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

She was one of the tributes that he had seen around. No, not a tribute any longer; a mentor. She was a mentor, now, and as such, they should probably get to know each other in some way. Or at least say hello.

And this way, Peeta didn't have to escape his small group to go over and say hello to her. Once he got there, they dispersed, and he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, despite his smile.

"Ariadne, right? You look like you're having a good time."

Of all of the other Mentors, he was probably one of those she recognised more easily than some of the others. She didn't really know his name, but she definitely knew his face.

"Right," she replied in the affirmative, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear as she studied him briefly, "This sort of party is a bit more my speed than some of the others we've had to attend. How are you finding it?"

Well, he hadn't been around for a bit. And he'd say he had one of those easily faces to forget, but that joke didn't always work, he was finding out. Not unless it actually came up.

"What are some of the others you've attended?" He'd missed a lot more then he was going to admit. He couldn't come right out and say he'd spent the past few months locked in a windowless white room. "I'm liking this one! It's the first one I've ever been to that's been on a yacht. We didn't get to go out on a boat even when we were in District Four, so I'm really loving this."

"How far back do you want me to go?" Ariadne asked simply, tone almost leaning towards a gentle teasing despite its typical dryness. "There was a rave once. Everyone was splattered in neon paint, and we all glowed under the blacklights. I'm not sure quite what inspired the whole thing, short of the radioactive Arena. I guess that's really enough, through.

"What were the Districts like?" She asked then, looking even more interested than she had before.

"There seems to be a party going on in the Capitol almost every night, so... maybe not too far back," He gave a soft laugh at that. It was all some long party, really, with a few differences here and there for most of them. "I've never been to a rave, though. If arenas can inspire feather trends, then they could inspire that kind of party."

But a rave wasn't one he'd gone to before. Probably they had a few, but Effie wouldn't let them go to them. Rave had a rather sinister tone to it. "The districts were... really different. There were a few things that were the same," He gave a little wave of his hand. "They had fences, of course, but Twelve is a coal mining district, where Four is a fishing one. So that's...a big difference. A lot of people working all the time."

He did think it was a little sad that none of these tributes got to see the district they were technically fighting for.

There was indeed a party almost every night; sometimes two or three in an evening, depending on how exciting things were getting. At some point, Ariadne had contented herself in being able to say no to her Escorts, who were used to the Morphlings and their tendency to just go along with whatever; no longer did she have to attend every single one.

"That's what I thought. It was interesting, to say the least." Not quite as ominous as Peeta thought it was, but it wasn't exactly harmless. None of them were, when you truly looked at them. She tipped her head curiously at the descriptions of the Districts, nodding faintly. "I've read about them," she told him simply, "But there's only so much you can glean from words."

There was a faint wistfulness to her words that suggested she agreed with him completely.

"There is. We are told the basics about the different districts in school, but it's not like you're able to visit them whenever you want. Who has the money to pay for that?" Peeta laughed. He hoped she got that people just weren't allowed to travel between districts. It was pretty odd.

"I've heard that in past victory tours, you got to spend some time in each district, talking with the victors there. We must have just missed them!" A grin for that, like a soft laugh that wasn't all that funny.

Having had the experience dealing with doublespeak that she did, Ariadne caught easily that they couldn't travel between Districts at all, let alone with ease. It struck her as strange, how limited everyone was. Like they were each trapped in their own cages, never to be let out until they won the Games. And then, how much of a threat could they really be, having killed a number of their peers? She'd seen some of the Victors - emotionally, mentally unstable, most of them.

"You must have. How long was your tour?" She asked him, allowing a smile that was entirely faked, meant as a reaction to his laugh.

"It wasn't very long. With all of the prep work we did for it, it felt longer then it was. We spent a day in each district, and then two days in the Capitol, before coming back home for the Harvest Festival," Peeta have a soft smile. "I loved that. It was a nice festival."

