thecapitol | (no subject)

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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.

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"Well, it's certainly better than last time around." She said, not thinking of any implications that might make about Enjolras. She was simply just thrilled to not be the one running the District 12 how this time around. Usually she would be more aware of these things, but right now she wasn't exactly in the right state of mind.

"What about you? Glad to be out of the arenas?" She smiled brightly at him, nibbling on a piece of fruit from the buffet. "It is much nicer on this end, unfortunately. Fortunately."

"Unfortunately," he supplied quietly, letting his opinions on the matter settle passively between them. Now was not the occasion for grand speeches on the injustice of it all, and this woman, however courteous, would likely not be a particularly receptive audience even if it were. "What little comfort I take in not having to fear for my life, however, is mitigated by the fact that I still have friends in the Arena."

With a rueful smile, he shook his head, blond curls bouncing slightly with the motion. "Marius and Cosette were married recently and they continue to fight. As does my friend Courfeyrac, who arrived here recently, and my District-mate, Venus, as well as many others I have known here. Until they are safely out of the Arenas, I do not know how much I will be able to enjoy such parties. As grand as they seem."

"It is a very stressful place to be." Effie said, with a sudden, unexpected gravity. Which was not simply an observation from the last arena, although that had nailed it home. It was something she'd dealt with a long time ago.

"But you should..." She paused, trying to find a way to put it into words correctly. "If you stay on your toes, and enjoy yourself, you'll be of more use to them. Stay social, and alert, well fed...an exhausted, grumpy mentor isn't much use to anyone."

It was a lesson she'd tried to ingrain in Haymitch. It had never took.

It was a lesson which would be hard for Enjolras to learn, but he nodded anyway. This woman, with her strange eyelashes and overdrawn makeup seemed, somehow however abruptly, less ridiculous than the other escorts and sponsors milling about the party. The vapidity was palpable in the air, and even the brief moment of sincerity, however buried under her cosmetics it was, stood out in stark contrast. "I shall try to heed your advice. You are, after all, more experienced than I in these matters."

She gave him a bright smile, nodding sagely. It was nice to see someone who, if nothing else, listened. You could lead a horse to water, and all of that.

"I have been at this longer than I would like to think about." She said, with a small little huff, somewhere near a laugh. She looked over his again, strong and with ideas that were new. But dangerous.

"Be very careful." She finally added, softly, becoming aware of precisely who was around them.

"I am, madame. I assure you." He lied with confidence now, and the realization of that stung more than the dishonesty itself. Still, it was easier to deliver the exact opposite of the truth than admit either to himself or to her that he enjoyed being reckless and stubborn. Defiance held its own gratification in Panem.

Rather than indulge that unwelcome tangent of self-reflection further, he picked at the food on his plate, searching for her eyes again beneath her curls and makeup. "May I ask you about that, or would it be to forward of me? I am very curious to know what drives a person to become involved with the Games if they do not have to be."

"Oh, I'm always happy to share!" She said, and the response was clearly canned. But instead of going into her usual spiel, she paused, thinking back to the district visits, to all of this.

Of course her answer had shifted. Not changed, really. Just become so much clearer.

"It is, really, the only way one can...effect the Games. Could help the children. It might be small, especially to those competing, but it is the biggest change I can make."

"I see," he said simply. The reply lacked any inflection of judgment, but he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd taken it as such. His politics and feelings on the Games were well enough known that the lack of immediate protestation or clarification of his opinions could have been seen as condemnation. Nevertheless, despite his burgeoning interest in Effie, he wasn't in the emotional state to argue the particulars of that leviathan of a debate with her.

"Had you no interest in government work?" The passivity of his tone remained, but Enjolras' dropped back down to his plate. Regardless of her answer, he could see the conundrum of working for this government and expecting any sort of compassionate change.

She had expected something more. But she was also relieved. When Enjolras would speak, she would always read it, always try to understand, but she often was left twisted in the ideas. It was like a complicated web, and she was always worried about getting caught too deep.

The second part puzzled her for a moment.

