thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| De, Lottie, Elias, Effie and open!
What| Choose your own adventure! Each character is cruising around the city.
Where| Around the Capitol. Check each character for details.
When| Over the course of the week.
Warnings/Notes| Just lemme know who, and if relevant where and when in the subject.

She already hated this city.

It was everything De loathed about being in a big city, rolled up and amped up. If she thought preppy hipsters were bad...well, she'd take an army of Hipsters over these soul less assholes. Everywhere she turned, there were primped, phony looking people. She wasn't even sure most of them counted as human anymore. And there was no escape.

She sought out what she could find. The roof. Bars. The hot springs. The arcade. Places that on some levels felt normal for her. She knew she should be sucking up hard to sponsors, but she just couldn't bring herself to grovel to the people doing this too her. It wasn't happening.

The one things she did do was watch the videos. Study her competition. If she was going to win this, it wasn't going to be because some rich dick bought her out of it.

---

Lottie was sucking up. She wanted out. Momoko has lit a fire under her fluffy butt, and she was sucking up to every sponsor she could find.

She knew she was good at it, too. The entertaining part. She just also knew they all realized what a hopeless bet she was. Still, after Momoko's win, maybe...maybe they'd take a chance on her.

It was exhausting though, going from party, to performances, to things that bordered too close to dates for Lottie's comfort. And in between, she took in the sights on her own, or tempted out a friend. Indulgent spa days, shopping trips, museums. Busy, busy, busy. Busy enough she fell asleep quickly, deeply, and hopefully, with minimal night mares.

Of course, keeping herself always running till exhaustion, sometimes that exhaustion struck at terrible times. Like in the common room. Or District 8's dining room. Or a bench in the training center. She would take it where she could get it these days.

---

This was getting ridiculous.

Every day, new information for the Escorts to deal with. Longer hours. Effie hadn't seen her own bed in what felt like months.

The Training Center, of course, had exemplary lodging. But she wanted her own bed in her own room in her own house. And a day off. Oh, when was her last day off? Of course now she was helping Cinna with this history fashion show, and that was more work...but in a way it was nice to have a break. To be doing something else.

Work took up her days. Work and getting sponsors, sweet talking the rich of the city took up her nights. It use to be her favorite part of this job, entertaining and rubbing elbows with the elite...now it was just another few hours of work, work, work.

She took her free moments where she could get them, setting work to the side and just enjoying a quiet moment.

---

Elias was using his mentor position to watch and study everyone around him. No one question a mentor sizing up the competition.

Of course he wasn't really sizing them up for competition. He took those notes as well, too. He wanted his Tributes to win. But he was also looking for other things in the Training room, the Commons, pouring over the tapes.

It was nice that he could obsess over this completely legitimately. Nights he left his work behind, roaming the city. Often to court sponsors, but just as often to tend his own mind, letting the things he'd seen shift through and find their places. Finding quite places to wander.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Diana smiled back. It was rare to find another woman, or someone of any gender really, who could come even close to looking Diana in the eye. "Brand new. I was abducted just a few days ago," she said, purposefully avoiding the language many of the others used, 'came', 'arrived', and so on. She had grown quickly tired of the implicit lie.

"I'm still not quite acclimated. Have you been here long?"

De had not picked up on the word usage of the other, but abducted...yeah that sounded about right. She was already nodding as the other woman spoke.

"Not as long as some of the others. I got here right before the last hell hole they call an arena." She said with a snort.

Diana frowned. "Right. Death, then resurrection, to die again. Can't say I'm looking forward to that."

"It uh...it's an experience."

Disorienting as all hell, that was for sure.

"Do you have an approach? How do you think you're gonna do in there?"

She looked strong, capable. More intimidating in appearance than De, for sure.

"I can imagine," said Diana dryly. It wouldn't be her first resurrection, of course, assuming she died at all and she had no intention of winning considering the requirements, but it'd be the first where she was expected to die yet again just a few weeks later.

