rutagraveolens | Melody 1 : Action/Voice [Backdated to the afternoon of Wednesday, 12/4]

[Action around the village]

[With the laws of the land already explained by Katniss and the stores in the village pointed out, Rue sets out to do a bit of exploring and gathering up items. Feeling a bad over borrowing some of Prim's clothes, Rue first heads to the clothing store.

The amount of clothes and the different styles are staggering to a girl used to wearing worn, drab hand-me-downs. She takes her time going through the store, feeling all the different textures, admiring the colors. That everything is free is astounding as well; as Rue puts her selected outfits into a bag, she'll look around warily before carefully leaving the store.

Her next stop is the grocery store and the experience is also as remarkable. The rows and rows of food, it's almost too much to take. A single shelf could last a family in District 11 the whole year. Rue takes her time, reverently going through each aisle. Most of the packaged foods in bright colorful boxes and containers are things she's never seen, though the pictures and some of the names are descriptive enough.

After stocking up on food, Rue takes a final trip to the weapon shop. There she'll take her times looking over small knives and any slings that might be around.]

[Action for House 34]

[Once Rue returns to the house, she dutifully puts all the food away in the kitchen. A few things - some candy, a box of cookies, fresh apples - will be placed on the counter with a note near by ("Thank you. -Rue). From there, Rue begins to explore the wonders of the house.

She's never been in a house so nice. The soft carpet, the drapes on the windows (the windows open and close too!), running water, electricity, Rue takes her time marveling over everything. She'll open every door to peek in side. If it looks like a bedroom, she'll quickly close the door. Everything else is fair game for the curious girl.]

[Voice - early evening]

[The journal is a strange, strange thing. A book that can be written into to communicate with others, it's remarkable. Rue spends some time flipping through the pages and trying to familiarize herself with everything before making her first recording.]

Um, hello? I hope this is recording. To anyone that can hear me, my name is Rue! I just arrived. I'm from Panem, District 11. Katniss says I was here before, though I don't remember any of it, so I'm sorry if we've met before and I don't remember you!

[A brief pause as she tries to figure out what to say.]

Um... what's your favorite thing? It doesn't have to be something here, it can be anything you really like. I like music a lot, singing especially. Does anyone else like music?

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[And Rue is happy. She'll have to ask Katniss and Prim about plants from District 12 that might be useful.

Another thought occurs to her.]

Do you think I could learn to become a healer or doctor? I want to be able to help people.

[Ami, who knows what it is to want to be useful and to be needed, is certainly not going to turn someone interested away.]

I think you'll be a good one. [Granted, things are rather different here. If Ami doesn't know much herb lore, she considers Rue may not know a lot of modern medical practices and discoveries. But she's quite willing to teach and, if nothing else, basic first-aid hasn't changed much over time.]

[Rue grins.] Do you think so?

Mm. I think so. If you work hard at it, you'll learn what you need to know, and you'll be able to help a lot of people.

[Rue nods in agreement. She wants to help people and protect people close to her.]

Is that why you help out at the clinic? So you can help a lot of people?

I was a doctor back home. [If she looks too young for this, it's because even now, she's only just into her twenties. She became a doctor at nineteen.] So I guess I thought, it was something I should continue to do here, too. It's important to me.

[She does look young, but Rue doesn't think anything of it. People began their careers early in Panem.]

I bet you're a very good doctor.

I want to be. I'm sure I still have a lot to learn. [This is both modesty, and truthfulness. She is considered a prodigy, but there is always more to learn, more to perfect, more she wants to know and be able to do.]

I'm sure you're doing a great job.

Are there many other doctors here?

Some, but because people come and go without warning, the number of doctors changes, too. [Which makes it all the more helpful that someone like Rue is willing to give her time.]

It must be hard having people come and go without warning. [She feels a pang of guilt having been here once and having left. Rue knows it would have difficult on Katniss.]

[Ami can't really entirely deny that, but she's quick to distance herself from the regret of missing her friends.]

I'm used to it. [This is what she tells herself, at least: that it shouldn't bother her so much, because it's simply part of the way this world works and how things are, that she should search and fight for a solution and a way to stop it but that she should be fine in the meantime.]

Do you think that'll ever change? People coming and going? Like people being able to come here and leaving when they want? [Or never leaving at all.]

It's been a long time, without a solution, so I don't think it will be easy. But somehow, I don't want to think it's hopeless, either. I want to think it might still be able to happen some day, even if it know it may not.

I hope it does. I think it would be nice if people could travel between here and their other world. Though I guess it could get dangerous if bad people came here.

If we could travel like that, it could be somewhere we can all still see each other even once we return home. I think most people here would like that.

[As for dangerous, bad people... well she's pretty sure those exist here already.]

I would like it. [Her words are quiet, wistful.] I think my family would too.

This isn't a bad place. It's just our situation inside it that we want to change. In a way, I'd like to show it to Mama, too.

It would be nicer if there weren't experiments and fighting. [And the barrier around the enclosure keeping them inside, but it's a lesser issue for Rue, who grew up surrounded by electric fences and barbed wire.]

Why do they have to do that? [They being the Malnosso.]

It would. So right now, we need to continue working towards that. [She's put her money where her mouth is, so to speak, by taking part in some plans that did manage to interrupt some experiments... but the overall effect wasn't much, unfortunately.]

I don't know why they do it. I think they've made mistakes. [This is putting it mildly.]

I want to help out however I can. [Her voice is resolute. Even if Rue doesn't want to leave - wouldn't be able to leave - it's not fair to keep people here against their will.]

Good. If everyone takes that attitude, we'll still make progress and some day, we'll be able to do as much as is possible.

Melody 1 : Action/Voice [Backdated to the afternoon of Wednesday, 12/4]

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