Down at the Hotel Ritz (Nightie)

[Gorim]

Juliet Lawson stepped out of the car, dressed in a midnight blue evening gown, her hair up in a chinese style bun. She frowned slightly; not wanting to be here.

Peter, who'd driven her, said dryly, "Why the sour puss? You're going to be in a hotel bar with a bunch of drunken men for hours. You might get lucky." He smirked, but Juliet looked thoughtful.

"You think?" She asked hopefully. Peter rolled his eyes and drove off.

About an hour later, she was chatting up a rich CEO who's name she couldn't quite remember. Just another day in the life of a gang leader/law executive.

[nightsilence]

Therran entered the eloquent building, stepping in from what had now become a downpour outside. Of course, he wasn't wet at all. In fact his crisp black and white tuxedo was perfect in every way, not a thread out of place, not a drop of water anywhere. He grimaced slightly, such were the precautions taken when your father was a thriving businessman and you are his only son and heir to the company, soon to take over for your father. His father always seemed to send him as representative for the company to events such as these. Perhaps it was in preparation for the future, but Therran secretly wondered if it wasn't just because his father didn't want to have to endure the agony of people with their constant questions, praise, and false flattery. Everyone was trying to get ahead in this world, and making friends with those at the top was the way most people liked to accomplish that. Thankfully, Therran was good at dealing with people and could see to their needs and concerns without going too far, another reason for why his father might have sent Therran instead of just doing the job himself. Easing himself through the crowd and talking just enough to everyone who spoke that they were satisfied, Therran eventually made it to the center of the vast entry room. A waiter came by and offered him a drink which he accepted with the proper thanks and then took a sip of while glancing around the room, half-listening to the man, the Chief Executive of something or another, talking about a crisis that his company was going through. The amount of people there was amazing, making the very large hall seem crowded. Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and he was standing below the largest one, in the center. Everything seemed to have been polished for the event, and it all glimmered and shone brightly. 'We hold these type of events and yet there are starving Districts out there. It seems rather cruel,' he mused to himself. Then, noticing that the man had stopped talking Therran returned his gaze to him. "What should we do sir?" the man asked, almost pleadingly. "My advice is to get a new advertising agent," Therran said in answer, "If the people of the Capitol see good ads for your items, chances are they'll buy it." 'After all, they buy ever other useless thing in this world, why not yours too,' he finished the statement internally. The man began thanking Therran for his kind advice and Therran nodded and moved on. How many were left now? 'Probably at least twenty,' he thought grimly. Therran moved towards the edge of the room to look out over the guests. 'Best to speak with the ones you have to talk to and then leave,' he thought. Looking around, much to his surprise he spotted Juliet. 'Well this is interesting,' he thought, 'What's she doing in a place like this?' Casually, he began to head over to the general location of where Juliet was. True she wasn't on his list of contacts for this evening, but it wasn't as if he was restricted in talking to people. 'Of course, the greeting's going to be awkward,' Therran thought, knowing that it was only polite to kiss her hand. 'Hopefully she won't take offense.' He stood patiently behind Juliet, waiting as she finished speaking with someone who appeared to be the CEO of some large company. When the man bowed and left Therran circled around and stepped into his place. Taking her hand, he planted a light kiss on it before he spoke, "It's a pleasure to see you this evening Miss Juliet."

[Gorim]

Juliet had just made a very lucrative arrangement with the CEO when.... Therran showed up.

"It's a pleasure to see you this evening, Miss Juliet." He said, kissing her hand. Juliet's jaw clenched in something like horror and shock.

"Oh dear god, you're multiplying..." She said tightly. Peter would have been proud.

[nightsilence]

Therran quite nearly cringed at the stinging remark, apparently she wasn't very happy to see him. Well, he supposed he could forgive that, these parties could do that to anyone. She seemed somewhat torn between shocked that he was here, and horrified that he'd come to talk to her.

'She's really going to hate me now,' he thought, 'Just what I need making an enemy out of my friends.' Well, this wouldn't be easy to turn around, but he was going to try. Straightening up, he decided it would be best to ignore her previous comment and instead continue the conversation.

Lowering his voice slightly so as not to be heard, he spoke, "I take it you're not as pleased to see me as I am to see you. I apologize for that, but I thought you'd enjoy a break from listening to people talk on and on about business affairs as much as I would."

