ettubrutus (ettubrutus) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-03-23 19:33:00 |
|
|||
WHO: Purbecka Marble, Scoria Onyx, Claudia Arkose, Zinc Farrar, Livya Milston, Marcus Greenstone, Brutus Roach, Diana Lyme
WHAT: Family dinner
WHEN: Interim between the 56th and 57th Games
WHERE: Purbecka's house, D2 Victor's Village
Brutus picked up the glass in front of him and downed the amber liquid inside in one, big gulp. He squinted his eyes as he slammed it back onto the table, hissing air between his teeth. He was slouched in his chair, knees spread wide, and although he looked like he'd given one month of his victor winnings directly to a distillery, he was able to slam a fork, tines down, right next to a hand reaching for the dessert plate. "Goddamnit, boy," he growled. The tone of his voice was like metal scraping against stone. "What did I tell you about helping yourself to dessert when the rest of us sorry bastards ain't even finished the main course yet? You think just because you're pretty you've got some kind of privilege to ignore common decency and manners? My ass was pretty once, but it still smelled like shit." He tilted his head to the side. "Wrote a song about that once, but I got too drunk to finish it and the hook was crap." He cleared his throat, but the curl of a grin was beginning to bely his seriousness. "Want me to sing it for you?" Marcus, whose hand had nearly been stabbed, rose with a chuckle to refill the glasses around the table. "Rake Rivers," he said confidently. "Full marks for the voice, but if you'd been really committed, you would have brought the blow-up doll stylist." He added without a beat, "Purbecka, I'm opening the cognac I bought you for your birthday, sorry." Purbecka waved away Marcus’ words. “Marcus dear, never apologise. It’s unbecoming,” she said, still smirking at the previous impression. It really had been quite uncanny. At least outliers were good for something, even if it was only as something to poke fun at. She reached for the cognac in question and poured herself a glass, looking to Marcus for the next round of snarking. Leaning against the servery, Marcus swirled the drink around and examined the other victors appraisingly. "We need to be pragmatic," he said suddenly in a nasal voice, squinting into the distance and buttoning his shirt up to the collar. "Neither of you two have a high probability of survival, according to my advanced calculations. While we are all equally desirous of a positive outcome, I regret to inform you that once again, the statistical chance of emerging from the cornucopia is a tenth of a percent." Lyme looked up at him over the glass of water that she was holding, raising her eyebrows a little but mulling over her words before she spoke them. “His command of numbers would be a little more accurate than yours, Marcus,” she told him drily. Zinc laughed. "What's the statistical probability of Beetee emerging from a bottle of cognac?" he asked, watching Marcus pour a ceremonial drop into his still-full glass. He had about as much interest in it as the dessert tray waiting a few more inches beyond, but grabbed it all the same, glaring with a sudden critical intensity. Easily rolled shoulders stiffened, and his posture looked like someone had slid a pole right up his-- "As I thought. You have no good answer. You'll have to do better than that to impress me." He flounced his jaw like he was whipping hair out of his eyes before flexing, glass still in hand. Liquid sloshed dangerously close to the lip, but Zinc didn't have time for such petty concerns. "What is this, anyway? You can't build up muscles on alcohol. I need milk! Don't you know I have important people to inspire?" "Yes, because without all that milk doing your body good, you wouldn't have come close to competing with our Brutus in a certain painting," Scoria smirked, swirling a strawberry into the vat of chocolate fondue. "Imagine what the fangirls would think." And with that, Scoria's shoulders seemed to shrink in some, her head tilted down but her eyes wide and childlike as she looked up at the other victors of District 2 around the table, holding the chocolate-spun strawberry like it was a lollypop. "But gosh, I'm so relieved that you didn't have to pose on any bear-skin rugs, though. That would've been so sad," she said quietly, pouting as best she could, given that she was a woman who had never really pouted. "I hope none of this meat we're eating is squirrel. Animals are our friends, not food!" Marcus choked on his cognac. "What the fuck did you do to our Scoria?" Livya demanded, spilling some of her drink as she set down the flute hard on the table. Cackling unrestrainedly, Claudia slapped her thigh with mirth. "You're a convincing little Fawn, really," she leaned forward to inform Scoria, eyes glinting. And then her face lit up: "hang on, I have one," and she reached out to take Livya's flute. She downed the contents in one quick tilt of her head, set the champagne down, and reached for Marcus's cognac — and Brutus's refilled glass at the same time, not bothering to even look at it before she finished the second and started on the third. So maybe she was taking advantage of the joke a little, but hey, it was clearly for the sake of entertainment. Grimacing but clearly enjoying the impressions, Livya leaned back in her seat. "Oh please tell me you're doing that little fucker from Twelve." --- "They just get under my skin," Marcus said, lips thinning with irritation. "Rhodes is an inept mentor, Terra's a drag, and Shay..." he smirked at Brutus. "Well, at least her glory days are immortalized on someone's living room floor. But I don't like the new one. She's a cheeky little brat. If you take one of ours out by sheer fucking luck, have the grace to acknowledge it when you come here on tour." Brutus' agreement lodged deep in his throat. Gremlin thought an awfully lot of herself considering the fact she'd had good fortune on her side the moment she'd risen into the arena. "I don't know how she got the impression winning made her an immediate badass," he said, "especially in Six." He paused, thinking maybe drugs were in the water there. "Mags said Six usually wins after a Career streak, and usually in an industrial arena. She managed to catch a bone thrown by the Gamemakers." "Mags thinks too much." Zinc punctuated his critique with a gentle ting of metal on porcelain; his fork lay abandoned next to a slice of barely-touched