thecapitol | The Victor is...

The Victor is...

Who| EVERYONE. IC participation is mandatory (OOC is not, you may handwave)
What| Momoko's victory crowning
Where| The ball room
When| The Wednesday before the next arena.
Warnings/Notes| None atm.

The party was styled for Momoko.

The tables were covered in lace, delicate dishes and silverware, flowers that fell from vases covered in Victorian paintings. It was the most extravagant tea party to ever be thrown, with tiny, thin china cups and a too many tiny little finger foods being passed around to count. The ballroom has been styled in extravagant Baroque, as the Capitol was fairly liberal with their adaption of historical time periods.

The costumes were just as liberally chosen, from tall, powdered wigs holding birdcages with live birds, clearly hailing in the style of Marie Antoinette to regency gowns gathered under daringly (and occasionally outright) exposed busts to tight corsets and the skeletons of skirts exposed and decorated. A quarter played live music at one end of the room, before a wide dance floor.

At the head of the room there was a long table with a throne for Momoko, as elaborate as anything else in the room. And along the long table, group close to those who they seemed to enjoy, was a place for many of the Tributes, with a small place card that said "Special guest of The Capitol." This table was fed first, received drinks first, and was clearly favored.

Any Tributes not seated at the long table with their peers were dispersed among the the smaller table spread about the room, left to rub elbows with the guests invited from the Capitol, and the reporters covering the event. Security was, if anything, tighter than the last crowning.

These people have seats a the big kids table. You guys are free to decide who sits by who (And if three people sit by one person, don't worry too much about it) but they are, when possible set by their friends:

Atticus Bell
Draco Malfoy
Chibi-Usa
Dr. Grey
Adel
Tony Stark
Howard Bassem
Javert Neeshka
Vanessa Carlysle
Lindsey McDonald
R
Albert Wesker
K
Alpha
Diana
Katurian
Aunamee
Maximus
Blaine Anderson
Alex Rider
Glinda
Gaila
Parker
John Watson
Lottie LaBouff

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Howard isn't sure how he expected Tony to react, but a smile and a greeting was not it. If the situations were reversed, he'd be acting as if he's seen a ghost, which he may as well be.

He raises a hand up in a weak wave. "Hey, Tony." He remembers Tony's name not from the incident in question, but from forcing himself to watch it back. Most of his memories of the last day in that Arena are a feverish blur. He remembered a man, and being wet and cold and overheated all at the same time, and rashes and vomiting, but he also remembers birds, and his dad being there, and having to go home from school. Watching the tape back confirmed only a few of those things ever actually happened.

He knows he has to bring it up at some point, but he may as well be cordial and not-dreary before that. The tape told him he and Tony had a good stream of banter going, before five sentences in when Howard spontaneously decided fainting was a better idea than smalltalk.

"Your stylists better be getting paid more than mine," he says with a wry expression, tugging at the overlong sleeves on his coat.

Tony chuckles. In the stylist lottery, Tony definitely won the grand prize there. Cinna and Portia both, while maybe not always lining up with Tony's personal taste, had yet to dress him in anything he would rather stick hot pokers in his eyes than be seen wearing in public.

"Looks a bit like it, huh," he's not even going to pretend it doesn't look that way. Tony knows a badly tailored suit when he sees one. He laughs. Gives the kid a brief pat on the shoulder, "You look good though."

He flinches slightly when Tony pats him on the shoulder, but doesn't say anything about it and doesn't run.

Howard grins, though it's not a wide expression. It's more like a smile trying to work its way off the side of his face. "Man, you don't got to lie to spare my feelings. Can you believe when I first got here my stylists were considering selling me on sex appeal?"

"I meant more in the working set of lungs department," Tony chuckles. "But yeah. I believe it. You're a cute kid and this place has been whoring out fifteen-year-olds for decades. Maybe it's a compliment. They're all about class here."

He settles for sarcasm, because that's the kind of mood he's in.

"It's Howard-something-or-other, right?" he finds the name easier to remember than most around here. Their meeting had been pretty memorable though...

"Yay?" Howard pretends to wave a tiny invisible flag. He's not sure if that's really meant to be encouraging. He supposes being 'whored out' is better than dying but he's still a virgin, and nowhere near comfortable with his body or sexuality, and the very idea makes his skin crawl still, thinking of what the stylists put him in. "What angle did they take for you?"

One hand wrings his overlong sleeves in his fingers. His hands are clammy.

"Yeah, I'm Howard Bassem."

Tony chuckles again, vaguely amused at the boy's obvious innocence. It's puppy dog level cute, so long as he tries not to think about how terribly shattered that innocence will soon become.

"My angle was better," he just shrugs. "Usually are. But frankly, I've always been pretty good at selling myself."

More accurately, Effie still hasn't figured out her Tony Stark shaped problem yet, but his antics have seemed to keep him popular enough with the public. She tolerates just it.

"Well, nice to finally meet you here on the flip side. You see much of the city yet? Nothing quite like home sweet home..." Sarcasm again. The Capitol is as much home to Tony as a damn arena, really. But at least here, he has his own room. Mostly he's just wondering if Howard will say anything that might give away how similar or different the place Howard is from is from Panem.

"I thought someday I'd pick up on that trick, but I also used to think I'd live old enough to buy alcohol or something." And now, resurrections or not, he can't see himself making it up to college age. He shrugs a bit, as if it doesn't bother him. It does, but he doesn't want to say such in front of the guy who killed him out of mercy. "I could maybe use some tips, sometime. Right now people like me because I'm 'vulnerable'."

