thecapitol | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who| Timaeus Nadir and all his guests. If you are in the Capitol, you've been invited!
What| A spectacular Viewing Party and opportunity for tributes to get sponsorship
Where| The Victoria Ascendant, on the lake
When| After the most recent death roll!
Warnings/Notes| Probable skeeviness of the Nice Guy variety.

Welcome to the Victoria Ascendant, latest in the Ascendant line of luxury yachts as built by the Nadir company. Tonight, the Victoria Ascendant is the stage set for a spectacular party, also paid for by the company and specifically designed and organised by a team of event specialists overseen by your host for this evening, Timaeus Nadir- wealthy eligible bachelor, melodramatic heir apparent to the company chair, frequent sponsor of the Games. The Victoria Ascendant is fully equipped with every obscenely luxurious item imaginable, and practically drips opulence.

When first welcomed aboard you will be assured that your every need will be seen to, your every desire catered for. Staff are on hand to answer any questions you might have or guide you to various areas of the ship, provide you with food, drink, or suggestions of how best to take advantage of the Victoria Ascendant's many amenities- they are here as hosts, but also as salespeople for those of the guests with money to burn- this party is serving more than one purpose. Tributes who responded to their invite will also receive a delicate, hand-written note in a golden envelope as they board- the content of which will be posted as a reply to their response to this post.(I'll do this once your character turns up.)

Although the Victoria Ascendant has a magnificent dining room for formal, sit-down occasions, the food for the party will be circulating the various lounge areas and decks. There is also a buffet table, for those of you who prefer to help yourselves, and a fully stocked bar. Provided are a baffling variety of foods and beverages, seemingly unconnected- but each tribute will find that if at any point during their stay in the Capitol they have requested a particular food or drink item, it is available here. Or, at least, the closest approximation the catering staff could conjure up. Seating is provided in intimate groupings around tables for the most part, though there are large, sprawling couches against the walls. Central to the dining area is a magnificent aquarium filled with brightly coloured fish. Anyone looking closely enough will recognise them- varieties of piranha- but don't worry, they've been more than adequately fed and the glass is thick.

While there are various screens displaying the Games throughout the ship, Viewing is also taking place on an enormous screen, set up in a seperate lounge area with full floor-to-ceiling windows all along one side. Here, staff wait to take bets or help organise the giving of sponsor gifts. Large, comfortable couches line the room, and the central table overflows with a spectacular arrangement of edible flowers and fruit.

Later in the evening, you will be told that the firework display is about to begin, and invited to go up onto the main deck to watch. The fireworks themselves will be launched from smaller boats across the lake, and the display is set to be truly spectacular. It will be set to some music that Tributes may find familiar- various melodies pulled from the most recent Arena. The large swimming pool on the deck is open, but it is too early in the year to be comfortable to use. Instead, it is being used as an unusual centrepiece for the evening. Floating in the illuminated water is a gigantic iceberg, sculpted into a stylised model of the current arena and populated with frozen figures. Eagle-eyed Tributes may be able to spot themselves depicted in ice- more often than not, the moment of their deaths are the pose of choice, if a little tweaked for the sake of a more dramatic scene.

Enjoy!

Adachi · Ariadne · Asha · Atticus · Beck · Blaine · Calico · Callista · Chris · Diana · Don · Eddie · Eponine · Eva · Gaila · Glinda · Harley · Howard · Julie · Kurt · Marty · Maximus · Momoko · Neffa · Parker · Peeta · Phil · Pruna · R · Sigma · Some · Thane · Timaeus · Topher

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Can't complain." Well, he could - he never gets pieced back together in the best of shapes, instead always looking like he just got pulled out of his hellish hometown - but why, when he has delicious appetizers on silver filigreed plates? "Like I told you, I wasn't planning on winning, so I'm glad at least it wasn't...as bad as it could have been."

He picks a few more pastries off the plate, looking as if he's about to offer them to Thane, and then looking as if he's decided against it. "So your race isn't big on this sort of thing? I gotta say all these people make me a bit jumpy."

Any of them could be violent. Howard's eyes drift over each person, noting all the places they could hide a weapon, always watching where their hands are.

The first gains a slight glance sideways. He is far more philosophical about this than most his age would be. Almost it brings to mind Thane's own childhood, but then - there are similarities, but they end.

"I apologize for not being there." He saw Howard's death, on the screens. He could have made it easier. He had made an offer, and he had been unable to follow through on it.