dessert. As a younger man, he'd loved the smell of cake (and sometimes the taste) but now it was cloying -- just like Six, which he'd appreciated once, briefly, for its 'industrial charm.' The novelty of everything wore off, and that girl's luck left a taste behind that no amount of sugar could disguise. Instead, he washed it down with a clean mouthful of water. "Six knows it got lucky. That's why they've got no pride." His smile filled with teeth. "And they've never had any grace." "Well, amen to that," Livya chimed in sarcastically, and reached across the table for something sweet to cloud the bitter taste of yet another failure. "Losing a little grace for a win wouldn't be too bad…" she thought out loud and bit into a caramelised cherry. Purbecka swished her drink around her glass, downed it, then helped herself to another. It was one thing to lose to a Victor that had actually earned it; it was quite another for your tribute to be taken out by an outlier barely half his size. “It barely even counts as a win when it’s only luck that saved her. But then, everyone from Six is more than a little bit delusional. Must be all that gas they’re inhaling over there,” she said with a shrug, despite that she likely had more cognac in her bloodstream than actual blood. "District 6 winning is always bullshit," Scoria noted, not holding any of her feelings on the matter back. "It's almost always due to the arena and because they've gotten lucky off someone else's mistakes. And they're all so damn miserable all the time when they WON, so why bother?" So maybe she was still harboring -- and not harboring very well -- some of her feelings that still lingered from her own games towards that District. "They probably fixed it so she'd win because they're expecting all the ones they've got now to keel over any day now." "And if they don't, I'm sure that could be arranged," murmured Claudia into the rim of her coffee cup, one eyebrow arched suggestively, though it didn't take much for her message to be telegraphed. "Volunteers?" "I don't think you'll find any lack of volunteers here," Brutus piped in. "Unlike Four," she shot back with a smirk. He held up his glass and gestured towards her before taking a drink. --- "It's bound to be our year this year." Claudia spoke with confident authority, though she didn't bother to sit up properly to punctuate her point. Comfortably lounged back in her seat, she looked as sated by the prospect as she had after the 56th game's bloodbath. "Four's had too many lately, One's been a mess… frankly, we deserve it. The Capitol knows it. They can always count on us to be the Victors the Capitol needs." They'd all been there for the competition. Their chips were in: barring more so-called accidents, Aeneas and Pompeia were going to be representing them in the Games this year. "What do you all think of the volunteers this year?" "Stupid names." Livya shrugged and let the others continue. "Our District isn't the one with victors named Sugar and Vellum," Marcus drawled, supremely unconcerned. "They're good Two names. I think I have a great-aunt Pompeia somewhere. But anyway, they're certainly tall enough, thank fucking god -- I was so tired of sending underfed scraps." He tasted his coffee, and then frowning, spiked it. "I wasn't thrilled initially with what the girl did to get her spot, but at least it shows initiative." Claudia shrugged fluidly. "It would have been better if she did it during the fight, like I did," she agreed. "But I approve." "So do I," agreed Brutus. "It should make any alliances interesting this year." The other mentors wouldn't know her history, and he sure as hell wasn't going to open up about it. "She's not afraid to go for it. As long as she doesn't take her partner out early, I'm all about viciousness." More than he was snuggling in a sleeping bag, at any rate. "If she doesn't get her shit together soon, she won't be taking out anybody early but outliers. Her technique's sloppy." Zinc rubbed his jaw -- "Can't break someone's knee when you're second in the Hunger Games" -- before helping himself to another cup of coffee. "And then there's the boy. Good form. No fire." "The fire'd better show up once he's in the arena," Scoria added. It usually did. Some tributes needed that actual life and death situation to pull the drive out of them that they claimed to have. Try as District 2's training might, there was no replicating the actual experience of the arena. “And if it shows up, hopefully, his fire won’t be put out by a puddle of water,” Purbecka sighed. She pinched her temples between her fingertips as though attempting to massage away the embarrassment of it all. Fortunately, if they could pull off they deserved this year, the fact that both of their tributes had been killed by outliers last year would be forgotten. Livya nodded. "I'd rather have the girl than the boy. We're going for the win, not showmanship. They want someone who's going to show off some fancy moves, they'd go with One. Good form or not, I'd bet on the girl." "I don't care about showmanship, I care about how she swings a weapon," said Zinc. "Bad form's an easy way to put yourself right out of commission. She has to last longer than the first day to win." A shrug rolled off him. "Brutus and Lyme will fix it. Or she'll dislocate a shoulder and be another outlier's 'lucky' accident." Marcus scowled at his former mentor, and the grumble of "it was a rockslide, and Seven my year was a fucking giant" didn't go entirely missed by the group. Lyme’s attention flickered to Marcus, a welcome distraction from her own worries, and she smirked a little as she caught his eye. “I liked the look of them from training. No complaints here.” Livya stayed silent. If the girl couldn't even swing a hammer without dislocating her shoulder, then she wouldn't even have placed second. "If they both deserve to be here enough," Scoria said after taking a long drink from her flask, "they'll be in first and second place at the end of the games. And then it's just down to whoever wants it the most. Those are the best years," she added with an unnerving smile. "I'd take a showdown at the end over the sentimental bullshit," remarked Brutus. He wasn't thrilled about having a list of concerns to address before the official reaping had even occurred, but he thought each victor's opinion was worth consideration. "We'll work on her form. Hopefully the arena and the competition will spark his fire." |