thecapitol | [semi-open and open]

Who| Stephen and D6 | Stephen and anyone
What| Trying to convince his Tributes to go the fuck to sleep, and unwinding himself when the kids are in bed
Where| D6 rooms | the coffeeshop downstairs
When| Thursday morning
Warnings/Notes| First prompt closed to D6; the other's open!

A:

Stephen is usually around the D6 rooms. Generally, he's easygoing -- he was stricter for a while there, but after the last Arena, now that his traitor cuff's come off, he's started to let his Tributes get away with more. If you've come to him with a problem, he's done his best to help you, and he's also had a conversation with each of his Tributes about just how many public appearances they want to make. If a Tribute requests that their fancy-event invitations be kept to a minimum, he's done his best to facilitate that. If a Tribute wants to play the social game and network, Stephen's helped them with that, too.

Today, though, he's trying to get in touch with all of his Tributes, because he has something very important to ask them to do.

He has to ask them to sleep.

Stephen is generally sticking around the D6 rooms. When his Tributes wake up, they'll find him in the common area, playing on a tablet. He'll look up at them and grin.

"Morning."

B:

Leave it to Stephen not to take his own advice. Around 4pm, he can be found on the ground floor of the Tribute Center, sipping some kind of froofy coffee. There's probably like three kinds of chocolate in it. It smells divine. If anyone meets his eye, he'll flash them a smile, and wave if he knows them. He's got a tablet propped up in front of him, and it looks like he's flipping through an e-release of a vapid Capitol magazine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's harder on them than they like to let on," Stephen says, agreeing. "So I try to keep them as comfortable as possible -- you know, make sure everyone gets something to make the Arena easier on them. See, winning--" Stephen begins, then cuts himself off, glancing around. "Not to be insensitive, considering your history, but winning the Hunger Games isn't what it used to be. There's only a few months between Arenas instead of a year. The direct benefit to the District is short-lived, and the same people are going right back into the Games. Keeping their minds sound isn't just important for their sakes. The more Tributes from your District that go into the arena mentally stable, the higher your chances of winning."

"I'll keep that in mind." It seemed like a better measure to her of which tributes to concentrate on than their scores, too. She'd rather have weaker Tributes who were aware of their surroundings and how to play the game than stronger ones who were unhinged and unpredictable, and couldn't work with the hints she sent in with her parachutes. "Besides, the new format means the children of my District aren't going to be reaped any more." Including two of Emily's brothers. "That's a far greater benefit to Seven, and I intend to repay the new Tributes in any way I can for it."

He nods, understanding in theory if not experience. It had occurred to him that yes, this meant that Six's children weren't being reaped, but it means much less to him than it does to Emily.

When Stephen goes on, he drops his voice.

"Some Escorts," he says, and doesn't say Jason Compson, "are still treating the new Tributes like they're frightened children from the Districts. That's just not true anymore. Most of them aren't children, and a lot of them aren't frightened."

"They ought to be frightened," Emily says darkly, thinking of all the Capitol could do to them, but she takes his point. They couldn't just herd them through the Games like sheep, especially since they weren't exactly going to the slaughter any more.

"And because they're not," Stephen says, picking up where her statement left off, "they sometimes cause trouble. That's something you're going to have to handle, too -- did you hear about what happened to Hsiang Jiao?"

Hisang "Penny" Jiao was a high-ranking Peacekeeper who was a brilliant torturer, completely sadistic, half-insane, and didn't care to hide it. Just being in a room with her was terrifying, and she answered directly to Cruentus. Essentially, she could dole out any punishments she wanted on any grounds. She was murdered last year -- by, Emily may or may not already know, offworld Tributes.

"Only that she died in the line of duty. There was a memorial on TV, but..." She shakes her head, trying to remember if there'd been anything else. If there was anything else going on the Capitol had likely kept it covered up from the Districts, fearing riots there, but Emily had gone out of her way to stay in the forests and avoid any coverage of anything to do with the Capitol or the Games as much as possible, with how bad her nightmares had become at that point.

"Well, if you don't know, I probably shouldn't tell you any more," Stephen says, waving a hand, playing the good Citizen.

Hopefully, she's bright enough to pick up on the fact that the Tributes had something to do with it. He's told her enough to make it guessable that the Tributes were responsible.

"But I'll tell you that it was very frightening, and an enormous mess for us."

[semi-open and open]

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