If you ever get to the place where the sun is shining everyday

[cigne]

Who| Swann and maybe you???
What| Gotta shape up these Tributes. And maybe have a drink.
Where| D8 Suites and also the bar in the lobby
When| TODAY

a. District 8 Suites
Swann enters the Suite with her heels clicking on the floor, peering around for any sign of life in here. She carries in her shopping bags, each labeled with the name of her Tributes. The bags overwhelm her tiny frame, the sheer amount of them and their size. Even her sky-high stilettos can't balance it all out.

She approaches the sitting room and carefully arranges the bags on the coffee table, placing them just so, very intent on the appearance. She wants everything to look just right when the Tributes come in, wants to see their eyes light up at how pretty the bags are, with their pristine edges and rich black shine and ribbons on the handles.

They have to show up first, though.

b. Lobby bar

All she needed was a single lemon drop martini, and she has it. Sitting on the high barstool, Swann looks out over the lobby, watching people come and go, watching the crowds ebb and flow as the Tributes enter and leave the building. It's interesting enough, made nicer by the drink, and the screens replay all the best scenes from the past Arena.

She occasionally fiddles with her communicators, checking emails and messages and the tabloids, making sure everything's in order while she dares to lounge for just a few moments.

Comments

[reallynow]

"That's new." Jolie quips before Swann can finish her sentence, but she falls silent when she starts to make her point. She nods agreeably, but there's still some level of skepticism in her expression.

"Sure we do. Most of 'em don't need whip cracking like the lazy schmucks down there, though." For the most part, District Eight was alright. Not great, but there were at least a few people she could clock as a potential winner without much guidance. Of course, that part was Samuel's and Swann's problem. Jolie's problems stop after the first week of the Arena when they start looking shabby.

"For all of us?" Even Jolie can't look a gift.. gift in the mouth. Her manicured fingers start to ghost over the objects curiously, a small smile on her lips as she looks back to Swann. "You know most of our tributes are grumpy, scruffy men. Right?"

[cigne]

Swann ignores the joke at her expense, and just keeps rummaging in the bag until she pulls out the decorated sugar cookie shaped like Eight's logo, which she waves at Jolie temptingly.

"Well, I know, but everyone likes presents! And... and maybe we can clean them up a little to make them more marketable, you know? I don't think it would take that much, they just need to be pushed a little bit. They're not bad people, we just have to make them want to win, for Eight!"

[reallynow]

For the longest moment, Jolie dead eyes the cookie being waved at her before she reaches out and snatches it with the faintest grumble of thank you. She doesn't eat it straight away, she's inspecting it first with a vaguely impressed look.

"You're right. Free shit is the fastest way to most hearts." She knows people who would do unspeakable things for a free shirt. Oceana springs to mind, actually. "No, they're not bad. Now that the green puppety looking one is gone, they're all sweet once you talk at 'em a bit. Only I've been working on the scruff thing for a year now and the progress on that is a big, fat zero." She almost pouts over it.

[cigne]

"Oh, yes, that was..." Well, the whole business with the green one had been unpleasant all around, hadn't it? Swann remembers watching the footage and being terribly upset that they would do it on TV -- it wasn't like the Games, it wasn't entertainment. It was just brutal.

She smiles at Jolie and bounces a little on her heels, extremely proud. "Well, I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, proper hygiene? I can sell scruff, but they need to smell a little better to meet with people!"

There's a moment where she glances around the room. There's some definite man smell on this floor.

[reallynow]

"It was something." Jolie finishes the sentence, the dead air weighing on her more than the awkward answer does. She's grateful when Swann seems to breeze past it, the girl is relentlessly eager about her job.

"If you want to strap 'em down and spray 'em every time they get whiffy, be my guest." She crinkles her nose, but truthfully he has assistants for that kind of crap and it's easy enough to arrange.

Once you catch them, anyway.

