thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Everyone, pretty much. Particularly Secret Santa people and those Creuntus is fucking with.
What| Holiday times!
Where| The Tribute Training center
When| The whole week, but Creuntus' gifts arrive today.
Warnings/Notes| none atm. Please add any in thread headers. Also, for secret santa, if you are the giver start a thread with your giftee's name (unless you two have worked something else out between you). You can use the District threads below, or choose a different setting of your own.

Every floor public space is dripping with holiday decorations.

The decorations are themed, ridiculously so. Every surface is covered, and a table sits proudly full of holiday treats and spirits, kept stocked constantly by the avoxes. Cheerful music plays softly throughout the whole building, though luckily for everyone the Capitol doesn't really know what Christmas carols are.

Those with secret santa's have a cheery, passive-aggressive note reminding them not to disappoint anyone and ruin their holiday.

Those that have expressed a want for some object from home will find a box on their bed sometime during the day, with a merry holiday greeting from Cruentus. Inside they will find the object of their desire, or something similar, crafted from their words.

In blown glass. Pretty, decorative, utterly useless.

Bert's guns, Punchy's goggles, Sigma's music box, Maximus' leg, Mindy's knife, Terezi's dragon cane...on and on, as many gifts as Creuntus could find out. Those that were with them when they were pulled are more perfect replicas, those that they have just described obviously have an artistic touch to them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Secret santa? R stared at her for a beat too long not to be awkward before he his hands came out. His hands brushed against hers, corpse cold to her Living body heat. He tried to resist that old urge to drop the gift and grab her wrists and pull her close.

Grunting something that might be a slurred "thanks", he struggled to open it. The wrapping paper crinkled as his fingers clumsily tore it. He'd gone through flesh easier than this! Eventually he get a look inside: it was delicate, a glass globe with what looked like few rocks and moss instead. Puzzled, he looked up at Katniss. Obviously they didn't have these where he came from.

"Glass...?" R swallowed behind his muzzle, trying to express his thoughts. He hated he had to be rude and ask. "Pre-tty, but don't...know what...?"

Katniss' response to her own wrapping woes had been tape. Lots of tape. She mentally apologized to him as he unwrapped it, realizing maybe wrapping it should have been skipped altogether.

She had a feeling he wouldn't have minded.

"It's a uh..." She tried to remember the right word for it now. "A terrarium. It doesn't need any care, everything for it is inside. There's enough water and food, it's it's own little ecosystem."

Maybe this present had been a terrible idea.

Still better than the Capitol's suggestion of a fish tank.

That's what it is? R's face slowly lights up as he glances down at the glass, the pieces of tape still stuck to it, the nest of moss that looks as soft as human hair.

"I...love...it," R says, touched. Katniss couldn't know it but she basically handed him the equivalent of Zombie HBO - he could literally sit there and watch ~~grass~~ moss grow. It'll keep him busy for days. "Thought...ful."

What does he do now. He has the impression, vague as it is, that he should hug her and breathe a tear-filled thanks, but his tear ducts don't work yet and a hug from a zombie might send her backing out that door, Victor or no Victor. R settles for a shy smile behind his muzzle, clutching the terrarium to his chest and imagining he can feel that little self-contained world growing.

His hand wobbles out toward her shoulder, creeping out with care because he wants to show he's not always a stumbling maneater. He squeezes gently. "Th-thank...you."

Katniss face lights up with a smile, a real one, a very rare thing for her to have, and she nods. Not only did she not get something insulting, he seems to sincerely enjoy it.

At least she thinks a zombie would be pretty bad at faking enjoyment.

Proud of herself, and happy to have made him happy, she reaches up without though to squeeze the hand. It's a bit startling, feeling so human and at the same time so...not, and she does let her hand linger.

"I'm glad. They had...awful suggestion with the name thing. So I hoped...I love the outside, at home, and there's none of it, here. And I thought you'd appreciate it." She stopped as she realized she was rambling. It was similar to how Darius could set her into a ramble, trying to over do her side of the conversation, to compensate.

Wow, so far Katniss seems pretty cool. She knows exactly what to get a zombie and she's willing to tolerate his corpse's touch. R's already warming up to her. "Makes...sense. We had...nature...back home."

No duh. What he meant to say was the cities, the airport, the freeways that threaded the ruins - all of it was being reclaimed by nature and he'd gotten used to seeing curtains of green splashed against skyscrapers, hanging out broken windows. You didn't really see that in Capitol. Everything felt controlled, pruned, gardened to perfection. So yeah. He thinks he gets where she's coming from.

R cradles the little globe to his chest. The moss doesn't have a heart and neither does he, but he likes to pretend there's a soft heat radiating out from the glass, anyway.

"Real," R finally settles on the word, smiling at Katniss.

And she does, in a weird way. Not the specifics of the city being grown over, although she would find that interesting, if she knew to get it out of him. But the idea of it being something needed, and something from home.

Something real.

"Exactly." She said with a smile.

It was a strange juxtaposition, watching him smile, the expressions on his face. She had seen people, technically more alive, but far closer to death in 12, and the two pieces didn't want to quite match in her brain.