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Quinn Morgendorffer ([info]quinnm) wrote in [info]expresslogs,
@ 2012-05-04 22:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:!open, cato, {glimmer, {quinn morgendorffer

Characters: Quinn Morgendorffer, Glimmer, & Cato.
When: Friday evening, around sunset.
Location: An out-of-the-way beach on Tortuga.
Warnings/Rating: None; will adjust if this changes.
Summary: Desperate for exfoliant, Quinn ventures to the beach, where she hopes the sand will slough away some of her dead skin.

God, finally the stupid train had stopped. Of course, it hadn't stopped anywhere useful - there were no malls around here and apparently the markets were just for food, so Quinn couldn't even browse some cute sarongs like she would have liked to if she'd otherwise been on a tropical island. And there wasn't anything to do since there were no restaurants and apparently all the boys around here were just interested in....

Quinn shuddered as she picked across the beach. She didn't want to think about that. She wasn't about to think about anything serious - not why she was on this train, not the horrible things that had happened since she got here, not anything. And anyway, she was almost at an isolated part of the beach where she could do what had to be done. She couldn't shave her legs or her armpits (possibly the most embarrassing and disgusting part of this whole ordeal), she had no makeup on, and overall, she was more than happy to hide herself away while she mixed sand with seawater and sloughed off her dead skin. Of course, it wouldn't be perfect, since sand wasn't quite strong enough of an exfoliant to work on heels... but Quinn would have to take her chances.

Once she was fairly sure she was out of sight of everyone else, Quinn removed her shoes and rolled up the bottoms of her jeans as far as they would go. She waded into the water, letting the waves lap at her ankles - and despite her ungroomed appearance, she had to admit this felt pretty good. Smiling in spite of herself, she scooped up a huge mass of wet sand and began to scrub, applying the mixture first to her upper arms.


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[info]starof1
2012-05-06 04:09 am UTC (link)
Even if the clothes she was expected to wear if she wanted to blend in weren't exactly comfortable for doing anything in (her interview dress hadn't been meant for walking down a hallway, much less streets or beaches), Glimmer had to get off this damn train and if that meant wearing all those ruffly things, she'd do it. Not that all the time she'd been cooped up was bad--not even (especially not even) that week she'd been stuck in the room--but she'd been getting just a touch stir crazy.

Which was why, after finding the most-functional clothing she could that fit and hopefully blended in, she was walking along the beach--she'd had enough of being surrounded by people she didn't know and mostly couldn't stand, so was avoiding the town for the moment. It was kind of pretty, she guessed. Better than the damn train, anyway. She hadn't felt a breeze on her skin since--well, since the Arena. Involuntarily, she hugged her arms around herself at that thought.

Maybe should have asked Cato to come along she thought. But maybe, on the other hand, not. Maybe she needed time really away from him, to think about...things. She'd never really done that before coming here, either. Thinking about anything besides training and winning. Lots of new things, this messed up train was making her do. Like the dancing with Christine and--

The few thoughts she'd been letting wander through her head stopped when she noticed someone out in the water. She hadn't expected anyone else to be out this far, especially at night.

"...hello?" she called, somewhat cautiously. It didn't look like a local, but it was better not to surprise the person, regardless. Surprises usually got people dead, in her experience. Hopefully if she was intruding, making her presence known now would just get her told to go away. Sure, she could probably take whoever it was--but better erring on the side of caution, for the moment.

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-06 04:28 am UTC (link)
Figuring that if there was one thing she ought to take seriously, it was Marian's warning about possibly getting assaulted for wearing her usual clothes, Quinn had halfheartedly stuck one of the ugly mystery-fiber skirts on over her jeans, but had divested herself of them once she felt she was alone. Despite the risk she was taking by coming off the train, Quinn felt calm, almost happy. She was in her comfort zone, performing a beauty ritual - it was enough to make her homesick and wanting her friends. It was hard to pretend things were the same as always, and it was hard to distract herself when there was nothing to use for distraction, no news of makeup collections or new issues of Waif magazine.

As she scrubbed, she thought she heard someone approaching, but she paid them no mind. She felt she was secluded enough that it couldn't possibly be anyone dangerous.... or was it? Maybe she was so secluded that no one would be able to hear her scream when she got pushed underwater and drowned! Gasping, Quinn dropped the clump of wet sand back into the ocean, squealing in fear. "I'm not gonna hurt your or anything, I'm just trying to get rid of my dead skin, do you know how long it's been? I promise I don't want anything from anyone here, I just want to not look like a total mess for once in my godforsaken time on - uh - Tortuga." It was a woman, that much was sure, but who knew with pirate women? She couldn't see the person's face, and she waded backwards cautiously, hiking her jeans up higher.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-06 04:37 am UTC (link)
Glimmer cocked her head slightly as she took in the person--girl's--reaction. When she realised that the other girl thought she was the local, she snorted slightly.

