thecapitol | [open] Halcyon Days

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[open] Halcyon Days

Who| Augustus Sinclair and YOU
What| Sinclair Solutions throws an Arena viewing party
Where| The Capitol Museum
When| Week Two of the Arena
Warnings/Notes| #CapitolPrivilege, aka callous disregard to human life and entitlement out the wazoo, along Bioshock references.

When Sinclair wants to make a splash, he does it in a way that he will draw attention The man has enough of the financial sector at his call that when he invites them to mingle with the Tributes, their representatives show up in droves. But Augustus is a man of the people (more exactly the people that can afford it), he shows up to the parties he organizes, with his Avox Delta by his side as a proper meat shield. In his eyes, there were always threats...but there were always more opportunities. And more so now with a new grain company to show off. He's figured that it's time to be show off and let those in the Capitol get a taste of a much better product than with under the Ashburnes. Does he care that it might be in bad taste so soon the public humiliation? No not really, and there is

Art is always one of those branches of humanity that never get enough exposure so there is a silent performance of the old days done by some of the Capitol's renowned thespians...silent being the operative word since the music itself takes the center stage. There is a recording of Sander Cohen's Scherzo #7 along with his ghastly album Why Even Ask? and boy does it make a racket but what can you say to one of Panem's most eccentric visionaries? Only the best food and wine are served in this as people are not asked to be formal and to enjoy the glory of the Capitol, past, present and future.

Many names flash along with the priceless works of art, all sponsors that help the great nation of Panem grow: names like Ryan Industries among others, that provide the day to day for Tributes and Panem alike. It's a display of power as it is of loyalty: his way of showing he's "untouchable"…or an illusion of it. He has no intentions of joining the Bouchards in their moment of need: Cassian fucked up hard. But even Sinclair can see that the Capitol sees no distinction between Districter or Capitolite: people respond for their actions.

"I can't imagine a world without strength, now could you?" he says with a grin. Anyone who was considered participating in that disastrous display…well, his smile will be far less welcoming.

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"I simply can't imagine." Cyrus nods at Sinclair as he approaches. "Without strength, the descent into chaos would be swift. Without strength, no control, after all."

You get your run of eccentrics in the Capitol, of course; it's certainly not unheard-of for someone to keep an Avox as a pet. Cyrus has always found the practice odd, bordering on distasteful, and his eyes rest on Delta a second too long as he glances over at Sinclair, wine in hand.(Dragging an Avox around makes it noticeable. How cleanly it defeats the purpose.)

Speaking to the host is rather a better diversion than watching the performance. The screeches from the stage require one to raise one's voice every few seconds. Cyrus can appreciate that he's intended to appreciate it, but that's about as far as it goes. (New money! There's something to be said for people entrenched enough to be dull.)

But like it or not, Augustus Sinclair has made a name for himself worth knowing, and pride will not keep Cyrus from widening his circle. Capitolites need to stick together in times such as these, after all.

"You know, it's scandalous that we haven't been formally acquainted," he adds, with a wide, cold smile. "So many of your business dealings find their way to my desk. Sometimes I forget we've never spoken."

Gus caught that lingering look and chuckled at Cyrus, as if there really wasn't anything wrong with it, "Oh, pay no attention to him, he's a precautionary measure. Handle enough finances an' people think it's funny to use you as a pincushion."

Delta bore the scars of such "jokes" but his programming and ingrained loyalties prevent him from ever acting or complaining about it. The Sinclair name once was synonymous with those who served for the Greater Good, now it is part of the Capitol's cash flow and some of the bigger investments in the Districts. There are bigger banks of course, but not many can claim the diverse portfolio of businesses Augustus had under his belt.

"Shame really, we only meet in passing, exchangin' cards an' in transactions. Nothin' beats the human element of course," Sinclair didn't confirm or deny that he had his fingers in a lot of pies in Panem. Politics and money make for good bedfellows.

"Augustus Sinclair, at your service an' the service of Panem. What you do for this nation deserves merit, Mr. Reagan, or do you go by your official title?"

"Cyrus Reagan, at yours and at Panem's." Each knew who the other was, of course, but the formality was important. They'd lie about most things, the people of the Capitol, but it was important to be able to say Yes, we've been introduced and mean it.

"Do you think it sounds too stuffy, going by my title?" he asked, with a wince that turns into a smile (saying that this is a joke; that he does not actually think much about what anyone else thinks of him). "I've been using it since I came by it, but my brother-- to name one person-- says it makes me sound old, on a first impression. What do you think?"

