The Selection: Semi-Advanced Roleplay discussion

Heather was exploring, or so she told herself when she first decided to go wandering outside of her room, strictly against the rules of the maids but they'd been far too easy to distract. The palace was... huge. Beautiful. Maybe they had a ballroom. Maybe she could go find Rosie, go visit Robin, or surprise Colfer, who was surely expecting her. But every hallway looked incredibly similar and after a number of turns and trying not to get noticed by the infinite number of guards that were not Colfer, she had definitely become... lost. Where was she?

The maids had told her there were serious consequences if she was found wandering outside of the girls' rooms without permission, and maybe she should turn back. She slipped behind a heavy tapestry to hide from anyone who might come this way and tried to retrace her steps. She had first made a right, then another right, and then a left... and then those stupid guards came in and she ran into another corridor. Which direction it had been in, she could not remember. The last turn she had made was a right, but it didn't help. Oh, Heather... Always climbing too high without looking to see how thick the branches are, a voice rebuked in the back of her mind. Wren's voice. Wren. She was here for Wren. She couldn't be found-- couldn't be punished and sent back. She had to stay. For Wren.

Heather climbed out of the tapestry and brushed off her dark red dress. Wren's dress. Even away from home, everything reminded her of Wren. But now was not the time for instability. It was the time for looking around the halls and trying to find her freaking room. She took a deep breath. She began to walk.

Heather, who was deep in thought trying to retrace her steps, did not think to notice the figure coming towards her until it was too late, and they nearly collided. He did not rebuke her or ask her why she was in this random hallway. Instead, he apologized.

Well, seeing how he seemed friendly enough, she decided it would be much more effective to ask than to go around in circles trying to find her room. She looked at him, her clear, sharp green eyes looking piercingly into his dark brown, before softening a bit. He was barely a man. Surely he was younger than her. Maybe he knew Colfer, maybe he could tell her where Colfer was, she opened her mouth to blurt out a question before catching herself in the middle of her first breath, remembering. Wren.

Instead of asking, she metamorphosized; doing what she did with her agents, to her upper caste audiences, making herself look vulnerable, look innocent and helpless, her youth and girlishness shining through. She thanked whatever god above that she wasn't wearing high heels for this boy was not too much taller than her, and she was not an awfully tall person and towering over him would not have helped the situation.

"I'm so sorry, I know I'm not supposed to be here. I'm one of the thirty-five, but of course you know that-- I just-- there were so many girls, and I'm really claustrophobic, I didn't- I don't mean to cause you any trouble but would you mind taking me back to my room?" It was a perfect cover up. A trained lie spotter would not be able to comprehend the sudden change in the girl's demeanor. It was perfect until-

"And do you know Colfer? Colfer Patenaude?" She bit back a curse, reprimanding herself silently for her tongue which had never been tamed, which always spoke without thinking. Everything came back quickly, from her sharp green eyes to her fiery, determined aura, and she was sure she would be put in jail, sure that this guard would start interrogating her, but she put that aside and looked up at him with a plea in her eyes.

Heather could've just run to the other corridor, made her escape, but this boy interested her and he knew Colfer. His eyes had sparked with some sort of recognition, of fondness at that name. The usually strong Heather crumbled, become a mess of eager nerves. She noted that the boy had not once looked down at her, which was odd, but he knew Colfer, and maybe he could help her find him again in secret. Maybe he was another friendly face in the masses of the arrogant and the empty.

"I- does he talk about his sister? Is he okay? He's young, but he's strong--m-his aunt always said it was his father in him." She had revealed too much, anyone, even an idiot, could've pieced her together, the fact she was Colfer's sister, but she didn't care. Her excitement and determination to find that one familiar face eclipsed the warning signs, the danger.

"I'm Heather. Heather Patenaude, by the way." She said, looking at the boy's confused expression and feeling a mixture of pity and incredulousness. She wasn't sure if he was extremely stupid or just extremely dull. She was all no-nonsense now. So this boy knew Colfer. He knew her name. She had a potential ally, but most importantly, Colfer was safe. The boy in front of her had yet to say anything different, and there was no look of loss or tragedy written on his face. He was probably the same age as Colfer. Sixteen... Too young to be a guard, what with all the threatened rebel attacks.

