thecapitol | Boom boom boom

Entry tags:

Boom boom boom

Who| ALL people who call the Tribute center home, and anyone who might have been there on business.
What| Lock down
Where| Around the Capitol, and in the Tribute Center.
When| Feel free to tag in if you died any time in the first 3 weeks. (So if you die tomorrow, you can feel free to back tag in, if you like)
Warnings/Notes| Use this post both for threads before, around the city, and after the Peacekeepers and Avoxes gather everyone. More information about the state of the city after this will come tomorrow in the Deathroll. If your tribute character is out and about, they should expect Peacekeepers to escort them back within 15-20 minutes (and you can feel free to handwave the peacekeepers)

The people lurking around the docks, wearing plain clothes, rough clothes, might stand out among the Capitol Citizens if 'District chic' wasn't a style that came and went on a regular basis. As it was, they barely stood out, people trying too hard to look like they didn't belong and that they did, at the same time.

Sorta like everyone else around them. It was hard to act suspicious in the Capitol.

It was a bit strange, people getting on the Shore to Shore boat dressed like that. Not normally what anyone would consider club wear, but 'normal' was not highly regarded around these parts.

However, it wasn't long after the boat had left the dock that it made it's grand exit.

In an explosion that sent a fireball high into the night sky, lighting up the bay, and sending high waves lapping at the shore, the boat was obliterated. Rescue operation were swift, but there just wasn't much left to rescue.

Siren's filled the city, automated voices urging people from every street corner to return home, lock the doors, stay inside. And for the Tributes wandering the city, it was more then automated urging. Those in the Tribute training center were gather up by Avoxes, and brought down to the common room, the elevator refusing to work for anyone who wasn't in the process of gathering up Tributes, Mentors, Stylist...anyone lingering in the building.

Those Tributes not already at home found themselves flanked by Peacekeepers and escorted back, deposited in the same common room, and told to wait.

Eventually, hours later, everyone was cleared and the elevator opened, although the front doors still refused to allow anyone out without a special clearance no one was being offered. A recorded voice told them emergency alert instructions would be available for them in the morning. And then their doors locked behind them for the night.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Do what, Madame? The clothes? Yes..."

She was completely nonplussed about the twigs in her hair, though she did add defensively,

"I was in a bush, Madame. The men hauled me out and probably it got stuck then. always my hair is a mess."

But at least the woman wasn't cross. Eponine knew Howard would be - and Sigma too, so it was nice, in a world of hostility, to have someone smile ar her.

"Well, yes, the clothes are a problem," admitted Valeria, though she avoided looking too closely at them. "But all I do is make the clothes, it's the Escort's job to make sure you wear the damn things. Although I wish you would, it's my reputation on the line you know." And perhaps Eponine's past meant she was opposed to clothes that acted, quite literally, as a beacon in the dark, but that didn't have any bearing on now, did it?

"A bush," she muttered, tugging at the girl's shoulder's to turn her around so Valeria could get a full view. "Of course you were in a bush. Tributes. Hm. This needs washing before anything else, I think. At least a rinse."

Eponine just wants to be covered. A nice long dress, with long sleeves puffed at the top and tapered, and a full skirt and a high neckline. And a lovely bonnet. And perhaps silk stockings. In her eyes, the short dresses and no sleeves so often found here are for whores.

"Madame? Could you not make me a long dress - a warm one instead? I wuld wear that."

She submits to Valeria's tugging. "Yes. I didn't want to see my death, or hear people talking of my death. Or listen to their comments...Will you really wash my hair? Here?"

"Sure, sure," said Valeria absently, assuming Eponine meant the request for her downtime, not public appearances. Valeria was quite happy meet requests for what the Tributes wore on their own time if they asked for something special, there was no way she could think of something new and unique on her own for such casual times anyway. "No problem."

She looked around, one hand moving, with some difficulty, through Eponine's hair. "No reason not to, my dear, and all the reason to, in fact. I'm sure we could manage in the bathroom, and possibly convince it to give us something a little stronger than hand soap." Normally Valeria was careful to use only the best supplies for her Tributes, but Eponine's hair seemed quite sturdy enough to handle it, at least.

"Hm?" she said suddenly, another of the girl's comments sinking in. "What comments?"

"What?"
Eponine was caught off guard there.
"Will you really make a dress for me, Madame? I would be happy. You know, that's all I want in the world - a beautiful dress. Before here, I had not had new clothes for years."

She shrugged shyly. Before the Capitol, she hadn't washed her hair in months either. Or actually any bit of her. And even then, there had been no soap. Eponine's hair would take whatever was shoved on it.

