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

Alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of lifes little problems.

They clinked glasses even as Sandy slurred her protest "Nah, I'm not cool enough to be an alien. I'm just a kid. A mutant kid but a kid."

"Fine. To the alien and the mutant kid then. Maybe they'll be friends again someday?"

Well now the drink is making her flush. Damn.

"Aw shut up." Sandy punched Mindy's arm in a drunken swat that barely made contact despite the feeling put into it.

"It's not like you can do that bullshit to me a second time. So I guess it's fine."

Which was sort of a yes?

Mindy made a "wa-waah" noise when Sandy barely hit her, grinning.

"No, now I have a bunch of new bullshit to deal with. For what its worth though, I am sorry. I don't like killing people that I care about, obviously."

And the less said about that, the better.

"So you actually to WIN the goddamn bike you rode in the race?!"

"Huh? Oh...right! Yeah." She nodded "Yeah me and that blond lady, Elsa. We both got bikes and we have to do commercials for them." She shrugged her narrow shoulders.

"I don't know how that's gonna work. I'm a lousy actress." Maybe they would shoot around it. She couldn't remember many car commercials that required the models to talk, but she also didn't think of herself as model material.

"I know Elsa, she's in my district. Don't ever see how she died in the vids though, its pretty heartbreaking stuff. But yeah, that is some bullshit. I might do it for a motorcycle though. The one I had was pretty sweet, and I got the bonus of beating someone I don't like."

Mindy chuckled. "I don't think you have to be that good of an actress. Hell, they put athletes in movies, you wont be so bad."

Sandy smirked.

"What? Someone you don't like? I'm shocked." She had to bite back an even worse remark and was dismayed to find that apparently drinking made her kind of bitchy. At least she held enough self control to keep from blabbing out every little thing...for now.

"Oh shut up. When have you heard me complain about anyone, like, that I intensely like? By the way, loving the bitchiness. It's fun!"

Sandy's smile faded and she looked a little guilty "Yeah you probably wouldn't like it if I was saying what I was REALLY thinking." She confessed.

"But I'm trying to make this work." She added hastily.

"I know you hate me." Mindy said this plainly. "So, you know. That won't go away. But I don't mind having to earn your trust again. It was fucked up."

"That's just it." Sandy grumbled feeling her good mood fading in the face of cruel reality. "I don't hate you. I just think what you did was stupid, cold as hell and completely fucked up my ability to trust anyone but Pruna in the arena. Hell I barely feel OK talking to the other tributes now! I didn't think it was gonna be a big deal but it is. I feel...almost alone again. And I hate it."

She'd come a long way in the games without going to the place Mindy had driven her to.

"You made me wanna hurt you bad. Like a bad guy. Like the kind my Dad used to be. And he never wanted me to be that."

Mindy was silent a moment. That was something she had to come to term with, what Sandy's true feelings were. She had pushed her to say it too. Whether she meant to or not was not important: it was the truth.

"Drink more," Mindy said, offering the girl another cup. "Look. You can talk to other tributes. There are people, as you know, who don't take the Arena as seriously as I did, or if they do, they still wouldn't do what I did. I'm sorry you feel that way, because I never meant to make you doubt everything. The only consolation I can give you is this: if I was going to betray you, I'd rather be upfront about it, not wait until you didn't know what I had planned and slit your throats or anything. It's small, but you guys deserved a window to take me down and hurt me for what I was doing."

She took another drink herself. "But if what I did puts you a little more on your guard, like Pruna, I'm not sorry for that. I didn't like seeing what had already happened to you when I saw you guys. For the first time, I was actually concerned."

Sandy took the drink and sipped it, numb to the taste now. It was just more fluid on her stinging tongue.

When it was over she held up a finger in the air and twirled it remarking dryly "Yay, I'm more paranoid and might live one day longer then all the other times I've died."

Really she couldn't see the point of it.

"I get it, you were worried. You didn't want me to go away forever. But there had to be a better way to do it." The thought was appreciated, but the method was not.

"Then fuck it, we'll end it here. If you're still pissed off about it that much, just hit me. I'll even let you. Come on."

She put her drink down and started to move the chairs around them.

A groan of frustration bubbled up from her chest and suddenly she was positive she needed more grown up drinks to burn her stomach into submission.

"What good would that do? You can't just let me hit you till I feel better. It's not gonna change that I think you made a dumb choice that hurt both of us."

Referring here to herself and Mindy rather then herself and Pruna. Honestly of the three of them Pruna handled the entire thing the best.

"Then I won't say anything else about it."

She apologized a million fucking times already, what the hell else could she do?

What she could do is take another drink. Which she did.

"The only good thing about this is I don't have to make a speech. The French guy had to, at least."

Sandy was grateful for the change of subject. In their current state she was sure she was going to say something to get herself hit.

"So did they ask you at all what you wanted for your party? Or did they just set it up and tell you when to show up?"

"No, they just knew...and that bugs me. How would they even know what I did in my world, what the costume looked like? That's just creep, amongst all the other shit they can do."

Her head swam a little, and she let out a laugh. "Hey, what do you think they'd do for you if YOU won? Big posters of Pruna all over the place?"

Sandy groaned at the idea that the Capitol knew more about them then she had originally suspected.

At the question though she looked thoughtful and pulled a face at the idea of some kind of Pruna worshiping.

"Hey I know that I'll never win without her but it's not like Pruna is the only thing about me anyone knows."

Mindy would totally join you in that groan, Sandy. She had enough bad suspicions about the Capitol and what they can do.

"I know, but come on, its definitely one of the more interesting things, don't you think?"

From the dry look on her face, no she did not think Pruna was one of the most interesting things anyone could know about her.

"Pruna is amazing, but Pruna isn't who I am. If there's gonna be giant banners of Pruna it should be at her party. She'd probably hate it but as long as there was honey ice cream cake she'll be happy."

"Then who are you?"

It wasn't meant to be rude or even insulting. Mindy was watching the girl, curious to her reply.

From the way Sandy looked away, clearly Mindy had asked the exact question she was trying to avoid.

"Not the girl I was when I got here, that's for damn sure."

And she sounded like she was still unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Mindy snorted. "Well duh. I doubt anyone who's here long enough aren't the same. But that doesn't answer my question."

Hell, she hadn't been here long and she already wasn't the girl she was before.

"That's because I'm still figuring out who I am." She pouted at being called out for not answering. "Am I the girl who's gonna try and hold onto what I think is right? Or the girl that's gonna throw it all out and do whatever it takes to survive?"

She really didn't have that many other options right now.

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