all_inclusive | this isn't very festive!

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this isn't very festive!

Effie could walk in anything, so long as she was wearing the proper wig - otherwise, her balance was thrown completely off. But that was how she liked it; everything had its proper place, from train schedules to mealtimes to even the weight proportions of her dresses which, in some instances, were so large they practically engulfed her.

That's why she liked to keep her skirts above the calves, so that her shoes may never be missed by anyone who might be looking (and she expected many to do so). Even now her feet, tipped in five-inch high monstrosities that made her clip along as if she had hooves, were in full display. The rest of her dress curled in generous lines around her but, like her golden wig, was rigid and composed. In fact, the only real movement was Effie's face and hands, but that was fine; she was a very animated creature, always had been, and it worked well on camera, she liked to think.

Her main concern just then, though, was the fact she had gotten lost on her way from the restroom. There were always places to watch the Games and she usually had a front seat, but though they were soon to start, her real concern was to find Haymitch. Peeta and Katniss were going to need sponsors again, and it was her duty to make sure the right people were spoken to - though, to his credit, Haymitch had gotten a bit better in the charm department as of last year.

The largest Capitol buildings could turn anyone around, and Effie had no idea where she was. She recognized absolutely nothing, and even her sense of direction seemed off. The result was that Effie, while composed, was beginning to get anxious. She hated being late, anywhere, and she had places to be not just for decorum, but for her Victors! In fact, she was so distracted with concern, one could forgive her for missing the fact she was technically not in the Capitol anymore - nowhere near it at all, in fact.

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There are some things that Katniss doesn't think fit in with the hotel. She's one of them - she doesn't think she fits in anywhere except in the Seam. Even her house in Victor's Village seems too fine for a girl like her. She's having the opposite problem now because Effie Trinket is walking toward her and she doesn't fit with the hotel at all. Effie is all things Capitol from the wig on her head to her dangerously-pointy shoes and she doesn't fit with the lower-key luxury of this place.

"Effie? Is that you?" If Effie's here, the Capitol probably isn't far behind and while Katniss is glad to see another friendly face, she doesn't like the idea that maybe this safe haven isn't anything but a trap. She's let her guard down and now it seems like maybe that wasn't so wise.

Edited 2014-04-06 01:27 (UTC)

Effie stopped. "Katniss?" she exclaimed. "Oh, dear, did you get lost too? Shouldn't you be off to the Arena?" Her voice was pleasant, upbeat, but her face betrayed something else, a conflict that married with her confusion. Katniss should have gone off to the Arena by now - Effie did not want Katniss in the Arena, so what Effie wanted was not what should be happening, and she was thrown off by the fact it was happening, right now. Was she supposed to pursue what she desired, or was she supposed to focus on the tireless itch that made her want to correct, organize, restructure everything back to how it should be?

Did Katnis somehow manage to run away? Effie could barely conceive it.

Katniss isn't very good at lying but right now, it's important that she lies and lies well. "Oh well, I already got through the Arena. Surprise! Victor again."

If she is from the Capitol and there is an Arena here, maybe she can confuse Effie enough to round up the other victors and get the hell out of here before the Capitol notices they're missing. They can go to the quiet, cool forest she spent an afternoon with Peeta in.

Effie paused. She could not be accused of genius, but she wasn't stupid, either; she did perhaps have that very human affliction of wanting to believe the version of the truth that suited her own desires. Of course, nothing was so cut-and-dry with the Quarter Quell, and while Katniss was delivering what should have been good news, Effie found she couldn't stomach it.

"You- already?" she asked, her hands going still, a sure sign of her discomfiture. Still, the fact what Katniss was telling her meant Effie had lost a good chunk of time somewhere was technically second in her concern, and the face underneath the makeup trembled. "Oh, Katniss, then what happened to Peeta?" And why didn't Katniss seem upset?

Katniss sighs. Keeping this lie up isn't going to work for very long, not when she doesn't have steady supplies of information and misdirection with which to spin a tale.

"It's...Effie, what if I told you that you came to a place where the Capitol doesn't exist?" Katniss thinks she can trust Effie, more or less, so long as she doesn't tell her about the door that leads to the forest. She and Peeta can go there and hide for as long as it takes to miss the Capitol sweeps.

Effie blinked, faltering slightly, before the utter insanity of what Katniss just said reached her. "Whatever are you talking about?" she exclaimed. "Of course the Capitol exists! What else would there be?" She realized, though, that she was scolding Katniss, and the poor girl did look a bit off centre. Effie held her hands up to physically calm herself down.

"I'm sorry, dear," she said again. "I just don't understand."

