thecapitol | Guess who's back!

With Peeta and Katniss here, the load had lighten, significantly. She finally had a moment to breath, now they were taking over more of the duties she had been trying to cover.

Although they weren't very well trained either. But you worked with what you had. Even if that wasn't optimal. It had never been with Haymitch, either, and they had managed.

Somewhat.

Still, Effie was getting back to her old habits. Mainly that of trying to be as many places as possible, look as good as possible doing it, and talk to as many people as she could while there. The plan to be open and friendly to the other teams had served her well so far (especially in one noticeable example) and she planned to keep with it.

The game was changing and Effie Trinket would not be left behind.

Physical activity was always a good answer to having far too much to think about at night, De had found. If you exhausted yourself into a near comatose state, your brain didn't get a chance to spend the night over thinking things.

Occasionally it still snuck up on here, late at night. She'd try to focus on the bed being was more swanky then any roadside motel, on the unlimited supply of pie at her finger tips, at the lack of demons hanging around. But it kept trickling back, back to still wondering if this was hell. Back to the new, and unwantedly complicated delima of who the monsters around here really were. Back, most often, to wondering how Sammy was doing without her.

So yeah, shit sucked.

She could be found most often down in the training center, working herself ragged, and always happy to spar. Even if sometimes she got too rough. Except when her stylist wrangled her into some trumpet up outfit to go rub elbow with a bunch of trumpet up douchebags.

If this place wasn't hell, it was sure doing a good job faking it.

Edited 2013-06-04 03:37 (UTC)

She was just tired.

Of, sure, she could put on a happy face when she was forced out. But she didn't want to go out. She didn't want to party. She just wanted to curl up and sleep all day. And she had no idea why.

Even here, going out to the balls and parties had been at least one bright point. But instead the normally bright and bubbly girl found herself...deflated.

The last arena...she couldn't place it, but something about it had made her feel so awful. Dirty and unclean. The dresses, the castle...a fairytale. What she'd always wanted.

And they'd ruined it all so horridly.

So the little blond had sulked around, and avoided everyone and done her best to do the one things she'd never done before.

Be alone.

Mentoring was different than she expected.

Under different circumstances, it might be something she would enjoy. It was hard to tell, here and now. This was like a complicated dance of putting on mask after mask, and she wasn't sure how long she could keep it up.

Not that she had much of an option.

Still, she was better at it then she would have guessed. She spent her days helping her tributes as best she could. And listening and watching among the others. There was a sensation of them all being in this together, very different from her games. She wasn't sure how she felt about it.

At least Prim and Peeta ware here now. It was a little touch of sanity. Familiarity. Home. The though of Prim here still made her watch over her shoulder, knowing the message there was loud and clear. But the two of them helped her stay sane.

Katniss.

The sight of her sister was a reassurance, but a worry too. Watching what she said... she had lots of practice with that. Back home. Their mother, Gale, the district mates who worried about her.

She felt like she always had to say just the right thing, for everyone. She had to project the image of being okay, so they wouldn't worry - but not so okay they'd worry about not needing her. Unless they needed to worry about her in order to distract themselves from other worries entirely. Not to mention watching her Mother's mental healthy day in and day out...

It didn't matter, though. They were family - and the ability to protect those who she cared about... that was important. So there she was next to Katniss. Reaching out to take her sister's hand in her own. A little squeeze to say "I'm here, Katniss."

With a soft smile, she squeezed her hand back.

It was reassuring, at least, to have Prim in reach. Even if it was illogical, there was a sense of comfort. Prim was here, if something happened, she could react. She could protect her.

"What are you up to, little duck?"

They could brush his hair. They could shave his scruff. They could polish his horns and whiten his teeth. They could dress him in as many flowing black silk shirts and leggings that mirrored the colors of his horns as they liked. But so help them, no one in this place could very well force the Signless to wear shoes, especially not now that Cinna thought it would help enforce the gentle, humble image they were going for.

He sat in the common room of the District 12 suite, reading the last issue of Celebrus and absently munching on a bowl of caramel corn. Noticing Effie enter, he immediately took his feet off the couch and put them on the floor, but he was fairly certain she had the eyesight of some kind of bird of prey and had already seen.

"You do be leaving me alone!" From one of the treatment rooms an angry voice was raised, and there was a crash and Pruna came storming out, eyes blazing in anger. A young stylist followed, tweezers in hand looking like she was about to cry and quit, dream job or not.

Pruna kicked a wall hard, despite her bare feet, and then a chair in the waiting room. Not happy with how little damage that did she picked it up, intending to throw it against the wall.

Jay spotted Lottie in the training area, while he was watching everyone, trying to figure out where to begin training and whether it'd do any good at all.

She didn't seem to be busy and she didn't look threatening and he hadn't spoken to anyone since that morning, having not found the Initiate like he had meant to.

Plastering on a smile that he didn't quite feel (the dread of the upcoming Arena was starting to really catch up to him), Jay approached Lottie.

"Morning, darling! Can't decide where to start?"

It had been awhile since Don had seen Lottie. At first, he'd been worried that she'd died, as in she'd died died. But then he'd heard she just...wasn't coming out of her room.

That worried him. It worried him greatly. Of all the people to be destroyed by this place, Lottie was someone Don didn't want to experience that. And so he went to the District 8 floor, ignoring the confused stares he might have gotten from the Tributes there.

He knocked on the door, speaking quietly as he did so.

"Lottie?"

All right. He'd had it. No more of the sulking and avoiding. Jack knew that there was a Tribute in that room. A female Tribute who needed all of the help she could get to toughen up. Sharon, right? Shirley? Chanson...?

