thecapitol | ( open ) off to the races

( open ) off to the races

Who| OPEN.
What| The First Annual Panem Motorcycle Races and Festival kick off.
Where| The Capitol.
When| Friday - Sunday.
Warnings/Notes| For more information, check out the original post, or see the results and winnings post.

Starting Friday, the Capitol has pushed out onto the chill streets with hopes for entertainment and the thrill of races most of them have no personal stakes in. The races are spread out over the first few days, with whispers of a surprise happening on Sunday. Everyone's theorizing what it could be. It's the nature of crowds to indulge in curiosity on a massive, gossipy level, and the Citizens of the Capitol are no exception.

Aside from the races, people stopped by the ice skating rink sponsored by one of the museums from the last Arena, with a Mindy themed focus. There are ride-alongs: Capitolites make a donation to the Gamemaker's Foundation (or something, idk) in order to get a chance to ride along on a short loop track with a racer. They can make this donation and then dictate anyone be the tag-along, from themselves, to their children, to another Tribute/Mentor. Why? Because Shippers.

Set indoors, there's Bumpercycle Jousting. Minimal injury, maximum ridiculous.

And back on the street, there's festival foods, with businesses opening doors and inviting chilled citizens in to enjoy special foods and drink and merchandise suited to the season and post-Games festivities.

Each night finishes with a round of fireworks in the sky.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That earned her a disappointed look.

"Obviously. But the Capitol specifically. Look at you, and what you are. What you do. This was not the life you had back home. You may have fought and killed but were you so praised for it? Were the rewards so plentiful? Could you even honestly tell most people what it was you did?"

Of course Azula had only the most basic idea of what Mindy did. But between seeing her skills up close in person and watching the tapes she'd gathered Mindy fought and killed regularly.

And it was a safe bet that her world...like most others, did not look kindly upon the violence. Not like the Capitol.

Mindy shook her head. Christ, was she serious? Yes, of course she was. But really, is that why she thought she did what she did? For praise? Accolades? What the hell good was any of that shit to her?

"If you think that, you don't know me at all. But you were born and raised here, so its not like I can't understand that. Hell, I can even see how you're comfortable with all of this. Getting rewarded, being looked to for help. Must be a real ego boost for you."

Useless to her. Unnecessary. Civilian thought even, that what she did needed to be rewarded by things and praise and positions. She earned her mentor duties, and knew that doing that was just going to make things harder for her. A challenge.

That was just the way she liked it. Real. Clear.

Even if Mindy was right, Azula hated having her ego pointed out.

"If I appear egotistical I assure it was earned. But if you kill without reward or the approval, then what does that make you I wonder?" She let the question hang there between them as if daring Mindy to justify why what she did now was so much worse then what she had done back home.

"Someone that doesn't need either," Mindy said. "I do things for my own reasons, and I get what I want out of them. It's as simple as that."

"Sounds like avoiding the truth to me." Azula remarked in a nonchalant way. "What reasons could you possibly have that you are trying to protect? It's not as though you're the first little girl with a tragic past or a personal vendetta or secret oath. And without proper justification it just sounds as though you're being contradictory for the sake of disagreeing with me. Which is foolish and a waste of everyone's time."

"More to my point, even if you didn't kill in your world for approval or reward or glory, in this world you get all of those things and more. Am I or am I not correct in my earlier statement that what you do is frowned upon by your world at large?"

"Oh God do you never get tired of hearing your own voice?" Mindy rolled her eyes. "Why would I tell you what my reasons are for doing what I do? We're enemies, and your only real concern outside of that is pleasing the Capitol. You pretty much don't exist for anything outside of that, so what would be the point in even telling you why I do what I do?"

Primarily, Azula was never someone she could trust.

"My world frowns on what I do, yes. It's against the law to be a vigilante because they could fuck up good police work. But that doesn't really help you when the police can be paid off by criminals. So my 'reward' was fucking up people who could never commit crimes whenever they wanted to anymore. See how its hard to translate here?"

"Not really no." Azula didn't even give a moments thought to the issue of translation.

"The only problem then is that you're not focusing enough on what the other tributes have done that has earned them pain and death. Instead you put your focus and aggression into the capitol and anyone associated with it. Including me." She shook her head distastefully.

"In a way it's like you have decided you hate all members of law enforcement because the people who are in charge are in your eyes rotten. But the truth of the matter is you're making judgments about me based on all too little information and mostly emotions." A smirk.

"At least the judgments I make about you are based on information alone. Less easily influenced. More reasonable. For example if I was really so utterly devoted to being your enemy, why would I bother offering you advice at all? If I devoted even half as much energy into hating you as you have devoted to hating me then I would have killed you in that race instead of simply trying to beat you."

