thecapitol | Oh, this is the night and the heavens are right on this lovely Bella Notte

Oh, this is the night and the heavens are right on this lovely Bella Notte

Who| Everyone who signed up for blind dating!
What| An evening of romance, or disaster, take your pick.
Where| The Swift Cut restaurant
When| 16th June
Warnings/Notes| The course of true love never did run smooth. Remember that if your character was not rolled in arena but you signed up for them to be here, you will need to mark their death on fatality reporting.

The atmosphere at the Swift Cut this evening is bustling. It's clear from the moment one enters the restaurant that they have pulled all the stops out for this televised extravaganza.

Every fire is lit and the air is filled with the scent of the roasting meat on spits over the flames; boar, beef, pork, venison and more. Pots bubble with the smell of hot stew, vegetables are being roasted in ovens and from giant casks around the room beer is being drawn. The staff are in full 'barbarian' getup, consisting of skimpy furs on both the male and the female servers but luckily for you they don't seem to expect a similar dress code from their guests.

Tribute's stylists may have had other ideas, of course.

The giant room has been clearly divided. Tribute's will find themselves directed to one side while trueborn citizens of Panem and petitioned out individuals are brought to the other. It is left up to them to find their table with the number they will be handed upon entering the restaurant. Whether they are the first to arrive at their table is a matter of chance but they can be sure that a cameraman will always be there to capture the moment of realisation on both participants faces when they realise who their date is.

Once everyone is seated the music will begin the play. Minstrels strum lutes and harps, their voices filling the air softly with traditional medieval ballads. There is a space set aside for dancing if anyone is in the mood.

Throughout the evening, and certainly at the end, Tribute's and Capitolites will find themselves sporadically approached by the show host to be asked questions about how they feel the evening is going. It's up to them how honestly they answer, though they should remember the camera's are always watching.

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Everything happened so quickly, that there was no time for Gritta to protest that she didn't particularly want to go on a date. Arranged romance had not worked out pleasantly for in the past. And though it was the very definition of hopeless to continue to pine for a dead man, her feelings for General Schwarz were ones that she was not yet ready to set aside. This was all too soon... but the promise of a good meal soothed her. And her District's stylist even put her in a cute sack dress and gave her a headband of complimentary pastel flowers. She felt very pretty. And that was enough to soothe some of her misgivings long enough to get her to the restaurant and settled in her seat.

She casts wide-eyed looks all about while waiting for her date to arrive. Everything is new, everything is strange, everything needs to be understood... and also, she can catch the dim light reflecting off of Zed's suit from all the way over here and she can't help but keep an anxious eye on him in the absence of anything larger to fret about.

Karkat arrives dressed nicely for the evening. He's more a stocky little brick than a bundle of adorable twigs, but tails and spats and a red bow tie are all there still, and he's still much smaller than his date at 5'2". Table 21 said his ticket, and so he's come, but...

"Are you kidding me?"

Who is this? What is this? If he's a brick then she's a cupcake, round and frosted with fine fabrics and floral decorations, all in colors better belonging on a dessert.

"What kind of joke is this? I signed up for a date, but no one told me the 'blind' part was a requirement to survive it. Who set this up? Who decided this? I can't romance a pile of frills twice my mass, and I defy whoever's in charge to find someone who can."

He is loud, and his voice is rough with the kind of inherent scratchiness of someone used to shouting. At least his fans expected a tantrum, and the cameras ensure they'll see.

Having arrived first, she has time to size up her date as he makes his way to the table. And... and there's really not much size there, is there? She's used to being tall in comparison to the average Shadow, but he's particularly compact in comparison. But she won't say anything. That would be rude. So she folds her hands and puts on a pleasant expression (not much different than her usual one, but oh well) and waits...

And then there is shouting. It's so startling that there's no use concealing her shock from the outburst. Gritta gasps audibly, one hand drawing into her chest, jaw going slack. She looks very much taken aback. How incredibly rude of him! Her mind is racing for a proper course of action. Mother might well have shot the young man, were she subject to such an outburst, but mother always was much more direct when confronted. She'll have to do this her own way.

