etcircenses: (Default)
Panem Events ([personal profile] etcircenses) wrote in [community profile] thecapitol2013-12-15 06:36 am

The Crowning of Enjolras

WHO| All Tributes and Victor, plus a few Capitol guests
WHAT| The Crowning of Enjolras
WHERE| The Tribute Center
WHEN| A few weeks after the end of the Arena
WARNINGS| Forced medical experimentation, needles.

The atmosphere surrounding the Crowning is both tense and secretive. The style teams flutter around listlessly, having received no information from which to draft their designs. Newspapers take bets on when it will be announced where the Crowning is being held, descending into grousing when no press release is given. Peacekeepers pour in and out of the Tribute Center, accompanied by scientists who occasionally pull Tributes aside and look at the veins in their elbows. Even the Avoxes seem jumpier than usual.

Aside from the Tribute Center's new giant marble statute of a nude Enjolras, posed like the famed David, one could almost forget the party is supposed to be celebratory.

When the day arrives, the Escorts and their assistants don't lead the Tributes to their style teams to be gussied instead. Instead, they hush the Tributes and bring them to their bedrooms, where a Peacekeeper, a white-coated citizen and several Avoxes await them. The Escorts instruct the Tributes to lay down in their bed and close their eyes, and a needle is inserted into their arms that the Escorts insist will 'take them to the party'. It's soon followed by a series of sensors taped to the forehead.

Just relax, the Escorts say, and they do their very best to make sure their Tributes feel minimal anxiety. If the Tributes resist too much, more Peacekeepers are called in, and the Tributes are forced into submission.

The first effect is a sort of paralysis - not the terrifying inability to move, but a signal to the brain that says why move? Moving is so much effort. It's quickly followed by drowsiness, and then a chill that radiates from the needle into the body, and finally, unconsciousness.

And that is when the party begins. The Tributes, now dressed in luxurious 1830's French clothing of a quality beyond even what their Stylists could manage, wake up in the front row of a large stone theater setting reminiscent of, simultaneously, Greek and French architecture. The floor of the theater is filled with buffets of every imaginable sort of food. Rose petals fall from the sky, which displays a sunset worthy of award-winning photography.

For his part, Enjolras sits in a throne made of books on the ring of the amphitheater, flanked by Marius, Cosette, Eponine, and bizarrely enough Venus Dee Milo and Ellie, seated on lush pillows and carpets made of dinosaur skin (with the heads comically attached and eyes lolling).

"Welcome, welcome, our Tributes and Mentors, to the first ever somnofestival, sponsored by Hypnogogia!" Caesar Flickerman, noted talkshow host and Games presenter, appears in a fabulous sequined toga in the center of the amphitheater. He doesn't need a microphone; the acoustics here are flawless. "And congratulations to our Victor! Let us hear it for Enjolras!"

He awaits applause.

"As you may have noticed, you're inside a shared dream, due to the just fantastic technology from the Capitol and certain, ah, biological contributions from our dear favorite Aunamee." He holds a hand out and gestures to Aunamee, anticipating wild applause. "We thought that for our most philosophical Victor yet, we should celebrate in a way that's a little bit…cerebral."

Caesar laughs and gestures at all the food, then puts a cheeky finger to his lips. "By all means, enjoy yourselves. Even the most indulgent desserts here won't show up on your hips tomorrow. The party only last three hours, so you might as well get started!"

He vanishes into thin air, leaving the Tributes to celebrate. Occasionally, the Tributes will hear voices in their heads - chatter from the Peacekeeper and scientist and Escort still in their room, in the waking world. Otherwise, this is a party like any other, if somewhat surreal in nature.

-/-

The party begins the same way for all the Tributes. For an unlucky few, however, it soon diverges as they come under an unfortunate glitch in the system.

They'll look around and find only a handful of their fellow Tributes around them. The sky, rather than being a magnificent splay of color, is now blank white, and yet the lighting in the theater seems dim. A sense of panic, detached from any conscious thoughts, surges forth in them like the tide.

