thecapitol | (no subject)

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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.

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It had occurred to him that, his assigned tribute being from district too, he should've seen this person before. He's talked to very little of those in his Moirail's district but it was impossible to never see anyone, visiting it so often as he does. So he should be able to recognize the person he's delivering to.

Clean of feathers and meat-- even blood, Messiahs forbid he let it go to waste by not putting it to painting, and with that death he honored them justly-- the bird he caught out in capitol is just a pile of small bones now, with a beaked skull among it. He carries the bones cupped in his hands down to district two. He could leave it behind at the door, but he won't whined at by some ignorant capitolite that he did nothing because one of the tongue-cut carried it off.

He finds the door and lifts his foot to kick at it. Then, he waits.

The kick at the door makes Neffa startle. He'd been lying on a couch with his feet up, holding the glass conduit he'd found earlier in the morning up to the light, turning it back and forth to squint at the perfectly-rendered symbols molded into it. He almost drops it at the thud-- scrabbles for it, catches it, and rolls over to stare at the door, apprehensive.

Knocks at the door don't usually mean good things. Servants don't knock. Knocking means official business.

....if it was a knock at all. Nothing follows the single thud. Neffa lies there a moment longer (Maybe it was nothing. Maybe they'll go away); and then he swallows, puts his feet on the floor and slips the glass rod into his pocket, straightens his collar, and goes to answer the door.

He open it and immediately steps back. Oh, gods, there is so much height there. He looks up into the Initiate's face and hopes-- hopes-- that he's here for someone else. "...Good afternoon," he manages, and he knows his smile has too many teeth, that his posture is nervous, and there's not a thing he can make himself do about it.

So this is Neffa? Yes, he thinks he recognizes this one, but from recently. He'd been just a face in the recaps a while back in his first arena here. And what a greeting he is met with. The Initiate is never going to get tired of being able to spot the signs of fear. It actually prompts him to flash a quick smile of his own, if only too show his own set of too-many teeth.

"In-motherfucking-deed," He says with a nod.

He lifts his hands up and out, unveiling the pile of bird bones. They are all but shoved at Neffa, as he says, "DEATH FOR A MOTHERFUCKING DEATH. So it has been honored and up and met in demand. A GRANTING FOR WHAT ALL ENDS GOT AT TO BE ENGAGED. Do you accept?" He lifts a brow and waits.

He is silent for seconds too long. He knows this. He is racking his brain for something to say, trying to form a thought outside of the dull oh, gods and the buzz of sheer bewilderment. He has faces for many things and words for what he once believed to be every transaction under the sun; but, as it turns out, the appearance of a massive alien prophet at his door with a pile of bird bones is not something a magician's apprenticeship could have prepared him for. Who knew.

He takes a sharp breath, an announcement, this will be followed by words-- and does not follow it with words. He lets it out first, slowly, stares at the bleached bones in the enormous hands, and understands what he needs to say.

"Yes," Neffa says, and makes himself lift up his hands, cup them, ready to accept the bird bones poured into them. "I accept." He makes himself look up into the troll's face and gives a smile another valiant go. "I-- thank you. What... what a surprise."

Oh no this is all too funny. He stands there and allows himself to simply revel in this. By Messiahs, he has so missed things like this. The only thing keeping him from breaking into cackles is the idea that if he keeps straight faced, maybe this will last longer.

He grins only when he gets that smile, and he then lets the bones drop into Neffa's hands. He looks far too pleased with himself.

"NONSENSE. Surely you got the wicked motherufkcing information kicked that there was to be a passing of... gifts for some reason of other." He waves a hand. "THAT SAID. You're motherfucking welcome."

"...Oh." Suddenly, this makes infinitely more sense. He'd almost forgotten about the passing of gifts-- the custom and the holiday that encompasses it are completely unfamiliar to him, and while he's dutifully bought his own gift for Katniss Everdeen already, it hadn't occurred to him that someone would be arriving at his doorstep with one for him.

