thecapitol | Choose your own Azuladventure

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Choose your own Azuladventure

Who: Azula and you
What: Azula's in a great mood, last call to train with her, get advice or just have some lunch before the next arena.
Where: Around the Capitol and Tribute Tower.
When: After Enjolras Expose
Notes: It's Azula, she's in a good mood. That can't be good.

There were few things in life she liked better then watching those she hated suffer.

And knowing that Enjolras was no longer going to be comfortable in the Capitol while their tributes were fighting and dying in the arena made her so happy she was practically glowing.

And so she went about her business in this joyful and buzzing manner, a nice healthy and balanced breakfast, followed by the training hall.

Lunch in a trendy cafe where she could take meetings, followed by a casual stroll through a botanical garden.

Today would be a good day.

And hopefully the start of many good days to come.

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Her lips curled into an even more malicious smile and she nodded in acknowledgment, "Why of course you're right Mr. Wesker."

Her thoughts drifted to her own tributes and one in particular who had only survived as long as she did by being beautiful but discreet.

"It lives it's charmed life being fed and fawned over all because it's color is appealing then others to our eyes."

"And what makes it's color so appealing to us exactly? Experience? Personal preference? Or something deeper?"

"'If I said fire, if I said blood welling from a cut--'" Wesker murmured, the silver of his knife flashing as he pressed the the thick stem of another flower against his thumb, cutting through the green with a soft, wet snap. "'Or flecks of poppy in the tar-grass scented air...'"

He turned, glancing at Azula briefly over the lenses of his glasses.

"You would say Red."

His mouth pulled and he slipped his striped bloom into the vase with the others.

Poetic, grim but poetic. She could appreciate that.

"I've always enjoyed red, crimson. It blends so beautifully with gold and offers a regal appearance." She mused. "But strangely enough, my favorite color has always been blue."

Unexpected given how she usually adorned herself in red and gold. It brought out the color of her eyes and gave her a more fierce and powerful appearance.

"Red reminds me of my home, father enjoyed it as well. But blue reminds me of the power plant. The cool smooth steel and the scent of burning ozone. The white hot glow of electricity puts off a blue hue behind the safety glass."

She knew every inch of her fathers power plant, she had been exploring it since she was a child.

Power.

Oh yes, Wesker could understand the attraction to that.

"It would sound then, that you have your answer," he replied simply.

He brushed a thumb over another blossom, nose wrinkling at the bruise he found on the inside of one silken petal. Passing over it, he moved on to the next.

"It's not the color itself, but what it symbolizes. The response it evokes in the beholder."

"Curious how something so simple can inadvertently manipulate the viewer." She continued to muse simply for the sake of musing.

"The flower doesn't know what it does, or what it means. Nor does it intend for anything more then to attract insects to pollinate and keep it alive. And yet it can evoke things infinately deeper then it's capable comprehending." She chuckled.

"Our tributes are not so different given the rabid fanbase some of them have developed."

Wesker made a soft sound - not quite a snort, not quite a laugh, but something inbetween. Low and amused.

"But they are hardly so unaware," he purred, the knife gleaming again as it slipped between dark green stems. "Some perhaps, those particularly simply souls, but not all."

Not those sharp little knives, waiting in the drawer.

A small, efficient strike - a small crunch like bone.

"And while there is the claim that ignorance is bliss, I can't help but think I am far happier then those simple souls." She added with a chuckle and a smile.

"But enough of my idle musings. What brings you out here collecting flowers Mr. Wesker?" She inquires finally turning away from the flowers she had been speaking with and letting her eyes settle on one of the most intimidating people to come from another world.

"You have your fond notions," he smiled - that sharp flash of teeth - as he turned, the cut stem weeping against his fingers. "I have mine."

He gave the bloom a little spin, a flash of red and white, it's scent all the sweeter in the death, and slipped it into his vase.

"I enjoy them, and the process."

"Which is as good a reason as any." Azula acknowledged as she watched him carefully with sharp, detail oriented eyes.

How this man made the act of collecting flowers seem so malicious was a feat to be sure.

"Many tributes and mentors underestimate the value of a good distracting hobby." She paused and added "Other then drinking of course."

"I've always found that response fascinating," Wesker murmured, leaning slightly and peering over the black edge of sunglasses at another blossom - a quick flash of red and gold before he readjusted the lenses with a small movement of his hand. "The complacency required to be content with such a temporary solution to one's problems."

Edited 2014-05-19 15:10 (UTC)

"It's a matter of perspective of course." She agreed turning her attention to a young couple strolling further away arm in arm. There was a pang of envy in her chest that she smothered as she focused her attention back on Wesker.

"Some people, weaker people or those who like the foresight to see their path ahead of them prefer short term solutions as they require less effort and discomfort. After all humans are afraid of that which they cannot understand. But a simple solution such as ingesting poison to numb your senses is easy to understand, easier to perform and requires much less responsibility."

A smirk, "And of course, responsibility is the greatest burden in some of their lives."

Behind the lenses, the serpentine eyes narrowed, filing away the way the other mentor's eyes followed the strolling couple for later.

(One never knew what might be useful.)