"You're from the train, too? I don't care what you're doing," having spent all that time under her prep teams hands and all those tools at their disposal, she recognised the terms the girl was using--she just didn't quite understand why she'd bother, in a place like this. One of those ridiculous airheads Cato had mentioned, probably.

"Not going to hurt you either, if you don't give me a reason to. I was just...out for a walk." There was a bit of pause there, because it just wasn't something she did.

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-06 04:44 am UTC (link)
Quinn relaxed visibly as she heard the girl mention the train - though she still wasn't sure who the girl was. There were so many people on the train, and Quinn was not nearly as social as she'd like to be; she'd received such a negative reaction from so many people that she had stuck to the people she knew would be nice to her. Sookie, Dawn, Anna. It wasn't her usual MO, but then again, the train was not her normal place.

Still, as long as this girl was here, Quinn figured she'd make an effort. "Oh!" she said with a giggle, stepping forward from the water. "Hi, I'm Quinn. Want to do an impromptu spa day? Sand isn't really the best exfoliant, it doesn't really get as much off and it feels a little too rough on your skin, but it's better than what we have on the train, which is nothing. God, I can't wait for us to stop somewhere with a mall, can you? I really want to get some new clothes that aren't ugly like these. Even if it was a mall from a really long time ago, I wouldn't care. Just a change of pace." She giggled again, almost nervously, and bent to scoop up another handful of sand. "So how do you like the island? It's so pretty at sunset, isn't it?"

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[info]starof1
2012-05-06 04:54 am UTC (link)
Glimmer was a bit taken aback by the intensity of the girl's bubbliness. It was like the way she'd acted for her interview dialed up to eleven.

"Um. I'm Glimmer. Are these clothes ugly?" she blinked, looking down at herself. Sure, they were frillier than she'd like--not useful, too easy to get tangled up in. But considering the things she'd seen people in the Capitol wearing--hell, the thing she'd worn in the Tribute parade--it wasn't so bad. "I don't know about that stuff, really. I mean, my stylist pretty much rubbed my skin off before the Games, but that was different." She didn't know about this 'mall' thing Quinn mentioned either, so she couldn't say if she wanted to go to one or not.

At least the question about the island, she could sort of answer. "It's all right. Lot different from One, anyway. Never seen this much water in one place before."

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-06 05:04 am UTC (link)
What kind of name was Glimmer, Quinn wondered briefly before continuing to scrub at her upper arms. But she was too polite to voice this opinion, and instead smiled.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, they're so... so..." Quinn searched for the right words. "It's like something somebody might wear for Halloween. There is nothing fashionable about them at all, so... yeah. Plus, they don't have any consistency between the silhouettes and there are no care tags." Leaving out a care tag was unheard of, and Quinn couldn't imagine that back in pirate days, there hadn't been time to sew in one measly tag that told whether you were supposed to wash it in cold or hot water.

"From one what?" Quinn was able to gather from the talk about games that she was from the same place as that Cato jerk and that she probably thought she was supposed to be mean to people... but so far she'd been nice, if a little slow on the uptake. Like not knowing about exfoliation. Maybe Glimmer was just one of those girls like Daria and Jane who pretended not to care and wrote novels or whatever.

"Neither have I! We used to live in Texas and now we live in the Midwest so it's like we never see oceans." And it was even prettier than Quinn had imagined.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-07 12:58 am UTC (link)
Glimmer shrugged a bit. "I've worn sillier things, so I guess I didn't really notice. And anyway, better to blend in then get stabbed for standing out, right?"

She swirled a foot briefly in the water, watching the way it made her skirt move. "District One. It's--kind of in the middle of Panem?" she said with a slight shrug. "We've got some forests and lots of rocks. Nothing like this." She might have sounded a bit awestruck, which she thought was a bit funny, because she'd seen the Capitol and this certainly wasn't that grand. But it was...pretty.

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-07 01:45 am UTC (link)
Quinn shrugged. In her opinion, it would be best to be able to wear whatever she wanted, but if she were absolutely faced with the decision of actually dying (like, not just of embarrassment or whatever, but dying) and wearing something ugly, she supposed she'd have to wear the ugly clothes.

