Temple Stevens (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clotting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-11-03 02:14 pm
clotting) wrote in thecapitol2015-11-03 02:14 pm
Never Seen the Ocean, Never Seen the Tides [OPEN]
WHO| Temple and OPEN; Temple and Clint
WHAT| Temple hits the town and goes to a spa.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| All over the Capitol
WARNINGS| Temple, so mentions of rape may happen, although anything in-depth will get its own warning.
I. OPEN
When rabbits are cornered by predators, they freeze. Some theories say they go blind from fright, too terrified to even see the escapes before their noses. This would be an apt description for Temple's current state, with her best friend labeled a traitor and the Peacekeepers more than willing to drag her son into the political mess of Mentorhood, but the paralyzing, myopia-inducing fear only constricts her ability to think, not to party. Not to hit the town with a child leashed to an Avox or shopping bags laden with enough goods to dress an entire District for a week.
She's aggressively friendly if she meets you on the street, trailing her Avoxes behind her like a wedding train. Something about it is almost desperate, as if the doll-like facade that she so buries herself under is cracked and brittle and she's just trying to patch the leaks with her palms and her handshakes. She's liable to get your name wrong, since she's been drinking since six a.m. this morning, although these lapses in memory are the only indicator that she's that inebriated. Sometimes she just approaches people she knows and hands them a shopping bag of expensive wares, insisting that she was thinking of them as she was shopping and knew they had to have it. She does this especially to Tributes, although occasionally to other Staffers.
Sometimes she cruises the local restaurants and clubs eyeing up those she might be able to take to bed with her with no concerns, no witnesses. Few people know as many blind spots in the Capitol as Temple Stevens, adulterous to a fault but discrete enough to never have anything caught on tape. There are, of course, clips of her kissing, canoodling, placing her hands in places that daytime airings of the Games would censor, but never anything enough to terminate a marriage on principle. Besides, there are enough open marriages in the Capitol that no one ever bothers to truly look twice at a District hussy in Capitol clothes.
By the beginnings of most nights, she's bubbly, fashionable, charming and more than willing to buy friends and strangers alike a drink. By the end, she tends to be a bit more maudlin, still spending money haphazardly but less out of generosity and more as a prophylactic to feeling poor.
Find her for company, or she'll find you.
II. Clint
If there's a better cure for loneliness and sorrow than a fresh coat of paint, Temple doesn't know what it is. She doesn't believe in the therapy that is prescribed to Victors of the Hunger Games, and she dabbles in medication and psychic enemas only occasionally, when they come back into vogue every other year or so. The only way she's ever known to feel better about anything is to obliterate her woes under an aggressive spotlight, to cover them in makeup and hairspray, jewels and manicures, with liquor and sedatives as the fixative.
And naturally, she's noticed that all Clint's friends are gone. She may be morally opposed to inter-District alliances in the Arena, but she can respect that he must be sad and lonely, so instead of shuffling him off to a photoshoot today she gets Swann's permission to pack him into a car and take him to a spa. She doesn't tell him where they're going, just grins and says it's a surprise, and when they arrive she presents him with what must be the most shi-shi getaway in all the Capitol.
The entire spa smells like heavenly cinnamon fragrances, positioned over a natural waterfall with Avoxes tending to the hot springs at the base. There are steam rooms, sensory deprivation chambers, seal-fur robes that have never before touched human skin that will be discarded after a single use, ornately-carved wooden chairs and benches and masseuses at hand with entire carts of lotions and incense. The tessellated tiles along the floor are myriad colors, and the lights warming them from beneath cast the entire scene in stained glass. Some Capitolites in the far corner are receiving truly decadent manicures and facials.
She clutches her hands together in little fists under her chin and then checks them in. "Would you like to do the steam room first? You look so tired, lately. Maybe get changed into a robe and let one of the masseuses take out your tension? This is a high-end spa, those are professional masseuses, not just Avoxes trained to rub out a knot."
As she says that last array of words, she starts to undress, entirely without shame.
WHAT| Temple hits the town and goes to a spa.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| All over the Capitol
WARNINGS| Temple, so mentions of rape may happen, although anything in-depth will get its own warning.
I. OPEN
When rabbits are cornered by predators, they freeze. Some theories say they go blind from fright, too terrified to even see the escapes before their noses. This would be an apt description for Temple's current state, with her best friend labeled a traitor and the Peacekeepers more than willing to drag her son into the political mess of Mentorhood, but the paralyzing, myopia-inducing fear only constricts her ability to think, not to party. Not to hit the town with a child leashed to an Avox or shopping bags laden with enough goods to dress an entire District for a week.
She's aggressively friendly if she meets you on the street, trailing her Avoxes behind her like a wedding train. Something about it is almost desperate, as if the doll-like facade that she so buries herself under is cracked and brittle and she's just trying to patch the leaks with her palms and her handshakes. She's liable to get your name wrong, since she's been drinking since six a.m. this morning, although these lapses in memory are the only indicator that she's that inebriated. Sometimes she just approaches people she knows and hands them a shopping bag of expensive wares, insisting that she was thinking of them as she was shopping and knew they had to have it. She does this especially to Tributes, although occasionally to other Staffers.
Sometimes she cruises the local restaurants and clubs eyeing up those she might be able to take to bed with her with no concerns, no witnesses. Few people know as many blind spots in the Capitol as Temple Stevens, adulterous to a fault but discrete enough to never have anything caught on tape. There are, of course, clips of her kissing, canoodling, placing her hands in places that daytime airings of the Games would censor, but never anything enough to terminate a marriage on principle. Besides, there are enough open marriages in the Capitol that no one ever bothers to truly look twice at a District hussy in Capitol clothes.
