You settle down for the things you like

[confidentially]

Who| Jessica, Albert, and anyone else from District Three!
What| Mingling with each other and meeting with their newest mentor.
Where| District 3 Suite
When| The final week of the Arena
Warnings/Notes| N/A (will edit as needed)

Jessica could be incredibly lazy when it suited her. She enjoyed long, luxurious showers. She relished in lounging around in various states of undress. And most importantly, she required at least nine and a half hours of beauty sleep in order to function at her very best. Even with her plans to dine with Albert firmly in place, she was loathe to emerge from the sanctity and security of her chamber, instead leaving the door tightly closed until after 3pm when she at last rose and entered the communal living space. She wasn't yet dressed for the day, still clad in her ridiculous silk dressing gown as she blustered in and took up a seat on the sofa. Her bare feet with pink painted toenails were kicked up onto a coffee table and she seemed right at home, ready to loaf and lounge the rest of the day away.

Comments

[silberfuchs]

He still hasn't spent a night in his own room. Albert, against whatever rules there are or not, has mostly been sleeping a floor down in the District 2 suites. Not only is that where Jet's been placed,, which is the major reason, but there are these trilling balls of fluff everywhere down there that Albert finds inexplicably soothing despite their abundance and he'll take all the soothing he can get given the situation.

That said, he knows he should be finding out more and that Jessica is his official, Capitol-approved mentor so it's technically her job to fill him in. Plus despite their initial meeting, he finds her normal enough, given the circumstances, so here he is back in the District 3 common area by 10am, reading a magazine to pass the time. She did say she was a late sleeper, after all, and with what all tributes have been subjected to, he suspects she may have trouble getting to sleep in the first place. Nightmares are a bitch.

But eleven rolls around and she's still not up.

Then noon.

Then one.

He comes back from lunch at two thirty and she's still not anywhere to be seen.

When she finally emerges in a barely modest cloud of pink, Albert's leaning against a far wall with his arms crossed, a near-fatherly expression of disapproval tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Good afternoon, frauline."

The emphasis is on 'afternoon'.

[confidentially]

Jessica had barely even noticed Albert's presence, not because she had anything against him, but because she was simply too self-absorbed to pay anyone much attention. Still, she offered him a dazzlingly innocent smile and a wave.

"Hello there." She stretched out against the sofa, toes wiggling as she did. "What's up?"

[silberfuchs]

Me, he'd like to say. For half the day. Waiting for you. But he doesn't. It wouldn't serve a purpose other than to be antagonistic. Instead he makes his way to ease into an armchair across from her, keeping his gaze level with her face instead of any other skin peaking from under the negligee.

"I thought we could talk."

[confidentially]

"Oh?" She said with a yawn, eyes narrowing in an appraising expression. At last, she seemed to recollect who he was and what he might wish to speak about. Rolling on her charm, she attempted to play it off. "Oh! Of course. Silly me, I was so tired, I forgot!"

[silberfuchs]

It's an act. It has to be an act. No on in a situation like theirs is this careless.

He adopts a long-suffering smile and leans back, crossing his hands over his stomach in a picture of ease when really he's tense enough to spring at any moment. "Then it's a good thing I'm here to remind you."

[confidentially]

He was right, it was an act. Her persona had to be in place the majority of the time, just in case the Capitol had eyes on her and needed dirt. She'd been in trouble before. She couldn't withstand that scrutiny again any time soon.

Smiling, she rose from her seat. "How very lucky for me. Now, let's get down to business. Five minutes and I'll be ready for lunch."

And with that, she toddled back to her bedroom and shut the door. If he was expecting her to take another hour, he was about to be disappointed. As promised, she emerged not five minutes later, dressed simply in something casual. Her hair was pulled up into a neat ponytail and she wore oversized sunglasses, to provide some shielding from the public.

[silberfuchs]

Well, at least when there's a definite time frame she's punctual. And thank goodness she's more covered. That much skin showing is simply unnecessary.

