thecapitol | Drown the Stale, Owning Stares All Around You [Open]

WHO| Venus and Open
WHAT| Venus reacts (or doesn't) to the exposé.
WHEN| Directly after the exposé and over the following days.
WHERE| Various cafes in the Capitol or her bedroom.
WARNINGS| None yet.

She'd braced herself. She could at least credit the Capitol for giving her a little warning before they character assassinated her, which is more than could be said for some of the paparazzi and celebrity news outlets back home. She was expecting the usual: skank, shallow airhead, probably slept her way to the top, all things that she was more than equipped to brush off. Her family's come up a few times before in the media, usually as an example about how mutants were dangerous and ought to be controlled, and the politics of it felt so divorced from her experience that it somehow didn't penetrate her armor.

She's ready, sitting in her bedroom with a pint of raspberry sherbet, fresh from a shower in one of those fluffy robes that's never seen cheap laundering before, when Insider Tales comes on and manages to slip past the fortress she previously thought impervious.

As soon as they show Jamal, she finds herself, for the first time in years, feeling outright breathless with a panic she can't explain. She holds her hand over her chest and she gasps and tries to remember the mental exercises she taught to Joly, tries not to let this suffocation feel like an old friend. She gets that under control just in time for them to show the footage of her family's death, which she never saw before, which cameras never saw before, and torn between panicking or shutting down, she does the latter.

Maintaining the illusion of apathy is a trying enough task as to be distracting, and she protects herself with that. She finishes her sherbet, even though it seems to sit unmelted in her stomach like a stone. She convinces herself that she can act her way until it's real - fake it until you make it - and she tells herself that she's fine with that.

And yet she can't convince her to go look for people, to explain herself or admit guilt or clarify or do any of the things she needs to do, and so she isolates herself for the next several days. Aside from the gym, she hides. She keeps up the happy starlet act for only the amount of time it takes to get to the secluded backs of cafes or between the bathroom and her bedroom. And then she spends her time staring at books she doesn't turn the pages of, focusing all her energy on never letting them see her cry.

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"And if I was a man who had never seen that much power, I am sure I would be just as afraid as she was," he said, matter-of-factly. "But since I have come here, I have seen much that shouldn't be possible, and have learned better."

He stood still in his stance for a long moment, his muscles settling, and then he attacked.

She makes a deft move to block; for all her hurt and anger, she doesn't translate it into carelessness. Her combat skill, though ferocious, isn't fueled by those emotions. Anger and pain are too messy for finesse, too volatile to rely on.

She twists and aims to strike his stomach with the butt of her staff, sidling her feet back to keep him from getting too close. "So you're desensitized now?"

He wasn't familiar with the term, but he could grasp its meaning well enough.

"Educated." He takes the blow - not able to move fast enough to block it, but his stance is solid enough that it doesn't wind him. His counter attack is swift enough, but it's obvious he isn't used to fighting with the poles - the balance is off.

"A man cannot know war until he meets it. I could not know the gods until I met them."

Her balance is no better, and though his counterstrike only connects with her own weapon, she totters two steps back.

"Are you going to start calling me a goddess for real now?" She flashes a smile, but it's just that, a flash. Lightning instead of the sun.

"The only difference between you and the gods is that you are mortal," He pointed out, solemnly, taking the joke as an honest question. "Morrigan was the same," He adds, only a little tense. He hadn't thought about her in a long time.

One more the Capitol had taken from him.

"Gods or not, such ability must come with a price."

He takes a defensive stance again, shifting his grip on the weapon to try to adjust his balance.

"It's not one I'd have wanted to pay." She finds her footing. She opens her mouth to say something - you and me, we both found our families in ash, we're alike - but that feels profane, to compare his honest loss with her murkier one.

"How did you survive, after you...?"

She lunges for him.

"I didn't," He said bluntly, staggering backwards in order to catch her lunge with his staff, his hand snapping out to grab hers, keep it from smashing him in the face.

"I would have died that day, if the slavers had not found me. If Juba had not nursed me back to health."

He pushed back, suddenly, hard.

"A part of me did die. But I am still here. And I fight on."

She drops back gracefully, knees bending and hips straightening, taking to the floor in an artful dodge to keep her hands to herself. For a while there's just the sound of their staffs clacking together as they fight - dance - wordless.

"Are you fighting to die?"

"I was." He replies, his words terse as he concentrates on the fight. Each moment that passes he's growing more accustomed to the weapon, but he's still at a fair disadvantage with it, and it is beginning to show in the sweat on his brow.

"Now I fight for a second life."

"I thought I was. The last time I woke up after the Arena, for the first time I didn't think, I didn't think 'damn'-" This form of combat suits her, now that she's adjusting to the staff's reach. She specializes at speed and stamina.

"But then seeing it on the television brought it all back. All that wanting to die."

Maximus is playing it fairly defensively - countering his disadvantage with caution, mostly blocking and only attempting to deliver a blow when she's on the least balanced point of a thrust.

"That's what they want," He said firmly. "To destroy our spirit."

"I'm good at giving audiences what they want." Her voice, somber as it is, clashes with the intent force of her actions as she pushes Max towards the corner of the mat.

"That's all I'm ever good for, I've been told."

"It seems to me that you have been told an awful lot of lies," Maximus says bluntly, each attack from her causing him to step back.

Before he reaches the edge, however, he slams the pole down into the mat, swinging himself around it in one motion until he's flanking her, his foot swinging out to trip her from behind.

The trip catches her by surprise - but she's a quick recovery. She lets the momentum of her fall takes her down shoulders first, tucking her head, rather than landing on her ass, and somersaults backwards.

It's not enough to salvage the sparring session (she'd have been dead twice over), but it's enough to avoid any embarrassment.

"I really want to believe you're right."

Drown the Stale, Owning Stares All Around You [Open]

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