thecapitol | The shocking and thrilling adventures!

The shocking and thrilling adventures!

Who| Everyone
What| The Capitols oh so exclusive interviews~!
Where| Primarily the common areas, but the interviews would be on every TV everywhere.
When| This evening, at 6 pm sharp
Notes| Use this post to ICly react to the interviews (if you don't make plans of your own!)

The advertisements hit hard today. Tune in at 6 o'clock, you won't want to miss this special! Everywhere a person could look, it was there, and the city was clearly excited for whatever this mystery event was.

As if that wasn't enough, escorts were encouraging Tributes to be in the commons, and a small feast of finger foods was laid out along one wall, extra avoxes available for drinks.

And, as promised, at 6 pm sharp, all the TVs flickered to the ever flashy Caesar, on an equally flashy tabloid-tastick reality style "interview" of the tributes. All the TVs in the common area light up with it, as well as the Districts suites, even if the TV had been off before.

Hope you all enjoy your dose of fame!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Eerie," he agrees, shakily. He glances back at her briefly, but most of his attention is still turned toward the screens, which are now helpfully running the commercials again (at least he didn't turn up in any of those - seeing his face used to sell something, what an indignity). He can't bring himself to match her amusement. "They've given me... a great deal to live up to."

She can understand, to an extent, why he'd be concerned. She can easily picture the situations where this technology would be disastrous; present one of these 'videos' to the Ironborn, show her (god forbid) living her life as the woman she was, and if she still had something to lose, she'd lose it in an instant. If he has some sense of something to lose here, then maybe he's lost it now; she's not a stranger to that easy banter he has, and she knows how useful a tool it could be.

"As though any in here believes that what was presented was true?" she asks conversationally, glancing about at the tributes in various stages of discomfort. She herself doesn't have that problem, as the meaning was more or less the same, and likely better for the purposes of getting gifts, but let the other tributes think what they will.

"What they think hardly matters." He takes a steadying sip from the wineglass; writes that off as a bad idea and sets it back down, closer to her, to take from if she wants it. "A lie's no danger to those who know it's a lie. It's the millions for whom that was a first impression."

He feels cheated, that's what it is. He can't change the fact of his involvement in the Games, but that he cannot even set the terms of his involvement-- something in him is crying out That's not fair!, as though the Capitol has breached some agreement, as though the circumstances of his upcoming murder are the fine print in a contract between them. Stupid, he knows-- but as it's his life on the line, he reserves the right to feel betrayed.

She reaches over to take it in one smooth motion, sipping it as if it's hers and not putting it back on the table. This place could make wine, at least, she'll give it that.

"If that was their first impression, they haven't been paying attention-- or was your fight truly so miserable that no one was watching?" she prods. The idea doesn't sit with her well-- here she's recognized by her face, instead of by name or by sigil, and it's disorienting enough that it's not something she'll be forgetting anytime soon. People were always watching. They knew of her trouble with their magic 'technology,' of her kills, and they knew her enough to make a little miniature of her, apparently. "If so, now you're a man willing to kill if you have to, slightly mad and interesting, and now they'll be paying attention."

He lets the question about his "fight" slide by; he hopes to all the gods that's not what anyone remembers him for. He goes for flippant, and doesn't quite manage it. "I rather wish they'd consulted me first-- or at least let me know the part I've been cast in before shoving me out on stage."

He leans forward, all rapt attention, soliciting her advice; with a rather hopeless grin-- "What does a slightly-madman act like?"

She gives him half a glance before proceeding, deciding to ignore the bit of falseness ringing in his tone rather than draw attention to it. It's important to him, for whatever reason, and why pick at that when there's family to be mocked?

"You're in luck, for I'm well familiar with madmen," she says, settling down comfortably on the arm of a couch with his wine. "The ones the people like best are either the religious or the ruthless. The former is a given as they've got their own followers ready and waiting without any work. The latter will do you well here, just unbalanced enough so you can't be counted on to know when to quit."

She takes another sip of the glass as she considers before adding. "It helps to cut out some tongues, I've seen."

Someday, Neffa thinks, he's going to have to ask Asha about where she comes from. I'm well familiar with madmen should have had a punchline attached, but there's something... not entirely ironic in her matter-of-factness; it's not the casual sarcasm of one purposefully presenting an absurdity, but the conversational tone of one for whom madmen are no longer absurd.

But it's not the time (and anyway he's wrong, he must be wrong) and so he allows it to be a joke, and laughs. "I suppose I should count myself lucky they didn't paint me as a priest," he says. "Tongues, though-- I shall have to make a note of that. Must I do anything with them afterward, or just cut them out?" You're the expert.

Her conversational tone is something to react to, and that's calming, for the moment - something on which to base himself, now the rug of his public persona has been torn out from under him.

She smiles with him, even knowing he's missed the truth of it. She's quickly learned to sort other people's experiences into 'like Westeros' and 'unlike Westeros' and found the latter to vastly outnumber the former; while the others found some sort of meaningful distinction between their homelands, hers was in another league entirely.