For them, this isn't a shared dream. This is a shared nightmare.
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (smirk)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-02-19 09:39 am (UTC)(link)
"Sounds... fun." Ian raised an eyebrow, "Not that here's really any better, but at least there's alcohol and actual food." He grinned, "I hear the stuff on TV is shit though."
twoklimmen: (What have you found?)

laaatest

[personal profile] twoklimmen 2014-02-19 08:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Sigma is ready to apologize for such an unfair hint, but then cracks a grin as Cuthbert finally falls on the right track. See? He pulled it off, regardless.

"Yes. That is correct." He waits for his answer.
tis_allgood: (Must be wicked to deserve such pain)

[personal profile] tis_allgood 2014-02-20 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
Cuthbert looks so smug when he hears that. He knows who this is now and he can hardly wait to reveal it.

"Well then, Sai, I would say you are a man called Sigma. And I never would have guessed without your hints, which is a terrible shame and testament to my skills slipping."

He shakes his head at his own slow detective skills, but it's mostly in jest.

"I must say, well played, Sai. You are very well disguised."
tis_allgood: (Default)

[personal profile] tis_allgood 2014-02-20 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
"That is a subject which doesn't always ring happy, I'm afraid. Things are difficult, and sometimes it seems the world is going to simply fray away at the edges and unravel like an old blanket. But we will take what little joys we can until it does. I live in the greatest city in all of Inworld and no mistake. We still have electric lights that work! I know it's not much compared to this place. I've seen more riches thrown away here as useless than I could see in a lifetime back home. Might as well enjoy what I have while I can."

He stares wistfully out toward the rest of the party.
undercoverprincess: (Default)

[personal profile] undercoverprincess 2014-02-20 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
"So kind of like Pope-- whoa, calm down girlfriend!" Cindy reached out to make sure her friend didn't go down along with the platter. "Don't want people to think you can't hold your liquor." Jesus, but sometimes she was just on the wrong side of crazy.

And by wrong side, it meant 'everyone is going to think you're a fucking lush' side. If Cindy didn't know her better then that, she would have thought the same thing too, just looking at them now.

"Captain Carrot and Cats, and Grey Ghost. I think that's a pretty good group right there." Cindy shook her head and laughed. "God, what a hot mess that would be."
mannersmatter: (oh shit/upset)

[personal profile] mannersmatter 2014-02-20 07:35 am (UTC)(link)
"It's...what I pick the names from."

This wasn't anything from Sandy's world. This was something Effie was all too familiar with. Slowly, she walked closer. There would be no way out of this room, she knew. Not until she had pulled the right name out.

Whose name?
justoutrunyou: (Ho shit time to run!)

[personal profile] justoutrunyou 2014-02-20 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
"Names? What names?" Oddly enough Sandy was feeling more concerned about this new development then she had felt when hiding from the monsters before.

Her eyes went wide as the pieces clicked together and she took a sharp short breath "Tributes names? District Twelve?" Her voice fell into a worried hush like her guess might cause the bowl to explode.
pythianjudgment: (pic#7427729)

[personal profile] pythianjudgment 2014-02-20 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"Dream bubbles," she says, letting go of his hair--and smoothing the bit she was holding back into place.

"That was how we talked with the dead, like I mentioned before. The people we took over from? I don't know how it worked, just that... When we went to sleep, we didn't dream. We entered dream bubbles--distortions outside of the Void, enclosed worlds that our minds created. Other dreamers could talk to us and visit us, too, but they would disappear if they woke up. The dead ones never disappeared."

"If there was more than one person, the dream bubbles could blend into each other at the edges. That got pretty disorienting. It was hard figuring out where you were going, and who's dream you were in. One minute I was in my tree on Alternia, and the next I was walking on a tree limb that somehow reached onto the moon." She shrugs, as if that spatial distortion was nothing major.
revvinguptheharley: (Default)

[personal profile] revvinguptheharley 2014-02-20 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"There would be fur flying." Harley teased leaning into Cindy and then burst out into fresh giggles "And just think, every arena could have musical numbers that get interrupted by the tributes who are too serious to play along. In the middle of a song someone just runs up and POW! One cat down."

