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

R liked her attitude about doors. He was lolling his head in a nod, happy to agree, when she threw that question at him. It threw him off as he stared at her, at her pink cheeks and healthy hair and eyes that actually focused on him and not past.

"Yeah?" R grunted. "Look...alive?"

He sounded almost hopeful. For a zombie, he knew he was in pretty good shape.

"Uhhh...."

She lifted her hand, wiggling it in the air. So so. It...wasn't really true. He was pretty clearly not human.

But he seemed so hopeful.

"You haven't eaten me yet. Good start."

Okay, so no go there. R was surprised to realize he actually felt disappointed he didn't pass the woman's test.

"Bet you...say - " R paused. He thought he heard something like this before, only he couldn't remember where. Or when. "- to all the...guys..."

He thought he was flattered, but he wasn't sure.

Edited 2013-03-10 09:25 (UTC)

"I find it's a good pick up line with the undead."

She snorted, and then realized that...she was relaxed. Joking around. With a zombie. A monster.

Except...here? He was a hell of a lot less monstrous than the full fledged human beings. It was....an uncomfortable feeling.

R could safely say he'd never been hit on by a Living girl before. (Or...at all, actually). His slack expression shifted to one of vague relief as she relaxed.

"Ha ha-ggh," R tried to bunch his shoulders, show he was following along. He touched himself with his hand. If it worked for extinct cavemen, then it should work for a corpse. "R. Name?"

She chuckle. Zombie's were apparently a good target for bad humor. Worked for her.

The meaning was easy enough to follow. She gesture to herself. "De."

Bad humor probably worked best because anything faster than that and De would get blank stares. More blank than usual, fine. Although even knock-knock jokes might be pushing it.

"De," R was surprised. A name as short as his. "Good...name."

"It's for Deanna. But I've always been a fan of short and sweet. Is R short for anything?"

She found a place to settle down, looking over at him. "You wanna sit?"

Yeah, he liked De better. More to the point, in his opinion. R shook his head and then rolled his shoulders in a shrug. Once - if - he remembered the rest of his name, then he'd have her answer.

"Okay," R said, shuffling after De. He sat next to her, slouched down in his typically bad posture. "How long?"

He gestured at the roof, at the Capitol: how long has she been here?

"Not long. Right before the first arena. You?"

Chillin' with a zombie. Yeah, this had messed with her life in some big ways. She looked up at him, her brain already working on how she would justify this to Sam.

And herself.

"Ice," R says. He tries to shudder to drive the point home, but it barely registers on his corpse. "Not...fun."

At the very least he learned wolves and...shifting things don't mix well with him. R wonders how well she did, how long she lasted. It's a question that seems to matter a lot to his team, judging by what he's heard listening to the stylists - they have favorites, like Howard and Wyatt, and some others. It makes R start to wonder how thinks De is their favorite.

Is it a good thing, to be the Capitol's favorite?

"Ugh, fuck that. Lowest level of hell."

She shivered herself, in sympathy or possibly memory.

"Of course the next one is probably gonna be worse. I don't get the impression these people really cut us much of a break."

Although shit, she had seen the tropical island arena, and she would murder a couple people to hang out there.