Oh, sing sweet nightingale, sing sweet nightingale

[etcircenses]

Who| Anyone who's anyone (and of course, those signed up for the plot)
What| It's a games-watching party! A medieval ball and renaissance fair in one!
Where| A Capitol Ballroom.
When| Friday evening! This log is forward dated!
Warnings/Notes| Please do not comment in the placeholders! Those are needed for the later event. More details to come...

Hennins, masks, crowns and gowns. This is a ball built for playing the part. Although some guests have come in masquerade, it's certainly not mandatory. In fact, while attempts for some historical accuracy were made, that isn't mandatory as much so either. Medieval people were so drab! It shouldn't hurt to bring in a little fab.

The ballroom is big and beautiful, painted ceilings, gilded sculptures all up along the walls, shining chandeliers and marble floors. Paintings hang of President Snow, his family, and other infamous Capitolite families, all of whom also have coats of arms. Tapestries hang too along the walls depicting scenes of the Dark Days and recent arena both, all in Medeival styling.

Guests enter through wide doors and red-carpeted stairs leading down. The way to the gardens is a back opened wall on one side for guests to go to and from as they please, or observe the shows taking place outside.

Guessing games are had among the masked, and in one corner this has been taken to extreme. Black robes and eerie plague masks have been left for people to dress in so friends are forced to guess who they are through miming or voice. In another corner, a magician wows audiences and a women with a fogged crystal ball reads palms and gives fortunes.

The tables are set to the sides of the ballroom and far apart to allow plentiful dancing space. The food is, of course, a marvellous feast of all sorts of fruits, meats, breads, and more. One doesn't even need rise from the table to talk to another across the room; in each section a messenger bird, a colorful falcon-hawk muttation, awaiting notes that may be offered to it and the instruction as to whom they need deliver to. Notes can be signed or left unsigned and written in fullest honesty. The messenger birds are as obedient as any Avox, but far more fun! If perhaps slightly more susceptible to trickery, stealing napkins, food, and other things as commanded by mischievous children and adults alike.

Outside are all manner of games and shows in a great festival lit by torchlight and friendly glowing lightening-faerie muttations. Jugglers and jesters, stilt-walkers and fire-eaters. There's no end to the entertainment. There are medieval stocks set up for individuals to enact vegetable justice upon the volunteers, and some to simply take pictures with.

A chained bear dances to music played upon harps, drums, lutes, viols, crumhorns, pipe and tabors, and more! Both outside and within the ballroom dances are taking place. Some dances have patterns that can be easily follow and kept up with. Others are rehearsed by that of performers. The music plays soft and gentle, fast and lively, and all in between, some featuring bards singing their songs. Some of these songs may just be about you.

In brewing witches pots, sparkling and smoking with their magic, projections of the arena can be watched. Small ones are set upon the tables while larger ones sit outside. When those feasting are not cheering for that, they may do so for the rounds archery done with suction-cup arrows. Or perhaps the Jousting, of which there is both an option for guest participation with foam lances, cushioned ground, and animatronic horses, as well as the option of observing the real deal of jousting, with professional riders and performers, one for each District and The Capitol as well. Or perhaps you might head on down to view the axe-throwing competition? Or maybe you will sign up for pageant of beauty and talents. There's a place for children to play Nine-Man Morris and of course a keg and bar for the adults.

There is a stable, a pond, and a beautiful garden beyond the shows and performances. A gazebo goes out over the water, unintentionally modern as a part of the original building, but lovely nonetheless.

Why, there's just so much to do, it's hard not to see why the place is crowded and full with attendants. In fact, it's just noisy enough that some people might get away with saying a word or two they wouldn't be able to elsewhere. Things, and people, could easily hide right in plain sight...

Comments

[lionhearted_victor]

"Sounds like a pattern...the lower the District, the less the Capitolites want to talk to the people there. Unfortunate, since we're all working to keep Panem together and safe," and thankfully, Leo still kept his less than favorable opinions about Capitolite breathing habits, "Your Arena, you outlasted the competition, didn't you?" Save for the few kills she had, "Do you still have nightmares?" Working with a Mentor changed something in Cora's way of thinking. No longer did the Mentors seem like the pillars of strength the Capitol marketed them as, but human beings with deep flaws. In a sense, it made them less intimidating to approach.