Whatever. She was blonde. And she wasn't coming out of her room.

That was going to change.

"GOOD MORNING!"

It was the crack of dawn when, all of a sudden, this giant ray of sunshine burst into Charlotte's room, with a mighty fling of the door and throwing open of the curtains. Behind him were two Avoxes, one with a training suit and the other with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cereal.

"Jack Atlas has decided it is time for you to begin your training anew!" The King of Victors crossed his arms as he hovered over Lottie's bed. "So now, you need to get up and have breakfast so you'll be nourished for your session!"

So of course the first time he would meet Katniss would be at a luncheon. Maybe she was being evasive. Or maybe it was just coincidence. Or maybe it was the fact every time she was generally at these functions she was surrounded by people, thus making it impossible to get near her.

But this time Jack had her in his sights, and he stalked over, not intending to let her go without giving her a proper introduction.

"Katniss Everdeen." His giant shadow likely looming over the girl, Jack stood behind her, hands on hips. "So you've shown yourself at last."

Edited 2013-06-04 17:41 (UTC)

And from the sour expression that crossed her face, it was clear she had.

"Well you might as well, it's not like any other basic manners are being followed around here."

She did have sympathy for them, having this place be home for long term. But they didn't all have to lounge about so.

Moving quickly, Effie reached out to grab the chair, gripping it in her hand. If nothing, she was at least bigger then Pruna.

"Pruna, dear, what's going on?"

Were they still having stylist issues?

She flashed a quick, broad smile back at him. A completely fake one, but it would work for now.

"I've never been too great at this whole training thing."

Which wasn't entirely true. She could now tie knots, start fires, and generally avoid poison things. She just never seemed to get any stronger.

Normally a visit with a friend would make her perk right up. But instead hearing her dear friends voice brought a knot of dread to her stomach.

"Yes doll? I'm a bit...indisposed at the moment."

Good, vague excuse.

Oh. Well, shell. He must have caught her getting dressed or something.

"Oh, uh...sorry about that." His voice is incredibly apologetic. "I'll come back in a little while, if you're ok with that?"

Lottie just pulled her blanket up higher.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well. I'll train later." She mumbled, before adding, her voice a little more piqued. "You also shouldn't let yourself into a ladies boudoir without knocking, you know."

It was just rude.

Well. That was just unacceptable to Jack.

"You have five minutes to get up."

And that was that. He slams the door, leaving the two Avoxes...standing there staring at Lottie, their hands full.

Katniss looked up at the man, putting on her "capitol" smile. The one Effie had trained into her.

"Nice too meet you."

She recognized the man the way anyone in the districts recognized previous victors. It was still a strange sorta feeling, to be on the other end of things.

"INDEED!" Jack's voice boomed as he responded. "The Victor of the 72nd Hunger Games, Jack Atlas, believes it is a pleasure to likewise meet you!"

Edited 2013-06-04 19:48 (UTC)

The party last night had been the last straw. It had been bright and full of women in dresses like the ones she favored, everyone in little tiaras. He had sought her there, and she hadn't been.

So Some would come to Lottie.

The problem with skulking around is that, in a confined space, there were only so many likely places to be. Throw in almost a hundred unwilling tributes, and things can get rather crowded. Tim wasn't trying to avoid anyone specific, but he was wandering the training center fairly late at night. That was odd enough, as far as natives were concerned. They did love their schedules. But he could blame it on insomnia or a stomach ache if they asked why he was pacing all over alone.

It was harder to hide that you were discreetly gauging camera angles when you were having a conversation that you weren't paying attention to.

He was getting nowhere, anyway. Tim hadn't expected to find blind spots, but expectations and hope weren't the same thing. He was about to call it for the night when he heard heavy footsteps. Options streamed through his head, some more alarming than others. Tribute, sponsor, stylist, prep squad, reporter, Peacekeeper. He couldn't rule out any of them, but that last one was most likely. It could be random, but he picked up his pace down an unfamiliar hall and took a sharp turn -

And almost ran over a blonde. She looked vaguely familiar. A Tribute, he thought.

"Woah, sorry. I didn't see you -" Tim thought he heard the other person still coming. Time to be somewhere else, but if it was someone coming to see what the tributes were up to, he couldn't leave her there. "Hi, I'm Tim. Let's go this way."

When she wasn't training with someone else, Diana preferred to stay in her rooms to practice. She didn't enjoy the gawking or calculating stares of the other Tributes, Mentors, and whatever other Games staff wandering through the training center rooms.

But sometimes she could still be found wandering herself through the center, taking in the other Tributes, those who would need help, those who hinted at a viciousness that would need to be watched. And, occasionally, she'd come across someone she already knew, such as now.

She hesitated to interrupt De in the middle of training, and frankly she enjoyed watching a clearly skilled and experienced fighter in their element, so she hung back at first, leaned against a nearby dummy while she just watched.

Chris had noticed the bubbly Southern Belle had been missing lately and knocked lightly on her door. "Lottie? Ya doin' okay? Hey, she was one of his district mates, and well, okay he was protective over her, not like he would be some others, but he still felt he should keep an eye on her.

"I'm here if you need a shoulder."

Guess who's back!

Effie!

De!

Lottie!

Katniss!

Re: Katniss!

no subject

District 12 Suite okay?

Stylist areas I am so sorry

Re: Lottie!

no subject

This will end well

Party sound good?

totally!

:D

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

o/

Re: o/

no subject

Some random hall? Put them where you like otherwise.

no subject

Re: Lottie!