thecapitol | Lessons, Capitol Style

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Lessons, Capitol Style

WHO| Riddick and OPEN
WHAT| Riddick is "learning".
WHERE| Tessurae (the "Hunger Games" style restaurant!)
WHEN| Three days after the arena is out
WARNINGS| Riddick's mouth and bad attitude

Having one of the Tributes themselves visiting had originally been exciting at Tessurae, but when he proved to be the opposite of friendly, the charm quickly wore off. It'd been three nights now, and Riddick kept coming back, ordering the least sugar- and sauce-intensive meal on the menu and a stiff drink, and then promptly shunning anyone who tried to approach him for an autograph or a question or a breathless compliment.

For anyone who happened to really pay attention, it seemed like he was watching Hunger Games reruns and pulling up statistics in the bar's records. There were only so many places to learn about this stuff, after all, and he'd already exhausted what he could find in the library since his return to life. Now it was time to find some raw data and learn what he could about the mania surrounding the things first-hand, in the most Games-themed place he could find.

Of course, the whole place made him sick, but he could deal with it.

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Howard's good with faces. Even if he weren't, the fact that the bar's constantly playing footage of the last Games on loop means he'd recognize at least most of the tributes by now.

That means he's trying to learn from the other Tributes. Not all of them seem as happy as he is to be here - where death is temporary if it's in the arena, and otherwise you're treated as some kind of b-list celebrity - and as such he suspects there's something more afoot. Besides, he'll want to know if there are any weaknesses he can exploit in the next arena.

So if Riddick's paying attention, he might notice that the kid who's apparently attempting to eat the bar out of business is watching him. Even if he isn't, Howard self-consciously figures that a guy who looks so rugged must be at least a little aware of his surroundings, and decides to cut things off early by introducing himself.

"Whatcha looking at?"

Riddick is always paying attention. At the moment, though, he's ignoring all the stares, even if they do come from other Tributes. Even kid-Tributes with sharp eyes.

When he's addressed, though, he turns his head a little, so it looks like he's looking at him out of the corner of his eye-- or like he would be, if there weren't the round, tinted lenses in the way, curving around his head. It wasn't particularly bright in here, but there were random flashes from the dance floor that bothered him if he wasn't protected.

Without a word, he tilted the little menu-like flip-book he was looking through to show the current laminated page to Howard. It has a list of Tributes in former Games, not winners, but ones who died in particularly memorable fashions. There's even a little tiny picture for each one.

Howard squints at the flip book. He doesn't recognize the faces, but there's a dawning comprehension as he reads over the descriptions. Someone's throat ripped out by a competitor's teeth. People tortured to death in the arena. One who, trapped in a snare in a tree, slashed it open with a knife only to be tangled up with their feet inches from the ground - they suffocated over the course of twelve hours.

"It doesn't matter though, does it?" He sounds more casual about it than he looks. His index fingers and thumb are trembling. "I mean. They bring us back each time."

Riddick shrugged, turned the book back to himself, and had a mouthful of his tequila. It wasn't very good tequila, but Riddick preferred it that way.

Then he finally spoke, to explain. "Didn't use to. All these guys?" He tapped the page, before turning it to a new one. "Dead for good."

Howard furrows his brow. They're young-looking in the pictures. Teenagers, mostly a little older than him. Not the adults he's used to seeing.

"What changed?"

"Guess we did. Used to be they had kids from their own cities doin' this shit." Kids. Riddick found that the most disgusting of all. He guessed it was for shock value, but it spoke of more than just viciousness. Riddick was vicious. Riddick, however, was not this diseased. "Didn't bother bringing them back to life."

"So why're they bothering with us? I'm from Sucksville, Middle of Nowhere. They can't have us for political reasons or as hostages or anything like that."

He isn't shocked or sickened, really. He's seen children die before in droves. He's seen them torture and be tortured, start lynch mobs and murder those younger than them. Kids are just a slightly more immature version of the rest of the world, nothing worth protecting.

