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.
justgaveup: (Default)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-02-15 07:05 am (UTC)(link)
Perry actually smiled for that. "Let's find three more. Five people would be a good start."

He nodded. "No alcohol in the stadium. But whenever we go on scavenging missions, the three of us hit as many stores that are left as possible, then we sneak them in." Present tense, and he doesn't notice.
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (smirk)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-02-15 01:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"Stadium?" He asked with a small grin, "Well good on you, freakish dictatorships probably need more booze."
justgaveup: (trying to relax in a suit)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-02-16 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
"The only real place safe from the zombies, it's a good fortress kind of thing." Perry shrugged. "They do need more booze." He agrees with that.

And then he remembers something kind of funny. "We do have a bar in the stadium. All decked out like a bar, except the drinks are all fruit drinks. Really bad juice, too. So we flavor it better from stuff we get during missions."
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (smirk)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-02-16 10:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Zombies?" Ian raised an eyebrow, "Shit." Zombies were one of those things that were way cooler when they weren't actually real.

"Zombies and bad juice, that sucks."
justgaveup: (Default)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-02-18 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, zombies. We call them corpses, 'cause they're, you know. Corpses." It's just something that happened; maybe zombie didn't have the fear factor feeling that a 'walking corpse' did. Perry didn't know where the idea of it came from, but it was the language they used.

"Really bad juice, and carbtien for breakfast, lunch, and dinner." He shook his head. "Really stupid idea, to have a bar serve fruit juice. There was a TV, too, they would play spliced video tapes of sports games. So it went on for awhile."
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."
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."
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (yeah whatever)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-02-25 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Ian smirked, "Maybe we could peition to turn the Arena's into some kind of shitty football match."
justgaveup: (Default)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-03-02 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
Perry chuckled. "People would still have to kill each other. It's football, that could kill anyone who plays it if they try hard enough. Let's hope they're listening now, and the next arena is set up like the Olympics or something."
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (yeah whatever)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-03-02 10:32 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, pretty sure we could do some damage with Curling sticks, brushes, whatever they're called."

He wondered where they got the ideas for the arenas, if they had a team of people who came up with the best way to murder them all.
justgaveup: (look out there)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-03-02 11:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know what they're called. I know there's the big ones, that you hoist yourself over the bar with? And the big ball things." Had he ever seen a real Olympics before? Or was it just a word that stuck with you, even if you'd never seen it before.

Maybe he watched a rerun on TV. Or heard about it from his parents. By the time any Olympics could happen in the time of his life that he would remember them, it was probably too late.

"I like the football field thing better."
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (yeah whatever)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-03-03 09:34 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh yeah, can't remember what the sticks are called, the balls are shot puts." He nodded, he had never been all that much into sports but he had seen bits of the olympics on TV when they had been on.

"Yeah it's probably simpler."
justgaveup: (wrong place corpse)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-03-06 07:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Not that I've seen a real football in a few years." Perry offered. "I like baseball. I think I've rewatched the 2002 World Series a hundred times or so."

Not that Ian would know that, he didn't think, but they both seemed to be floundering when it came to sports. Anything else they could talk about, Perry was just trying to think. Not cars. Motorcycles?
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (smirk)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-03-06 10:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Impressive." He smirked, he wasn't sure he had even seen it once. It had been a long time ago, and knowing his house there had probably been some shit happening.

He looked around, as if looking for conversation to spring out of the air. "How long do you think we have left in this dream thing?"
justgaveup: (You can't dream corpse)

[personal profile] justgaveup 2014-03-11 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"I hope not a lot, because I'm running out of things to say." His lips deepened at the corners in a smile for a second. "I kind of want to just wake up and go to sleep."

At least if he acknowledged it, it was out there. "What's the first thing you're going to do once we get out of here?"
wantwhatiwant: winchesterway (smirk)

[personal profile] wantwhatiwant 2014-03-11 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," He shrugged, "Sleep sounds good." He grinned, "I'd like to say sleep but I'll probably end up going to some kind of after party."