thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Mentors, stylist, escorts, and anyone else keeping up with tributes in an official aspect.
What| The green room
Where| The tribute training center
When| start of the arena
Warnings/Notes| none inherent, tags thread subjects as needed.

The green room this round has been decorated with the sensibility of what would be, in our era, a turn of the century sitting room. Dark wood paneling, thick rich red velvet furniture, and plush red curtains drawn back over various monitors with heavy gold cords. Although the room is quiet large to contain so many people, it gives the impression of being intimate. The Avoxes, decked out in vaguely militaristic attire, serve food and drink in silver and crystal dishes, gold alcohol catching the light of the stained glass lamps around the room.

In the center of the room is a holographic projection of the arena, highlighting in flickering lights where each tribute is. Panels hidden discretely in the wood paneling can change the view of any of the screens so a mentor or stylist can pull up their own tribute, or one whom they would like to observe.

The projection can easily be shifted, with the flick of a hand, on to the person's own tablet, or even to be projected on one of the sitting tables placed around the room. On their screens other various information can be easily accessed: current odds, gossip, and even communication from potential bidders.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Growing up, Katurian both hated and loved the Games. They evoked a certain feeling in his chest, warm and uncertain and tight. Sometimes this feeling left him breathless and sent him spiraling into unconsciousness. He would awake in the hallway of his parents' house, his body soaked in sweat, his legs trembling like a car engine. Other times he would hold the feeling close. The adrenaline reminded him of a fair ride. Or a good book.

Little has changed. In the green room, Katurian Katurian bites his nails and compulsively wipes the bangs out of his eyes. He does not look away from the carnage.

That is, until Cecil speaks.

"I like it," he says, although his hesitance is clear. His voice trembles. "I think that it's very clever, setting it in a museum. I've been saying for ages, you know, I've been saying for ages that we need an indoor arena."

Cecil doesn't know this man. Or, he doesn't think he does. Strange, for a room as full of highly visible people as this one. But, well, he hasn't been in the Capitol very long, and he's sure it takes a veritable army to keep this pack of Tributes at peak performance level! Just because he doesn't recognize this man doesn't mean he's not very important to someone else.

"Well, it looks like somebody heard you," he replies, with a grin and a sweep-around-the-room motion of his head, pointedly unsubtle-- They're always watching us! Isn't that funny? "And it's about time, too-- what brilliant execution!" He pulls his tablet close again, to zoom in on the bloodstained elevator doors in the lifeless parking garage with a few swift motions of his fingers, tilting it so Katurian can see what he's looking at. "I think the elevators were the best direction they could have gone there-- but, that's just my opinion."

His tone makes it clear that it would make him very, very happy if the stranger agreed with his opinion.

"I think so, too," he says. And he does think so. He goes on, his voice a runaway train. "They're so mundane in the real world, so corporate and anonymous and-- and forgettable. It makes them all the more horrifying in the arena. I mean, come on. Right? Death is not waiting for you in some deep, dark cave. Death is waiting for you under the fluorescent lights."

His own words chill him. He interlaces his fingers.

It is easy to get carried away.

"Or whatever."

The look Cecil levels at Katurian is anything but disapproving. It is surprised, and intrigued, and under it all delighted. He is no longer paying any attention to the tablet in his lap.

"Yes," he says, emphatically, as though Katurian has just given voice to something that has been sitting on the tip of his own tongue. "Yes, exactly." He leans to set the tablet down on the table nearest him, the better to gesticulate-- "I mean, if you think about it, isn't that this whole Arena? What is more mundane, less threatening, than a museum? What is it but a receptacle for all the dead dangers of the past-- a monument to all that we, as a species, as a people, have conquered? What could be safer than that which unchangeably, inexorably was?"

His eyes are wide and bright, and his grin is one of near-ecstatic wonder. "To turn that into an Arena-- I'll tell you what, somebody in the Gamemakers' division is getting a raise over this one."

It's as though Cecil has dropped a match in a darkened room. Katurian's shoulders, previously tight and hunched, grow looser, calmer. His eyes, previously averted in shame, lock onto Cecil with an intensity reserved for only the best things -- like writing and beautiful sunsets.

"Yes," he says, the awe plain in his voice. He watches this man carefully, watches the way his eyebrows lift and bend, the way the wrinkles in his face shift with his every word. "Yes, it's -- It's exactly like that. It's exactly like that."

It is dizzying, the way he feels right now. Intoxicating.

"You're very good with words."

Edited 2014-02-04 21:51 (UTC)

Being listened to, Cecil is used to. He has closed his eyes when he broadcasts before, the better to imagine the invisible thousands sitting rapt before him; he has caught himself addressing people he can see as listeners. Being watched is newer to him. Being watched with the expression on Katurian's face... that has never happened. He wonders if everyone who listens to him looks like this; if this is the face he should be picturing on the rapt thousands, or if it's just Katurian.

"--Thanks!" he interrupts his thoughts to say, and it's genuine-- not just the thanks of someone who's heard what he expected to hear. He chuckles-- "I mean, I would hope I'm good with words. I am a professional radio broadcaster, after all."

He tries again to place Katurian, and cannot. Whoever he is, he is not the kind of person who appears in interviews. (A Gamemaker?) And so Cecil puts out his hand, with a broad smile, to turn this man into someone he knows. "Cecil Palmer. Or, Cecil. Cecil's fine."