And she had the opportunity. It would have cost her the race though and winning was far more important then ending Mindy's life. A pity that in the end she had lost AND Mindy had come through sparkling.

"I don't see any problem with focusing on what I think is wrong with this place. As for you, I have my reason for why I don't like you, and yeah, some of it is based on my gut. You haven't given me any reason to do otherwise."

Not that it mattered what she thought of her OR the Capitol. In the end, she had to do what they told her.

"Advice from you is like a backhanded slap in the face. You do it because it serves your ego to tell people they're uncivilized, as if you alone know the best way to be a Capitol citizen. You know that, so don't act like its not the case. It's self serving bullshit. FYI, not only would you have not gotten away with killing me in the race, you wouldn't have had the chance. I am way better a racer than you."

Did she REALLY think she would let anyone attempt to kill her out there?

Azula was beginning to think Mindy was putting on a show just to irritate her. Were all children like this? She knew she had never been so frustratingly illogical.

"While it may please me to know I am using my experience and knowledge to educate those who were not as fortunate as I was, that does not change the fact that if I truly hated you I wouldn't bother. I would sit back and watch the world chew on you. I would take more pleasure in knowing what pain and suffering is waiting for you due to your own short comings then I would in offering advice on how to avoid such pain."

"Perhaps if you would put your "Gut" feelings aside for a moment your more cold, logical, heartless nature would point out that I have not given you any advice that would actively harm you. You've just cast it aside because of those feelings. And no I wouldn't have gotten away with killing you, but I had several opportunities. Do not over estimate your skill based on one race."

Yay, she was going on again.

"It's up to you if I'm taking your advice or not. For all you know, I could be, and I'm just giving you shit for it. In retrospect, whether I should get over you attempting to kill me or not is a question between the two of us. I chose to get over it, whether you believe that or not. It was never about that, though its fucking annoying I can't face you that way again."

At the next sentence, she laughed. "And you're totally giving yourself more credit than you should. Just because I didn't know it was you didn't mean I was going to let you have the opportunity to play dirty. You think I never bumped someone off on a bike before?"

Even Azula for her love of long conversations was losing interest. It seemed they were an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force in this situation.

"Or maybe you're not giving me enough credit if you think that just because you have confidence in your abilities you can't fail. Just because you've bumped someone off a bike doesn't mean you can't still be bumped."

Drawing her straw out of her drink she flicked droplets off of it casually.

"Though we may never stand against one another in the arena again if it will satisfy your constant nagging irritation then you may seek me in the training hall and we will work out your issues there."

"Of course I can fail. I'm not perfect. But I AM more than capable with a bike, and I'm not the type to get by on luck. Just a shame someone was better than me."

She nodded over to the winner.

Mindy laughed. "Don't do me any favors. It's like I keep telling you Azula: I don't keep petty fucking grudges, I save mine for the real thing. BUT. If we both so happen to be in there, yeah. I wouldn't mind showing you what I can do."

That seemed to satisfy her but she wasn't about to push her already worn then patience.

"It's settled then. No go pester someone else before I offer you any more advice that you can ignore or pretend to ignore just to irritate me because you don't hold petty grudges." The last part was delivered with dripping sarcasm because clearly she didn't believe that Mindy was above a petty grudge.

Mindy rolled her eyes. Of course she would word it like she was dismissing her. It wouldn't be Azula if she didn't.

"Right, because I live to bother people. Come on Azula, you know I only save that for you."

She feigned a flirty wink, then laughed. "Anyway. Bye."

Oh how it hurt Azula not to take the final word in the situation. But if she tried it might prolong things even more and Azula had decided she was quite finished with things.

It would be enough for now that Mindy's guard was down even a little. Her guard would never be completely down, that's just not who Mindy was.

But Azula had taken an interest in her. Pity she was no longer in the arenas where she could suffer physically but watching her twist in the wind as she tried to act like a socialite would be amusing enough. And knowing that it was crushing her soul to be in the lap of luxury while her allies suffered was even better.

Mindy may claim to be better then to hold a petty grudge, but Azula knew she was not. And even if she forgave their initial meeting every meeting after that had made her dislike the girl even more. She was so full of herself, so impossibly thick headed that she could not see around how she was raised to even consider the truth of the world.

She was far too much like Azula. And even Azula didn't like herself that much.

In time she may find a way to change Mindy, or crush her. But she was a side project. A hobby really.

In this world there were many, many more fish to fry.

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( open ) off to the races

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