[conifer]

Emily's lips tighten into a thin line as the topic of conversation changes so abruptly to her own Arena. "That's a kinder way to put it than some I've heard." She'd outlasted the competition by betraying the naive kid who'd saved her life at least twice in the Arena. She'd heard every synonym for treachery used to describe her. Outlast sounds more passive, like she can absolve herself of some of the responsibility and guilt using it. "Every Victor has nightmares. If they say they don't, they're lying."

[lionhearted_victor]

The thing about a Career, or at least a former one, is that Leo wouldn't judge Emily for killing the other child...Tributes back then and now, they forgot their purpose. Katniss and Peeta had proven to be the exception and they were lauded for their efforts, but the law was that: one Victor. "Hence why Jason should treat you with the respect you deserve. You survived and with that every sacrifice the Districts makes carries more weight. He sees it as a job, you see it as a reality."

He's seen the nightmares' effect on Torin and Linden, those Mentors he regarded as both coworkers and even friends, if he were to cross that line.

[conifer]

"If he's going to take his bad attitude out on someone, I'd rather it was me than the Tributes," she says quietly, wearily, knowing Leo's right but that it won't change anything. She attempts a smile, grateful that he's in her corner. "If you want to tell Jason all that, be my guest, but it'll fall on deaf ears. That or he'll take it as a reason to have a vendetta against you."

[lionhearted_victor]

"He already has a vendetta against me because I was born in District 2 and I called him out on his self-loathing ways being borderline psychological," In other words, he managed to backhandedly call Jason crazy. "Unless either are magically turned into rich Capitolites that can buy him out of working...we're on his shit list. At least you get along with him."

[conifer]

Emily's eyes widen in stunned surprise that anyone had dared to call Jason crazy to his face. But then Emily had visited his home, seen his family... she probably had more of an idea about the mental instability that seemed rampant in Jason's family than most of the staff here. By comparison, Jason himself seemed almost sane.

"You must have a death wish, saying things like that to him."

[lionhearted_victor]

"I don't tolerate people badmouthing my home if they've never set foot in it. The Districts are here to serve Panem, yes, but what Jason tends to do in his tirades is incite rage," There are no lies or exaggerations, Leo could see the indignation present..."Unless he wants to make riots happen for fun."

[conifer]

She pales a little at the mention of riots, her thoughts flashing back to the one that her part of Seven had become engulfed in, and the Peacekeeper publicly torturing the instigators, his mutilated face burned into her memory. "Even Jason doesn't want that."

[lionhearted_victor]

Seeing Torin react the way he does to particular stimuli, Leo can see something similar happening to Emily. She was a Victor after all and the Arena tended to keep something from each and every one of them.

"If he keeps trying to portray himself as the voice of the Capitol without the needed empathy...not like our President, that will rub Districters the wrong way."

As a Districter, Cora felt that way whenever Jason gave his history lessons.

[conifer]

"That's what they have Peacekeepers for," she says with a bitterness in her tone, knowing the Capitol couldn't care less if it rubbed the Districts the wrong way.

[lionhearted_victor]

"They do..." Emily's bitterness struck a cord with the fellow Districter. He knows that for all their talk of equal treatment, there's an underlying favoritism towards the Capitolites. But this wasn't the time or place to discuss this and with that, Leo suggested, "Shall we go back into the ball?"

[conifer]

Emily looks around at the dancing and revelry, grateful that Leo's wise enough to know when that subject has gone too far. "Let's. It would be a shame to miss out, after all."

[lionhearted_victor]

"I'm pretty sure we're just missing someone try to explode the arena again," Leo chuckled just a bit darkly as he headed back inside, donning his mask once more and allowed Emily to pass him by without much incident. After all, they were somewhat on the same boat: one wrong move and it's one hell of a punishment.