"Well, seeing how there's really no other options except Heather..." Heather commented dryly, but with the hint of a smile. It was good luck that she had met someone who knew Colfer, and on the first day, too. "It's impossible to make a nickname for Heather Patenaude. Believe me, Colfer's tried one too many times. And nice to meet you, Jake, and I'm not just saying that. It really is nice to know my brother hasn't decided to see how many rounds he could stuff in the barrel of a gun, making it explode and taking both his arms," she said, with another hint of a smile. Now that the danger was past, Heather was herself. Sarcastic, witty, talkative. The whirlwind of anxiety and nerves were gone.

"Why did I sign up? Because I had nothing to lose. Why did I get picked? Well, I'm afraid some bribery was involved..." She said before bursting into laughter, an unusually delicate, fragile sound that tinkled and echoed down the hallways. "I don't think I had much of a choice but to come here. I'm pretty sure it's frowned upon to refuse to come to participate in the selection after you've signed up for the selection and been selected."

"Do you like being a guard?" Heather asked, the question genuine. "Does Colfer like it? He probably does, seeing how he's oddly masochistic in his love for extreme sports and doing things that will most certainly get him injured," she mused with an affectionate roll of her eyes. You could feel the sister's love for her younger brother radiating from the corners of her eyes, from her reprimanding words, her shining face. The boy looked at her quickly before looking at objects which were not her, and it slightly annoyed her, seeing how one of the few things she'd learned as a cellist was that when the audience applauds, you looked them in the eye. No fear, no embarassment, no shame. Eye to eye, you were equal. This boy, Jake, was seriously rejecting that principle.

"You're... a Three." Heather said, and suddenly her tone was chilly, her eyes ice, she backed away unconsciously as she remembered the Three who had spit in her face and called her sister a whore, the Three who had damned her sister to her grave, the Three who had basically murdered, while Heather gave all, her pride, her dignity, her beliefs, her values away on that street, begging, cursing, screaming, crying for help. All the Threes had looked away. They pretended not to see. So this is where this boy came from. She forgot that he was a friend of Colfer's. She was blinded by a sudden wave of rage. "Good day, officer," she practically spat, and wheeled away, not bothering to look back.

"Doesn't necessarily?" Heather was one who made sure she got the last word in arguments. Arguments she most usually started. "Of course you would say that, a pretty little sixteen-year-old boy who has never known what it's like to work for a day's wages, to go hungry, to see poverty and misery stricken on other people's faces. For one who so values knowledge you are woefully ignorant of everything that's of value. What is science to the game of survival?" She drawled words, she spat them, she emphasized some by increasing her tone to an almost shrill yell and emphasized others by decreasing it to merely a whisper. She was terrifying. She was anger, bursting, fluid, quick, searing. She did not know what effect she wanted on the boy. He was a mere nuisance but the anger from two years had been triggered and only a miracle could stop it.

[Just putting it out there Shad that I know he's 19 though Heather seems to think otherwise. Gah, I love playing angry charas, they're so much fun but oh, poor Jake, he's such a sweet nerd]

Oh, how precious. A man in a boy's body. And he wasn't even a man. He obviously didn't have the experience, the pain, the wisdom to know what it was to claim responsibility for another life, to rise up to the occasion and fight for survival. "Nineteen, that's great. Do you expect me to curtsy respectfully to my elder, to my upper-caste citizen?" She noted that he didn't refute any of her arguments, probably more proof that it was true. He was probably just as stuck-up as the rest of them, too scared to admit that she was right, too prideful to stoop down to her level and counter her arguments.

"Does it ever cross your mind that sometimes, people come here unwillingly, that their aim is not to win the poor prince's heart but to make it out alive? If you're not going to blame yourself, blame it on the caste system-- I had no choice, I had no money, I had nothing to lose and nothing to game, what am I now? A prisoner," she snarled, absolutely done with this boy, with everything. Tears of anger, of sadness, of guilt and grief and doubt welled up in her eyes and she gave a frustrated scream. She didn't care who heard-- not anymore.

He startled her, startled her with his words. "And yet here you stand-- how do you live yourself? A guard, a two, with an Eight for your sister? Doesn't it burn you up? Consume you? Why so much passiveness? Do you actually trust the government all that much?" The questions were a mix of curiosity and mockery-- the anger still coursed through her veins and her eyes still sparkled with a mixture of tears and fire.

