a hub™

“well, im…” oh dear. what was a convincing reason to be up here? saying that she hated blood and was squeamish to DEATH was definitely a fact about herself she did not like sharing. Lael had learned it, Birch knew. that was all, as far as she knew. she’d never enjoyed the games’s bloddiest bits, but knowing them just made it all FAR worse.

“im just trying to find some place quiet to, you know…” she held up the cross stitch, a big 10 with flowers beginning to blossom around the edges. she was planning on putting it up in her room on the tower, or maybe at home. but she had no idea yet, it was just to fill time.

“I know who you are, though. we spoke… earlier this year? you were working in one of the viewing rooms. Kaelin. Rae. uh… 10′s stylist?” she was speaking a little quickly, a little awkwardly. but she didn’t want to leave. it was later at night, and the roof was cold. “mind if i sit there? um… it’s cold. that’s the heater.”

“I know who you are, Kaelin,” Cana smiled and crossed her arms over her chest. “I know I’m, like, infamous for not being able to tell one victor from the next but I’ve got my fellow stylists in a row, don’t worry.”

“The roof is a quiet place,” she agreed. “Did you need to get away from the screens, too? Because I swear seeing all that day and night has got to take a toll on your sanity. Granted I try to avoid it as much as possible.”

Toscana set her purse down on the ground next to a half-wall that was partitioning off the HVAC systems of the Tower, and sat down. Her feet were absolutely aching in the new heels she was wearing, which she took a mental note on (it was pointless to design shoes for other women if you weren’t going to test them out first, and if they hurt Cana’s conditioned feet, she knew there had to be a lot to be improved upon), and pulled them off, letting her pedicured toes free for a few minutes. 

“You got kids left?” she asked. “You’re District Eleven, right? Or was there something about a promotion that I just didn’t pay attention to?”

Kaelin, our resident hiding from games girl, was up on the roof, hiding from the games. that sentence came of shock to literally nobody, ever.

least of all her.

she was just doing some embroidery (cross-stitching was fun for her, and had been her intro to sewing), walking further into the roof and closer to the space heater when she caught the tail end of cana’s convorsation. Her husband. Oh. Kaelin should go…

when she was adressed, she smiled and blushed a little. “no, no, it’s chill. you were probably talking to someone totally important. i get lost in convorsations all the time.”

“Oh, it was just my husband,” Cana answered as she dropped her phone into her purse. “Had to call him for a quick chat, but not busy!”

Cana knew Kaelin a little. As a fellow stylist it was easy to spot a familiar face, and though the girl was much, much younger than she was it was always nice to run into someone working on something creative. Since her own sister had taken a much-needed vacation, Cana was finding it harder to find people to talk design with. 

“I don’t see other stylists up here often,” Cana noted, reaching into her purse habitually, only to pull her hand back out. She’d quit smoking years ago, but somehow reaching for that cigarette box had become ingrained in her muscle memory. She shook her hand out and dropped it by her side. “I don’t see a lot of other stylists out here very often.”

She didn’t often visit the rooftop. Cana liked to say that her wedding took place in a garden and that was about as outdoorsy as she liked to get, so she didn’t mind staying cooped up in the Tower for the duration of the Games. The appeal here was the lack of screens. And it was usually empty, which made it the perfect place for her to escape to make a call to her husband. 

“Love you too, Calum,” she smiled as she finished her call. “Of course I’m rooting for her. I’ll call you when I get a chance tomorrow. Hopefully the Games wrap up soon and I can go home. Yep. Sure thing. Ok, I love you too. See you soon.”

Cana hung up her phone and jumped when she turned to see the other person there. She held her hand to her chest and sighed with relief. 

“Oh, jeez,” she said. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” ( @ttwstarters )

“Gin martini’s not much better.” Johanna muttered, downing her drink in one go before ordering another one. Okay, maybe she’d lied about just having one at this point in the Games – though the burn of the liquor as it went down her throat was pleasant, she knew she’d need at least a few more drinks before she felt the lightness she was hoping would accompany the alcohol.

“Today’s probably a day where you can get away with something stronger at 10:00am without judgement.” She mused, downing half of her next drink, swishing around what remained in the glass, eyeing the liquid before she drank it. 

Toscana shrugged. “Usually does the job for me, but to each his own, I guess.”

There was some goriness on the screen, kids killing other kids, and Cana worked to tune all of it out of her range of attention. She had little faith that Harley would get out of this scuffle alive, though the sounds of the girl shouting orders at her did help a bit. Cana made a mental note to get this girl’s name. Perhaps she could send her a little something to thank her for the assistance with Harley.

