19th Design [video]

[threadthefire]

[Have a nice, interior shot of a very full passionné and a swivel to a very happy Cinna, standing on the stairs to the second floor.]

Well, I'll certainly say this is a nice way to cap off that week. Full house all around, my reputation must precede me.

If there's anyone here that would like to say hello, I'll be here at the shop, come on by.

[ooc: Anything goes, just don't tell him he's supposed to be played by Lenny Kravtiz.]

Comments

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ Portia has no idea that Cinna has been speaking to Seneca Crane, though did she know that would be something else to contend with, concerning their location and what it means in correlation with where they come from. She follows him easily, her frame naturally giving way to his the fashion in which a dance is led - not the steps but a similar fluidity that comes of often sharing the same space. ]

Almost a year. [ She repeats under her breath and watches him for some sign of a joke and when she doesn't see one she simply stays quiet, waiting until they reach his office quarters. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[He opens the door for her with a slight flourish.]

Welcome, to my home away from home. Personal workspace and office.

[Inside is everything she would expect, dress forms, bolts a fabric semi-neatly arranged on racks, bits and pieces of finished products and a small rack of what will be personally-adjusted pieces.]

Can I order you something from the cafe downstairs? They'll bring it right up.

[He's already removed his jacket, leaving just the dark vest and slacks.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

Very you. This entire place is.

[ Predictably perhaps, Portia goes straight to the to-be-adjusted pieces, head tilting as she examines one of them with careful eyes and fingers. ]

I'm not very hungry. More...confused, to be honest. [ Her hand pauses on the cloth and she turns back to face him again, brows lifted. ] Almost a year. Cinna, what is this place?

Why hadn't I noticed you were missing?

[ Her eyes ask without her voice needing to: is this some trick of the Capitol?

Do they know? ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, when I am eventually returned, it will be to the exact moment I was taken and with no memory of having been here.

[He runs a hand through his normally perfectly groomed hair.]

This place is... a way station. People are bought here, from different... worlds even, and we live. As best we can until we're returned. And amazingly enough, the bloody Capitol has nothing to do with it.

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ For a long while she just stares at him. Cinna sounds perfectly serious and she's worked with him long enough to know how to tell otherwise, but still she lifts a hand to her forehead, and then walks over, lifting her other hand to do the same to his. No temperature. ]

You're telling the truth, insofar as you know it. Aren't you.

[ The reason it doesn't sound like a question is because Portia has already more or less decided to believe him. It's hard not to. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[He takes the hand and presses a kiss to the knuckles.]

As serious as a heart attack, as people have said here. It's what I've been told by people I've come to trust. [And perhaps even love. But that's not something he's looking at too closely.]

The Capitol has no power here. Katniss and Peeta are both here, as is Finnick Odair and little Rue... and here they're all free of it. No Games. No one here to make them do anything but what they'd like to do. [And she's probably known him long enough to recognize true joy in his eyes at that thought.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ In Cinna's eyes Portia sees a sentiment, but it's more than that; as with most things concerning Cinna, what she observes is a vision. She can see as clearly as if he had told her, that idea of a world where this is true, not some other place but the world they know, a Panem not shackled to strange, affluently barbaric priorities. Where children die because of the politics in play and the survivors aren't much better off; she thinks of Finnick Odair and it's only the kiss to her hand that keeps her from closing her eyes against the thought. They're all too young for this, she has always thought - the children, yes, but even them - Cinna and her.

Maybe everyone who has a glimmer of interest in things functioning some other way, a better way.

Her smile is still saturated with other thoughts, not heavy but palpably at work, her mind turning as she adjusts her hand inside of his. ]

This really is a kind of dream then.

[ She wouldn't insult him by meaning 'literally', but in that abstract sense, the idyllic sort? She means it very much. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

It is.

[He gives her hand a squeeze before releasing it to go look out his windows.]

It has it's little nightmares to be true, if you're here longer than two days I'll give you all the details, but you may not be here that long. That said, you should come to dinner. I'll see if I can track down Katniss, drag Peeta out of the bakery.

[He pauses, snickering as he looks back at her.] Finnick might be a bit difficult, he gets caught up in the crowds. [Or, if there's grace in this world, he'll have Annie with him for the weekend again. He deserves that much at least.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ Her gaze follows his movement, and she rests her lowered hand on the edge of the main desk, her head tilting slightly. ]

In a place where he doesn't have to be trapped in a trade any more than another set of Games...I'm surprised he's still doing that.

