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

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He laughed delightedly, clapping a friendly hand on R's shoulder. If he had any fear of the zombie at all it didn't show- everything about his expression, posture and gestures spoke to warm, easy affection.

"Wet! Yes, my friend, I suppose it is. Can you taste it at all, or is it a bit of a lost cause?"

The hand surprised R, the zombie looking dumbly at it, then back at Timaeus's broad smile because most people - even the few fans he had in the Capitol - didn't really seem all that jazzed about funny little things like physical contact with a stiff, gray corpse.

R tried the drink again to be polite. "Sssorry. Better luck...next...time?"

Did Timaeus want the glass back? Or did he believe in zombie cooties? (Could zombies even have cooties?)

He grinned, more than happy to accept the glass back and deposit it on a tray passing by in the hands of one of his staff.

"Better luck next time, indeed. I admire your willingness to try new things, though, it's certainly not a trait we usually associate with the dead, is it?"

R thought about it. Eventually he shook his head, his moan regretful. "No...It's hard? We don't do...new. Don't...create."

What he wanted to say was Timaeus had a very beautiful ship, even if R wasn't a big fan of some of the guests, and no matter how big a horde of zombies you slapped together you could never come up with something like this.

He nodded, thoughtfully, though most of the meaning R wanted to convey sailed over his head. A shame.

"Obviously, death is usually a-- hm. A more permanent state, for us. Much more of an end, which isn't all that conducive to creation. I must admit, I find it all quite intriguing. Do you mind if I ask you questions about it?"

It blew when you couldn't connect and communicate and maybe it wasn't just a thing that happened when you were Dead. R was looking around the Capitol since he arrived and it almost felt like they had the same problem here - only in Technicolor.

Too bad he couldn't figure out a way to convey that thought to Timaeus.

"Fire...away," R shrugged. His head wanted to lean to the side but with his party clothes's stiff collar, that wasn't happening. "Not...literal...ly."

Bad joke, but he liked Timaeus enough to bounce his comedy routine off him.

"Not literally," he promised with a warm, easy laugh, making a playful gun gesture with his hand. "What is it like? Can you remember what it was like before, at all?"

He cut himself off there. He had so many more questions, but the last thing he wanted to do was flood the poor zombie boy with them all at once. It hardly seemed fair.

The zombie stood there swaying slightly thinking about it. Give him a few minutes.

"It's...gray. Flat...hun...hungry," R struggled to put his whole un-life experience into words for Timaeus. "I have...pieces. Stuff. Rem...remember..."

R trailed off. Yeah, so he wasn't going to go into all the stuff he had stolen from people's brains over the years. Way to drive off someone he wanted to be friends with. Anyway, those memories didn't count as his.

"Things like...books and...places. But...not..." R waved vaguely at all the Stuff here in the ship, then touched his hand to his chest. "Not...me?"

Timaeus was clearly doing his best to understand, attention focused completely on R and everything he was doing to try and communicate- but frustratingly, it was probably just a little too hard for him to grasp.

"You don't remember... your-- ah, anything personal?" he offered, curiously. "You don't know who you were before you died? I'm sorry. This must be uncomfortable for you- we don't have to talk about it..."

R shook his head. Yeah, that about summed it up. "Could...show me...around boat?"

He really wanted to look approachable, not a corpse who was busy staring at walls and feeling sorry for himself, especially to a man who wrote him such a beautiful note. R decided he wanted Timaeus as a friend. He looked like friend material.

"I'd be delighted," he told him quite honestly, his smile easy and his eyes bright. "There's a lot more to her than the rooms we've decorated for the party, obviously. You know, when we were first designing her, I thought it might be fun to have her hold some kind of submersible? But it ended up being a little too complicated to fit in for our deadline."

R could stand here all day and listen to Timaeus talk, as creepy as that sounded. What? Guy had a nice voice, made a zombie want to stand there and listen.

It took R a moment, a long moment, to realize what Timaeus meant by "submersible" because really, he was distracted by the word. It tripped up the tongue, but in a cool way.

"You...don't do...it by...halves, do...you?"

