thecapitol | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Lessons, Capitol Style

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