"And... and what makes you think that romance was ever my intention?" There. Affronted, but not too much so, and turning the outburst back onto him. She lets her hand drop back to the table and tilts her head subtly higher. "If that's what you've come for, you're getting ahead of yourself." This isn't easy. There's a waver in her voice. But she's trying.

Oh, so she speaks. Karkat's lip curls, baring nubby little fangs that don't measure up to her teeth, and turns back from his failed attempt to get a manager or someone to at least acknowledge his ~~tantrum~~ ~~legitimate qualms~~ tantrum.

(Ready those bingo cards, viewers.)

He flings his hands up and out, leaning back like the conundrum is just as new to him. "You tell me! This is only a dating event, and who ever heard of dates and romance going along together, right? Surely not whoever set me up with this dog-faced, purple puffball. I expected a person, not a living, breathing insult to my concept of credulity."

He steps over the last couple feet to sit, and it's ridiculous how much she dwarfs him even when they're both seated. He feels like he's facing down a fashionable mountain.

"So tell me, why the fuck are you here? We're already agreed that no one's walking away from this with a new quadrant prospect."

Edited (wrong preposition) 2015-06-18 00:10 (UTC)

If he intends for this to be frightening, it's... well, okay, it's loud and overbearing and a little socially intimidating, but he lacks genuine menace. She comes from the deepest depths of darkness, where monsters plot to take over the human world. Nubby horns and fangs are nothing. She unfolds and refolds her hands, tense in her seat.

"In my experience, actual romance is a very rare thing." Her eyes close a moment, in a sort of dismissive emphasis. "I'm here because I was told to be here. And because there will be dinner." And, a little softer, eyes opening, "And because I've never done this before."

At least he's sitting. He could have turned right around and left, if he felt so strongly that this wasn't worth doing. It's still very confusing, though, that he's upset. Wasn't she a great beauty? Striking and adorable? "...why are you here?"

Not frightening, no. Mostly he intends to command attention, and it works, so he's kept at the habit.

He passes off her comment with a dismissive flip of his hand. She doesn't need to know how little luck he's had himself, and he's not here for pity of sympathy from someone like her.

"I signed myself up," he proclaims, head turning up from surveying the layout of the table. "Because I am addicted to my own suffering, and if there's one thing that my friend's marketing scheme has proved, it's that my angry face sells. Who am I to deny what my fans want?" He looks aside, directly at one of the cameras, and asks, "Hey, Drusus! You watching?"

He looks back. "And maybe some secret part of my heart that hasn't been made screamingly obvious hoped that I could find someone worth the experience here, but like everything in life, I have been swatted back down into place. At least I'll get food out of it."

Speaking of which, he waves over a waiter. "I'll take a glass of water. You got menus?" And when she nods and says of course, he takes one to bury his nose in as he slumps down in his seat. She'll offer the same to his date, too.

That explanation gets a long, slow blink out of her. "I... see." And then she sighs. Very little of this makes sense yet. But as unpleasant as this is, it seems like it's going to at least be a little educational. She remains silent while the waiter is waved over, and takes the menu with a soft 'thank you' and a nod, holding it but not opening it just yet.

"Do you think I should worry about... marketing, too?" She looks to him and pauses to give him time to answer, opening her menu but not perusing it just yet. "I want to do well here. But I'm still not sure what that is, in this place." Probably not getting set up on dates with shouty grey boys. "...I'm sorry that you haven't had much luck on dates." And she sounds quite sadly sincere when she says it. These things are hard. She feels that she understands.

Karkat tips his menu just enough to peek over the top at her, only really having to because of his slump. He wants to snap at her at first, but her question is too serious to comfortably brush off, and even less so after what sounds like a surprisingly genuine condolence.

Damnit, he can't just blow this off after all.

It's after a minute of debating the merits of slinking under the table and spending the rest of the date with his head under his chair that he finally, sullenly sits up straight.

"I died at the Cornucopia," he admits, tone much more subdued but still with that yells-too-much scratch. "By something that wasn't remotely my fault. The one time I almost got to the end, it was only by the help of a bunch of people better than me, and I died anyway when the arena collapsed on everyone but one of us."

He lays the menu flat and folds his arms across it. "I don't know what doing well is. I'm doing the marketing because I want to look good to the people here, I want to help my friends, and I want a chance of helping the District I was assigned to. Marketing yourself will net sponsorships if you do it right, but it's still up to you what you do with them. There's tributes here who could easily win without a single ad to their name if they tried right. I don't think there's any one right way to succeed in this place; you just have to try and hope you don't fuck up."