"At the moment my plan is to avoid dying or killing unnecessarily, which isn't much different than usual for me." Diana gave De a once-over of her own. She looked capable enough herself, certainly an experienced fighter, though most likely fights of a different kind than Diana's experience. "You're the veteran in this situation. Any tips?"

"That's about what I did. Keep my head down, protect people when I could...I eventually got taken out in a....mercy killing."

Not quite. But what else could have been done? He could have left here there with her broken leg, which would have been much worse.

Diana smiled to herself. Another protector, assuming she was being honest, and Diana felt she was. The temperament of the Tributes she'd met so far was making her curious, in an uneasy way, as to how the Capitol convinced them to fight each other. "I feel like I should offer condolences, or something," she said. "The etiquette of this situation escapes me." And it shouldn't, with the experience Diana has. She looked over the roof, at the city beyond. "Maybe they sell cards."

Her smile faded. "I am sorry, that you suffered."

That got a snort out of De.

"Oh man, don't give them any ideas. These people would run with them."

She shrugged, awkwardly. Sincere emotions were never De's forte. "You do what you gotta do."

"They are certainly an innovative people, I'll give them that," Diana agreed.

"It sounds like you did a great deal more than that. Somehow I doubt trying to protect our fellow Tributes is what's expected of us in the Arena."

"That's uhh...one way to put it."

They were creative. In all the worst sort of ways. As De had been studying things, if had just become more and more obvious how creative they could get.

She shrugged off the compliment. It was what she did. "I wasn't the only one, but it's like trying to bail water out of the Titanic with a shot glass."

"It's always good to find the best in people," said Diana, her voice dry as dust.

"Maybe so, but I'm sure it meant a great deal to the people you were protecting. Even only another hour of life is precious enough to be worth fighting for."

"Right?" She snorted.

She shook her head, not comfortable under the praise. Maybe at home, but there weren't any heros here. Not yet, anyway. "Thanks, but...I dunno. There's gotta be something better."

"I'm sure there is," said Diana, determined. "And we'll find it. Stop these wretched Games altogether, and until then, protect who we can for as long as we can."

"I like the way you think." She gave her an approving smile, before extending her hand. "Deanna Winchester. Call me De."

If she made people earn the right to call her by her nickname, Diane would have easily earned it. But since she didn't, it was rather moot.

Diana took De's hand and shook it with a smile of her own. "Diana, Diana Prince. Just Diana is fine. I'm glad to have met you, De."

"Hey, Diane Prince, that's..."

She stopped.

"Like...like...Wonder Woman."

Meeting Bruce Banner had been cool. But Wonder Woman. She was Wonder Woman.

"You know me?" Diana asked, unaccountably pleased. This wasn't like the other occasions she'd managed to slip into anonymity, here everyone knew Diana Prince, Tribute, but no one knew Wonder Woman, or Themyscira's ambassador. No one knew of her work.

"Are we from the same world, then?" Then she raised an eyebrow. "You knew me by surname?" That was still fairly recent, how many knew Diana Prince and Diana of Themyscira were one and the same.

"Uh...no. I uh..."

So it had been cool to run into the rest. But they hadn't turned her into stammering idiots.

"I use to...where I come from you're...there's a tv show about you. And comics."

"I see," Diana nodded, trying to sound reassuring. De seemed suddenly struck by a bout of nerves. "I believe I understand, I've been to such worlds before. Are you feeling alright?"

Oh jesus. Meet childhood hero, look like bumbling idiot.

"Sorry, I just never thought I'd meet...you know. Wonder Woman." She tried to grin, get her cool back and shrug it off, but she knew she still looked a little doofy.

At least she'd gotten a solid first impression before this.

Diana laughed softly, shaking her head and grinning back. "Ah, no, I understand completely. It's jarring to meet someone you've only ever heard about before." Diana was still shaken to remember the first time she'd spoken face to face with her gods. Or the many embarrassing moments in her early relationship with Trevor Barnes. "And of course, you believed me to be fictional, I assume. I hope you won't find the real me disappointing."