Cyrus Reagan needed no introduction, Sinclair respected the rise to power the man took to get here. Building on the family name and creating something bigger and better was a surefire way to get on his good side. The joke is met with a grin as well, as if a politician cared what an venture capitalist thought of him. Cyrus put it best, they've dealt with each other in the past and will likely continue.

"Your brother's young, titles might seem like long-term goals for when one is forty or fifty. But if you prefer being called Mr. Reagan, I'll happily comply," Gus answered the question, keeping things civil between them.

"What brings you to this party? A lawmaker's work is never done and I am honored you'd come by this little get-together."

Cyrus laughed. "Minister, Mr. Sinclair. Minister is fine." He knew the end of the joke before he told it; he would have insisted on it either way. Without strength, no control. Cyrus was a man who controlled how other people referred to him when he was not present.

"I don't think I need a reason to watch the Games in good company," he said, with a tip of his drink to the host-- Present company intended. "But-- well. With things as they are presently, I think it's important to establish a... a stronger solidarity, shall we say, among those of us with the Capitol's best interests at heart." He waved vaguely at the center stage. "Gatherings like these-- they keep us from isolation. They keep us grounded in what makes us us."

He sips at his drink. "Do you agree?"

"Minister, I would agree with your words and your presence but it begs the question as to why some don't see past the glamour and not appreciate what we have."

Sinclair is careful to skirt along the term "rebel", as the word itself has the worst connotations at the moment. The Districts simply don't understand, or find themselves unable to see that the strict measures are for the best. Then again, rebellion goes hand in hand with a distinct lack of common sense in Gus' eyes. Bad for business in the banking sector but that's not the only pie he has his fingers in.

"The offworlders themselves seem to understand this concept far better than those born here. Except for that tasteless display." It was no secret that Sinclair found the act a slap to the face to Snow's generosity.

This music is absolutely dreadful. It would be dreadful by any world's standards, but Molotov hit her prime in the age of Soviet new wave music and thus has very low standards for "good", and she still thinks it's terrible. It's enough to make her wish she'd lost her ears instead of an eye.

Molotov has dressed demurely for this occasion, hair in a gravity-defying updo made of waves and soft curls that seems to be held up with nothing at all. It's big, but not nearly as big as some of these other people's hair. She forever stands out in crowds of Capitolites, looking minimalist even when she's at her most showy.

She's currently squinting at a Chagall and reflecting on how terrible it is, how much she hates Expressionism and how she absolutely will not have any hanging in her house once she and Tom move out. She's got a champagne flute in her left hand, though she doesn't have her engagement ring on, refusing to wear it until they've decided they're ready to make their announcement. Instead, she has a cocktail ring on her middle finger, enormous and covered in glittering pavé diamonds, enough to catch light and be distracting from the right angle.

Taking a drink of champagne, she continues staring hatefully at the painting while she answers. "Strength matters more than anything in the world, but only if used correctly," she says in that thick Russian accent, not nearly so strange to the ear as the Capitolite one, but just another marker of the fact that she's different, even with Citizenship and obscene fame. She sucks her teeth with distaste at the painting, then glances over to her side to see who she's even talking to. "Much like art. What's the point if you waste your gift on... this?"

There's a vague gesture meant to symbolize the awful music and the weird, silent actors, and all the modern art she can hardly stand.

"Call it giving an old man clearly past his time to shine one desperate last wish," Sinclair admitted without missing a beat of the screeching music. "It'll be over soon enough and Cohen will go back to making poems about turning into a rabbit or an octopus, I don't know." Nor does he care but hey, it's amusing enough. Sander Cohen was an insane man, a Capitolite with the required amount of inbreeding and drugs. He always kept losing his assistants though. Gus just wanted that old debt to disappear and then watch the man go insane.

There is no denying that Molotov Cocktease is a presence in the Capitol, one that must be given the respect and fear that a former Tribute carried. Exquisite and dangerous, Sinclair had seen her performances in the Arena and felt her last had been cut too short. Ah well, she's risen above the ashes and become more than her losses.

"Miss Cocktease, it's an honor to meet you in person," he doesn't put the airs of business just yet, he's got nothing to gain from this particular meeting other than see a celebrity whose fame is soaked in the blood of others. "I take it these selections are not to your liking?"