"Well, this is government work." She said, tilting her head so the currently blue tinted curls on her head bounced. "The games are run by the government."

He had to resist rolling his eyes at her rebuttal, the modernity of the gesture no doubt the manifestation of too long spent with certain District-mates. Of course, she would see the menial act of ferrying children to their death as true government work. And, in a way, he supposed that it was. It wouldn't do much, but in a society where such things were normalized there wasn't much to be done. Combeferre had been right in that regard, everything indeed rested on education.

"You seem to be a woman of intelligence. I simply meant that perhaps a civic office, or something with more control over your Tributes and District might have had more appeal to you." That, he hoped, would tow the delicate line of critique and polite inquiry. Truly, he didn't want to be overtly insulting to Effie as an individual. He pursed his lips and lifted his brows, trying to express his condemnation as innocently as possible.

It was difficult to try to express to him why those things had never even seemed option. Because it was so many little things. Some of them things she didn't necessarily want to admit to, like the thankless, hard work with no benefits.

But also, how often anyone who worked in the Districts vanished. How often the position where so dependent on connections, on very specific skills sets that you couldn't openly obtain, on, often, coming from the districts.

"Those positions are not...they are not something that are easy to find yourself in. And..." She swallowed, skirting around the guilt she felt, but also knowing, to some extent, that it was what he was in a way looking for. "And my appreciation of the importance of my work, it has...come to a new level recently, where possibilities like that seem more relevant."

"May I inquire how?" He knew, or he thought he might anyway, but it would be gratifying to hear it expressed out loud, by someone so entrenched in the strange traditions of Panem. They didn't lack compassion, merely operated with a different sort of reasoning. It was reasoning, however, and so it could, perhaps, be argued against and persuaded.

Again, he fell into a sort of Socratic innocence, not wanting to jump the gun on her evolution of thought, but still feeling a keen sort of enthusiasm and curiosity regarding it. Abruptly, Enjolras realized that they had lingered perhaps too long by the table. If they were to continue this conversation, and he would have very much liked to, it would be best done elsewhere in the room. "I beg your pardon, but I think we may have unintentionally been very rude. We should give others a chance at the buffet, I think. May I help you find a seat, madame?"

She started, realizing with how distracted they had been by the conversation, they had been quite rude.

And, when he said it, she had the idea that she would very much like some fresh air. It didn't occur to her, consciously, to realize she didn't like walking this line in a place so entrenched in, well...the Capitol.

"Would you actually mind escorting me to a walk through the courtyards?" She said with a bright smile up at him. "I shouldn't take you from your work for long, but a few minutes..."

And the walk would give her time to organize her thoughts.

"As you like," he replied easily, offering her his arm. The gesture was all trained politeness, manners rather than true interest or concern.

Silently, he walked her out to the courtyard adjacent to the lounge, with its manicured lawns and carefully landscaped shrubbery. It would have been nice had he not been so conscious of how the efforts on it might have been better spent.

Around them, the late-winter air seemed too crisp as he breathed it in, the cold burning in his lungs in a most ironic of contradictions. "At times I do miss nature. Perhaps one day it will come into fashion and there will be expansive, unkempt parks."

"It is a place the Districts outshine us."

Effie has her issues with nature. Bugs, mud, strange smells, bugs. The bugs were the worst. But she was sure there was some middle ground between what was, say, in 12 and what was here.

Now, to address his questions.

"Before...before the 74th game, it was...the Capitol worked hard to keep us so separate. Even I, who had far more contact with the District than others were taught...many different things about how they were. Any there were...are reasons we were taught the Games happened, and now apparently they aren't true."

It was hard to stand behind the morals of why the games were fought when those reasons were thrown out the window by those who had taught them.

"I think for those who live in the Capitol...they only get a few carefully chosen pieces, and have no way to get more. So did I, before."

He nodded along, grateful for the extend of her answer. It was careful to avoid too much criticism of the Capitol, clearly, but it was not poorly-considered or dismissive. Rather, Effie seemed quite judicious in her assessment. It was a similar conclusion to the one had had been drawing. The people were not to blame, it was the system itself.

