thecapitol | All the time I'm told, stay away from the Devil

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All the time I'm told, stay away from the Devil

WHO| Wesker and You! You lucky thing, you.
WHAT| Some Capitol function or another. (Really, do they need a reason to party?)
WHERE| Let's say a private residence, for funsies.
WHEN| Uh, now-ish? Nowish, sounds good.
Notes/Warnings| Step right up for your daily dose of dickishness, doctor's orders.

With the dust of another mini-arena finally settled, Wesker's attention had shifted to preparation of the next - full - match. While it mattered little to him personally, the effort was expected of his position.

Rallying for his tributes, the hope of the glorious spotlight of the Capitol shining upon his district once more, the glamor, the fanfare, the adoration....

It was tedious, yes, but it was a fine cover for his more liberal minded intentions, and while the recent Celebrus interview did seem to be going over well, he knew maintenance was a necessity.

Hearts and minds, as they said. (Equal parts fear and respect.)

So when his escort wrangled an invitation to an event being put on by one the city's string-pullers, Wesker deigned to spare a few hours of his time.

(The ends, would justify the means.)

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Tom appears at every shi-shi function he can manage. It's a menu that's greatly opened to him since receiving his Tribute curfew pass. Every night he hasn't spent with Molotov has been passed rubbing elbows with the upper crust, making connections that he's certain will pay off in the next Arena. He makes sure to seek out the few people who did support him in the first round and make them feel appreciated, too.

Tonight, given that he's exhausted the list of people who paid attention to him when he was fresh in the Arena, he's mingling with new persons. Dressed in a long, dark coat with a flared collar that reveals burgundy satin beneath, he's stepping easily into the shoes of a debonair villain. It's a role his Stylists have set for him that he's all too happy to fulfill. He takes a seat in one of the plush chairs in the lobby of the ballroom and finds himself sitting across from a face he knows from magazines and Games footage but not from actual conversation.

"Mr. Albert Wesker, I'm told?" He relaxes into the chair and rests his cane over his knees.

It was like a funny optical illusion, the two of them seated across from one another. Or a pointed art instillation.

So similar they were, and yet so different.

A pair of killers, like dark stains against the glitter of the ballroom. A Victor against a Tribute, black against gold.

It both grated, and yet appealed. (Wesker had always enjoyed a fine piece of composition.)

"Mr. Cassidy." His head turned, attention apparently fixing despite the uncertainty of his dark lenses. "I presume."

Mandus was not a stranger to this sort of event, although it had been a while since he last attended. In the beginning of the party, he was flooded with familiar faces, with old friends and acquaintances, each anxious to hear about his absence and his new, revitalized hold on his company. But as the party went on, the crowd thinned. The people who spoke with Mandus, they saw a new mania in his eyes that wasn't there before. They heard something in his voice that didn't sound quite right.

Mandus frowned into his wine, gritting his teeth back and forth. He was not surprised to be surrounded blithering idiots, but a small part of him hoped that one of them -- just one of them -- would understand.

You take yourself too seriously, Oswald darling, was what Dr. Florbelle had said to him. You might unsettle the Tributes if you keep it up.

He scoffed, his fingers tight around the wine glass.

Thorongil was not yet used to being dressed up and shipped to parties. Very little could be worse than the crowning, of course, when he'd been stripped nearly naked and placed in chains, but it was hours spent doing something he did not wish to do.

His bruises from his journey into the sewers were all but healed; only a yellowish tinge to the skin of one wrist gave his beating away. Anything else was covered up by the stiff and uncomfortable suit he'd been buttoned into. His hair was tied back, and it looked like some stylist had at least made an effort to clean him up. He was clean, of course, but there was little to be done about his weathered face, the scars, the roughness in his features.

Right now, he was sniffing a drink dubiously. Some kind of strong spirit, he knew, but there were fruit juices in it, and sugar, and other things he didn't recognize. He had not drunk from it yet.

"Aye."

For as much as Tom is a stranger to this world, to this culture, for as much as he's a prisoner trapped within the spectator's bloodsport, this here is his element. Sitting across from people whom he doesn't have to affect any morality for, people as soulless as he is. Pretense flakes away like dead skin or old leaves.

An Avox brings them both wine. Tom sniffs it before he takes a sip.

"Have you been enjoying yourself?"

Wesker had heard, of course. Even if he hadn't been privy to the movements of the peacekeepers, the man was his tribute and all of their - dalliances - eventually became his business (whether he cared or not).

In the case of Thorongil, Wesker was still deciding the value of the information.

Still weighing his options.

He regarded the man silently for some time, watching him sidelong as an over-eager sponsor prattled on, then, finally, when an opening presented itself, drifted over.

(It was so hard these days to judge the usefulness of a tool simply by sight.)

"If they wanted you dead, you would be," he murmured lowly, sipping from his own glass of dark, red wine.

Nearby, Wesker's mouth twitched, the sharp edge of a smirk that had nothing to do with the eager, hopefully tittering of the woman beside him. Behind the dark lenses of his glasses, his eyes moved, slipping over faces to land on Mandus'.

He waited to be met, confident in the powerful weight of his stare.

Wesker swirls his idly, a wave of red lapping in lazy circles as he watches Tom from behind his shades.

"I miss many things from my world," he replied, pale thumb stroking across the rounded bottom of his glass, long fingers curling around the stem. "This is not necessarily one of them."

