(no subject)

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

District Eleven

[etcircenses]

The room is filled with berries and sugared fruits, both decorative and edible ones, and the center piece of the table in front of the tree is a tiny replica of the cornucopia, food pooling out from it.

For Joan

[gluteus]

His mood somewhat recovered from Cruentus' pointed present, he took the little box he had gotten from the jewelers and told an Avox to lead him up to Joan's suite. When he stepped off the elevator, he found an entirely different world to his eyes - this one filled with food, where his had been entirely made of light.

In the box in his hands lay a golden bracelet. Simple, curled into the shape of a snake. (It reminded him of home.)

"Joan?"

[formersurgeon]

Joan was in her room, sorting through text news reports and analysis of the Games. She had decided that reading about what happened was easier than actually watching the carnage, watching her friends die in horrible ways.

She looked up as she heard Maximus' voice, and put the tablet aside to go to the door and open it.

"Maximus, hi. How are you?"

[gluteus]

"I was asked to bring you a gift," Maximus said, standing at the door in full regalia - a tunic woven of golden thread, a large belt and a dark fur cape (the mantle of a large wolf).

He held out the box, small and in green wrapping paper with a shimmering golden bow.

"I am told it is tradition, and yours was the name I was given."

[formersurgeon]

"That's so thoughtful of you, thank you." She motions toward her room. "Would you like to come in and sit down?"

[gluteus]

He looks a little dubious for a moment but eventually nods and steps inside, glancing around.

"I am not sure it can be thoughtful, doing ones duty," He said, and he says it fairly straight, even though he is teasing. He looks back over to her. "Is this a festival that you had in your time?"

[formersurgeon]

She smiled, and gestured toward one chair while she sat in the other.

"It is," she affirmed. "Christmas was very big in my time. But your time had something at this time, too, right? Saturnalia? Christmas borrowed a lot of those traditions."

[gluteus]

Maximus smiled widely, and nodded.

"Yes. I am glad not all has been forgotten. It was similar, but like everything in this place, even the similar things have changed far beyond my reckoning." He followed the gesture and took a seat easily, leaning forward on his knees.

"I hope it suits."

[formersurgeon]

"I'm sure it will," she said, starting to unwrap the present in her lap. "I got a name, too." The bow was off and she was folding back the paper. "This woman in the Capitol." She opened the box. "From what I've read, she is really a terrible..."

Her voice died, and the smile faded from her face.

[gluteus]

"So the gifts were not only meant for the tributes? Strange. Why would they request something--" He paused as he noticed her face falling.

"Ah, jewellery is always difficult," He mused quietly, taking her expression for one of distaste. "These bracelets are very common, in Rome - the fashion was taken from Egypt, if I recall correctly. They were well known for their treasure and gold." He shifted a little uncomfortably. "I was not sure how to commemorate moments best left forgotten, but--"

[formersurgeon]

"It's beautiful," she interrupted quietly, looking up at him. "Very beautiful. I'm sorry, I just..." She looked back down at the bracelet, and carefully extracted it from the box. "It just took me by surprise. It shouldn't have. I mean, they told us that we should commemorate the deaths."

She slipped it onto her wrist. It was beautiful. And as horrible the thing it commemorated was...she would always be known here as the woman who died by snakebite her first arena, wouldn't she? Maybe it was time to own it.

"Better than a velociraptor," she said with a slight smile. Then she looked up, met his eyes. "Thank you."

[gluteus]

"I am not commemorating your death," He said evenly, after a moment. "Though I hope that is what it appears, to others." He leaned forward and pressed finger tips against the bracelet, pressing it to her skin as he met her eyes.

"I am commemorating your loyalty, and your sacrifice, and your willingness to do what is right. It may be a small difference, but I hope a significant one."

[formersurgeon]

She blinked once as he leaned in, her eyebrows raised slightly.

"A very significant one," she responded softly, touched. "Thank you. That's incredibly thoughtful of you."

Much more so than merely buying her a gift because the Capitol said he had to.

