Was It Worth All This War Just to Win? [OPEN]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus and open
WHAT| Venus reunites with old friends and hopefully meets new ones.
WHERE| Any restaurant in the Capitol, especially places with dessert, or the Training Center.
WHEN| A few days before the finale
WARNINGS| None yet.



She doesn't hold any hard feelings about having lost. She never does. She never quite intends to win, not really, finding it almost contradictory to putting on a good show at times. And death hardly fazes her when she came into her own as a mutant by ripping herself molecule from molecule. Furthermore, the weight of worrying abuot Enjolras has been somewhat lessened (he seems to have survived his first spell as a Mentor intact), and she finds herself feeling almost peppy. Getting back onto her medication is a bit rough, but the side effects are infinitely easier to hide when she isn't under the scrutiny of the Arena. Mostly, she just zones out when people are talking to her at times and has strange dreams about tendriled flowers blossoming out of her stomach.

What she does care about is making sure the people she cares about are taking this as well as she is, and that means slipping notes under their doors. Not wanting to impose - at least, not yet - she lets them set the time.

Find me when you're ready! -Venus

And she wears her swag, of course. Her goodie bag came with a scent like matchsticks and honey, which she finds an interesting choice, a bright pink lipstick and a fitted top with her name scrawled in glitter across the front. It's all a little obvious even by her standards, but a brand is a brand, and with her hair fastened in a little 'District 5' clip, she hits the town. Ever since getting tastebuds, she's been enamored with sugar, especially fruit, and she finds that she doesn't even have to use her ample kill money if she goes to a different shop every meal. Restaurateurs are happy for the free publicity that comes with serving a popular Tribute and give out samples with abandon.

She'd worry about her physique if she didn't spend so many hours at the Training Center. For most of the week she can alternately be found with her feet propped up in a cafe, sucking on spoons with a yogurt or smoothie in hand, catching up on Capitol news she missed while fighting for her life, or, clothing dampened with sweat, beating the hell out of a tackling dummy in the Training Center. She stops and waves at every Tribute she sees, even if she hasn't met them.

Comments

[inhumanity]

It's in the Training Center that he appears, a basket of something that smells sweet on one arm. "Hello. I intend on having a rematch." He puts his hand in the basket and draws out—

—a freshly baked madeleine, warm and perfect. "Would you like a madeleine?"

[celebrityskinned]

She hears him approach but doesn't even turn to see who it is until he speaks. She's relatively surprised when he seems friendly, given that most people have a decidedly less amiable reaction to the person that killed them in cold blood. She drops her hands and leans over the edge of the dummy, stopping it from swinging.

She pulls tight the wrapping around her knuckles. "Well, normally I try not to eat while I exercise, but that smells so good I might have to make an exception. Thank you." She holds a hand out.

[costing]

He spots her at the cafe, when he's beginning to make his rounds through the Capitol. He doesn't expect the wave, so he cocks his head to one side and lifts a brow, pausing for a moment. Then he's walking over to her in quick strides.

He looks much more at ease than he did in the arena, but really, who wouldn't? But it is a marked difference. In a collared shirt and coat and with a confident step, he looks much more like himself-- a different person from the blindsided Tribute, really.

"That's hardly a breakfast of champions."

[celebrityskinned]

"What, I'm not allowed to have a cookie every once in a while?" She tosses her head to the side so her hair makes a dramatic swoop, then brings her fingers up to clear away the District Five pin so it continues to be unobstructed and visible. It's a very intentional gesture.

She breaks her cookie in half and holds one part out to him. "So, you didn't last long."

[gruesome]

Some is out - looking for a shop that sells the right weight of twine - when he catches her wave through a window. He hesitates a moment, but comes into the cafe, ducking in the front door and tipping his hat back. He looks particularly large inside the small establishment, lanky as he is, and takes particular care not to knock into anything as he approaches her table. Or anyone.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus, for her part, scooches her chair out and pulls the table back to Some has more space around the table and isn't crammed up against the wall.

"Been a long time since I've seen you around." The last she saw of him was on the network, and she hasn't run into him in person since. "How are you?"

[privilegecheck]

Kankri's been avoiding the District 5 suite. He hasn't wanted to watch the television, it's sickening, and yet- and yet, he can't seem to look away when the people he knows, people he cares about, come up. And there's been too much shown on there.

Especially about Venus.

He wouldn't be out at all tonight, but his Escort all but shoved him out of the tower, telling him he needed to go show his face to the people in the Capitol, ask them to help him find whatever sort of place he'd like to go so he'd look cute and helpless. (Claudia had, thankfully, been more reassuring when she'd dressed him up to go out, or he might have just sat outside the tower and sulked until the Escort had to go do something besides watch the doors.)

People are all too eager to give him directions to where they think the best place to get something warm and sweet to drink is, and then insist on escorting him there. Then they're happy to read the menu out for him, which is both nice and humiliating. He ends up ordering a hot cider, which sounds relatively appealing from their descriptions. When he takes out the slips of paper he was given for his interview with Cecil and mentions that he doesn't know what value each of them has, everyone jostling around him is only too quick to make sure he gets exact change.

