lucetilogs | A Day In Another World

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A Day In Another World

Who: Anyone in the event
What: For 21 hours, pairs of characters will get to visit one of their worlds
When: Sunday morning, from 1AM to 10PM (in Luceti time)
Where: Somewhere else!
Summary: It's described here. One person will play the host, another the visitor.
Rating: Keep it clean, kids! Move your icky business to appointments posts.

Quick run of things to keep in mind:

-The pair of characters will return to the host's canon point. The host will temporarily return to their physical state at whatever their canon point was.
-Anything they do will be undone after they return to Luceti.
-If they are going to be part of the Alternate Universe aspect of the event, they won't remember the visit until after they have returned to normal.

Disclaimer: Visiting canon worlds will mean having to NPC characters that may already exist in Luceti, but will have no memory or knowledge of it. Be respectful and in character and bear in mind that these do not reflect upon characters in game!

ALSO! Threading out the visit is 100% optional. You're entirely free and encouraged to discuss and handwave what goes on if you want. But if you would like to thread it out, you may do so here.

(This post is forward dated by one day.)

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"Firebombs... I'm familiar."

He's quiet for a moment, remembering his own recent experience with them, just narrowly escaping a plume of it. The heat was overwhelming, he remembered, but it was alright--they'd gotten away. They'd... Well, she and the children had gotten away. But him, he'd evaded a fiery death only once before it took him again. Fire in his eyes until he couldn't see, and then...

He realizes he's been staring blankly for a moment longer than normal, and straightens up.

"Sounds rough."

But it sounds like something a government would do. Burning things if they're dangerous, if they're out-of-line, if they're doing something they don't approve of. They burned bodies, he burned possessions, the army burned the city, the military burned him.

He clears his throat, hands on his hips.

"I'll help however I can, until something happens with whatever's going on in Luceti. Just let me know where to go or what to do."

She watches him with steady grey eyes. There's a look on his face that she's familiar with. That she's seen on her own haunted features in the mirror some mornings. In Peeta's terrified expressions when he awoke in the middle of the night, back on the Victory Tour. Before the Capitol took him from her, back when it was so much easier to fall asleep in his arms every night.

Whatever it is he's remembering, it's not good. Not good at all.

But she's not Peeta. Not the old Peeta, anyway. She doesn't know how to reach out and comfort like he does. Not over something like this, not with someone who is still something of a stranger to her. With Prim it was easy and Rue's like a little Prim still in so many ways. It's different.

So she stands there and waits, trying to keep her own demons at bay until he brings up helping again.

"We could lie," she says quietly. "Say you're from one of the other Districts. There's not a lot of them here but... I've seen a couple unfamiliar faces. When I've passed through town to go hunting." Cause in so many ways, that's all she wants to do. Hunt or sleep. Hide from Dr. Aurelius and the rest of the world. It's all she wants to do now. She shuffles uncomfortably. "I don't go out much."

"I wouldn't go out much either," he says quietly, before walking toward the door into the rest of the house. "I'll say I smacked my head and got amnesia past that. My arm's pretty indisposed, but I don't need it."

She looks at him in confusion. It'd be easy to lie. People here would be so grateful for the help that they wouldn't consider anything more. "Why amnesia?"

"Ah, well... I figure that's the easiest way of going about things. I don't know anything about your world, so if anyone ever asked me anything—family, what it's like where I'm from, anything that's usual in your world, I'd only end up staring at 'em like a braindead idiot."

He shrugs.

"Better if I got hurt and just forgot who the hell I'm supposed to be here, right?"

He's right. In so many ways. He doesn't know anything about her world. Not how it is now. Let alone District Twelve. So she shakes her head. "They won't care. And they won't ask questions. That's not how it works here."

Not if someone's volunteering their time like he wants to. It would be rude. Enough would already be owed for this help. There would be no reason to complicate this by prying into a man's past.

"... I'll trust your word on it," a nod, as he steps toward the front of the house. "You gonna' stick around in here? If you're feeling like crap you should probably keep sleeping, with how early it is."

She wants to. She wants to crawl back under those sheets and covers and hide. Hide from Panem and whatever changes might've happened while she's been gone. Hide from her life.

But it wouldn't be fair to Rick, would it? Her potential ally in whatever games the Malnosso have chosen to play.

"No." She shakes her head. "I'll show you around."

... Right.

"I'd appreciate that a lot. Don't feel like you have to, though."

He doesn't want to become a duty, not in a place like this; sounds like there's enough problems as-is.

"I don't."

Because she could easily leave him to fend for himself. Turn today into another lost day until Greasy Sae or Peeta come by to make sure she's eaten at least one meal. But that brief time in Luceti gave her something she didn't have here. Something to live for. To protect Rue and not fail her again.

"Let me get dressed. I..." She pauses, biting her lip for a moment in concentration. "I think if you go down the hall, my mother's room is the last one. She wouldn't let me sell all of my father's clothing after he died. You should be able to find something."

