District Tours: Train Ride

[etcircenses]

Prior to their departure, the Tributes have to suffer a photoshoot, a few interviewers asking them a thousand questions about how excited they are, and more than a few members of their style teams asking the Tributes to bring back mementos. "Don't worry about quality, dears, we can get that all here - we want you to bring us souvenirs for the novelty of it!"

The day of the trip, Tributes are roused bright and early, well before sunrise, and driven in Peacekeeper vans to the train station. It's all rather dour, and not like the start of a vacation at all; if one didn't know what was going on, and if the Escorts and head Stylists weren't chattering excitedly, they might think they were being hauled off to a war zone.

The trains, on the other hand, are plush, fancy things, and there is one per District. There's a single blockaded car for cargo, another for maintenance, driving and Peacekeeping staff, and then several others which are open to the Tributes. A dinner car serves three meals and has small snacks available throughout the day. Another car is an entertainment center with a selection of Capitol-approved films, and a the last one is the Tributes' temporary room. It has a bunk bed for each with sheets that was a truly intense threadcount, and a single massage chair in the back. The Stylists, Mentors and Escorts sleep in the same car, although separated by a partition.

Unfortunately, all the Tributes have to share the sleeping quarters, and it's first-come, first-served.

For the most part, the trip is so smooth that the surface of a glass full of water would not be disturbed. The trips to the closer Districts are a little under a day, but the furthest Districts - 3, 4, 7, 8, 11 and 12 - take nearly 48 hours.

[OOC: For Tributes accepted during the District tours, you can assume they arrived before the departure so they can participate in the District festivities. During the train ride there is still network access. There will only be this post and the party post from the mods for this event, so players are encouraged to make their own of their characters exploring their surroundings and enjoying the Districts.]

Comments

[futilecycle]

Sigma tensed up- not at Wyatt's insult, which he knew was true in spite of himself- but as he started to attack Eponine. When he had seen the recordings, the Doctor had never felt so miserable. He had failed both her and Howard wholly the moment he had fallen asleep when he should have been watching her - he was the trigger that had set such misery in motion.

Waist-deep in shame, he does not admit to this. He does not even look at Wyatt, but straight ahead, lost in despair. "You have no idea what she has been through. Eponine is just a child. That was not supposed to happen- if I had not been dead, I swear-" If only the Capitol had given him his powers, he could have erased that timeline.

But he did not have his powers and he had been dead, and Sigma knew he could not let it go. He hesitates. "She was frightened and misguided. I can change her, I just need time. Years of abuse are an impossible thing to undo." The word sting himself and for a moment, his face collapses to close his eye. To take a deep breath. This entire time, he may as well have been speaking about Kyle, and it made every ounce of him a hypocrite.

But Sigma had faith in the both of his children, just as he had faith in Howard when he had killed Neffa. He adds weakly, "She was not in her right mind. That was not... her. Believe me..." Howard's caution to him springs to mind, and Sigma feels his stomach twist. You hope too much.

[the_marshal]

"A'course," Wyatt growled, watching unmoved as the emotions played over Sigma's face. How quickly the man turned, how forgiving he was, when it was family. "Yer family gets forgiven for their sins. Her reasons were good enough - tyin' that boy up like an animal an' tryin' to feed him poison."

While his got condemned.

"Go to hell, Sigma."

[futilecycle]

There are a thousand questions Sigma wants to ask. Was Wyatt rotten enough to no longer love a child if they did wrong? And Wyatt's friend was not a child, Maximus was naturally evil. What plan did Wyatt have to reform him? Besides, what did Wyatt even have to worry about?! Maximus was out, and though he had been added to the last Arena, though he had been wounded in the xenomorph attack, he was currently alive and well. Eponine did not have that to fall back on; one day, Sigma would come out of the Arena and Eponine would not, the very same thing that had happened to his son, and everything that had been precious to him would be lost. Sigma did not need to go to hell; he was already in one. Perhaps he had been sent here, in the first place, as penance for his work as Zero. He would live Clover's and Junpei's and Kyle's losses in the Hunger Games again and again and again.

Instead, Sigma holds his tongue glares at Wyatt as intensely as he's ever done, pained and furious. Before tears of self-pity can gloss over his eye, he covers his face with his hands and sighs, elbows on the table. Conversation over.

[the_marshal]

He could have asked and Wyatt would have told him the truth, would have pointed how he'd tried, so hard, in the arena, but the man didn't, he was happy to wallow in his misery, believing his pain was much more important any others, so Wyatt left it.

He was done trying to make Sigma see reason.

He was just done.

Sigma turned away and Wyatt pushed out of his chair. Soured on the idea of sleep, he left the man to stew.