But that place on memory lane you liked still looks the same

[on_fire]

Who| Katniss and OPEN
What| Katniss returns to the Capitol
Where| Various locals, see tags
When| After the end of the last arena. Prompts spread across a few days.
Warnings/Notes| Feel free to double take any prompt if someone snagged it but you really like it.



ARRIVING

It was a strange feeling to not want to be in a place, but also, to want very much to be there.

She didn't want to be in the Capitol for the Capitol, of course. But for the people here, and the possibility she had been turning over to actually change something. Many talks with Gale, her mother, even Prim had prepped her to be ready for this chance to jump at coming back. To put on her game face and do what needed done.

Hopefully she could do something about it.

That didn't make it any harder to leave her family though. Nor, any easier to come back and find loved ones still absent. Nothing could really make that any easier. She had been hoping, with the lack of information she'd gotten that maybe, somehow...but this was the only place she could help them. If she could.

So that was how Katniss Everdeen returned to the Capitol in some strange version of good spirits. Not the kind the Capitol read or wanted, but her own kind.

Walking back into the Tribute center was a strange experience, feeling like something was wrong in a place she never wanted to feel right in the first time. She knew she looked like a deer in the headlights, standing in the middle of the commons area blocking traffic and trying to take it all in, but it was a lot. Old faces and new faces, and even with her new resolve, it didn't make anything about this situation alright.

Just bearable.

OUT AND ABOUT

One thing she hadn't expected getting back here was the need to run chores.

But that's exactly what she was doing. Picking up things that had been ordered for her, grabbing things she wanted. It was strange how quickly you found things you needed here that you would have never even thought of owning at home.

Katniss knew she could simply request someone, likely and avox, to do it, but that had never sat well with her. And now she was wanting to see the Capitol through her new lens, and see if there was anything she had seen and not seen before. She wasn't hopeful, but she had had enough of Gale telling her there must be things right under her nose to not at least look. He had pointed out enough solid examples of things she'd over looked that any self righteous doubt had been smothered.

However, looking deep into windows for the smallest symbol, for the deeper meaning in anything, she was looking less at the people in front of her.

"Oh, geeze, sorry," She muttered for what felt like the hundredth time and she accidentally caught someones heel under her foot, knowing what an asshole she must look like right now, wandering starry eyes down the avenues looking into jewelry stores and clothing boutiques.

A DEEP BREATH

This city was exhausting.

It wasn't exactly a revelation or anything, but she had forgotten how draining have constant sound, constant people around you could be. Right now she'd give about anything to be hunting with Gale, screw the revolution.

But she wasn't and wouldn't be anytime soon. And right now she needed a break.

Slipping between the crowd, she headed for the little piece of park she'd decided was about as close to home as she was going to get. As soon as she was reasonably in, she dropped the shopping she'd been carrying, and scrambled up the trunk, using the holds to get her self out. It would be nice if it was summer, and she could kick her shoes off and really climb, but instead she settled for a branch about 10 feet off the ground, letting her legs dangle down. Her mind wandered as she sought out the pine cones hanging around her, making a game of tossing them into the bags below her.

Hopefully nothing in there couldn't handle a pine cone or two.

TRAINING TIME

At least in the training center, Katniss felt on her own ground.

Mostly she was there to help her Tributes (or really, any of them) but she had already been dumped unexpectedly into one arena. She wasn't going to let that catch her unexpected again. Fresh back from the District, she wasn't too worried, but last time she'd gotten lazy and paid for it.

There were new weapons now, strange ones, and she looked them over, lifting them to feel their weight in her hands, before setting them back down one by one. It'd be worth while to learn those, too. Really, she just wanted to get a hold of everything she could.

Right now, though, she wanted to form some bonds, old and new. Idly lifting an arrow and testing it's weight, she looked around for others too approach. Tributes to train, or tributes to learn from.

DOWN TIME

It had been a rough few days, but Katniss was starting to back on her feet.

Grabbing one of the bags of shopping from her room, she went out to the living room to sort through it. Finding a comfortable little corner, she curled into it, setting the bag in her lap, and reaching in to sort through it.

The first thing her fingertips found was something hard and rough. Wrinkling her nose, she pulled it out, holding up a neat little pine cone.

"The hell..."

It took a moment to remember her game in the tree.

Comments

o hai!

[milieus]

Jennifer hadn't been informed ahead of time of Katniss' arrival, but she was pleased to see her nonetheless. When she spotted the young Victor in the foyer of the Tribute Center, she called out to her, smiling brightly.

"Hello! Katniss? Katniss Everdeen? Oh, it is you!" She waltzed over to her, a dazzling grin on her painted lips. "I had no idea you were returning to the Capitol! How wonderful!"