He opens his mouth, prepared to ask if that's really alright with that, but he stops—if she's said it's alright, then it is. He's no business questioning that, regardless of how strange he would feel wearing a dead man's clothes. After all, he's a dead man himself. He feels like it's a ridiculous concern, in that regard.

"Okay."

He throws his head back a little over his shoulder, toward the hall.

"I'll be in there when you need me."

He disappears into the hall, and as she's offered, he enters the last room and stands among the possessions a foreigner. This is a lady's room, one that he had no real business in. But she did say it was alright, so he looks around so very cautiously until he finds these clothes. They're about the right size, and he slides a shirt on, and though it's loose and hangs at his collarbone, it's comfortable. Pants. They managed to fit without a belt, which is good.

He sits down on the bed and unwraps his wounded arm, inspecting the tender - but at least healing - injuries. A hum of approval, just for that.

After kicking Buttercup out of her room, she dresses. It's a quick affair. She doesn't like lingering in her nudity anymore. Even as the skin grafts begin to meld with her own skin, the scars stop looking so severe, they're too much of a reminder.

Of being a fire mutt. Of the explosion. Of Prim's death.

But the pants and long sleeve shirt cover them all. Her face had been spared. Thankfully, there's still enough of a chill in the air in the early spring to keep people from asking questions.

After throwing on her father's hunting jacket, one Rick might recognize from Luceti, she wanders into the hallway to find Rick.

"You found them," she says quietly as she walks into the room. It's the first time she's set foot in here since before the Quarter Quell. "Good."

"Yeah." He stops prodding his arm and straightens up immediately to stand, and despite himself he's treating this like talking to a higher-up, because after all... he is in her home. Her 'base'. Her world. It's hard not to feel so unbelievably displaced, after standing in a world you were never meant to exist in. "They fit, too, thankfully."

He's willing and able, just point him in the right direction, Katniss.

"Good." She looks him over quickly. It's strange, seeing her father's clothing on someone else. But what would the alternative be? Clothing from Luceti? Haymitch's? No, that wouldn't work at all. "You look like you belong now."

Rather than waiting for a response, Katniss leads him downstairs. She doesn't bother to give him a tour of the house. He can explore it later on his own. It doesn't matter. No one lives here anymore. Just her and Buttercup. And it shows as they walk down to the kitchen. To the only room that looks remotely lived in.

There's a faint smile on her face when she notices the cheese buns on the table. A pang in her heart. Peeta. She's missed him so, so much. She picks one up and breaks it apart, closing her eyes as she inhales the aroma of freshly baked bread. Then she holds out a half to Rick. "Hungry?"

He takes the bread, appreciating the gesture. "Thanks... I'll have to thank the guy who brought it, too. Seems like a good kid."

Huh, wait.

"Adult?" he corrects himself sheepishly, eyebrows raised and head shaking, "I really need to stop sounding like an old man."

You guys look young to him. You could be Tammy's age. Which makes this settling all the more depressing to consider.

"Eighteen," she answers, leaving it up to Rick to decide whether or not that would be considered child or adult. Here in Panem, it would've once meant your last reaping. It would've meant no more school. But sixteen is usually the age where most children become an adult. At least in the Seam, where everyone has to grow up far too quickly.

But Peeta isn't that much older than her. And she realizes, with a little bit of a shock, that she'll be eighteen herself soon enough. An age, by all odds, she never should have lived to.

"His father was the baker," she continues quietly, trying to explain the bread. Rather than eat her half, she continues to rip it up into little pieces. She's not feeling very hungry this morning. "He's good at it. Baking. Decorating cakes and cookies."

"I see..." He watches her break apart her food for a moment, before he takes a bite himself, back-stepping toward what's more clearly the door to go outside. Raises his eyebrows. "Well, don't want to keep 'em waiting on someone they don't know they're waiting for. We can eat on the way."

He hesitates, looking back. She's not in good shape, he can tell. Not in good shape in any way, mentally or physically, like many people who's come before him—people he's watched leave the army.

His eyes glance up to hers, thinning his lips for a moment.

"You'll eat some of that, right? Don't want it getting stale... Or have my tour guide not eating enough for breakfast."

The bread pieces have begun to pile on the table. She looks down at them, unaware of what she was even doing. Her stomach feels hollow. But not like a Hollow Day where all the food in the world can't make the ache go away. Just... empty. Like nothing will ever be able to fill it again.

If Rick wasn't here with her, today would have definitely been a lost day.

"I'll eat later," she promises. But it's a false promise. One of those things you say to keep the other off your case. She's become good at those. And her body can handle it. It's not as bad as it was when she first arrived back from the Capitol, after attempts to starve herself to death. There's a little more flesh on her bones now.

She abandons the bread and joins him at the door. Katniss walks past him and pushes it open, taking a deep breath of the spring air. The smell of fire and ashes still permeates the scent.

Her home. Her prison. "Welcome to District Twelve."

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A Day In Another World

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