It meant, among other things, that her normal jibes missed their marks; there was little significance to a man being beardless, household names came without the assumptions associated with them, people expected her to miss her husband outside of a proper play at duty. The largest, though, was that most people are unfamiliar with war in a way entirely different from even the most peaceful villagers in Westeros; it's a shock that it could be this way, not a fear of finding themselves in it. She'd always felt separate from the continent, but compared to the people here....

She almost wants to spare them all the details of what, exactly, people were capable of.

"Unless you've some dark magic to use with it," she starts, and this time it's her turn to toss out a possibility that sounds absurd-- not so much because the magic doesn't exist, but because him using it is laughable-- "you can leave it for the crows. I'd recommend against eating them, I'd imagine the audiences here take no kinder to cannibalism than anywhere else." Though, who knew? Desperate times...

Ristopa had known war once, hundreds of years ago. Neffa's read the history books, and he could, if asked, recite the names and dates of the greatest of the battles, rack his brain for the pre-expansion names of the conquered territories, and summarize the first Order of Elementalists' role in the reconstruction process. But if handed a bow, he would not (before the Capitol forced his hand) have known how to shoot it; asked to contract a spirit to kill, he would not know what signs to draw; asked what a carrion crow sounded like, he would not have had words to describe it. War is an abstract concept to him, the province of historians and storytellers. He's never known anyone who's seen it firsthand. He has no way of guessing what in Asha's words he's missing.

He makes a face. "No, I only have to be slightly mad, remember." He reaches up inquiringly for his stolen wineglass, now that he's feeling rather less nauseous. "The dark magic, though, that's a little more inspiring. Terribly shortsighted of them, taking it from me-- they could really have run with that, up on the screens."

Magic, of course, knows no allegiance, and dark magic is just a thin plot device in old children's stories, but he likes the idea - he can't actually imagine cutting out anyone's tongue, but there are spirits who would swathe him in shadow if he asked, make mist swirl at his feet, crown him with flies or put thunder in his voice. He finds his smile turning more genuine at the thought.

She takes a purposeful mouthful of the wine once it's clear he wants it back, only handing it back once she's swallowed and considered what he was saying. "You're a warlock, are you?" she asks, still doubtful. She'd seen her uncle's mages, decrepit old men with white skin and blue lips muttering threateningly amongst the rest of his collection of treasures. But everything else is different here, why not this? The screens in front of them, for instance, which people insisted were apart from magic but not in any way she could discern.

She reaches over again to run her finger along the lip of the glass with little regard for him trying to use it, raising her hand up against the artificial light (again, something that must be magic, for shining so steadily) to examine the color of the droplet. "Will this turn my lips blue? I much prefer them as they are."

"Rest assured, I would do nothing to change your lips, even had they left me the ability." He almost gets a sip in before she returns to the wineglass for her drop; waits patiently (resting his gaze appreciatively on her lips in the interim); finally drinks from the (meager) remainder. "What a terrible thing to do to good wine, anyway. Is turning people colors the province of magicians where you come from?"

He keeps his tone easy, loath to abandon calmness when he's finally started to put the panic of the broadcast solidly from his mind, but he's leaned closer without realizing it-- something in him sat up straighter at her question, which assumes the existence of magic with the easiness of one who knows it. Maybe our worlds have more in common than I thought.

Said lips quirk into a smirk as she sucks the drop off her finger, glancing over to him to continue the conversation.

"It's to change their own colors, not to be wasted on normal people--" the word heavy with sarcastic scorn-- "who've no need to 'open their eyes.'"

She doesn't miss him leaning closer, though there's any number of reasons she can think to attribute it to. "Or so I've heard. My nuncle's the one who's tried it, not I."

"Gods. You have elementalists, too. My deepest condolences." He hands her back the wineglass with exaggerated sympathy. He keeps his appreciation of his view down to a slight raising of his eyebrows - the last thing they need is to end up in Tim and Stephanie's segment of the next broadcast.

"Does your uncle have blue lips, then?" A pity, he thinks, that the condescension of the gifted should plague more than one world.

Her smile is still amused like she's not sure that the terms they're playing with are real, a sarcastic little smirk as she glances at him to try and decide if he's bullshitting her. It's not like it makes a difference either way, as she still gets to talk about family. "If that's what your world calls it, then it would appear so." I'd prefer a bastard, or a dead man, even if neither are accurate. Yet.

She lifts the wineglass in a mock toast to eye the color in the light, like she's still not entirely sure, then throws the rest of it back with a gulp. "Aye, the one, though he's no more sorcerer than I. He just likes playing with their toys." There's a level of disgust behind her words, still joking and easy but with something more there.

Neffa covers a second's hesitation with a resettling of himself in his seat, putting the screens as much as possible in his peripheral vision. He takes the time to decide how much he actually wants to know. Fools who try to dabble their feet in the roaring current that is magic, he's rolled his eyes at before; her contempt sounds more... personal. He likes her, but that makes personal matters all the more dangerous to delve into.

