thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Emily and YOU
What| A day in the life of a Mentor
Where| Around the Training Centre
When| Sometime after Cyrus' post
Warnings/Notes| No warnings inherent. Prose or brackets both welcome!

a) District Seven suites
The Arena's not even started yet, but Emily's doing all she can to promote her Tributes. This morning she's occupying the table in the common area of District Seven's floor of the Training Centre, pictures of her Tributes in front of her, holding up different colour swatches next to the faces in the photographs, her brow furled and her lips pursed into a tight frown as she tries to figure out what colours suit them best. Between her memories of how Stig had dressed her for her own opening ceremonies and Jason's reminiscence of him dressing the Tributes as marijuana leaves one year, she's decided to go over his head and figure out a little about the costuming for herself. It's not going well. After a while she just sits there with her elbow on the table and head propped up in her hands, eating her way through a large bowl of brightly coloured boiled sweets that an Avox has brought out for her (one of the many things she wished she could have had in the Districts as a child and was making up for now), looking thoroughly defeated. Later, she's moving sponsor logos around the pictures instead, figuring out who'd be the best pick to represent different brands she might be able to get a deal with.

b) Training Area
She goes from station to station, offering advice freely to her own Tributes - especially on trapping, hunting, identifying herbs and poisons: things that were second nature to her growing up in the forests of Seven. When she sees a Tribute belonging to another District struggling with the same activities she tries to guide them as best she can without giving away that she's doing so: Cyrus' announcement had scared her enough to make her stop openly helping, but she can't help herself. She feels like she owes it to the other Districts to give everyone as fair a chance at winning as possible, to give back the best chance of another person that she'd so brutally and underhandedly taken away.

c) Still in the Training Area
There's a loud clatter of steel, a yell from one of the Tributes training, and the loud noise makes her visibly jolt. Her eyes turn wild and distant, and she gazes about as though she's not actually seeing the room around her at all. For a moment she's not a Mentor at all, just a frightened girl back in the Arena, and she knows deep down that she'll never escape from there even though everyone tells her she's won.

d) The rooftop
Posted under the door to the floors of all the districts is a note with four words written on it: Come to the roof. Anyone who does so will find Emily sat cross legged at the edge of a blanket laden with food, beckoning them to come and sit with her, to take some time out and just enjoy the picnic.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Please," Stephen says, waving his hand dismissively. "Everyone knows it's Jason making an ass of himself personally and that you have nothing to do with it." Are they going to bitch about Jason? Because he's always down to bitch about Jason. He takes a seat across from her, settling cross-legged on the blanket. "You've handled it all very gracefully." The compliment is sincere.

The thing that's not being mentioned, of course, is just how un-gracefully Stephen himself was behaving up until the unveiling of Cyrus Reagan's new laws. He's less a mess now, but it was a very public mess.

"Believe me, it's taken a lot of patience. He has a very punchable face." It always feels liberating to admit it, though she feels a little guilty too, some part of her admiring Jason's attitude despite how volatile and destructive it is. She wishes she could care so little too, it would make life a lot easier for her.

He breaks into a laugh -- not a polite one, but a genuine one. "God, he does, doesn't he? It's terrible: he's surrounded by people all the time who could break his nose without batting an eye, but who aren't even allowed to try." Jason spends so much time dishing it out to the Avoxes and, if rumor's true, to his own family that sometimes Stephen just wants to see him forced to take it.

"One day he'll get his comeuppance." But she fervently hoped that it wouldn't be at her hands or those of their Tributes. "Nothing too drastic, of course," she adds, scared that he'll think she's openly supporting attacking a Capitol citizen.

"Oh, no, of course not," Stephen says airily, waving a hand. "I'd say someone, one day, will make sure he's publicly humiliated, but he's doing a fine job of that by himself already."

He reaches for a glass of something -- whatever she's brought up here to drink -- and nods at her with a "May I--?"

Edited 2015-04-29 19:51 (UTC)

Emily had to admit that he made a good point. She was well aware that as difficult as she found Jason, there were many others who positively loathed him, and he certainly didn't need any help in making himself look bad. She reaches for her own glass. "Sure, go right ahead."

"Thank you." After a drink, he changes the subject, easily picking up a new conversation thread. "So," Stephen says, "now that you've been here a little while and have had a chance to get to know some of the new Tributes, what do you think of the Quarter Quell?"

"It's ... certainly different." She speaks slowly and hesitantly, trying not to sound either too distressed to have to work with the Games again or too relieved that it's offworlders dying instead of her own people. "Having Tributes who are trained fighters and stand more of a chance is pretty nice."