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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"I love parties," he says, and although his smile never fades, his eyes are scalpels, dissecting the boy in front of him piece by piece. In his left hand, between his index and middle fingers, he bobs his cigarette. Up. Down. Up. Down. "But I have an appreciation for more intimate, one-on-one interactions as well."

Without breaking his gaze, he snubs out the cigarette on the wall behind him. It is an elegant, graceful motion, except at the end he digs it into the wall a little too hard. His knuckles go white. Ash crumbles, breaks, smears the wall behind him.

But his voice is still soft.

"How are you, R?"

It's a small miracle they don't have an Avox sweeping in to quietly clean up Aunamee's mess.

"Could be...better," R admits. His face tilts toward Aunamee, trusting as usual. "Looking for...Julie. Have you...seen her?"

A lot of the Arena's a blur, the zombie not sure if that's a good thing or not. The sharpest moments are when he fed, these bright points sparking too briefly - or too long, like Beck and Katurian's memories stabbed into his skull - and he almost thinks he saw Aunamee at some point. R wants to moan he did. The details are fuzzy, like the majority of his life, except right now he wants to know if he tried chewing up Aunamee because he's a potential friend here. R sways there peering at the human as if he's slowly trying to work out if it happened or not. If he made a pass at him, Aunamee's being very polite about it.

Edited (Oops, I usernamed failed :|a) 2013-05-06 10:16 (UTC)

"Julie," he says.

It's strange, how he says that name. There's a sort of fondness to it, an affection spiked with curiosity and wonder. Even with his arm locked and rigid, the cigarette still bending against the wall's force, he smiles with his lips and he smiles in his voice.

"You're sweet together," he says, ignoring R's question in favor of his own wishes. "Like star-crossed lovers."

The smile makes R talkative, the zombie taking on a dimly pleased look.

"You...think so? I...like her. I can't...remember," R pauses to suck in a wheezing gasp that rattles its way through his corpse. "...feeling like...that before."

It's new and it's scary and awesome and amazing and it's like sensory overload. It's the type of thing he'd probably want to ask M about, the one best friend he had before all this only he's not here. Aunamee is. R latches onto that idea, gathering his words and grammar to his chest.

"Have you...felt...It before?"

"No," he says, his voice still wrapped in admiration, his eyes bright and wide. Aunamee wants to be loved, but Aunamee never loves. He never lies awake at night with his heart fluttering and his spine tingling. The closest he gets, he assumes, is the satisfaction of the kill, that blinding moment when everything falls apart but he stays standing.

Which reminds him.

"It was beautiful," he says, his voice dropping to a concerned hush, "how she protected you."

R remembers, vaguely, what it felt like pre-Julie and it's like it was someone else shuffling around without that warm feeling flooding into his corpse, seeping into everywhere: he wishes he could share that feeling with Aunamee, give him a taste. Show him.

It takes R a moment to realize who the human is talking about. Her. Beautiful. It could only be Julie. R hangs his head. She...was protecting him?

It's so obvious when Aunamee says it like that. R feels stupid for not seeing it until now.

"She...should...nt need...to," R mumbles. "That...man, I..."

R trails off, not wanting to admit he tried to chew him up in front of Aunamee. He likes him too much to start trotting his freaky new diet and shoving it in his face.

"You lose yourself sometimes," he says.

They're simple words, simple like 'you're not yourself,' but the way in which he says it holds all the significance. Every syllable is enunciated so delicately, so softly. He is a teacher, a therapist, a loving parent. He pockets the charred remains of his cigarette as though it were a coin or a business card, marring his white pockets with grey ash.

"Everyone loses themselves sometimes." He gives a wink. "And everyone needs help."

He flicks his head to the side, the vague direction of the shore.

"Meet me later? There's something in the suites I'd like to show you."

R absorbs those words. Aunamee’s right – no surprise there. It’s like he can understand how a corpse thinks, R unable to come up with a better way to phrase it. The zombie doesn’t return the wink, but he’s touched all the same, relieved to be treated like an almost-person who can get winks and good advice and reassurances. It’s not even a question whether or not R’ll come to the suites: R nods, tries to smile, and hopes whatever he manages behind the muzzle is good enough for now.

x x x x x x

They’re the only ones in the suites, R following where Aunamee wants him to go, this lurching shape scuffing his shoes after the human. He sits on the chair when told, trying his best to look as attentive as a zombie can look and wishing he wasn’t already slouching over in his seat. What is it Aunamee wants to show him? R’s curious for a zombie, only it’s still a slow burn, simmering as he tries to look sharp. R’s not amazing at what if’s. He’s okay, decent, probably better than the average Dead. He even has an imagination every now and then. It doesn’t mean he can look at Aunamee and make a good, solid guess about what this is all about.

But Aunamee asked him here and R thinks he trusts him.

The District 7 suites don't feel like home. Aunamee has spent more time in the arenas, curled up and broken (because what else is hunger, pain, and fear other than 'broken?'), and so the suites always strike him as a sort of purgatory, a pleasant little series of waiting rooms where Hell stands just outside his vision. All the same, Aunamee is very good at playing roles. Right now, he is playing the host, and when he directs R to the couch and strides across the room, he acts as though he's always belonged here.

"Can I get you anything?"

He uses the voice of a host as well, soft and even, and although his pacing is somewhat aimless, he pretends it isn't.

"Do you drink water? Tea?"