“Well thank goodness for that,” Cana raised her drink. “The rest of the year I’m a designer who prefers to stay... unaffiliated with the Games, I guess, and my VP is always giving me the worst looks when he finds me with alcohol in the morning. Like, Bloody Marys are drank in the morning, why not gin?”

Echo smiled at her and nodded.  She would be lying if she said she remembered what District Six’s outfits looked like this year, or any year for that matter.  Echo didn’t pay much attention to Capitol fashion.  It never really interested her what other people put on their bodies.  She had enough to worry about an didn’t need something so irrelevant taking up space in her brain.

“You could say that.  Our girl got an eleven in training,” she told her with a faux proud smile.  It was anxiety inducing if she was honest with herself, but she needed to make sure everyone believed it was something to bet on and not a death sentence.  Though Echo wasn’t sure how good she was at masking her nervousness.

Thankfully the screen flashed and Echo recognized the color for District Six, seeing the girl fighting with the boy from Ten.  “Isn’t she the blind one?” Echo blurted out.  “She’s gotta have a death wish if she’s running into the bloodbath but can’t see.”

“Oh!” Cana responded, raising her eyebrows. “Eleven does count as special, I guess. Wasn’t there a girl a few years ago who got one of those? Wild.”

Cana sipped down her drink more as the fight continued, and she couldn’t help but glue her eyes onto the screen. As much as she didn’t want to watch, she worried about her little tribute. But Harley seemed to pull away from the boy, unsuccessful but grabbing for something else as she ran with the girl from Five. Great. She got something. She was okay for the moment. 

And then Cana groaned and looked away while Harley pulled the item out of her shopping bag. Sunglasses? Of all items possibly available here, the blind tribute had to pull out sunglasses.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Cana answered with a sigh. “Looks like she’s gotten out fine, but at this point it’s a crapshoot, you know?”

“Sure,” Echo replied before taking the seat beside her.  The woman looked very put together and quite Capitol, so she figured stylist or escort, though she didn’t have the slightest clue what district.  Maybe Lael would know, but Echo sure didn’t.

The bartender went about making their drinks as Echo got situated on the stool.  She pushed her hair back over her shoulder and released a soft sigh.  There were so many thoughts rushing through her mind.  She couldn’t focus.  Glancing out of the corner of her eye she briefly scanned the muted screen for any sign of Pixel, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Those split seconds barely registered and she flashed the woman a smile.  “Oh it’s fine.  I’m Echo.  District Three.  I won the 73rd,” she explained.  She was used to having to give people that information, though as a relatively new victor some people did still recognize her.  She hadn’t changed that much since her games, unless you counted bleaching her hair and adding in the extensions.  “I’m guessing stylist or escort for you, huh?”

“Nice to meet you,” Cana replied. “Yeah, you guessed it. Stylist. District Six.”

Echo looked distracted, which Cana couldn’t really blame her for. She didn’t have the luxury of detachment as soon as the interview was over, since the mentors had so much involvement throughout the Games process. Cana had gotten closer to Harley than she had with almost any of her previous tributes due to working to accommodate any additional needs she might have, but she wasn’t the one stuck sending the girl gifts and fielding sponsor interest.

“District Three,” Cana repeated. “Do you have, like, a special tribute or something this year? I feel like there’s been a lot of buzz around you guys lately.”

Harley’s face flashed on the screen as she fought over an item with a boy she didn’t recognize, and Cana felt a small drop in her stomach. Not now, Harley. Get out.

“I don’t care.” Johanna replied bluntly, sliding onto one of the barstools and ordering a whiskey. They’d already lost a tribute, so she granted herself one drink – that’s how it worked. Landon was still alive, and seemed to be going strong, but she figured that someone else could keep an eye on him while she grabbed herself a drink. Somebody talking to her while she tried to do this was irritating, to say the very least.

“You’re gonna need something stronger than that.” She muttered, eyeing the woman’s drink.

“Fair enough,” Cana shrugged as the woman sidled up in a nearby barstool.

Johanna Mason was probably one of the only victors outside of Six that Cana was actually familiar with. Not that she’d actually met the woman before, but there was enough hoopla about her Games strategy and the reputation that followed her as a victor that Toscana could recognize her on sight. Granted, she didn’t really know anything about her, since her whole “reputation” had been built around what people had said.

Digressions aside, Cana figured she would be lowkey enough to hang out with in a time like this.

