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

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

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.

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"Would you?" Venus waggles her eyebrows and folds her arms, sitting back with one of those overly confident smirks she's so mastered.

"And are you? Also, your boyfriend sounds really dead. I mean, not like that's a bad thing, one of my teammates back home was a corpse, but it's kind of an acquired taste." Venus sips from her smoothie and then politely smudges away the whipped cream, after a less-than-polite attempt to reach her tongue all the way up to the tip of her nose.

"I'm technically undead, if you get right down to it, so I guess that's fair. Yay modern medical miracles, or whatever," Y'know what this needs? Whipped cream. Hey, look, whipped cream!

That's what friends to, right? Talk about boys and try to steal fingerfuls of each other's deserts? Well, y'know what, close enough. If she can make friends with Geth, then Venus doesn't sound like such a stretch.

"But no, he's... Alive. Which is weird, because he was cremated three months before I got here," She doesn't know how the Capitol is doing this, and if she tries hard enough, she can just about give herself a headache figuring it out. This is why she's taken pains to befriend some of the galaxy's best and brightest: to do the intellectual heavy lifting for her, "So that's alright, except for the terminal...I guess it's like alien blood cancer or something? Anyways, I've been hiding from him, like a coward."

"I'm technically dark matter, underneath this human skin, or was until the Capitol got their hands on me. So agreed, huzzah for modern miracles." She lifts her smoothie up to toast, giving Shepard better access to the whipped cream. She doesn't seem at all bothered by Shep helping herself to it.

For a moment, her expressions gets serious. 'Alien blood cancer' sounds unpleasant, at the least. Venus hasn't had to deal with the slow certainty of death, and she hasn't wanted to. Death has always been something sudden, something inevitable but tempted, provoked.

"You know, if I was a shrink, I'd ask you how that makes him feel, you hiding from him. But I'm not, I'm your roommate." She scoots her feet up onto the little table in front of them. "So instead I'm just going to tell you to cut out the bitch shit."

Like a hypocrite, given how she danced around being forward with Enjolras for, well, eight months or so.

"See, that's funny because my real job involves an awful lot of Dark Matter manipulation," Actually, come to think of it, Venus probably got an eyeful, if she's seen any of the footage from the museum. Maybe they have more in common than they thought; what a terrible thought. It calls for whipped cream.

"Hey, do you wanna be the pot or the kettle today? Because honestly, I'm feeling kinda like the kettle. Or no, wait, maybe the pot? Actually, it doesn't matter," Speaking of things they have in common, after all, "Seeing as they're both fucking black."

"Don't give them ideas. Or a tagline for when they put us together on some kind of Survivor Island team scenario."

Venus laughs and wiggles her toes in her flip flops. "Whoa, racist much? Anyway, I cut my bitch shit out, thank you very much."

She can't help it, she laughs. It starts as a surprised little bark, startled out of her like a bird breaking cover, and pretty soon that one thrown stone has the whole mountainside sliding down, an avalanche that eventually left her with her head down on her arms, helplessly giggling.

"Oh jesus. I haven't heard that one. I. Christ, you don't have the slightest idea. Ask Garrus about Shanxi some time. Racism," That set her off again, chuckling around her straw as she alternately tried to draw breath or blueberry, and not both at the same time, "Oh fuck, or the Hanar thing. No, don't ask about the Hanar, that's not my proudest moment. I— oh god, thanks, I needed that."

Edited 2014-03-07 16:44 (UTC)

Venus, surprised by the reaction, leans back in her chair, folds her arms, and watches this display of the gigglefits go down.

"You do understand that I have, like, less than zero idea what you're talking about, right?"

"Alright. Okay, look, I'm sorry, I just... you're human. Well, I mean— right now, you are, right?" She spread her hands, still exhaling through the last few giggles, "Venus, I live in space. My best friend is a Turian— less than a hundred years ago, it looked like they were going to turn Earth into a real-world fulfillment of half a dozen aline invasion vids. I mean, when I first met Garrus, practically the first thing I did was ask if he gave a damn about right and wrong, because he's a goddamn turian."

She grinned at the memory; he'd handled it well, too focused on taking down the bad guy to give a damn about having his honor impuned.

"I wasn't even alive the last time a statistically relevant number of humans gave a shit about your fucking skin-tone, so long as you actually are human."

"Right now, sure." Venus only half-listens to Shepard, because the point is that she doesn't really care about the racism and not-racism of whatever timeline Shep's from. It certainly doesn't much affect her here at Panem, and to be honest, her own universe hasn't exactly embraced aliens wholeheartedly.

