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

Calico cackles at Asha's reaction.

"Aw honey. Lesson number one, though, right? The Capitol don't do nothing by halves. Believe me."

At Asha's question, she shakes her head, and quickly swallows her chicken piece.

"Nah. Fresh from District eight, me. Born and raised there. Well, not 'fresh'; more like thirteen years stale, but y'know? How are you finding this place then, Asha? It's a bit crazy, innit?"

She takes the laugh easily enough; she did bring it upon herself, after all. Still, she reaches for the next piece, hungry enough to try their food again. "I'd think lesson number one was not to worry about dying."

She doesn't know what these districts are, but the woman seems eager enough to talk about some things; maybe she could help her put together some of what's going on. "A bit? I don't even know which capitol this is." Among many, many other things.

"Yeah - that's a new rule for me too." Mostly. Except for her poor,strange doppelganger from another world, brought in to shut Calico up.

"I know what that feels like, bein' scared of death. I shoulda died in my arena, really. It was a boy who helped me - from my district, he were. An' then, sheer luck. I guess the odds were in my favour after all."

She looks around. There's a lot to explain, especially if Asha knows nothing.
"Shall we have a seat, honey? And I'll try an' help your questions? What district they tellin' you you're from?"

She hadn't been afraid. She had cheated death before, and it had only put her in Stannis's hands as a hostage, and if the need called for it, a sacrifice. Here, at least, she was doing something instead of slowly freezing and starving to death; if she won, she would return free, and if she didn't, she would see her father again after only a little pause.

But she didn't, and yet here she was, talking to someone who was as far from her father as could be. That would be rude to say, however, so she keeps quiet on that front.

"You fought and won, when it meant what they said," she says, seeking the confirmation. She glances for a seat by water, not keen on leaving it yet. "11, they say, though I've less idea of what it means than most."

Edited 2013-04-29 09:07 (UTC)

Calico leads her poolside, and sits down on one of the slippery, vinyl covered couches with a grimace.

"'Orrible stuff, this. I try to tell 'em, but no.. It was bad luck if you worked in the vinyl factories. You stank of the stuff. That's what my District does, see? Clothing. We make the material for the whole of Panem - that's where we are. And this is the Capitol of Panem. If you're eleven, honey, that means agriculture. So where you're from is huge, lots of fields and stuff, and they grow crops. I dunno much ter be honest. Bin there once bu' that were on the Victory tour an' I weren't really payin' much attention."

She's quiet for a moment, mulling over Asha's question. Finally, she offers, in a much more subdued tone than before, "Well, I guess I did kill. I killed two people that arena. One on an accident. And the other 'cause he were gonna push me over a cliff. Didn't even think about that one. He got cocky and gave me the chance to give 'im a shove first. I guess I killed a bear as well - only a little one mind, but I guess that adds on to how many I ended."

She has an entirely different reaction to the couch. She's not familiar with the fabric, and at first assumes it's leather-- what she takes away from it is the foolishness of a leather seat on a boat, which is almost as useless as a boat with a spring in it.

"Panem," she repeats, trying out the word for herself. She's never heard of it, neither in Westeros nor the other continents. That wasn't surprising, considering how little she recognized in anything here, but it was disorienting not knowing where she could possibly be. There's so much information in what she's saying; she doesn't recognize vinyl or factories, but the 'districts' make sense. They're in the capitol city, and this woman worked as a seamstress in the garment district-- though why everyone went to them instead of keeping their own servants in the home, she couldn't know. It wasn't important enough to ask about.

She gives a little ironic snort at the word agriculture, and wonders if her god is laughing at her beneath the water.

She knows most women aren't like her, and that goes many times over for green women; she can't think of a time when she thought that much about killing, but there probably was one. "Of course he did. God forbid he treat you seriously, when you're fighting for the death."

"Yeah, Panem. None of you lot seem to have heard of it before. 'S not so bad."

If you ignore almost everything about it and focus on the good food of the Capitol, and the finery worn there.

"He was District One. They're the career tributes, them. They train - or they did, anyway - until they're eighteen, and then they volunteer and almost always win. He was laughin' - him against me. Big strapping lad against a kid hidin' in the brush. I'd've been laughin' too, if it were the other way round. Don't think nobody took me seriously. I got a crap score from the Game makers, but it didn't matter in the end. How did you score?"

