thecapitol | New kind of victory.

"I have not, as a point of fact. Though much of this place reminds me of home." He turns to smile at her, quiet and thoughtful. His own experiences within the party haven't been so personal, the smaller children more inclined to gawk at him with morbid fascination in their eyes than to actually approach. He can understand, it can't be easy to talk to someone celebrated for murder. "Am I so obvious?"

There's a shout of something quick and dissenting behind them, followed by a burst of jovial laughter, the sound gets muted by the wind off of the lake. "I do not think anyone will mind if I appear amused tonight. Besides, I've been behaving myself otherwise. It has not been easy, and I would appreciate your support."

"I wouldn't say obvious. I'd just say I know you thrive on people using their words. Especially about politics." She pulls her hand from her pocket and links it with his, the one not holding the glass that she's noticed has hardly been drained tonight.

"Is that your way of asking for my company?" Her teasing is a bit strained, frayed at the edges by the way she holds her hands a bit awkwardly, by the way she looks over her shoulders at the people around her. "I could stand to stretch my legs. I hear there's supposed to be fireworks over the lake tonight."

Edited 2014-01-16 00:09 (UTC)

"Knowledge is power, power corrupts, and corruption is a dangerous reality of any social state." His teasing is less strained, partially from the tangible realization of what they have been fighting for, and partially because her hand continues to fit perfectly in his and he's again content to defer proper examination of that thought to a later date. "Yes, that is my way of asking for your company, Venus."

He's looking at the people too, but it isn't the anxious, furtive glances she shoots over her shoulder. His observations are made in long, approving stares as he listens to the points being tossed back and forth between the interested parties. "We should watch them together. The fireworks."

"That's so not how the saying goes." A few people watch them for a moment as she leads him towards the shore, but they are far less invested in their potential romance (fauxmance? she wonders) than the Capitol citizens are. With actual concerns to occupy their minds, the people here have no need to latch so voraciously on the teat of rumor and scandal.

The sky is darker than Venus has ever seen it, the stars bright enough that even the distant, dim ones seem distinct. She kicks off her heeled shoes at the edge of the party, dropping her height down to Enjolras' nose, and squelches dry sand in her toes.

"When I'm from, there are so many more people in America that the sky's never this brilliant. There's too much light pollution."

"Parts of Paris are the same." Not any of the parts he frequented, but the more affluent sections of the city are kept well lit. There's a case to be made regarding the correlation of light and wealth, but it's less interesting right now than the roar of the crowd behind them, and the stars hanging overhead in the darkness.

"I would not have expected America to become so populous so quickly, however." The statement is actually an implicit question and carries a note of curiosity even if he isn't actually searching for a history lesson. In the grand scheme of things, however, the 19th and the 21st centuries are not so far apart, and America was still believed by most in his time to be largely rural and undeveloped.

When her height shifts, he tentatively pulls her closer through their linked hands. They're just inside each other's personal space, and it's just intimate enough to be more than platonic. This time, however, he doesn't have the alcohol to hide behind and neither does she.

"If you're looking for someone to explain how, I'm not sure I could tell you. We got a lot of immigrants, you know, America, land of the free, supposedly. My great-grandparents came over as slaves, though, so your mileage may vary."

When he requests her closeness, she acquiesces, only half conscious of how they're walking hip-to-hip now. If anyone were to ask, she's answer - and probably believe - that he's just trying to protect her from the cold lap of the night air.

She gives his hand a squeeze. "Are you going to be alright, when we get back to the Capitol?"

He doesn't offer comment on the darker parts of her history; He isn't sure he's qualified or that it would be welcome, anyway. Enjolras is self-aware enough to know that his own privileged existence is nothing, and that even the hardships he's facing now are nothing in comparison to those faced by countless individuals historically. Still, he makes note of it all the same.

"I will be fine." The answer accompanies a small frown, one of the first he's worn all evening. He doesn't like the idea that she thinks of him as fragile, somehow, even though that's how he's presented himself a few times now. Venus should have confidence in her mentor as a participant in the Games, and he shouldn't need her as an emotional crutch like he does. "Or rather, I have no choice in the matter, but I can convince myself well enough that I will be fine. I think that I shall miss them, however."

