thecapitol | The Crowning of Mindy McReady

Entry tags:

The Crowning of Mindy McReady

Who| Everyone ~~who's anyone.~~
What| The Crowning.
Where| A warehouse on the edge of town.
When| Starting from early evening till late into the night.
Warnings/Notes| Be sure to check the linked thread for plot purposes, even if you don't tag into it.

The party is brightly colored.

The theme, subtly, is super heroes. Boldly paints city scapes are splattered across the walls, and hallways are made to look like dingy, potentially crime ridden alleys. From the upper walkways of the warehouse, party goers can get hooked into harnesses and swing out over the dance floor. Above them, tributes and VIPS can find themselves on a clear plastic dance floor levitated above everything, looking like they're hanging in air.

Masks are passed out in plenty, and capes are easy to find, while brightly colored drinks themed around super powers are plentiful. None of them actually work, but many of the Capitol people are happy to pretend, mocking super strength or invisibility with each new beverage.

Under the dance floor a catacomb of tunnels and rooms full of obstacles is splashed with black light receptive colors. Party goers are given vests and laser guns, marked green for villains and red for heros, and set loose to hunt each other in the laser tags playground. The screens in the dance floor keep a running tally of which side is winning, displaying the players on the screens around the room, along with clips from the arenas.

About half way through the night, everyone is gathered to the main stage for a special announcement.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah! Crazy! Now we're talking!" Harley cheered. "Then I promise to stop bringin' it up. Not that I'll have much choice. Sounds like I'm gonna be plenty busy till the arena." She chuckled.

"Whatever happens, I'm proud of ya! You set your mind to something and got it in your second arena. That's better then most of us!"

"Thank God! I don't think I can take any more lectures on trying to be a kid. It's not like I never meant to have fun: I'm just not prioritizing it when there's all this work bullshit that I have to do to."

She nodded, smiling a little. "Well. It's how I roll."

"Well obviously you gotta switch your priorities around if you want people to shut up." She snickered "Or just start hitting them."

Clearly that was the best of solutions.

"Come on, have you eaten much yet? There's some great looking little meats in the shapes of lightning bolts over there. Kinda smokey and greasy."

"I can manage both," Mindy said, smirking. "They sound fun."

They were alike that way.

"No kidding? I guess I can give that a shot. Not like there's much else to do, right?"

"Well the way I see it, there's plenty to do." Harley countered. "Laser tag, flying around on that zipline thingie. And most important, bathing in the jealousy and admiration of your peers. This night is supposed to be about you. Not those other suckers who have to go back to the arena."

She tickled at Mindy's sides.

"Stroke that ego girl! Make it big and throbbing."

"Ok, so you might have a point the-ha! Get off you psycho bitch!"

This was said with a smile, of course.

"And now you're just obscene!" Take an elbow to the chest gurl.

"Oh I'm sure I've heard you say worse you foul mouthed Oompa Loompa!" She giggled which was cut short by the elbow to her chest.

"Ooof! Watch it. If my career as a hilarious and spunky anti-hero goes down the tubes I might need my fun bags to be a porn star."

"Of course, but you're older than me! You're supposed to be responsible and setting an example and all of that other horseshit, remember?"

She did not believe a word of that.

"Dude, shut up! I can't even imagine what porn you'd even be in: they'd have to create a new category for you!"

Fun bags?

"Well of course YOU can't. How much porn have you even looked at you little deviant?"

What? They are fun!

Harley couldn't help but giggle more at the fact sponsors and some other guests were watching this back and forth with distress. Clearly they were uncomfortable with something. Either the cursing, or how frank and mature they were in subject matter.

Mindy made a face. "Enough to know its not my bag. I knew enough of it to go after some of the fuckers that were into the kid stuff, or those roofie assholes occasionally. Porn can be some pretty nasty stuff."

She could tolerate it, laugh about it but watch it? Not quite there yet.

Harley nodded sagely.

"Well good. You're mature enough to make things difficult as it is. Throw a sex drive in there and you'd totally out of control."

This from the queen of chaos.

"Your teenage years are gonna be a blood bath." She snickered waving for more drinks.

"Yeah, exactly. I mean, who needs to add more headaches to the ones I have already?"