"My race has parties. But I have rarely been present for them. It did not interest me." His own eyes remain fairly stationary, but he is always listening to the noise of the crowd around them, the moment someone might get too close, a shift in the tone of conversation.

"Why?"

It's an honest question. Howard doesn't particularly like watching people die, and he doesn't know Thane well enough to wish he'd been there when he killed himself to escape Hyperion. Just Julie there was enough.

"Why would you want to be there for that?"

Howard sets his appetizer aside, looking at Thane as if he's searching for something.

"I offered you my aid and was unable to follow through." Dead. After all this time, he'd finally died. And now he was alive again. That was not how things were supposed to work, not for him.

Hyperion. The name is becoming all too familiar to him already. He should have been able to see it in his eyes when they first met, but it's too late for that.

"My word should mean more than that."

"I wasn't counting on your word, man. Promises are made to be broken." His mouth jerks up a bit to one side, like a wry smirk aborted partway through. "So don't worry about turning it into some honor thing for you. I'm the one who died there. I'm the one who gets to be broke up about it."

He shrugs as if he isn't bothered by it. As if 'broke up' is a term of art and not a reality.

"So what happened to you?"

"I am not - broken up. But I do regret it." He is saying it for the sake of having said it, the knowledge that he has made it clear it was not his intention to break an offer.

A neat shrug, as if the fact of his death is entirely unimportant.

"Hyperion and I disagreed over his treatment of another tribute. It did not end well for me."

There's a way Howard's face falls that looks very similar to empathy.

"You, too?" Howard swallows and wraps one arm around himself. "I didn't watch the tapings yet. Feels too soon."

"He is acquiring a body count, yes." One that Thane does not agree with very well.

Regardless, that is unimportant for the moment. He can do nothing about it until Hyperion arrives back here. "I do not think there is any need to watch them unless you feel there is something to be learned from them."

"You fight the same people over and over again. Watching teaches you who'll stab you in the back next time." Howard shrugs and startles a little when a nearby sponsor uses a knife to cut up their fine meat. The flash of light catches his eye.

Thane's gaze sweeps the surroundings at Howard's jump, settles back on him. "And teaches you new methods of fighting."

"I don't know about that. I'm no good at fighting. I mean, look at me." He gestures to his skeletal body. "Teaches me survival skills, though."

"It can always be learned." Perhaps he could teach him something. Enough to defend himself.

Perhaps. "The body can be trained."

"Not when they keep resetting it. They keep resetting my muscle memory too, I think." Howard shrugs a bit. "We're probably all clones anyway."

"But not your brain." The muscle memory and the muscle necessary, that is important, but the knowledge of it is even more so. "Do you think so?"

"That's the only explanation I can think of to explain why we're the way we were when we were brought in, and not the way we were when we died."

"It is certainly an interesting idea to consider." Folding his hands behind his back as he thinks, tilting his head. "Again, the memories prove a problem. Would a clone have memories of the past arena?"

"I don't know. Maybe. They don't in scifi but..." He shrugs. "This is weirder than anything in scifi. I'm talking to an alien and it's kind of just like 'oh, how was your resurrection? Mine was nice, minimal trauma'."

"Scifi is not a term I am familiar with, but." He pauses, glances around the room. "The situation is certainly not normal, and I was under the impression I had seen some of the stranger things the galaxy had to offer." And yet here he is. "I do not believe they will provide us answers."

"No, probably not. You ask me, we don't want to know." Howard shakes his head. "I think the rot in this place goes deep, way deep."

"I agree. There is far more to this place than it seems." A glance around him at the party. "But I do not think it could be found." Not under constant surveillance, at least. Not until he can find a way to slip out from people's eyes.

"I don't want to go pressing the line. For some of us, this is a big step up. I'd rather they not kick me back to where I came from." He pulls his suit jacket tighter around himself; he's cold and shivering slightly.

"Fighting to your death repeatedly is a step up?" That seems like a rather terrible place of origin. "Where are you from?"

"California." Howard shrugs. "It's a long story. At least we have food here. Bet your home's better, though."

"My world is a very large place." Home is not a concept he has held to much in many years now. Perhaps the Normandy, but even then he is not sure. Almost. "Some places are beautiful. Others less so."

"Nowhere left in my home is beautiful." He doesn't sound too broken up about it. "We'd probably break anything pretty left. It's sort of what happens without any rules."