What was he talking about? R stares at Aunamee, lost, until it finally clicks that he's being a host and asking if he wants anything. R opens his mouth, fish-like, then snaps it shut. Hungry, sure. Thirsty? He wishes.

"I'm...guh...d," R mumbles, embarrassed. Maybe he should've just said yes and sipped away to be polite. Is that was a guest is supposed to do? "What did...you want...to show?"

He can't afford stuff like small-talk, not with the way words get lodged in his throat and he has to make what comes out count. R tracks Aunamee as the human moves across the room like he's lived here all his life.

"Not show," he says, a glean in his eyes, a curve in his lips. "Teach."

Sometimes, Aunamee likes to think of himself as a magician, a master of bright colors and slight of hand, an enticing mystery to be drawn out and explored. He takes a certain pleasure in all of this, the build-up, even though he knows that these next steps with R must be taken delicately.

This isn't fun and games. This is work.

"Do you ever," he says, furrowing his brow with an almost parental concern, "watch these Games?"

R had no idea where he's going with this, the zombie shrugging. "Escort...said to watch...old ones. Homework."

The expression on R's face says all it needs to. He might be a maneater and a killer, but that's because he's stuck like this, not because he gets off on it like Karis and he'd rather go stare at a wall and get acquainted if he had a choice. R's face slowly curdles into a miserable look, a little vacant and a lot like he'd rather talk about something else. Why is Aunamee asking this? What, does he watch? Have the same homework? Worried about how crappy R's doing on that front?

R can't say he's sorry. He's seen what's probably a stupid amount of people die over the years - seeing it replayed with some announcer going on and going on about Poor Mary Ann's mistake here, here, and here is something that seems like overkill.

"You said...teach?" R asks, a little apprehensive now. He trusts Aunamee, sure. That doesn't mean he's that comfortable sitting here like a overgrown, rotting kid waiting for the ball to drop.

It is delightful, drawing this out. It is like curling his tongue around a raspberry snow cone, picking up little particles of ice and flavor and fruit. But he knows this cannot go on forever, and as a final gift to himself, he answers R's question with only a smile. One final mystery.

And then he leans forward. His hand reaches for the television on the wall and he pushes the on switch with all the grace and deliberateness of a dancer.

It's a highlight reel. This one belongs to R.

It flicks on, R at first not sure what he's looking at. Then it clicks. A camera fixed on what he'd been up to during the Arena, some of it like it's watching someone else in his clothes and his body - others though, others he remembers. Him trying to chew up that man's boot and getting kicked in the face. Nearly hunting Howard. Dogpiling Beck with the other zombies. His sad, non-friendship with Air.

And then there's Julie. The zombie perks up. It's edited together by a pro, R staring at the screen with wide eyes and something that almost looks like interest in his rigor mortis face, bathed in the carefully selected music. His lips part in wonder. It starts to drift up into something like a smile as he fixes on Julie and Howard and what it's like to see new friends meeting.

Then Hyperion pops up, this dark figure working his way across the bridge and their little group so busy hanging out they don't notice the Tribute who tailed R all the way back. R starts to stiffen, his mouth twitching like it wants to peel back from his teeth, the closest Aunamee's probably seen to him getting upset. His eyebrows start to knit together, shoulders hunching.

And they haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

Facial expressions remind Aunamee of musical notes. A smooth shift in one direction. A jerky shift in another. Muscles following muscles following muscles. It is interesting, trying to judge the emotions of the poor dead boy (how did he die? wondered Aunamee. who took that first bite out of that fragile skin?) and because Aunamee is in a good mood right now, he thinks of it as more of a challenge than a frustration.

"Given your tendency to lose yourself," he says, a soft lull, "these kinds of observations are especially useful."

He drags his thumb down the screen, obscuring (and then revealing) Hyperion's face.

"You knew he was trouble. From the start. You had an intuition."

Edited 2013-06-27 21:38 (UTC)

R wonders if that’s true. It seems true when it’s put like that. R’s never really pinned himself as the intuition kind of corpse, but maybe Aunamee’s right. Could be a gut feeling. There’s no rule that says your guts have to be intact for it to still count. Now R’s starting to get antsy for a zombie as he watches the encounter replay out from several cameras pointed at the scene, his mouth frozen in a frown a few muscle spasms away from going into a snarl. This. He remembers this. How could he forget? Even that general Dead fog doesn’t do much to dull it.

Aunamee’s voice serves to focus him right on Hyperion, threatening them with a lance, like a little nudge in the right direction.

It’s when TV-R shuffles off like an idiot (R wants to scream at the TV, tell him to say and fight and stupid being a – a corpse) where it goes from bad to worse.

Howard; stabbing himself in the throat. Red splashed all over the place as his little body twitches. Julie.

Julie.

R remains frozen, too horrified to even sway in place, as he watches Julie get run through like it’s no big deal. The lance skewers in and out with barely any resistance. He can actually see that moment when that light behind Julie’s face, the one he thinks he fell in love with, goes out. Gone, as clean and permanent as a headshot. He doesn’t even register when the screen blacks out to a swelling of music, everyone’s faces flashing across the screen with final stats and Gamemaker scores.

“….Why…show me?” R gasps out, turning toward Aunamee.

There’s a little nugget forming in the back of R’s brain – whatever’s left of it – ready to be nurtured to something more. It hardens as he remembers Hyperion, that regret when he didn’t feed on him when he had the chance.

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