It doesn't lessen the fear; not exactly. But he feels more confident suddenly, more in his element-- the giving of gifts, the proper reception of them, and the implicit exchange involved, are familiar to him as breathing.

He keeps them cupped in his hands and brings them closer to his face to examine them, as is only polite; he gives them a good ten seconds' long stare, peering into the empty eyeholes of the skull, turning them gently over with his thumb. When his examination is complete, he takes a breath and forces himself to meet the Initiate's eyes.

"Thank you," he says again. "They're--" He tries to think of something appropriate to say, and in a fit of frightened desperation, lands on the truth. "I've used these before, to call spirits. Not that I can here, but--" A short, nervous laugh-- "Where did you find them?"

His brow goes up and his head tilts. He hadn't expected to hear anything like that.

"CAUGHT IT." He shrugs, like it's obvious, but he still keeps that curious look. "Turns out capitol ain't devoid of life entire. DIDN'T TAKE HIM TOO LONG WHAT ALL TO GET HUNT SUCCESSFUL ON FOR."

He looks Neffa over again, like he's seeing him anew. He ignores the fear now as well, as if it isn't there and he hadn't noticed--and taken pleasure in the sight of it-- in the first place.

"You get communion up and on with the dead then?" He asks.

Well. That's.... interesting to picture. He's always known bird bones to come in special order from the Guild's distribution division, bleached and cleaned and packaged neatly; he's really never connected the dry pieces to the breathing creature before.

He's thrown by the sudden change in the atmosphere. He's still frightened, of course, still standing half a step too far back and with his guard blatantly and shamelessly up, but it's-- he feels it more in himself now than as a force outwardly imposed by the troll. It is, somehow, less a weight hanging over him than it was a moment before.

"I..." It doesn't meant he's comfortable. He swallows, curls his fingers a little more tightly around the bones. "Not exactly. Not those kinds of spirits. They're-- well, not alive, I suppose, not in the way we understand it, but they're not... human enough to be dead."

"...I'm a magician," he adds a delayed second later, as though this will explain everything.

The grin grows slow, unfurling and stretching out wide, with the same sort look a cloud of snow has in an oncoming avalanche, but eyes lit with excitement. Wonder, even.

This person, this human is in touch wicked motherfucking beyonds. Enough that he speaks to them. Enough that there he understands the righteous ways and wills of that which is holy. He leans in, down even lower, to look and speak closer.

"ARE YOU NOW?" He asks. "Well, it seems then he found for the right motherfucking things. THE RIGHT MOTHERFUCKING THINGS HE HAS ALL UP AND FOND PROPER FOR THE RITES AND WAYS OF THE WORD."

Don't flinch. Don't flinch. He shrinks only a very little, and feels proud, under the intimidation.

"Yes," he says. "They're-- they're perfect." It's not a lie. They would be perfect, were he in a place where he could make a conduit of them, or pin them back together with promises and give them to a spirit to carry through the air again. And, well-- a gift is a powerful thing, even given under the auspices of custom.

"...A pity there are no spirits here," he says, partly to head off the uncomfortable silence, partly because he can't stop himself looking at the bones and wondering, What would I do? "If there were, I'd give you one in return. Fit into the skull, maybe."

Edited 2014-01-09 03:37 (UTC)

"Make like to turn a view flipped ways. MAKE LIKE FOR ALTERATION LIKE THE GOD DAMN DAWN. All getting burnlight harsh up in the cracks and rude revelations, don't a motherfucker know," He says, like it's the revelation it is. Messiahs play the funny game. The play the way what all gets to being most humorous.

Neffa offers him a skull. A spirit jammed on into a skull. That is straight up flattery. That is a troll-- high or low-- getting down on their knees to kneel and saying 'sir', even while his title only rings out as 'Initiate'.

It's one of those rare times, he think the capitol might have been on to something with this idea.

