thearena | Haven't we been here before? [OPEN]

Who| Rosalind and YOU!
What| She found her themed shop. She isn't quite sure how she feels about it, but she's pretty sure she's not amused. At least she feels all right setting up a base here.
Where| The Bioshock Infinite theme store.
When| Anytime during Week 1!
Warnings/Notes| Rosalind has a potty mouth. Also if anyone talks to her about her bio, more warnings may happen in this space.

From a distance, she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

The big, cuddly toy Songbird stared out from the window display like a beacon, yellow eyes glowing as soft as a child's night light. As she approached, a motion sensor in its chest triggered, switching the eye color to red. She pursed her lips at it. She could already tell she wasn't going to like this, but she couldn't very well just walk away, either.

"Quaint."

Curiousity caught, she turned the corner, walking into the shop...and felt a sense of revulsion wash over her. Columbia. It was all about Columbia. Shelves of dolls made to look like Songbirds and Handymen and Boys of Silence. Little magnetized toy apples with polarized stands that made them hover in mid air. Bottles of "Vigors" that looked like cloudy, rotted liquid floated inside. Toy replica Sky Hooks. Tiny wind-up Motorized Patriots. There were even some replica Voxophones, made so that you could record a message on them and play it back. The whole thing reeked of Fink's brand of sensationalism, whether Fink was involved or not.

Approaching the scale model of Columbia that hung from the ceiling in the center of the shop, she heaved a deep sigh and rubbed her temples. Ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous.

"You must be joking."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Miss?"

Eponine had found the Columbia shop a while ago, and recognising the name from Rosalind's stories, had gone in. It was a strange shop, but as good as any other to hide in, and she knew she needed to hide. Her closest allies, Dave and Elsa, and all of those friends, were her enemies now. She was going to be alone in this arena.

It was no more than she deserved.

She had taken one of the Songbird dolls, and prised the bottom from a shelf, and had wiggled herself into the tiny gap she had created, ready to wait out as much as she could stand without food. But upon hearing Rosalind's voice, she poked her head out, and called out to her.

"You still won't attack, will you?"

She began to wiggle out again, and stood up. Her dress was covered in dust, and there was dirt stuck even in the burn on her cheek, but she seemed more relieved to see Rosalind than worried about what she looked like.

Rosalind instantly went on the defensive when suddenly she was spoken to - but the moment she saw who it was, she relaxed, letting her arms drop back to her sides. She had long since ditched that stupid, tacky figure skating dress, swapping it out for a comfortable blouse and a pair of yoga pants. Mobility. Mobility was key.

"Of course I won't attack," she responded in a soft tone, spotting the burn with a note of concern in her eyes. "How long have you been hiding in here, Eponine?"

It was easy enough to tell that something had happened to the girl since last they spoke.

Eponine shrugged, and wiped across her branded cheek with her dirty sleeve. Pus was leaking from the sores: she smeared it a little across her cheek.

"Don't know, Miss. I came here almost as soon as that horrible Elsa shouted at me. And after I were going to die on the escalator. But that Albert takes me away. It would have been easier just to die, but no. He won't let me. I come here then and I stay here because I remember how kind you have been to me, Ma'am. I want a friend."

The last statement was more a plea than a statement. She was desperate for an ally - especially Rosa. She touched her wound self consciously: around the blackened and red skin was quite obviously the Capitol insignia. "It weren't done here, Miss. In prison where they put me last week."

Joel is rather singlemindedly going through the shops, one by one, right now mostly still in the scouting stage of things - trying to figure out what might be useful, what can safely be ignored, places that might provide shelter, that sort of thing.

Tess and Ellie are doing the same - they've agreed to split up, for the moment, meeting up again in a couple of hours. It's a risk, but they'll cover more ground this way.

Stepping into the shop, he glances around with raised eyebrows. "Another toy store?" he comments lightly.

She hears the voice first, and before she turns around, she's already ready to snap at Joel - that is, until she sees that he isn't who she expected. Hm. Curious.

"So it would seem," she sighs, crossing her arms.

