A Big World Out There Like the One I Saw On the Screen [OPEN]

[vissernone]

Who| Eva and any Escort, Stylist, Mentor, Sponsor or Avox
What| Mentor green room party!
Where| Training center
When| As the arena begins.
Warnings/Notes| None yet.

Watching the Cornucopia isn't for the faint of heart, and even after years of seeing it, Eva has to be a few drinks in to see it in company. She's already on her third glass of wine when she arrives at the Tribute lounge dressed in a red and brown dress decorated in antler, vertebrae and a pelvic bone. With all the Tributes gone, the lounge is open to Stylists, Escorts, Sponsors and Mentors, and Eva's hosting a little get-together.

By 'hosting', she mostly means she's bossed the Avoxes around into bringing up enough wine and crackers to get her through the evening. She has her fingers crossed that few people do show up - Elias, Cinna, Ariadne - and that a few invitees don't - Baron, Billy.

She settles onto a couch, careful not to catch her unwieldy outfit on anything. At the very least, it should keep people from sitting right next to her. A television's counting down - five minutes until the Arena begins.

[OOC: please go forth and mingle!]

Comments

[setfires]

Cinna had to escort one of his Tributes to their tube so he arrived sometime in the middle of the Cornucopia. He winced a bit at some of the violence on the screen.

"What's the body count so far?" he asked.

[vissernone]

"None, yet." Eva's eyes track the screen. "No weapons at this Cornucopia, and no cannons yet."

She pats at the seat next to her. "You have no idea how glad I am to have someone sane here with me."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"I resent that," says Billy as he slides on past the back of the couch, his voice muffled because his cheek is occupied with a cracker. He swallows it by cocking his head back like a bird and then washing it down with wine as though it were juice. Billy is, perhaps surprisingly, not much of a party person. He despises mingling, polite conversation, societal niceties. And so he doesn't linger with Eva and Cinna, instead continuing on his way with a wave of his hand.

"Cornucopia's the most boring part," he adds over his shoulder. "Kinda curious where they're going with this no weapons thing, though. Catch ya later, nine and twelve."

[setfires]

Cinna is never sure what to make of Billy so he just lets the other Victor move along his way before turning his attention to Eva.

"I also wouldn't be so sure about describing myself as sane," he comments quietly, responding to her comment.

[vissernone]

"Oh, come on," Eva says, loud enough that Billy should be able to overhear her. "Look at who you're comparing yourself to. Look at the company we keep."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"I'm not even gonna dignify that with a response!" he yells back -- which, by virtue, dignified it with a response.

[setfires]

Cinna raised his brow a bit at Eva and then said quietly, "Are you going to tell him that counts as a response or should I?"

[vissernone]

"What, like logic will penetrate that thick skull?" She leans over the edge of the couch and yells at Billy, "don't touch my wine!" before turning back to Cinna.

"Strange that they don't have weapons this Cornucopia. Do you think they're going for a more kid-friendly approach?"

[setfires]

"Well..." Cinna said. "Given the setting?" Disneyland had long since been destroyed. He'd certainly very visited it, but it's still one of those things that settles in the collective memories of the Capitol.

[vissernone]

"Do you think there'll be beasties this time around? Because that might have been the, uh, the sickest part of the last time we did this arena." She shakes her head. "Back in my day it was just canyons, fields, mountains, none of this high-tech nonsense."

[setfires]

"I think it's something we'll see from now on," Cinna said. "They have to be able to add something to make Arenas more exciting from the last."

[vissernone]

"I wonder what it says about us that watching people with superpowers slaughter each other every few weeks is no longer 'exciting'. Someday when the aliens dissect our culture, they'll write papers on this."

[setfires]

"You know, before I would have said there was no such things as aliens," Cinna pointed out carefully.

[vissernone]

"The Capitol's technology," she says, spreading her arms wide. "Bringing knowledge and culture to even us unimaginative plebeians."

The sarcasm just drips off her.

[setfires]

Cinna smirks a bit. "It was hard to believe in anything else. We didn't even have other countries anymore. I really thought we were alone."

[vissernone]

"Do you think that's true? That there's nothing across the sea but wasteland?" She picks at her cheese platter, then, a bit tipsy, flicks a piece at Billy's back. It misses, and he doesn't notice.

[setfires]

"Do you think if there wasn't we'd know?"

[vissernone]

"No, I don't. I think no one knows what's out there anymore. Even the Capitol."

[setfires]

"You never know. They might, and it just might not be worth telling anyone. I forgot there was even anything else, long ago. Until Tributes came and reminded me that the world used to be very different. It's not something they really focus on in schools."