"WHAT GREAT OFFERINGS BE OF A BROTHER," He goes on. "Perhaps spirits are not gone, but merely a little more out of reach? THOUGHTS. Motherfucking ponderings. WILL A MOTHERFUCKER TELL HIM MORE? Got a want for a know of the magic, he does."

Neffa has no idea what he's just offered the Initiate. Or, well-- not exactly. Neffa knows what he just offered the Initiate, but he has no idea what the Initiate thinks he's just been offered. The distinction is important-- is the most important thing-- and it makes him feel unbalanced not to know the exact terms of this bargain.

But it was a success. The gift offered in return might be hypothetical, but it was well-accepted. A second bargain where none was expected. Well done.

...Will a motherfucker.... Coming from anyone else, he'd take it as an insult. Somehow, it doesn't sound that way here. And-- all right, so he has trouble being offended by anyone who actually seems to believe in magic around here. It isn't so wrong.

"I-- yes, of course." He looks down at the bones again; transfers most of them to the wide pocket of his coat (though he keeps the skull in his hand) and withdraws from the other pocket the blown-glass conduit he'd found on his bed this morning. He holds it up between them, hopefully, looking for a spark of recognition. "Tell me-- were you a magician, in your world?"

What a thrill, that someone should have chance to find issue with his dropping of 'motherfucker' and they don't. If he knew, he'd most certainly be pleased.

He says, "A PRIEST TO BE. To be the grandest of motherfucking highbloods. TO SPEAK SERMON AND SPIRIT SUNG ON THE MOTHERFUCKING SHRINES. To work wicked miracles at the altars of the Messiahs two. PREACH OF THE MIRACLES AND MAGICAL WHAT ALL BE ABOUND OUR HUMBLEST FUCKING ABODES, CHAPELS, ABBEYS, AND ON. A preacher, brother."

There's no recognition of the conduit. No sign that he knows what it is or expectation of it being anything else. His only clue is that Neffa seems to think it important enough to show, and so he watches it, waiting.

He lowers the conduit, slowly, while the troll speaks. Every word only makes more clear that the magics they practice (or practiced, he supposes) are nothing alike. A priest! He tries to picture the Initiate in the cool, dark inner chambers of a Skytower, tries to imagine that voice reading the old Contracts and those cruel hands forming the gestures. The only part of that easy to picture on him are the bright holy colors. Priests with magic, now there would be a calamity. Who would give the gods that much power?

"I serve a goddess," he says. In search of magic, he will search for any commonality, no matter how small. "A goddess without a name. All the magicians are hers." He's never thought of himself as hers, not exactly, but that's what his oath to the Guild said, and therefore it's true, from a certain standpoint. "But she has no preachers. They say that where two gather in her name, she is not, and cannot be; where one is alone and the air around untouched by human voice, there she must be, according to the contract she made with the world at its beginning." It's rote memorization, from years ago, but he tries to give it a little flavor-- something like the up-and-down sound of the Initiate's voice. "...Her miracles aren't that spectacular," he adds, to take some of the weight off that... proclamation-- "I mean, supposedly she does them, but only where no one can see her. Not terribly wicked."

He makes a face of distaste at the mention of another god. Heresy, traitor to the Messiahs, his mind whispers, hisses. But he clamps down on that for death cannot be so swiftly delivered here and he had asked for tale and was receiving. He is appeased in the end with the knowledge that this god clearly does not match up to the Holy Two's might.

"A GODDESS OF SILENCE AND VOID," He sums then. "Curious." Interesting in how she responds to her priests. A shame, in other sensea. Something not terribly wicked could hardly be very fun, could it? "SO YOU THEN, WITH YOUR FELLOWS, ARE HER MIRACLE MAKERS?" In lack of capability of her own.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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For Neffa (animal death mention)

WOW SORRY FOR THIS INCREDIBLY LATE TAG

IT'S OKAY, I'M SORRY TOO.

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