Catherine 'Kitty' Gilmore (duplicitat) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-02-28 01:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [02] february, kitty gilmore, nina clarke |
and well, in summary, I think that I could be of some assistance
Who: Kitty Gilmore and Nina Clarke
Where: The kitchen in the Capitol
What: Two women cross paths again...they keep meeting.
When: Backdated, February 6th, 2019 - Evening
Capitol life as it would seem agreed with Kitty more than she thought it might. Of course there had been adjustments, it took some time to get used to the structure and the fact that the age demographic within the shelter was far more diverse than it had been in Fox Grove. With each passing day though Kitty found she didn't regret finally caving to her parents request and moving her family. It felt solid here, like a future could possibly be found within these walls. A future that didn't consist of public hangings and teenagers making their own rules. There were moments of course that she missed Fox Grove. Or more accurately she missed the children and found herself wondering about them often. Wondering if their parents were taking care of them, or if the children had fallen victim to their parents desires to do whatever the hell they wanted, without thought of the responsibility that came with being a parent. She herself was not a perfect model of a mother, but she tried. Which was what had her in the public kitchen in the Capitol scrounging around for cocoa. Gigi had made a request for hot cocoa and because her daughter had been handling this move and her whole little life being uprooted so well, Kitty wanted to oblige her. They hadn't had any supplies in their own little kitchen, so she had left the kids in Zach’s care and made the trek to the larger kitchen in hopes of finding what she needed. So far it had been a fruitless endeavor, full of finding what felt like everything but cocoa. “I can't believe I'm standing on a counter digging around in a dusty cupboard,” The young mom muttered to herself, having climbed up onto the counter and stood on tiptoe to peer at the highest shelves in hopes of finding the otherwise elusive cocoa. “And all for a little bit of cocoa.” Was it a sign of insanity to talk to yourself? Kitty had to hope it wasn't, because if surviving two years in the end of the world hadn't driven her insane, she didn't think a quest like this would either. "There are worse things in life these days," Nina replied off-handedly from where she leaned against the kitchen doorway. She'd made her way down on a quest for chips or crackers, something she could mindlessly eat as she pored over the papers she'd taken home from the office, when she'd caught sight of the woman rummaging in the kitchen. "Try the cabinet on the right," she added, stepping in and turning to look in the pantry for her snacks. From this vantage point, though, she was able to see the woman's face and a look of disbelief at the series of continued coincidences appeared on hers. "Kitty, right?" Visibly jumping at the sound of someone else in the kitchen, Kitty had to grab onto the shelf to avoid losing her balance on the counter. “There could be, like falling off the counter,” she remarked once her heart rate slowed down and she could laughed at the spectacle she must have just made of herself - Vivienne Gilmore would have been horrified. Nina put one hand up in front of her face to stifle the laughter that threatened as she watched the spectacle. "Exactly," she said, the word slightly muffled. It felt good to laugh again, though; it seemed like months, instead of days, since she last had. "Nice catch, by the way." “Thank God for quick reflexes,” Kitty began, her tone a bit on the embarrassed side as she glanced over her shoulder to confirmed the the newcomer had correctly identified her. “And yeah, that would be me.” A smile appeared when she recognized the woman from the coffee stand and the hospital. “Nina?” The name came out as a question as Kitty turned around fully and lowered herself down into a sitting position on the counter. “For the record I don't make it a habit of climbing on counters,” she added as if position Nina had found her in needed to be explained. “But this place either lacks a step stool or I just couldn't find it.” It was the kind of detail that you learned with experience and exposure. "It's actually right here," Nina replied with a nod, confirming her name, before she bent to pick it up from the floor of the pantry. She found herself wondering for the first time just where Kitty lived; they'd run into each other twice in the Capitol, but once in the UMCB. "Funny seeing you again," she added as she handed it to the woman. "You must live here, if you're using the kitchens… or you're a guest of someone who does?" If she had been embarrassed before, Kitty was even more so upon laying eyes on the stool Nina held up. “It's official, I must just be blind,” she remarked with a sheepish expression flashing across her features. Latching onto the change in conversation, the blonde nodded in agreement. “It is, apparently it’s a smaller world than I first thought,” she began while easing herself off the counter entirely. “The first time we met I was a guest, but now I am actually a resident of the Capitol. The shelter I was staying in was beginning to feel unstable