By the beginnings of most nights, she's bubbly, fashionable, charming and more than willing to buy friends and strangers alike a drink. By the end, she tends to be a bit more maudlin, still spending money haphazardly but less out of generosity and more as a prophylactic to feeling poor.
Find her for company, or she'll find you.
II. Clint
If there's a better cure for loneliness and sorrow than a fresh coat of paint, Temple doesn't know what it is. She doesn't believe in the therapy that is prescribed to Victors of the Hunger Games, and she dabbles in medication and psychic enemas only occasionally, when they come back into vogue every other year or so. The only way she's ever known to feel better about anything is to obliterate her woes under an aggressive spotlight, to cover them in makeup and hairspray, jewels and manicures, with liquor and sedatives as the fixative.
And naturally, she's noticed that all Clint's friends are gone. She may be morally opposed to inter-District alliances in the Arena, but she can respect that he must be sad and lonely, so instead of shuffling him off to a photoshoot today she gets Swann's permission to pack him into a car and take him to a spa. She doesn't tell him where they're going, just grins and says it's a surprise, and when they arrive she presents him with what must be the most shi-shi getaway in all the Capitol.
The entire spa smells like heavenly cinnamon fragrances, positioned over a natural waterfall with Avoxes tending to the hot springs at the base. There are steam rooms, sensory deprivation chambers, seal-fur robes that have never before touched human skin that will be discarded after a single use, ornately-carved wooden chairs and benches and masseuses at hand with entire carts of lotions and incense. The tessellated tiles along the floor are myriad colors, and the lights warming them from beneath cast the entire scene in stained glass. Some Capitolites in the far corner are receiving truly decadent manicures and facials.
She clutches her hands together in little fists under her chin and then checks them in. "Would you like to do the steam room first? You look so tired, lately. Maybe get changed into a robe and let one of the masseuses take out your tension? This is a high-end spa, those are professional masseuses, not just Avoxes trained to rub out a knot."
As she says that last array of words, she starts to undress, entirely without shame.
no subject
She prattles a little bit, covering for how she doesn't actually remember Felicity's face for an instant. "Y-Yoshida, right? You're Torin's daughter? No, niece! I'm sorry, I don't tend to spend much time with other Mentors. You understand, don't you? They don't like me too much."
To apologize for nearly running Felicity down, Temple reaches over and grabs something from a bag her Avox is carrying. "Have you tried the new eyeshadow from Caesar Flickerman's line?"
no subject
And if there is rambling and not quite getting it right, that is okay. She's been there. She has done that. "Yes! Ah! I mean, no! I mean... Felicity! Felicity Yoshida! Torin's niece!" And both her hands are up, waving here and there all dismissive-like. "It's fine, it's fine, it... it is what it is!" ...what was it? She somehow couldn't imagine Uncle Torin disliking Temple. Or anyone who wasn't about on the level of awfulness as that Compson guy.
More chattering of her own is cut right short as an eyeshadow palette is shown. She gasps. "Aaaah! No, no, not that one, I've heard so much good stuff about it! You can do the perfect smokey-silver-plum eye with it!" Well. That's what everyone was saying, anyway. Which sounds pretty nice.
no subject
Temple's rarely spoken to Torin, preferring to avoid Mentors from Career Districts when she can, even more than she avoids the other winners. It's nothing personal, nothing Torin could help, but for all she knows he was Mentoring one of the brutes who took her hostage in her Arena. But that shouldn't extend to Felicity, who has always been, as a peripheral and nebulous blip on Temple's radar, a benign and even charming presence.
"That's what everyone's saying, but of course, Caesar has an olive skin tone and mine's decidedly more alabaster," Temple says, flitting her fingers at her freckle-specked cheeks. "It makes me look like a ghoul and, well, it would be a shame for it to go to waste."
It's a crack in the veneer, to not just toss the makeup away wantonly. It's a Districter thing, to default to preserving rather than disposing.
"You don't mind, do you? I just want to see what it looks like when it's put on right."
no subject
"You should try the gold one! The gold and the green, you'd... oh!" The shower of compliments dries up immediately when the offer is made. She can see that for what it is. Here, have this thing, even though you totally don't need this thing, it's just a trifle.... even when it's makeup so expensive, the cost of it could go very, very far out in the Districts. "I don't, I don't mind! I'll give it a full test run and let you know, how it goes, okay?"
She is super excited about this. She had been already considering picking up something similar, and if this meant she could save a little bit of her spending money for other stuff, then that was just fine with her.
no subject
"You know what? Why don't we try it out now?" She pats at Felicity's shoulder, suddenly nothing but need and loneliness.
no subject
"..oh! Yeah, we can do that, too! Aah, where, where should we..." And though she has the palette in her hands, she is not sure just where one goes to do one's makeup, when out and about on the town. How's this work? Is this sanitary?
no subject
Some people, her husband included, she won't respond to. But this is an investor with a thousand assi allotted per Tribute.
"I'm so sorry, Felicity, I have to take a call." She reaches over and pats the top of the palette. "Let me know when you're putting up the video, alright? I expect credit as a sponsor."
no subject
The jangling of the phone snaps her head right back up, and then she is gasping for breath and nodding and perfectly understanding of what must be done. Her Uncle has the same kind of responsibilities. Her mother's always taking a call about something. Father's always possibly needing to be called and put on duty. "It's fine, it's fine! Go, go, go do it, you'll be the first to know when it's up and ready!" Her fingers curl over top of the palette, and she smiles ever so sweetly.