"Let me tell you what I hate about you Threes, you Twos. The world cries in pain, your sister and her child cry out in pain, the mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers of the dead, the broken, we are all crying, begging for an ounce of humanity, and yet you harden yourself and tell yourself that you don't have a choice. As if it's not your fault. As if you can't change anything-- and in that sense, you are lesser than the Fives. You are less of a person than I am, because you live with the knowledge that your sister and her child are inevitably going to die, a slow, tortured, painful death which will be embraced with open arms and yet you choose to brush it aside, to harden yourself to it."

Wren. She had tried to save Wren, she had hidden her upstairs and worked twice as hard, her feet had bled, her fingers had bled, and yet, it wasn't as close to the amount of blood that covered her when she had tried, tried everything to save her sister. "You are denying everything that makes you human!" She yelled at him, at everyone, at the Two that had taken her sister's dignity and the Three that had taken her sister's life, and tears streamed down her face-- making her look even more unstable, more terrifying, and yet, all the more exquisite.

"I haven't given up. Not yet. Not until vengeance happens-- you want to know why I'm here? Because I believe things can change. It is the only thing they cannot take from me. My hope. I pity you for having resigned to the fact that your sister is an Eight and there is nothing you can do about it, that there is no way you can help your niece in the cold. It is not illegal to send a jacket, unless you have decided to forget where your sister lives?" Her voice took a mocking turn, taunting him, prodding him. Robin, she thought. Those beautiful brown eyes that looked exactly the same as Wren's-- how tiny and helpless she had been, how careful she had to be with her backstory...

She lowered her voice but the rage was still there, just more controlled. "The government is corrupt. But we are not-- or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am not. Some laws are worth being broken-- there are things that are worth more than life or dignity. Maybe I won't be able to fix laws, but damn the laws. You cannot fix Illea. But you can fix your niece. You can save them, and yet, you've already given up. Given up, even though they are still alive, and here I am, and I tried, I did everything, I never gave up,and the world has taken Wren from me, oho, I cannot overpower the world but the fact that you have given up on life already, that you are damning your sister and her child to their graves, that says a lot about you.

"I hate you. I despise you and your hopelessness."

"Yes, I'm sure that jacket provides for all their needs, that the men haven't come out in the night like tigers and stolen what little of a soul she has," Heather snarled. "You know what? Good for you-- food, water, a jacket, that's all a soul needs to live, isn't it? How wonderful, should I applaud?" Sarcasm gushed from her voice, her eyes were coal, and she smoldered. She would not give in, not to her purpose nor to her prejudices. "I hope you have a fabulous day, knowing that your sister and her child have food and water, or well, at least they had it, until some lovely thief decided to take it from them. You have definitely done your civil duty, you should get the medal of honor for your acts of service.

"Good day, officer. It was lovely to talk to you," she said, her voice soft, her look innocent, but the sarcasm even more apparent, if that was even possible. She gave a low, mocking curtsy before wheeling around and walking gracefully away, her dancer's blood apparent in every step.

Heather needed to get ice for her foot. She had brought her raggedy pointe shoes along with her, and seeing how there had been no one in her room, she had proceeded to dance on the marble floor on her bathroom, only to have her shoe snag on something sharp and she'd tumbled down painfully. Her ankle had swollen to almost twice its size. A sprain, but not a fracture. She could live, so long as she had ice. She opened her door, only to find that... he was there.

If her foot hadn't suddenly jolted with a sharp, almost unbearable pain, she would've said something. Done something. At the least, have tossed her head and given him a withering look. However, that was not the case and all she could do was give a little whimper of pain and collapse pitifully on top of Jake.

"No," Heather whispered, furious at herself, trying to stand up without hurting her foot and instead rolling over pathetically and lying on the ground for a few seconds, looking rather defeated. But those seconds passed and like a toothless tiger realizing it had claws, she sat up and then stood (rather awkwardly, but she was up), and then through gritted teeth, trying not to scream in pain, muttered, "I'm fine. I just... Need... Ice..." And with that statement, she attempted to hop down the hall.

[Welp I need to sleep.]

Heather looked around frantically and stopped mid-hop. She hated this, she really did, but what choice did she have? Slowly, she turned around, one hop at a time, until she was facing him, and for the sake of her pride, she could not meet his eyes as she mumbled, "yes, please."