"Neither do I," Katniss says, because that's truth and easy to admit. "But I've been here for months and you're the first person from the Capitol I've seen. I think if they wanted me to compete again, they'd have found me. This place might still be a test but I think, maybe, it's safer."

She hasn't seen any of Snow's roses anywhere and Katniss feels like he wouldn't let his presence go unknown for this long.

Effie's carefully made up mouth pursed in thought. No, that didn't make sense at all. If there was one thing Effie knew, it was time. "That's just the thing, though," she said, her voice still pleasant but her expression undergoing a bit of a tremble. "I only just said goodbye to you a few hours ago. They'd sent you off to the Arena. But you've been here all along?" A comforting thought, that Katniss was so far removed from death and destruction, but it was trumped by the discomfort caused by the clear hole in Effie's personal timeline.

Katniss nods slowly. There's no real way to explain it, not with the hotel being a little pocket away from everything like it is and she wonders if Effie is better off without a full explanation.

"Yeah, I've been here. There's some other victors too. Johanna and Finnick?"

Even now, Katniss has to protect Peeta.

Johanna feels like she needs a stronger drink. She's taken to nursing one or two here and there, cautious never to drown herself in alcohol or other drugs, unwilling to turn herself into one of those addicts. Still, as soon as she sees Effie Trinket clicking her way into the hotel, she knows things are definitely going to get interesting.

Johanna gives a slightly derisive scoff. "Looking for the runway?" she asks, mock-politeness in her tone as she cocks her head to the side. "Hate to break it to you, but it's intermission right now for life as we know it."

Oh, Johanna. Effie always found her to be a bit rough, a bit rude even, but she wasn't a bad girl, not really, and Effie often had a hard time actually holding anything like a grudge against her for her behaviour. It was that and the rather off-putting greeting that made it easier for Effie to fixate on that, and not on the fact that Johanna apparently hadn't made it to the Arena yet. Was everyone just monumentally failing at doing their jobs, this year? Was that what Effie was doing right now, a bad job? Oh, she couldn't stand that.

"Johanna, darling!" she chirped, making her way towards her. "What are you talking about? Surely you're not wearing that into the Arena?"

Johanna feels like a trained pup, but at the mention of her clothes not being up to snuff, she immediately looks down to her long-sleeved t-shirt and the jeans she's wearing, having turned to comfort when she realized she didn't need to be anyone's show-pony. "Not any kind of arena that you'd be interested in," she says, deliberately tugging on a frayed hole in the sleeve that she's worked out to make room for her thumbs to slide through.

She's sure she looks far from glamorous without her styling or makeup, but she's also alive and not being asked to pose or fight or simper or deceive. "Welcome to paradise."

"I only meant, that doesn't look like anything to survive in," Effie was quick to say, before realizing even that was something of a double-barbed arrow in the Capitol. With Katniss, Effie would have pursed her lips, primly suggested that perhaps she go change into something with cleaner lines, because Katniss was a reflection of Effie herself and there were cameras everywhere. But Johanna was not Katniss, was not her responsibility, and far be it for Effie to step beyond those bounds of propriety and act like she had any say in Johanna's wardrobe. "I mean, I think you look lovely, Johanna, like always. I've just no idea what's going on. Everyone thinks to be in on something right now and I don't think it's very nice to withhold from me, like it's some big joke."

"Trust me, the punchline isn't very funny," Johanna promises, swiveling in her chair to gracefully descend and set her feet back on the ground, eyeing Effie warily as if deciding whether she wants to be the one to break the news. "Maybe for you, at least. As far as I'm concerned, I'm laughing to my grave," she says, her smile morbid and sharp.

"We're nowhere near the Capitol. In fact, according to our trackers, they don't even know we're here. I'd hate to see their hunger games while they're missing a hefty number of their starring attractions."

Morbid humour, all the Victors had it in spades. Effie wasn't sure it was very tasteful, but then again, she was used to it by now. "What do you mean?" she asked, hands on her hips, her expression hovering somewhere between confused and stern. "You have your tracker in and you're not in the Arena? What kind of mix up is this? And why am I here with you?" The information that they were 'nowhere near' the Capitol didn't tell her much - she assumed that meant that somehow they were close to the Arena that had been built for the Quarter Quell, but the tributes hadn't made it in.

Mostly, though, she was worried - if they hadn't made it in, and they had their tracker, the Capitol would come and take it all out on them. "Are- are you safe here?" she asked, suddenly, frowning.

Edited 2014-04-07 19:33 (UTC)

Johanna slides up her sleeve to reveal the scarred area around where the tracker had been before she'd cut it out of herself and tucked it away in a sock drawer for safekeeping. "I had my tracker in me, now I'm not in the arena," she replies. "Don't worry. If I was going to kill you, Effie, you would be dead," she informs her matter-of-factly with a nod. "And yes, I'm perfectly safe. I just have to double-check which doors I open."

