Why can't I leave? ((Melody, pm to join.))

The train rumbled to a stop jerking Alieya slightly forward. She sighed, being back in this District didn't rouse such good memories. When she had been here, she had somewhat made a friend with a girl who didn't like her and she had been torn down by Saphira. Fun stuff. However, this no good selfish stereotypical stylist from the Capitol was making her go back and do the dirty work. She had lost a very expensive earing in that District and needed it 'direly.' Though Alieya hated succeumbing to Saphira's wishes, she was happy to be out of the Capitol. And she kind of wanted to bump into Willow again.

Alieya walked out, into the fresh, unpolluted air and breathed it in deeply. How she so wished that she lived here. But just by walking through the streets, she got the looks people flashed at her. Even though in the Capitol she was beat up for looking like a normal person, with none of the green skin that was popular or the golden hair, she still looked too much like she was from the Capitol to be in the Districts. Her worn down wedges sloshed through the ground beneath her and she began to question why she was here. Why wouldn't anyone ever accept her here.

Walking past the bakery, Alieya thought it best to look there first. Her face slightly fell when she saw that Willow's brother, Luke was working and not Willow, however she still asked around about Saphira and her earrings that he could have easily taken and sold. Slightly put down, she came back out, around an alley and then there was an "oof - uhh - sorry!" She had just trod on someone's foot. Alieya looked at the girl she had just trod on and apologized again, but was slightly taken aback. She looked a lot like one of the tributes that were in the Games right now. Deciding it best not to say anything, Alieya kept her mouth shut.

Going into town used to be an enjoyable experience for Melody; it was a rare break from her tedious schedule of school and work, and she usually took her younger brother along with her. Ever since the last reaping, however, the activity was just a cruel reminder of the fact that her brother was dead. Mel could barely walk around without getting looks of pity from everyone she passes, even people she didn’t know; Mel and Donta shared a lot of sibling resemblance, so it was fairly obvious that she was his sister. The thirteen year old was sure that if one more person gave her that look of sympathy she was going to lose it, which was why when her mother had sent her to pick up their monthly tesserae grain, Mel had chosen to walk through the town’s side streets in the hopes of encountering fewer people. This was quite unusual for the blonde, as she was normally very patient and friendly, but had lately been short-tempered and sullen.

So she couldn’t help herself when she uncharacteristically snapped “Watch it,” at the person who had just stepped on her foot as she passed the bakery, too busy looking at the ground to see where she was going. But the kind girl couldn’t resist quickly adding, “Oh, uh, it’s okay.”, and feeling slightly guilty for snapping at whoever had stepped on her-that is, until she looked up and got a good look at the person. The moment she saw the much older girl standing in front of her, Mel’s blood ran cold, and any remaining feelings of guilt were replaced by pure hatred. Mel couldn’t care less that this girl’s skin wasn’t green, it was still obvious that she was from the Capitol. She was far too well dressed and healthy looking to be from district 11, which meant only one thing; this girl was one of the people responsible for Donta’s death.

Melody stared up at the girl, a look of shock and anger on her face, and she automatically took a step back. It certainly wasn’t normal for Capitol citizens to be walking around District Eleven, and as much as Mel despised the girl standing before her, she was also a little bit scared of her. It was the Capitol citizens who were responsible for the Hunger Games, after all. It was only when the girl gave her that unmistakable look of recognition that Melody had come to hate over the past several weeks that she gained the courage to speak. “What do you want?” Maybe not the best thing to say to a much older, possibly dangerous capitol citizen, but it had taken all of Mel's self-control not to say anything even worse.

Hey, could I join this???

((yes dear, you can join. As we stated earlier. sorry if deleting the access posts confused you!))


“Watch it!” Was the girl’s immediate response.
“I’m terribly sorry dear-“ she said but she felt as if her words were unheard because the girl took back what she had said previously and apologized, ameliorating the situation.
However, as soon as she saw her face, a look of pure hatred overpowered her apologetic one. Alieya sighed, it was only to be expected. No one believed that she didn’t like the Capitol either! And when she tried to explain why, they waved it off as petty reasons. The more that she looked at this girl, the more she was certain that she had to be a sibling of one of the younger people in the games… Donta was it? She knew back in the Capitol if she had blundered on his name, she would have been giving looks of disrespect. The Capitol – stereotypical as it was – loved the games. They fed off of them. The games had brought the Capitol a utopia.

“What do you want?”

