thecapitol | The Crowning of Enjolras

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.

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Zelos let an amused smile spread across his face, not even bothering to hide it. Maybe Enjolras would take it as a mocking smile or just another careless display, but he had to admit that he was a little intrigued. This guy, who had apparently won a battle to the death and the connotations attached to that alone, was preaching about freedom and honour?

It was hilarious.

Zelos made a mental note of the man, as someone of interest. He sounded like someone who might actually do something. If he didn't get himself killed by spouting what had to amount to treason, that was. This time when he spoke, the grin on his face was so vapid it bordered on mocking. "So serious. Lighten up, man. You're living in the lap of luxury here. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be a rich prisoner than a poor one."

By most definitions, treason held the prerequisite of citizenship. Thus, while his opinions were certainly not new, nor was his inclination to express them, the shift in status brought about by his victory simultaneously changed the implication of his thoughts. For his part, Enjolras had yet to truly consider this aspect of his position. Aspirations of regicide seemed to be his destiny regardless of the world he inhabited.

He regarded Zelos with a mild incredulity all the same. "And I would have liberty or I would have death. That is, however, a matter of personal ideology, I suppose."

"Hey, I'm not judging," Zelos said with a shrug. Liberty or death, huh... Now didn't that sound familiar.

He was seriously starting to wonder if this guy became the Victor because everyone else just killed themselves off. The very thought of someone like him winning was almost as absurd as... Lloyd winning. Unless, of course, he extended an idealistic hand of friendship with one hand, and stabbed you in the gut with the other. Which was possible. "Is that how you won? With liberty?"

Blinking, Enjolras lowered his head in an expression of unmistakable contrition. How had he won? It was still remarkably unclear to him even as many days after the fact. The Gamemakers had explained it, and he had answered questions about it to the best of his ability. The stories seemed disparate from the pieces of it he remembered, however.

"Not at all. I was trying to save a young girl who should not have been in such a position to begin with." He pointedly refused to look over at Ellie, who was seated at the opposite end of the large table. It seemed unfair to recount her murder as casual dinner conversation. "I failed, however between the two of us we were able to wound her attacker. He died before I did."

Which wasn't the entire truth, of course, but it was likely enough to stay the conversation for now. "I should hope you are not finding this glamorous, monsieur. There is no glory in victory. You are either a victim or an assassin, and now I am both."

"How noble of you," Zelos couldn't help but quip, though he found some of what this guy was saying to be just a little melodramatic. Victim or an assassin? Give him a break. If you were an assassin, you were hardly a victim. This victor clearly didn't want to think of himself as a bad guy, so he was deluding himself into being the victim.

Classic.

"Kind of hard not to find it glamorous when you're being wined and dined in such a swanky place," he gestured to the room at large to illustrate his point.

It was hard not to sneer. Instead, Enjolras raised his chin, eyes haughty and discontented. "And at whose expense do we enjoy this frivolity?"

Their keepers still had yet to let them see the people they represented. The stories he'd heard of the Districts, however, were enough to keep him disgusted and bitter at the excesses so common in the Capitol. "Have they explained to you why it is that we fight in the Games?"

The rich living on the expense of the poor was hardly a concept that was new to him. Being a noble and the Chosen One afforded him the kind of luxury that was unrivaled by any but maybe the royal family's. But he got the feeling mentioning that little tidbit to Enjolras would proobably be a bad idea.

"Nope," Zelos answered cheerfully. But of course, now Enjolras was probably going to tell him exactly why. And that suited him just fine. "Let me guess, you know why?"

"It is their system of determining rations. Our assigned Districts are given food based on our victory or defeat." He's heard it enough times that he could reiterate the system without too much indignation leaking into his voice. Enjolras had an opinion on it, of course, but it was neither here nor there at that very minute. "They make a game of starving their own people, monsieur, and we are how they play it."

He feels a flash of disgust partly at the way the Capitol played their people, but it was mostly at how similar it was to the situation at home. Two worlds, vying for mana, twelve districts, fighting for food. He didn't know whether to laugh or to scream.

"Wow, that's messed up," Zelos said instead, going for shocked and disturbed.

"Indeed," Enjolras agrees, sparking with something that isn't quite enthusiasm. "For myself, I see no sense in it, even were I to ignore the human element, which I cannot and would not. A powerful state like Panem is more than capable of providing for its people, and yet it does not. Moreover, as the Districts supply the Capitol with its wealth, it would seem in their best interests to keep the people there happy and well attended."

His speech is quick and entirely, tellingly sincere. He's more than willing to believe in Zelos' seemingly scandalized reaction because to him, it's the only possible sane reaction. "They cripple themselves as a nation and it will be their undoing."

"Oh, trust me," Zelos chuckled, though how sincere it was was anyone's guess. The more he listened, the more he understood just what was going on here. Anyone's first instinct to a death match for purely entertainment would've been 'that's insane', but throw in some other incentives and factors, and you had yourself what basically amounted to a state of living.

"Give people something to fight for and someone to fight against, and they forget who the real enemy is. I've seen it happen." Even as the words left his mouth, he started to regret saying them. It really was the other tributes he had to worry about, but who was to say this guy didn't have friends? Better to play it off.

"Eh, but you probably know more about this place than I do. How long'd it take you to get up here, Sir Victor?"

"Enjolras," he admonished quickly, fighting instinctively against both the title and the honorific. Quietly, he turns away, mentally tallying up the days, and then months, since his arrival.

"I have been here for ten months and three Arenas." The realization is sudden and unfortunate to him. Had he really been in Panem so long and accomplished so little? Something had to be done about that. "I had no intention of ever winning."

Wow, this guy was no fun. He wasn't even vaguely reacting to any of Zelos' jibes. If he had to give him a title, Enjolras would probably be 'honourable to a fault'. Which again brought up the question of... how exactly did this guy win again?

But ten months... He did a quick calculation. Assuming that Arenas were running the entire time, that would make each arena approximately three months in length. Maybe even shorter if they had off periods like this to throw a bunch of celebrations. Great. Two or three months trying not to get killed by people who were trying to kill him. Or vice versa.

"Whatever, man, count yourself lucky, I wouldn't complain," Zelos shrugged. "But pass on some of that luck to the rest of us, will you?"

He nodded, acquiescing a little bit to his new acquaintances perceived expectations. Whatever his feelings on the Games were, everyone in the Arena could use a bit of luck. "I wish every Tribute luck, and I wish every person in Panem luck in finding a way out of this oppressive system. We all sorely need it."

Although luck alone would be insufficient to effect any true progress, it could be a start. Something would be done, and now that he was no longer at the beck and call of the Arenas every few months, perhaps something could be done.

"You should enjoy the party, Monsieur Wilder." Enjolras lifted his glass, waving ever so slightly to the rest of the frivolity around them. "Before I wrench all enthusiasm for the afternoon from you."

"Good idea," Zelos agreed, lifting his glass in return as a gesture of farewell. "Try not to look so sour, man, a party's still a party."

He turned away without waiting for a response from Enjolras and scanned the room briefly for a heading before parting from the victor's 'throne'. That was a very enlightening talk they had, and he had to count himself lucky that Enjolras was such a chatty victor. So this Panem place wasn't as simply bloodthirsty as it first seemed... Well, Zelos was no stranger to oppressive systems but this was more immediate than he'd ever had it back in Tethe'alla.

He'd just have to work a little harder than before.

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The Crowning of Enjolras

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