She swung her left foot around and rested it on her knee, wordlessly taking the ice pack and putting it on her ankle, which was now definitely more than twice its size. She took out the rubber band which was holding her hair in a simple ballerina's bun and yanked it out, her curls falling loose over her shoulders. Balancing on one foot in an awkward position, it was a miracle she hadn't toppled yet, but then again, balance came easily to a ballerina, and she swiftly wrapped the rubber band around the icepack, and then pursed her lips. "I need- gauze, something to elevate my foot," she murmured to herself, forgetting momentarily about Jake, until she looked up and found him looking at her, awkwardly, stiffly. With equal if not more stiffness, she cleared her throat and muttered, "thank you."

"I'm fi- yes, thank you." She swallowed her pride. For this one occasion, because her foot was blasted, because if anyone found out, they would take her shoes, and she would not be able to forget the pain, to dance it all away. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and if that desperate measure was accepting help from him, that Three, than she would have to deal with it. She could curse herself for it later.

She nodded and then collapsed onto the carpeted floor, which turned out to be much harder than she suspected and she winced, before pursing her lips again, swiftly removing the ice pack and the rubber band, wrapping up her swollen foot as tightly as possible, wrapping the ice pack on top of the bandaged foot, extending both feet, and raising the left one, trying to elevate it without the use of a chair, because this was definitely the last time she would ask for help, or give the hint of needing help.

So she had failed. She sighed heavily, and then nodded, trying to speak so to keep her nonexistent dignity from going from zero to the negatives. She grasped his hand, surprisingly strong for such a skinny, boyish frame, and he pulled her up, until she was standing on one foot, awkwardly facing the boy who she had literally exploded at the first and only other time she had met him.

"I-I'll be fine," She said, steel in her tone. Don't ask me again, I don't need help, it seemed to say, not a blow, but a warning. She should turn around and leave, her door was right there, she could hop to her bed, get a pillow, prop her foot up, sleep until her maids came in and fussed about her. She would also stich up her pointe shoes, hide them again, she shouldn't have been out here in the first place, and yet, she was struck by the brown eyes. Gentle eyes, even though she had raged at them, unleashed the wrath of Heather Patenaude. Wren. Wren's eyes. God, were they ever going to stop haunting her? The vulnerable moment, passed, and she nodded curtly.

"Thank you." She said, stiffly, looking at him once more in the eyes before swiftly, almost immediately dropping her gaze.

Wren. Maybe it was the ghost of those brown eyes, maybe it was her throbbing foot, maybe it was the fact that she couldn't even dance in her room without crippling herself, she didn't know. But she looked up at him and there were glimmers of tears in her eyes as she whispered furiously, at him, at her, at everyone, "Why are you being so kind to me?" She was supposed to hate him. She did hate him. He was a Three, he was one of the faces that had turned away, who had called her sister names that even animals were not meant to hear, he was the reason why Wren, those darling, dear brown eyes, were gone. Hollow. Merely found in traces of other eyes.

[Library?]

"Because?" She needed an answer. The reason might make her crumble, but it could also make her steel again. Replace her weakness with strength. With anger, fuel for hate, for her need of vengeance, reestablish the barrier.

It would work. She could fortify the barrier on that, on that lie, because she felt the hesitation and knew that he was uncertain, that there was more than the fact that this was his job. "I can manage, thank you," she replied, assuming a regal, chilly voice and giving a slight, hollow smile at his form, reaching for the doorknob herself.

She went into her room and suddenly twirled around, managing to balance on one foot, steadying herself with the hand on the doorknob, looking at Jake one last time. "Would you mind telling Colfer that I said hi?" She asked, her face impassive, her tone void of as much emotion as possible. Yet another favor, but she hadn't seen her brother yet and she didn't know when, or if, she would ever see him, especially with a busted out foot.

This was gonna be harder than she had ever thought. To actually act like she liked the prince was hard, harder than she had ever imagined. At least the food here was good- her mother never did cook well- and despite being a two, the palace was so much more luxurious than her home. But she needed some peace and quite, being a rebel and a selected girl was exhausting. So as soon as that stupid interview was over, she was happy to go on a walk on her own. The palace had been non-stop commotion since they had arrived, and she was glad to be able to walk on her own.

Leo's meeting with that girl, Elysia, back at the Barracks was almost caught him off-guard. He knew that girl somewhere, but didn't want to speculate too soon. He left the barrack with head filled with so many thoughts, and ended up wandering across the Hallway. For what? He didn't know, he just wanted to escape for a little while--it won't do any harm anyway-

Once again, Alex had been so focused on her thoughts that she didn't realize someone else was here until she ran right into a muscular frame. She went stumbling to the side, slamming to the ground. "Watch where your going" she snapped, rubbing her hip as she finally took a look at who she had collided with. "Oh, Officer...Grey was it?" she had a slightly guilty look on her face, but was so concerned with her sore behind, she didn't really have the energy to be apologetic.

