A Big World Out There Like the One I Saw On the Screen [OPEN]

[vissernone]

Who| Eva and any Escort, Stylist, Mentor, Sponsor or Avox
What| Mentor green room party!
Where| Training center
When| As the arena begins.
Warnings/Notes| None yet.

Watching the Cornucopia isn't for the faint of heart, and even after years of seeing it, Eva has to be a few drinks in to see it in company. She's already on her third glass of wine when she arrives at the Tribute lounge dressed in a red and brown dress decorated in antler, vertebrae and a pelvic bone. With all the Tributes gone, the lounge is open to Stylists, Escorts, Sponsors and Mentors, and Eva's hosting a little get-together.

By 'hosting', she mostly means she's bossed the Avoxes around into bringing up enough wine and crackers to get her through the evening. She has her fingers crossed that few people do show up - Elias, Cinna, Ariadne - and that a few invitees don't - Baron, Billy.

She settles onto a couch, careful not to catch her unwieldy outfit on anything. At the very least, it should keep people from sitting right next to her. A television's counting down - five minutes until the Arena begins.

[OOC: please go forth and mingle!]

Comments

[fire_punk]

Kevin didn't really want to be here. He'd much rather be in his room, away from people and ignoring these stupid Games. But his Escort had chased him down here, threatening to have his room redesigned if he didn't. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing here, so he just grabbed a drink and sulked on the couch.

[vissernone]

Eva takes a seat next to Kevin, after having gotten up and chastised an Avox for not filling glasses back up fast enough. She leans back, as much as she can in this outfit, and raises an eyebrow at him.

"You could at least compliment the food."

[fire_punk]

The kid shrugs sullenly. "It's good," he mutters. "I don't know why I have to be here. I don't like parties."

[vissernone]

"And why would that be?" She has her reasons, but she wants to hear his.

[fire_punk]

He shrugs. "Too many people."

[vissernone]

"Noise?" She lies back. "Or prying eyes?"

[setfires]

Cinna had to escort one of his Tributes to their tube so he arrived sometime in the middle of the Cornucopia. He winced a bit at some of the violence on the screen.

"What's the body count so far?" he asked.

[vissernone]

"None, yet." Eva's eyes track the screen. "No weapons at this Cornucopia, and no cannons yet."

She pats at the seat next to her. "You have no idea how glad I am to have someone sane here with me."

[bangbangkerpooow]

"I resent that," says Billy as he slides on past the back of the couch, his voice muffled because his cheek is occupied with a cracker. He swallows it by cocking his head back like a bird and then washing it down with wine as though it were juice. Billy is, perhaps surprisingly, not much of a party person. He despises mingling, polite conversation, societal niceties. And so he doesn't linger with Eva and Cinna, instead continuing on his way with a wave of his hand.

"Cornucopia's the most boring part," he adds over his shoulder. "Kinda curious where they're going with this no weapons thing, though. Catch ya later, nine and twelve."

[setfires]

Cinna is never sure what to make of Billy so he just lets the other Victor move along his way before turning his attention to Eva.

"I also wouldn't be so sure about describing myself as sane," he comments quietly, responding to her comment.

[vissernone]

"Oh, come on," Eva says, loud enough that Billy should be able to overhear her. "Look at who you're comparing yourself to. Look at the company we keep."

[peacekeeperavox]

The Avoxes didn't take much bossing; they had brought a good snack spread, and, dressed to match the new Arena in striped vests, bowties, and slacks (though without any shirts), they were circulating through the crowd with mouse-ear-shaped trays.

[vissernone]

By this point in the evening Eva's tipsy enough that her usual inhibitions are thoroughly smashed. She drifts through the party, head canting side to side, occasionally untangling things from the antlers on her shoulders.

One antler nearly knocks Darius in the head, but rather than turning to apologize she peers at him with a strange expression. "This cheese plate is finished. Why haven't you replaced it yet?"

[peacekeeperavox]

Darius barely swayed back in time to save the tray of pineapple-adorned cocktails he was carrying, and looked from it to her, expression instantaneously apologetic. He took a few steps back, glancing around for one of his kind to hand it off to so he could take care of the cheese plate.

[vissernone]

"No, no, don't. Don't just listen to me right now." Eva comes up to him and pushes two fingers against his shoulder, and she sways a bit woozily. "Did they remove your backbone when they took your tongue?"

