The Selection: Semi-Advanced Roleplay discussion

Em seemed to be everywhere but her room. In all honesty, her room was the last place she wanted to be. It was her prison room, the room in which everything was too soft, everything was too rich, where she was reminded that she, a seven had maids, and she shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. Half the girls here were Twos and Threes that scoffed at her and now that she was alone, in the hall, she couldn't help but laugh aloud at how ridiculous they were, with their impeccable make up and their psychotic plans of ambition shining in their eyes. They were parrots pretending to be falcons, and Em watched from afar in complete amusement. At the end of the hall was a door-- a door to a room that looked unoccupied, after all, she hadn't seen anyone come in or out in the past 5 minutes, and here, that was peculiar enough. She needed quiet spaces, maybe this room would provide her with just that. She opened the door and walked in, only to see that it was already occupied by another girl.

The first thing that struck Em about this girl were her defined, dark eyebrows. The second was the brightness of the girl's eyes. Neither girl seemed to want to play the meaningless game of small talk, or in that sense, any talk at all, and Em was glad, as she walked to the opposite corner of the room. She had changed out of the dress she had first come in, toying with the idea of simply wearing jeans and a tank top, but realizing that that wasn't a choice given to her. She had scanned her choices for a few seconds before choosing the outfit which looked the most comfortable, which was a flowing, white dress. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] It was a bit long, so it dragged a bit on some areas of the floor, but Em was fine, seeing how it prevented people from stopping short at the sight of her bare feet. She could not decipher the nod of the girl but put it past her, choosing instead to continue the push-ups which had been interrupted by Jack the prince, moving up and down effortlessly.

"There are several ways. You could tell the guards your name and ask for directions. There is a list posted somewhere in the Entrance Hall which also holds further instruction. Or, you could watch from the corner of the hall for 5 minutes and figure out that the so-called random system is not random at all." Em did not state she had done the third of the things she had mentioned. It was obvious enough. As she spoke, she continued to move up and down, not bothering to pause. The girl had looked at her and seen her for who she was, and Em had already been interrupted once. It would take more than words to stop her from reaching 250.

"You don't have to be smart. Just observant," Emerson quipped as she kept on going up and down. "My room is smack dab in the middle of the 35. 17 rooms on one side, 17 on the other. Yours in two doors down to the right. Your welcome," she said, turning to tilt her head towards the girl with a little smile, eyes laughing. At what? At the mention of wits. Smart? In some sense, yes, Emerson was smart. But not in the usual way of things. She knew little history. She only knew addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. She had read only 5 books in her entire life. Good books, to be sure, but she was not someone who was close to intellectual.

But she had lived on the streets, survived, lived amidst death for 14 years. She knew when she was being followed, when the environment changed, when it was going to rain, where to go to find the cleanest water, where to look to find the best game. A moment of stillness, of watching, could save your life.

"You're a Two." Em suddenly remarked, an obvious statement. "You don't seem much like the others," she mused, a statement open for interpretation. A compliment or an insult? It could be taken both ways.

Em grinned. "Just thought I'd put it out there, don't want any girls running in tears to their daddies yelling about ruined reputations due to soiling their hands with the likes of me," she said, unrelentingly moving, a rhythmic, odd sort of dance, almost hypnotizing, up and down, up and down, over and over and over again.

Em was comfortable with being a Seven. She felt no shame. She was who she was. She worked for her bread, she owned every single penny, she fought, she worked an honest trade, which was more than could be said for some of the higher castes. She had learned not to take anything for granted, but also learned to use what she had to her greatest benefit. She had never been pampered, been spoiled, been tarnished by power, by wealth, by pressure. She was her own person, a rare wildflower in a world full of perfectly bred roses.

"Humor me for a second, and allow me to make self-deprecating and not-so-self deprecating jokes which satirize the overgeneralizations which are made on a daily basis due to the caste system," she said, before wrinkling her nose at the elaborate words she was using. This was not Em. Em was not so verbose. But she was in a more whimisical mood and she needed something to focus on or else she would inevitably slip out of form, so she focused on words in the dictionary, words her father had her memorize, words which were the bane of her existence when it came to those impromptu spelling tests that were performed on the cracked brown walls of their little shack. It had been covered with words and definitions, etched with knives, with faded ink, with barely comprehensible pencil marks.

She was on 96. One hundred... fifty-four pushups to go. It wasn't that bad. She had had worse training sessions.

It was hard for Em to see herself as a Seven. Her mask had no problem with it. The shell of Em, the vinyl covering the iron, had fabricated a story where she had always been a Seven-- she wondered if the palace knew her true beginnings. Probably. They had eyes everywhere, although they did always have the heart to truly stop and see the poverty and despair in the eyes of the eights. Em was an eight. This girl... Emmeline, woud've pegged sevens to be less trivial. But Em was an Eight, and to them, trivial things could blow out of proportion to become a game of life and death, and it was here one had to stand up against the looming odds and laugh in their faces.

The girl in front of Em suddenly changed-- her manner became more casual, as if she was simply done caring, her manner sharp, her eyes a needle ready to jab. Her tone took a bitter turn, Em wasn't sure if this was a clever streak of sarcasm or simply thoughts Emmeline had had for too long, welling inside her soul. What harm could they do to a stranger? It seemed to be both. A joke? Perhaps, but there was truth, honesty ringing in her voice.