"Yes Madame. Comments about me. My body. Now people want to see all of the time, and they try to touch me. I am not a whore, though. I don't like to be treated as such."

"Of course I will," she said, blinking. "It's what I do. Making sure you're properly clothed is my job after all. Just hold still long enough for my team to make the proper measurements, and, you know, wear whatever I tell you when there's something important going on, and I'll make you whatever you want for the rest of the time. It's the standard Stylist Tribute relationship." At least in Valeria's experience, although to be fair until this Quell those relationships hadn't lasted long enough for casual clothing to become an issue.

"Well, the touching must definitely stop, if you don't want it, I mean really," she said firmly, guiding the girl with a hand towards the bathrooms. Valeria had no knowledge of Victors, and now Tributes, being bid on. She always took no for an answer since she never had a shortage of men who said yes. "Looking is all well and good, that's what you're here for, but the touching should be up to your own discretion. Unless you're in my workshop or the Arena, of course, ha."

"Really?" Eponine blinked too. She was beginning to look at Valeria in a different light. Before, EPonine had wilfully defied any attempt to make her attractive; what was the point? But the bribe of a dress she liked was too much.

"I'll stand still, Madame. I promise - if you make me the dress. Only... when you make me wear as you wish... you will not make me look like a whore, no? I do not want to be a whore."

Eponine sighed lightly at Valeria's apparent ignorance. Eponine herself didn't realise that people were being bid on, but she had experienced all sorts of unwanted gropes.
"They can have you arrested, you know, if you don't let them touch." It worked that way in Paris, at any rate.

Eponine let herself be guided in.

"I don't like it when anybody touches me, Madame."

"I think I'll resist the urge," Valeria said dryly, fiddling with the nearest sink to get right temperature, and ignoring the glances from the other women in the bathroom. "Although some of the whores I've known had great fashion sense, I'd just like to say." She'd known only the 'classy', expensive escorts of the Capitol, who chose the profession and liked it. She and Eponine had very different mental images when it came to the word 'whore'.

"Hm, I should have grabbed a chair," she said thoughtfully, tapping at the wall computer in the hopes of something other than hand soap. "We'll have to do this the less comfortable way--this means I'll have to touch you, you realize?--face down but it can't be helped. Just keep your eyes shut."

She snapped her fingers at Eponine, indicating she needed to put her head under the water. "And what do you mean you don't like people touching you? People touching has led to some of the best nights of my life."

Eponine looked reproachfully at Valeria. Did she really have to put her whole head under? Well, it'd probably wash the dirt off her face at the same time...

But she answered Valeria's questions first.

"Whores in fashion, Madame? Can they afford such? Where I am from, it is only the desperate women, and those who are told..." Like herself.

"I don't like it, Madame. It never leads to good. It means I will be up against a wall, or hit, or arrested, or made to steal..." Or have her heart ripped out and trampled on.

"Well they get paid don't they?" said Valeria, amused, ignoring the reproach. It was hardly her fault they were stuck here for the moment, was it? She ran her fingers through Eponine's hair as well as she was able, just trying to rinse out the worst of the dirt and...debris first, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the water. "I suppose you wouldn't have gotten much sense of the place hiding in bushes, but this is a very different sort of city than where you're from, dear."

Said the woman who hadn't even glanced at the section of Eponine's file that stated where she came from. All she knew was what Eponine had told her, and honestly it sounded like the overblown, obviously untrue horror stories about life in the Districts.

"Now," she said, indicating with a press on the girl's shoulder that she could remove her head from the sink. They were probably going to get soap all over the floor in this next step, oh well. "If there's anywhere to learn the value of touching, it's here. You can save the hitting and stealing for the Arena, and since you're one of mine, I hope you'll be the one hitting this time."

"Pennies, Madame. I was paid three francs, once." Eponine gurgles from beneath the tap. She closes her mouth quickly, and her eyes for good measure, and just lets Valeria do her work. It actually felt quite nice to have someone stroking through her mop. She stood straight as soon as Valeria indicated that she could, and follows her to the soap dispensers.

"I don't want to hit. It isn't - it's not good. Madame, in my life, I have done so many bad things. I have stealed and lied and broke into places. I have conned blind old men and I have lain with others for a franc or so as I say. My - Montparnasse has told me to kill, but no. He's shown me - but I do not want to do such a thing. I am bad enough, you see?"

"Well," she said, blinking. "You are definitely going to need to become better at selling yourself from now on." Metaphorically speaking, of course. "I mean, I can't say anything about your prowess personally, but no one can be that bad."