"What was that we were discussing?" Wesker purred, the words low and cool. "'Delicate flowers?'"

And how lucky they were for their pretty petals.

"The Capitol keeps quite the garden, doesn't it?"

She had to admire that even without his powers and when surrounded by so much soft, peaceful beauty...Wesker reminded her of a looming Muttation ready to rip you in half and suck out your insides. It was really very impressive, especially to a slender young woman who had cultivated an image of fear and respect for so long and still had to fight tooth and nail for any scrap of power that would come with such things.

"They do in fact, with a variety of scents and colors to suit whatever mood they are in." She agreed to play along with the metaphor, "And though some flowers may arrive too diseased to properly grow under the careful cultivation of the Capitol, they are always quick to see to the problem so that it does not infect the other flowers and cause them to twist up and die in the same way."

It was a roundabout way of talking about Enjolras, but it seemed fitting.

"It would seem," Wesker carried on without missing a beat, twisting the flow of the conversation to suit him, "they need a stronger weed killer."

He shifted, and with one smooth movement, crouched. With a pale hand, he slipped his fingers in among the close stems of the flowers, bending and pushing until the spiked leaves of a fast-growing dandelion came into view.

"They keep ripping them up, but new ones simply put down roots and sprout.'

Metaphors were so much fun sometimes, especially when you've hit on a particularly apt one.

"Or perhaps a new gardener."

It was a dangerous thought, especially considering she was sure somewhere among the flowers were microphones.

"The Peacekeepers have had their hands full lately, Training sessions getting out of hand, visitors from other worlds failing to behave in a subtle manner when they insist on breaking the rules. They hardly have the time to do anything but behave in a reactionary manner."

He hadn't heard from the woman yet - Penny. Undoubtedly, she was enjoying the power in making him wait. Of the power she believed she held over him.

His fingers curled, griping tight. With a sharp twist the plant came free with a soft, wet ripping.

"The key," he murmured as he rose out of his crouch, "is to take the roots. The source of nourishment, the power. Without them, the rest of the system withers and dies."

Casually, he tossed the weed aside, a tangle of broken leaves and pale worm-like roots.

"Unfortunately in some cases it's not so easy." She sighed lamenting just how long it had taken for the Capitol to respond to her complaints about Enjolras.

"At least when you lack power. Then it becomes more like a surgical procedure to cut out the infection completely, or in some cases remove it's ability to spread. So in the case of a loud mouth who can't seem to tell when is the proper time to voice his opinion, you might start by removing his tongue." She reasoned.

Oh how many times she had considered that option with Enjolras, it almost worried her.

Wesker's mouth curled, a slow, cold amusement.

"It would seem you have a particular weed in mind," he said, returning again to his flowers, knife flashing once more. "If I had to guess as to his identity-" and he was confident he knew who it was, the woman had made no secret of her dislike of him, "-it would appear the Capitol is preparing to rip him up as we speak."

"And not a moment too soon." She declared with a smile that would chill the hearts of normal people.

"And in his loss, we all stand to gain if only out of entertainment value or gaining peace from his ceaseless rantings."

"It's so nice when the system works."

"It is difficult, I understand, to give speeches when one is choking on one's own blood."

Wesker didn't laugh often, but when he did, he did the same way he did everything.

Coolly, purposefully, and elegantly.

Cruelly.

Azula chuckled in a similar manner, it was a beautiful musical sort of laugh but in the way that she could easily be imagined crushing a small animal.

"Difficult for him, much more entertaining for the rest of us. Perhaps people would actually pay attention to him a moment longer if that were the case." She agreed.

"It would force a certain brevity, if nothing else."

He snipped another flower, and brought the bloom close to his nose, sniffing a short, shallow breath. The scent now was cloying, overly sharp.

But he knew, it would sweeten as it died. Soften.

Turning, he held it out to her. An olive branch for killers.

"A lesson perhaps he'll think to bring back with him."

She accepted it, her delicate and clever fingers brushing his as she did so. Those same fingers had curled around a blade thrusting it into someone's heart. They had held the tools that set fire to half an arena killing several children.

They were perfectly manicured and freshly painted a lovely shade of blue.

"For his sake I hope so. But I wouldn't concern myself with it. I may be his mentor after all but I'm not his mother."

She took a breath of the flower herself before tucking it in her hair. It was a sharp contrast to her ink black hair that reflected a shine in the sunlight.

"It's always so nice to share these little moments with you." She acknowledge with her venom laced smile.

He was warm to the touch, warmer than any human male had any right to be, but his smile was as cool as ever. Untroubled, quietly amused.

"I look forward to more such moments," he purred in reply, deciding he meant it, as his head dipping in an elegant bow. "Azula."

Intelligent conversation could be such a difficult thing to come by.

One had to seize opportunity when it presented itself.

"As do I Mr. Wesker." She bowed her head in similar acknowledgment and found a strange sense of pride in the fact that there was one member on a short list of mentors she respected who in turn respected her back.

Deciding to excuse herself before her good mood lowered her guard any further she took her leave, but the flower remained with her the rest of the afternoon as a pleasant reminder.

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Choose your own Azuladventure

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