But to change the topic now would mean to talk of something other than magic, and he can't quite bring himself to do that - not when she's the first person here to care about it beyond their ability to take it from him. And so he replies, carefully casual, "I do hope awkwardness is all he brings to family reunions. In my experience, an unpracticed magician is either an embarrassment or a danger, and the line between them is thin." It's not a warning, just an observation, and one that he leaves her free to expand upon - or not, as she chooses. Am 14.06.2013 08:35 schrieb "doesnotsew - DW Comment" < dw_null@dreamwidth.org>:

She chuckles briefly, an involuntary little laugh at the idea that dealing with Euron Greyjoy was that simple-- not that any of them here could have known that, or else he would have spoken of magics further beyond what he brought to the Kingsmoot, and brought them ways to spy on their enemies and shiny metallic trinkets and even more murder than he did already. "If only. He's usually not allowed at family reunions at all." Her voice is sweet and mockingly caring, and she imagines driving her ax into her uncle and she smiles.

She waves his words away with a hand, thoughts beyond any of the dangers of magic. "His magicians are skilled enough, or so they say. He just likes to point them in a direction and watch."

"Aaaah." Yes, there's history there. Neffa rather wishes he had another glass of wine, suddenly. "Well, magic's entertaining to some, I suppose, though I've never met anyone who paid only to spectate. Not anyone pleasant, anyway."

Magic is expensive - called upon by most only when a conventional solution is more expensive. In his half year working on Guild commission, Neffa's drained ponds, located lost valuables, irrigated fields, and propped up roof beams for clients, but those with the money to spend on spectacle usually hire elementalists - it's clear by his tone he's unimpressed with the idea.

That the direction Asha's uncle should be pointing his magicians in involves murder doesn't even occur to him.

"That would describe him," she says, and if only he could appreciate just what an understatement that was. He's paid for it, though not in the way you'd think. She knows that most people don't follow the iron price-- it was like that back home, and it was even more true here-- and she won't begin to explain how exactly he got ahold of them, or how they became three instead of four.

But she doesn't want to dwell on the dead for too long, even if they're not quite dead yet, at least not without something to wash it down with. "Perhaps you should magic up another one of these," she says, flicking the empty glass. "Another normal one, if you please."

"Certainly." He gestures to a nearby Avox, rather than go to the trouble of getting up and having to face down the screens nearer the refreshment table. (He's almost getting used to the silent servants - but somehow talking to them out loud always feels strange, knowing they cannot reply.)

"There's a story in Ristopa about an elementalist who knew the secret of turning water to wine," he adds, in the pause before the Avox returns. "They say the gods snatched the elements from his hands and left him powerless, for fear he would end the world." It was a magicians' story - and that's why to this day elementalists are deathly afraid to be the slightest bit interesting was the generally-accepted moral, and usually ended with a very loud toast. "I, personally, think it the most useful talent any sorcerer ever cultivated. What did blue lips ever do for anybody?"

The Avox returns, this time with two glasses, and Neffa takes one with a nod of thanks and raises it to Asha - like magic! "--You see? Pure conjury."

"That's the sort of magic I could suffer," she says, settling into her spot on the couch, "though my god would be more forgiving towards it, I'd think." Turn the entire ocean into wine, and let him Dwell Beneath The Waves in a drunken stupor. Perhaps he'd be more useful. The idea of the Damphair's face at finding all his seawater gone is amusing enough as well, and it would do him good to get drunk again.

"What a useful magician," she says with a smirk, taking her glass from the thrall with an ease of one who's been served things by conquered people all her life. "No wonder I keep you around."

It's hard to bow sitting down, but he manages it, with an exaggerated tip of his head. "What more can a magician strive for than usefulness?" He congratulates himself with a long drink.

"You're lucky, you know," he adds, looking at her with deep mock-seriousness over the rim of his wineglass. "In Ristopa, people pay good money for my services. I don't conjure wine for just anybody."

"Do they, now?" In my world, magicians get fed to each other when they think to refuse a Greyjoy. But that thought was too dark to share, and it was just the tip of the kraken lurking beneath the waters that is Crow's Eye, so instead she takes a sip of her drink and considers.

"On the Iron Islands, we don't pay good money for anything worth having, so I'd say we're even." Better to do things your way than mine.

Iron Islands. There was a cheerful name. Iron wasn't a particularly rich-sounding word - not a Gold Island, or a Silver Island, but a cold iron one. He raised an eyebrow, as though he couldn't conceal his suspicion of such a system. "Why? Not fond of paying good money, or nothing worth having?"

"Truthfully, we're not fond of paying any money at all, but the latter applies just as well." Not when they were nothing but a collection of stony shores, sand with no nutrients for cropping and men with no sense of when to stop fighting. "That's why we sail so much, to get away from it," she jests, taking another swig of the wine.

Well, you're as far from it now as you're ever going to get. "If I had a ship - and the ability to keep it afloat - I'd just leave," he says. His tone is of one imparting some piece of obvious wisdom, but there's a self-deprecating quirk to his mouth, of one who knows full well he has no idea what he's talking about. "Find somewhere a little more... tropical. Why not, if you could sail anywhere?"

He drinks again, so that he doesn't have to think even briefly about what's hiding under that casual statement - they're hardly free to sail away now, are they?

The shocking and thrilling adventures!

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