Re: o hai!

[on_fire]

Did she know this woman?

Katniss racked her brain, entierly uncertain for sure. Her face looked very, very familiar but around the Capitol that didn't mean much. Some one Effie had introduced her too, or someone inportant she'd never really pinned down the identity of. One of the many faces she's absorbed through her life. She was certain though this woman was not a tribute, even a weirdly polished one. It was someone she felt like she'd seen a long time before all this happened. On screen in some past game.

But that still didn't mean she knew exactly who she was. It just meant she'd probably be in a bad place if she admitted that.

"Uh...hi. Yeah, I'm back." She put on her Capitol snile, lifting her hand in greeting.

[bravelyplucked]

Katniss is not the only Mentor in the training center today. Torin's down there too, though he's focused more on the swords than any of the other weapons. He's going through them, testing them out. Two things are immediately clear from the way he's handling them: he knows what he's doing, and his right arm doesn't quite have a full range of motion. He spots Katniss, and he gives her a smile and a nod. It's a polite enough greeting, but it leaves her the option of continuing to inspect those weapons and not have to have a conversation. Torin's reserved enough to appreciate that option when it's given to him, after all.

[on_fire]

Well, there was something she'd certainly never used much in her life. There weren't a lot of swords laying around District 12

And someone who both seemed to know how to use them, and didn't seem like they'd use them on her if she approached. Setting down her arrow, she walked closer, smiling. His face was familiar, Katniss could remember bits of his game, and so at least she knew she was on similar ground.

"Hi. You've used these before?" She said with a nod to array of swords laid out between them.

training!

[aintyourdad]

Joel has been pretty much keeping to his room since Ellie disappeared. Almost the only person capable of getting him out is Tess, and she can't be there all the time. For the best, really.

But even he gets a bit of cabin fever, and after this last arena, he's feeling particularly twitchy. Paranoid. It was especially bad, and the best way to blow off steam without getting into trouble here is to go down to the gym and beat up a training dummy.

With a knife.

So that's basically what he's doing. Usually he eschews "training" because it's just - not something he does. What's the point of beating up a dummy that can't think for itself, can't do anything unpredictable? But right now he's not really doing it for any reason other than to take the edge off his paranoia, to feel like he has some kind of control over this situation, and maybe - maybe - try to pretend that Ellie didn't get taken away from him.

omg buddy

[on_fire]

The motions of the man, the desperation in those movements, kept Katniss still for a moment, watching him. You'd have to be blind to see there was something under the surface there, and not very deep.

Katniss was willing to bet the whole Capitol knew ever detail, too. She'd be beating the shit out of mannequins down here too.

"If you go to the ones at the end, they fight back. A little more satisfying. " She shrugged. "Distracting."

a deep breath

[ka_sera_sera]

He doesn't spend much time in any of the parks in this city. The shops and restaurants and perpetual festivals may be as hollow and greedy as the rest of this place but at least they don't pretend otherwise. Still, at least the parks have trees. Grass.

Pine cones.

He catches one, peers up at the legs dangling from the branch and at the rest of the person overtop them. "Collecting these?" he asks, and tosses the one in his hand back at her. "Thought pine cones went out of fashion last week." Feel free to guess whether that was a joke. His expression certainly isn't giving it away, though his outfit might; plain, nearly shapeless, as close to having no real color as he can get. Anti-fashion.

[on_fire]

"I'm bringing them back." Katniss, who had learned the hard way at a party that anti-fashion actually was a style in the Capitol, wasn't making any guesses about that. But she smiled down at the older man from between her shoes.

"I can spare a few if you want to get on the front wave." She was going to ad a comment about 'anything Katniss Everdeen wear would go big, but she doesn't know if this person would take that sincerely, and that would be a damn shame.

out and about; apologies for the tl;dr jesus I didn't expect it to get that long

[crabmunicator]

A day or so had passed since the end of the arena, and Karkat wasn't sure how to feel about it. He'd made it to the end, inasmuch as "rocks fall, everyone dies" could be called such, and he doesn't know how well it will help him in the long run. Something without such a sudden finale would have shown more finely how well he could survive, but he knows just as well he never would have won. What life he gained felt ill-earned in the end, snatched from the hands of those who died for him or helped him without gain. He didn't deserve it, he felt, but he kept going to not dishonor them.

He'd heard by now, too, that his ancestor won, but he had yet to speak with him about it. He didn't know what to think of it.