She seemed to mellow out, but it seemed tonight Harley could care less about what the other party goers thought of her.
carnagecarnival: (Tonight we watch the rope.)

[personal profile] carnagecarnival 2014-02-20 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
A place of wait before Shangri-La proper? He could recall vaguer, more cryptic bits of text and scripture that might suggest such. A place of waiting and lingering before the rowdy raucous proper came to be, before the minstrels began their rise. Until now though, there'd never been anything definitive. (The faith, of course, didn't need definitive. That's why it was motherfucking called "Faith".) It could spin a nug right off the torso-piece it up and could.

"DREAM BUBBLES," He repeats aloud, committing the word to memory. "Won't lie, sister; sounds of a sort of miracle," He adds, thinking of climbing a tree limb to a moon. A whole world of dreams. What could he do in that? What all couldn't he up and do?

As he thinks that, as he steps in a side shuffle, the floor in the dream where he stands goes purple. It fades back to it's normal hue after a moment of pause. Then the same happens again when he steps back. This ain't even in his control. If he had voodoo, it could be.

"SO YOU COULD FIND ME," He blurts without thinking. He tries to recover, speaking casually as he can. "Or, my motherfucking elder self I up and mean. YOU COULD ALL HAVE UP AND FOUND FOR HIM, IN POTENTIAL. Since I shall make like to be dead by then. AND YOU A SIGHTSEER OF SUCH THINGS."
Edited 2014-02-20 22:51 (UTC)
dragoon_pride: (k)

[personal profile] dragoon_pride 2014-02-21 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Kain was definitely starting to gather that there weren't going to be any easy or pleasant answers to anything he wanted to know. He sighed, glancing around the room.

"How often do they send us out there?" He'd certainly like to prepare himself if they're bound to go straight from his party to the next arena.
onlyimmune: (hey awesome!)

[personal profile] onlyimmune 2014-02-21 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
She did as he suggested, grabbing her skirts with one hand so they didn't trip her up, and then glanced up.

"Alright. Ready? One, Two, Three--"
onlyimmune: (disappointed)

[personal profile] onlyimmune 2014-02-21 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Guardians?" She looked away and kind of shrugged. "... Sort of. Not like, all the time. My mom died pretty much right after I was born. Marlene kind of took care of me, shoving me into school, and then shoving me out the door with strangers..."

She drew a breath, offered a smile. "But then they weren't strangers anymore. You know?"
knifewithnoname: (pondering)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2014-02-21 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Pruna nodded, "Who did Marlene be being?" She knew what school was from what Mindy had said.

"Well they would no be being strangers if you did be meeting them." She agreed.
onlyimmune: (listening)

[personal profile] onlyimmune 2014-02-22 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
"Marlene was a friend of my mom's," Ellie said, smiling slightly, if sadly. "She uh - she was a leader. Of this band called The Fireflies. Follow the light, and all that. But I haven't seen her for a long time."
knifewithnoname: (thinking)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2014-02-22 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
Pruna wrinkled her nose at that, follow the light indeed. Stupid light followers, she didn't like this Marlene person at all, even if she had only just heard of her.

"Did you be joining her group?"
mannersmatter: (pretty puppet)

[personal profile] mannersmatter 2014-02-22 06:38 am (UTC)(link)
Effie nodded silently, swallowing hard.

"Usually theirs two. One for boys, and one for girls. I always take the ladies names first. It seemed with that the boys come in after them." She was talking on autopilot as she stepped on to the platform an stopping in front of the huge glass bowl.
justoutrunyou: (Hold on!)

[personal profile] justoutrunyou 2014-02-22 06:41 am (UTC)(link)
Sandy lurched forward like she'd only just woken up and seized the sleeve of Effie's blouse.

"You don't have to do this anymore! Never again we can just...we'll run! Back through the door..." But of course the door they'd come through was gone.
mannersmatter: (sobbing//can't handle this)

[personal profile] mannersmatter 2014-02-22 06:45 am (UTC)(link)
Effie hesitated, looking at Sandy, before shaking her head.

