thecapitol | and he will greet them in a smile that sticks like vaseline [open]

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and he will greet them in a smile that sticks like vaseline [open]

Who | Aunamee and OPEN
What | The Capitol has finally revived Aunamee after several years of nonexistence. He's feeling pretty happy about that.
Where | The Tribute lounge in the detention center.
When | Early January
Warnings | Nothing specific, although Aunamee's kind of a creeper. (Here are his permissions.)

This is perfect.

Aunamee feels the new energy in the Capitol. It's like a violin string being pulled too taut, mere moments away from snapping with a cacophonous twang. He doesn't even need to read minds to appreciate the tension. It practically begs its way into his nostrils, his lungs, his heartbeat.

Before his last death, Aunamee was a ruined man. He had nightmares. His hands would shake. He was simply too powerless, too trapped in this hellscape to control the demons lurking under his skin. But now? The unspoken fear in the Capitol is intoxicating. It's the opium to his agony.

Aunamee sits in what was once the Tribute lounge with a glass of wine pressed against his lips. He smiles at everyone who passes by. It's a friendly smile, yes, so very friendly.

Yet his deep gray eyes always linger a little too long.

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He wouldn't be here if they weren't paying him. That much is evident just from the way Jason walks, the insolent kick of his heel against the marble floors, the slouch and the way his hands are jammed into his pockets, dragging the pants that are, by now, oversized on him and that he hasn't bother to get tailored across his pelvis. He smells like about twelve of those camphor cigarette vapors he's so fond of and generic-brand cologne.

Granted, Jason has never really walked into the Tribute Center on the professional side of the divide between "I'm here as my job" and "I'm here for the cash", so this is all fairly normal. It's almost as if the Tribute Center hasn't been turned into a building of internment, and he's about to start barking at his Tributes to get dressed for a photoshoot or do another round at the gym, to yell at District Seven's Mentor and Stylist that they need to run all expenses past him first and to smack another Avox upside the head for not predicting his tempestuous moods.

Except he doesn't have Tributes anymore, and now he's just thrusting himself upon the remaining untreacherous offworlders as a representative. He doesn't bother with the ones he's sure already have a bad impression of him, which would be a good eighty percent of them. Instead he beelines for the nearest one he hasn't met and sits across from him. All the better that this man smiles at him. Jason's not the world's best at reading a room but he'll take that over the way most people tense up when they've had to suffer him a few times, as they prepare for the flares of anger and violence.

He doesn't hide the slight curl to his lip that he gets when he gets a whiff of the wine. He's hated the smell of alcohol since his youth, hates drunks, hates to be around them or to even be reminded they exist. He hasn't had a drop of alcohol since he was fourteen and sneaking wine coolers into the playroom with the other bored, rich teenagers at their parents' parties. The rest of his attitude falls in line with a more detached disdain - that of wealth and privilege, even delapidated, of a memory of superiority. He's old money, even more than just a Capitolite. His name means something.

"Do you have plans for dinner?"

He notices the smell first. Cigarettes, one of Aunamee's vices as well, mixed with that vague, unplaceable scent of men's cologne. He notices the posture second, those slumped shoulders, those dragging heels, the way his hands bury themselves in his pockets. This is a man who doesn't want to be here, Aunamee thinks. A man who seeks solace in gulps of nicotine and menthol. A man who isn't afraid to wear disdain on his lips.

This makes his unspoken proposition all the more surprising. Aunamee's smile falters, if just for a moment, while he tries to regain the ground beneath him.

He hates the unexpected. It makes his tongue taste like copper.

"You're not one for wasting time, are you?"

He reignites his smile, extending his hand across the table.

"Aunamee."

Edited 2016-01-07 23:06 (UTC)

There's something predatory about the way Jason perks up to see that falter in Aunamee's smile. His whole life has been an exercise in dragging people into the same mire he lives in; occasionally, foisting discomfort on them is the best he can do at this bizarre and semi-consoling task.

"I'm not, although it's not as if I have any better way to spend my time nowadays. I have a stipend to butter up promising-looking offworlders. Lucky you." Jason doesn't need to add that there's no way in hell he'd be associating with offwolders at all without a paycheck; the way his handshake is both aggressively firm and entirely too short to be respectful speaks that for him.

"Jason Compson." If Aunamee's done any research at all into the Capitol's history, he'll know that name - one like Rockefeller or Kennedy, a towering monument of a surname that casts everyone beneath it in shadow. The Compsons - Quentin MacLachlan, Jason (the second) - built the military backbone around which the rest of the country is hapless futile hanging flesh. Jason great-grandfather was not just a leader but an Olympian.