Instead, he found himself wandering. The Capitol gave fresh air and a place to stretch his legs, without the heavy atmosphere of the training center to remind him why he was here. Every step served to remind him that he was whole again: unburned, unbruised, uncrushed. With regular meals and a hot shower whenever he desired, it was hard to feel half as awful as he had even by the end of the first week. Even his avoidance of sleep did little to bring him down with so little time passed; he hadn't yet had the chance to build up the look of exhaustion he had in the arena.

Still, there were Capitolites to contend with. What residual fame Karkat might have held from his past self was now renewed or swept away in the light of new after his first real experience - the former mini-arena notwithstanding. More than once he'd been stopped on the street, or gawked at, or fawned over at a stoplight before he could move on. It felt depersonalizing, like he was some animal for them to coo at and beg for tricks - or autographs, as some had wanted.

So when someone stepped on the back of his shoe, it took all his control to force down the explosion he wanted to let loose as he turned to face when he expected to be another fan--

Except, now that he looked, this girl looked too plain for that. Maybe if he'd done his research he would have recognized the face of Katniss Everdeen, but she was as good as a stranger to him. And for all he knew, she might have meant that apology - the step an accident, rather than an excuse for his attention.

"Please tell me you're not going to beg me to sign something," he said, looking at her from uncertain yellow eyes. With his distinctly alien features, he had to stand out as a Tribute before anything else.

[on_fire]

"Why would I?"

It was a weird question coming from the other. True, they hadn't in anyway been best friends, but she was pretty solidly sure the other knew her. Just a little.

Unless this was something weird about those stories people wrote, in which case tis conversation was about to go very badly.

It took a moment for her to process everything going on. Her own recognition, his lack of it, with the way all this worked...then it clicked. This wasn't the Karkat she had known. But it was, also. The thought was one of those that were so strange, her brain didn't really want to deal with it. But for now it had gotten her the information she needed.

"Ah, sorry. No." Did he know? He had to know. How could he get around here with not?

Deep breath

[smarterthanthem]

Pine cones, dropping from underneath tree branches and straight into a number of shopping bags placed underneath them.

It's definitely one of the stranger sights that Clementine's ever been treated to and one she can't help but be drawn to investigate. She comes into sight wrapped in a pink coat against the cold and peering up under the canopy, her eyes squinting to see the teenage girl up in the branches above her.

She wisely stays a safe distance from where the pine cones are being launched.

"What are you doing?"

[on_fire]

"Hunting."

Katniss smirks at her own joke, before looking down at the younger girl, smile still on her face. There's a small sink in her heart as she looks down into her face. Here, perched in the tree, of course Rue comes to mind instantly.

But the smile doesn't fade. Memories of Rue are sad, but now she has grown to treasure them when they come. Plus it didn't seem fair to hang that all on this girl.

"Just thinking. Getting away from all of that for a minute." She cocks her head towards the way Clementine had come.

Out and About!

[medecin]

Joly had taken advantage of some down time to wander around the capitol, not quite certain what he was missing until he got into a shop and had a look at some of the displays. Today, he was coming back to the tower with a new cream that promised to "relax" his hair, and a few things for manicuring his nails, and seemed to be lost in thought, right until he managed to get under the feet of the mentor he'd not seen in ages and who he was not certain that he'd actually met.

"Please, no worries." Joly told her, smiling. "I ought have looked where I was going. I do not believe we've met before, in person, but I am one of your tributes, Miss." He winced as 'Mademoiselle' got shifted from French yet again, then offered her a hand. "Joly, and obviously I fight for District 12. A pleasure to actually meet you first hand."

[on_fire]

It took a moment for his face to click, and then she flushed with shame. She should be on top of this. More so, for sure, than out shopping. This was what she was here to do.

"Ah, hi. Sorry. I'm Katniss." She shifted bags, taking his hand to shake it. "I'm so glad to meet you! I'm sorry about...not being around."

This was a conversation she knew she owed multiple people, and this seemed a good place to start. Although she knew it wasn't her fault, and hopefully they did as well, she still felt they they had gotten shafted.

Arriving~ Sorry I was late!

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy didn't like to spend alot of time in the tribute tower commons anymore unless she was people watching. Too many people could get into the common area and hound her for questions and she had more then her share of attention. Enough to last a few lifetimes really.

She would get back to what she had titled "The Effie things" in another couple days. Parties and meeting people and looking cute and trying to make people like her.

Today however she is being a child. She doesn't have much in the way of savings since her last arena ended without a single kill and on the first day...but she's gotten enough that she is carrying two shopping bags full of assorted candies.

She was planning on pouring them out on the bed and laying on them. Maybe make a candy angel or something.

Then she saw a ghost...a face she had been missing. It couldn't really be her could it? She was gone just like Effie just like...everyone who left eventually.

