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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hope not." Orc sighed and starred deeply into the liquid in his goblet. He was miles away from the sound of his voice.

"How did this world go so far wrong?" He found himself wondering. "Could all our worlds end up like this?"

"It's possible." Ian looked into his own glass for inspiration. He failed to notice it had magically refilled itself and had another sip. "There are places on Earth back in my time you could consider to have gone wrong too. But none of them are beyond redemption."

That seemed painfully optimistic to Orc. But he'd had a rough couple years.

"How would you fix this stuff then?" He wondered out loud, it really seemed like too big a problem to solve. The people here were crazy and heartless half the time and over emotional children the other half.

Actually seemed unpleasantly familiar.

"It wouldn't be simple." Ian drunk some more of his wine while he thought about it. "It would probably involve people getting disenchanted with their lot enough to attempt a coup. Once you get rid of a dictator that's half the battle. It's showing people there's a better way and avoiding bloodshed that's the other half."

"What's a coup?" Was the first thing that sprang to mind. It sounded like coop which Orc knew involved chickens...so that couldn't be right.

"Who's the dictator?" It sounded easier to think that all they had to do was get rid of one guy to be halfway there.

"The dictator is the man in charge - he gets to decide everything. If they didn't desire power to begin with then it really goes to their heads once they get it." Here, President Snow likely filled that role, but even though this was a dream they were bound to still be listened to, so he didn't want to name names. But he was happy to be teaching someone something, even if it wasn't his usual subject.

"A coup is when a group of people seize power by force. Of course there's no telling if they're any better than the person they took the power away from."

"Oh..." Orc's frown pulled deeper.

"So we need to get rid of the boss, and then the people need to take over?" He was hardly ware of how blasphemous the things he was saying were. He could get in trouble just discussing it.

Still could it really be so easy? Just getting rid of the boss?

Then again, that's more or less how it worked back home.

"It's a little more complicated than that," Ian said after a pause. He didn't want Orc to think it was that simple and nor did he want anyone from the capitol who was listening to think he had plans. "The people who take over could be just as bad as the one they're replacing. Or even worse."

Yep, that all lined up. Get rid of Sam as a boss and you could get Caine.

Get rid of Caine and you could have Drake.

"So how do we figure out who should be in charge?" Orc had never questioned things like government leaders back home. The president was something his father complained about. Not his business.

"Democracy," he said confidently. That he was sure about, at least. "We ask everyone who they want to be in charge and if they're no use we ask everyone who else they'd like to be in charge. It makes sure that whoever is in charge does the best for the people."

Democracy. One of the few big words Orc knew. They'd tried Democracy in the FAYZ.

It...sorta worked.

"So, we get rid of who's in charge...and vote for a new guy." Orc offered trying to simplify it to something he could grapple with.

"Pretty much, yes." He chuckled. "It sounds simple when you put it like that."

"I do better with simple." He agreed.

"I'm not that smart. I could barely pass math or history...I can barely read. But I'm really good at hurting people." He did not sound happy about that at all.

"I suppose here that doesn't matter so much." Although Ian was trying not to think about the hurting people part. "It's not that you're not smart, it's just that you haven't been taught in the right way. Not everyone learns the same way."

"You think so?"

It was a concept no one had ever suggested to him seriously before. His mother had said it once but he just assumed she was being nice. She had to be nice she was his mother.

"How else is there to learn that stuff?"

"There are many different ways to learn. Sometimes it helps to try things for yourself or to have it explained in a different way." Ian was in his element, talking about teaching. It made a nice change, here. "Maybe you were taught history by reciting dates, but if you could have acted like you were living in those times, perhaps it might have made more sense."

"Like playing pretend?" Orc sounded dubious of this method. He'd never heard of anything like that before but it sounded silly. What would everyone think seeing him acting like some kind of weird pilgrim or something.

"Something like that, yes. Maybe it would work for you, maybe something else would," he added, given Orc's tone. "You might have just not been taught the elements of the subjects that interest you."

"Nothing about math is interesting." He protested and felt ridiculous doing so. He hadn't had a discussion about his poor performance in school since before the FAYZ. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Ian had heard the same sort of thing many times from various students over the years, so that statement was nothing new. The difference was that here there was no obligation for anyone to learn anything, so he didn't dwell on it.. "So what are you interested in?"

That was a difficult question. Just as it had been forever since he'd had to think about school work he could hardly remember what he used to do for fun before the FAYZ.

"Fighting." He started and then clearly regretted it. "I don't like that anymore."

Another moment and then "Sports I guess...cars." He had liked those things once right? He'd been really into hot wheels when he was younger. If he ever got home and escaped the FAYZ alive maybe he'd start buying them again.

He could see how having to fight would put someone off the idea. Ian hadn't particularly been thrilled about fighting, except for fun, but the arena had killed even that excitement.

"Cars aren't really a big thing here." And even if they were the tributes weren't likely to ever be able to afford them. And their idea of sport was the arena.

"What was it about cars that you liked particularly?" Maybe he could find something similar enough that would interest him.

Orc looked puzzled at the question. Didn't all guys like cars? Well...maybe not gay guys.

"They look cool." He muttered feeling sheepish now that he was forced to confess he barely knew why he liked the things he liked. "Strong cars I guess, like mustangs." His dad had owned a mustang. It was rusted and loud and the seats smelled like tobacco and sweat.

Ian did like cars, although he didn't get particularly excited about them. But then he'd only ever had enough money to buy something that worked - anything else was out of his price range.

"I do like a good-looking car," he agreed. Unfortunately for Orc, Mustangs were after Ian's time. "What does a Mustang look like?"

Orc set about describing a Mustang as best he could, which was not well. Orc was not the most well spoken of people even on his best days. But he at least got the basic ideas of what a Mustang was supposed to look like.

"Something like that...but I wouldn't fit in any cars like this." He gestured to himself. "I had to ride in the back of trucks."

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