They fire questions at him, far too many to answer, but he finds that staring down at his drink and occasionally murmuring something gets them to back off, with simpering sighs about what a shy little thing he is. After that, though, it's nice enough, as long as people are leaving him alone. Occasionally someone wanders up and asks him something, but it's at least not the crowd he had before.

He's on his second cider when Venus comes in, swaggering up to the counter and ordering something - he can't hear her over the ambient noise. The barista nods and points over to the little table he's claimed. He glances back down to his mug so people don't see him make a face. Oh, well. It has to happen eventually. He looks back up at her, waves her over with a small, forced smile.

"You look well," is all he can think to say when she sits down.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus' sunny disposition is cast in rainclouds as soon as she sits down. For a moment she believes he's looking down because he's sad, tired, worn out from his gruesome death and his inaugural revival, and it stirs up sympathy inside her, a sinking icewater feeling in her stomach, a numb shot through her hands like some sort of empathic stigmata.

No, he's angry at her, and she knows he's right to be but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel a little bit insulted. While she easily concedes that their mutual persistence in the Arena was a cooperative effort, she still was doing the dirty work.

"You don't," she says, blunt but not harsh, like hot laundry. It's warm, an invitation to talk, a signal that she's aware there's a problem and that they might as well get it out of the way before they risk their bond cooling.

Training Center:

[medecin]

Given he's developing something of an image that he must maintain, and that he wishes to demonstrate that he has certain skills (which, technically he's not exactly cultivated), Joly's been relatively hard at work for once, on skills that used to bore hell out of him.

Not that it is still untrue, but even so, he's spent the better part of the last few hours down here, rapier in hand, and he's actually been focused on it for once, in a way that he never was at home that might have actually impressed M. Duval, and possibly have made his father laugh that something actually made him care.

At the moment, though, Joly's raising the mask that he was strongly "encouraged" to use when he got down here to get a bit of air after taking some strikes at a practice target, and spotting Venus just a bit away. On his way to grab some water, to calm a tickle in his throat that he hopes does not become anything worse, he's coming closer, waving in return.

"So you've returned. It is VERY good to see you."

Re: Training Center:

[celebrityskinned]

"You, too." She throws one last punch that lands solidly on the punching bag, sending it swinging on the chain, then leaps out of the way of its sand-filled return. She then turns her attention to Joly and places a fist on her hip. A little sweat shines on her forehead, and she brushes bangs away as they start to stick to her face.

And she walks up to him to give him a friendly embrace and once-over. By now she's seen how he died, of course, and there were definitely easier ways for him to go. She wonders how he's fared since, if the vulnerability he projected during the storm is localized to only those circumstances or if his nervousness is sewn into his nature.

"And how've you been since coming here?"

[earthborn]

Ah, smoothies. For once, the seam between Arena and Capitol wasn't marked by an abrupt metabolism shift— she's grateful for the small things. Like the size of the smoothies around here, to take an entirely delicious example. Portion control was for peasants and District-natives, apparantly.

"I hate men," she said, by way of introduction, flopping down in the chair beside Venus and her damn frozen yogurt, "I thought about it. I'm pretty sure that I'm just going to spend the rest of my life alone, and y'know what— I'm comin' to terms with it."

Chocolate blueberry smoothie. With some kind of...is that honey? Weird. Kind of amazing, too.

"What's up with you?"

[celebrityskinned]

If Venus is bitter, she doesn't show it. After all, it'd be grossly hypocritical for her to get on Shepard's case about the broken ribs when Venus had, herself, put a shank through Shepard's forehead. So instead Venus greets Shep with a smile that reddens up the apples of her cheeks and a pat at the seat that Shep soon flops right into.

"Oh? Because if you're coming to me hoping for me to return the favor on romantic advice, you might be out of luck, sister." Venus' own beverage is pure strawberry, although it has a toupee of whipped cream on the top that she keeps having to wipe from her nose. "Then again, maybe I been getting lucky."

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna half recognised Venus, she knew her off the screens though they had never met. She waved back as best she could with a duck under one arm and an ice cream in the other. It's finally not stupid cold outside, though still colder than Pruna liked it.

But it did not stop her from eating ice cream. She skipped closer to the girl, she was wearing soft shoes, Effie had made good on that promise as well. And though they felt really weird they weren't pinchy and they kept her feet warm.

"You did be doing well." Starting conversations was a practiced art, and one Pruna was just starting to explore. But she found that actually, she liked talking to people. Except stupid people, but from what she had seen on the screens Venus was not stupid, and she had killed a good few people.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus, being an avid consumer of the Games, recognizes Pruna, as well. She pats at the seat next to her on the couch of the cafe, where she's sitting with a perfect view of the street and of a television running the current events in the games. Today it's fire, and Courfeyrac's jarringly cheerful "ohé, ohé"s are just audible over the chatter of the cafe.

"You have quite the record yourself, kiddo." She leans her head over to look at Pruna's ice cream. "Is that the blackberry honey ice cream? Tell me how it is, the chocolate mango is amazing."

[youbarium]

Carlos was walking down the street when movement caught his eye. He turned his head to look: someone was waving at him from an outdoor seating area, feet up on the table, smoothie in hand.