She knew they weren't getting out of here until she had looked at those names. It was how this always went.

With a shaky hand, she plucked out the first name and opened it. Tears stung her eyes.

The paper said Cassandra Marko.

She quickly tossed it away, grabbing another. Pruna. Katniss. Peeta. Haymitch. Her siblings. Her friends.
justoutrunyou: (Scared eyes)

[personal profile] justoutrunyou 2014-02-22 06:47 am (UTC)(link)
The papers flew and though this was nothing like Sandy's own nightmares she was overcome with horror and sadness watching Effie tear through the bowl and pluck out paper after paper.

Was this what Effie used the tea to hide from?
shinyisfalse: (we could have it worse)

[personal profile] shinyisfalse 2014-02-23 06:47 am (UTC)(link)
It was funny, because as he said it, Peeta didn't feel anything. Not hurt, definitely, but also not amusement. He wasn't mad, far from it. It was just... it was funny, in the way that things aren't really funny.

But he knew he'd thought the same thing, when he was brought here as tribute. Some things didn't change.

"It's okay, I understand." Peeta smiled. "Actually, Cinna is Katniss' stylist. My partner. And Effie is our escort, they're part of the District 12 team." They were a team. Missing one player, but a team.

"I was part of the pair that won the last game, before you guys were brought here." I was the reason why you were brought here. "It's my first time being a mentor... not really my first time, now, but sort of. First year, anyway."
acroodawakening: (019)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-02-23 07:12 am (UTC)(link)
He knew Katniss. They'd had their strange moment of peace and silence where she'd had every reason to kill him and all the opportunity and yet hadn't. He also knew Effie, who'd still been kind when he'd thrown up on her shoes. And Cinna had helped him amidst his panic when his own stylists had reduced him to a state of terror. So far, every one of the District 12 team had shown him kindness and mercy, so it was easy to see that Peeta might not be so different from them.

"Before we came along, they took you from home, too, right? Back when - back when people didn't come back."

He was young. Guy had figured out young was younger here than it was back home and he had to be a few years younger than he was to start with. His features softened from their former suspicion to the kind of look only a parent could give.

"I'm probably not much older than you but it...it works differently here. We don't live very long back home so when I was your age I wasn't a kid and I hadn't been for a long time. I know here, it's different, that you are."

Even when they didn't live longer, it seemed like when they actually got to eat they were supposed to.

To be a kid stuck in all that, when death was real...

He couldn't look at him and see him as the enemy if he'd been forced into that, despite being from this world. He also couldn't look at him like he was an adult capable of handling it all like the Capitol liked to pretend the Victors were, like they expected the Victors to pretend to be.

"I'm so sorry they did that to you. I have a daughter back home, I can't - I just -"

He lifted up his hand and made a wrenching gesture since he couldn't - and probably shouldn't - articulate how angry it made him.

Children. At least he was an adult, at least he was used to surviving, at least they brought them back. Children were precious.
justgaveup: (Default)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-02-25 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah? I hate thinking that there's more then one zombie world out there." Perry frowned. "Zombies I can take. Raptors not so much. But I know someone who will fit right in, if it was a zombie arena." That corpse. The corpse he had dismembered.

The one who ate him, back home. "I see where you're coming from. Stick to training and things that you know you'll need, and then gorge on the rest?"
justgaveup: (Default)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-02-25 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
"You're right. This is basically like back home. Except with beer, liquor, good fruit juice, and food, all in abundance." He looked thoughtful, a small smile hiding at the corners of his lips.

"And what's on TV? Shit, yeah, pretty much. I almost miss the crappy football videos."
hit_girl_mindy: (Eyes wide open (Mindy))

[personal profile] hit_girl_mindy 2014-02-25 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
"So would I, being from a place where there are no zombies at all. But from what I saw of this place, you have some zombies anyway, don't you?"

She made a face. "Nah. I'd eat sparingly. I mean, who exactly can you trust in a place like this."