He would trade the people of the Capitol for those of District 5 any day. There's a sinister quality to the realization and Enjolras isn't quite sure of what it means. But instead of continuing that line of thought, he squeezes Venus' hand in return, hoping that the gesture will be more convincing than anything he can articulate at the moment.

"As long as you send me presents."

She doesn't believe him. For a man who can write eloquent screeds about justice and republicanism, for the guy who's convinced her to look outside herself despite how it makes her want to squirm, he can't convince her about his emotions for shit.

"I'm asking you as a friend, you know, not as your Mentee. I know you'll do right by me and the District."

There's a log on the beach that makes an attractive bench. She leads him towards it.

"I'll be fine." He repeats, this time more firmly. It's not confidence, but there is a not of finality to it. He doesn't want her worrying about him, not when she'll have far more pressing concerns far too quickly. "And I will do better now that I have actually see the District. It makes me wonder just why they kept it from us."

The glass disappears onto the sand as they sit down. Out here with her, away from the crowd, there's no reason to look like he's casually enjoying the evening. It would be naive to suspect that they aren't being watched at all, but even so there's less scrutiny, less reason to maintain an appearance.

"Do you prefer weapons or provisions?" It's hard to ask specifics like this, but he needs to know. He should really be taking a survey of everyone in their District, but his rapport is no where near as good with any of the others. Distantly, he also knows that it's because he cares more about seeing her looked after. That isn't fair, not in the slightest, but it's true. At least Azula would pick up the slack of the others. As many faults as he could find in his partner, lack of dedication isn't one of them. "I suppose much of this will depend upon the Arena. I wonder if the stylists have received their instructions yet."

She frowns slightly at his rebuff, but doesn't press the issue further. If he wants to sulk, she won't stop him.

"I think they're keeping us from them, honestly." In the sand, her ankle touches his, meeting his sock with her bare skin. "If we were here all the time, the people here might start getting the impression they're worth paying attention to, you know? Bringing us out here like it's part of an afterthought...well, that just means that they're entertainment for us for a few days, and that they should be grateful to get the scraps."

It's not that Venus is a natural at how to subdue a populace, but she's sat in many an agent's room, listening to discussion of which people to pay attention to on the red carpet, who to snub and who to make feel isolated by not singling them out at all. There's warfare to celebrity life, a subtext of sabotage and manipulation.

"Provisions is food and water, right? Send me that." She knows how to kill with her bare hands, as he's experienced before. "If I don't have my health, what have I got?"

She rubs small circles into the back of his hand with her thumb.

She's smart, even if she doesn't always realize it. Thoughtful, in an uncanny, unsettling sort of way. It's a way that he's only considered and never perfected. Perhaps if he had bothered to consider pragmatism over ideals like this before, the barricade would have been slightly less of a failure. For the second time in the week, he got the sense that he had been an unworthy chief. He wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

"Very well, provisions it is." Their ankles slide against each other again, and he blushes. It's easy to pass it off as the cold air.

"They also couldn't want us to see this." He casts a long look back at the party and its active debate. "It undermines the Capitol's position that everything in Panem runs smoothly, and that the people are truly happy with the status quo."

"It does, but some of us might find it kind of motivational." She reaches her hand up to her neck and unclips the pendant the young girl gave her. She holds it out. It's made of copper wire and a few blue glass beads, a clumsy, lopsided shape like a sun made out of an oval.

"One of the kids gave me this. I don't know if she was put up to it or not, but she'd have to be a damn good actor." She lets it rest in her palm, the beads dull in the dim light. "It felt like getting a good long look at a hostage, honestly."

The beads reflect oddly in the dim light that reaches them from the party, but the effect of the pendant is powerful all the same. Enjolras isn't sure what he expected from the Districts other than downtrodden obedience to their oppressors, but this wasn't it, not exactly. "That is what she is, and that is why the people will not fight on their own. That is also why they have kept us from them."

