Temple Stevens (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clotting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-06-06 09:31 pm
clotting) wrote in thecapitol2015-06-06 09:31 pm
What a Mess I Leave to Follow [Open]
WHO| Temple Drake and open; Temple and Linden; Temple and the D8 Staff
WHAT| Temple's back in town and being rich and obnoxious about it
WHEN| Week 2
WHERE| D8 Suite, D6 Suite and about town
WARNINGS| Anything darker than daytime alcohol use and usual Hunger Games fare will be warned for in the thread.
I. Open
The Capitol changes more in a year than the Districts do in ten, Temple knows, and yet it always feels as if she's coming back to somewhere that is fundamentally the same as it was when she left. It may get new technology and in this case, a bunch of offworlders, but its character is immutable. It's hungry and diseased and it swallows up poverty and defecates out the riches upon which the people living within it feast.
She slips into it like sugar into hot water and dissolves herself into the opulent atmosphere. She buys some new dresses, something appropriate for the weather and for living back in the fashion center of Panem, at a boutique and puts it on Gowan's credit card. She sips a fine-pressed coffee at a café and leaves the empty porcelain cup on the table for someone else to bus. She shops and loses interest when the salespeople speak of warranties, because she doesn't care if anything lasts her twelve months when she's probably going to replace it out of boredom in ten.
Occasionally, when she thinks no one's looking, she'll pull out a needle and thread and a handkerchief she's working on and add a few details to the embroidering she's doing. Birds have become a recent motif for her, although she doesn't want to admit why; on all her handkerchiefs lately they stare out at her, beady-eyed, or take flight holding, she imagines, her daughter's name in their talons. They named her after a bird, although Temple has yet to put that particular species to thread and fabric.
Aside from that nimble-fingered hobby of hers (aside from the skill inherent to how quickly and precisely she does it, which reveals that it once was never a hobby but a living), she seems every bit a Capitolite, bidding her Avox carry things or pausing at a store to examine the magazine covers that tell her belatedly the fashion trends she's already adopted. Bailey, her five year-old son, runs up to any of the already-slain Tributes he can find and pesters them, and sometimes Temple has to apologize for that. Occasionally she sees an old acquaintance (a Mentor, Staffer, a Capitol elite she's rubbed elbows with) and waves at them.
II. Linden
Temple's leaving when Linden's door opens, her dainty heels clicking away at the hallway tile, the sleek mechanical lines of the District Six decor. When she turns, it's with a familiar smile, none of the hesitation Linden feels upon seeing her. Temple's vices are not ones that other people introduce to her, but something innate, something that lies below her waist and under her breast; if it weren't Linden she acted them out on like some strange debased ritual feverish prayer, it would be upon someone else.
The smile only tautens a little when she sees how good he looks, and she hates herself for that, because she should be happy that he looks so healthy. And yet she can't deny that her first impulse is dread, and that with every flush of good pallor to his cheeks he runs away from her.
Temple, unlike some of the other Victors, doesn't seem to age. Maybe it's because she's merely twenty-five and has seemed twenty-eight since she was eighteen, but despite giving birth to two babies and drinking harder than most of the men she knows, plus using old tobacco cigarettes habitually, she appears exactly as Linden last saw her, aside from a slightly different hairstyle and makeup in spring colors rather than fall. Maybe it's that in taking her as a wife, Gowan has frozen her in time, removed her from the ravages of reality with a wedding ring that could feed her entire District for a decade.
"Oh, I wasn't expecting you to get my note for another few hours." She comes back for Linden, falling forward in her high heels with each step as if he is his own pull of gravity, and takes him by the shoulders and kisses each cheek. "They've called me back to Mentor and it's killing me already. I don't know how you do it."
III. D8 Staff
Like Swann, Temple announces her appointment to the District Eight Staff with gift baskets. Unlike Swann, Temple's giftbaskets are of a decidedly more adult flair. They're packed with hard liquor and packs of designer cigarettes along with one almost token jar of instant cakemix. Unlike Swann's, they weren't lovingly assembled by hand so much as placed together by a harried Avox, but they're glutted with the same sense of excessive wealth.
There's one for each Staffmember - Swann, Jolie and Samuel - and Temple's toyed with the idea of getting them for the Tributes before her attention span flitted away like some common sparrow. Now she sits in the District Eight common area, having practically marked the area with her perfume, which is heady and feminine. Her dress is tight and makes her look less like a grown woman than a trophy or an award, and she takes off her gloves only to readjust her slash of bright lipstick in a hand-mirror with pearl inlay.
An Avox scuttles back and forth, placing some of Temple's belongings in one of the Mentor rooms - including belongings for a small child, toys and miniature furniture, a rocking horse from rosewood. Bailey won't be living here, of course, and Temple herself will only be sleeping in the Tribute Center when it becomes inconvenient to travel back to the expensive neighborhoods in the Capitol for the evening, but she's a recently bereaved mother. Will anyone really hold it against her for wanting to occasionally take her surviving child to work?
