to build a home

"Oh!" Lee exclaimed as he entered the room. "Hestia! I- what good timing!" He scurried into the room and dug into the slung backpack he had over his shoulder. He produced a small, dark green gift bag with a ribbon tied haphazardly to the paper handle. He presented it to her with a slightly-embarrassed smile.

Hestia's face lit up when she realized it was tea-- the best gift she could imagine. With a soft blush, she peered into the gift bag, greeted by the delicate scent of tea leaves and, as promised, something earthy that she was certain she had not tried yet.

Lee chuckled lightly, waving away her concern. "They will or they won't," he replied. "It's the Capitol. One Games you're in, one you're out. I'm almost jealous of the Careers, with their consistent funds." He clucked his tongue. "But then I actually think about that statement, and I'm over it."

"Well, if that's how you've been trying to win over sponsors, I think I know your problem," she chuckled, though she wouldn't really mind pushing over some of these sponsors herself. "But I am surprised you have issues with convincing anyone to sponsor for Seven. You're one of the nicer people to be around at these things."

"I'm not about wasting Hes-- you know what it's like back in twelve or nine" he rambled, even though it was a silly way of looking at things, it made him feel better about himself a bit. "Alright, we can get a water, if it'll make you happy" he flashed a lopsided grin at her.

Lee leaned against a wall, pulling his shoulders up in such a way that made his oversized jacket turtle around his ears. He wriggled his face out far enough so as to not cover his mouth before shaking his head no. The entire jacket wiggled with his head.

"Oh," she hummed, trying to mask her surprise. "Yes, it's-- been the same. The same, of course." She didn't want to make Lee feel bad, it wasn't his fault or anything he'd been doing wrong. It wasn't even necessarily anything Twelve was doing right, it was a combination of luck and momentum off of Slate's Victory, it seemed. She feared for when the attention faded.

Abel was already holding a cocktail of his own, but it was nearing empty, so he smiled and took the glass from Hestia, telling himself he was doing her a favour when in reality he knew he definitely didn’t need another.

"You don't have to drink them at all," she pointed out with some guilt, to what she was sure was not an audience that would listen. It wasn't as though she hadn't offered, she hadn't seen who had approached her. She watched him for a moment, then said, "Actually, I thought I might get some water. Come with me?"

Tonight was meant to celebrate the Mentors, and yet it was never a celebration. There were three categories of Mentors on these evenings: those who had already lost both Tributes, those desperate to bring their one remaining home, and those like Lee and Hestia: who were trying to ride the fine line between optimism and overzealousness, trying their best to score Sponsorships for whoever they could.

The corner of her lip quirked up in amusement at the term "shindig". It didn't feel anywhere near appropriate a word for the gaudy, lavish exercises in excess these balls were, and yet she didn't have a word to describe such a thing either.

"Oh licorice," Moxie said, her excitement immediately dissipating. Licorice was foul – honestly an affront to Panem and everything it stood for – which now that she thought about it and really it actually did fit what Panem stood for and honestly resolidified Moxie's understanding of how evil the Capitol was. "That's less than good, maybe we should go find better drinks?" Moxie suggested with a furrow of her brow, trying to find somewhere to set her glass.

Hestia laughed, relieved she wasn't the only one who found licorice repulsive. She set the glass down on a table. "I don't like to waste anything, but that can't be considered fit for human consumption," she informed Moxie. "I'm going to get a glass of wine and stick to it." Though even the Capitol seemed to find ways to make that sickeningly sweet, it was a little more manageable.

Fleur watched curiously as Slate signed to Hestia, understanding none of the movements, and yet intrigued by them all the more for it. Indeed, for a moment, it didn't register that he was translating, conveying the active conversation. Then, it dawned, and Fleur simply felt foolish. "We haven't seen the finished space. Of course, I offered to have our interior designer come and manage the space professionally, but Cressida insisted on doing it herself." Fleur glanced at her daughter, brows raised only slightly -- as far she could. "But I'm hoping to see it before the baby shower, certainly, which, Cressida--" A centimeter higher. Cress mused that Fleur must have been straining. "Would you please let Dionysa coordinate the affair? I don't understand why--"

Slate was glad for the pressure of Cress's hand, though this moment was filled with a myriad of complexities, small and large concerns -- the Meadowforges' strange posturing, their oddities, and surely his own mannerisms and affinities were just as odd to them. How would they ever reconcile this divide? How would they be a family? Of course he knew what a family cobbled together by circumstances looked like -- that was the Ember home, though to think of it now brought pain. How much more of these navigations could he take?

Hestia supplied the sign word for "mobile" to him encouragingly, and flashed him a bright smile when he glanced her way. She was uncomfortable, no doubt, but for Slate she was trying very, very hard to seem reassuring and steady.

