harvest time

[gamemakers]

Who| Everyone in the Capitol
What| Harvest Festival
Where| A private venue near the base of one of the mountains.
When| A warm evening this week. Feel free to be time wobbly if your character eats it this week and you want to have them tag in.
Warnings/Notes| None atm. Please put a note in your thread header if anything comes up.



The whole side of the building looked like it had been taken out, and the bright gold aspens coaxed to spread down into the ball room, their yellow leaves shimmering at the slightest movement. In reality the ones within the building were fake, illusions that shuddered whether there was a wind near by or not. They reached tall, hiding the ceiling in their shimmering gold, leaves fluttering to the ground, covering it in a soft, gold carpet.

Everyone was dressed in beautiful fall inspired concoction of gold, burgundy, orange. No one was allowed in without a mask to hide their faces, gold being the trending style. A live string band played away, the music filling the whole room. Food was piled everywhere, fall favorites like pumpkin, apples, and corn, but all with a distinct Capitol twist- apple sushi rolls with thick pieces of tuna and sweet corn puree shots.

All this food poured out of a huge cornucopia in the middle, stretching up over a story tall, formed of metal, just like those in the arena. Party favors spilled out too, gilded aspen leaves and delicate glass blown pumpkins.

Whoever was throwing this party wasn't cutting corners.

Comments

[savedbyasong]

"Sometimes you have to..." He blinked, "You can make all the plans in the world but you can never know everything." And that had been a hard lesson to learn. "Here it is even more up to chance as we are relying on human nature rather than anything structured."

[mannersmatter]

"Oh. Like the districts?"

Though they weren't in quite such bad straights. Only 13 was a wasteland, really, due to the wars. The rest was all...political.

[savedbyasong]

"Yes." Well that was his theory, he had never seen the districts but he had feared from the point of learning about them that they were similar to the West Town. "Though I don't know how many places there are that people live."

"My city was very technologically advanced, like fashion and entertainment is valued here in No. 6 it was science and technology. We didn't have entertainment like the Capitol was and there was no industry for fashion or anything like that. So this is all new." One of the many reasons Shion was his escorts worst nightmare.

[president_evil]

"All the more reason, one would think, to ensure that which you could. To give one's enemies less of an opportunity..."

He shrugged, an elegant movement of his shoulders, looking at Shion sidelong.

"To each their own, I suppose."

[savedbyasong]

"Well I will try my best." He looked down, "I'm not a fighter..." As if that wasn't obvious, black-purple eyes glinted behind the mask. "But I am still going to help them."

[president_evil]

I'm not a fighter.

How many times had he heard that over the years? From crying, screaming, men and woman as they were torn to shreds.

Fight or die, and become a teaching example.

"By all means do..." he purred. "I would merely advise helping oneself as well. After all, who better can you trust?"

[savedbyasong]

Shion would argue that the last person he would ever trust was himself, but he wasn't sure he wanted to have that debate in a public space.

"You were not sent in again." He said, a question though his tone was neutral. Most of the victors were back in the Arena, including the most recent. But not Wesker.

[president_evil]

If Shion meant to insult him, he was going to have to give it more effort than that.

In the face of it, Wesker merely smiled, all sharp, even white teeth, and leaned closer, shifting his weight to the heel closer to Shion.

"I am not inclined to give them another chance at my life, Mr. Shion. I value it too highly." The teeth disappeared again, sliding back his lips - though said mouth remained curled, high and amused. "And I also believe I can be of more use outside the arena."

Making friends in all the right places....

[savedbyasong]

He didn't, it had been curiosity that had prompted him to ask. An anomaly. Something that didn't fit.

Most of the others were in the Arena, Wesker wasn't.

"That's what I thought too... that I'd be more useful out here." Of course Wesker had done that by winning, Shion just died.

[president_evil]

"As I'm sure you could be..." Wesker moved back again, head tilting. "Though, a word of advice if I may - you get out, what you put in. It's a business, for the romantic trappings, and they need a reason to believe in you, and what you're selling."

Spoken as a man of experience. Once more Umbrella's Chairman, watching clones slaughtered by the hundreds in the name of science.

In the name of perfection.

"They are more games being played here than the one in the arena."

[mannersmatter]

"So, it was like District 3 then." She said, trying to place the world in the context of what she knew.

Effie had actually only been to District 3 on their victory tour. It wasn't a place she felt particularly drawn to, herself, and she couldn't really imagine living there. Then again, she couldn't really imagine living anywhere but the Capitol.