"Oh, hello. There's something for you on the table," she'll say even before she glances up from readjusting her makeup when the elevator dings.
WHAT| Temple's back in town and being rich and obnoxious about it
WHEN| Week 2
WHERE| D8 Suite, D6 Suite and about town
WARNINGS| Anything darker than daytime alcohol use and usual Hunger Games fare will be warned for in the thread.
I. Open
The Capitol changes more in a year than the Districts do in ten, Temple knows, and yet it always feels as if she's coming back to somewhere that is fundamentally the same as it was when she left. It may get new technology and in this case, a bunch of offworlders, but its character is immutable. It's hungry and diseased and it swallows up poverty and defecates out the riches upon which the people living within it feast.
She slips into it like sugar into hot water and dissolves herself into the opulent atmosphere. She buys some new dresses, something appropriate for the weather and for living back in the fashion center of Panem, at a boutique and puts it on Gowan's credit card. She sips a fine-pressed coffee at a café and leaves the empty porcelain cup on the table for someone else to bus. She shops and loses interest when the salespeople speak of warranties, because she doesn't care if anything lasts her twelve months when she's probably going to replace it out of boredom in ten.
Occasionally, when she thinks no one's looking, she'll pull out a needle and thread and a handkerchief she's working on and add a few details to the embroidering she's doing. Birds have become a recent motif for her, although she doesn't want to admit why; on all her handkerchiefs lately they stare out at her, beady-eyed, or take flight holding, she imagines, her daughter's name in their talons. They named her after a bird, although Temple has yet to put that particular species to thread and fabric.
Aside from that nimble-fingered hobby of hers (aside from the skill inherent to how quickly and precisely she does it, which reveals that it once was never a hobby but a living), she seems every bit a Capitolite, bidding her Avox carry things or pausing at a store to examine the magazine covers that tell her belatedly the fashion trends she's already adopted. Bailey, her five year-old son, runs up to any of the already-slain Tributes he can find and pesters them, and sometimes Temple has to apologize for that. Occasionally she sees an old acquaintance (a Mentor, Staffer, a Capitol elite she's rubbed elbows with) and waves at them.
II. Linden
Temple's leaving when Linden's door opens, her dainty heels clicking away at the hallway tile, the sleek mechanical lines of the District Six decor. When she turns, it's with a familiar smile, none of the hesitation Linden feels upon seeing her. Temple's vices are not ones that other people introduce to her, but something innate, something that lies below her waist and under her breast; if it weren't Linden she acted them out on like some strange debased ritual feverish prayer, it would be upon someone else.
The smile only tautens a little when she sees how good he looks, and she hates herself for that, because she should be happy that he looks so healthy. And yet she can't deny that her first impulse is dread, and that with every flush of good pallor to his cheeks he runs away from her.
Temple, unlike some of the other Victors, doesn't seem to age. Maybe it's because she's merely twenty-five and has seemed twenty-eight since she was eighteen, but despite giving birth to two babies and drinking harder than most of the men she knows, plus using old tobacco cigarettes habitually, she appears exactly as Linden last saw her, aside from a slightly different hairstyle and makeup in spring colors rather than fall. Maybe it's that in taking her as a wife, Gowan has frozen her in time, removed her from the ravages of reality with a wedding ring that could feed her entire District for a decade.
"Oh, I wasn't expecting you to get my note for another few hours." She comes back for Linden, falling forward in her high heels with each step as if he is his own pull of gravity, and takes him by the shoulders and kisses each cheek. "They've called me back to Mentor and it's killing me already. I don't know how you do it."
III. D8 Staff
Like Swann, Temple announces her appointment to the District Eight Staff with gift baskets. Unlike Swann, Temple's giftbaskets are of a decidedly more adult flair. They're packed with hard liquor and packs of designer cigarettes along with one almost token jar of instant cakemix. Unlike Swann's, they weren't lovingly assembled by hand so much as placed together by a harried Avox, but they're glutted with the same sense of excessive wealth.
There's one for each Staffmember - Swann, Jolie and Samuel - and Temple's toyed with the idea of getting them for the Tributes before her attention span flitted away like some common sparrow. Now she sits in the District Eight common area, having practically marked the area with her perfume, which is heady and feminine. Her dress is tight and makes her look less like a grown woman than a trophy or an award, and she takes off her gloves only to readjust her slash of bright lipstick in a hand-mirror with pearl inlay.
An Avox scuttles back and forth, placing some of Temple's belongings in one of the Mentor rooms - including belongings for a small child, toys and miniature furniture, a rocking horse from rosewood. Bailey won't be living here, of course, and Temple herself will only be sleeping in the Tribute Center when it becomes inconvenient to travel back to the expensive neighborhoods in the Capitol for the evening, but she's a recently bereaved mother. Will anyone really hold it against her for wanting to occasionally take her surviving child to work?
