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.
president_evil: (weskerKnife)

[personal profile] president_evil 2014-01-16 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
It might have been horrifying, had Wesker not been inoculated to such things so very long ago. It might have been fascinating, were not so terribly frustrating.

(For a beat, one unbidden moment, he thought of Project Alice - of what a pair the two of them would have made, conspiring to survive.)

Aunamee's twisted fingers clawed at his throat, his broken teeth pocked with dark bits of asphalt snapped at his face - but he didn't pull away. Instead he reached up, meeting Aunamee's assault head-on.

His hands wrapped around the man's throat, the long pale fingers of one fisting in the mat of dark hair, the others curling under the jaw - and jerking in opposite directions. A fast, hard, pull.

The satisfying crunch of bone.

(Severing the top of the spinal column or extreme trauma to the brain are the most effective methods.)

Then a toss, Wesker tossing him aside like the slab of meat he was.
marcato: (lie lie lie)

[personal profile] marcato 2014-01-17 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)
His entire body shuddered with the snap as though a part of him still remembered being human, being mortal. He fell when Wesker dropped him.

-- But his tangled arms uncurled and caught him as he dropped down to the asphalt. He gasped wordlessly. With his twisted throat, it sounded more like a hiss. A croak. The world had settled at an odd angle. His arms and legs were not where he remembered them, and why was that? For a flickering moment, he felt it, fear, but then he heard the future and its sweet croons and remembered that fear was meaningless to him now. He knew how this fight would end. He always knew.

(Wesker is the strong one, but he is the persistent one, the consistent one, the one never allowed to die, and when he finally takes his powers back from the Capitol --)

He could not aim as well. Not like this. All the same, he kicked, stomped at Wesker's ankle.
president_evil: (weskerPissed)

[personal profile] president_evil 2014-01-17 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)
"Enough!"

The kick was nothing, a dull thump against his leg. It was the intent that drew the command - Aunamee's stubborn, foolish, refusal to do as he was told.

It was time for this to stop. One way or another.

His elbow shot out, a quick, sharp, powerful strike and glass broke in shower of glittering shards - the window of the car beside them nothing paper beneath his strength. He reached inside and jabbed at the little button down underneath the armrest.

The trunk popped, an ominous squeal of metal and rust.

Then a hand came down on the back of Aunamee's strangely twisted neck, hauling him up like a kitten by the scruff, and Wesker half dragged, half carried the man to the back of the car.
marcato: (roaming where he cares to go)

[personal profile] marcato 2014-01-22 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Struggling was useless. Wesker was too strong, too powerful, and Aunamee's arms couldn't quite reach the muscular hand that was gripping his neck. His broken legs dragged on the ground behind him, kicking up pebbles, doing little to hinder his journey.

His journey, then his eventual descent.

Fear came to him again, sharper than before. He did not want to be alone in the darkness.

" -- ghh."

Yet there was no hope of speaking, let alone crooning a witty retort or an icy threat.

(-- he is the persistent one, he endures, he is a fixture, he will always be here and Wesker will not, he is the persistent one, he endures, he is a fixture --)

He made one last attempt to claw at the man.
president_evil: (weskerSneer)

[personal profile] president_evil 2014-01-23 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
He pushed. A fast, hard strike, yanking Aunamee off his feet, smashing his face against the bumper. A light tap - by Wesker's usual standards.

"None of that," he sneered, pulling the man back up, rolling him into the yawning trunk like so much garbage. A boneless sack he meant to drop off at the dump.

"Remember your place, Aunamee." He reached for the lid, eyes burning rubies. "This is where you belong."

And the lid slammed home. Locking Aunamee away in the dark, alone. Nothing but the distant wails of the dead for company.
marcato: (and the shine of his shoes)

[personal profile] marcato 2014-01-23 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
He would heal. In time, he would heal. His hands would take a few hours at most, but the severed bones in his spinal cord would take longer — days, maybe, weeks — although it didn’t matter, of course, because he would be awake long before then.

For now, he had the darkness.

He made no sound as Wesker shoved him forward into the bumper and into the trunk. Only the cracks in his nose and cheekbones answered. When the trunk door lowered over his head, it blacked out the world like an eclipse.

He began to pound on the door.

Not in an attempt to escape, because it would be useless. No, he pounded on the door in a very specific rhythm, a thump-THUMP thump-THUMP that could almost be morse code, but was really the sound of Wesker’s heartbeat. Every knock was precise because every knock was predicted. Locked away with hours of darkness to look forward to (hours to fear), it was his only form of retaliation.

I am listening.
president_evil: (weskerShoulder)

[personal profile] president_evil 2014-01-23 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Wesker didn't linger. With one last sneer down at the metal, he turned away, leaving Aunamee to enjoy the dark.

Ignoring the relentless, insistent, drum as he walked away.

Parlor tricks - especially those he could do himself - were hardly impressive.