"Have you heard of the Iron Islands?" she asks back, as much to get the question out as it is a comeback. "Or any of the Seven Kingdoms, for that matter?"

This new information was more confusing; is there a training district in this city as well? Such an odd way to phrase it. But if these games were a regular thing, she supposes it would make sense to raise fighters; still, they included those who weren't trained?

"A ten," she says easily, not as interested in whatever this scoring was. "This fight is normally trained versus untrained fighters, then?"

"The Iron Islands? No... they must have been destroyed in the War. There is nothing outside Panem. Is that where you're from?"

Calico continues eating, occasionally glancing at the piranhas in their tubes. They look somehow like an ominous threat; frivolity turning to danger in a glance. Not a good thought.

"Wow. You must have impressed to get a ten - that's usually reserved for the Careers. I think I got like, four or five or something. Pretty rubbish, anyway. But really, the only things I'm good at are sewing and talking. So if you need a touch up on your dress, or don't like what your Stylist is making you wear - believe me, honey, you'll be forced into some ridiculous clothes - come to me and I'll run it into something new for you."

Now that her 'business proposal' was out of the way, Calico goes back to the more serious business of Career Tributes.

"Well, not officially 'trained' - but they were anyway. Districts 1, 2 and 4 - they're the rich ones and they let their kids train up - you see, thye used to have it so if you won the games, your district would be fed for the year. No food shortages. No drought. Luxury, for one year. So everyone wanted to win. But the poor districts, like mine, and eleven and twelve - kids went to work, not school. We don't have the money for it - so we don't get any training so we never win and so we never get any money from here. Stupid, ain't it?"

Calico can feel her temper rising as she talks Asha through the politics of it - and that's not good. She's only just been released for mouthing off, and here she is doing it again. So she takes a deep breath and plasters a slightly fake smile onto her face.

"Your dress is lovely, by the way."

She leans forward, forearms on her knees, something dark and serious crossing her face. They could have been, for all she knows; they were getting no communication in the snowstorm, and the Crow's Eye would doubtless run the Ironborn into the ground as she feared-- but for them to fall in a month, a month and a half? And none of that would erase their memory, either. "There's much and more outside of Panem, as I am proof of."

Though Panem was different enough that she expected to find herself very far from home indeed.

"Well, I am good at fighting, which is a service I plan to make use of." Still, having someone who could help with clothing would be useful, when she planned to leave; she could at least expect something warm out of it.

She frowns then, trying to put the situation together-- there's not enough food in the capitol, so it's distributed based on the winner of the game. If King's Landing resorts to this, it'd be the Lannisters who would find themselves dead at the end of it, along with the common folk.

She's about to comment on it, but she also recognizes the shift; she's familiar with the idea of having to hold one's tongue because of her sex, because of her politics, because of her family... even if they claimed it was different for them, none of those who said it were women. She eyes Calico for another second, before sitting back and glancing down at the dress as if she just remembered it was there. "Thank you. It's not what I would have chosen."

Sometimes it was just as important to find out what wasn't being said.

"Yeah, well. I'm back now. I'm on the eighth floor of the Tribute tower - so you can just pop along and I'll run up whatever your stylist comes up with into something you like. Okay? I love fashion. Before the Games, I used to be in trouble constantly at the factories. I used to sew miniatures out of the scraps. Except I weren't supposed to be doing that. I were supposed to be sewing sequins into strings for the Capitol stylists or District One. That were my favourite bit of the Games - the costumes. So after the Games, they let me continue practisin' and now I make nearly all of my clothes."

It's seemingly mindless chatter, carefully constructed to give Asha an impression of the squalor of the districts. She totally gets that the other woman wants to ask her questions. But Calico cannot answer. Not here. Not in public. And it's so difficult. But her brother's life - her family's lives - depend on Calico's good behaviour.

"Fighting will get you through the arenas. Once you win, that's it. I mean, you still have to live here, but it ain't so bad without the threat of the arena."