But she drew closer almost in a trance.

"K...Katniss?"

[on_fire]

She twisted at the sound of her name, heart catching, before her face lit up.

"Sandy!"

Of her Tributes, Sandy and Pruna had been the ones she had worried most about while home. Seeing their names on the rooster was good, but seeing Sandy, in the flesh, was even better. She strode forward, wrapping and arm around the girl's shoulder and squeezing her tight.

"Lunch?" She asked with a barely contained laugh and arched brow.

Down Time

[arrogantalloy]

Tony comes out just as Katniss holds up the pine cone and queries it's existence. He glances at her and the cone both in their little corner as he walks past, but says nothing until he gets to the bar were he starts working on making himself another fruit-based Martini, which considering he's in one of his suits today looks pretty fitting.

Sure he had promised Steve that he would be more careful about drinking, but this last arena had been a hard one for him and he wasn't about to ask anyone for help staying on the right path. It's pretty much why he's making something instead of just wandering off with a bottle of scotch.

Once he starts shaking the mixture he turns his eyes back to the girl.

"Where I come from, kids stick googly eyes and glitter on them and call it education." He pauses. "Well, it's probably more institutionalised babysitting at that age."

He stops the shaking then starts to pour the appletini into a glass.

[on_fire]

"How is that educational?" Katniss' nose wrinkled up at Tony, before the second part kicked in. That was exactly what he was saying, actually. She looked at the pine cone, scowling softly.

"Maybe education in 12 wasn't that bad." Looking over at Tony, she watched to see how that would go over. Hopefully not too bad. She was trying to win these guys over, work with them.

"What the hell are googly eyes?"

Arriving (Or in some other state of transit)

[wizardplease]

You've got to take an elevator if you want to get around the Tribute center. It's inevitable. That's what Haruto's doing, finishing a trip to the fifth floor and ready to head back up to the eleventh. The doors slide open and in steps a young man with bags under his eyes and dressed in a look that's on the borderline of fashionably rumpled and just plain sloppy. He's staring off into the middle distance, lost in thought and looking no small amount unhappy. That is, until he sets eyes on Katniss. There's someone in there with him.

And then it's like a switch has been flicked. He lifts his head, his eyes widen, and he smiles. "Hey." Because while Haruto Soma may feel lost and wretched, he has absolutely no intention of letting anyone else know this. The show must go on. That easy smile remains on his face as he settles back against the side of the elevator, and the doors swish shut behind him. "...you new?" He immediately regrets the question after having asked it, though. Because she looks familiar, somehow. "I mean, I don't think I've seen you around, but... aah..." Then he laughs and rubs at the back of his neck. He's making a real mess of this, isn't he....

[on_fire]

It is a brief flicker, but Katniss sees it. Before it's hidden away. Far better than she can manage, but she's seen it on enough others that she recognizes it, even in that brief little flash.

She smiled in the moment of anonymity, because now a days they are very rare. Though at least since she's left, some of the Capitol's excitement seems to have waned. Too much else going on for them.

"I was a mentor who was sent home for a bit." She extends her hand, smile soft. Maybe she won't be this persons friend, but if she piles on some kind of fake, smarmy sympathy for what she saw, it wasn't going to do him any favors. "Katniss Everdeen."

Deep Breath

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam's dressed simply that day - not that he isn't almost always, by Capitol standards - but he didn't bother to change out of his training clothes, since technically he's still training. The training center in the tower is fantastic, yeah, but it can still be claustrophobic to someone used to running outside.

He's nearly done with his run for the day when something drops out of a tree up ahead, followed a bit later by another something.

Pinecones, he realizes as he passes, and he slows to circle back around, looking up into the tree.

"Ten points," he comments with a little grin.

[on_fire]

"Is the little bag 20? I think I can make it."

Laughing and curling her shoulders down, she smiled down at the man. Being here, where it was peaceful, and seeing someone she felt fairly sure was another Tribute, she could already feel the tension slipping away.

She takes a nice sized pine cone, taking careful aim, and dropping it into the bag. The pine cone was a bit big, and the bag crumpled under it's weight, but she made it.

"I'm on a roll."

deep breath (I hope this isn't too late!)

[a_minute_younger]

The abandoned bags catch Gary's attention first. Natural curiosity draws him in; he can't tell what's inside or if he should take it, but that's why he wants to investigate. Save him a trip later, he thinks. It's the trip he was already taking before detouring into the park to begin with.