"I mean. You do realize I was joking, right? Like, that I was making fun of the fact that you've never treated me racist at all? I mean, god, if I can't joke about this then who can? Th aliens?"

"Well, I do know some pretty alright Turian jokes, if you want, that's always good for a laugh," she gestured roundly with her drink. She knows you don't have any shits to give, Venus, that would be the point.

"But it's not as funny if you don't have the context."

"Are they about screwing lightbulbs in?" Venus yawns and stretches, leaving her feet dangling over the end of the table. "Because I'm pretty sure those don't need context."

She pauses. "So what species is your shirtless green guy?"

"What do you call it when a Turian gets killed by a hideous spiky monster? Friendly fire."

No lightbulb jokes here, Venus. You're safe from that much.

"Thane is...Drell. They kinda work for the Hanar, who mostly get the religiously offensive jokes, if you're keeping a list of my social offenses," she sipped at her smoothie and it make an atrocious, mournful sound— aw. No more smoothie, "Known for good memories and psychoactive venom."

Edited (sorry this editing process is a trainwreck) 2014-03-13 04:26 (UTC)

"Ain't nobody got time for a list like that." She slurps the end of her smoothie, letting air bubbles rattle in the straw. "Are you guys, like, biologically compatible?"

She grins, expecting Shep not to actually answer, and expecting any microphones in the Capitol to give them a little bit of airtime for this.

"If you fuck a dog do you give birth to puppies? Define species, Venus."

She has no idea how it works in your kookie universe, but in hers, people can pretty much only breed within their species— well, except for Asari. And really, how hybrid is an Asari with a non-Asari father anyways?

"Unless you asking about the sex. In which case, I mean... Quid Pro Quo," If the Capitol wants to know what Drell sex is like... Well, they probably already knew, "No freebies."

"Was that a really roundabout way of calling me a bitch?" Venus laughs again and raises her eyebrows at Shepard, rolling her fingers over the edge of her cup.

"Anyway, yeah, I was asking about the latter, just because I'm nosy. Also because I want to know if I ever should take your socks on the door seriously."

"I got a little bored with just straight-out noticing that you're a bitch," she replied, half-distracted with pulling out the straw to suck on the wet end. There was a blueberry stuck to it, after all. No point in food if you weren't going to get the most out of it, right?

"I'm gonna go with, stay the hell out of my room regardless of whether or not I'm gettin' lucky."

"Don't worry, I think the fact that even Initiate is afraid to break in is a good enough warning sign." Honestly, Venus doesn't care as long as Shepard doesn't have a gas leak in there. What goes on behind closed doors really isn't her business, just her idle entertainment.

"Is the tit for tat good, though?"

Her mind may be a bit in the gutter now that her relationship has a chance to get physical.

See, that right there is how Shepard knew that Venus wasn't yet sleeping with French Revolution Barbie; she just really wishes she were. People who were getting laid regularly didn't need an excuse to tell people about it.

"Gimme something I care to hear about, maybe I'll tell you how far down the stripes go. Or maybe I wont. Only one way to find out."

"I don't have anything to tell you about. At least, not anything I think you'd consider legitimate." Venus shrugs, trying to act casual. "Just kissing and snuggling. Kid stuff."

"Wow," Venus, you were in so much trouble, "Y'know, I used to think I was the queen of bad judgement, but it takes a special kind of masochism to fall in love with somebody in the middle of all this."

"Who said anything about love?" Oh, Christ, is she that obvious that she's starstruck? "Besides, what, life's short, die alone? That's a bullshit philosophy."

"Hey, you're preaching to the choir here. My guy introduced himself by his terminal illness before we even shook hands, the fuck do I know about prudence?"

And the award for understatement of the year goes to...

"But hey, I expected to be killed in action a long time ago, so it just goes to show you..." She trailed off, a sudden realization rising up as if spring-loaded; it made her laugh, "Hey, look at that. For once, we agree."

"My team literally had a hundred percent mortality rate. I'm amazed I made it to be old enough to drink legally." By the skin of her teeth, honestly. She grins.

"Maybe I found the elusive Commander Shepard mushy spot."

"Yeah, I know how that goes. What a mess."

But that last bit, now that edged dangerously close to a threat.

"You trying to scare me, Venus?" she replied evenly, expression wavering not a bit.

Venus jerks her head back, looking surprised it was taken that way. She's not that used to being misinterpreted. "Chill, I was teasing. Crazy as it is to say out here, not everything's a threat."

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earthborn - 2014-03-25 17:23 (UTC) - Expand

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