"Halves don't sell very well here," he replied easily, his smile broadening. "Especially not to the clients my company works with. But I suppose it's more personal than that, too. Who wants less than the best? Come- I'll show you some of the little touches I insisted on. Have you seen the bathrooms yet?"

R doesn't have to be told twice. He might be considered a weirdo by the other Dead but the fact is he's still a zombie: he's a follower, not a leader. When Timaeus tells him to come along for the tour, R's ready to start shuffling after him without thinking "hey, I just met the guy".

There's something instinctively attractive about someone who knows what he wants and how to get it.

"No...Escort...said - she said...." R trails off, trying to remember what she said because frankly, he'd zoned out during half of the gushing. (She'd been loudly gushing by the way, probably hoping Timaeus or one of his favorites could overhear - by accident, of course). "She...said world-class...marble?"

"Yes, exquisite A-grade marble from District Two- here."
He opened an ornate door, revealing a beautifully crafted bathroom in cool, smooth marble and crystal, the ceiling an intricately faceted mirror. Candles lined the steps up to a deep, spacious bath, more pool than tub. Timaeus smiled, proudly.

"Quite big enough for two. Or three, I suppose, if you were that way inclined. And luxurious enough to be a wonderful experience even by yourself."

The smile is almost as much as a flourish as Timaeus opening the door (R was probably more bowled over by the smile than the bathroom that his Escort would swoon over and gasp "exquisite!", but he looks inside anyway to be polite). The zombie stands close enough to bump gently into Timaeus's shoulder as he stares at the candles and the biggest bathtub known to man, in his opinion.

This probably would've been the most romantic bathroom he'd ever seen, if he could remember enough of the others to start rating them 1-10.

"It's...nice," R says and then seems to realize he probably should groan more than that. "Ugh, it's...bigg...biggest...bathroom I've...ever seen."

"Ah, well. I don't suppose they have much like this where you're from?" he asked, clapping his hands to awaken the hundreds of tiny imitation candles, their fake flames flickering with a gentle glow as the ambient light faded down. His smile widened.

"Little details make all the difference, I think. Of course, the Victoria Ascendant is a showcase of everything my company can do for its clients... not everything is to my personal taste."

Edited (i accidentally a whole html) 2013-05-09 06:09 (UTC)

R shook his head. All the bathrooms he'd seen where either flooded, covered black with mildew or splattered with blood and body parts, probably because him and some other zombies cornered some Living in there. R started as Timaeus clapped next to him, his eyes widening slightly as the candles all flickered to life and the room darkened at the same time.

Yeah, he could say this was a place he would've liked to go sway in the corner. It almost felt comfortable.

"What's...your personal...taste?" R asked, distracted, trying very hard not to start gaping all over again like a country-bumpkin zombie.

"I'll have to show you up to my office, some time," he offered with a broad, generous smile. "Or even my little place in the Capitol. I have a pinball machine and a record player, wonderfully retro, very quaint. Ah- was there anything in particular here you wanted to see?"

R had seen the Capitol's idea of "little" - he was almost dead sure Timaeus place was anything but tiny. The zombie perked up at the two magic words -

"Record...player?" R almost looked alive for a second there, his eyes widening above the muzzle. "Would...love to...listen. Great...sound?"

He laughed, clearly pleased with R's reaction. "Oh, yes. I can't say I have much of a record collection, old things like that are very hard to come by, but it's quite the thing. Very cute. Are you a collector?"

"Yes!" R's groan actually spiked instead of that usual flat-lined gasp, his interest peaking. He even stood up a little straighter, looking Timaeus in the eye. "Big...collector. Collection. Wish I could...share with...you."

It was oddly touching, watching the zombie brighten at the prospect of playing with one of Timaeus's toys. He laughed, fondly.
"As do I, my friend. Wouldn't that be something? Music from another world. Unfortunately we may have to make do, but if you really are interested I'd be delighted to set up a time for us with your Escort?"

R's night was suddenly looking a lot better, considering how it started. It helped his Escort was too busy repairing his reputation to start lecturing and hovering.

"I would...like that - " R paused, swallowed, struggling to force out something with more emphasis, " - love that...Timaeus. Thank...you."

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