Which Howard guesses is probably not the best thing to be.

Talking about the Capitol is easier. Howard almost seems to perk up. "It's different, here. There's food. There's electricity. There's running water and there's like, fifty-six kinds of soap and the water never runs out. I got here and took a shower for two hours."

He pauses and grabs an hors d'euvres off a tray and stuffs it into his mouth with a sort of animal voracity.

There is a slight flicker of panic on his face. Brief although it my be. But Tony definitely knows himself well enough to know that he's probably the last person who should be dealing out advice to impressionable your persons. Ok, well, maybe not the last person, given the people in this very room.

Still though, if the kid wants advice from Tony? The situation really is as grim as he thought it was.

"Yeah, they do know how to make a good shower here, I'll give them that," he nods in agreement and takes a long sip from his drink rather than partaking the the hors d'euvres like Howard. Events like these, Tony generally prefers a more... liquid diet.

"As for profound words of wisdom? It doesn't matter if what they think about you is true or not. They don't give a shit if its true. You shouldn't either. Any publicity is good publicity, they say," he gives a small shrug decides to sample a snack after all.

"Vulnerable a pretty boring angle though. Not going to win many death battles with that reputation. No offense."

"You're saying I shouldn't be bothered if everyone's right that I'm vulnerable, and that not only are they right, but that it's so obvious to everyone?" Howard raises an eyebrow a little, sucking on his fingertips to get all the taste of the little cocktail shrimp he just practically inhaled.

"I'm not going to win any death battles at all, honestly. I just..."

He takes a deep breath. There's genuine fear in his eyes as they meet Tony's. "I'd rather die the way you killed me than the way I died last time. I don't want to be prey. That's all."

He grabs another shrimp, then decides he's going to say 'hell with it' and grab a drink off a platter that's going around. No one asks if he's too young to drink. He winces as the alcohol goes down because it tastes disgusting and burns.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. How old are you anyway? Like 12. You think the opinions of a million people who like watching 12-year-olds die on national television every day is a standard you should live by?" Tony says quite matter-of-factly. "Fuck them. You take them for their money and their resources and fuck everyone else. There a a million different ways to play this game kid. Killing people doesn't always have to be one of them."

He gulps down the rest of his martini and almost mindlessly waves for another.

"Because it's all a game here kid. Even right now. And you can't win if you don't play. And I don't know how you feel about it, kid, but dying really fucking sucks. I don't want to do that any more."

"I'm fifteen," Howard says, a bit defensively. Does he really look twelve? Sure, he has the physique of a twelve year-old on the brink of death, but he'd think he at least comes off as a little older, personality-wise. "And no, I don't want to die against either."

He raises an eyebrow. "How much do you drink?"

Tony just shrugs, as if that was exactly his point. It doesn't matter how old Howard is. He's just a kid and this is all a bunch of bullshit. Even if Howard were 25, it would still be bullshit.

"As much as I have to," because like he really counts. Being is a nearly constant state of inebriation is the only way he can find to deal with events like these. Half smashed, he only has to focus on half of what is going on.

"It's not good for you," Howard says, with a sort of teenager know-it-all uppitiness mixed with a strange kind of weariness that doesn't fit his age. He's clearly had a lot of experience with alcoholics, but it doesn't translate to savvy.

"Thanks mom," Tony rolls his eyes a little bit, but he does so with a smirk on his face. This is hardly the first time someone's commented on his quantity of alcoholic intake. But you know what... he can think of worse ways to go that alcohol poisoning. He's had the displeasure of experiencing a few, even.

"So what's your deal here, anyway? You're not some wizard kid from Mars or something are you? You can never tell anymore."

He was finding that to be only somewhat true, actually. The truly magical ones were always a little more angry about their lives. Understandable, given the Capitol's permanent magical cockblocking. He'd be angry about it too. Howard though? Well maybe he was going to be surprised, but he was also not really expecting to get a yes to the answer, either. Its just that overreaching was always an easy way to get answer from someone.

People are often quite quick to correct you if you mislabel them.

"Yeah, but..." Howard decides to drop it. If Tony's drunk enough to worry Howard, Howard will leave. He owes Tony a thank you, nothing else, he thinks.

"I'm literally just a kid trying to get by. That's all." And Howard knows that isn't impressive, and isn't what the Sponsors want to hear, but he can't keep up a lie when cameras are on him twenty-four seven. "And what are you, an astronaut?"

"I've been in space. Once. Briefly. And I do like to fly. But I'm really more of a humble scientist." Humble is obviously sarcasm. "But I'm just a normal guy. Well, a genius normal guy. But you get the idea."

"Like, on airplanes? I never even been on an airplane." He makes a whistling noise, continuing to eye Tony's alcohol. "What kind of scientist?"

"An awesome one," the seriousness with which he says this makes it sound, at the very least, that Tony thinks so. He shrugs and then squints at the kid a little.

"Never been on an airplane, huh? Bet you never died and came back to life before either, I take it? I wouldn't worry too much. Airplanes are overrated and here, they have hover crafts."

He isn't sure if he's trying to make the kid feel better or just...rambling.

"Nope. Arena was my first snow, too." He takes another drink of the champagne and can't help but make a face. It tastes awful. "God, how can you, with this stuff? I'd rather chug shampoo."

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The Victor is...

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goddamn it sarah what are you doing.

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oh hell this is so late it is embarassing

no problem! <3

<3!

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most ancient tag ever.

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