[Gorim]

Juliet sighed. "I'm not in a good mood and... what are you even doing here?" She asked, still reeling over seeing the kid she'd literally just allowed into her gang at a party.

[nightsilence]

Therran grinned, there was a reasonable question. "Yes, I suppose I should explain that, shouldn't I?" he remarked. "You see, my father is a rather...influential person in District 1. Of course, I already told you that before. Why I'm here does have to do with that though. Father sends me as the representative of our company to just about every event that we are expected to have someone at. He claims that it's practice for when I take over the company, but I really think that it's just because he doesn't want to have to endure the torture of these things any more than he has to."

He laughed slightly at that and then continued, "Of course, there are plenty of other reasons why he could have chosen me to be the representative aside from that. One other very likely reason is because I'm fairly good at giving people exactly what they need, while giving them the satisfaction of thinking that they're getting what they want. Call it being manipulative if you will, but that's what I was told to do, and that's exactly what I do."

Taking advantage of the pause in conversation to take a sip of his drink and looked Juliet over. She really did look very lovely, but that dress couldn't have been comfortable. He spoke again, this time out of curiosity, "And what might you be doing here Miss Juliet?"

[Gorim]

Juliet crossed her arms. "I have to make connections. You can't have a gang without... contributions." Her eyes lit up and she glanced at Therran. "Your dad wouldn't happen to be interested, would he....?"

[nightsilence]

"Hmmm..." Therran mused. Would his father give contributions to a gang? Probably not, but if Therran pulled a few strings... "He might...If I said things in just the right way." Looking pointedly at Juliet he said, "I don't exactly make it public that I'm a member of a gang, people wouldn't be very pleased, not to mention I'd probably be arrested. All the same, if I could think of a good enough reason for my father to donate money to some type of cause, I believe I'd be able to manage it."

[Gorim]

Juliet grinned wickedly.

"Good.... Good..." She knew putting him in the gang would pay off at... some point.

She looked around at the numerous tuxedoed men and elegantly dressed women.

"He wouldn't happen to be here right now, would he?"

[nightsilence]

Deciding not to mention the fact that he'd already explained this, Therran responded, "No, I'm afraid he didn't come this evening."

'She must not be paying very much attention to what I say,' he thought, slightly disappointed. 'Ah well, such is life.'

Juliet wasn't saying anything, so he let his mind and gaze wander about the room. He'd spoken to fifteen people about complaints that their companies had this evening, ten about why their companies should be sponsored by his father's company, and five about their own personal issues. That left about ten to twenty people left for him to speak with before the night ended. Well, he would leave it up to Juliet. Whenever she decided she was done speaking with him, he would submit himself to the torture of helping people once again.

Deciding to continue the conversation since all he was getting as a response was ever increasing silence Therran spoke again, "So... Do you come to these types of events often?" Casually musing to himself he said, "Not to mention you probably have some type of story that you use to get 'contributions' as you call them. I don't know of many people who donate to gangs unless they're members of the gangs themselves."

[Gorim]

Juliet squeaked and clapped her hand over his mouth.

"Shhh!" She hissed. "They think they're giving to a charity!" She was dead serious, "Fringe Organization" helped "children in need."

[nightsilence]

Therran wasn't expecting Juliet to react the way that she did, but when he thought about it, he knew why. It's not very intelligent to mention that type of thing when you're surrounded by a large group of people. He grimaced at his mistake and then moved Juliet's hand away from his mouth. "I see," he said, still dwelling on his mistake. "So your charity," he ventured, "Who exactly does it help? I should probably get the details for when I tell my father."

[Gorim]

Juliet turned to Therran and, with little air quotes, said, "'Children in need.'" She grinned wickedly. "I'm a horrible human being."

[nightsilence]

Smirking slightly Therran chuckled, "Well how many people aren't? Everyone has that side to them, some are just more apt at concealing it than others." Lowering his voice, with another grin he whispered to her, "Think about it, just how many of the people here do you think would actually be here now without doing something equally as bad if not worse than what you're doing?" It was amusing to him that his words were true. He knew for a fact that even his own father had done terrible things. That was the cost of rising to the top. Shaking his head, he said, "So, the point being, what you're doing can't be much worse than things that many other people do."