"Maybe you should have put cologne in there." She points at the bag, quirking a brow as if expecting that to be the next trick she pulls. It'll be marshmallow flavoured, no doubt.

[cigne]

"Not everyone can wear the same cologne! Body chemistry and all. But I put in some bath products, lotion and bath gel. And a nice little aftershave sample!"

Yes, the lotion and bath gel are scented. It's not marshmallow, but Swann figures nobody can hate lychee flower.

"Anyway, I just think maybe a rule for the District might be good. Everyone has to shower at least once a day, that seems very reasonable to me! I can make a check-in chart, maybe, and set up a reward system for the ones that need incentives."

Like Jack. Definitely Jack.

[reallynow]

Jolie shrugs in agreement, reaching into the bag to search for the aforementioned products so she can inspect them. Lychee? Hmm, not bad. Can't see Garrus smelling like lychee, but she'll use it.

"Sounds like a fun project. I'm sure everyone'll be real excited about it. I can hear Joel now. Myeh myeh, I smell fine. Myeh, leave me alone." She makes her voice gruffer for the impersonation, but it still sounds nothing like it. "You're gonna have to hog tie them and spritz them with this lychee stuff if you want any of them to smell like pretty flowers, though."

[cigne]

"Well, if we take away their other products, they won't have a choice, will they?"

Swann says it so innocently, but it's so cutting, so underhanded, at least as far as bath product plotting goes.

"I'm going to have some Avoxes do some bleaching around here, too. It's sort of... sweaty-smelling. Do you smell that? Like a gym."

[reallynow]

"You're a clever bitch." Jolie remarks, looking almost thrown before a sly grin starts to appear on her face. It's about time they sent someone with a few ideas, even if some of them were questionable at best.

"After a while, you stop noticing." She pulls a face, then suddenly she's defensive. "I smell fine, though."

[cigne]

"No no, of course you smell fine!" Swann's quick to backtrack in her words. "It's out here, where they are all the time, that smells. Not your workroom or anything like that. And anyway, we'll have it fixed soon enough."

She moves over to where her purse is, and pulls out a full-sized candle, along with a long, silver candle lighter, then comes back to place it on the counter that divides the kitchen from the sitting room.

"It'll be fine," she says, lighting the candle. "We'll get everything taken care of."

[reallynow]

"Good." Jolie is sated by the answer and she dials the bitch back by a hefty percent, taking on a more reserved expression. Well. For about a hot minute until Swann pulls a goddamn candle out of that purse.

"Do you have an entire Only Bath Salts in there or something, girl? You're like a walking fragrance aisle." And a nifty little thing too, Jolie's opinion is raising even if she continues to be a callous ho. You know what? Fuck it. "I like you, kid." She extends a well manicured hand toward her. "Here's to working together."

[cigne]

"Not a whole Only Bath Salts," she jokes, smiling at Jolie.

But it's nothing compared to the way she lights up at being offered that hand, which she readily shakes before pulling Jolie into a hug. "It's going to be the best!"

[reallynow]

"Just an aisle, then?" Jolie quips back fast, looking a little smug at her own line. She's so caught up in her self satisfaction that she doesn't have the chance to do anything but get pulled into that hug.

She grunts, and it's very unwomanly, but she wraps her arms lightly around Swann's back both as a courtesy and because she's already getting a soft spot for her. "Shit, you're chirpy." She mutters, and she can't help worrying this place is going to ruin her, but she tries to push that thought backward for now.

"Between you and me, we're going to have ourselves a Victor. Finally."

[cigne]

Swann squeezes Jolie before pulling back and just beaming at her, nodding. "We will, I promise. I already have a lot of ideas and... well, it's just going to work, I know it will!"

She takes a step away before thinking for a moment. "Oh! How do you feel about dogs?"