She deposits a generous amount of the soap onto her hands and starts briskly lathering it into Eponine's hair. She's silent for a moment, not sure what to say. She is not exactly skilled in empathy and comfort. "You know the Games are a great honor, right," she tried eventually. "It's a very important tradition to us, there was quite the scandal when they decided to bring outsiders in. Perhaps you were chosen to, ah, repent? Make up for the bad things with service to the Capitol, you see?"

"They pay cheap because I was desperate, Madame. They know they can do it."

Though really, what Eponine knows amounts to holding still, closing her eyes and singing songs in her head to escape.

"So I am to die over and over for stealing? I must let them hurt me because I'm a bad girl? And I have to let you dress me in such clothes? I like that I can have my hair washed and such. We had no soap in Paris. But it is hard to die each time."

"Well there you go," she said dismissively. "That's the problem right there--we need to teach you the meaning of the Hard Sell."

She lathered the hair up probably more than necessary, lost in her thoughts for a moment. "Well, you only die until you win, so really, they're giving you a chance at a good life. Several chances, in fact. You just have to work for it. That's more than they ever got before." Which is not something Valeria is comfortable thinking about. "Time to rinse again."

Eponine stood patiently as Valeria rubbed the soap into her hair. She was actually quite enjoying this, having someone fuss over her.
But she has to laugh at Valeria's suggestion.

"I am never going to win until everyone else has already won. They gave me just three, Madame. But I am better than that. I can slit throats. I can use a knife if I want to.

[She doesn't though. Not really. Still, she stands straight and heads back to the sink for Valeria to rinse her off.]

It's been so long since she's been a part of this process, generally leaving the prep work to, well, the prep team, and Valeria found she rather enjoyed it. Of course, it's been also a rather long time since she's had a real conversation, and this may be technically work-related but it does remind her of how much she enjoys just chatting with people.

"Oh, never say never and all of that. We've had long shots win before, you know. Anna...something or other, from District 4, for example." She's not so good with names or faces, but even she remembers the spectacle of the girl who won by floating the longest."

She turned the water back on, letting it warm for a moment in a rare instance of thoughtfulness. "Really, if you can use a knife you're a step ahead of some, whatever your score."

Warm water is so lovely. Much nicer than the cold of before.

"My papa and the gang taught me long ago. Madame, it is about the only crime I have not committed. I don't want to be a murderer... Though I suppose it is better if the person I kill comes back to life? It is almost as if we pretend..."

"Yes, that's it exactly," Valeria nodded, rinsing the soap out briskly. "It's hardly real at all, and anyway, even before they were brought back nobody every held what happened in the Arena against the Victors. That would just be silly. It's like a whole other world, the same rules don't apply."

Eponine waited until Valeria let her stand up before answering again.

"Perhaps I will not be sent to prison or beheaded for murder... but it is still the same here."

She touched her chest. "It makes me feel bad. It would make me feel horrible towards the person I killed, you know? Madame, I don't have many friends - and I don't want to lose the ones I have if I kill, you know? It would be better if we all just refuse to kill, no? Then the games would end!"

"I don't think that's how it would work," said Valeria slowly, after a long moment. "The Gamemakers...well, for one thing, I'm sure they've chosen plenty of people who like to fight. And, well. The Games. The Games are important. We don't really want them to end."

"No... and it is what you want that matters, I see that." Eponine sighs.
"It will never work, Madame. But I do wish I could just stay here and not fight. I like it here. I like the food and the clothes and - houses. My BED!"

"You'll just have to win then," she said simply, turning the girl around and attempting to comb the worst of the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. "I'd certainly appreciate the effort."

"Next arena, I'll try for you, Madame." Eponine promised, rashly. But Valeria was one of the few women she had spoken to here - and the woman was trying to do her best by Eponine. It was right, really, that Eponine tried to give back to her in turn.

For now, she tried not to wince as Valeria combed her hair.

"Good!" said Valeria, feeling strangely pleased by the sentiment. She got the worst of the tangles out then tied it into a loose ponytail with a tie from her own hair. "That'll have to do for now. Can't do much without a comb, or while it's wet, and I don't trust these hand dryers not ruin all the progress we've made."

She turned the girl back around and fussed with her bangs for a moment. "Well," she said absently, "This certainly killed some time at least."

"Do you think they'll keep us here long? I don't understand really, why we're here anyway. Are we in trouble? Are we going to jail?" Eponine watched Valeria closely to make certain that she wasn't going to lie or sugar coat the situation. Eponine preferred to know EXACTLY how much trouble she was in before she ran as far from it as possible.

Boom boom boom

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)