[peacekeeperavox]

The Avox froze, unsure, his jaw dropping slightly. His eyes darted side to side, searching for a way out, but went back to her. No one asked Avoxes questions like that, because there was no way for them to answer.

[buildingreality]

Ariadne did indeed decide to show up, if for no other reason than because it had been Eva who invited her. Her own outfit wasn't nearly so out there or extravagant, perhaps because she had told the Stylists again and again that minor events don't require dressing up. They still insist, and she still lets them, but she did make a point of keeping it fairly dressed down.

She found a drink of her own upon arrival, mingling around the back of the room as if that would somehow allow her a modicum of detachment from the Cornucopia. She didn't know what to expect - she never did - but that didn't change the twisting in the pit of her stomach, absolutely invisible to anyone who looked at her.

[vissernone]

"Oh, that's a classic," Eva says as she watches R take a bite out of someone on the television. "Didn't think that boy had it in him. He seemed so sweet..."

She wanders over to Ariadne, carrying alcohol. She offers the younger Mentor a glass. Eva's demeanor is much different than it was around Ariadne before; here she isn't proud and warm but loose, messy, broken. "Here, take it. Crowd like this, you're going to need it."

[buildingreality]

Ariadne found, as always, that the Cornucopia was strange to watch. It wasn't like the rest of it - it was brutal. She remembered vividly the round when she had curb-stomped Wyatt as she watched R take that bite; her thoughts didn't show on her face.

She accepted the glass without a word, only a glance over to Eva and a nod. Choosing to study her fellow Mentor instead of the screens, she merely tipped her head to one side curiously. It was nice - well, not nice, per se - to see the older woman open up a bit more. "I usually do. The Cornucopia is the worst part of it."

[vissernone]

"Well, if you are what you eat, that one's a people person," she says, waving a finger at R on the screen.

"I find the nights the worst part of it. That's when you see how people really are. The ones who'll strangle their partner in their sleep. You see that Mentor over there?" She gestures to Billy. "Lit his allies on fire in their sleeping bags."

[buildingreality]

A mile smile at that, her eyes flicking up to the screen. She wasn't that squeamish, but there was something about how glorified the Capitol made everything that turned her stomach anyway.

Her eyes followed Eva's indication then, studying Billy curiously. She wondered if he wasn't the same way now as he had been in the Arena; people didn't change that much, after all. And even Ariadne still wondered if she wouldn't be capable of killing now, outside of the Arena.

"There was that one Tribute during the last round. He stabbed someone to death in their sleeping bag," she recalled. "But fire. That's an interesting method of keeping warm."

[bangbangkerpooow]

When the night is mostly through, after a good number of the guests have left and many of the tributes lay sleeping in their shelters, Billy finds Ariadne. He's new to all of this other world nonsense, at least from the perspective of a mentor. Sure, he watches the new matches just like everyone else, but the people up there on those bigs screens are strangers. He sees none of the children from his District, no daughters and sons of family friends or relatives. The people in these last matches, they feel less real.

He knows them in the same way that he knows television characters.

"Well, well, well," he says, and although he holds an empty wine glass, he's completely sober. He clicks his tongue. "Arena Four. How's this fine evening treating you? "

[buildingreality]

"Three," she corrected carefully, dragging her eyes away from her cursory scan of the televisions for her Tributes and over to him. Ariadne had seen him around the odd time, but she couldn't put a name to him. Her own fault, she supposed. Still, if he was going to call her by which Arena she won, she'd feel less bad about it. "But it's fine. There's nothing I like more than these screening parties," she deadpanned with a mild smile, just to soften the comment.

[bangbangkerpooow]

"Arena Three," he says, drawing out the 'eeee,' playing with it on his tongue as though it were a piece of gum. His smile goes crooked just slightly, the only part of his expression that acknowledges the mistake. "People call me Billy. Comes from my initials, BIL." Every initial is enunciated with care. He speaks like a performer. A radio personality. "I also accept Best in the Land."

He slouches backwards onto the counter, supporting his body with one arm and extending the other for a handshake.

"Belated congrats on the whole mass-murdering thing."

[buildingreality]

"I see," she replied, vaguely amused at how he was toying with the word. He wasn't all there, Ariadne decided, not that she was all that shocked; it was rare to find older Victors who were completely sane. There was something about the winning process that really messed with a person. Not that she was all there any more either. She knew that. "I'm Ariadne. It's nice to meet you."

Sort of.

"Thank you. I think."

Because how else did one respond to that?