"Oh, hello. There's something for you on the table," she'll say even before she glances up from readjusting her makeup when the elevator dings.
no subject
Something in Temple's face always tends to go dead when she's grabbed suddenly, and despite the fact that she knows Cassian, that happens now. She turns to him blindly, lower lip hanging slightly, and then the light returns to her eyes like a creature emerging from a cave, and she blinks away the detachment and replaces it with a wide smile.
"The District Six weather very nearly dried me up into a raisin, Cassian. You have no idea the amount of skin products I've been going through these days." She pulls him close and gives him an air-kiss to each cheek.
"Are you now? Well, I can't say that I'd be unhappy being your first muse. Oh, but we have to catch up. I've been so out of the loop for good gossip. All I can do is hope that my internet signal doesn't die every day out there in the desert. It's the worst."
no subject
"Well, the products must be working, your skin is glowing. You're just lucky that you missed all that with the skin dying when those trolls came into fashion--Goodness, it looked adorable, but it was terrible for skin." He clucked his tongue, shaking his head disapprovingly. Not that Cassian had any room to talk. He didn't dye his skin, but the amount of alcohol, drugs, and everything else that gave him that instant gratification for feel goods was probably doing a number on his body that he would have to pay for in his older years--Pay for literally, probably, slipping money to a doctor to fix what his indulgent youth had wrecked.
"Oh, yes, I have so much to share. Mostly about our coworkers! Naturally, I did all kinds of digging when I finally got my own district, and I declare, Temple, more people should focus on the staff of the tower, because they have juicier things than most the tributes. Did you know I'm working with Jason Compson himself?" He batted his eyelashes at her, then turned to inspect the dress. "Mmm, mmm. You have a stylist, don't you? Whatever you get, I'll send instructions on how to tailor it for you to them. We need more short people to win arenas, Temple, my dear. Some of these fashions just aren't cut out for us vertically challenged folks."
no subject
Like Cassian, she indulges probably too much in both alcohol and old-fashioned cigarettes, the types you only get addicted to out in the Districts. Thankfully, Gowan's bank account seems bottomless, and he's more than happy to allow her access to it to keep her looking young and to keep her moods placid, her indiscretions discreet. So she feels very little guilt when she slips a flask from her purse and takes a sip.
"Oh, no, you poor thing. I hear he's quite a nightmare as a co-worker, although he did always seem to at least get the job done." She leans in and offers the flask to Cassian. "Don't let him break your spirit. Gowan says he's just insecure because he was fat as a child."
She takes Cassian by the elbow, directing him towards a stylish cafe they can sit at and share spiked coffee at. What does she care that it's barely noon? "I'm with Tres Jolie, and I'm happy for that, but she does tend to style for taller people. It would be nice to not have to wear inserts to even my platforms."
no subject
He takes the flask with a murmur of thanks, and sips it, which he immediately regrets, because now he has to focus on not choking with laughter as Temple reveals a tidbit of gossip about his irritable coworker. The task is managed admirably, and Cassian passes the flask back, wheezing a little to clear his throat.
"Fat? Oh my god, Temple. I'm trying to picture it, I truly am. There must be pictures somewhere. I bet a little digging around could find them. Of course, Jason would kill me." He allows himself to be led, a docile lap dog, even when the woman doing the leading is a Districter. But Cassian was forever a fashionista, and his concern would be with the presentation. Temple acted like she belonged here, so she did. He took a seat, and pulled out his cigarettes, tapping the box a few times before withdrawing one, and offering the box to Temple.
"I think it'd be worth it. He's so odd, honestly. He does do his work, I'll give him that. But like...his clothing is all perfect, top of the line, all the hot stores right now, but none of his accessories come from the same store--And they're all old. His shoes have scuffs. Scuffs! I would go out and get a new pair myself, but he'd probably tan my hide and wear that, instead."
He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table. "Eeeh. She's a fantastic stylist, but god, she's intimidating. I don't know if I could bare to try to tell her what to do with you. Still, I can just pass you some of my works, anyway. There aren't enough pretty women in my District as it is, it'll be nice to design something cute." He waved his hand a little, before shrugging. "At least I have Emily. She's a dear, really."
no subject
She takes a seat, smoothing out her skirt so that the scar above her knee doesn't have a chance to show, an ugly crude heart that one of her fellow Tributes carved into her as some sort of sick joke. She thanks Cassian and takes the cigarette, setting it ablaze with a lighter inside a ring on her index finger. She exhales smoke and giggles as it bubbles down over her chest.