Naturally, the assertion that Johanna wasn't going to kill her didn't strike a chord of fear in Effie; instead she laughed a bit at the ridiculousness of it. "Of course you won't kill me, why would you do that?" she asked. It didn't occur to her that she represented the Capitol; thus she didn't understand that any dislike or hatred of her might be anything other than personal.

She inspected the wound where the tracker had undoubtedly been, and relaxed. She understood that somehow Johanna had escaped the Capitol - though when she considered it, she had to realize that she, too, wasn't in the Capitol, and how could that be? She didn't think any of the Victors had deserved to go back into the Arena, so even though she feared the repercussions, if Johanna had managed to buck them...

"Well if they can't get you here, then good," she said, bravely not mentioning the fact that she, indeed, might be considered a member of this mutiny by siding with Johanna. Which - which she was, technically. But she couldn't sit idly by while they had taken Katniss and Peeta from her.

"Maybe it would play well for the cameras," she replies sweetly, and even though she has no intention of hurting Effie, she does want to cut down at what she stands for. It's an old habit that's hard to shake and she's more than willing to play the waif if it means keeping her alive, even here.

Still, the whole 'being taken aback' thing is new because when Effie says that it's good they can't get to her, there's no sharp reply on her tongue. Instead, she sits there as mute as an Avox for a moment, staring at Effie warily. "Have you seen the others yet?" she asks, choosing to go for kindness.

"You sound just like Haymitch," Effie said, brushing Johanna's remark off. "I saw Katniss, you know, I'm very glad she's alright too, I just don't think it's a very good idea, you know..." her usual train of words, so endless, was having trouble keeping up steam. It was in her nature to scold, correct, inspire, encourage, inform, and she found she couldn't do that comfortably, not now. Her knowledge was becoming exhausted; and her list of topics she was willing to discuss was drying up quicker than that.

"What do you do here?" she asked, carefully. Was Johanna just avoiding the Capitol, or was she actively rebelling? She knew there was something going on, the details of which she wasn't entirely certain.

"You don't think what is a very good idea?" Johanna demands, wanting to find out the trail end of that thought. She's defensive now, and she doesn't even know what she's being defensive for, but she's definitely going to keep her guard up here. "I bask in the knowledge that I'm no one's performing show monkey. Sometimes I help them tend their gardens. Plus, Finnick's here, so I spend time with him when he's not busy."

She doesn't mind mentioning Finnick, but she'll keep Annie's presence quiet until Finnick wants to say. Information is expensive, after all, and shouldn't be given away freely.

"Angering the Capitol," Effie said, simply, because that was really all she could phrase it as. Still, she supposed that was what they all had begun to do, wasn't it? And she understood why, and was able to avoid fear for herself by simply fearing for Katniss and Peeta. No matter how they might rock the boat it was difficult to think the Games would end in any way other than they normally did - with one alive. But now, it seemed, many had avoided just that.

"That sounds lovely," she said, of the gardens, though Effie herself had never felt an urge to kneel in dirt. Still, the idea of it was nice. "I'm glad Finnick is here too. You two always did seem to get along."

Finnick had always seemed to understand her. True, all the victors had a degree of understanding, but Johanna didn't have much respect for the ones who turned into strung out morphlings. She didn't mind turning to alcohol like Haymitch because she supposes that keeps them still able to fight and that's the most important thing -- self-survival. "He's okay," she says, shrugging as if she doesn't value his friendship more than most other things in life.

"Peeta's here, too, and I heard a rumor that Haymitch is draining the bar on a daily basis."

Peeta, as well? Had they all just shown up here? Effie was at a crossroads between being grateful and being irritated that no one had bothered to let her in on this little setup.

She grasped for what was the most familiar and natural to her, and that ended up being a desire to know just how things were being run. "So you live here?" she asked. "Rooms and everything? How does that get sorted out? And... can you go back?" Not that she thought Johanna would have. But maybe she had tried, just to see, as Effie was intent on doing as soon as she was able to keep track of everyone.

"I claimed a room as my own and put up a do not disturb sign on the door. It's seemed to do the trick." If anyone is intending to kick her out, then Johanna will have something to say about it and once she's been so vehement on the subject, she doubts anyone will be so quick to try and get her out of the hotel room, then. "And I can go back all I like, but trust me when I say I choose not to."

It's been a strange thing having to be so guarded about opening doors, but from what she's learned, any door can lead her back there. Now that she knows it will bring her back to torture, she's doing everything she can to avoid that fate.