Riddick still felt children deserved better. They had a chance to change their ways, grow up right-- adults? They were already pretty much fixed, by the time they got to be adults. He shrugged again. "The sport, probably. Maybe there was too much complainin' about using the kids, and they thought we'd make better. Still got the distraction of the masses, but nobody to make the masses mad."

It was his best guess, anyway. He was still trying to piece things together.

"Those kids are older than me. Maybe it only hits home when it's their kids." Howard frowns and reaches over, touching one of the faces on the screen. It's no one familiar. "So you're what, strategizing?"

"They take 'em as young as twelve," Riddick pointed out lightly, flipping a page to the one on the youngest Tributes, to show him. "And I'll be damned if you're twelve." He'd be damned, anyway, but that was beside the point.

He set the booklet down, and answered the actual question shortly and succinctly: "What I'm doing? I'm learning."

"Fine, but most of them are sixteen or seventeen. Way more prepared than I am." Twelve, though...

He bites his lip. "Learning to win?"

"Who said I wanted to do that?" Riddick asked with a little smirk, looking back up at Howard. He was getting the idea that this kid hadn't had too easy a life. Or else he just hadn't figured out that sometimes winning wasn't what you wanted to do.

"Why? That what you wanna do?"

"You kind of look it," Howard says bluntly, not lifting his eyes from the images in front of him. "And no. I don't want to kill anyone."

Not that that means he won't. He also doesn't want to die.

"Better than some," Riddick allowed, picking up his beer for a swig. "No, I'm not tryin' to learn how to win. I already know how to win." He wasn't afraid of any of the assholes in that arena, thanks-- well, maybe the turtle when he went monster, but even then, what was there to fear if you just came back to life again?

"I'm tryin' to learn about why they do this, and how they do this." And if there was a way to bring it all down, but he didn't say that out loud.

Howard retreats for a moment to get another glass of water. He returns and stands on the lowest rung of a stool to see the pictures better without having to go on tip-toe.

"You mean why they do it asides from shits and giggles?" Howard bites the edge of his glass. "I got theories but I haven't been here too long."

"Nobody does nothin' for shits and giggles," Riddick tells Howard, with no doubt in his mind or voice at all. "There's always a reason. And there's reasons for this one, too."

He isn't really interested in bandying them in public, though, especially not with a kid he knows nothing about besides his potential desire to win.

Howard stares at the dead faces a little longer.

"I'm going to avoid you in the arena, if you don't mind," he says matter-of-factly, and leaves. Riddick's distrust is clear and, well, Howard can't blame him. It's just hard to make allies here.

Try talking to someone who isn't Riddick, Howard. You'll have better luck. The big man lifts his drink to Howard's retreating back, as if toasting him, and says, "No offense taken."

Then he does back to flipping through the list of trivia. It doesn't bother him to be distrusted and disliked. It's just another day, after all.

Alpha had found that Tessurae was one of the best places to eat out if you were a Tribute hoping to be left alone. At least, if you were Alpha and were skilled enough at doubletalk that you could convince anyone bold enough to come by that you weren't the actual Tribute in question but simply in a very good costume. They didn't necessarily believe him, unless they were particularly stupid, but it threw them off enough that they left him alone, confused.

He didn't usually people watch here, not finding the Capitol citizens terribly fascinating, but the Tribute who kept coming back night after night caught his attention, and finally he wandered over, curious and not a little bored. "You know they go to every effort not to repeat themselves," he said casually, peering over the other man's shoulder.

Riddick looked over his own shoulder at the blonde and burly guy who decided he needed to chat. Not a fan. Not a citizen-- that was one of the other Tributes. That meant he at least got an answer, instead of being ignored.

"Seems like," he agreed dryly. "You'd think they'd run out of places to have these things, by th'time they got this far along."

Alpha shrugged. "You would be amazed at the depths of human creativity when it comes to torture and murder. Especially when they're trying to be entertaining about it. And they most likely simply build over old Arenas when they run out of room," he added casually, as though this wasn't a subject he'd contemplated at length.

Did they build over them? Could they find the remains of previous Arenas below the newest? Or did they simply find a new place on the planet, was the country called Panem (and Alpha loved a pun but really) the only part of the world with a surviving patch of humanity on it? Seemingly basic questions, surprisingly difficult to find the answers to.