Albert rises from his seat as Jessica reenters the room, adjusting his jacket and heading to the door to hold it open for her. He's already eaten but he doesn't mention it. The food isn't the point of this outing.

[gardienne]

Eponine was back. Not often - she slept out as much as she dared - she stayed at Eva's three nights a week, and slept rough in the park or in the bins at the back of the Tribute centre for two, if not three, nights a week. And to make Eva happy, and so that technically she wasn't lying when she said that 'sometimes slept' in her Suites, she spent a night or so in the Tower.

This was the afternoon after the night before, and Eponine was fully dressed in leggings and oversized hoodie, with her brittle hair half woven in plaits from Eva a few nights before. She glared openly as Jessica sat down across from her. She hadn't wanted to see the latest cooing, Capitol idiot that afternoon - or preferably ever. She glared and she glared at Jessica.

[confidentially]

Years of scrutiny under the harsh gaze of the people of the Districts left Jessica more or less immune to the eye-daggers being lobbed at her by Eponine. She knew how to handle herself under those types of circumstances, and her method of coping usually involved slathering on some additional saccharin sweetness. It wasn't true sweetness, but it was fake enough that most people could be fooled. Not that she took Eponine for a fool, on the contrary. Eponine was perhaps the Tribute Jessica was most interested in.

"Your face is gonna get stuck if you keep doing that," she said teasingly, wiggling her toes.

[gardienne]

Eponine narrowed her eyes.

"Doing what, Madame?" She wrinkled her nose at Jessica's feet. Even Eponine, who had been dragged up by the hair on her head knew better than to put her feet on a table.

[confidentially]

"Contorting your face like a pug. It isn't cute." Jessica glanced over her shoulder and leveled a smirk at Eponine. "You're pretty. You shouldn't make faces like that. How will anyone see that if you keep squishing yourself up like that?"

She kicked her feet down to the floor and sat forward in her seat, watching the brunette with large, doe like eyes.

[gardienne]

"Nobody wants to see my face anyway, Madame." Eponine looked away from Jessica as her Mentor scrutinised her. Eponine drew her knees close together and hunched her shoulders forward and looked down at her lap.

"Or if they do, they only want to laugh at me - and I would rather that they didn't do that at all, Madame."

[confidentially]

That was no way for one of Jessica's tributes to behave. It drove her crazy to see Eponine shrinking like that. "Let them laugh at you. People laugh at me all the time. But you know what? I stopped giving two shits about my haters a long time ago. You need to do the same thing!"

[gluteus]

Maximus was a good deal more himself, now that Wyatt had returned from the arena, not nearly the brooding silent figure that he'd been over the past month. He'd met Jessica once, when they'd been introduced. You'll be working together, the escort had said, and Maximus had only nodded, as taciturn as ever.

Now, though, he was almost smiling as he walked back into the district suites, humming a long-forgotten tune under his breath as he stepped passed her and fetched some sort of strange future pastry from the kitchen.

"Settling in?" He asked her with a raised eyebrow as he took a bite.

[confidentially]

Jessica looked up at Maximus with wide, stunned eyes. She'd been put off by his demeanor when they'd first met, certain that he'd already judged and dismissed her, sure that they would have nothing to talk about, ever. He'd seemed cool and uninterested the entire time they'd been existing near one another. This shift in his personality caught her as drastic and unexpected.

"Yeah, totally." She said, cocking her head to the side. There was something different about him. If she didn't know any better, she'd think he just got some or something. "Thanks for asking."

[gluteus]

"Good," He said, swallowing another bite before he continued speaking.

"We'll have plenty of work ahead of us, once the Crowning is finished. I meant to start all of our tributes on a regular training regimen." Straight to business, though he sounded pleased about it.

[confidentially]

She couldn't help it. Jessica had to let out a laugh, bright and intoxicating. "I don't know if you've actually seen our tributes, Maximus, but they're not exactly ready to dive headlong into a training routine."

