All or Nothing // Kay

[charade]

CADENCE FORTISSIMO

Another year, and another arena. Mr. Kincade had managed to land another turn at the wheel. She supposed she might have congratulated him, but of course, the thought of purposefully hobnobbing with him repulsed her. There were far more interesting people to dole out a fraction of time for. Last year during the Quell, Innocent had approached her and engaged in small talk. She had humored him, because unlike most capitolites, he wasn't boring. And in that she had been pleasantly surprised. They had gone from dry banter to a battle of wits that had turned into a series of wagers about the tributes. 

There had been monthly meetups at the same place from that point on. It was...nice to have an intellectual equal. Or the closest thing to it, at least. And so they had talked and dithered on about things at each meeting. She learned about the way the pit he worked at was run, and though she didn't think that avoxes had nearly enough to offer as tributes, knowing that someone out there still got a use out of retired mutts was interesting.  But that was all behind her now, with the seventy-first bloodbath only minutes away there was more to consider. 

Cadence slid carefully into a seat at their arranged meeting place, the same table they used every month. Innocent was already there. "I do believe you owe me for district one. Neither tribute is from a well known career family." Just one of the many bets they had made about the games before it had commenced. The rest of the wagers would be doled out accordingly once the bloodbath had started, but that wouldn't be for another week. Still, she had to admit internally that she derived pleasure from these meetups. It was so hard to find someone whose thought process was anywhere near hers. It didn't hurt that Innocent Fitztucker had a roguish charm going for him either. 

She grinned, batting her eyes coquettishley as the waiter arrived with their drinks.  Innocent must have ordered them before hand. Easy enough. She got the same thing every time. A tonic water flavored with vanilla and mint. She'd be keeping an eye on him.  Fitz might have had a head for numbers, but she didn't he grasped what it meant to be a gamemaker. The planning that went into it. True, she had decided to refocus on genetics and mutt designing rather than deal with tributes and numbers, but he had never even been where she had.  

After sipping daintily at the drink, she moved the little stirring spoon around in slow circular motions with a playful smirk and kept her eyes on him like a hawk watching a mouse. "Perhaps you'll do better in the bloodbath. Now pay up."

table coding (c) ghosty

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Innocent Fitztucker

Their meetings had quickly become his favorite outing every month. Scheduling the time away was a bit of a challenge, but despite Cadence's busy schedule, she always found a way to accommodate him on his too-few-and-far-between days off from the pits. He had thought, during one of their first luncheons, to bring her flowers or some other symbol that he intended to court her, not merely be a colleague. But he'd quickly deduced that wouldn't have flattered her, and he also had no interest in botany.

So instead he brought her data. Somewhere along the way, she had sorted out his true passion - his drug and vice. He still wasn't sure how that had happened, but he supposed that's why he was the Pit Master and she the Gamemaker: she knew how to ascertain the one thing a person wanted more than anything else. With that, you could motivate someone to do anything: to steal a potentially booby-trapped wagon, to fight an overwhelming scorpion mutt, to kill. Though she hadn't quite convinced him to do any of those three, he had abandoned most of his other distractions in favor of spending time with her.

He looked up from his ticking wrist watch to see her striding towards him. He stood, even as she sat, clutching his napkin with both hands to keep from reaching out. He'd never done anything more than shake her hand. Fortune favored the bold, he always told his Avoxes. He intended to put that advice into practice, but she beat him to the punch. "I do believe you owe me for district one. Neither tribute is from a well known career family."

His whiskers - grown out in just a few days - twitched as he smiled. "A pity, that, but you're right of course. Do you think they may make something of themselves?" From the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket, he drew a small black ledger. He tallied the newest bet, pleased and simultaneously displeased to discover the size of the debt he already owed Cadence. "Perhaps you'll do better in the bloodbath. Now pay up."

Fitz chuckled even as he reached for his espresso. He twisted lemon over the tiny cup, knowing Cadence would wait as he took the first stimulating sip. Just the taste of it cleared his head, forced his focused green eyes to hers. "Some might call the amount I owe you unseemly," he said, his voice heavy with teasing. "Perhaps I ought to wait and make some of my debt back before we settle our accounts. I'm positive I've got the Bloodbath death order pegged, especially since I happened to run across your former Co-Gamemaker this morning." He'd thought to push her more, but instead paused to study her face. No, the cool indifference she displayed towards Glamour Kinkade in their interviews was authentic, not an act.

He smiled long and slow. "Then again, perhaps he's not as smart as he wants people to think he is."

[charade]

CADENCE FORTISSIMO

Cadence watched him carefully through half-lidded eyes. It appeared that he was trying to stroke her ego by bashing the man that had been both her greatest ally and her most constant source of irritation. If so, it was working. Not that she was about to admit that. There was the chance that he was planning to turn this comment around on her though, so, it paid to be cautious. "I have my eye on Ruth. The females from one have had a greater tendency to be memorable over the years." She then shrugged neutrally. "If I were to describe Mr.Kincade to my fullest satisfaction, the adjectives would fill a thesaurus. Suffice to say, he is a creature of emotion given to following whatever feels best at any spur of the moment."

After a moment, she sloshed her drink around with a flick of her wrist and stared into its depths thoughtfully."Given that I am on the opposite end of the spectrum and find my actions guided by logic, I suppose that's why the sixty-seventh worked out the way it did." She left it up to Fitz to determine what exactly she meant by that, as she was not going to continue the topic lest it dip into the territory of revealing her grudging realization that despite their differences they had made a rather good team. Thankfully the screens blared with the anthem soon afterwards, and the battle of bets was to begin in earnest.

Then again...perhaps not. she thought morosely as tribute after tribute fled the scene intact.

Had she expected an uneventful bloodbath? Yes. Had she expected it to end with a single cannon? Not entirely, but she should have expected it given the quell.

She had warned Glamour before, that the trend in bloodbath deaths was going lower and lower every year, That unless there was more incentive (whether whip or carrot) for tributes to stay and fight, it would eventually result in a bloodless bath. The quell the previous year had but a paltry two deaths, and for this one to have one? And one that had such good odds considering the showing district seven had been putting forth in the last few years?

Given that, she couldn't help but think that she had dodged the proverbial bullet. Better to be a one hit wonder then to slowly degrade in the public eye over time. She could only imagine what might happen to the erstwhile gamemakers if no further tributes died on the first day; they'd have to pull out all the stops to keep the populace's attention, and that was not even counting the pressure to see a good victor rise to the top; and in Cadence's estimation, there hadn't been a good victor in the last few years. Not since Leon Krigel, as careers were the only acceptable victors in her mind, anything else was a fluke, though statistically speaking, non career victors appeared rather frequently. District five? District eleven? Twice? In a row?

Though she was internally annoyed at the tributes for the boring display, she turned to Fitz and offered him a sardonic yet coy smile. "Well. It appears we both lose for betting on district seven, but I can't help but notice that my prediction about the trend in bloodbaths waning in excitement was correct as I predicted four deaths or less." With that, the confidence that she oozed came slithering back. "My, my, and you had that list all. Worked. Out." The last three words were accompanied by three full rotations of her index finger around the rim of her glass.

"I suppose I'm willing to extend that list's order to the rest of day one." she said with an implied air of nonchalance.

"Call me...curious."

table coding (c) ghosty