It's frustrating, being derailed-- but it's as telling as more questions would be, assuming she's not talking to someone soft in the head (and she doesn't think so, not with what she heard already). The significance of what she is told, though, doesn't have its desired effect; it sounds like what she would expect a normal seamstress's life to be like, aside from the interruption to fight. The idea that someone who could sew wouldn't make their own clothes already is equally foreign to her, outside of a noblewoman's context.

"Then I'll foist my work on you, if you enjoy it so much," she says easily-- and maybe speak more, while they're at it.

But the last comment causes her to whip her head directly to Calico. "I will be leaving once I win. I cannot stay here."

Calico smiles sadly at that, and reaches for the other woman's hand.

"I don't think you will, honey. 'T ain't like the old days, and even then..."

She leans up close and prays that the other woman doesn't move away. "I've not been back for thirteen years."

But that's all she'll say - who knows if Asha's not just another plant by the bloody Game Makers looking to catch her mouthing off?

"You don't have to do nothing you don't want here, though. Except compete in the Games. But otherwise... you're free."

She didn't understand. It might have been thirteen years for her, but she was of this place; Asha was Ironborn, and she would not wait here while her uncle ruined them, while Stannis burned her brother. She had to go.

"I need to return. My brother depends on it. My family depends on it. My kingdom depends on it."

"But you don't get to call the shots. I'm sorry - what was your name again? Look, I'm sorry, but you just don't."

Calico's temper is starting to wear thin, though it isn't directed at Asha as much as at the Capitol itself.

"You just have to get on with it. Make up your mind that you're stuck here fighting and playing fancy dress forever, okay?"

"Asha. Greyjoy, of House Greyjoy." She breaks off from the oncoming rant only by knowing that this will make as much sense to Calico as the politics of this place do to her.

But her father's words come back to her-- she might not have time to waste, but if she gets herself killed here, or imprisoned too quickly, she'll be even less help. She reigns in the glare on her face, pursing her lips into a line; she would find out on her own, and leave on her own, and not get caught with other people.

Time to kneel again, Father.

Calico sighs. "Look - Asha. I KNOW it's not what you want to hear. But trust me."

She leans in close now. Capitol ploy or not, Cal just cannot let someone else go through what she has just gone through. She raises her hand to once more cover her mouth.

"Listen to me. This goes no further. Got it? These people will arrest you. They'll lock you in a room. They'll threaten your family and your friends. They'll destroy your reputation. They'll make SURE you toe the line. So quit mouthing off and - and just sit tight. For now. Got it? Now look at that Tribute and laugh. Loud and hard and whisper back to me. They'll be watching."

She moves back and begins to cackle uproariously, before chucking in a quick wink and flirty wave at the poor bemused Tribute.

She opens her mouth to respond-- to any of it-- but instead eyes the woman before glancing over to the tribute she indicated and smirked. She leans back in as directed and whispers back.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not you - just... It's my job to make sure you don't get hurt, right? I might not be your mentor, but damn this place." She's still giggling as she whispers back, giving an odd joviality to her words.

"Now - after a spot of tribute watching, we like to play 'stuff as many marshmallows in your mouth as possible."

Such a stupid game, but it'll keep both of their mouths preoccupied for a bit at least.

The contrast is strange, but it drives home an important lesson-- the game here was falsehoods, showing one face and hiding her true one.

"Stuffing what?"

This was... a strange place.

"For fun back home, we play the Finger Dance. We could do that instead."

"And what's the finger dance?"

She 'cha chas' the fingers of her left hand across the palm of her right.

"Like this? I think marshmallows are more fun than this, honey."

"Not quite. We toss axes back and forth until someone loses one."

She raises her eyebrows suggestively. "But if marshmellows are more exciting..."

"You toss axes?" Calico laughs at the sheer absurdity and at Asha's nonchalance.

"Axes? For real? No wonder they brought you here, girl. You are PERFECT for the arena. You could definitely be a career... but do you really think they'd have axes on a boat? With a load of tributes around? That's how accidents happen, honey. And that's bad publicity."

"And I have all ten fingers." She held them up to demonstrate.

"Surely they have enough mages here to take care of any problems, right?" she offers, trying to bait out more of the story-- or at least an explanation for everything around them.

"Impressive!" Calico notes with another grin.

"What's a mage? I'm gonna go with, 'we have none', since I've never heard of 'em."

And make a note to pass on the information from other worlds to Eva later, after the party.