Moxie, if anything was a massive fan of things that people would consider far too much but that sort of defined Moxie herself, anyway. She was always too big, too much for plenty of people to palate so she gravitated toward things that matched. "Oh, gladly," Moxie said, taking what was clearly offensive to the other woman away. She brought the glass up to her nose, sniffed to see if was seemingly any kind of poison, and asked, "Is it really that bad?"

"Well... do you like licorice?" It was the closest tasting thing she could place, though she was sure the more "refined" Capitol palettes would list off a series of undertones, overtones, and aftertastes. "It's something like that."

"Oh wow. You're really selling it." Coral laughed at the obvious distaste on Hestia's face, the drink clearly wasn't very good, but then again, she had had several drinks already, the taste barely distinguishable from each other, but they hadn't made her react like this. Still, Coral was curious so she grabbed the cocktail out of the other woman's hand, taking a sip. "Okay yeah, this is way worse than the ones I had."

"So it's not just me," she sighed, admittedly relieved. She'd wondered if maybe she was the one whose taste was aging, rather than the Capitol's ability to mix drinks steadily devolving into the syrupy mess in the glass between them. "It's terrible. I even have a sweet tooth, but this is... this is torture."

Fulvia could sense a hint of reluctance from the other woman regarding her pet, though she appreciated her willingness to accommodate despite it. She was well aware of the general aversion many held towards bugs; the majority opting for extermination rather than understanding. Yet, she remained undeterred, hoping to challenge such preconceptions by introducing Kitty to others in the hopes of fostering a more open-minded perspective.

"I don't think that's necessary." Frankly, she'd be happier without the knowledge of where Capitolites sourced exotic bug pets. "Don't tell Slate either. He'll get ideas." Maybe that could be a bonding topic, Slate.

"Oh," the word popped on Fleur's lips, her shoulders sagging with disappointment. But a lady never sulked. It aged her prematurely. So she fixed her expression, recovering as she unfolded her napkin, placing it on her lap, "yes, Cressida has mentioned how lovely you've been in helping navigate her condition." Her countenance was placid, smoothed, free of any shaping or scrunching that might have implied tone. It was no secret that Cress' mother hadn't been much of a mother at all. She'd been raised largely by a litany of nannies, women who took care of wealthy children to provide for their own. Cress wondered if there was some remorse there now, some envy that her daughter had sought comfort from another maternal figure -- a kind of guidance and support Fleur herself couldn't provide. But Fleur was unreadable, even to her. "We're so grateful."

Slate tried to follow everything, everyone, but his gaze was stuck with Hestia for a moment, as she slid him a new fork and he pushed the many forks and spoons that had clattered to the floor off to the side. He thought he saw something in her expression, a knowing, an agreement -- this was all fucking strange. And the conversation was happening around him, around them, and he could tell that Hestia too was struggling to keep up. So he signed as he spoke, to give her a rest from lip reading for just a moment. It also gave him something to do with his hand as the topics of conversation grew quickly thorny.

Hestia did her best to keep her expression warm and open at the implication that Cress had any sort of condition, the word delivered as though her pregnancy were some unfortunate affliction. Though Hestia could sympathize that pregnancy was hardly fun (and surely so could Fleur?), Cress and Slate were having a baby, not overcoming a flu. The tone of the statement sat wrong with her.

"Well…" Fulvia replied, her expression brightening with enthusiasm in response to the other woman's question. "Kitty is quite extraordinary, you see. Unlike the common cockroaches found scurrying in homes or elsewhere, she belongs to a special breed." Her hands gestured with animated excitement as she continued, "Typical cockroaches have a lifespan of about a year, significantly shorter compared to Kitty's potential longevity. However, she's nearing the end of her journey, and I find myself at a loss as to what I'll do once she's gone."

Hestia bit back a comment about one year still being far too long for her comfort. She then swallowed a second comment about there being plenty in Twelve for her to rescue. She needed Fulvia to like her, she was Slate's sister, and her relationship with Slate was already tenuous. "Was it-- she-- hard to get? Not to suggest you'd replace her," she added quickly.

Fulvia's tension eased as the woman echoed her sentiment, her gaze lingering on her companion as she observed her pet with cautious interest. "Oh, about three or four years," she remarked, her hands tracing a rhythm against her thighs. "It's been a while since I first got her, I can't remember the exact date."

"They... they can live that long?" Hestia asked, working hard to not seem alarmed-- she'd only just seemed to get Fulvia's guard down, if only slightly. She wanted Fulvia to trust her, she was important to Slate's life, so she was important to her too. "Do all cockroaches live that long?" It gave her a new perspective on the ones she'd lost track of that did worm their way into the house in Twelve.