She immediately thought of Marius and how awkwardly floppy he seemed. He was just so... new at life. The idea of Maximus whipping him into shape was not only laughable, it seemed like it could easily turn tragic.

[gluteus]

He couldn't help it - his mood was already too good, that he let out a low chuckle at her laugh.

"Oh, I've seen them," He said wryly. "That's precisely why they need training. I won't fail them again, not this time."

[confidentially]

Admittedly, Maximus was probably going to be a lot more competent at the physical aspects of training than Jessica could ever be. She recognized this fact, bowing in an overly theatrical way to acknowledge this.

"You work on their bodies, bro. I'll be the master of their marketing tactics. I've got it all planned." She tapped her forehead with her finger.

after the crowning/reaping but before the mini-arena

[pythianjudgment]

The special arena is coming up soon. Terezi knows this, and she knows that she should probably be down in the training area practicing her skills. That is where Max and Eddie would probably want her... Max, definitely. Eddie, she's a little more uncertain about.

Unfortunately for them, Terezi is not in the training arena. Terezi is currently camped out near the mentor suites on floor three, pastels and chalks scattered around her while she defaces the aforementioned mentors' doors. It may not be combat expertise, but she is pretty sure that Max and Eddie will appreciate it anyway.

There's several doors in this area, but those are the only two that she touches. She doesn't know who the others belong to, so she doesn't draw on them. Not out of consideration, but rather because she's not sure what drawing would suit the door the best.

[confidentially]

Jessica had cheered for Terezi to win the last arena, because she was a good mentor and because she wanted her district to win. That said, having never met the girl, she didn't really know who or what she'd been rooting for. She'd focused most of her attention on Eponine and Albert, partly because they seemed to gravitate toward her and feed her ego in that way. The others... well, she was mostly content to let Max and Eddie handle them.

But she couldn't ignore everything around her. The unique chalk drawn vandalism was certainly eye catching, enough so that Jessica felt compelled to remark on it when she exited her bedroom for the day.

"What is it supposed to be?" Her nose wrinkled as she studied it. In that moment, she fancied herself an art critic.

[pythianjudgment]

"It's supposed to be your face," Terezi retorts, but doesn't bother lifting her nose away from her scribbling. She's currently chalking up Max's door, having already left some depictions of District 3's scenery on Eddie's door.

"Actually, it's some pillars and things," she says when she does finally lift her head and address her newest art critic. She gestures to the crude, but greek-like structures she's scribbling in chalk. "I've only smelled something like them back on my planet, but humans seem to have mimicked them for some portion of their history."

[confidentially]

"They've got buildings that look like that here in the Capitol." They reminded Jessica of the older, more imposing buildings, not like the newer metal ones that populated the parts of town she liked.

She kept squinting at the work, as if she was trying to make sense of it. Finally, she decided to give up the ghost. "I didn't realize we had an artist on our hands."

((ooc: omg i am so sorry, i just realized i'd lost track of this log entirely! this was totally my bad, no hard feelings at all if you don't want to continue!))

[pythianjudgment]

((ooc: It's okay! I was kinda on hiatus, anyway. I'd love to keep going, if you're still up for it.))

"Of course! Genuine Alternian art, drawn by your local blind alien." Terezi flashes her a toothy grin, like a bunch of razors fit precisely together. "Maybe if you paid a little more attention to how awesome I am, you might have figured out what a deal you were missing."

Modesty is not always Terezi's strong suit. Even less so when she's in the midst of teasing someone. "Now I am going to have to charge you, instead of gracing your door with my artistic genius on a whim. Tough luck, Miss Goldenrod."

[confidentially]

Jessica was intrigued, but she'd rather not let on as much. Instead, she crossed her arms and feigned indifference. "Oh, how tragic for me. Whatever will I do without a mad case of vandalism on my bedroom door? I'll be totally left out."