thecapitol | [open]

So far things were going so well.

He was actually doing well, Tribute wise. The new one, especially, but he was always in Wyatt's corner. And Sasuke...well, he still hadn't figure out Sasuke.

Picking two drinks off the tray, he went to sink down next to Ariadne.

"How are you doing?"

Her own Tributes hadn't been doing really anything that had caught her eye. Not that she had a problem with that; at least they were holding their own at this point. It was better than just having to wing it under the Morphlings.

She glanced up when she noticed Elias, offering him a small smile as she accepted the drink. "I'm all right. Just making sure I'm not missing anything," Ariadne replied, gesturing towards the screens. "You?"

"Same. Though if anything really interesting happens, they make sure we know."

He gestured to the screen. They wouldn't be missing anything.

"Any of yours have anything going for them?"

"How are they defining 'really interesting?" She asked, a hint of amused curiosity playing on her face. She almost wasn't sure she wanted to know, in a way.

"Not that I can tell. One doesn't seem too bad; she might be able to outrun everyone else. If she keeps it up, she might stand a chance. Yours might be able to hold their own as well."

"Someone about to die, usually. Or something that shakes up the arena. Flood, fire, storm." He shrugged, face tight as he looked up at the screen. "Or something else awful. You know, the usual."

He gestured to the screen. "We have the only truly live feed anymore. Well, besides those running the show. There's a delay now, for editing to the Capitol. For the things a little too awful."

"Yeah. It's..." he hated to admit this, but it was true. "It's getting interesting."

"Of course," she replied, her tone simultaneously dry and amused. "I should have known. The Gamemakers do have their ways, don't they?"

Though his next comment had her frowning a little, glancing to him, "Well, like what?"

Ariadne tipped her head to one side, pondering that, flicking her hair back over her shoulder in thought. "Who do you think will win?"

"I think it was officially put into practice after the kid who started eating people. But there's been some dark things...rape always is cut out. They have their limits." He didn't really wanna lay it all out for her. It wasn't pleasant.

"It's strange, to me, that they can do all this, and then suddenly something is too much...but thank god."

He shrugged. "Right now? It's anyone's game."

She wrinkled her nose at that, the implications suddenly heavy in the air. If there were limits, she liked to think that the Gamemakers would have honestly put a stop to all of this. But they hadn't; it went on and on and on, with them merely censoring the truly horrific parts.

There was something inherently disturbing there.

"I agree," Ariadne murmured, frowning down at her hands before looking up at Elias, eyes searching him briefly. She wanted to ask if anyone had ever tried to right that wrong, if anyone tried to do anything about it, but she didn't know how without getting herself flagged.

"True enough. Even some of the lower-ranked Tributes seem to be coming into things a bit more." The frightened, suddenly murdering as if it had been second nature all along. But wasn't that what she had been like? And here she was, a Victor. She shook her head a little, dismissing the thought.

"Yeah. It's..."

There was something deeply disturbing, on a fundamental level, the way children could change in the arena.

There was a whole new level of disturbing the way the Capitol was altering these people. Changing them, over and over.

He leaned in. Their conversation need to be quiet, but he was fairly sure he could get her attention quietly.

"Something needs to change."

She hesitated, frowning a little when he leaned in, when his voice dropped even more. She was sure that everyone else's attention was elsewhere, on the screens, on figuring out what they were doing next. On everything but them.

It was working out in their favour.

Ariadne tipped her head towards him a little bit, turning his attention fully to him, "What are you thinking?"

He shrugged, leaning back with a smile. A smile that, to anyone else, would look like nothing more than some friendly flirting.

Maybe more than friendly.

"I just think I should take you out, when we get our little rest."

Ariadne was no stranger to flirting, friendly or otherwise, nor was she a stranger to just going along with it. Rarely were such comments rebuffed in any major way, not when she could go along with it and see where it took her. Besides, this was Elias - she might not have known him as well as some, but she was fairly sure that he could be trusted in that regard.

"All right," she replied lightly, pausing briefly, pure curiosity driving her. "I'd like that."

"Good." He smiled, biting his lip in a way he knew many people found very charming.

"There's this little place I can take you to. Great seafood. Assuming you like seafood."

This was, if he ignored their circumstance, actually a little enjoyable.

"I like it well enough," Ariadne allowed, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind one ear. Her focus was on him now, rather than the screens. It wasn't like anything was really happening anyway.