[ She pauses and then shakes her head, laughs a little quietly at herself. ] Well, no I'm not. He's good at it and he likes it. Maybe it's better here. He can make whatever he likes.

[ At the mention of Finnick again she arches a brow and walks over to stand at Cinna's side. They have often been like this, whether watching fires or at parties where the smiles never seemed to meet the guests' eyes. ] Is he expecting someone?

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

He's brilliant at it, and makes a good living, supports Finnick, but you didn't hear that from me.

[He smirks, giving her a wink. After all, imagining a young man like Peeta supporting Finnick Odair is amusing on any number of levels.]

He and I support all of them I guess. Katniss, Rue as well... But Finnick, if he's lucky, there's someone from home that will be able to spend time with him these next two days.

[And he trails off, wondering how to ask when, exactly Portia was from. How much does she know? What have they been trusting each other with? Finally, he decides to just ask it.]

What's the last thing that happened to you, Portia, when are you from?

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ His wink is something she laughs lightly at, in good nature, and the rest she listens to and garners what she can from the bit about Finnick. She has her guesses but it doesn't seem like her business to say it out loud, so she doesn't, instead pausing when Cinna asks her his own question.

Her brow pinches briefly before she says, with some care: ]

Well. It was the Victory Tour.

[ But somehow that doesn't seem important because she quickly gleans a question for him, asks it: ]

What about you?

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[He almost flinches, the Tour feels like a lifetime ago. A hopeful lifetime when he could still hold onto the idea, however thin, that Katniss and Peeta had survived, that they would still have full lives ahead of themselves.]

After. In the Capitol for the Quell.

[And what little mirth he'd had in his voice drains out and is replaced with a hardness she may not be as familiar with. A lot changed between the Tour and the Quell, including him and what he's willing to sacrifice.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ Her throat closes for a second. A shift takes place in Cinna, evident in him though he doesn't have to say anything else for her to sense the other underlying difficulty as well. She just doesn't know the direct source and it bothers her - as it should. They are partners in what they do, who they tried to protect by making them memorable - desirable not just aesthetically but in story.

The way Cinna looks now, she can't explain it but her gut wrenches like all that's fallen apart and she reaches a hand out to encircle his wrist. ]

What's the part you're not telling me? I'll find out eventually anyway.

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[He can say it from memory, it's burned that deeply into him.]

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

[Cinna slowly turns to face her, the pain written on his face.]

He sends them back, Portia. The bastard made it so Katniss and Peeta go back into the Arena. Again. Finnick has to go as well.

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ There is a long moment here where Portia thinks she can't breathe and it's stranger than expecting it, to realize the sinking feeling from her heart to her stomach was right; everything really does fall apart. Though it may be telling of Portia that her first thought is: well then we have to protect them again, as much as we can. Or can't we? She thinks about how this has been - will be - fixed and how it wouldn't be more to just fix it a little further, to make sure the Girl on Fire dies, maybe Peeta too. She feels sick, not for the first time with their less than grand Capitol, with their merciless so-called leader.

He'd do this to children. More than once. Of course he would. Yet she's appalled as if she never could have guessed and that hurts too.

She thinks: and of course adults can't volunteer. There is no protection.

Just the donations, just the desire of others to see you live.

Also not for the first time, she thinks several heavily heretical thoughts about the President but it sucks itself away in an instant when she focuses on Cinna's face. The hardened off feeling there, something like pain and a little bit of other things too, they make him seem so singular and destined that it's frightening in some ways. One never wants that kind of role for someone one considers a friend; it never ends well, not in this kind of life, she thinks but they can't take it back.

And Cinna's not the type to retreat either, once committed. Appropriately though, neither is Portia.

The hand circling Cinna's wrist finds his palm and then laces his fingers with hers, then tightens almost too much, a tension running its line from her to him before she lets it go only to raise her hand to his face. ]

I'm so sorry.

[ There sometimes doesn't seem to be anything else that can be said. She then withdraws her hand, they having a casual nearness of companions but she never meaning to overstep, for affection or concern to become an obligation. They should just be honest. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[Three small words to encompass so much emotion, so many disappointments. He's grateful that she's here, she who has benefited and sacrificed the same things he has, for many of the same reasons. Their guilt at being the lucky ones, the ones outside the arena, the ones who only have to watch the Games play out, their disgust at the way their world is run and the stubborn determination to do what they can to help those who have no power to help themselves.]