The girl shot at her bearing that same look of hatred. Alieya realized that in a way they were similar. She couldn’t go to the Districts at all without expecting the double takes, the looks of hatred. Though with the girl, her hatred would be replaced with pity. Why? Why was Alieya the only person who seemed to see through the Utopia? Why was she the only one who seemed to see past the bumptious pig of a Capitol.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She said, colder than she would have expected to come out of her own mouth. “I was just trying to get away but that concept seems to be so hard for you all to grasp. She sighed again, this time audible to the girl. Part of her yearned to help and ask for forgiveness, she wanted to help this girl go through her loss though she would be sure to push her away. Alieya realized that the girl must have been an image of her at that age. She had shut the world out, all she did was sulk, hating her life, hating the Capitol even more. Her parents had died, she had no money to gorge herself in mindless luxuries. She had no friends, she was ugly to them, but she had no money to over-extravagate herself. Now she had the money, and if she wanted to, she had become like them, but to her it seemed disgusting. They no longer even looked like human beings. In the districts, they all acted like they hated it, but they may be poorer, but they had real friends who actually liked them not tried to improve their social status by having said friend. They had a family. The games were truly awful but after meeting Snow, she didn’t know if it was possible to change that. “Sorry for yelling.” She said in a small voice. Almost childlike, a kid apologizing to her mother. “It get’s annoying. You probably get it too. And you probably want me to shut up and stop talking to you right now and me to leave and you to never see me again and I don’t blame you.” Alieya looked at her feet. She was older than the girl, but she felt so much smaller.

Mel cocked an eyebrow at the older girl. She wasn’t surprised by the Capitolite’s tone as much as she was by what the older girl had said. She was trying to get away? Away from what? What could a pampered princess from the Capitol possibly want to get away from? A hair dye incident? Ha. This girl had no idea what it was like to want to get away from something, if you asked Mel. The thirteen year old was trying very hard to hold her tongue, so as not to make the girl even more angry with her, but she was getting angrier and angrier by the second-who was this girl from the Capitol, who couldn’t possibly know what it was like to be cold and hunger and tired and watch your little brother compete in the Hunger Games, who was she to think her petty issues with hair dye or clothes were worse than Mel’s own problems?

Knowing she would be unable to say anything more to this girl without snapping at her, Melody decided to just walk away. Just as she was about to turn around, however, the girl spoke again. This time, it was the older girl’s tone of voice that caused Mel to stop in her tracks as listen to what she was saying.

As shocked as Mel was by the fact that the girl was apologizing, she was even more surprised by the words that followed. The blonde blinked and furrowed her brows at the older girl, thoroughly perplexed. This wasn’t supposed to happen-the girl from the Capitol wasn’t supposed to apologize or acknowledge the fact that Mel didn’t like her. It went against everything Melody had ever thought about people from the Capitol. Not only that, but it also made it a lot more difficult for the thirteen year old to hate the girl standing before her, looking truly upset. Melody’s kind nature simply wouldn’t allow her to say anything unkind to the older girl, so she found herself replying in a weak voice, “Oh. Uh, it’s okay.”

There was no denying the fact that Mel felt completely awkward; it was as if her whole world had been flipped upside down, and here she was apologizing to someone from the Capitol. It was something she had never expected to happen, and the thirteen year old was determined to get to the bottom of the situation. There was no possible way every Captiol citizen was like this girl. Melody couldn’t allow herself to believe it, because she couldn’t imagine normal, decent people allowing the Hunger Games to happen. No, Capitol citizens were still monsters, but maybe this one girl was different. Maybe. Or maybe it was all just an act. Either way, Mel was going to find out.

“Are you…” Mel hesitated. She definitely didn’t trust the girl standing before her, so she was going to have to be very careful about what she said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the clearest question ever, but Melody wasn’t about to ask the girl ‘Excuse me, but are you also against the Capitol?’. Ha. That would be like handing herself over to the Capitol on a silver platter. The Capitol had already taken one member of the Fraeder family, and Melody wasn’t about to be the reason they got another.

Right before her outburst, Alieya detected not-so-subtle hints of boredom and hatred. However, she was accustomed to it by now. Despite her unpopularity in the Capitol, how they detested her for looking ‘ugly and plain’, it was still obvious to the people in the Districts that she wasn’t from around there. There were many give a ways… Her volumed, styled, hair, her expensive clothes, her make-up and luxeries; she knew by now that she should probably stop wearing her normal clothes when she came to the District. But as a stylist, her love of them was too great. And she most definitely had her own style. She hated the sleek leathery skin tight pants that were ‘in’ at the moment and the same leathery shirts with dramatic colors. She liked shirts and dresses, ones that were …unique. And unlike her fellow stylists, she liked her tributes to actually look like they were from the Districts, where they belonged and not little puppets of the Capitol – what they really were.