"I call it torture for the rest of us," she says dryly, draining what's left in her glass and then immediately swapping it out for a new one from a passing Avox's tray. There's a sudden flash of bone white skin, all the way to her hip, as she walks to the next painting with an air of simply expecting Sinclair to follow -- not out of anything particular to him, but simply because that's how the world is, following her adoringly when she's not slaughtering it. Plus, who could pass up that ass?

A lesser Munch painting makes her face soften slightly, now that she's not knee-deep in the midst of Dadaist trash. "Modernism isn't exactly my particular aesthetic, at least not these branches of it. But I suppose it matches... your people," she trails off, glancing at a man swishing by, colored plum from his hair to his feet, with a coating of gold glitter and false eyelashes made of feathers. "I much prefer Romanticism, art deco if we can't be realistic. But it's like this place is missing everything between the Renaissance and the 20th century."

Molotov might not be Capitolite old money, but she is a much less airheaded alternative to most of it, with a huge income that largely seems to disappear once she gets it (she's a spy, she has some deep-rooted distrust of banks). But she's mostly here to pass time and shore up support for Arya.

"Fair enough." As if Sinclair would deny Molotov his company, especially given her prowess in the business of death and luxury. The woman was an ideal Capitolite, ruthless and willing to do anything for what she wanted. And that ass is a damn treasure.

"Your knowledge in the finer things is impressive," he mentioned, indulging in a glass of champagne, "You were born in the wrong world but not all of us are of that leaning." If Sinclair were to know more about art deco, he'd find a movement in art and society that fit him better than the ridiculous excesses that ninety percent of the Capitol displayed.

"But even the Capitol has a limit, it can't travel back in time and undo the Dark Ages. Those works are lost to the ages." Only President Snow had access to the true relics of the past.

She snorts a little, covering her smile with her hand as she avoids looking directly at Sinclair. "Maybe your world is the wrong one," she says lightly, eyebrow arched. "After all, mine seems to have been around for much longer, given what I've heard of your history here. Apparently, my people -- just mine, mind you, Russians -- were organizing an entire country while your ancestors were still amoebas in the swamp."

Her tone never strays out of joking territory, so it's hard to tell exactly how serious she is, and much of her expression continues to be hidden by her champagne flute. The lighting, meant for art, catches on her hair and in her iris, their deep, rich colors natural in a way that Capitolites can never achieve, no matter how hard they try to transform themselves and then pass it off as unique.

"There's so much your kind are missing when you have only Western modern art, so much you haven't seen. The Masters, Utamaro, Perednizhviki, and that's just a few of the classics. A whole world of art and everything else that's more than this." She puts away her empty glass on a tray, then glances at Sinclair.

"This city reminds me of when I grew up, sometimes, because everything looks the same. All the architecture, the same, the same. At least there's color here."

The joking tone is appreciated but Sinclair isn't quite sure she was done with the mocking. Molotov was a mystery, even to those who could investigate her. His assistants couldn't find anything new, everything they had was public record and she had no bank account in any of Panem's banks. Then again, she was a spy.

"I wish I could say that there was more art out there but this, sadly, is what survived the old wars. The swamps are terrible for preserving masterpieces, you see."

Maybe that's what made Cocktease unique: the possibility of her being a statuesque relic of those times. A Russian vision of death that was transplanted from then to the present time in Panem and nothing could stand in her way. Augustus appreciated that bluntness.

"Pray tell what sort of city you grew up in that has these buildings wouldn't have color? A Seat of Government?"

Yeah, Molotov has a lot of hidden cash and other assets, it's a pretty interesting life. Made more interesting by the paparazzi amplifying her proclivities for secrecy, and also the fact that she lives with a supervillain.

Molotov has no idea how the worlds relate, if she really has traveled through time to shine on these people, or if her own world is still out there spinning without her, but she has no appreciation for Panem's lack of real history, of substance or knowledge of anything beyond the past century or so.

"Mm, yes," she says, nodding, "but it was more complicated than that. Color and design aren't part of efficiency, they don't get results, and most people then weren't considered important enough to care for their comfort. It's very bourgeois to think of such things in more than passing -- what does the paint color matter so long as you have a place to live? The blocs, they were just big gray squares divided up in smaller squares, and if you wanted color, you hung rugs on the wall. Made it warmer too, so it was never just aesthetic. Everything then had to be efficient, serve as many purposes as possible."