God knew she had enough to think about. Hormones could take a backseat as long as she could ignore it.

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Ooh, fruity looking. That was safer, right?

"Well I mean...all those emotions ontop of your considerable skills at rending flesh from bone? The other tributes should count themselves lucky you got out of the arena before puberty really kicked into high gear!"

As if her own teenage years had been anything of particular interest. Harleen had been so buried in books growing up she wouldn't have noticed puberty if she hadn't already been reading so many teenager romance stories.

Mindy snickered. "That'll be the day. Despite my mouth, there's still my age and lack of tits. For all you know, I might be dead before I even get that far! Granted, even so I'd have to find someone around my age range, which is pretty fucking scare."

"But not anymore!" Harley declared cheerfully "No more death for you unless you do somethin' stupid and hero like in the Capitol." She teased.

"And who knows, there's kids in the Capitol you know. Maybe you'll even find one that isn't superficial." She cackled at the prospect "You'd be better off dipping into the pool of tributes in your age range I guess."

Mindy shrugged. "Can't see why I would go and do anything like that. I hear if you're up to some shit in the Capitol, you get punished good and proper. No thanks."

At that, she snickered. "Right, like who? The kids in my range are mostly girls, and even the guys closer to that are fucking awful...except for Guy., of course."

"Ooo la la. Going after a married man are we?" She teased. "Ya know I met his wife for a hot second...or some hapless victim dressed like his wife. Maybe it was a fangirl. Either way she was all cave man style with the wild hair and I gotta admit? Her legs were fine." Harley giggled.

"Nice and thick and strong." She added stretching out one of her own legs for example.

"Aw come on. The guy went and out me out of my misery in the first Arena. I have nothing but respect and love for him. This shit, being here, and how HE is, that's rough. Even the French people are going to be better able to adjust to all this than him."

She just look confused, then nonplussed. "You did that just to show off your leg, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little. It's one of my best features." she teased and then laughed delighted. "But you're my kinda crazy. Nothing more romantic then a mercy killing man outta time. I could write a whole sappy novel on the topic and make a billion bucks if the Capitol Citizens weren't so used to that sorta smut."

"Yeah, that's a shame. I mean, at the time, it was still pretty amazing: people usually have this thing about killing kids, and even Hawkeye seemed to look at Guy different, like he was horrified he could. In the end though, I appreciated it. It showed me that Guy is a good person, but fucking sensible about it too."

"Well that's because you don't think of yourself as a kid. I bet you'd feel pretty gross about mercy killing say...a five year old or something." Harley countered.

"That's pretty much you in a nutshell though. You'd like to be idealistic but you're too sensible for it. Probably because of living hard and suffering."

"What I'm saying is that it shouldn't matter that I was a kid or not...my leg was fucking ripped off and I was dying of blood loss. Guy knew that and decided what was more important was MY pain, not his fucking conscience. He wasn't killing me because he liked to murder, he was doing it to not let me suffer."

That, to her, earned instant trust.

"I want to believe people can be logical and not full of shit, Harley. Not sure if you'd call that being idealistic."

"Yes. Yes I would." She laughed.

"Logic is for people who want to control life. But life can't be controlled. You can only influence so much and then the rest of it is life sweeping you off your feet. And sure you can fight it. Might even change things a little. But at the end you're gonna be exhausted and you'll still end up wherever life is taking ya."

"And hoping that people will be more logical then emotional? WAY more idealistic. Not having the guts to put someone of out their misery doesn't mean their full of crap. It just means they aren't as strong as you or cave boy, or me or Susie."

Because Susie had done the same thing for her in the last arena. A quick smothering beat the hell out of a slow brain melting.

She pretty much agreed with her on logic and control. No point in restating what they both knew.

"I guess it is, but I never said not doing it meant they were full of crap. I figure anyone who would rather let someone die of their wounds instead of killing them is an idealistic too: just not in the way I would think is right. I'd take Guy or you or...Susannah any day."

Harley grinned and gave Mindy a pat on the head which turned into a noogie.

"Yeah well you're not too bad yourself for a bitty baby badass who probably had her first kill before her first pubic hair."

Oh if only Harley knew how many kills Mindy ACTUALLY had under her belt.

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