--Kale could not say for certain, and would not ask, and thusly resorted to her story-weaving habits.

Perhaps the general aura of pretentiousness and arrogance that seemed to emanate from the wealthiest of the twelve districts disgusted the other girl, as it did many of the residents of the lower districts. But even such revulsion--or such envy--wouldn’t cause any noticeable effect on a person. Would it?

Kale knew it wasn’t her place to ask, and managed to keep silent for a good two-thirds of the walk to the bar. But she kept theorizing in her head--she couldn’t not--all the while. An idea dawned on her, and she decided it was most plausible.

There was the chance that Ground-Girl knew someone who was killed by a District One. It was, after all, a notoriously bloodthirsty, typically Career district--the highest training score in the current Hunger Games belonged to the female tribute from that district, one Dru Charlesburg (Kale had noticed because she found Dru to be quite cute, if something of a monster.) So the idea that someone from their district--they often didn’t make it to the final 12 tributes--was slaughtered by someone from One was hardly preposterous at all. Kale personally knew six tributes that had been mowed down like grass within the past ten years; the possibility that Ground-Girl did, too, was far from remote.

She bit her lip, debating the merits of asking to satisfy her own curiosity. What if she was right, and it was a tender subject? Or if she touched a nerve? It certainly would be safer to say nothing--after all, she had done a good job of getting Ground-Girl to come with her up until that point, hadn’t she? Was wrecking that worth her curiosity?

Probably not. Kale resolved to postpone the question until a bit later--preferably after a drink or two. And it wasn’t as if Kale had the intention to get Ground-Girl drunk just to interrogate her. There wasn’t really a reason for the alcohol, she realized. No celebration, no depression, no wooing. Just because.

Though she couldn’t keep where they were going--and why--from the other girl for much longer; they were, after all, practically right outside the little bar. And something told Kale that Ground-Girl wouldn’t take ‘just because’ as an answer. But she would have to, decided Kale, because it was the answer. The only one she had.

“Here we are,” Kale announced, nodding toward the dingy pub. Like most of the buildings in District Eleven, it was hardly more than a shack. There wasn’t even a sign, just a single, filthy pane of glass--a “window” if it could be called that--next to the door, with a few field workers hunched over the counter inside.

She grinned, though hardly the picture of confidence. She was a bit nervous at this point that Ground-Girl would reject the idea and just march off. No questions answered, no names exchanged. “So, shall we?”

Kale hoped for a yes.

[/size]