thecapitol | I've Got the Darkness, Baby [Open]

Entry tags:

I've Got the Darkness, Baby [Open]

Who| Eva, open
What| The 9th District Mentor hits the town.
Where| Throughout the Capitol
When| After the most recent death announcements
Warnings| Baron Bartlett in one of the subthreads, and everything he entails.

Only one Tribute down from her District: the blonde man, she hasn't met him yet. Some Mentors would take this as a positive sign, but Eva finds it hard to feel very enthused by this. At the very best, she's still going to lose two more before this awful Arena's over.

She'd like to throttle whomever decided that a giant ice rink was a good idea. Back in her day, they were in a canyon. The resources were, of course, at the bottom, which only encouraged the people who took higher ground - like her - to pick people off faster. An entertainingly bloody bonanza of falling bodies and flying arrows, and most importantly, it was quick.

To get away from the images of people huddled up in indistinguishable, shivering balls, Eva goes out for the evening. If anyone asks, she'll claim boredom with the proceedings. She visits a the Training Center, then a restaurant and the performing arts district. All the while she taps her lower lip thoughtfully, as if considering something complex and far-off that requires some metronomic habit to keep straight.

[OOC: Come meet her at one of the subthreads below or just run into her in the street.]

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"Eva Salazar."

She stands up, puts the rest of her roll down on the table, and shakes, looking him over. He's so much older than the tributes were when she played, but that's typical here - one of the benefits of the conversion to using foreigners is that they no longer use children. It's only nauseatingly abominable now, instead of soul-chillingly.

"I'm your Mentor. I'm sorry I haven't been around. I'd like to say it was for a good reason and I've netted you plenty of Sponsors, but that would be dishonest. I've simply been out of commission."

She bites the tip of your tongue. "They must have stacked the deck pretty hard against you, that a strong young man like yourself only lasted this long."

"Oh! Well, it's nice to meet you. And um, thank you, I guess." It's not like he really wanted to play this game, but in all honesty, he couldn't even defend himself when it came down to it. Him, or his friends. That's a damn shame, and he knows it.

"Gotta say, wasn't expecting more magic. Those little girls really pack a punch." Hell, she killed Bruce. He didn't even think that was possible... the Hulk is impossible to even dent, even by magic or what have you. "Are you going to advise me on how to play better, ma'am?"

He'll have to cut that conversation short.

"A pleasure." Her smile is genuine, but sad. She would prefer different circumstances than these anytime.

"Not necessarily. Since it seems like your survival is pretty guaranteed these days, I don't like to think of it so much as about winning as about navigating the aftermath." She sits back down and picks at her lips with her fingernails, then stops and tears more bits off the bread again. "You weren't drop straight in, were you?"

"No," he says, and he's glad that she's not trying to advise him to win. He's more relieved from hearing that than from anything else anyone's said to him since he's gotten here.

"But what do you mean, navigating the aftermath?" Isn't this the aftermath?

"Well, unless you decide to hide in the training center the entire time you're here - and that's a perfectly valid decision - you'll have to adjust to the Capitol. Schmooze a little. Keep your seething resentment under wraps in front of the right people."

It's not a matter of keeping them happy for their sake, but Eva's invested in keeping her Tributes out of too much trouble. Besides, she'll want to divert any Sponsors who want to put a bid on a strapping young blond lad.

"People are going to want things from you, and it's my job to make sure they don't get much more than what you're willing to give." She pats the seat next to her. "You can sit down. I don't bite."

He does so, and it... well, it at least seems like she has his best interests at heart, like she knows exactly what's happening. He doesn't know if he wants to trust her, but so far she's been the only one with any sort of helpful advice.

"Don't they already get what they want from me for the games? I can't lie to anyone... I don't enjoy the situation. I don't see how anyone could." He can't bring himself to do any of the schmoozing. But he doesn't know exactly what she means what they want out of him... more than what he's willing to give? He's already unwilling to give himself up for these stupid games.

"Some do." She doesn't feel the need to elaborate any further on her feelings of bloodthirstiness, and it seems like Steve's can be gleaned fairly easily. "You're something of a celebrity here. Just because you don't see the film later doesn't mean you aren't always on camera."

She runs a hand through her hair. Secretly, she does this because she suspects they slip cameras into her locks, little robots the size of dandruff. These suspicions have never been confirmed, but she has them anyway.

"You'll spend half your time here and half your time in the arena. And they'll make demands of you here, and you need to be careful about saying no, because...people here don't like to be told no. Part of what I do is keep them from making those demands in the first place." She knows that's frustratingly vague, but it's taboo to talk about much of what goes on behind the scenes. "As far as anyone's concerned, the Capitol owns you, body and soul. It's not like a job where you go in, do your arena and go home at the end."

