thecapitol | Closed

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Closed

Who| Leonidas Cora and China Sorrows
What| Hanging out, possible
Where| Glacialis
When| Shortly after the Binding plot and Jason’s post
Warnings/Notes| None for now!

Between working with her Tributes and coworkers and meeting Sponsors, China’s social life is more active than it’s ever been. She would have looked upon such a future with trepidation and weariness just a few months ago, but she finds she’s actually enjoying herself. While she’s still far more charmed by the world of the book, the people she’s encountered outside aren’t uninteresting.

And because this is one meeting she’s actually looking forward to, she arrives promptly and with a hint of honesty in her smile.

She slips into the dining area. The cold has her wrapped up more warmly than usual, a fitted coat over her dark suit. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting, Leo. How are you?”

It's a tense time, given the recent attempts at rebellion and the resentment that may have been stirred up over Jason's network post. Even she's been feeling it and she just hopes that this can be a relaxing time. Or at least interesting.

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Dressed in a good suit and a fur jacket of his own possession, Leonidas had simply ordered some wine and grinned at China's greeting.

"Not at all don't worry," he stood up and offered her a seat, "And I've been great. What about you?"

Oh there was plenty of negativity in that network post and Leo wasn't as much as a standby as much as the instigator of why Jason quit. The Capitolite had gone off on a diatribe, completely forgetting that his fancy house wasn't built on wishes and fairy dust. To break Compson into the blind fury that came about attacking his self-pitying ways and his reliance on a dead dynasty, among other things, had been Cora's highlight of the week aside from genuine Tribute bonding.

She bowed her head in gratitude to his gentlemanly gesture and sat down. "Thank you." Manners were always pleasant to experience.

Her eyes scanned his face and she smiled in return. "You do look rather chipper today. It warms my heart, so I will have to answer that I'm great as well."

"May I ask what has you so cheerful? 'Tis the season of Tribute trials and sponsor demands--not everyone would be smiling so brightly."

"When you put the likes of Jason Compson in line or infuriated enough that he can't stand you, it's always a happy occasion."

With Calendius Rey somewhere in Panem, it took to Torin and Leo to pick up the slack and get the District 2 Tributes up and running. But he thrived in this sort of environment, looking better than how he did back at Lux4 during the Arena finale. He'd hit his stride and he was hoping any captured Tributes would be released.

"We're all here to work for Panem, not wait on an old dynasty's last survivor by allowing him to be nasty."

A covert sweep of her eyes around the room, just to make sure no one was listening too closely. She couldn't be honest at times like that.

Satisfied, her smile took on a note of mischief. "Oh? That does sound like a delight."

"I knew him when we were children--I suppose he hasn't grown much at all?"

She had spoken to Jason since coming to the Tower, as he'd been kind enough to greet her and tell her all about how terrible the Escort job was. So she did have an idea of his current maturity level, but she liked feeling out other's opinions.

Leo had one thing going for him: he was brazen enough to speak about what happened on the grounds that he knew what he was talking about. Yes, he had a mean streak a mile wide and pushed a few buttons no one dared get close to. But enough was enough.

"Did he throw tantrums when things didn't go his way?"

She smirked and inclined her head to one side. "Please, take a guess."

"I won't claim we were all the best behaved children--" She and Cyrus had found quite a few cruel things to say about their fellows even at that age. China still agreed with the assessments of her younger self. "--but some were sweeter than others, I suppose."

"That can be said of everyone," Leo said wistfully, and shrugging at the thought of a little terror. While China, Cyrus and Jason mingled in lavish playdates and their parents mingled in power deals and connections, the former Career played in the mud and made dummies out of the soil to stomp around.

"You must have been one of those observing types of children, huh?" he assumed as a waiter came along for their meal. "Keeping an eye and remembering?"

"Remembering? I do hope you're not suggesting I hold grudges."

Because she did hold grudges. China had a good memory and huge amount of pettiness to go with it.

She nodded, smiling like she'd just been given a grand compliment. "But, yes, I do try to keep my eyes open. There was nothing else to do at those dull parties except watch."

Capitolite problems.

"What happened to playing?" Oh Leo, Capitolites don't do that, they learn from their parents. Playing is reserved for the Districters. "Never had a moment to run around and play in the park? Wrecked a garden?" No that's just you, Cora, you hellion.

A pang of sympathy hit the coach as the drinks arrived; if the rumors were true, no wonder 70% of the staff were not as well adjusted as some of the offworlders even.

She covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. "Ruined a garden? I don't believe any of our neighbors would have appreciated that."

Watching children die wasn't offensive. Seeing their tulips torn up? A travesty.

She reached for her drink and took a sip. "My parents set up some more tame 'play' for me. Studying politics, history, proper conduct, and the like. I enjoyed it." And she did. China felt pretty suited to her environment.

"And you? May I ask how many gardens were destroyed beneath your mighty feet?"

Leo let out a laugh or two, "Ah a few but mostly because they were in the way of what I was doing. My education wasn't a priority as it was to be the best Tribute to represent my District."

Just as China talked proudly of her upbringing, the coach mirrored the sentiment in the intense preparation that went into making him into who he is now.

"We're all born from the earth in District 2, we get our hands dirty and build." Words passed down through generations now found a home in the Cora heir.

"I see." Getting dirty. How foreign that seemed, but also how interesting. "Have you kept any of the first stone you worked with?"