“You are not incorrect about that,” Cana answered her, regarding the strength of her drink (or lack thereof). “Normally I’m a gin martini girl but I figured I’d go with something a little lighter today. Probably a mistake.”

Echo sighed.  The screens were impossible to get away from and right now they simply served as a reminder that one of her tributes was already dead.  They weren’t exactly off to a great start, but Pixel was still alive.  Pixel with her eleven and the giant target painted on her back.  This wasn’t going to end well.  She could feel it even if she hated it.

“I’m old enough to drink,” Echo assured her.  “Though really does anyone care once you’ve escaped a fight to the death?  I think you earn the right to drink young after that.”  She glanced over at the screen muted in the background, still no sign of Pixel.  She’d surface eventually and then Echo could figure out what she needed to be sent.  Surely that eleven earned some pull with the sponsors.

“Rum and coke, I think,” Echo told her.  She wasn’t much of a drinker.  Beer was not a taste she’d acquired and wine was just not her.  Echo was still in the process of figuring out exactly what her taste in alcohol was.

“I guess you’ve got a point,” Cana smiled and gestured to the seat next to her. “Want to sit? Bar’s pretty empty and it’s kind of become my go-to spot when everyone else is glued to the viewing room.”

Francis and Dwight at this point were used to Cana working to not get invested in the Games (at least she really hoped they were, considering she hadn’t watched the bloodbath with the Six team in years), and this was the point where Francis often hit a low. He’d been getting attached to their girls lately, and with the losses of Orla and Shay in the last two years she didn’t think she wanted to see him in the case that Harley died early on. Cana herself was probably too attached to the girl, but that was what happened when she had to put extra thought into her designs for a tribute with particular needs.

Cana downed her drink, pulled the olive out, and popped it in her mouth, flagging down the bartender.

“Another gin and tonic for me,” she said. “And a rum and coke for her.”

She turned to the girl next to her. “God, now I’m embarrassed. I should totally know your name. Could you remind me?”

The launch was done for another year. It was easily Umbrielle’s least favourite time of the Games, and now she had to dress a tribute to be shipped back off to District Eight, which was hands down her least favourite task. She picked out a simple pair of dark grey slacks, a solid button-down in a dark purple, and a pair of floral suspenders (he seemed to like those) and sent the measurements and fabrics down to her sewing team to finish up. From there, she didn’t have much to do but worry about Nadya.

Cana would be going through the very same, so she sent a text to her sister and made her way to their favourite little Capitol cafe for coffee and desserts. She chose a table on the patio to allow Peach a little snooze beneath her seat, and was tracking Games updates on her phone. Cana’s arrival startled her a little, and she greeted her older sister. “How are you holding up?” she asked quickly. What had been done to poor Geof Carr was simply ghastly. // closed for @tos-cana

Cana tossed her phone into her purse as soon as she saw the puppy’s head sticking out from under the cafe table. Though she’d never considered herself a dog (or cat or hamster or any animal at all) person, Cana had an incredible soft spot in her heart for Peach.

“Look at my beautiful niece, laying there all perfect,” Cana sighed as she approached the table. Umbri seemed startled upon her entrance, and Cana laughed a little and sat down across from her sister.

“Holding up fine,” Cana said. “You know I don’t like to watch, but I heard about... you know... Geof. Had a few too many gin and tonics that night so I’m lucky that I didn’t really get the full report. But I heard you lost your boy too. You ok?”

Echo was already down a tribute.  She felt terrible that he had already died, but she needed a break from the screens.  So far it felt like almost every year since her own victory one of the tributes died in the bloodbath.  It became a pattern, one she wasn’t happy about witnessing.

At least Pixel was still alive, or was when Echo last checked the screens.  She couldn’t handle looking at the arena anymore.  It would be a good arena for Pixel, she’d have a leg up on some of the other tributes, but that eleven was still dangling above her like a sword ready to drop at any moment.  Echo knew that despite how well suited the arena seemed, the Gamemakers would do as much as they could to disrupt things for Pixel.

When she heard the woman speak, Echo looked over at her and nodded, a sigh passing her lips.  “Yeah, I’m feeling kind of the same right now,” she told her.  “I needed a break from all the screens.”

“Tell me about it,” Cana rolled her eyes as she pointed her head to the screens at the back of the bar. “They’re impossible to get away from, but what can you do, you know?”