But so long as they're going to have an actual conversation...

"We should probably introduce ourselves at some point. I'm Karkat. What's your name?"

Edited 2015-06-18 02:57 (UTC)

In that minute of deliberation, she has time for a little deliberation of her own. Should she order soup as a starter, or a proper appetizer? She hasn't quite made up her mind when the shouty boy speaks again, and she lets out a little startled sound and lowers her menu. And then closes it and sets it flat on the table, though her hands don't leave it.

"I see." And now it is a little clearer, having gotten an explanation from a fellow tribute rather than a staff member. His perspective is one she immediately sympathizes with, to be in the position to help rather than to make her way to her goal through sheer force. There's a slight upturning of her mouth, though those eyes of hers look no less sad. "Some are made for fighting and some are made for other things. That's an idea that I am very familiar with." Then she inclines her head slightly to the side. "I think I see how people would come to like you." And give him what he wants. Which he can then give to who he wants. That's smart. She should think of how to do that, herself....

"Gritta. I'm Gritta."

Karkat shrugs emphatically. "Then that puts you a step above me! I still don't know why these people like seeing me flail around and drip emotions like a cognitively incompetent living melodrama. I'm just glad they do, because it helps me, and I guess the fans get what they want from that in turn."

His gaze lowers from her to his menu again, this time to study it more seriously instead of the excuse to block her from sight it served as earlier.

"Gritta's a good name. Most of these human ones I can never figure out how to spell without asking, and they have too many letters or too few. There's no sense to them."

Karkat's confusion gets a giggle out of her. Though she'd like to try and explain why he seems so likable, it's something that she herself can't quite put her finger on, or put into words. It's a feeling. Beneath all the yelling and vulgarity, she'd almost say that he shines.

"Is it? Are they?" What a funny sort of thing to say. She quirks her head curiously as she picks her menu back up as well. "Are troll names different, somehow?" Another look at the menu does settle it for her. She will start with the soup.

"Six letters per name, first and last," he says as he browses. "Until a troll reaches adulthood and earns a title for themself. Titles can be multiple words, but the rule there is eight letters, barring special circumstances like the Grand Highblood or Her Imperious Condescension."

It's about now that their waiter comes back over. Karkat orders some appetizer to nibble at, and she'll take Gritta's soup order too.

"And it's something in the sound, too. Gritta sounds... It doesn't sound like a human name." He motions at her. She's obviously not human anyway, but that's not really what he's getting at. "How do they work wherever you're from? In fact, tell me about it in general. I've never seen one of your species here before, and I'm talking as another minority."

"Oh. That's very specific. Shadow names aren't like that at all. Although when you talk about titles..." She gives the slightest of shrugs, and then there's a pause while appetizers and soup are ordered.

"If you're a rank and file Shadow, you're named for what you do. If you're noble, your name is more unique. My mother is Madame Noire. She was always at odds with Baron Nero. And I... I knew a General Schwarz." She pauses a moment there, folding her hands. "...a proper name should be dark and elegant." Quite literally. They're all words for 'black' in other human languages.

With the waiter gone he folds his arms, attention back fully on Gritta and her answer. And linguistic themes go past his head; English is the only one he knew, enforced now by however it is the Capitol makes them use it. Elegance was never his domain, anyhow.

But a noble? His arms don't leave the table, but his head lifts higher; his posture goes more tense. He never would have guessed, but then he's utterly ignorant to Shadows and their culture.

"I'm as far from nobility as it gets," he admits. "Dead last on the social totem pole, he who deals with whatever falls from the vaunted rungs set higher than his. Actually, no--I wasn't even on the pole, I was on the ground looking up, determined to climb my way to recognition if not for something called the Reckoning."

A pause before he adds, "That's a metaphor, by the way. It was all biological and consequently the dumbest thing I have had to put up with, save maybe some of my costumes. How does it work for Shadows?"

Hearing that Karkat is the absolute opposite of noble isn't a huge surprise, but it's maybe a little alarming. It obviously means a lot to him, not even being on the metaphorical ladder. But just about everyone that she has encountered has not been on the same level of technical social standing. Does it really matter that much, here? She'll have to think on it.

