I Ran So Far I Could Hardly Breathe [Open]

[clotting]

WHO| Temple Drake-Stevens and anyone in or visiting D8!
WHAT| Temple gives the D8 Tributes a very Temple gift.
WHERE| D8 Suite
WHEN| Before the reaping for the mini-Arena.
WARNINGS| Underage alcohol use, classist idiocy, Temple's special brand of stupid. Sexual assault topics will be warned within the thread subject headers.



Temple Drake would have hidden under the covers at the Mentor highlight reel that went up about her last night after she got off work. She would have stayed there all day, chewing on her fingernails until the manicure came off between her teeth, snot-nosed with her knees together and her hair in a mat of red curls and dried tears, knowing that every person who sees her on the street tomorrow will be thinking of how she was there on the television, helpless and violated and pathetic and scared.

But Temple Stevens, Temple thinks, that woman that the girl emulates more than she actually is, isn't fazed by the violence of the Games or anything that happened in them, and she has a job to do, or at least to pretend to do in valiant Capitol fashion. And so Temple, the person she is and the person she wants so badly to be together, gets out of bed in the morning and dresses in something not even a Mentor could afford on their own dime. Pearls drip down the dress and the fur feels as if luxury itself is giving her an embrace. Her impossibly high shoes, which with six-inch heels bring her to a grand total five and a half feet, click as she walks from her car the valet has parked to the elevator, and her five year-old son, on a leash and tended to by an Avox nanny, keeps the pace. She politely grins and waves at the few people between the curb and her workplace who tell her they saw her on TV last night.

Temple Stevens isn't fazed at all. She is the protective armor, fortified by wealth and fashion and charm, that no past can break down, no matter how many times it's regurgitated for the media.

However, for the sake of having something else to talk about when she gets to District Eight, she's had a gift for her Tributes (some of whom she hasn't even met!) installed in the Suite living room: a fondue fountain that, split into tiers, provides a constant stream of cheese, chocolate and bourbon, with Temple's favorite being the last one. It's not enough to keep burly men fed, but hopefully it'll cheer them up a little.

Throughout the day, Temple can be found letting her kid (who mostly sleeps and plays in Temple's private Mentor suite) sample bourbon-soaked angel-bread from the fountain, dropping little nuggets of wisdom like "I noticed when you make an Avox get down on all fours they have the same number of legs as a table - don't you think that means they were made to serve?" on anyone who wanders in, and very occasionally trying to order Sponsor gifts for the next Arena in between testing new pairs of shoes and trying out different earrings in the communal bathroom.

Comments

[clotting]

Temple is aware, although she doesn't show it, that Firo's and her misgivings about Capitol conversation are entirely different. Firo finds them too vapid; Temple finds them too heavy, too difficult to just escape into as sugar-coated fantasy.

"Are you serious?" She laughs, flicking at her cards absentmindedly. "What else would we talk about? There aren't that many things that are so harmless and pleasant as what you wear."

[foundafamily]

"What else?" A good question, actually, considering how many landmines can hide in what seems to be an innocent conversation. He gives up soon after trying to wrestle with the question, shrugging one shoulder.

"...I dunno. I guess it is better than, like, books or something." He raises an eyebrow over his cards--maybe she's a fellow dim bulb like him?

[clotting]

"I've never had much time for books." Temple seems relieved to be able to confess that - although the truth is not about time, but ability. Temple's hidden her illiteracy for years in the Capitol, to the point where to try and rectify rather than hide it would blow the cover she's painstakingly curated.

"People here like to talk about the Games, which I think are awful, and the Districts, which might be even worse. Please don't tell me that you enjoy talking about the Games. I'd think it would be hard enough living through them ad nauseum."

[foundafamily]

"Most of 'em aren't worth it." A grand statement, coming from a guy who could probably count the number he's personally read on one hand. This is what nerdy friends are for.

He starts shaking his head before he even hears the end of the statement. "Don't insult me. Of course not." He'd like to add that he'd also have the sense not to talk about them to someone who could've died permanently in them, but he doesn't want it to be the last thing he ever adds.

"You don't like to talk about home?" At least they sound more normal than this place, is his thought.

[clotting]

"So I've found."

She appreciates he doesn't want to talk about it. It's a sympathetic stance.

She shudders in affected revulsion. "I prefer not to think about it. It's uncultured and- and it's hard, needlessly so, out there. There's no reason to want to talk about a District, and for that matter, no reason to ever want to go to one."

[foundafamily]

That seems a little overboard, doesn't it? Firo raises an eyebrow as he lets himself lean back. "Wow. I've been told I come from a no-class neighborhood, but I don't think you'd ever hear somebody who lives there talk about it like that. Or, well, somebody who lived there."

Maybe that's where the difference comes in--he knows few people who've ever made it out, so possibly they all just pretend to like their situation so long as they have nothing better.

"You got much family left there?"

Surely that would give her kinder feelings towards the place if she did.

[clotting]

"We still have a house there, but only because there's no one who'll buy a Victor's manor. Superstition, you know, and it's not as if District Eight is scenic like Four or Seven are." She straightens her cards.

"Four brothers and my father. My mother died when I was born. I hear that was- that was common in your timeline, too? I went through your files." Had someone read them to her.

[foundafamily]

"Yeah, it is. Not how mine went, but you hear about it pretty often." He doesn't think to offer condolences, though he does think to question if this is the best way to find common ground.

Not a very pretty topic, so he seizes on another. "I grew up with four brothers too. All older."

Idly he wonders if these files mention siblings at all, and if they make any distinction between those that are legal or blood-related (of which he has none) and those that are not.

[clotting]

"I'm sorry about your mother," she says, and she means it. She does care for them, these strange offworlders in her charge. "Mine are all older too. Some people say that being the youngest really affected my personality, but I don't know about that. I think it may just come from being the only girl."

She flicks her cards, slightly. "Are you, ah. Are you going to tell me how to know what a good hand is? Because mine are all red, so I am presuming I have a winner."

[foundafamily]

He shrugs at the condolences, "Don't be."

"Sorry." He'd nearly forgotten the cards, but maybe this is better for her than dwelling on her family. "Could be, but just how good it is still depends on what the actual suits and numbers are. Any that are close together? Can I see?"