He frowned, puzzled -- he didn't recognize her, but then again, that meant very little in a situation like his, where his slow death had been broadcast to an entire country.

"Uh...hello," he said, giving a small, awkward half-wave back.

[celebrityskinned]

"Hello. Carlos, right?" Venus leans forward in her seat, making sure not to knock of her smoothie-bubble tea-milkshake-yogurt combination monstrosity, and offers her hand to shake. "Carlos the scientist?"

He hadn't lasted terribly long, but given Cecil Palmer's fixation on him, Venus has Carlos earmarked as someone worth knowing. She sits back again and smiles. The texture of the picnic table in the outdoor seating area has left a little argyle pattern on her elbows.

[wronglychosen]

At some point while she's relaxing at a cafe, Zelos plops himself down in the seat opposite her with a grin, without so much as a 'may I'.

"Long time no see, hunny!" He has an iced coffee in his hand with probably way too many syrups, and two bagels, one of which he offers to her, being the chivalrous gentleman that he is.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus isn't put off at all by him joining her. In fact, she's quite glad for the company.

"Thank you!" Venus happily takes the bagel and spreads it out on the wax paper it was wrapped in. Soon enough she's grabbed the little packets of jam and is starting to dress it up. "Hello, sweetie. I didn't see you all Arena, it was a bit of a shame."

[onlyimmune]

Joel had wandered off to go check out the city, so Ellie was on her own for the day. Which was good, because when she got Venus' note she was all too happy to horde it for herself. She had zero inclination to watch her and Joel get in a fight again, but wanted to see her, badly.

So she goes off to find her.

It's almost by chance that she spots her, feet up as she slurps on a smoothy, outside a little cafe. Ellie offers a small wave and a lopsided smile as she walks over, holding up the slip of paper.

"Hey. Got your note."

[celebrityskinned]

"Ellie."

Venus gets up from her seat when she sees the girl, and as she did back in the Arena with her open ribs, holds her arms out for an embrace. Ellie was the one she was worried about, having seen her suffer and die in Joel's arms, having seen her betrayed by someone who would gut her and leave her in misery. She knows Ellie's sturdy, but that isn't everything. Someone can have a solid shell and still be wreckage on the inside.

Venus is coming to understand that what happens in the Arena stays in the Arena is an obsolete mantra when human connection is involved. Aunamee is lucky to be dead.

"There you are. I almost thought you were hiding from me." She gives Ellie a squeeze and pats the couch next to her.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"No," Karkat snarls at the street vendor, "I do not want a juicy hamburger. I never want to see a fucking hamburger again! You and your fucking human ground meat products can drown in an overflowing material-crusted pail while ineptly trying to count your own digits over and fucking over because you're such a fucking moron you can't even get the same number twice!"

He stomps off in no particular direction, which by strange coincidence leads him to Venus' table at a nearby sidewalk cafe (where she could have very easily observed the entire exchange.) "Oh," he says, "it's you."

The human woman whose stupid shoes had gouged out his eye two arenas ago. More importantly, the human woman who stupid fucking Kankri had been acting stupidly pale for in that arena footage that Karkat could not get away from. "I think we need to talk."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus doesn't pay much attention to Karkat or his tantrum. As far as she's concerned, she doesn't want to reward the behavior. Instead she just keeps sipping at her smoothie, sitting at her booth and reading a newspaper cataloguing all the scandalous goings-on of the Stylists.

"If you want to talk to the manager, I promise you I'm the wrong person." She raises an eyebrow.

[dragoon_pride]

Kain has been spending all of his free time training, not letting up until he's past the point of exhaustion. He does this every day, pushing himself to his limit most of the time, trying to become stronger. So it's no surprise that he eventually comes across Venus there one day.

On his way between rounds of stabbing things, he pauses to watch her have a go at the dummy. He'd lost track of a lot of those he'd met back when he arrived, but he'd still been keeping an eye out, anyway, in case he ran across any of them.

[celebrityskinned]

She stops beating the dummy well after she would have killed any human who took that many blows, then looks over her shoulder to see Kain practicing with the weaponry.

She leans on the punching bag next to the dummy, wiping sweat from her brow. Her normally-flawless look is slightly harried by the exertion. Flyaway hairs curl around her temples and her shirt is damp. "Hello there. More of a swordsman than a hand-to-hand combatant?"

sometime after Venus & Karkat's conversation

[privilegecheck]

There's only so long Kankri can try to decipher the alien letters before his head starts to ache fiercely. So currently he's in the District 5 communal kitchen, finishing up with cooking some honey glazed chicken with rice.

When Venus comes in he gives her a brief, somewhat distracted smile before turning back to his current task. "Did anything of interest happen while you were out?" he asks, more idly than anything.

Re: sometime after Venus & Karkat's conversation

[celebrityskinned]

"I got my hair did," Venus says, hopping up onto the counter. Today it's long microbraids down to the small of her back. She changes it up every week or so. She reaches behind her shoulder and cracks her neck, then leans over to peek at what he's making.

"So. Your mini-me and I had words."