And besides, it really was considerably better than the Games themselves. More pleasant.

"There are pluses to having lived here for a while, I guess."

He laughed softly.

"In some ways I'm just as new here as you all. With locations and all that. Before this..." he waved his hand vaguely, behind him. "We were usually only here for a month or so a year. Most of us. Unless someone called us here."

And wouldn't he love to be sent home right now.

"And now you actually live here. Quite the change, though that must be just another way you're just as new as us. It's not like it's been that long since such a major change took place." She could remember vividly her first Arena, after all. Still, even Limbo was preferable to that time; the Capitol wasn't much better.

"Still, you know your way around at least a little bit. I wouldn't mind learning it a bit better," she pointed out mildly.

"I can show you around. What I know at least. It's a big city, lots of dark corners."

A warning, or a hint? He wasn't even sure which.

Either way, she was willing to take it.

"Thank you. It's considerably easier with a guide than having to run around learning the ropes myself." Not that she was adverse; she'd already gone to the trouble of exploring the entire training centre, figuring out where each and every camera was. The rest of the Capitol was hardly a step up to someone who built escape route upon escape route into her every maze.

"We can figure it out."

He smiled, warmly at her, before the room burst into action as two tributes game into contact. That's right, death match and all that.

She returned his smile, feeling a more pleasant sense of comfort budding in her at the strange situation; she imagined that it wasn't just what it seemed like - things rarely were - but she would go with it all the same.

Tucking her hair behind one ear, Ariadne's attention returned back to the screen, noting with some disappointment that the Tributes weren't any of hers.

No one expected much from her. Not anyone that really knew her, anyway. Or knew of her. Or had heard of her. But that didn't stop them from shoving her out the door anyway and telling her to "do her best."

Today, there was a meeting with a man with no hair and lime green eyebrows. He was interested in possibly sponsoring Mi'yei, the tribute Annie had not gotten the chance to meet before she was shoved off to her untimely death in the arena.

Maybe she shouldn't be thinking that way. Mi'yei wasn't dead yet. Maybe she could win. And Annie didn't even know how to properly pronounce her name. Didn't know what she would need to survive.

The man had stared at her, his heavy green eyebrows furrowed in confused disappointment. And then he had left.

Annie had failed in the only job she was supposed to do.

For what might had been minutes, or maybe even hours, Annie sat at the table. The same table where she had met with the bald, green-eyebrowed man. She sat. And stared at nothing. Completely unaware of anyone else who may be watching her.

Ariadne had seen Annie around a few times at the various parties, though not for long, and they'd never spoken. Judging by the looks of things, she wasn't actually surprised. But there was a first time for everything, and she tentatively wandered over, sitting a few seats away before clearing her throat.

"I don't think we've met yet. I'm Ariadne."

It takes a moment to register that the voice that had just spoken was talking to her. Annie blinks at her with her big green eyes and tries to remember where she's seen this other girl before.

Ariadne.

"Hello," she finally gets out and attempts a smile. It feels awkward on her face. "I... Annie. My name is Annie."

She looks away then. Down at her hands that are folded in her lap, twisted up in the pale blue fabric of her dress. "I'm not very good at this."

Edited 2012-11-22 21:26 (UTC)

"Neither am I," she admitted, keeping her smile soft and small, her eyes averted somewhat from Annie. Just enough that she could keep the other girl in her peripherals. She knew who most of the mentors were at this point, knew that the ones that had come before Shepard were rather less well-adjusted than some; they'd had to actually kill, after all. Perhaps in another life, Ariadne had been some kind of therapist. But for now, she just tried to make Annie as comfortable as possible, everything considering.

"Honestly, I'm only here because the Capitol wants me here," she confided then, voice dropping for only Annie to hear.

"Me too," she says barely louder than a mumble. "I want to go home. I hate it here."

She wants to cry and go back to her room. But she knows they won't let her. For a few minutes perhaps. But then someone would come for her. Send her back down here with a pat on the head and a smile.

"Have you ever tried to escape it?" She can't imagine it would be easy to do so. The Capitol's watchful eye was on everything; there would have to be some kind of major distraction in order to get the attention away from any one person. Something major in the Arena, something like the mutt attack at that one Crowning Ceremony. And she didn't know how long Annie had been there, either.