"That is where all of our Technology comes from, where they develop and build it. At least the things not developed in the Capitol, that is."

[savedbyasong]

Shion had never been to district three, but if that was where their technology was from he guessed there would be a similarity. He nodded.

"I guess it is, though standard of like is more like the Capitol just more..." He paused thinking of a word. "Structured."

[savedbyasong]

"I know." He looked down, he wasn't suited for such games though. But still he had to try, he was even less suited to the arena.

"I will do my best to help them believe." Even if he found it hard to believe in himself.

[president_evil]

"Make them, Mr. Shion. Don't settle for maybes."

Shion turned away, but Wesker was unflinching, inescapable. The red and gold eyes pinned on the other man.

"After all, you're already risking the chance of all - don't give them the opportunity to make it meaningless."

[pillowmania]

When his alternate self was in the arena, Katurian had been quiet about it, almost ashamed. Now that he was gone, he took a sort of sick pride in it, like a hero singing his own praises. His other self had suffered and died and lived and died, and yet he remained solid and unharmed. He took the proximal pain (as he always did) and made himself stronger with it. He arranged the blood and sweat and tears into a rainbow of brilliant colors. His own colors.

"He killed me," Katurian offers, rocking on his feet. "And it was incredible. Terrifying. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before."

He flashes a smile.

"He's a monster."

[pillowmania]

"I wanted to welcome you back to the world of the living," he said, although his voice was too gleeful to be a condolence and too detached to be a real welcome.

He reached out to take Shion's hand. The gesture was automatic. Easy.

"I'm so glad you remembered my name." Something wavered under his words, but his smile was fixed and his eyes remained bright. "So very glad."

[fearisinthemind]

The anger in Penny is radioactive. It soaks her face like the rag of a Molotov cocktail. Her hand goes up Katurian's back again, up to the back of his neck, hovering just a fraction of a centimeter off his skin so he knows who the guillotine is here.

How dare he fawn over this Victor?

"That thing in your throat, Mr. Wesker." Penny purses her lips. "Care to explain it? I have an interest in the sciences."

[fearisinthemind]

"Does he know mine?" Penny slinks around behind Shion, weaving like fog to choke off any escapes. "I find so few people actually know anything about their surroundings."

[president_evil]

His smile didn't widen, but it flashed there - all smug, amusement - in the red and gold eyes. Knowingly.

Jealousy didn't have a smell, clinically speaking, but there were moments Wesker could almost say it did. A sister to fear, pungent and bitter.

"Evolution."

The word was no less purred than any of the ones that had come before, but it was carefully chosen.

(He remembered her, her sharp fingers tightening on her glass of wine, the blossom of red across the table-top when her rage got the best of her. What else, could he make her break?

The possibilities delighted him.)

"I find, suits the process best."

[neclectus]

"Always," he chuckled, leading her out onto the floor with practised grace. "You look absolutely magnificent tonight, if I might be impertinent enough to say so- what a marvellous use of colour and shape! Certainly one of Cinna's masterpieces."

[mannersmatter]

"Why of course. I do have an insiders access to his fashion."

And wasn't she proud of it. Really, to know Cinna, to be wearing his clothes...even with the stress of the last year or so, sometimes she thought it was still better than being the escort for good old district 12, last and also, always, least.

"Are you wearing anyone specific tonight?"

[savedbyasong]

"Oh..." He smiled, trying to not look as terrified. It didn't sound like a welcome and Shion's hand trembled in Katurian's. He followed the woman with his eyes, as far as he could as she weaved around him.

He tried to place the voice, the posture. The way she moved. All without seeing her face but he realised he did know her, his initial feeling was right.

"You killed Ariadne." Killed, on television, an example to them all. Not disappeared in the night, all evidence of her existence erased. That was the difference between No. 6 and Panem.

[savedbyasong]

"It won't be meaningless." Black-purple eyes flickered back up to Wesker, something else in them than before.

"I won't let them make it meaningless, not for anyone."

[president_evil]

"See that you do." His knuckles tapped against his palm, eyeing Shion for a beat longer with his reptilian eyes before turning away, presumably content that his point had been made.

And deciding for himself that the conversation was all but finished. "I'd hate to think the results otherwise."

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded, still wide eyed. And backed away slowly, not turning his back on Wesker. "I hope you enjoy the party..."