"They seem to think toys are the best way to make a mockery of us. And," she adds, looking to the model hanging in the room, "Our accomplishments."

"What, you made stuff back home?" Joel asks, almost curiously. He's not curious by nature, but he can't quite make heads or tails of this place.

Rosalind can't help it - he's just SO MUCH LIKE SOMEONE ELSE SHE COULD MENTION that the words that come out of her mouth are sarcastic and sharp.

"I made back home. The city flew because of me." A gesture towards the model, suspended from the ceiling. "Here? It's a toy."

"A flying city," Joel says flatly, and shakes his head. How absurd. No wonder they made the thing into a toy. He knows better than to say that aloud, though, not that he cares much but they are in a death match, and he's never met this woman before.

For all he knows, him saying something to offend her could send her into a murderous rage, and there's basically only one exit from this little shop.

"You had magical powers or somethin'?" He knows some people here did, back home. Well, theoretically. Joel is a skeptical man by nature.

Diana doesn't notice Rosalind at first. Which she kicks herself mentally for, she shouldn't be so relaxed in an arena.

But she's been so busy looking around the tribute themed shops that it's been pretty easy forget they're mid-arena.

Well, it's hardly her fault that the typical FAYZ mentality of getting through these situations has always been to grasp for normality and cling on, regardless of what else is going on.

"Oh, come on, it's kind of funny."

She picks up a Boy of Silence and taps on of its trumpet-like 'ears'. "If a little creepy."

She gets a good look at Rosalind now and smirks breaks out.

"Hey, you're the one with the really steamy biography in the book store, aren't you?"

Oh. Great. Someone read that mess.

Rosalind turns on her heel to face the newcomer, expression stale.

"Yes...I suppose that would be me. Hard to believe that someone actually read that rubbish."

There was truth to it, of course, but...she wasn't going to explain herself unless pressed. She didn't expect people to care that much, frankly, and she thought it would be easier to simply let people think what they wanted to.

"Joking? Who's joking? I could use a joke! Tell me the joke!"

The familiar high pitched voice of Harley Quinn burst from behind her. Harley was clad in a red and black dress that looked like she'd stitched it together from other dresses. She was wearing a jesters hat as well as liberal amounts of white and black makeup on her face.

The makeup however was not enough to hide the cruel branding burn on her cheek that bore the Capitol Logo.

She had a belt of plush toys around her middle, one of them looking all too familiar. Situated between the Mindy doll and the Donnatello doll was a little plush Rosalind with a cute little smile.

Well.

Rosalind definitely recognized Harley, but this wasn't exactly the look she was expecting.

All the same, she smiled a little bit, more amused than unsettled by the doll. She was just narcissistic enough that it actually stroked her ego - a reminder of someone who liked her. If she was honest with herself, she liked Harley, too. Odd duck, but really, so was Rosalind. She saw the mark, but largely disregarded it. Just more Capitol stupidity.

"This whole place is a joke," she answered, gesturing around her. "Look at this. They've made such a hash of it all."

Edited 2014-09-11 06:26 (UTC)

Harley took a moment to spin around and let her eyes travel over all the items before her mind clearly clicked at the theme.

"Oh! So this is based on your home huh? But it's not exactly up to your strict standards?" She inquired with a curious grin.

"It feels so...belittling," she sighed, turning away from Harley to pick up one of the Songbird dolls, turning it over in her hands and frowning. She put it down quickly, brushing her hands off as if it was dirty.

"But then, it wouldn't be the first stab they've taken at belittling me, would it? Their biography for me was...less than kind."

"Oh I dunno." Harley grinned wickedly curling her gloved finger around a stray strand of blond hair. "It tried to belittle you but in my opinion it made you sound alot more fun." She wiggled her eyebrows to insinuate she had particularly enjoyed the steamy more torrid parts of the book.

"Mine are just confusing. They contradict each other, sometimes the writing isn't even very funny. Now THATS belittling." She added with a pout.

Haven't we been here before? [OPEN]

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I see what you did there.

:D

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