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

[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.

[vissernone]

"Write it down. Come on, just..." She grabs his hand and dips a finger in her glass of wine. "Write it on the couch or something."

She's beyond wasted.

[peacekeeperavox]

He hadn't expected that, not at all, and the tray overbalanced, falling to land between them with a raucous clatter, four glasses shattering and their contents spilling across both their shoes. And even that, disastrous as it is, is less frightening than the prospect of writing. He jerked his hand free, sinking to a crouch to begin cleaning up the glass.

[vissernone]

"Look, look what you did." She drags him to the white couch, face contorted into an ugly, manic expression. She yanks his hand down onto the fabric, then grabs a broken handle from the wine glass and stabs it into the couch.

"Answer me, damn it! Did you have your spine removed or just your voice? If I have to play by the rules and obey my orders, so do you!"

[peacekeeperavox]

This time he couldn't quite miss the antlers on her shoulders, and one jabbed him good in the ribs as he stumbled after her, wide-eyed. Every other Avox in the room has faded away to the edges, suddenly just a little harder to find than usual, without being obvious.

Tentative, with a shaking hand, Darius took the broken stem, barely able to turn his glance away from her, and wrote a tiny, clumsy

yes

[vissernone]

Eva's mouth curls into a sneer. She grabs Darius by the shoulders and shoves him down onto the couch, then stands over him, a drunken, grotesque expression of disgust and frustration stamped onto her features.

She knows it isn't his fault. She knows she's taking out all her anger on someone helpless, someone without her power, and she knows it makes her evil and cruel and vile. But the alcohol pumping through her veins tells her that this is the only anger she ever gets to let out, because she can't save her Tributes, she can't save her child, she can't step an inch out of line, she can't even tear at her hair and scream at all the injustice without getting hauled away.

And he doesn't even have the decency to fight back. He doesn't have the decency to pretend for her.

She turns her back to him and yells to the corners of the room, where the other Avoxes are hiding. "Someone clean this mess up. And someone clean the broken glass up too."

[peacekeeperavox]

It isn't Darius who reaches the mess first, but one of the others, a blond man from the sixth floor. Darius can't move, just stays frozen where she left him, the broken glassware still clutched in his hand, taking long, shivering breaths. And none of the Capitol citizens are even looking, though the conversation of those nearest is a little stilted.