[gluteus]

He squeezed her wrist once, before letting it go and letting his hands fall back into his lap.

"They cannot take our strength, or our honour. I believe each of us needs reminders, often." Wyatt had become his, after all.

[formersurgeon]

"We do. It can be hard to remember that, with everything the Capitol does. Can be hard to keep a sense of ourselves."

She thought of Sherlock, and wondered how she could remind him that the Capitol can't take everything from him.

"You've been a great example of strength and honor."

[gluteus]

"Rome was much the same, when it was corrupted," Maximus said a little sadly, but he allowed a small smile to slip to his lips at the compliment and bowed his head in thanks.

"I hope I can remain so. You may not be of my district, but if you should require my help, please do not hesitate to ask."

[formersurgeon]

She gave him a smile.

"Likewise. If there's ever anything I can do, call me. I'm always available to help a friend."

[gluteus]

Maximus gave her a small, lopsided smile and a stiff bow as he stood.

"Then I will take my leave, and leave you to your celebrations," He said as he straightened his cloak.

[formersurgeon]

She stood as well to see him to the door.

"Thank you again. I hope you enjoy the celebrations as well."

She smiled and offered her hand.

[gluteus]

Still having never been corrected, he reached out and grasped her forearm instead, shaking it firmly before letting go.

"Happy Christmas," He said, as he had been taught, and then turned to take his leave.

For Wesker

[futilecycle]

Sigma felt completely lost the moment he discovered he'd been roped into the exchange. Christmas was not an event Sigma normally celebrated, nor was giving gifts a luxury anyone from his universe could afford. To make matters worse, Sigma had never met the Tribute he'd been assigned, but merely knew of him.

Perhaps if Sigma had known the other's penchant for weird science, he would have sent him a viral vector or some other inherently benign bug to play around with. Unfortunately Sigma lived widely in ignorance of the other Tributes, and decided to get the man something he would have liked to receive himself: a thigh-length, handsome black leather jacket, custom-ordered to have none of the frills and baubles that usually came with a garment purchased in the Capitol. It was, perhaps, the most normal outfit in the Tribute Tower, but elegant in its simplicity.

Sigma does not stick around to give the gift in person, but arrives early in the morning to leave it on the table for the man to find. Eponine's deaths haunt him like shadows on walls these days, and he cannot face another one of her killers on Christmas. Still, Wesker had shown her mercy and there is no bad blood between them... Sigma leaves behind a signed card:

"Happy Holidays. -Σ"

For Barbara

[akingalways]

Jack wasn't going to lie. He had no idea who his secret Santa was, or even which District she apparently represented. It took him awhile to find out, and when he did...

No. He was still stumped as to what to get this random person.In fact, he put off getting her anything until the last minute, when one of the District Stylists dragged him to go on a quickie date shopping. There, he had little choice but to at least look merry, though deep down he felt exactly the opposite for reasons he couldn't say.

No, he could say them, if he wanted to be arrested again. And Jack didn't exactly feel up to it a second time.

So all there is for Barbara, in the district common room, is a last-minute winter scarf with a note written in a very bold, press-the-pen-down-until-you-nearly-rip-the-paper style. And all that note said was TO BARBARA MERRY CHRISTMAS.

...Well, it was the thought that counted, right?

SORRY FOR THE DELAY. Two hell-weeks at work, followed by catch-up on tags. >,>

[acro_bat_ic]

A winter scarf. Her friends were dead, she was shoved from one arena into the next, poisoned and killed and nearly starved again and again as she struggled to get through it all on her own. But. She had a winter scarf. With an angry looking note.

Great.

She tossed ti tot eh ground. Then felt guilty and picked it up. Sighed. Back home she'd be out fighting crime, knowing her dad was doing the same from behind the badge. She'd be rushing home with presents afterward, swooping through her window just in time to change clothes and drop everything beneath the tree. She'd be eating Chinese food they'd ordered, because neither of them had found a moment to cook. Oops.

Instead of all that? She'll wear an angry Christmas scarf...