and my parents routinely brought up the idea of moving here. I guess you could say I just ran out of reasons to continue saying no to them,” she paused. “So when an apartment opened up here, I figured it was about time I give in and move.” Maybe it was a long winded reply, one that Nina might not have been expecting, regardless that was Kitty’s new move in a nutshell. “Obviously I'm still learning my way around this place,” Kitty waved a hand back towards the stool as if to punctuate her point. “It's probably a miracle I found the kitchen at all.” "It'll come with time," Nina replied. One of her hands rose to settle on her hip now that she was free of the stool and she thought through all the apartments that had just been vacated as a sudden worrisome thought occurred to her: what if the apartment Kitty had moved into had been the one Gemma had been living in? Her mind whirled through all the other possibilities, ranging from the people in her department who'd been unaccounted for during the jailbreak to Isaac and then back to Gemma, as her thoughts so often did these days. "This apartment," she added, doing her best to keep her voice casual. "Is there a lot of blue and red in the living room?" Of course, there was the possibility that the Capitol would've made over the apartment before they gave it to someone new. Or maybe Kitty herself had redecorated. Still, Nina had to know. “I'm sure it will,” Kitty responded with a smile, not worried about learning the ropes eventually. Living here in the Capitol was still better than living at Fox Grove, or it at least felt more solid and less volatile. Or course she had only been here for less than a week, so that could change - she just hoped it didn't. Raising an eyebrow as Nina asked about the apartment, the younger woman shook her head ‘no’. “There’s not an ounce of blue or red in the whole apartment,” she began. “Just a lot of black. The old resident left in a hurry, or at least that's what I've heard and his stuff was still in the apartment when I moved in.” She was maybe just a little bit curious about Isaac Callahan, but didn't necessarily think it was proper to question the people of the Capitol about him. Nina wouldn't have been surprised if she'd let out an actual visible and audible sigh of relief at this. As much as she missed Isaac's presence -- something she'd never thought she'd say, but that was her life these days -- she much preferred the thought of someone living in his apartment than the one Gemma had left behind. While she couldn't be sure, Kitty almost thought Nina seemed relieved by her answer, and as if a lightbulb went off in her mind her eyes went wide as she realized her terrible manners - could Nina have been asking because she had yet to hear from the woman she had been searching for? “Oh my god,” she began. “I haven't even asked you if you managed to find the woman you were looking for when I ran into you at the medical center.” "No, I never did." Nina did her best to force a polite smile, torn between wanting to not come off as completely rude and hoping she'd be able to shut down the conversation topic before it ventured into dangerous territory. She wasn't ready to talk about Gemma with someone who was still more of a stranger than anything else, run-ins or not. "But I appreciate you asking." Kitty frowned upon Nina’s reply, but she didn't pry - prying was for gossips, of which she was not. “I'm sorry,” the words sounded hollow, yet the reality was that more people than not knew what it was like to lose someone in this day and age. The younger woman could only assume that the loss was fresh enough that Nina would prefer not to talk about it, if the silent nod she received was any sort of evidence, so in what Kitty hoped was not nearly as clunky of a transition as it seemed, she pointed back up to the cupboard Nina had pointed out before. “You said I might be able to find cocoa in that cupboard? Because if that’s true you’ll basically be my savior.” "Yes, if they have any it'll be in there." Nina was grateful for the subject change, though it wasn't subtle in the slightest. She, too, turned to finish the quest that'd brought her to the kitchens in the first place, taking advantage of her hidden face to catch her breath and collect herself. The chips she'd been hoping for were there, too, up on the second shelf. Even though the sight of all this food was a reminder of the inequalities plaguing her city, she tucked the bag under her arm and steeled her face into a neutral expression before she turned back to face Kitty again. "Find what you're looking for?" The whole kitchen and everything in it left Kitty a little shocked, or awed, the sheer fact that while Fox Grove had been good at surviving, they hadn’t been that good was glaringly obvious while she stared at the second shelf until her gaze found the container of cocoa she had been searching high and low for. “I have,” Kitty finally answered while reaching for the item in question. “This place really does make a person marvel sometimes, a fully stocked pantry that isn't made up entirely of canned goods is a luxury for most,” she paused turning to lean back against the counter and smiled at Nina. “Except, I guess, those of us fortunate enough to live here.” It struck her as odd, the vast difference between how her shelter had survived and how the Capitol