But I have to tell you, Portia, dear, we're really outdoing ourselves this time.

[But he doesn't say anything about the escape plans. He knows he's done his part, making the population see the cruelty of a bride ripped from her groom, of a simple and honest girl forced to kill those she loves. But he's not certain of Portia's. If she was told, if she's involved and if so, will that be enough to save her when all is said and done.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ The hand previously at the side of Cinna's face rests now at the back of her own neck, her teeth catching on her lower lip as she considers the predicament in the silence only to blink and half smile at Cinna's words. She has no doubt that he has put his all into this unprecedented reprise of a bloodbath with old contenders, and she hopes she's giving Peeta as much in tandem. Swallowing an uncomfortable feeling in her throat, she nods absently before sharpening her focus again. ]

I don't doubt that. How could we do less?

[ Her smile is a little wider this time, not broad by any means but more heartfelt - that of someone who empathizes if from her own differing vantage. No two views are precisely the same even if they are on the same side. No two people understand this perhaps as well as they do. It's part of what makes it such a natural synthesis of work - their collaborative design and intent. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

They don't know. Katniss and Peeta. They're from after the Tour but before... the announcement of the Quell.

[He looks at her, knowing he doesn't need to ask her not to say anything, why would she? She knows, as well as he what the cost of their peace is, and how dear it must be to them in this place.]

Finnick actually came here from the Arena, so he's ahead of me, even.

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

[ Her lips press thin, knowing not to say anything about said Quell to the District 12 Tributes and yet feeling her mind reel at the thought of Finnick being so far ahead.

She can't help but wonder: do you know how we are?

It's selfish. The children have it so much worse but it would be a lie to say she doesn't long to know that Cinna makes it out of this too, maybe even herself. But she knows a too good to be true story when it's written, how it doesn't actually happen that way. She won't ask any more than she'll tell. ]

I think I'll be a rather boring dinner guest. I'm not feeling very curious about anything.

[ Blatant lie and her lilting tone implies it, something she knows Cinna will pick up on but it also says this: I won't say anything - whatever they have here, whatever you have here, I want you to be able to keep it while you can.

It may be the only time it's possible, she thinks, and then hates her own mind and heart for being presupposed to such darker conclusions. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm certain we can fins things to talk about.

[He moves towards his desk and picks up the phone. They need to move onto lighter subjects, now that the essentials are out of the way.]

Let me call for some tea at least and I can tell you more about this place until dinner. Unless you've other plans? I shouldn't keep you if there are others you'd like to see?

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

I'll see Peeta later.

With that on the schedule, I'm in no hurry to go elsewhere. And tea sounds lovely.

[ With a quiet grace she moves to lean slightly against his desk, eying the things on top of it and identifying each as Cinna in their own specific ways. It's comforting to know some truths just don't change, no matter what happens, even as much as they are the underground matches for a bigger sort of revolution. Personal constancy is rather different.

Peeta has that.

Not so much Katniss, though Portia thinks if Katniss would let him, Peeta could give her that too. He'd give her anything.

And this Portia knows too. ]

[threadthefire.livejournal.com]

[He places the order quickly, apparent that it's something he does quite often. After that, he pulls up an additional chair for Portia to take, as perfect a host as he could be under the circumstances as he notes her looking at his work.]

Any feedback? It's been awhile since I've been able to have your input in my work.

[Business. It's safe to talk about business without everything else hanging over his head. If he can make these days, or however long she's here, a little calmer, a little easier than home, it will be worth anything.]

[clothiers.livejournal.com]

Your work is always impeccable. Though I'll admit some of these...have a different undertone than your usual designs.

Not that that's a bad thing. I like this one in particular.

[ She lets her fingertip hover over a clean silhouette blocked out on the paper, a dark take on a sapphire maybe judging by the color with an open back and an interesting cross-layer in the front. The gown could easily be too heavy but it's not; Cinna's handiwork is always toeing that line. Portia's is a bit more predictable but if he is the constant changing factor of mad genius, then maybe Portia is the control. It's hard to put these in cut and dry terms of course; they're people, not numbers, whatever their work. ]

It could be shorter. [ An evening gown but she thinks depending on the fabric it's something that at just above the knee would make an elegant daywear instead. ]