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With a Splash // [91st GMs+Tributes Pool Party Opener]
Jun 5, 2022 22:24:15 GMT -5
Post by Baby Wessex d9b [earthling] on Jun 5, 2022 22:24:15 GMT -5
One of the uppermost terraces of the Training Center the Gamemakers ruled over a newly remodeled infinity pool. Probably it occupied a wide balcony outside of the District Four apartments but Lauren Kinkade, smarter than he looked, tried not to think too hard about that. What he did know was: it wasn't the Penthouse that scraped the bottom of the clouds and nor was it the depressing aquatic arena simulator housed in the basement. This pool, existing somewhere grandeur and squalor, suited him.
Though, it lacked a social media friendly touch. Surely someone could have scooped up some peonies and strewn them over the tile. As it was, because the pool would normally be used by tributes, the cabanas had been propped up for his benefit. They were flimsy things, simply several sticks, some gauze, and lounge chairs. He'd recruited several avoxes to wind the tulle tightly around his cabana so that it provided a maximum amount of shade. Nothing stole youth and beauty so effectively as bright sunshine.
So there he was, the most senior of Junior Gamemakers of the 91st Games, clothed shoulder to ankle in brightly patterned silk, sipping a coconut cocktail - definitely not a pina colada - in the shade. Meanwhile, his fellow Gamemakers frolicked. He thought he saw Zeus take a spinning dive off the elevated platform, but he couldn't be completely sure, as he'd cast aside his prescription shades. Whoever it was executed the move perfectly. "Bravo!"
And it might not have been Zeus.
It might have been one of the tributes.
They'd been informed by a butler that some trains had already arrived. The tributes had plenty of other things they could be doing but they'd all been told the Gamemakers were hosting a welcome gathering at the pool. One of them would take credit but the sad truth was they'd all been directed to the pool by the Council, who collectively seemed positively desperate to make the Games more palatable to the young populace. As though somehow a dive in cool, chlorinated water could atone for cold-bloded murder?
So, they'd all - from Gamemaker to tribute - been "invited" to the pool. Lauren assumed some of the teens would want to attend. And why not, he mused, shifting his focus away from the sparkling water to the cabana adjacent to his. Saber did not seem so concerned about the sun - he was oiled head to toe and positively shimmered - but that might be a side effect of not caring about his location at all. He'd hardly looked up from his tablet in the half hour they'd all been poolside.
Lauren drummed his fingers along his lower lip and finally chose bravery over safety, "you really don't have to work so hard all the time?" He said, or asked, but very certainly drew out every vowel. "It's just that it makes the rest of us look bad. So."
The creaky fire doors leading out onto the pool deck gave way once again. Tributes, by the looks of them. He'd never really thought about having tributes of his own, the way that his half-brother talked about. Why would he? He had far, far less experience than either Saber or Zeus and no interest at all in challenging or cementing his brother's legacy. The only reason he was huddled under a gauzy cabana in the Training Center this very moment was that his last name was a coin toss:
Sometimes it came up heads and he walked where he had no right to, drank for free and laughed as though sunshine emanated from his core.
And sometimes it came up tails and he had to pretend to give a shit about twenty-four teenagers while not staring too very hard at his fellow Gamemakers.