"Sorry, I don't know where that is," Quinn said, not sounding at all apologetic. "We don't really have forests or rocks and stuff. Well, I mean, if you get far enough out there are real forests, but mostly Lawndale is just like... houses and stuff. It's pretty great, though, I miss it sometimes." Really she more missed the people she'd left behind, but then there was Cashman's. "Beaches are pretty, though! Have you seriously never been to the beach at all? No wonder you don't mind wearing a dress on the beach. You probably don't know about bikinis." Quinn felt a sudden rush of compassion for Glimmer.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-07 01:58 am UTC (link)
Glimmer smirked slightly.
"Seriously. The only places I can think that might have them would probably be Four, and the only time I left One was to go to the Capitol for the Games." It didn't bother her much--most people never left their Districts, unless they were Reaped--but it did make her feel a little...strange, knowing that she'd probably never even get to see One again.

She tilted her head a bit. "I don't. What are they?"

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-07 02:04 am UTC (link)
This poor girl had lived under a rock. Quinn couldn't help feeling a little bit of contemptuous pity for her. God, Glimmer knew even less about fashion than Daria did, and that was saying something. "It's like a bathing suit that's in two pieces. It's like a bra and underwear you wear to swim in and they are super cute! My favorite one which I got at the Cashman's winter swim sale is lime green with pink straps, except they aren't really straps because it's a halter string bikini with side ties on the bottoms, but my mom would kill me if I ever wore it out of the house, so I have to sneak it in my beach bag and change later if I want to wear it to the pool or whatever. God, moms are so lame sometimes!" That, at least, should be something they could talk about, unless there weren't any moms where Glimmer came from, either. In which case, color Quinn jealous even though this Glimmer girl was kind of weird and knew nothing about anything.

"How big is this One thing you come from? Is it like, Texas or something?" She was actually sort of hoping it was teeny tiny - that at least would explain her obliviousness.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-07 11:08 pm UTC (link)
"Oh." Glimmer blinked, then, "I guess I'd never heard of them because there weren't many places to go swimming in One. People from Four might." She tilted her head a little, then, "Wouldn't mind trying one, though. It sounds like it'd be a lot easier to move around in than this stuff." And Cato would probably like it, but she wouldn't say that.

At the comment about mothers, she shrugged a little. "I really didn't know my parents much. Went off for training when I was five and didn't see them much after that. They weren't bad, I guess." At least, not compared to the stories Cato had told of his family. She definitely preferred the distance to the insults he'd apparently been subjected to.

"I don't know what Texas is," she said, feeling a little embaressed now about how little she did know, even if it wasn't her world, "But One's pretty small. Just a bit bigger than the Capitol, all the other Districts are bigger."

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-08 01:54 am UTC (link)
"They're super cute! I think you'd look really good in blue. Not like a sky blue, though, more like a navy blue. Navy blue looks really good on blondes, especially if you have a bit of a tan." Quinn nodded emphatically, stooping to pick up a fresh handful of sand and applying it to her other arm. It did seem like it was working, but she wasn't sure how she was going to rinse it all off.

"That's kind of cool. I wish I'd been able to ditch my family when I was a kid," Quinn said offhandedly. It was the kind of thing she was accustomed to saying, because... well, her family wasn't exactly cool. No family was, really, but come on, how many super popular people were saddled with a sister like Daria? Even though she knew intellectually that she would miss her family - that she did miss her family, right now - she couldn't let it show. "My dad's a total weirdo and my mom's this workaholic. I mean, I guess it's good since she always lets me borrow money from her, but still. God, parents!" She laughed.

"Ummm, well, how many miles across is it?" she asked. Quinn knew Glimmer wasn't from around here, but how difficult could it possibly be to know how big your town or district or whatever was.

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[info]prideof2
2012-05-09 01:22 am UTC (link)
Cato was enjoying having some time off the train to stretch his legs, and had come down to the beach to get some sunshine and maybe go for a swim.

However, when he got there, he saw two people who gave him very different feelings.

Picking up his pace, he approached the two of them, putting his arm around Glimmer's waist.

"What are the two of you talking about?" he asked almost accusingly, giving Quinn an evil glare.

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-09 01:29 am UTC (link)
When Cato approached, Quinn was bent over, scooping up a fresh handful of sand, so she heard his voice before she saw him. There was no mistaking the sneer in his voice and the accusatory tone. Nope, it was Cato all right, and Quinn began to answer before she'd even properly stood up. "What, is girl talk like, against the law now?" she asked derisively - and then looked. Really looked.