He looked down at his feet, shifting the fake one an inch before looking back up with a slightly larger smile. "We moved pretty fast. And the trains are faster then anything else, here. But the Victor's district is always last on the tour, and it starts in descending order. So, if you're a Victor from Three, then you'd go from Twelve down to Four, then loop around to do One and Two, and then end with Three."

"I can't believe it was so short," Ariadne mused, mostly to herself. It did make a bit of sense, given that the Capitol wouldn't want to give their Victors enough time to meet people, or to really interact with anyone, but it was still such a shame. There was so much lost with all of their methods. "Did you enjoy it all, at least?"

"I'm not sure if it's always that short, but it felt shorter to me," Peeta gave a serious nod. They had been hustled in and out of the districts, almost too fast. And they'd never met any of the other Victors. They should have, but they didn't.

"I did! I saw things I'd never seen before. An ocean, going sailing, people taking down entire, huge trees. There's more nature in the districts then in the Capitol."

She blinked, taking that in; she made a mental note to ask someone - perhaps Cinna, perhaps Elias - about it, if ever she got the chance. They would know better than she would.

"I can believe that; they're less touched, aren't they? Less...I hesitate to use the word 'civilised', but that's almost the case, isn't it?" She asked, not entirely caring what he thought of her for the insinuation. Truth be told, the Capitol was probably the least civilised of the lot of them, but on the face of it, it could be the other way around.

They probably would, if only because they knew more about it. You only got one Victory Tour, what was Peeta supposed to compare it to? He just knew something was off about it.

"I think... civilized works well enough?" He didn't think anything of her to use that word in regards to the districts. He wasn't sure what other word there was for it. "It's more... this place, the Capitol? This is a city. District Twelve is more like a town surrounded by mines and forest. It's sort of the same everywhere else, too. They're big, but not big in the way that this place is big. For example, I'd never been in a building that had more then two floors, until I came here. We're just a little more...rustic." That was a word he'd heard used before, maybe that was the one that fit.

Ariadne simply listened to that, glad she could speak to someone who remembered the Districts, instead of the Victors who had been in the Capitol for a decade, for two. "That would make sense. Life is different there."

She paused then, frowning a little, "Do you miss it?"

It may have been a whirlwind of activity, but of course, every second was burned into his memory. District 11 most of all, but then, it wasn't everyday that you saw someone shot in the head because of something you had done.

"Very different. All over, really, I can't say that any District is the same as another," Peeta said thoughtfully. It took him a moment to answer the next question, because how could he answer it? You had to be enjoying your time here, making it a place you wanted to be, but you'd never call it home. At the same time, home was where hunger gnawed at you everyday, where it sometimes felt like you were breathing in coal dust, where everyone was just. Sad. Tired.

"...I miss some parts. Mr friends. My family. My home, the one that we lived in over the bakery." He gave a smiled at that. "I miss the bakery. Just some things like that, but the Capitol is very good to us here."

"They wouldn't be," she mused. It was a little odd to think about, but the segregation would have made things in each District wildly different from everywhere else, just like the Capitol was excessively different from the life that most people brought in knew. The jumps from place to place were enough to make one's head spin.

She nodded a little, agreeing: "They are good to us. They give us almost anything we could ask for. There's something to be said for home, though. The bakeries here wouldn't be the same as the one you lived over; they're nothing like the ones back in Paris."

"Even just the weather," Peeta commented. "When we left for the Victory tour, it was snowing in Twelve. But when we got to Eleven, it was warm, kind of muggy. And we'd only been traveling less then a day, it was amazing." Definitely made people's heads spin. They looked different, and everything was so. So. Different.

"Exactly. If anything, the bakeries here are better, but between you and me, I think I might have the edge over them." This was said with a little wink, almost like it was a secret between the two of them. "Is Paris where you're from? What's it like there?" That was one of the big things nowadays; the people not from here wanted to know all about Panem, but the people of Panem wanted to know all about these other worlds just as much.