Haymitch doesn't think this place could really be any less strange. People seem to have little to no knowledge of the Games, and from what he's gleaned off of other peoples' conversations (and his time with Peeta) many people are from different places altogether, places he's never heard of. He's spent a good portion of his time here thoroughly embalmed in alcohol, and it's obvious from the way that he's leaning his forehead against his palm at the bar that he had a particularly successful night of forgetting the evening before. The clip-clop of shoes strikes at his temples like an anvil and he looks up sharply, eyes narrowed.

They soften just barely around the edges when he follows long legs up to a frilly outfit that he fully expects to end in Effie's slightly hurried, perpetually busy face. He swallows thickly and his face twitches into a wince before he turns on the stool and stands, sweeping his arms open with his palms up.

"Let me guess - you took a wrong turn post-vomit at the pre-Games morning bash." This reveals two things: that Haymitch remembers what she was wearing that morning, and that he's trying to hide his relief with sarcasm.

You're shocked, we know.

Of course Haymitch was at the bar. Effie allowed herself to feel the usual brush of annoyance at that, so she wasn't completely overcome with relief at seeing him there. Haymitch was familiar, sadly more familiar than so many things in her life. Every year she saw him for the Games, sometimes more often than that, and even though he was never very helpful, he was a detail that was reliable.

It was not in Effie's nature to discuss what she did in bathrooms, but still, she was not about to be accused of gluttony. "Don't be silly, Haymitch," she said. Even if she was the sort to overindulge, her corsets tended to nip that in the bud. "What are you doing here? And what is going on?" She put her hands on her hips, pursing her lavishly painted mouth, the usual expression when faced with Haymitch's perpetual drinking, which wasn't terrible, but tended to put a damper on things.

"I know you don't frequent the lower establishments in the Capitol, but this is a bar," of sorts, since it had a lot more going on than that, "So I would imagine people are drinking. As for what I'm doing here -- the same as you, sweetheart." He wasn't admitting that he didn't know how they got here in the first place, but that was the implication.

He smirked, waving his half-emptied drink toward the stool next to him. "Come on, have a seat and practice slumming it. It'll make you more approachable for future tributes." He couldn't keep the edge out of his voice as he spoke about the idea of future tributes, not now that things had started to go into motion with his plans. Honestly, he still didn't know whether she'd be safe at that time. From the look of her, she hadn't witnessed Katniss' escape from the Arena yet.

"I know that," Effie said, somewhat snappishly, though she deflated slightly. She had been hoping for a better explanation than that, but she knew from experience that if Haymitch didn't feel like telling her something right away, no amount of insistence was going to work. She could push him around and get him to be places on time, but if he didn't want to use his fork, then Effie knew even as she begun the battle that she was going to lose. The same could be said for conversation with him.

The place didn't have the over-the-top grandeur of the Capitol, but it certainly wasn't unclean. "I don't 'slum'," she said. "And I don't think tributes find inebriation very approachable." Still, she took a seat, though she had to shift the bar stool slightly away from him. Not because she didn't want to be near him, but because her dress was too big to fit in that space without a bit of adjustment.

"Inebriation is my bag, so you might as well leave it to me. Being a little more relaxed might make them like you faster, though." He isn't about to admit that she's grown on him enough that she can be as high-strung as she always is and he'll find it familiar, if not a little charming. They work well as counter-balances, all right?

He glanced down at the frill threatening to jab him in the knee, hoping that it wasn't as hard as it looked to be. Who knew what Effie was wearing, really?

"Still, you're right. This isn't even close to the Capitol. Call it a ... happy upgrade." Peeta seemed happier, at least -- he couldn't speak for Katniss, and for all he knew she was just as sour as she usually was. It was hard to get used to things going your way when you were used to them blowing up in your face. Haymitch is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, and to suddenly find himself owing the people running this establishment money or worse.

"I think I'm very likable," Effie said, which, really, were her true feelings on the matter. In fact, when it came to the fast-paced life of the Capitol, Effie was more than genial. So she liked to think, anyway.

Besides, she'd never thrown up on anyone's shoes, so she thought she had a leg up on Haymitch in that.

"How long have you been here?" she asked. "Have you spent the entire time at the bar, or have you bothered to make sure Peeta and Katniss are alright?" The lines were delivered with an odd mix of haughtiness and concern. She did expect Haymitch to want to take care of them, but knew that, what with his drinking, he probably had a bit of difficulty getting around to it.

Finnick visibly paused when he saw who was standing mere feet away. She was decked so outrageously in Capitol fashion that it practically startled him for a moment. It'd been weeks since he'd seen anything approaching that level of clashing color and distorted shape, and seeing it again made him feel like he was underwater.