"I do not think they would poison me yet," says Thorongil, glancing at the other man. "After all, I have yet to perform in the Arena."

He's still holding the glass like he doesn't trust it, though.

Mandus felt the eyes on him, eyes that were not marred by unease or feigned concern but instead unbridled confidence. It made him wary, the weight of those eyes. Even behind the shades.

"Mr. Wesker."

He turned to face him completely, his fingers loosening around the glass.

"It is an honor."

"I doubt they'd feel the need to resort to anything so subtle," Wesker replied, his voice as low and smooth as the gentle music around them. His mouth pulled while, behind them, a violin trilled. "Visual aids are only successful in so far that the audience knows what it's looking at."

Wesker head bowed, the golden light from the fine crystal chandelier above turning his pale, slicked hair into a tight halo.

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Mandus."

(He'd knew, of course. He'd read the official reports; had heard the gossip.)

"I had hoped we might meet."

"I imagine you have more important things to do. More important than worrying about your brood in the Arena."

Tom figures if Wesker's Tributes count for anything to the man, they're only there as decorations for an ego. Most villains are alike that way, and Tom doesn't think he's wrong in his hypothesis here.

There are some - a careful selection - that Wesker has interest in, but even that had less to do with their victory in the arena than learning what they were capable of, and what they could be persuaded into and how, outside of it.

"Perhaps if any of them could be helped..." his voice trailed away on a sigh, pushed wearily through his nose. "Most consider themselves far too noble and prefer to believe they're spiting the system. It's really nothing more than a waste of time and money."

"God." Tom rolls his eyes in a way that suggests he's been waiting to do that for hours now. He sinks a bit into his chair. "They're so simple-minded about it. As if protecting their precious egos from following orders is something that can be accomplished by footstamping and stubbornness."

Now that he's been excluded from the ranks of the other Tributes, he feels it almost paramount to separate himself from them in the eyes of everyone else. He isn't one of those petty, squabbling would-be rebels. He's just trying to get along within the system and is being crowded out by his less considerate peers.

"Say what you mean," Thorongil says, finding himself with no appetite for drink. "If they were to kill me they would make a show of it, is that it?"

"They would make an example of you," Wesker clarified mildly. "Behold, the might of the Capitol." He gestured with one gloved hand, a small, elegant movement toward the glittering ballroom around them. "Over those who got caught sticking their noses where they don't belong."

He gave no particular emphasis, his voice remained the same smooth unhurried purr -- a mentor, advising his tribute.

But there was a hint there. A clue.

A test.

Wesker's mouth twitched, a sharp slash in his pale face. His impressions, even distantly calculated, weren't often wrong, but it was still just as satisfying to find them proved correct.

(A monster would know a beast.)

"The repeated negative reinforcement of painful death does coax some of them to play along, but it's not a quick process." His wine swirled, another lazy lap around the glass. "And my patience for willful stupidity is rather limited."

"Did you?"

Mandus was as susceptible to flattery as any other man (any other pig) as much he hated to admit it. It filled his heart with a sort of delight, that this powerful, monstrous man had been hoping to meet him. He had read articles about Wesker, oh yes. He had heard about how his world had fallen to plague. He had seen the monster in his gullet, marveled at how its gaping throat so closely mirrored the red-tinged hallways of his dreams.

But ah, no one in this place was generous. Mandus must remember that.

"You're interested in my sponsorship, I presume." His mouth twitched with disappointment. "For your Tributes."

"You'd think they'd be more amenable to trying to move the system towards positive reinforcement, rather than taking on the herculean and fruitless task of dismantling it entirely." He shakes his head. "I'm probably just bitter about being cast out of their good graces."

Not that he actually sees that as a flaw in himself.

He takes a sip. "I've heard quite a few things about your victory. Choked out a teenager, did you?"

"If you're offering, I would be remiss in my duties to turn you away," Wesker replied easily. A Victor, a Mentor - by the very definition.

Then his mouth curled, and there was a flash of teeth.

"But I must admit, I have heard so much about the legend, I hoped to find the man its equal."

"Among other things."

No denial. No hesitation. Just a simple statement of truth. Of fact.

He had painted that arena red, and he had won.

"Though I'm sure some would say nothing as titillating as bombing a cafeteria full of children."

Tom sneers, baring incisor, canine. "It was as full of adults as it was children. From people's response, you'd think I bombed a daycare."

He might have hesitated had he realized what the demographic there was, but he wouldn't have stopped. In a death game, there are worse ways to die than by bomb. There's torture, there are accidents that leave people lingering in life and death. What's the point of keeping wee ones alive just so they can continue on in terror and slaughter each other?

Tom's excellent at rationalizing things to himself, at bending reality to fit neatly into the frame of his kneejerk beliefs.

Another twitch - a flash of teeth this time.

"I've found that the children often take the arena's lessons more quickly than their adult counterparts." He slanted Tom a sidelong look, two-toned eyes peeking from above his dark glasses. "Can they be such vicious sponges."

(He was thinking, as fondly as he did, of young Pruna.

That girl had *such* potential.)

"One of my greatest enemies recruits young people to do his bidding. He's lauded as a hero and mentor, though, when in reality he's just a terrorist with ideology." Tom shakes his head. "Regardless. People here have no sense of perspective."

It's posed as a challenge, as if he's daring Wesker to separate himself from the pack.

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All the time I'm told, stay away from the Devil

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