thecapitol | 'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends and we all get together when we bury our friends

Who| TYP Children and You?
What| TYP Children have the opportunity to look around.
Where| The Tribute Tower main floor.
When| Now through the week leading up to the arena.
Warnings/Notes| TYP children showing up early is not mandatory. This is merely an avenue for those NPC players who were interested.

In part with the President’s wishes, the District children are not training or living in the same building, but rather, a refurbished old Tribute tower as was used in the days before Tributes were offworlders of vast number. Mentors, Escorts, and Stylists alike will need to travel to the new building to work with them, then travel back to see to their offworld Tributes. Public appearances are minimal so long as the Tribute is kept busy with training and private interviews. There is, however, a brief chance to meet a few of them before the arena, should you catch them on a visit to the offworlder’s tower, restricted to the main floor. Through this, the lucky few District children able to show are allowed fleeting glimpses in person of those they will be competing with and possibly even a chance to talk to them in person.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Emily had wanted to avoid this meeting if at all possible. She'd become a little complacent when it came to the new format of the Games, not having the same attachment to the offworlders, and knowing that most of the time the Capitol revived them after their death in the Arena anyway. She knew it wouldn't be this way for Hemlock, just as it hadn't been for Calder and for Thorne and for the multitude of Tributes she'd sent off to die for the amusement of the Capitol.

"Hello Hemlock," she says softly as she approaches, knowing the media would comment on her ignoring the District Seven Tribute as she crosses the main floor far more than it would pick up on them talking a little. Even in those two words, her tone is full of sorrow.

Hemlock hates that sorrow. Sorrow is a hair's-breadth from pity, and she doesn't want either. She scowls up at the older woman, with more anger than she feels, trying to look tough. "Yeah?" Then, looking closer and with a little less aggression, "You're Emily Finch, right? Your dad used to work with my dad." Before. Before Emily had been Reaped, before Hemlock's parents had sent her away, before Uncle Grange had got himself crippled. Hemlock tries not to think much about before, but it can't be helped sometimes.

It's a novelty for her, being recognised through District connections, just as a person, rather than through the unwanted fame of being a Victor. "That's right," she says, a smile spreading over her face unbidden; she's almost able to smell the sawdust with the nostalgia that fires up in her now. "I think I met you out in the lumber camps. My brother Matthew and I spent a couple of summers up there helping him out."

"I don't remember," Hemlock says, but some of the hostility fades out of her expression, even if she's still taut and tense. "It was a long time ago. You might've." She's quiet for a moment, her hands working their way deeper and deeper into her pockets. At last, she says awkwardly, "I don't live there now. I had to go live with my uncle. Long way from there. There's different beetles, green ones with yellow stripes, I never saw them back home."

She's exhausted her repertoire of social niceties. What do you even say in this situation? Shuffling one foot against the floor, she settles for silence, hunch-shouldered and slope-backed, and waiting to see whether Emily will say anything more.

"I miss the beetles." It was the little things about Seven that she found herself missing most of all. "And the smell of the trees after the rain, and the--" She stops herself as she reminds herself that for all the time she's spent in the Capitol, she could still go back to Seven one day. Hemlock would never see their home again.

"I'm sorry. You should never have been dragged into all this." She almost whispers, terrified of being picked up by the Capitol's eyes and ears. "I thought after the format changed, that we'd be all right."

"Guess you thought wrong." It comes out short and brusque, and although she can't find it in herself to regret that, Hemlock does relent a little after a few seconds. "...Guess I thought wrong, too." It's almost a whisper, but it's an admission of weakness, and that alone is more trust that she's willing to give anyone usually. There's a horrible, albeit brief, moment where she's sickly certain that she's going to cry, and then she pulls herself back under control, folding her arms over her chest and tautening her posture. As if squaring up to the world enough might make it back down.

She bites the inside of her mouth to keep from breaking down, remembering how she'd fallen apart after the District Tributes were unveiled, knowing she needed to keep strong for her charges.

"I'm going to help you as much as I can," she promises, though she knows it's a fairly empty promise really. "Do you have any combat experience at all?"

Hemlock looks at her like she's sprouted an extra head. "No," she says flatly, with the implication heavy in her tone that it's stupid even to ask. "Did you?" They don't exactly have intensive training camps in Seven, like they do in One and Two. She knows how to swing an axe, to some degree, but that's all.

She shuffles her feet rather sulkily, and says reluctantly, "I can climb, though, I guess? And I know bugs and plants and things. But that's all."

"I'd spent enough time in lumber camps to know my way around an axe," she points out, though she's well aware that Hemlock will know as well as Emily does herself that she'd never even touched one the entire time she'd been in the Arena. "That's good, plants are good. The others won't know that." Except the offworlders from Seven, she knew, because Emily had taught them a little about Panem herbology herself.

Hemlock half-smiles, but it's thin and bitter. "Yeah. They just know how to kill someone in fifty different ways. With magic. No problem." If she sounds angry and aggrieved, it's only because she is. Someone else her age might think it isn't fair!, but Hemlock stopped expecting fairness from life a long time ago. That doesn't mean she likes it, though. "Thanks for trying, though, I guess."

She has a point. Emily chews on her lip thoughtfully, relieved that at least she didn't have to deal with magic users back in her day. "You can still win. Lots of the new Victors haven't had any powers whatsoever." She was still a child going up against a lot of trained adults, though.

"If you want to come down to the Training Centre for some pointers, I'll help you out any way I can."

Hemlock presses her lips together, but she's sharp enough to know an opportunity when she sees one, and god knows she can't afford to pass one up. "Sure," she says at last, nodding, her hands working their way deeper and deeper into her pockets. "Thanks."

"Great." Emily manages a smile, though she doesn't know what she can teach her that will really be of any use. It was back to the old days of trying everything in the training area and hoping that something stuck, and that they'd be able to recall it in the Arena - that was even if they managed to get their hands on the weapon they'd been a little better with in the first place. "We could go down now, or I can leave you to it if you'd rather, I know this must all be a little overwhelming."

"Yeah, a little." Hemlock half-smiles, letting out a sound that could be a laugh if only it would commit. Understatement of the century. But she won't let an opportunity pass up that easily. "Let's go down, if we're allowed. I mean, we don't have all that long, right?" Training might not help her, but then again it might, and it can't hurt to get as much of it in as possible.

'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends and we all get together when we bury our friends

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