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 think it still means something here to everyone else. Just not to the 'guests'." Some stress was laid on the guests part, because really, they weren't that. But it was what they needed to be called. But he wasn't sure what to say. How could he tell the truth without actually telling the truth?

"I'm, uh. Not really sure about that! Every twenty-five years they do something special, for the Quarter Quell. They've already been written down, you know, they just look for them in the box," Peeta paused. "I know that when Katniss and I won, it was the first time two people had ever won the games. It's a rule, you know, that only one person can win."

"So happy to be so honored." They did feast them, after all, and being guests in no way prevented their hosts from murdering them (just look at the young wolf, though it was more true for the Iron Islands); still, the euphemism is obvious. "Where I'm from, it's usually the hosts who bother to entertain the guests, not the other way around."

She had not heard Katniss's name; in context, the rest of what Peeta was saying was more important to her than trivia like that. "And how did you manage that?" Break the rules once, break them again.

"What, you don't find watching the games entertaining?" His smile was more grim then anything else. "I know it's pretty constant now, but it used to be once a year. It's really the biggest thing that happens that we get to see."

That was entertainment. You didn't see, or have much time, to watch anything else on TV. "Oh, well, I think the audience just really wanted us to get the happy ending we deserve. I thought that if I could just let her know I love her before I die, I could die content. But we fell in love during the games, and at the end, when they reversed the rule that two people could win as long as they're from the same district... we decided together that if only one of us could win, then neither of us would win," Peeta paused. "They have to have a winner. That's how it works."

"It'd entertain me more if I knew how it is I watch it," she said, as if it were an easy retort-- but she glanced to the nearest screen despite herself. It was disorienting, and she still had no easy explanation for it-- wizards, perhaps, but that was no more comforting than not knowing.

But that was important too, knowing that they forced the hand. "A romance worthy of a song, I'm sure."

"How you watch it?" Peeta asked curiously. He hadn't heard anyone ask that question before, though it wasn't really posed to him. It only struck him a moment later that, right, not everyone was from a time with the kind of technology they had here, now. "I guess it's not really common for you back home, TVs and things like that?"

He laughed. "Maybe, but Katniss is the singer, not me. I like music, I'm just not very good at it."

"A 'TV,' is it? We've none of those in Westeros. We've little of most of this in Westeros, as it were." There was a name, at least, but that brought her no closer to understanding it than she had been before-- except that she was expected to know it, and whatever "things like it" were-- and she said it with its fair helping of facetiousness. It would turn out that I'm behind again, wouldn't it, and for another accident of birth?

"You're the third person I've met at this party, actually, who doesn't have TVs or the kind of technology that we have here," Peeta nodded. "It's pretty interesting. Back home in Twelve, we know that there is stuff like this, but we don't really use a lot of it. We have TVs, but there's not much to watch besides the games. If we need heat, we build fires, but in the Capitol they just... turn a button and they can make it as hot or as cold as they like."

He shrugged. "There's a huge difference between the districts and the Capitol in terms like that, but maybe some of the places all of the new people are coming from aren't that different in some ways."

That was better, at least. "And who are my brothers in arms?" She thought for a second that maybe they would be Westerosi, at least-- but that was ridiculous to hope for, as they likely wouldn't want anything to do with her even then.

She frowned as he went on, trying to keep track of what she was apparently supposed to know. There were things to watch besides the games, or there should be, and houses were warmed by something other than fires. It all sounded close enough to magic to her, to the point that the specifics made no difference. "I'll admit we're more advanced there. We've our thralls to make fires for us."

Though they had those here, too, didn't they? She could see them moving up and down the ship; it was obvious enough to her. "I can tell you there's no place in all of Westeros with this, at least."

"Two girls who are from different worlds, but they sound a little like yours. And a boy who seems to be more from the past, then a different world, but I'm not entirely sure on that," Peeta shrugged. Giving names wasn't his style, but he knew he hadn't heard of her world in any way before.

"What's a thrall?" He asked curiously. He'd never heard the word before, unless she meant enthralled, but that didn't seem like the same thing. At all. He was learning so many different words and phrases today. Everyone had something new to show him, in some way.

But he laughed. "Yeah, same here. This is the first boat I've ever been on."

Well, that was a start, at least. Knowing that she wasn't entirely alone in how alienating this new city was made it a little better, even if none were Westerosi-- and what would it matter if they were, when they'd just be from the green lands? She'd be more likely to end up on a stake, especially if she had the luck to be around Northerners.

She glanced over at one of the Avoxes, inclining her head in that direction. "Whatever you call them here. Men defeated in battle and taken in to serve-- though that might apply to us yet." Still, there was a difference between those who fought here and those who served; even if she couldn't tell why, she at least knew that she wasn't one of them.

And her smile grew wicked. "Then we're far enough apart at that. I learned to walk on the deck of a ship."

"Oh, and Avox. No, those men and women were... are...traitors to the Capitol, and they're now forced to serve it at their displeasure," Peeta thought he sounded pretty grown up with that phrase. "We're nothing like that. We're all... guests."

He tried to say the word with as much dripping sarcasm as possible without it being too obvious. Peeta grinned. "Did you? Did your family have ships back home? Like here?"

Traitors, were they? They could do with a lesson from her father, then; deal with traitors quickly, or else watch them rise again. Thralls were different than dishonored Ironborn. "Your people deal with guests and traitors much differently than mine."

She smiled even wider, always eager for a chance to boast of her family. "I have my own. Her name's Black Wind, and she's a proper ship, lacquered wood in place of metal."

"I hope that the Capitol is one of a kind!" People here always wanted to be original, even when they really weren't. But Peeta also hoped that the Capitol was the only place that did this kind of thing. He didn't want to think about other places, other worlds, being like this one.

"Really, you have your own ship?" He was really impressed. "So you do a lot of sailing? That's really amazing, so she's not like the ships here at all?"

"That's one way of putting it." There's not many that stupid, after all. Then again, the way the Northerners dealt with them, maybe their ineffectual mercy was better.

She snorted again at the idea that she was but a sailor. "Aye, she's a longboat, built for battle, not..." And she glanced at the scene in front of her, not sure how to contextualize it when she only knows of ships used for battle and transit. "...this."

He was pretty satisfied with that answer. One of a kind worked just as well.

"So she's more like some kind of war ship?" He'd heard that word before. Not something they had anymore, here, but maybe he had read it in a book, once. Maybe someone said it on the games. He had no idea, but a ship that went into battle...

"So you're not really a sailor, you're... a fighter?"

"More than just like one," she said, and leaned forward with an excited gleam in her eye that could only come from legitimate enthusiasm. "We used to rule the waters all along the western coast, and some of the rivers as well. I'm her captain, not her crew."

There was a word there, on the top of his tongue. Something he'd never seen, but had heard about in stories. "Were you and your crew pirates?"

"We weren't," she said firmly, because there's some sort of distinction between her crew and pirates relevant when she's disparaging her uncle, even if in practice it's exactly the same. "My nuncle's the pirate, not I."

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