Edited 2013-02-01 05:16 (UTC)

His lips purse, and he's obviously not pleased with this. One of the things he cares the most about is his freedom. He knows that it could be worse-- even back on Earth, there were worse things than playing fake gladiator, trying to schmooze up to the people who "owned" you... But he can't think of this positively.

"What's your plan?" he asks, assuming she has one detailed and laid out. He'll take her advice. She seems like she knows what she's doing.

"Well, first it's getting to know you all. I haven't met my Tributes yet. And then it's finding an angle to make you all seem likable but untouchable and aloof, and beating anyone who looks at you funny off with a stick."

She's being facetious, but there's an undercurrent of violence there. She is willing to go further than is appropriate to protect her Tributes.

"Think of it as a marketer who doesn't really want to sell her product. Not that you're products, obviously, but that's how they think of you here."

"Yeah, good enough to keep but not nice enough to covet. I got it." It's alright, he definitely doesn't want all that stuff she alluded to happening. He'll talk to the others about it, in case their mentors aren't quite as... nice.

"What started these games?" he asks, kind of out of the blue, but he figures she might know.

"A war. What ever starts anything? Although it was more of a disaster, really, that turned into war as the existing governments dissolved." She fiddles with a dangling lock of her hair and seems to focus on some part of the wall. "To keep the Districts in line, the Capitol harvested two citizens from them each year to compete in the Games. And then when people got bored of that, they started harvesting foreigners instead."

"And this has been going on for almost a century?" he asks. It's appalling. He thought he was disappointed with what happened after World War II-- he thought he was disappointed that, after being gone for so long, he woke up and the world was still at war. He guesses this was Panem's answer to that-- no more war, just public executions.

It's sick, and it's not a solution. He's heard stories, about how people outside the capitol live. He tries not to think "this could be worse" anymore.

"It's..." Eva bites her lip and folds her mouth a bit, as if about to say something she'd rather swallow. "It's managed to prevent an uprising so far. If you think purely of efficiency, it's a fantastic system."

She wrings one hand through the other.

"Killing innocent kids might be efficient, but..." He shakes his head. "Can I get you something to drink?" he asks, since he doesn't want to make this uncomfortable, and it seems to be going there for both of them.

"Anything stronger than water would be good." She rolls her eyes as if joking at herself. "And yes. Everyone with a soul who watches the Games has the same arguments in their heads. No one's come to a decent conclusion yet."

"So they just keep going until they can decide," he replies. And then he gestures to excuse himself to go get her that drink.

He comes back with two glasses, remembering that his metabolism has gone back to normal again.

"Oh, bless you. Thank you." She takes the drink and takes a sip. "But yes, there is a sense of...inertia, here. There's so much momentum in keeping things the way they are that no one in their right mind would try to dismantle it all. The stakes for treason are very, very high."

"Oh?" he asks. He's curious now. "What are they?" Because he's heard a bunch of things but they seemed like rumors, scare tactics. And no, he shouldn't blindly put his trust in Eva, but she's the best lifeline he's got at the moment.

"Your typical dictatorial fare. Disproportionate responses, to make an impression how important this all is." Her sarcasm is conveyed less through her tone than the deadpan expression on her face. Anyone could be listening in. "My son rebelled and they decided they'd ruin my life instead. That sort of thing."

Granted, they ruined it by taking him away. But Eva can't say that out loud or show that she misses a traitor to the cause.

"They put you in the games because of your son?" He asks. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened to him?" She seems to talk about him with anger, or frustration, but no sadness, so he takes that as a good sign that he, at least, isn't dead.

"Oh, no, I was in the arena when he was an infant. Young mother, honestly. I'm not ashamed." There's something detached in her voice, though she stares Steve in the eyes. "He's gone now. He was stupid enough to challenge the system and they took him away, and put me through all sorts of hell in his absence. If I wanted a family, I got a rebel instead. Lucky me."

He frowns, because freedom is a basic right and this is all sorts of bullshit. She should be punished for his "crimes" and he shouldn't be punished for not wanting people to aimlessly kill each other. "I'm sorry, and I... I appreciate your help," he says, because it's hard being wronged and wanting to teach people so they don't meet the same fate.

Eva shrugs. "It's in the past now. Anyway. Let my misfortune serve as a warning to you." She mouths 'watch your back' and flicks her eye to the corner of the room.

Very carefully and slowly, he backs away to go get them some refreshments so he can see who exactly he's supposed to look out for, and of course, they definitely need a refill on those drinks.

There's nothing, at least, nothing evident. But Eva wants to let her Tributes know that there's always the chance they're being watched. She can express displeasure, frustration - but not a shred of resistance. That would get her killed, or worse, get her Tributes killed as punishment for her own impudence.

So she takes another drink and thanks him for it. "So, Steve, tell me about yourself, aside from your upstanding moral values."

Re: Training Center

pursuitofcappiness - 2013-02-24 00:52 (UTC) - Expand

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