China didn't consider herself very sentimental--that would require emotions like love, wouldn't it? Ugh.--so she chalked up her curiosity so an interest in human history.

Leo nodded, it was a silly thing he kept, "A small lion, it looks more like a deformed gerbil than what I intended but I was six. It's in my suite, a paperweight to remind me home."

While China refused to indulge in emotions, Leonidas reveled in his passion, in his drive to make the most of every day and further the cause of his work. "I could never reach my father's skill, carved a rose from ivory."

"Oh, please. I'm sure it's hardly as bad as you make it sound." She hadn't yet found him to be prone to modesty, but she surely wasn't going to agree with that harsh evaluation of his creation.

"How romantic. It must have rivaled anything nature could create."

Not the roses the Capitol engineered, of course, but that was human ingenuity and not nature.

"One day I will show you and you'll see what I mean...I compared it to roadkill if my father had not pushed me to improve it," Leo assured her with a grin that was the exact opposite of modest.

In fact, just to prove to China the true beauty of Catalina's brooch, Cora took it out of his jacket and placed it on the frigid table. "It truly is. He did his best to capture the delicate petals...the only thing more beautiful, according to him, is my mother."

"
"Even roadkill requires skill, doesn't it? You need a keen eye to place the broken bones and viscera just so." Was she joking? The smile--wider than usual--suggested so. "I would love to see it, though."

China's mouth opened slightly as he produced the carving, her eyes moving over the piece as if she were reading. "It's beautiful. And your father sounds like quite the charmer." It ran in the family, didn't it?

She looked up at him. "May I touch it? Only briefly, I promise." She had found in her years of collecting and appraising that sight was only part of the experience. Some things needed to be touched to be properly expected--and caressed to confirm their beauty was real.

"The charm and pride ran strong in the Cora men, and Leonidas was no exception. They were passionate people all around, living for that great work, on in the coach's case, that great victory for their District. But, as much as Leo wanted to believe otherwise, there were other things besides work to think about.

That fascination alone, and this weird trust the two staffers shared, allowed Cora to place the brooch on the table, "You may, it's no problem." There was no breach of tradition here.

She offered a wide, honest smile. "Thank you."

Then she gently picked up the object and dove in, her fingers and eyes travelling all over it. For the moment until she set it back down in front of him, she was totally absorbed in it.

"I'm amazed that human hands can create such a thing. Even more amazed that such a master craftsman found greater beauty in a human."

It sounded as if his parents had a very sweet romance indeed.

"He took great care in making sure my mother would have something to remember him by should he die in the quarries or on location," Leo explained, "I've seen employees of ours, men and women I've known since childhood, come into the mines and come out in bags. My father loves my mother, and heh, he manages to sneak it in each of the roses he's carved into the buildings in the Capitol."

He turned to China, "May I ask how your parents met? Give me the piece of mind that there are Capitolites out there not married by convenience."

"...Yes, very sweet." She wondered, but decided not to ask, if the man had told Leo's mother about the bit with the mines. That must have been a romantic conversation.

The roses in the buildings, though? That sounded like something out of a novel and she smiled just at the thought. "How inventive. Who could compete with that?"

"Well, they may have married so they could carpool to work together..." She allowed a wry smile to slip through. "But the story they gave me was that they met at work and--my words, not theirs--fell in love while having to share the same files."

"I believe my mother said she appreciated his patriotism. But, really, that was love for those two." Yes, they were all a little happy family, aside from the part where they enabled a pretty evil government. But details, right?

"How administrative of your parents," Leo joked, taking a sip from the chill drink, "Then again, your father doesn't commit vandalism when he wants to declare his love for his wife."

"Love is strange, if we were to admit a few things," he added, taunting her to add her own thoughts into one of the most subjective of all emotions in the Capitol. Political marriages were so common, that actual affection was at a premium.

"That may be the best way I've ever heard them described." She waved a hand dismissively. "And it's hardly vandalism if he created something beautiful."

China was willing to excuse a lot when it came to pleasing the eyes. Jazzing up some Capitol buildings was hardly a crime.

"It is. And it can be horribly dull if pursued with the wrong person." China may not have been the best Capitolite to ask about love. Her ideas were a bit odd, shaped by her vanity and contempt for humanity. "Otherwise, though, I imagine it's rather intriguing."

"You sound like you've been on that dull road before, a bad catch?" Leo asked, "Sounds like you've played the games and pursued a boring subject."

Hearing Sorrows talk about this, the coach realized some of her answers sounded rehearsed, clinical, as if she never felt them. She took an almost mechanical approach to everything, like a new book that crossed her delicate hands. Was he trolling for a reaction. Of fucking course, but always with a purpose.

"Pursuing?" She shook her head. "They came to me, so I was at least saved the effort of pursuit--that would have only made the ordeal more upsetting."

"Boring men seem to travel in flocks, though, so once the first landed I was hardly ever spared." She sighed, another gesture Leo could probably recognize as a manufactured one. Boredom was a small price to pay for attention and the material gifts that came with love, but she would take her opportunity to complain.

Whereas China's boredom was artificially hidden under what the coach suspected was a veneer of professionalism, Leo had no qualms in being direct about it. If a person bored him, Capitolite or not, he would get up and leave. Like her, his time was valuable, and anything less than their standards is just noise.

"What a tragedy, here I thought someone would have you on your toes," he smirked and sipped his glass towards her. "Thankfully, there's plenty of theater to watch in our workplace, don't you think?"

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