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

"Uh, yeah, that's me."

She tucked her hair behind her ear, standing, and then feeling like she somehow that might have been rude. Oh well. Now she was standing, and not sure what to do with the flattery. It felt to...Capitol, for her taste.

Given their circumstances, it was probably self preservation. She wasn't exactly the most open around these parts.

"Secret Santa?"

"Uh..." The words hadn't meant anything to him the first time he'd heard them, and they didn't mean anything to him now. Moreover, she clearly wasn't impressed. Come on. Have a conversation with me. Please.

He took a gamble on his assumption. "...Yes." With a widening grin, he pulled the wrapped gift out from behind his back and presented it to her with both hands and a slight bow-- not meeting her eyes, in the manner of a magician eschewing a bargain in favor of charity.

"I am Neffa a Reyeth of District Two, and this is for you."

She smiled thankfully, the one she'd perfected via Effie's tutoring, and accepted the gift.

And then felt another ping of guilt. This wasn't some Capitol lackey, this was a Tribute. One of her people, more than them, and probably just as forced into this as her. Or maybe even sincerely trying to make friends, or even just connection here.

She put a real smile on her face, before starting to unwrap it.

"You're wrapping is beautiful." She said, with a snort of laughter. "I just drowned mine in tape."

At her smile, his own immediately feels easier to hold. Thank the gods. Whether she's actually pleased or has simply decided to perform for him, it really doesn't matter-- but this feels like a proper exchange now, and he can work with it.

"There is no tape where I come from," he says, with a grin. "Ristopans have to be artful with their packaging, or risk ruining the surprise." (He'd fought with the tape for twenty minutes that morning before settling on a combination of it and the string he was more used to; it was art, not defeat.)

He had put some thought into the necklace itself. The beads are dull-gold glass, in slightly varying shades-- a piece that was interesting, he thought when he saw it, without depending on its value for its beauty. It does not scream out its expense and does not demand repayment; it is neither too intimate, nor too useful.

...Or so he hopes, anyway. Half the delicacy of a gift is making a statement understood by the receiver without further explanation.

"Are Ristopans your people?" She asks casual, as she picks away the last its of wrapping, and opens the box.

Her eyes got wide. As much as she didn't approve of the Capitol's excess, Katniss could appreciate something beautiful. It was sedate, but lovely, and she touched it softly, feeling the glass beads under her fingertips, before smiling up at him.

"It's gorgeous, thank you."

The smile looks genuine, and he returns it with one of his own. He can't help but feel a little proud; this kind of exchange is the closest he gets to magic these days.

"You like it." He doesn't make any effort to disguise his pleasure. "...You know, I chose it because it reminded me a little of Ristopa. What people there wear." It's not entirely a lie; there's nothing Ristopan about the style at all, really, but-- well, people everywhere wear necklaces, don't they? "I suppose you might think of it as a gift from abroad-- at least in intent."

She lifts it up, to look at the beads in the light, before nodding at him with another, softer smile.

"Thank you so much. Really, it's lovely."

She had been dreading getting a gift from a stranger. The thought still made her slightly uncomfortable, but his pleasure in giving it, the idea he was sharing a bit of his world with her, it made her a bit more comfortable with this whole thing.

"I would put it on but..." She looked down at her clothes. Comfortable, and simple, but nothing that would match this.

"I think it will only flatter you." The flattery comes more naturally this time. No, it doesn't actually match, but there is a part of him that wants to see it on her, to see it well and truly accepted. Old habits die hard.

He grins. "Besides. It's hardly the greatest crime against fashion ever committed in the Capitol. You might start a trend."

She laughed, before reaching up and hooking the necklace around her neck. even she knew that pushing back again, when he was being politely insistent, counted as unnecessarily rude.

"Thank you, again. It's lovely."

He gives her a smile and an admiring sweep of his eyes-- polite, of course, appreciative, focusing on her face and the effect his gift has on it. Well done.

"I'm delighted. ...and relieved, if I'm honest. It's an odd custom, giving gifts to someone you don't know. Entirely too much pressure for me." He can feel the conversation winding down, and that's its own kind of relief-- but so long as he's doing this, so long as she likes the gift, he's going to make sure she remembers him as much as the necklace. "I see you on the screens so often, I could almost have fooled myself into thinking I knew you. Until they told me to give you a gift."

She let out out a grunt of laughter, nodding.

"I know what you mean. I just had to go shopping for a zombie."

She also knew what he meant about how she was over exposed in the media. But that was a subject she'd rather steer far away from.

"But...thank you, again. It is a wonderful gift."

She has no desire to discuss it. He reads it easily enough in her avoidance of the statement. That's a pity. The celebrities of this world are different from the strangers, even those who have gained comparative fame. They wear it differently, he has always thought; they know better what to do with it, how to use it as armor. He could learn from that.

Her deflection is its own lesson, though - that kind of trust isn't going to come automatically. Nor should it.

Neffa gives her one more grin - friendly, not just polite, this time - and a short bow, one hand extended palm-up. It's the polite way to end a transaction, not overly formal, and he's been here long enough that he doesn't bother waiting for the traditional response. "And again, I'm delighted that you think so. I hope the next time we speak, it isn't under the auspices of custom." I hope the next time we speak, we find ourselves with more to say than what the Capitol expects.

And, if she has nothing more to say, he'll make some last courtesy and go back to his own suite, to stare at the blown-glass conduit on his bed and hope very much that he's just made an ally.

((OOC-Good end!))