She lights a cigarette, takes a long drag and then exhales smoke in the direction of the live performers. "My home had no tolerance for much else. Our winters are seven months long, with more days of snow in the year than sun. And that is the capitol of the whole country. Where I was born, there is a whole month of darkness, no light at all. Of course, go south far enough and you get beaches," she adds with a shrug. "Anyway, all of the things that were built for beauty, those are from two decades ago."

Were the paparazzi amplifying or downplaying her exploits? Sinclair had trouble deciding if the red-haired spy was merely playing it safe now that she was out of the Arena. Even the way she talked, it was controlled and utilitarian, more so with the topic at hand. He appreciated the lack of flowery descriptions and the picture of a completely gray city with only the remnants of old government.

"Anything that didn't work or didn't serve the higher purpose, they were destroyed and rebuilt? Your nation, your world, some Capitolites could stand a visit or two over there, to remember how to serve the common good."

Especially Cassian Bouchard with his participation in the seditious display that in part prompted this party in the first place.

"For the most part. They left some of the greatest achievements, St. Basil's and the Kremlin, the old palaces. Those were mostly seized and repurposed for the Party's use."

She knows that Sinclair has no way of understanding the majesty she speaks of, a mere handful of buildings that outshine everything the Capitol has devoted an entire city to creating. History that stretches back further than Capitolites believe human existence to be. Two millennia of mankind's strongest and finest culture braving endless challenges and always coming out triumphant.

Her heart pangs with longing to be back in the snow and the streets of Moscow.

"I'm sure many people here could learn a great deal from a weekend or two in the blocs."

"You have more faith in people than I do," Sinclair wasn't subtle in his disdain for the more foppish of the Capitolite society. The only reason he could get away with basically calling them idiots was the sheer amount of wealth he wielded over those who spent their money on plastic surgery.

He's limited in his knowledge of the past, but if the Dark Ages served a purpose, is that only the strong survived the onslaught of nuclear winter. But there were days when he could imagine the world as Molotov saw it and with her strange past, he could see opportunity. But that is all dust in the wind.

"If only, though with your wealth and grandeur, I'm sure you can recreate those magnificent buildings you speak of." The eccentricities of an offworld Capitolite, what a novelty.

Edited (got cut off!) 2016-03-20 00:29 (UTC)

There are few people in Panem who don't know the name Sinclair. Lately, especially. While Chuck hasn't necessarily been keeping an eagle's eye on the financial sectors, even he can't ignore this so called splash. Parties aren't exactly his sort of thing -- well, that's a bit of a lie. Chuck likes a good party or two, and hell, he'll throw down with the best of them. But a Capitol party, especially one such as this, are always simply dripping with opulence. Chuck might not be a stranger to the Capitol, not after all these long years, but he's never quite lost that innate Districter sense.

He's from the sea, through and through, even as he softens his accent and muddles it with Capitolite speech.

Still, a party is a party, and one thrown by Augustus Sinclair is one that cannot be missed. Sponsors are very important, after all, and if anybody knows their importance, it's a past Victor and a current Mentor. So he shows up. Alone, because these sorts of things are even less Derek's thing than they are his, and Chuck mingles. He can play this game, even if he no doubt stands out among the Capitolites in his minimalist attire; a suit of smoky colors, gold flecked through red hair, brushed with deft hand beneath his eyes.

He's not so far away from a win, after all. And Chuck was never shy about flaunting what he wanted in order to hide what he wished to. Right now, he has no qualms at all.

"Not a world for you or I, mate." He offers a slip of a grin back, a flute of champagne held loosely in his hand. His eyes slide over the Avox standing meekly at Sinclair's shoulder, more because he's a paranoid bastard than any sense of revulsion. It doesn't merit a second look.

"I'd agree, more so with the sacrifices we all make."

Augustus might be a Capitolite but he respected a Career when he saw one. He merely nodded and let out a chuckle that can only be described as caramel over a dessert laced with cyanide. Districters that caught Augustus' interest for more than three minutes were uncommon, mostly because they blend into the pool of clients his team works with. Mentors usually got five minutes before the corporate man simply walked away from them. If anything, Chuck is compared to Temple Stevens and that alone makes him a better conversation partner.

Delta looked down towards Chuck, as if to make sure his owner wasn't in any danger before staring into the partygoers.

"Your District is doing well, strong as the old days," he added as he grabbed the flute. "Too bad about the tasteless demonstration they performed." Gus was testing Hansen now, to see how he coped with the results of a miscreant Tribute like Aang.

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[open] Halcyon Days

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I lost this one i'm so sorry

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