Alieya was then was reminded of Lyra, her fifth tribute. By that time, she was ready to quit her job, even if it was the only thing that made her happy. She was tired of establishing friendships and then it being ripped away by the nature of the games. However, Lyra was easy to talk to, she quickly ended up telling her about her past and how she was shunned and cast out. She wasn’t popular, she had no friends, and she wasn’t pretty just because her skin was the right color. Through all her suffering, she learned not to be sorry for herself, the tributes and their family and friends went through so much more, btu they still seemed to manage. They never fought back… until District 13. She was only a child then but it gave her courage to be herself. The Capitol was in an uproar. She had to admit, seeing the people make a fuss about something other than their hair made her want to take a stand as well. More and more now, she knew that if anyone else ever revolted, she would run away and help them. The Capitol ruined her, and they would pay. The government was vile and cruel, yet created a perfect bubble for the Capitol. Why didn’t the people in the Districts get granted that luxury as well?

“Oh. Uh, it’s okay.” Came the girl’s feeble reply.
She was one of them. The reason why Alieya wanted to take a stand. “Thank you,” Alieya said solemnly.
After a brief moment of slience where Alieya opened her mouth twice to say something, but then shut it again. She seemed to have gained at least a little bit of respect from this girl, she wasn’t going to tear it away just as quickly. “Are you?” She began but then hesitated, as if she was unsure about the whole situation as well. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Alieya though back to what she had said. “What exactly do you mean… Well, yeah I don’t blame you for hating me just because you’ve stereotyped me into this hell hole of a government. You deserve someone to hate, and if I was in your situation, I would hate me too. Well… mainly them. At least I have more compassion and decency and… and pain than them. I see right through those pigs. Because that’s what they are. They watch while you all slave away and then bask away in their glory and stuff their faces in the things you work so hard to get them. I don’t even know why I put up with it. Or why I dislike it. I could have that too. So easily… but it’s disgusting. Most of them would see if they came down here, or felt what it’s like to be an outcast.”

Melody didn’t know what she had been expecting the Capitolite to say in response to her very vague question, but she certainly had not been expecting the older girl to go into all out rant against the very place she was from. The thirteen year old had been too stunned to do anything but stand and stare in shock as the older girl spoke, but once she finished Mel recovered enough to realize the danger of what was happening.

“Shh!” Mel cut the other girl off belatedly and glanced around frantically to make sure there were no peacekeepers around before asking in a low voice “Are you crazy?” Clearly the peacekeepers in the Capitol weren’t nearly as strict as the ones here, because anyone who had been in District 11 for even a day knew better than to speak out that strongly about the Capitol in public, even if they were in an empty alleyway. Melody didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if a peacekeeper had overheard the girl’s speech. The blond was positive she would have faced severe punishment, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if they went so far as to even punish the Capitolite. Treason was not something that Mel wanted to be accused of anytime soon, no matter how much she despised the Capitol and the Hunger Games.

Still, her fear had in no way cancelled out the shock Mel was feeling, and once she had cast another quick glance around the alley to make sure they were alone, the blonde allowed herself to think about what she had just heard. Was this some sort of test? Was this girl actually a spy, pretending to be against the Capitol to find potential rebels? Giving citizens of the District hope that not all Capitolites enjoyed the Districts’ pain only to have them reveal their true feelings and be executed? That had to be it, because there was no way Mel had just heard the older girl say what she thought she said…was there?

Try as she might, Melody simply could not wrap her head around the idea that someone who lived a life of luxury and freedom from the Games in the Capitol could hate the very government that gave her that freedom. Unless…maybe, just maybe, the older girl had been given a reason to hate the Capitol? Was it possible that not all Capitol citizens were as pampered and sadistic as they seemed? Melody recalled something the older girl had said moments earlier…something about being an outcast. Was this girl an outcast of the Capitol?

“And why should I believe you?” Mel had to ask the girl, her voice still a whisper. As much as the thirteen year old wanted to believe what the older girl was saying, that she really had found someone from the Capitol who wasn’t in love with it, she still couldn’t shake the fear that this was all some sort of trick and at any moment a troop of peacekeepers would appear from around the corner to take her away. If she wanted to hear anything more from Melody, the older girl was going to have to explain herself.

((I am so, so sorry for my slow response!))