"Not at all how it works for trolls. We're born from the darkness itself... but it's sometimes more complicated than that. Sometimes another Shadow wants to draw one out, and sometimes a truly powerful one forms in the deep darkness..." And though it's not at all subtle, she casts a sidelong glance to Zed's table, where he's busy drinking wine and being suggestive at some poor man.

Better not stare too long. Her eyes go back to Karkat. "We all work towards the same purpose. More or less. I don't imagine trolls are anything like Shadows, in that way."

His eyebrows press in at the middle as he listens, curious though it's nothing close to anything he's heard of before save perhaps in fiction. Which is its own thing, if what Dave said about Tony was right--but he's not going to bother overthinking that. Alternate universes are weird.

He follows her glance, but doesn't say anything to it.

Instead he says, "Not really, no. I mean, after we hit adulthood we were expected to contribute to conquering the galaxy, but there were all different parts to that, and not everyone agreed with it." His ancestor, for one, though he lived in different era.

"We're not made out of shadow or anything like that. I mean, the trolls here are different because of complex shenanigans that would take their own lengthy explanation, but typically trolls are hatched out of eggs laid by the Mother Grub. Then there's individual strengths and skills and shit, and powers that tend to go with certain castes..." He frowns some here. It's not his favorite topic, but it's hardly a secret here in Panem, especially not when his ancestor is also a Victor. "But it's blood color that determines overall social status. If you have the right blood, you're basically entitled to rule over everyone lower on the hemospectrum, at least by societal standards."

Gritta makes a little hum of consideration. "Conquest isn't easy. It's not easy keeping everyone on the same page, either. Everyone seems to have an agenda. Or everyone's on some side or another." And the rest is taken in with what he may find to be a surprising lack of shock. It's different, but it doesn't strike her as particularly morally repugnant. There's nodding, and soft "Aaah"s of understanding, mostly.

"It's certainly different from the human world... this place must be an awful large adjustment for you, too." That, she can be sympathetic about. And it's a safely universal kind of statement. "I'm still getting used to the sunlight being safe." And that, she demonstrates a little flusteredness over. Brrr, light is terribly dangerous. What could they have possibly done to her to make her immune?

"Uuuugh, don't get me started," Karkat whines, slumping forward. His forearms lay out straight at either side of his place setting, his head propped in his hands. "I never even got to space - never would have in the first place - but I had my own team of assholes to direct in this game we played, and not one of those fuckers wanted to listen. Eleven of them, all different castes, all with their own stupid drama and everything. Do you know how hard that was to coordinate? How little sleep I got that perigee? And we still won, because I get shit done." He thumps a fist loosely against the tabletop, rattling his silverware.

Finally straightening, he goes on more calmly. "The sun part was easy next to the rest. Their star must be weaker, or it's something with the atmosphere, I don't know." His hand waves. "And I had three years living with a couple humans before I came here, but let me tell you it did not prepare me for Panem. Their Earth wasn't anything like this, and none if it came with warnings about the constant media attention."

He turns to wave in pat acknowledgement of a camera.

"Say, do you think that waiter's got our appetizers yet?"

"That's... that's impressive." It's not feigned, it's not polite patter. Gritta is genuinely impressed with what Karkat claims to have done. He's certainly not date material, but he's a lot more interesting (and possibly useful) than he seemed to be at first glance. She absently moves her silverware back into place as he continues on.

"I... think the sun is just as strong, here? Shadows..." She trails off, realizing that she should be more evasive about possibly letting drop a weakness to those that can't figure it out for themselves. "...Shadows don't care for any bright light. I only wish I'd have been able to see more of Earth, myself, to make my own comparisons." And she, too, glances at that camera. Aah, yes, people are watching, aren't they?

"...I would hope they have our appetizers. We've been waiting an awful long while, haven't we?" And she gives a little huff. Maybe it hasn't been that long, but there's some merit to showing some disappointment, sometimes. Sometimes it gets you what you want.

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Oh, this is the night and the heavens are right on this lovely Bella Notte

Table 21 | Gritta and Karkat

I'm so sorry Gritta

It's okay she's strong she can handle it

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