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.
saisamour: (to face the blackened sky)

[personal profile] saisamour 2013-12-28 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
In Paris, meanwhile, it often rained. Perhaps that accounted for the fashions of that time; perhaps Marius was simply over-thinking it. Regardless, he was beginning to appear more reflective than vexed, his lips pressed together and his head tilted almost imperceptibly to one side.

And then there was the question.

"Oh!" Marius immediately turned tomato-red, a color that spread from his cheeks to his ears to his neck. "Y-Yes. It is not a sight to be seen outside..." and he made a vague gesture with his hand, looking more than a little embarrassed to be even having this sort of conversation, "outside the privacy of one's rooms."
acroodawakening: (017)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2013-12-28 09:20 am (UTC)(link)
"Oookay, well, just because I'm not wearing many clothes, you don't have to worry about anything, ah, untoward," he explained, figuring now that maybe this guy was reading his lack of clothes as if he was some kind of...deviant or something. "For one, I have a mate who I'm very, very devoted to. I have daughter, even."

He was a family man, Marius. Right now you're freaking out over the possible indecency of a man very monogamously devoted to his mate, who has a daughter, and thus would never want to damage his family.

"And even if I didn't, if you're taking this as some kind of sign that I'd do something, I don't know, indecent in any way, not wearing clothes doesn't have that meaning where I come from, okay? Nobody wears that many clothes. And any kind of indecency involving that is the kind of thing that gets you killed or kicked out of a tribe. People don't tolerate anyone hurting anyone else that way. If that's what you're worried about."

He seemed to think he needed to keep his mate safe, so as far as Guy could figure, not wearing clothes had to signify being sexually immoral in some way. Some kind of predator. Or someone that went around trying to steal other people's mates' affections or something. Back where he came from, the latter usually only got you a good shunning, but the former led to death or exile.
Edited 2013-12-28 09:22 (UTC)
saisamour: (and with words unspoken)

[personal profile] saisamour 2013-12-30 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
Marius blinked at that, looking mildly confused. "A wife?"

It was not so often that he heard anyone referring to their beloved as a mate, after all, and if he was proud of having a daughter with her then she must not be a mistress. He wondered whether he, too, had his beloved summoned into the Capitol, but to ask a question that would evoke such pain regardless of the response was not something he would wish to bestow on anyone, especially towards such a new acquaintance.

But perhaps it was not very odd, in retrospect, to imagine such a world wherein less clothing rarely scandalized people. There were the tribes, after all, as well as the older civilizations such as the Spartans of Greece. That realization caused him to feel a little sheepish; and he cast his eyes to his shuffling feet once more.
acroodawakening: (132)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2013-12-30 05:43 am (UTC)(link)
"I have no idea what that is, but a mate is that person you love who you stay with for the rest of your life and maybe have kids with, and depending on your particular circumstances, you usually only stay with them. Just them. For good. Because you never love anyone else the same way."

He waved his hands with an air of finality and then held up his right arm, showing off the carved bone bracelet on his wrist. Carved on it were a tiger and warthog chasing each other's tails and attached to it were rings with other little rings dangling from them - a makeshift baby rattle.

"We made these for each other when we promised that to each other. She has one just like it - only without the rattle. I stay with the baby a little bit more than she does."

The sappy look on his face as he looked at the bracelet was probably not unfamiliar to Marius.
saisamour: (I DREAM AT NIGHT)

[personal profile] saisamour 2014-01-06 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh!" Despite his general confusion, the expression on the man's face tugged at Marius, and his lips turned upwards into an empathizing smile. "That is what I mean, when I say 'wife.'"

He studied the bracelet, or what he could glimpse of it from his current posture. The shade the table cast was a hindrance, so he found himself bending on one knee, his arm resting on the other, and peering closer. The bracelet to him seemed an artifact from a distant time and place; it was clear that it and what it symbolized was one of great importance to this man.

"Is she safe?" Marius asked it before he realized he had, and he grew a bit flustered at his impulsive question. But he did wonder: was she where she was meant to be, or was her fate a little like Cosette's, who had been summoned here to fight and to suffer alongside the man she loves?
acroodawakening: (056)

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-01-16 05:21 am (UTC)(link)
"As far as I know," he said slowly, hopefully. "They were - they were with me. We were all sleeping under the stars. The baby was sleeping on my chest - I don't know if -"

He stopped and took in a deep breath.

"I think so. Hopefully they just took me and left them there and if they did, that means she's safe."

But how safe was she, when they might bring her - or the rest of his family - at any time?

"I'm sorry," he said. "That yours is here with you. I hope she - I hope she can be safe soon."
saisamour: (being as in love with you as i am)

mind if we wrap this up? :3

[personal profile] saisamour 2014-01-23 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Then that was good news, wasn't it? His beloved wasn't here, for now. But Marius knew all too well how things can go terribly wrong.

"As do I. That is why..." He pressed his lips together as he tried to materialize the words from the sky. The appropriate words, and the proper means in which to interweave them. "We must be thankful for it." His voice was slow, cautious; he had a tendency to tremble when he was enraged, and he was doing his hardest to remain collected. "Be careful, monsieur." Because the Capitol is watching. Because if you defy them, you will end up like me.

The next statement comes almost abruptly. "Forgive me, but I must return to my Cosette; surely she has been noting my absence." He paused for a moment, his brows furrowed in thought, bending lower just a fraction. "Will you be fine, under there?"
acroodawakening: (139)

I'm fine with that!

[personal profile] acroodawakening 2014-01-30 08:15 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll be fine," said Guy, smiling up at him. "Go see to your wife."

He added cheekily, but without any malice, "You should maybe make sure she hasn't fallen down while you were gone."