Were these two... what the hell, Quinn thought, her upper lip curling. Sure, she'd figured Glimmer didn't exactly live up to her name in the brains department, but she never thought she'd be so stupid as to go out with this rude, crass jerk. "You're joking, right?" she asked Glimmer, a giggle threatening to burst out from behind her words. God, she hoped she was. Not that she especially liked Glimmer, but she hated Cato.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-09 01:34 am UTC (link)
Glimmer blinked slightly. She didn't even have time to say that they'd just been talking about clothes and home before Quinn butted in. The question made her blink.

"What do you--oh." She noticed, then, how Quinn was looking at them. Still, she didn't get what was so funny about that. Sure, she knew Cato didn't have a good reputation on the train. But was the idea of them...well, was it really that funny?

"Um. No?" she said, after a moment, nose wrinkling a little in confusion and a little annoyance. After all, even though she kind of wished he'd check his damn temper now and again, she really didn't like the way people were so damn quick to judge Cato--and how they'd judge her, probably, if they knew anything at all.

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[info]prideof2
2012-05-09 01:44 am UTC (link)
"Why the fuck would we be joking?" he asked, glaring at Quinn with deep distaste. "Just because you can't find a guy on the train doesn't mean she can't. There's also the fact that she's pretty."

He smirked slightly, enjoying the girl's discomfort with this situation.

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-09 02:07 am UTC (link)
As usual, Cato knew how to hit where it hurt, and she did a poor job of disguising her hurt feelings. Acting was not Quinn's strong suit, and it never had been. And to add insult to injury, Glimmer didn't even get where she was coming from! All she wanted was to try to protect her. Girl united with girl. She couldn't believe she'd almost considered Glimmer for Fashion Club.

"I'm like, the most popular girl at Lawndale, and you can't get there if you're not pretty," she retorted, crossing her arms and not much caring that they were still covered in gritty sand. "Glimmer, why would you waste your time with this guy? He's such a jerk, you could do way better. Plus I bet he doesn't even have a car."

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[info]starof1
2012-05-09 02:16 am UTC (link)
Glimmer's slightly crinkled nose gave way to a proper sneer then.
"He's the jerk?" she snorted slightly. "Right, of course it's him and not the people who call him a serial killer or whatever when they don't know shit about where we come from or what we do and refuse to listen when we try and explain."

There. She hadn't actually told Quinn that she was a Tribute like Cato, but that put it out there well enough.

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[info]prideof2
2012-05-09 02:23 am UTC (link)
Cato smiled, his face softening as he looked at Glimmer and pulled her closer against him, kissing the top of her head.

"Come on. Let's leave her here to do whatever it is she's doing. I can think of much better things for us to do. Plus, I'd like to get some exercise in. Did you bring a weapon with you? We could train a bit."

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-09 02:28 am UTC (link)
Quinn felt as though she'd just found out her new puppy was really a baby shark. She'd been almost getting fond of Glimmer, despite her ignorance (which rivaled Tiffany's - seriously, who didn't know how big their hometown was?), and she scowled openly now. "Fine, go ahead. You know, you're never going to make normal friends like me if you're so bent on KILLING everybody you meet!" she shouted. God, this was just like something off of Dawson's Creek, only it was real and it wasn't nearly as wonderfully sad and dramatic.

The worst part - the really horrible, worst part - was that as she watched Cato kiss Glimmer as if he were Kevin Thompson and she were Brittany Taylor, she couldn't help feeling a tiny stab of something. Not jealousy, not exactly.

Well... maybe jealousy. Maybe exactly jealousy.

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[info]starof1
2012-05-09 02:37 am UTC (link)
"Mmm," Glimmer turned her head up--almost completely oblivious t Quin now, fuck her--to quickly peck his jaw.

"Yeah, sounds good. I've got a knife."

She did glance back at Quinn though, smirking slightly. "Have fun--scraping your skin off with sand, or whatever."

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[info]prideof2
2012-05-09 02:39 am UTC (link)
Cato grinned at her, leaning down to actually kiss her on the lips lingeringly - half because he wanted to and half because he knew it would annoy Quinn.

He raised an eyebrow at Glimmer's words.

"Scraping her skin off with sand?"

He looked at Quinn with a patronizing smile.

"Now why the fuck would you do that? Are you absolutely stupid?"

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[info]quinnm
2012-05-09 02:47 am UTC (link)
"Exfoliating," Quinn snapped, suddenly feeling foolish for standing ankle-deep in an ocean with wet sand clinging to her upper arms. It had seemed like a good idea twenty minutes ago, but twenty minutes ago she hadn't had a couple of crazed murderers making out in front of her. "It gets all the dead skin off so your skin looks healthier. Would you two get a freaking room?" she added irritably, reaching down into the water to rinse some of the sand off her arms. The sooner she could get the hell out of here, the better.

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