[reallynow]

"'Bout time they sent me someone worth a damn. Guess they finally realised that we aren't just a bunch of no hopers." There's a sense of pride in her voice, even if it's veiled by disdain. She might smack talk her Tributes, but they're all special and they deserve the time Swann wants to invest in them. Here's hoping they don't scare her off.

Jolie cocks her head to the side at the question, thinning her eyes suspiciously as if wary about locking in an answer. "That's a loaded question if I ever heard one." But she knows where it's headed, she's sure. "Keep it out of my workroom, what becomes of it if it wanders in there is no fault of mine."

[cigne]

"Oh no, Marcel is very well-behaved," she says, shaking her head, and it's sort of obvious just from the way she speaks that Marcel is probably the kind of dog who wears clothes and is usually carried around.

That is a very correct assumption. Marcel has his own closet. And a tiny one of those Eight is Great! shirts.

"You won't even know he's around."

[reallynow]

"Marcel? Isn't that the French guy with the teeth? I didn't think you were into that." No, Jolie. That's Marius. Your name is bastardized French and you still can't tell names apart.

She holds no doubt for what kind of dog it might be, but there's still a lingering thought of whether it might be some huge great dane that Swann heaps affection on as if it were a precious child.

"You're the boss." She says with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "You're running the show more than I am, go for it." Haha, sure she is. "Speaking of, good luck wrangling Samuel."

[cigne]

Honestly, she had considered a large dog once, but then it was nearly as tall as she was and she got a little scared and that was how she wound up with something more size-suitable.

Swann looks utterly puzzled at Jolie's response, blank and blinking big doe eyes over who shares a name with her dog. "No, Marcel is named after a famous old show."

She frowns. "Why, what's he doing?"

[reallynow]

"Close enough." She says with a perky shrug, it could almost be considered a little parody of Swann's mannerisms, especially with the sly way she smiles. And then that all goes to shit because they start talking about something a little more serious than Swann's gay little dog.

"Not a lot, that's the problem." She smirks, but she feels a little bad talking about him like this. "He's been out of the loop for a while, he could use some, uh. Filling in. I dunno if he knows what he's doing."

[cigne]

"Um, what makes you think that?" Swann's question comes out slow, like she's worried the answer will be the worst possible scenario, even if she can't exactly figure out what that scenario would be. "He's not... he hasn't gone loopy, has he?"

[reallynow]

"No- no no. Not that. Not quite, anyway." Jolie waves Swann off, perhaps a little too readily. "I just mean he hasn't been back since before the Never-ending Quell. A lot of Victors have trouble adjusting, y'know? Anyway, he's old guard. We were on a team back together way back when Caesar's hair was red." That is, approximately, a long as fuck time. "So I'm just saying, if you need help with him, or any of them, I know a thing or two."

[cigne]

"Oh! Well that's not anything horrible, I was scared that he developed an addiction or something."

She's heard about how useless Linden is for District Six, how he might as well not be a Mentor at all. But at least he's mentally there, even if he's a little rebellious or whatever it is that Jolie's implying.

"When we have team meetings, I think I'll start with letting you warm him up to it. Do you mind? I was thinking Friday mornings."

[reallynow]

"He has an addiction to getting tattoos and being an asshole. He'll be real sweet to you, though." And Jolie doesn't pause to explain why Swann would be an exception, it's too complicated and boring to get into right now.

"It's cute that you think I can." She smirks, despite having just offered to help. "Sure. We can cover it up with coffee or cake or something." Actually, that doesn't sound half bad.. It's pretty much then that Jolie realises coffee is something she's in need of, so she'll take a step back from Swann. "Anyway. I'll let you get back to your present parade. Just remember, I know this District and all our stupid Tributes like the back of my hand. You need help? Ask me." She makes the offer with a sly smile, giving Swann time to respond before it's time to make her exit.

[cigne]

"I will," Swann promises, already thinking of what pastries she wants to bring to the first team meeting. She'll have her Avox make povitica, no one can resist a good specialty pastry from the Districts. "Don't forget your bag!"