was, though she supposed when you have men and women of power running the place they’ll find any means possible to get what they want. "This isn't even the last of it." The words were said with a grim kind of amusement as Nina remembered just how opulent the Frost Moon Ball had been. Remembering that evening brought all sorts of things back to the surface, most of them related to Gemma though she also felt a deep pang of loneliness as she thought about Demi and Isaac, but she did her best to soldier through and put on another brave face. "We've got all kinds of things here, and sometimes we'll even see new things pop up. Most of them are expired, of course, but it still makes you wonder." Kitty couldn't help the way her eyes went a little bigger at Nina’s words. “You’re kidding!” Of course she was vaguely aware of the opulence that the Capitol experienced, after all her parents had been residents here for years. Even knowing that, she couldn't hide her surprise. Having lived with less (by choice) for years, it all felt a little alien. “It does make someone wonder, especially as to why it is the Capitol hasn't offered to share these resources with other shelters,” granted her own had never been affiliated with the other shelters, so maybe they had? "They do have that kind of relationship with UMCB." Nina couldn't help but purse her lips at the thought of the Capitol's selectivity, though, irritated by it yet again. Without a free economy through which persons could obtain supplies, withholding resources from every citizen was unjust. "But everyone else is left to fend for themselves." Kitty nodded, feeling a bit foolish for forgetting that the UMCB and the Capitol had a close partnership. “That’s right, the hospital and Capitol are aligned, or whatever you’d like to call it,” It didn’t make sense to Kitty for the seat of power in the city to be picking and choosing who they helped, but she wasn’t in charge so she could admit that maybe she didn’t have all the details or reasons for it. Which was way she switched gears back to the state in which people lived in the Capitol and how it pertained to her. “And truthfully it feels a little surreal to be living like this,” Kitty continued. “We didn’t necessarily have a fully stocked kitchen like this at my old shelter.” They had enough of course, but nothing nearly to this caliber. Nina turned her head to glance around at the cabinets and pantry shelves again, wondering exactly what the conditions had been like at Fox Grove. The shelter had always been far on her radar, but now she wondered just how a group of teens could be so self-sufficient. And then something clicked for her just then, a thought that she could barely contain. "Your father is on the council here, isn't he?" The question surprised her, if only because they hadn’t been talking about her father at all, but Nina’s inquiry was met with a nod of confirmation. “He is,” Kitty answered. “I suppose it was the closest to a political seat of power he could find after the outbreak,” this isn’t said with any kind of judgment towards her father. He was a man who had found a position in an area he knew best, even if politics weren’t nearly the same now as they had been before. “You gravitate towards what you know, right?” "I suppose you do." Nina's smile was strained at the edges; she hoped this woman wouldn't pick up on it. How had this never occurred to her? There was no harm in speaking with Kitty, of course -- she was not her father, nor was she on the council herself. It would be wrong to assume their values were shared. However, she needed more time to think about this. Nina tightened her grip on the snacks she'd retrieved, her breath and demeanor regulated with the ease of someone with years of experience performing in court, and forced her smile to broaden. "If you'll excuse me, I've still got plenty of work waiting for me at home. It was nice to see you again; I'm glad you found what you were looking for." After a pause, though, she added: "And I'm 'quidproquo' on the Freenet, just in case." If Kitty had picked up on Nina’s slightly strained smile, she didn’t comment on it. To be honest she was used to the mixed bag of responses when her father was brought up. He was a good man, but he was still a politician and everyone had an opinion when it came to men (or women) who ran an office of any kind. “You do,” she began. “I think it helps to make all of these feel a little more normal and a little less weird.” “Of course, I’ve probably held you up too long as it is anyway,” Kitty replied with a broad smile of her own. “It was nice seeing you again, and thank you for the pointers on where to find the cocoa, you may not know it but you’re a lifesaver.” She made a mental note of the freenet handle, unashamed to admit she wouldn’t hate talking with Nina again in some form or another. “I’m ‘heykitten’ on the Freenet,” Kitty offered up while moving towards the door to leave. “So if you ever get a panicked message asking for help in finding something, that would be me.” It was meant as a joke, but something in Kitty’s voice gave away the fact that it might not have been as much of a joke as she might have wanted Nina to believe it was. Stopping just before the door, Kitty offered one final smile before she added. “It was really nice to see you again, Nina.” Before departing the kitchen. |