The gears in his head are working double time. To rally any support here would be impossible. They don't have the time, and even if they did, he doesn't know them well enough to even try. Still, the girl's affection for a stranger, and the conflicting sentiments permeating the air around them are enough to get him thinking. They aren't all lost or broken. They're scared, disenfranchised, they feel powerless about their situation. If there were a way to maintain communications between the Districts and the Capitol then maybe--

"Our communicators work here. Do you think they would intercept a transmission to another District, if I wanted to send it?"

"I'm pretty sure you can send messages to someone in a different District, you just can't broadcast to only one." She chews her tongue and gives him a sideways glance. "If you try it, let me be your editor, alright? Pretty sure even if they don't block it entirely, it'll be monitored."

Her foot sneaks through the sand until it's between both his shoes. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, hand linked to his only via her pinkie and ring finger hooked around his thumb.

She watches the way his face stiffens when he thinks, as thoughts build upon each other into something greater than the man-sized body he possesses. It's at once admirable and intimidating, like watching a bird of prey extend its wings. She feels a chill that has nothing to do with the cold.

"I need to speak with Courfeyrac." His voice is distant, expression still pensive as he calculates what to say, how to phrase the question in such a way that his friend will understand, but that will stay undetected. Or if asking at all is even a good idea over the network when surely they'll have time to talk everything through once they return to the Capitol. Patience is a virtue, a voice in the back of his head reminds him drearily.

The feeling of her foot slipping between his pulls Enjolras out of his own head, and he looks down at her quizzically. Part of him wants to ask about the gesture and part of him doesn't want to know the particulars. It's possible that trying to define whatever it is that's going on between them will only ruin it. "I will not be in English. Courfeyrac and I are from the same region of France, we both speak a language very particular to the area, one which I suspect is actually extinct by now. Nevertheless, you are welcome to review the transmission before I send it. Or I can show you what it would mean."

Venus feels a twinge when she remembers that Courfeyrac will be heading into the Arena in less than a week too. While it's been one of the other reasons she's been concerned about Enjolras' state of mind, it momentarily slipped her mind, and comes back full force. Courfeyrac will, of course, be safe by her, but that makes no guarantees from the other Tributes.

"That should be safe enough, but I'd like that."

That's when the first fireworks go off. In the Capitol, this display would be outright bland, although it's still better than anything Venus has seen from her time period. Beneath the pops and smoke the explosions make the shapes of radiating suns, of trees of red lights weeping down like willows.

Venus shivers a bit, in spite of her coat.

The light illuminates her face in red, gold, and pale blue. Ten months ago, the sudden burst of sound and light would've sent him immediately back to the barricade, but now it's almost commonplace. The Capitol cares little for post traumatic stress, and even if they did, he wouldn't have wanted their pity.

"Alright. I intend to ask him about the people of his District. I need to know if everything we are seeing here is genuine." Enjolras' voice is quiet, increasingly aware that they're never truly alone. It would be like the Capitol to send their most rebellious Victor to a District where rebellion might not be encouraged, but isn't squelched outright. It would be like the Capitol to taunt him with hope for change and then watch malicious as he burns himself out, taking a few foolishly disloyal Tributes with him. He can't miscalculate again, he won't. He won't make Venus pay for his mistakes the way Courfeyrac already had once. "I would like to ask Marius as well, and maybe Éponine, but that will be more difficult."

There's a particularly large explosion, a million tiny fragments of light bursting for seconds before they fade into the darkness. It's followed by another volley of smaller explosions, clearly building up to some sort of finale. He leans in close to her, so that he can catch her thoughts between the fits of sound. Hopefully, this looks to all the world like a happy couple enjoying a small, romantic moment between obligatory exchanges of party smalltalk. Even though he knows Venus has done the same to him countless times, Enjolras feels guilty using her this way.

"I'll ask around too, but I don't think we'll have much time before the next round. Ellie's in District One, and if you can't get a hold of Eponine I think Maximus is in her District."

Venus makes it a point to know where her connections lie. She's studied the footage of previous Never-Ending Quell Games with the same intensity she used to apply to music videos and TV shows as a teenager. Fame and notoriety were probably her only options, aside from poverty. A normal life stopped being an option to her once she had a mutant power and, worse the mutant face to match.