"I think I understand. Perhaps if they were educated differently there would not be so stark a disparity." Combeferre had been correct in that regard. Enjolras still supposed that here, as in Paris, education alone was not sufficient to generate substantial social change, but it was a start. Or, perhaps, a continuation. He bit his lip, thinking carefully on how best to reply. Criticisms were nothing if they did not offer a solution.

"I do not think your people cruel, Madame Trinket. I did for a long while, but I think instead it is as you say, they simply do not understand their actions. I wish that there were a way to make them see."

It was a bigger relief than she realized it would be, to hear him say that. Like a weight off her shoulders.

Perhaps it was a weak want to not believe everyone you had ever known was entirely awful. Admitting that was near impossible

But at the same time, to simply dismiss everyone who participated as evil meant nothing could be changed. Not without simply killing everyone. And she knew that wasn't an option their world could sustain.

"Oh, I do to. I do very much." She said, giving him a dazzling smile of relief. Studying him, she considered what he said. "Something...like this. Similar, in..some way was going on in your home, wasn't it?"

The question puzzled him. In someways, yes, something similar had happened in France over the last few decades. In the wake of the Revolution he so admired the institutionalized inequality had become monetarily based, rather than an extension of birthright. It was still a game of those in power retaining it, and those without power being subject to their whims and indulgences. They had never been so overt in their sadism, though. The apathy of the people had been just that, apathy rather than evil. This, what was happening in Panem, was, in a great many ways, another animal altogether.

"Somewhat," he responded at great length, tone uncertain as he sought out how to properly explain the nuances. "There was a great disparity. Many people were starving, while others had far more than they could ever need. My family was fortunate enough to be of the upper class, but once I came to Paris and saw what was happening, I could not allow it to continue. In France, as in Panem, it does not have to be this way."

He paused. He could speechify at her, but not knowing Effie's politics made that an inadvisable move. Instead, Enjolras reigned himself in, glancing from her to the garden around them. "We never made our children kill each other. I suppose I should be grateful for that."

Effie was silent for a long, long time. She was not sure how to word what she wanted to say. To explain, rather than defend.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, she would have defended. Now she just wanted all the cards on the table, so they could end the game.

"It made...it made since at first, in a way. There was not enough population for war, but there had to be a harsh control, or we all would have died." She sighed softly. "But this all..."

And she trailed off. There was nothing to explain, now she had tried. It was vile.

"There is strength, and then there is viciousness. There is authority, and then there is abuse." The intricacies of a social contract would likely be lost on her, but the sentiment was, in many ways, universal. More so, Enjolras suspected, for people who had lived to see the erosion of it.

"A strong government seeks to promote peace, and it will enforce that peace when it becomes necessary." He looked to the garden around them, and then down at his feet. "Forgive me, madame, but I find it hard to regard Panem as a peaceful place if that peace is bought routinely at the expense of lives."

Effie looked up at the sky, trying to find what to say.

There was a little bird beating away in her chest, because she knew, if she didn't disagree, if he didn't "correct" him, they could both be in trouble.

But she couldn't. Instead her eyes just feel, looking down at the ground between her shoes.

"We should get back in." She finally said softly. Tiredly.

He nodded, unsure of what exactly had just happened. After all, he'd been fully expecting to half to talk around his feelings and defend them to someone so entrenched in the culture of the Capitol. "As you like."

But the thought of returning to the gold room filled him with a certain amount of dread. Its opulence seemed daunting, sickening. He frowned, looking out over the garden again. "If it is all the same to you, madame, I think I may wait here for a moment. Please do not feel obligated to stay with me. You have other duties to which you should attend, I understand that."

"Yes, of course." She said, giving him a fake smile. It was obviously fake, and she knew he would know. Anyone with half a brain would, and this man clearly had far more than that.

Bowing her head, she hurried off.

He had clearly hit her deep.

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I'm so sorry about how late this is.

psssh like I can talk.

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