"Es...Escape?" Annie looks at her like a small child hearing a parent say a curse word for the first time. Her voice falls quiet and she shakes her head. "I... no. They watch. They always watch and know. They would know. I... I couldn't."

But for a moment, she looks back up at Ariadne, somehow hoping that maybe Ariadne would say something to her that would make things seem less hopeless.

She nodded a little, frowning down at her hands before looking back up to Annie. She could tell that she was in the position to offer a bit of a life preserver, so to speak. Though Ariadne didn't have an solid sort of idea, she had a niggling notion that there might be more going on under the nose of the Capitol than they realised.

"They don't always." Her voice dropped lower yet, her head tipped to hide the small movements of her mouth from any watchful cameras. "There are ways around it. There are people who want out as well. I've met them."

It was getting easier; the faking and the smiling and the small talk. Subtlety and making nice wasn't exactly her forte, but in the place, it was a necessity if she wanted to keep her tongue or her head. Both of which she was quite fond of. Needed, even.

It was a relief to see her there. Ariadne. Dressed up like a doll for the Capitol. Not out in the arena, again. Despite how real, or not real it all was, Shepard did not like watching people die. It was something she was willing to kill for.

"District 6 seems to be doing well, so far." Shepard says as she takes a seat at Ariadne's side, a drink in hand and a smile on her face.

It was nice to have someone around that she could actually enjoy the presence of.

"We're certainly not dying, and I think that's a relief in and of itself," she replied lightly, a smile already pulling at her lips. The best part of being outside of the Arenas, save the fact that she really didn't enjoy killing - or rather, she had grown accustomed to it - was actually being able to hang out with a handful of people she normally couldn't.

"Yours aren't doing too bad, either."

"Not too badly, no," she says rather proudly and sips at her drink. She cares about their victories only as much as she allows herself. But things are just easier if her tributes are doing well. People are more willing to talk to her if they think there might be a chance for victory. And she needs to talk to people, if she wants to get information.

"It's nice to have you here," she admits and settles herself more comfortably into her chair. "Have the others been treating you well?"

She understood the concept well enough; people didn't want to talk to other people unless there was something to get out of it, most of the time. It was just a fact of life, and one that needed to be worked with, not against. She nodded lightly in ascent. "Not too bad. I thought that things might be stranger on this side of things, but that's not quite the case. People are almost awestruck by me, especially when they meet me in person."

"Good," Shepard tells her with a nod, smiling in approval. "Use that as long as you can. You will be surprised how far it can get you."

They were still a novelty to these people. Something fresh and shiny and new. It still hadn't worn of for Shepard, either. But it would be stronger with Ariadne. The newest. The youngest. The most experienced inside the Arena. She couldn't quite imagine what the girl had gone through. How different her life must be now compared to the world that she knew.

"But you probably don't need me to tell you that," she continues. Because Ariadne has always been smart. Shepard has known that about her since the first time they met, there on that snowy mountainside of Arena 01.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and Ariadne shrugged a little. "I noticed, actually. It's amazing what you can do if they like you enough, and you ask nicely." It had already come in handy once or twice, though most of the sponsors she'd found for people hadn't provided much. Every little bit helped, after all, and she knew that she wouldn't have survived in the Arenas as long as she had without some of the help provided.

"I'll see if I can't perpetuate it a little bit," she laughed quietly.

"I have a feeling you won't have a problem with that. They love you here. You haven't had the opportunity to watch them watch you like I have," she tells her. "You've been a favourite among many of them for some time now."

"I was at a party when you won." it seems terrible to admit that to her. To tell her that she had been sipping cocktails and rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful of Panem while she had been inside the arena, bleeding and fighting for her life.

She really was surprised to hear that she was a favourite, though Arthur had told her once before, in what felt now like a dream, that there was something about her. It had been flattering, though she hadn't been quite sure how to take it; in the end, she'd all but ignored the comment, taking it as a statement of fact, and nothing more. Now it seemed as though she had intrigued the Capitol the way she'd intrigued him, and she wondered if that wouldn't pose a problem or two in the future, if they ever took to picking her brain long enough to learn what she did back home.

"I had no idea," Ariadne admitted, tipping her head to one side, birdlike. "How could you tell?"

She paused a moment then, smiling a little at the admission, "I'm not that surprised. The parties are almost as big a part as the Arenas themselves."

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