"It's because he's broke. You can tell that his family hasn't had money in decades because if you look really closely at the sides of his nostrils you can see rhinoplasty scars. Sloppy work." Temple clicks her tongue and shakes her head. "Scuffed shoes, really. I haven't seen a scuff since I left District Six. He should have some pride."
She watches Cassian's fingers, the combination of alcohol, nicotine and gossip relaxing and rejuvenating her some.
"At least your District has women. All we've got are big burly men. Although." She raises her eyebrows. "I don't mind the eye candy."
no subject
"...I'll look for that scar some time. None of the doctors I've ever seen has so much as left a dent in my skin. Maybe I could recommend someone." He grinned, rubbing his chin, as perfect and adorable as if God himself had given it to him. Cassian was pretty relaxed about mentioning the little alterations he'd made--Who hasn't forked over some money to make sure that their body looked the way they wanted it? It wasn't like he did a lot of the more cosmetic surgery. Hair dye, fake tattoos, contacts--Cassian preferred that cosmetic alterations were as temporary was fashions were.
"Hey, I wouldn't mind some big, burly men. I've got...Dorian and Alain. Both decent lookers, I have to say, but nothing with meat on him." He grinned, waggling his eyebrows unrepentantly. "If you ever feel too full of the eye candy, send some of them my way."
no subject
She leans in, looking side to side at Cassian's face as if she could see any of the work that went into it and when she finds it acceptable, giving him an approving nod. Temple's own work has been limited to getting her body back into her current physique after having her children and a slight tuck to the chin; the rest has just been hardy genes with good skin treatments and a docile, pampered life. Offworlders wouldn't notice it, but Temple has a few facial features that are clearly Districter, the slight flatness at the corner of her lips, the deep-set large eyes that Capitolites consider 'exotic'.
"Am I ever full of eye candy? Besides, you have twice the playing field I do. Don't be selfish and take all my men, you know I mostly don't moon after women." Not that she doesn't or hasn't, but it's more rare, and Temple can't think of many in the Training Center that she would care to look at more than once.
no subject
Luckily, with the old families, the families that set the trends, being inbred to hell and back, plastic surgery would always be on the trendy side, as families coughed up plenty of money to put to rights what they'd managed to fuck up with their genetics.
"Hmm--You know, Temple, I never thought about it that way, but you're right." Cassian mused, watching her smoke rings with admiration. "They're those old art pieces that get preserved just because they're old, but you see the wear and tear anyway." He gave a little huff, crinkling his nose. Then he glanced over at Temple, face apologetic. "Not that there's anything wrong with you, darling. Honestly, I think that more people need to be open to the idea of marrying people like you--Look at you, you belong here." It's an earnest attempt at a compliment, if a bit accidentally blundering. "Or, look at Emily Finch. She is an absolute sweetheart, bless her heart. Plenty of people born in the districts have proven they can be model Capitol citizens, if given half a chance."
He giggled at her next bit, though, and gave a dramatic sigh. "Well, very well. Have your fun! But be sure to let me know if anyone turns out decent." Cassian was dimly aware that there were rules against that, but there were rules against a lot of things. And when you were young and rich, there were Rules and there were things that you just had to be discreet about, and no one would care.
no subject
"Oh, honey, I consider myself as new money as any of them. Obviously you don't get newer to money than a Districter." She waves a hand. "And Gowan can't give his inbreeding and lousy hygiene to me."
Just to their babies, or rather, the only one that anybody is certain is a Stevens by blood.
"Oh, I will. See, it's legal for me to touch the Tributes." And that's as far as she'll claim her status as a Mentor instead of an Escort. She takes another swig from her flask and slides it over the table to Cassian. "Not that I would, of course, being married and all. You know what I mean."
She totally would.
no subject
"Oh, you're right. But look at you, all pretty and sophisticated. Trying to say that someone like you or me are no better than, like..." He waved his hand distastefully. "Whatever else. It's stupid. I was born in the Capitol, just like Jason was. And I've got nicer clothes, and I can afford good surgeries. Why's he better?" Any irony that this could invoke flew right over his head, as he wrinkled his nose and sipped his coffee.
The subject change onto getting to touch Tributes just made Cassian laugh, shaking his head. Like he cared if Temple slept with the whole tower behind Gowan's back. He takes the flask, pouring a bit of it into his coffee, and returning it. "Of course not, darling. Not that I would ever touch the tributes either...!" Except he would. "I guess we're just two sad saps stuck getting to look at all the eyecandy." An exaggerated sigh. Truly, life was hard here.
no subject
She blows another smoke ring and shakes her head like a dog getting its ears pet.
"Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink," Temple says with a deep sigh, having entirely forgotten that it was a Districter phrase used to describe being unable to afford enough fabric to keep warm even in the textile factories, of people with frostbitten fingers working in unheated buildings as they sewed rabbit-fur coats for people hundreds of miles away - having forgotten that that's where she learned it.