She took another sip of her drink and twirled the toothpick with the olive on it around with her finger. The bartender didn’t understand the addition of the olive to a gin and tonic instead of a lime, but Cana had her clear preferences, and needed something light and fizzy instead of her usual martini. 

“Want something? You look young, but I couldn’t care less, and I’m sure the bartender doesn’t either,” Cana mentioned, remembering when she’d sneak fruity alcoholic drinks to Umbri when her sister was a teenager. “Beer? Martini? Gin and tonic?”

“that’s fair. I’m glad you’re honest. water, please.” it came in under a minute, and she held it up to toscana. “cheers.” she smiled to toscana, a hint of mystery in her eyes, not that it was intended. she was just the kind of woman who had to keep it on so much it was hard to turn it off.

“stylist, hmm? long as your kids aren’t dressed as bushes, i like you.” she said it with a smile, joking. it was a long running joke she shared with stylists. most of the ones who knew her remembered her being dressed as a bush for her tribute parade, and even the ones who didn’t understood that she was referring to the many stylists who just put costumes on their kids.

“seven’s stylist hasn’t had an original idea since before i was a tribute.” their revolving door of untalented treedressers seemed to never end. Lark had literally taken matters into her own hands, dressing herself eventually, to get out of their clutches.

“Well thank you, I appreciate that,” Cana answered. “I get a lot of flack from other stylists for how much black my tributes get put in, but what can I say? Black goes very well with District Six. Cheers.”

Harley was still alive, as far as Cana could tell. At least, she hoped that was Harley on the screens and not someone else being guided by a tribute yelling directions frantically in their direction. Her boy was nowhere to be seen just from a quick glimpse at the screen, and at the moment Cana didn’t really want to know how he was faring. 

“Honestly, cannot stand people who can’t come up with any creative ideas, you know?” Cana downed the rest of her drink and flagged the bartender in her direction while popping the olive into her mouth, chewing, and swallowing. “Like, take you. Seven. If you’re standing in front of me and you’re from District Seven you are probably pretty damn creative in order to get your way out of that damn arena.”

“no problem.” she said. “hell, i wish less people knew who i was, you know? nobody wants to be remembered exclusively for killing people in the most…” she paused, trying to find a way to make it capital friendly. most entertaining way? efficient? brutal? conveluded?

“never mind.” she said. “cana.” she said. “if you can find a nickname for Lark, feel free to use it.” she pointed to the glass. “drunks can be very creative, i would know.” she was still trying to decide between a drink or not. “tell me, do you think getting drunk today is worth it if it means potentially comprimising my relationship with my daughter?”

Cana shrugged. “I mean, I’m not one to give potentially family-ruining advice, so really it’s up to you. I don’t have any kids, though I do have a little sister who’s probably more of a pina colada girl than anyone I’ve ever met so really no worries about damaging the relationship there.”

She raised the glass to her lips, downing the last couple sips of her gin and tonic and pulling an olive off the little plastic sword the bartender had thrown in her drink.

“I’m a stylist, by the way,” Cana continued. “Hence my being here and complete distaste for-”

She waved in the general direction of the screen, which showed the little girl from Three being thrown to the ground.

“-all of this.”

Lark was returning to the seventh floor, to wait for jules, after texting fell. she passed the bar, and stared for a few minutes. would Jules notice if she had a drink? probably. the girl was a smart one. would she notice half? Lark needed to get through the bloodbath, and her highly functioning alcoholism turned slightly… less so in times like these.

she walked up to ask the bartender for the most diluted drink possible when some brunette she had absolutely no recolection of knowing spoke to her. drown it out, though… she understood that.

Lark slid in the seat beside her.

“yeah? me too. Maybe if we talk loud enough we won’t hear” she asserted, holding out a hand.  it was stupid, but she wanted to get to know her a bit more. so many people passed judgement on her for her coping mechinism screw her for not having a mentor to teach her to handle this and she wanted to speak to someone who understood more. “Lark Timbers. district seven. the 59th.”

Cana sighed a little in relief when the victor introduced herself. She rarely knew victors’ names, even when she recognized their faces.

“Toscana Lushmeadow, nice to meet you,” Cana smiled. “Thanks for introducing yourself. Victors have a tendency to assume everyone knows who they are- and, I mean, it’s for a good reason and all- and I just never know them. But you wanna take a seat? Bar’s pretty empty, as you can tell.”

She waved along the length of the bar, showing off the row of vacated seats with only the bartender standing near the end, cleaning a beer glass with a white rag. 

“You can call me Cana, though,” she clarified as she took another sip of her gin and tonic.