He recognizes that name. When he first arrived in Panem, Aunamee swallowed Capitol media in huge gulps, memorizing important names and sketching out historical events. Without telepathy on his side, it was all he could do to keep himself from floundering in a sea of unfamiliar faces.

"What an honor," he says, that recognition clicking into place, "to be called promising by such a distinguished individual."

He'll need to work for this one, Aunamee realizes. The too short handshake still lingers on his palm, buzzing like an afterimage.

"What did you have in mind?"

"It's not that you have much in the way of competition."

Jason doesn't believe Aunamee's flattery. It's a joke, now, that he bears the same surname as his predecessors; it's squandered now, a once great monument spoiled and wasted, standing in memorial to things that were and no longer to what is. But Aunamee wouldn't know that. The most recent Compsons have been inhabitants of tabloids, not textbooks.

"There's a place down the way that's fast and decent enough." And not expensive, comparatively, which means Jason can pocket more of the stipend. He gets up, tucking his hands back into his pocket, and jerks his chin. If Aunamee wants to come, he should do so now or forever lose his chance.

He follows, although a part of him doesn't want to. He'll need to work for this one, Aunamee reminds himself as the man calls him forward with a flick of his chin like a parent guiding a petulant child. He'll need to work for this one, he reminds himself as he scowls at the back of Jason's neck, his fingers clenching and unclenching for the quickest moment.

Jason walks fast. It's like, on some subconscious level, he hates where he is and assume that moving away from it is going to spare him whatever ennui has fermented and gone mildewy in his brain. He doesn't waste much time looking over his shoulder to make sure Aunamee's following him.

The restaurant is plain by Capitol standards, which means it's still palatial. Aunamee may remember it from old advertisements the first time he was around - the Heliogabalan, filled with exotic flowers that rain down from the ceiling in some blithe, clueless reference to an era Panem never understood. There are topiaries and flower sculptures pruned into the shapes of Tributes, usually, although in this time of war the celebrities du jour have changed to Peacekeepers and of course, President Snow, a marvel of orchids and carnations.

Jason immediately feels his nose start itching, and he wants to kick something. It just goes to figure that there's something in this joint that sets off his hayfever. He pulls a cigarette and blocks out the allergen as best he can as they're seated on an outside portico. The waiter knows better than to bring the wine menu in front of such a renowned teetotaler.

Jason blows a lazy smoke ring and then gives Aunamee the first words he's deigned to part with since they left the Detention Center.

"Entrees only. I'm not paying for appetizers."

"What a kind offer," he says, his tone resting carefully between friendliness and sarcasm. He tosses a warm smile to the waiter, a rather short man with a blue mustache despite his black hair.

(Aunamee assumes that the mismatch must be deliberate, but it still hurts his head. It feels like a single book out of alignment. A spot of ink on a white sweater.)

"I'll have the pork belly," he says pleasantly, shutting his menu with a precision most people would reserve for folding a particularly fancy napkin. He lets his gaze slide back to Jason, the smile still firmly on his lips.

"And what will you have, my new friend?"

The use of the word friend is deliberate. He wants to see the man bristle.

Ermac's aimless wanderings eventually take him to the lounge again. Not that it matters; his head is still swarming with the endless din of the ten thousand warrior souls imprisoned within him. It's quieter than when his powers had first been reactivated, and he's regained most of his control over them, but there are still a few hundred that have yet to fall perfectly back in line.

And so, distracted, he fails to notice the new Tribute in the lounge for a solid minute. When he does, he realizes the man has been staring at him.

"Is there a problem?"

His patience with Panem as a whole was waning. He'd been promised a way back to his own realm, and he was more than eager to go home. And return with an army to burn Panem to the ground, but he kept that desire to himself.

"Oh no," he says, blinking his eyes in feigned (and practiced) embarrassment. "There's no problem at all. I'm simply trying to get my bearings."

Get his bearings. What a gentle way to put it. Even though Panem's current state invigorates his senses, there's still a quiet anxiety inside of Aunamee, the recognition that he doesn't know most of the people in this place. Is this man his friend? His enemy? Aunamee's abilities are still submerged, drowning like fishermen trapped deep below the ice. When he looks at Ermac, he sees only a man -- a man as quiet, as complex, as unpredictable as any other man.

"My name is Aunamee." He offers a hand. "I've just returned after a long absence."

He furrows his brow as he sifts through a hundred different interpretations of the man's statement.

"An 'absence?' We were not aware that Tributes or Mentors were sent away from the Capitol."

Of course, they were now, but everything was different now. Everything made more sense, as far as he was concerned. No more pointless Games; there was only the war to focus on.

Now he just had to get himself properly focused.

"I died in one of our Games," he says.

Simple. Nonchalant. He tries to make it sound mundane because he wants it to be mundane. In truth, his memories from his final arena are patchwork and tattered, blurred from the infection that killed him and the insanity that preceded it.