"How does that work?" Ariadne asked, another frown pulling at her brow. It was currently making her head spin. She didn't think the Capitol could control the weather; there had to be some other explanation for it.

But that frown faded after a moment, giving way to the smallest curve of her mouth at that conspiratorial tone. "You could open up your own someday," she pointed out, a little curious as to how a baker had won the Games. But then again, she had won; she was little more than an architecture student-cum-criminal.

"It's where I was studying. It's beautiful; nothing but stunning architecture and culture for as far as the eye can see. It's comfortable there. Everything's so relaxed. I loved it."

Peeta had no idea. It hadn't really crossed his mind that the Capitol could control the weather, even if it seemed like a waste of time and resources. He wouldn't put it pass them, though. He had to shrug. "I don't really know? I know that we traveled south on the train, so it really was like being in a whole other world. There trees that I'd never seen before, we didn't have any trees like that back home. All sorts of different fruit."

Another thing he'd never thought of was opening his own bakery. They only needed one in Twelve, but here they had dozens. What was one more? "Maybe. Depends on how long we're here for, I should probably get Katniss' clearance before making such a long term plan," Peeta smiled. "Relaxed like here, or relaxed like... calm and peaceful? I don't know a lot about architecture, the Capitol is really the place with architecture. Twelve has...mines. Not anything like here."

She merely tipped her head to one side in birdlike curiosity, keeping quiet as she processed it. Finally, she gave a faint nod, accepting his explanation. "That's interesting. I'd like to see it all one day, if I could. But I know a little bit of what to expect." It was about as close to a thank you as she'd get; her tone was light, almost leaning on grateful.

A little smile tugged at her mouth, "Probably. I guess that is sort of a big decision." A pause, and Ariadne shrugged slightly. "Calm and peaceful. It's not really like this place at all, either. I don't think it's that similar to anywhere here."

"I hope so, too. It'd be nice for the new tributes to see the district they're helping," Peeta smiled, giving a small nod of his head. You're very welcome. He did the best he could with it, but at some point, all of this double talk was going to make his head hurt.

"Calm and peaceful," He repeated. "It sounds nice. Calm is sort of hard to come by around here. But it's always peaceful outside of the arena."

They were on the same page, at least in some regard; that was nice to see, even if the double talk was indeed getting a bit tiring. She'd rather just say what was on her mind straight out, but that just wasn't possible. Not if she liked her head where it was.

"Relatively speaking, at least," Ariadne agreed. She wouldn't fully agree, and say that the Capitol was always peaceful, because from the number of lockdowns she'd seen, that was a lie. "But Paris is nice. Maybe one day we'll be able to trade: you can see it, I can see the Districts."

Tell him about it. He had a headache that had started around his first few times talking to some of the new tributes, and some of the Victors as well. But it was tiring, all this double talk. He wished he could speak plainly.

"That would be an amazing trade," Peeta smiled. "I would do anything to see your world." The unspoken was right there: to see a world not controlled by the Capitol. Any world, without them around. What life could be without the games.

Maybe one day, they would all have a chance to just speak freely. She doubted it, but it was enough of a thought to get her from day to day.

"It's beautiful. I'm sure that the rest of this world is too, but it's not the same," she replied, returning his smile a little. The unspoken came through loud and clear, and she wished that it really was possible. Perhaps looking into dream sharing would be something to do, if she really got bored. She just worried that the Capitol would take it for their own.

Maybe one day, but Peeta didn't think it would ever be a day that he was alive in. The future wasn't something he could think much about right now, when surviving day to day was so much more pressing on his mind. Keeping his friends and family safe. It took a lot out of you.

All they could do was return small smiles for a moment, as Peeta tried to think of something else. Maybe the rest of the world was beautiful. Or maybe there wasn't anything but wilderness outside of the districts. That's what they were told, anyway. "What have you been doing in the Capitol, lately? I don't know if they let you go back to school here, even if it's a different school, but you have to have at least one talent you can expand on here, right?" Peeta grinned.