They'd been arriving in waves, so maybe he should have been prepared for this -- him, Jo, Katniss; Annie; Peeta; Haymitch -- but everyone who had come had been so firmly rooted on the side of the resistance that he had failed to consider that maybe a Capitol person would just stroll in. He'd always thought they'd come to attack, to tear them apart. He hadn't considered that they'd just arrive, an apparent accident like the rest of them.

It took Finnick a further moment to actually place the woman standing in front of him -- Effie Trinket. Katniss' and Peeta's handler. He made a point of knowing all the escorts, all the stylists who worked in the Games. They overheard all sorts of things and empty-headed as they usually were, were oblivious to what sort of secrets were valuable and which weren't, so they were ready to spill all of them. Out of everyone who could have arrived from the Capitol, they were probably luckiest it was Effie.

But that still didn't completely soothe Finnick's worries away.

Still, he smiled charmingly, dimples on stark display as he fell back on old training without a second thought.

"Miss Trinket," he greeted her, a touch of coyness curling into each syllable.

Finnick had always been a little too much for Effie. She knew that most in the Capitol were wild for him, vied for his attention, but Effie was always comfortable just looking at him sometimes, and they didn't speak much. Really, he was too sexual, too sensual; and Effie was a lover of things beautiful in an artistic and distant sense. Finnick was too real, and she preferred reality to be subtle and separate. She found that more comfortable.

It was better, at least, to see him now, without the stylings of the Capitol all over him. "Finnick, hello," she said, making her way towards him. "You're here, too?" her confusion as to what, exactly, was going on, was starting to play second fiddle to the fact that everyone was here. Well - everyone connected with the Games, anyway, and Effie was a people person. They took up the majority of her attention. She did appreciate that he addressed her so respectfully, so she gave him a smile. "Effie, please."

"Too?" Finnick asked, continuing to smile. He wasn't sure what the word implied: that he was joining her, or that she had met others before he encountered her. He needed to know for certain that she hadn't brought anyone unexpected with her and that the hotel wasn't suddenly going to be flooded with citizens from the Capitol.

"Effie, then," Finnick echoed, voice a bit lower. She wasn't blatantly interested, but that didn't mean that flattering her ego wouldn't help his cause regardless. "Have you just arrived?"

He said her name in that way that had many Capitol girls tremble, but the result in Effie was a quick and brusque smile as she tried to ignore it. Not that she didn't enjoy it; she just wasn't used to enjoying things like that. "Well, you know," she said, "Katniss, and Johanna? The Victors have all - what would you say?" How would Haymitch word it? Not pleasantly, that was for certain. "Slipped the noose?"

Effie didn't understand how she had managed, in one instant, to travel from the Capitol to here, where the Victors had all avoided being sent to the Arena. That meant that maybe there were no white clad peacekeepers, no spies, no monitoring. How could that be? But still, if they thought they were safe, then they were safe, because Victors knew that kind of thing. Effie feared the angry lash of the Capitol as much as anyone, as soon as she started to step out of line - however small those steps were.

"Yes, I only just got here," she said. "Have you been here awhile?" As confusing as that would be.

She already knew that there were quite a few of them here then. Hardly worth the trouble of concealing -- but if there was anyone else who could take care of themselves, it was Katniss and Johanna. He noted that Annie's name wasn't among the ones she listed. A quiet relief.

And she didn't mention coming with anyone else, so, hopefully, she would be the only one. They could contend with one overambitious escort. Still, it sat uncomfortably in his stomach. If she had arrived, there could be others. Who could show up and catch them off guard.

Slipped the noose. What a phrase to use. He suddenly remembered the way his hands had moved over the rope in the training center, expertly tying a noose in demonstration for Katniss. Yes, they'd all slipped that noose, hadn't they? Finnick doubted that Effie was using the phrase with all the negative connotations it involved -- but that didn't mean it wasn't an apt comparison.

"A bit," Finnick said, still smiling easily, aware she would probably notice that it was an evasive answer.

The moment Peeta sees her, he knows that it's her. There's no one else that can carry that look off, even in the Capitol. There's a conflict of emotions at seeing her. The last he'd seen her, he'd said his goodbyes, certain that he'd never see her again. She'd helped him beyond measure with the locket, given him a way (he hoped) to keep Katniss fighting even when he'd given up. It hadn't quite turned out that way, but Effie had helped him none the less and he appreciated it.

Finding her here was a surprise to say the least. He approached her carefully because he knew how confusing and traumatic it could be to show up here.

"Effie?"

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this isn't very festive!

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