"Now I'm back. It seems as though the Capitol recognizes my value in the upcoming war."

He keeps his hand extended, carefully watching this new man. This 'we.'

"I'm afraid you never gave me your name."

"Indeed. We were under the impression that unpopular Tributes were left dead."

He means no offense by it, and states it as a fact. It was the only logical reason he could see for why some Tributes didn't come back after they had died in an Arena.

"We are Ermac."

He looks at Aunamee's hand, recognizing the gesture as a greeting common to both Earthrealm and Panem. Ermac crosses his arms in response; he had no reason to trust his fellow soldiers in the Capitol. Too many of them had been brainwashed to fight for Snow.

"What value do you believe they saw in you?"

The man was simply too small to be a front-line soldier. Perhaps he was a spy, or a sniper. Or perhaps he had other talents altogether, such as sorcery.

Unpopular Tributes. It's enough to make him sneer, and so he does, his lips tugged upwards ever so slightly. He lets his hand drop.

"I'm afraid that information is reserved for friends, plural Ermac."

He likes the sound of that. Plural Ermac. Aunamee doesn't know what to make of the other man's peculiar pronouns. This stranger could be king from a far off land, his position rendered meaningless by their Capitol captors. He could also be an eccentric. A madman.

"How long have you been in the Capitol?"

"Plural, indeed, for we are many."

He shrugs.

"Months. Long enough to have grown tired of their Games. War has always suited us better."

It's what he was made for, after all.

"Are you a native to this realm?"

This realm...he frowns slightly for a moment, calling on his many souls to see if even one of them had any prior knowledge or experience with this realm. None of them answer in the affirmative.

"No," he says easily, automatically. His thoughts are still on what Ermac said earlier. We are many. He wishes he could do what he normally did: crack open the other man's skull and peer inside at all of his buzzing, pluralistic thoughts. "I'm not from this place."

He leans forward, resting his folded arms on the table.

"But I do agree with you. War is more productive, especially for certain lessons. I can see why the Capitol has decided to resort to broader strokes."

Fortunately, no telepaths have come across Ermac here. The last one who attempted to read his mind had only gained a serious headache for their efforts.

"Lessons?"

He'd taken part in wars that changed the balance in power, defeated a common foe, or eliminated a rival. The concept of war as a lesson was intriguing. It infuriated some of his souls, of course, but only the ones that were still bitter from losing their war.

"Lessons," he responds, his frown finally flickering into a smile. "The poor Districts are lost without them."

Of course, the Capitol is lost without them too, but he can't speak about that -- not now. He knows that the Peacekeepers are watching their every move, salivating over cameras and taking notes like their lives depend on it. He knows that they crave ammunition like how a drowning man craves water.

"Have you been in many wars, plural Ermac?"

"Many. All of our souls had perished in one war or another."

Some of them had been a long way from any 'war zone,' but their deaths were all tied to war. Assassinations and small skirmishes were common in warfare, after all.

"We have never seen war used as an...educational tool."

It didn't strike him as a particularly effective tool for surpressing a rebellion. Outworld had its share of troubles, but even there civil war was an absolute last resort. He had already watched as the war in the Districts caused otherwise neutral civilians to become sympathetic with the rebellion.

Clara's life was relatively simple before Panem, she knew where she stood. She was a wife, a mother, a homemaker. Other than the handful of months before she was dragged here, her life was generally bright and happy. But here everything was different. She was still a mother, but now she was a widow, a Victor, a Mentor, a public figure in a way she had never been before. She had made sure to know as much as possible about the place she had found herself in back in her early days in Panem, and had only doubled down on her efforts after winning her Arena.

Seeing a new (or really, old but mostly new to her, not counting his resemblance to James, which did hurt a little to think about now that he was in 13) face in the lounge is something that takes her by surprise, as much as she tries to keep her face warm yet passive. This is the one big drawback to not being a Mentor anymore, she doesn't have access to the information she once had, like the new arrivals.

"I didn't realize they were bringing new recruits in," she says, doing her best to keep her voice light and quippy.

"New recruits?" he asks, standing up from his stool so that he's on the same level as Clara. His legs fold and unfold with a dancer's precision. Even without his abilities, Aunamee is finely attuned to where his body exists in space. Gracefulness is mandatory.

"They may be, my friend." For Aunamee, the word friend is akin to hello. "But I'm not a new recruit. I've been here before."

He extends a hand. Flashes a smile.

"My name is Aunamee."

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and he will greet them in a smile that sticks like vaseline [open]

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Just a note: trying to read Ermac's mind is actually trying to read 10 000 minds at the same time

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Fffff Sorry, I was logged into the wrong account

No worries! 8D

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