Em halted her pushups and sat up, tucking her legs beneath her. "Ah, but it is organized, is it not?" She asked, her tone still light, a twinkle still apparent in her eye. She would joke until she understood, understood this girl and her treasonous words. She hadn't given much thought to the caste system-- or if she had, she buried it. She had survived, her motives for the last 16 years had usually been selfish, so long as she and her father made it, she didn't give a crap about the rest of the people in the world. She stuck with neutrality-- she had lived in a world where her opinions didn't matter, where all that mattered was the food in her stomach and the gun in her hand.

Things had just taken a turn for the dangerous, and Em would be careful to tread very, very lightly.

[Short post will be short]

Em would not be defiled by the poison in the other girl's voice. She had questioned the caste system many times, in her own head, but when the choices were to deal with it or to die, she had always taken the first option. She did not have the luxury to voice her want of change or to even want it in the first place.

And then the girl laughed. A laugh Em was all too familiar with, a laugh she thought she had left after she left the Eights, a laugh she had laughed herself one too many times. It was a hollow laugh, not a shell of joy and life but a shell of death and despair. Em did not flinch. Her expression did not change. If she felt anything, if she felt spiders crawling down her spine, if her mind flashed back to the time when she had laughed such a laugh, it did not show. She was iron, and she would not crack. Emmeline's laugh was one of hopelessness, but it was also the laugh of the sane. Em had heard worse laughs. She had played worse games.

And so Em gave a giggle, a carefree laugh which seemed to show nothing but innocence, as if Emmeline had laughed of mirth and not of defeat.

"If so, it's disguised as peace, and to most, that seems to be enough." Her tone was casual, the joking qualities weaved into her tone. She was balancing on the tightrope, and this girl would not be the reason why she fell. If Em fell, it would be because she chose to fall.

But as she spoke, she asked wordless questions, hinted as a mere ghost in her eyes, invisible unless one stripped away the jokes, the laughter, the cast of steel. Is it enough for you? And then, is it enough for me?

[Whatever you're comfortable with-- I have zero preference. If you want to make shorter posts, that's cool, if you want to wait until you're on your comp, that's also cool. :) ]

['Kay, and aw, thank you. ^-^]

"Yes." Emerson agreed, feigning absentmindedness as she looked the girl dead in the eyes, let the cold chill her bones and burn her soul. Ice burned. And maybe that was why Em felt too strongly the blue orbs staring at her, not merely watching, but observing. Trying to figure out her mannerisms, her eyes, her voice, her muscles which rippled. But she did not judge, and for that, Em was grateful.

"Emerson Argent, at your service. Call me Em." Don't call me Emmi.

Was this how friends were made? Or was this just another move in the game of the Selection? Get on your good girl manners, state your name, your nickname, your status, let the girls toss you aside as a harmless gimick of luck or challenge you, view you as a threat. Em had gotten enough looks to know that she was completely underestimated, and she was fine. To be wholly honest, it did not matter anymore-- she would enjoy the time she had, however long that was, and keep her expectations to nothing. Nothing negative, nothing positive-- simply pragmatic.

Rummaging through her pocket on the front of her dress, Marlowe grimaced. Her ears rang as the blaring sirens notified the castles occupants of the attack. Low, of course, knew without the sirens that they were coming. It had been planned for some weeks now. Marlowe had chuckled inwardly at the chaos that had ensued in the halls. They seemed to have no plan whatsoever and didn't even know who was attacking. It was pathetic. As she strode into the safe room for the Selected, she dropped her smug smile and replaced it with indifferent look, that could very well be perceived as shock.

Piper was just walking through the hallways when she heard a siren start to loudly blare. She knew what it meant. It was anattack. She had researched everything she could about the history of the castles, and it mentioned what happened during attacks. Who was attacking though? Probably rebels or some group like it. Luckily the Selected safe room was close enough, so she ran into it. A maid whom she had never seen was in the safe room too.

"Who are you?" She asked curiously, looking at the maid who had a kind of confused and shocked expression on her face.

Marlowe was making herself busy, gathering blankets from the safe room corner. She had to wait out the attack, and she was so bored. Just when she was starting to contemplate checking out the chaos in the hall, the girl ran in and asked her who she was.

"A maid," Marlowe replied, deadpan. The girl was a selected, Low could tell by the princess-like dress she wore. As she observed the girl, looking her up and down, the most prominent feature was the girl's hair. It was a pale blonde and about as long as her waist. Marlowe raised her eyebrows.

The maid seemed to be inspecting her. Looking at her dress, and staring at her hair. Her hair was a work of a slumber party with friends, and her friends permanently bleached some her hair. Piper's mother decided just to get the rest of it bleached, and she kept doing it. It didn't healthily effect some of her hair, but she did it anyway.

"I know that you're a maid, but what is your name?" She asked her.

Setting down the blankets, Marlowe replied, "Marlowe." She straightened and put her hands on her waist. "Some hair you got there. Not natural, is it?" She had resulted to making conversation to pass the time. The way she said the last part, though, was more of a statement.

Marlowe, she thought, just taking in her name to remember it. Piper nodded. "It's not. An "accident" a couple of years ago with my friends turned into this permanently." She shrugged.

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