That night's schedule had seen Draco all but forced into the restaurant, forced to deal with the hoards of people who wanted to know what it was like being killed like he was by Don last go-around. It was definitely getting old, and he would rather forget about the whole thing.

He finally stumbled to the bar, ordering something strong before he got bombarded with questions again, all but oblivious to Riddick's presence just a seat or two down. His observational skills had slid considerably as long as he was around the Capitol.

At least this close to Riddick, he wasn't going to get bothered quite as much. The big Tribute didn't miss Draco's original arrival, and he watched him sidelong, through the dark sunglasses' wrap-around lenses. When he escaped the masses and made it to the bar, Riddick considered a beat, and slid the plate of peanuts he'd been munching a few feet down, within Draco's reach, two seats over.

"Scoot over a chair, kid," he offered. "That'll keep them off your back for a while."

He'd only just gotten his drink, ducked his head down into his hands briefly; to say he was surprised by Riddick's voice beside him was an understatement, as Draco almost smacked the plate of peanuts clean off the bar. His hand just missed them as his head came back up, eyes snapping wide to the other Tribute.

"When did you get here?" He asked, realising immediately that the question was stupid, and Riddick had probably been there from even before he got there. Another, slightly longer pause, a glance over his shoulder, and then Draco did as he was told, scooting over a chair with limited effort, dragging both his drink and the plate along with him.

Riddick answered anyway, since he did ask, even though he thought better of the question as soon as he'd asked it. "About an hour ago. Unlike you, who got here, what, ten minutes ago?"

He looked over his shoulder once, and the customer who'd been eying Draco wilted and slouched off.

Draco merely pursed his lips, hating that he was letting his guard down so much. Even if there wasn't any obvious threats in the Capitol, and he didn't have to watch his back because of his mission back home. He'd had a lot more free time of late; it was a bit strange.

Catching the tail end of Riddick's glance out of the corner of his eye, he frowned, turning to look back at the customer that seemed to have been scared off. "Did you ju-" He cut himself off, pausing. "You're bloody terrifying, you know that?"

The unamused look the customer had gotten turned into a vaguely amused one at Draco. "That a fact." It sounded a lot more like a statement than a question.

This one didn't, though: "That supposed to be a compliment or an insult?"

He knew better than to address statements when they were put in such finalising tones, and he was figuring out very quickly not to knock the fact that Riddick hadn't killed him the first time and almost seemed to be an ally. Of sorts.

"A little of both. Leaning towards the former." And he wasn't even lying through his teeth. In a way, Draco admired it. As long as he was on this side of it.

"Well, then, thanks." Riddick picked up his beer again to mock-toast Draco. "Nice to know somebody appreciates me who ain't a merc or a Hunger Games fan." Of course, it did somehow manage to be a teeenage kid. Ah, well. He could deal with teenage kids, for the most part.

Unsure of if he was being mocked or not, but fairly certain he was, Draco hesitated, pursing his mouth before briefly lifting his drink in response. "A merc?" He questioned, slowly lowering the glass back to the bar.

Of course he was, mocking was how Riddick interacted with the world in general. It was just an amiable mockery, in this case. "Merc. Short for mercenary. Hired gun, usually lacking in morals, often set up in bounty hunting or protecting somebody important."

"We don't have those where I come from." Draco gave a little sniff, his delicate sensibilities a bit offended at the idea of someone being paid for that sort of thing. He'd never do it, that much was certain.

"Lucky you." It certainly seemed like an interesting set-up. Probably wouldn't work, not having them, in space-- but Draco probably wasn't from somewhere that had to deal with multiple planets. So far, nobody he'd met had been. "So who looks out for the rich folks? They just look after themselves?"

"Yes, we do tend to just watch out for ourselves," he replied, putting as subtle an emphasis on 'we' as he could; it came out rather well, if he did say so himself. "There aren't that many threats against us, of course. There's a reason we've remained rich."

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Lessons, Capitol Style

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