the chocolate war [damson's gift to vasco]

Damson Lorazain
Capitol High Council liaison for District Eleven

The assignments could've gone worse, I suppose. Part of me is a little disappointed I didn't get District Two, with all its rugged charm - and if I had to admit, their new mayor Octavia was really someone to swoon over, with that badass demeanor of hers - but I guess I knew that spot was always gonna go to one of those former Gamemakers, so it's not like I really begrudged Cadence for taking the spot. And to be honest, Eleven was pretty low down my list of what I would've picked if they gave me the choice. Especially now. The Bureau told us all that travel was safe again, after those lockdowns ended, but nobody really trusts in that yet, not for the lower districts.

Well, at least exotic and dangerous was a hell of a lot better than boring and also dangerous, and I really didn't envy Xena and Azazel for their assignments to sad looking grey districts with sad looking grey people, like the only life you ever got from them was when they were rioting in the streets or something. Not that all that gloominess doesn't just exactly suit Azazel.

And it wasn't like I had to visit them right away. I'd have plenty of time to call up this Vasco guy, chat with him, get to know a few things about him and his district before I head over. But the first order of business for today was to figure out a gift for an emissary to deliver to him at his inauguration.

With my connections, of course, it didn't take long to narrow my options down to a list of gourmet small-batch shops along Style Street. There was the Wine Barrel, with its variety of reds and rosés and whites ranging from casual dinner wines to special-reserve vintage bottles with price tags suitable for an executives' feast; the tea shop cafe where you could spend a relaxing weekend afternoon sipping delicately flavored green teas from cups the size of a pool ball - they offered a few rather nice gift baskets filled with assorted biscuits and loose-leaf teas in pretty metal tins; one of my favorite chocolatiers that was offering a special this week on their nine-pack boxes of chocolate truffles.

Nine-packs, hmm... aha!

There'd been nine Izar tributes, hadn't there? This would be the perfect gift for Vasco Izar, one chocolate for each of his relatives that they had offered to us. I enter the shop, scanning the hundreds of choices behind the counter in delight - perhaps they could be shaped like district tokens? No, not quite... not recognizable enough, for one, and besides they didn't even all have tokens. The only one that was, really, was that black star that the infamous Iago had worn both in life and as that zombie his cousin had to kill.

Well, that settled it.

"Nine of these, please." I wave the clerk down, pointing at an array of dark chocolate stars, the cut-open sample at the front oozing with chocolate ganache and a deep, almost blood red raspberry filling. "And could I get that in one of these gift boxes, with the bow tied across the top?"

I couldn't help smiling to myself as the clerk set the chocolates into the box and wrapped it all up, readying it for its journey to District Eleven. It couldn't have been a better symbol if I'd tried - besides being the shape of the mayors' family's tokens, the chocolate beans had been the fruit of the laborers of Eleven, shipped to the Capitol to be processed with our chocolatiers' impeccable expertise into a perfect luxuriously rich smoothness of far higher quality than anything they had in their district. My favorite kind of demonstration - the tasty kind - of how the Capitol improves on the raw potential of the districts.

I really do hope Vasco's the sort of man who can appreciate fine chocolate.