WHO| Temple and OPEN; Temple and Clint
WHAT| Temple hits the town and goes to a spa.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| All over the Capitol
WARNINGS| Temple, so mentions of rape may happen, although anything in-depth will get its own warning.

( Baby I'm speeding and red lights are run. )I. OPEN

When rabbits are cornered by predators, they freeze. Some theories say they go blind from fright, too terrified to even see the escapes before their noses. This would be an apt description for Temple's current state, with her best friend labeled a traitor and the Peacekeepers more than willing to drag her son into the political mess of Mentorhood, but the paralyzing, myopia-inducing fear only constricts her ability to think, not to party. Not to hit the town with a child leashed to an Avox or shopping bags laden with enough goods to dress an entire District for a week.

She's aggressively friendly if she meets you on the street, trailing her Avoxes behind her like a wedding train. Something about it is almost desperate, as if the doll-like facade that she so buries herself under is cracked and brittle and she's just trying to patch the leaks with her palms and her handshakes. She's liable to get your name wrong, since she's been drinking since six a.m. this morning, although these lapses in memory are the only indicator that she's that inebriated. Sometimes she just approaches people she knows and hands them a shopping bag of expensive wares, insisting that she was thinking of them as she was shopping and knew they had to have it. She does this especially to Tributes, although occasionally to other Staffers.

Sometimes she cruises the local restaurants and clubs eyeing up those she might be able to take to bed with her with no concerns, no witnesses. Few people know as many blind spots in the Capitol as Temple Stevens, adulterous to a fault but discrete enough to never have anything caught on tape. There are, of course, clips of her kissing, canoodling, placing her hands in places that daytime airings of the Games would censor, but never anything enough to terminate a marriage on principle. Besides, there are enough open marriages in the Capitol that no one ever bothers to truly look twice at a District hussy in Capitol clothes.

By the beginnings of most nights, she's bubbly, fashionable, charming and more than willing to buy friends and strangers alike a drink. By the end, she tends to be a bit more maudlin, still spending money haphazardly but less out of generosity and more as a prophylactic to feeling poor.

Find her for company, or she'll find you.


( I know you've had a rough time, but here I come to hijack you. )