Leo cursed under his breath, but when he looked up at the girl, he saw Alexa instead. That was weird to see a selected out here at this time. And not with the Prince. "With an 'a', yes. It's Gray." Leo corrected. "What are you doing out here by yourself, Miss Alexa Lambert?" he asked without hesitation that he might said her name wrongly. Which he didn't. Cause he remembered everything.

"Thats none of your concern, Officer Gray" she smiled curtly before placing her hands behind her back. "How has your day been so far?" she asked politely, not particularly liking small talk. Small talk only happened between people who didn't have anything intelligent to say to one another, and Alexa had plenty to say if someone was willing to listen.

"Pretty normal." Leo answered. A lie. "I don't suppose you care about this insignificant guard, eh? Lady Alexa?"

"I care for many people, kind sir, but I hate to inform you that you are not among those people" she gave him her best smile and her most dazzling hair flip she could muster before cocking her head to the side. "And what is your definition of 'pretty normal', if I may ask?" she blinked innocently, her intentions unclear from her facial expression.

Still, with his almost-blank expression and sharp tongue, Leo replied, "Good. Because I'm the least person you want to care about. I'm not a big fan of careness." And for her question, he just rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, there's no stupid attack whatsoever, so it's just a normal day. A little bit crowded because of the selected girls's arrival, but the point is, it's no different from any other day." he explained.

"I'll keep that in mind" she responded, although indifferent to his response she simply smiled once more, tapping her foot in aggitation. Alex had a hard time standing still when she was pissed- the fact that he had to be so cocky wasn't helping her mood. "Crowded? I thought a guard would've been able to find someplace that wasn't crowded" Alex shrugged off the conversation but was watching him carefully.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Not me, thou. I'm not a kind of guy who likes to wander off. I only go to common places that most of people normally use."

"Oh, right." she looked thoughtful for a moment before casually speaking, "so, if you don't wander then what are you doing here?" she had a smug look on hher face- Alexa might not have had enough time to memorize the guards and all their shifts but she certainly knew he didn't have a good reason to be in the hallway anymore than she did. The snug smile only grew bigger with each second of silence.

"I'm heading to my next shift, Miss. I'm a little bit early, so might as well take the longer path." he answered. "Why? It's very common for us to walk around Palace, twenty four hours a day--part of the job, remember?-. But you, weren't you supossed to seduce the Crown Prince of Illea right now? It's still dinner time." Leo glanced at his wristwatch, then gave Alexa a side look with one eyebrow raised.

"Um..." was the most intelligent thing she could say. "I just talked with him actually and he...he said I could take my dinner in my room- I have a splitting headache, and now, thanks to you, I also have a bruised butt" she lied instantly, barely stumbling over the words. Her gaze kept drifting, for she was too paniced to focus on one thing.

"Ah, typical him. Always breaking his own rule." Leo rolled his eyes sardonically. "Come on, don't be a baby. It can't be that bad. You were bumped into a person, not to a giant metal wall."

"A baby?" she mocked anger, pouting like a child before raising her voice a couple octaves, whining pathetically like a child. Her voice quickly returned to normal as she started talking. "I think you might of brown something. I'm serious Officer Gray, I might've broken something." she was fine- well she wasn't fine, but she wasn't in pain- but the small talk wasn't that bad for some reason.

"So what do you want me to do? Carry you on my back all the way to Hospital Wing to check on your imaginary broken bone?" he asked. The sarcasm was still there, always there, but a little smile escaped from the corner of his lips. Just for a moment, and it disappeared, back to complete deadpan.

She grinned, something very unlady like but she couldn't help it. For once she saw him smile genuinely, and to be honest she thought of it as a victory. Not that she cared whether he smiled or not, but happiness looked good on him, it looked good on most people. "I would take you up on that offer, but I doubt you could carry me that far. Your arms have no muscle" she shook her head in mock dissapointment.

"I have no muscle." he snorted, repeating her statement. "Like you have seen it. If you want me to take off my clothes, just ask."

((THEY ARE SO CUTE!!!!))

((*Totally not stalking*))