Funny, how little it matters here that she could be anyone, that her face says nothing more than that she's a young woman with a wide nose and high eyebrows, long lashes and lips with dips of pink in the middle. The memory of the greatest concern she had without a human body is not even an afterthought to her these days.

"I don't know that there's anyone in the other Districts I could ask for input, though. I haven't made myself the most beloved person with the other Tributes here."

She wishes she could pull closer - wishes she were certain of the consequences if she did. But she doesn't. That she killed him once, and that they have been so fundamentally at odds throughout the Games, raises a higher barrier than even the uncertainty between them.

She turns her eyes instead back to the sky. "Big finale..."

A hint of a smile plays on his face as they stare up at the display. It's nice, even if the wind off the lake is a little cold, and there's honestly too many thoughts in his head. Plans of rebellion, confusion over what they are and how they came to be this way, confusion over what to do about either of those dilemmas... It's too much, too quickly, and without any true direction to it all.

"Three Districts will be a good survey, I think. I simply need to be sure that this is not an isolated sentiment." The last of the fireworks shoots up, illuminating everything on the lake for a brief instant. "A rebellion will fail without popular support. I would like to have faith in appealing to the higher logic and morality of the people, but they have failed me too many times."

In Paris, in Panem, in every conversation he has where someone admits that they think a system of murdering children and a nation starving its own people is viable and even reasonable. Something had to be done, but it had to be done correctly, in time, and with the right individuals behind it. They're shoulder to shoulder, and abruptly he remembers her fingers still wrapped ever so slightly around his. The contrast between them is only dimly visible in the light. "Thank you, Venus. I appreciate everything that you have done for me."

"You might have more luck appealing to morality than you think. You pulled me on over, didn't you?"

The final display of fireworks makes a shape like a dragon with its wings spread, although it's imperfect. It strikes Venus that she hasn't seen much bird imagery in Panem, and certainly not out in the Districts. It would be an easy enough thing to overlook entirely, but now that she scratches through her memory she can't recall birds anywhere, and that seems to her a little bizarre.

She files the thought away for later.

"You'll pay me back in the Arena," she says, and inside she cringes, because that makes it sound like a business arrangement, or that her affection only comes when she can see something in it for herself. The way she squeezes his hand then is almost in apology for how mercenary she just sounded. "You're welcome, Enjolras."

Her tone stings a little and he feels himself stiffen up at her touch.

"We should go back to the party." The suggestion isn't followed by any action. He's still sitting resolutely, unsure of how to untangle them, or if he even wants to. The moment has passed, certainly, but Enjolras isn't looking forward to putting forth the effort to find another.

"As your mentor I should be encouraging you to compete, as your friend, I would rather you ended it quickly and came back to me." It takes him a second to pick up on the implication of the sentence, and he glances away from her, back to the party behind them, up at the sky where if he tries hard enough, he imagines he can see the impressions of the fireworks still. Any place other than in her eyes. "To the Capitol, I mean. After all, we now have quite a bit of work ahead of us and they use the Games are only a distraction."

"Yeah. We should." She's loath to get up, too, but the more he keeps explaining away that slip of the tongue the more she realizes that there's no point prolonging their stay here. She gets up and brushes sand from the hem of her sarong, not pushing him to meet her eyes again. "I'm cold, anyway."

It's an invitation for her embrace again, but one she's sure he won't take, not after that stumble.

No, the intimacy has already been too much for the evening. He follows her, offering her his arm, but not his hand. The gesture is polite and rigid, nothing outside of the realms of propriety, even for his day.

"I would lend you my scarf if our stylists had let me wear it." The reply is all false lightness, as if returning to their banter will make her forget about what's just been said. Venus is too smart for that, he knows, too observant even when she tries very hard to appear otherwise.

She takes it, feeling a cold that has far less to do with the weather than she'd said. Her other hand sits lonesome in her pocket, fingernails idly scraping the inside fabric.

And she doesn't respond to the banter, having, for the moment, nothing to say.

New kind of victory.

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