Then, about halfway to the base of the tree, he sees a pine cone drop into one of the bags. Is that what they're full of? No, no, not the right question to be asking here. Gary looks up. Well he doesn't recognize the girl sitting in the branches, but he does know that he wants to climb up there with her. The activity of climbing trees is already something that appeals to him, and besides, that looks like a fun game she's invented! Gary likes games. He is going to figure out how this one works.

A few moments later, the teen has taken a wide path around the pine and is shuffling his way up the trunk. He pauses at the branch where Katniss is hanging. "Just passing through," Gary grins at her and offers a small wave before he continues his ascent. The next branch is slightly above her, and that's where he's aiming for. Because he can.

Not at all! I am the back tag queen.

[on_fire]

Katniss wasn't exactly expecting company up here, and it catches her off guard, a laugh slipping out, as she turns to watch the boy clamber up to the branch above her. Shifting so she can face him without losing her balance, she straddles the branch and leans back to take the other in.

"Hi." She said, when he had finally settled in, before plucking a pine cone off the branch and passing it up. Because apparently she had another players on her team.

Deep breath

[carnagecarnival]

The Initiate liked to craft with bones. The material was familiar, enjoyable to work with, and always being at of meaning, in his eyes. But finding bones in the Capitol meant getting creative. It meant hard work a plenty of trying to catch squeakbeasts, chirpbeasts, and all them chittering little motherfucks, without the use of no weapon more than claws. Not impossible, but tricky.

The first step was easy enough though. Simply head on the fuck out, get a search on in places what as beasts would be being to stay.

He doesn't usually have company. His brow lifts and he makes on approach.

"You getting some sort of collection up and on?" He asks, well before he's even seen who it is.

[on_fire]

"Just trying to waste sometime."

This was a face Katniss knew. Or at least, hoped she did. She wasn't sure how she felt about the idea that even those she knew now, she didn't necessarily know.

Leaning forward, she let herself drop down enough so he could see her face as well.

down time?

[carsassian]

Word had certainly gotten round that she was back, but that didn't stop Garak from doing a double (or in fact a triple) take as he watched her from the hall leading to the private rooms of Twelve's suite. She was, he decided after a moment of close inspection, less impressive than the newsreels had led him to believe. That meant a number of things, but first and foremost that there were a select number of people in the Capitol who were competent at their jobs.

With quick, efficient, vaguely serpentine movements, he made the brief trek to the kitchen. There, he rummaged around momentarily before returning to the sitting area with two cups, both filled to the brim with strong, dark coffee. He set them both down by way of greeting, one clearly intended for the mentor. He made no attempt at all to disguise his study of her.

"Well, they did tell me you were an odd one." He took a sip from his own mug, continuing to eye her watchfully over the rim. If the heat from the liquid bothered him at all, he didn't let on. Instead, there was something bemusing in his expression. "I have to tell you, my dear, they may have been right."

[on_fire]

Although she has gotten use to humans looking...less than humans, and strange non-humans here, Garak still takes her a second to process. When she realizes the reaction to his alien nature is painted clear as day on her face, she tries to hide it, quickly, but know that she has meet her new tribute for less than 30 seconds and already looked like an asshole.

Twice, if you count the pine cone in her hand.

And here he was, bringing her coffee. She picked it up with a pink tinged nodded of thanks, wrapping her fingers around it's warmth. Sugar would have to be added shortly, she certainly wasn't going to ask for it right now.

"That's me." She said, pressing her lips together, before letting out a huff. "Sorry. You must be...Garak, yeah?"

out and about

[parenthetically]

Buddy winced, both at the fury of the crowds bustling through the Capitol on a busy day and at the sudden pain of someone's foot crushing abruptly down onto the leather toe of his conservative black oxfords. He glanced up from the novel he'd been eying distractedly as he made his way through the rush of humanity, mumbling a quick response without really looking up at his assailant. At least the girl had had enough manners to bother apologizing. That was really something, given where they were and the time of day.

It wasn't until she was a few steps (and walls of people) away that Buddy bothered to let himself recognize her. Briefly, he contemplated letting the moment pass, but professional obligation quickly caught up. Easily bullied as he was by figures of his own imagination as much as any of real flesh and blood, he found himself tucking his book away into a pocket of his (equally conservative) black briefcase. He hastened to catch up with her, being significantly less polite than she had in shoving the dozens of souls milling between them out of his way. "Miss Everdeen-- A word?"

[on_fire]

At the sound of his voice, she tensed up. No one calling out to her, especially with that, was ever a good thing.

Turning, she peered through the crowd, realizing it was the man who's foot she had just smashed.

Good, good, this kept getting better.

"Yes?"

She put on her best 'I'm Katniss Everdeen, don't you love me?' smile, hoping it got her somewhere.