The Crowning of Enjolras

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

[saisamour]

If Marius had noted the forthrightness in Enjolras's words he might have reconsidered his timing, but his mind is a cacophony of thought as it is, from Cosette's acceptance to who must be in the guest list to the constant echo of a warning that the Capitol might ruin an otherwise special event.

But he brings Cosette into his thoughts and the chaos subsides considerably, if not entirely. Her charming smile, her gentle voice, the undying light in her eyes...

"You see... Cosette has accepted my proposal to marriage..." Purpose temporarily forgotten, a small, silly smile forms on his face and the distant look of a daydream fills his eyes.

[orestes]

And so Marius would at last have his Mariette. It isn't surprising, not exactly. Marius isn't Courfeyrac, or even Combeferre or Feuilly. He isn't the type to keep a mistress merely for his own entertainment, and he had, after all, dedicated himself suicidally to a revolution in which he did not truly believe in her absence. Still, there are complications, Enjolras thinks, to attempting a genuine relationship of any capacity within the reach of the Capitol.

"I see. Congratulations are in order. She is a lovely woman, Marius." The words seem vaguely distant to him, as if he's hearing them said by someone else across a large room, rather than delivering them himself to a very dear friend. Perhaps it's merely his lack of familiarity with the subject. In the wake of his response, the same flat awkwardness that always seems to overtake them settles between them, and Enjolras feels compelled, however clumsily, to lighten the mood. This is the announcement of a wedding, even if it's taking place at what amounts to a funeral. "However, I am not a wedding planner, my friend. I do not know how I can help you. My preferred celebrations involve more fewer corsages and more gunpowder."

[saisamour]

"I agree." He still wears a dreamy and distant expression, and the rest of Enjolras's words arrive late into the section of his mind that processes understanding. When it finally does—which takes a beat too long—his eyes slowly widen in realization, for the implications of what he had just said are rather crude and unfortunate.

So he hurriedly adds, in a fit of panic, "I-I mean to say: I agree to Cosette's loveliness. What I wish to speak to you about was..."

His mind turns up blank then, so he has to pause for a moment to shake himself awake—as much "awake" as he can be in a lucid dream, at least—and a mildly sheepish look spreads on his face when he finally finds the means to continue. "If perhaps, if you have no opposition to it, you would wish to be my best man?" His voice rises a pitch at the end, as if a sudden uncertainty had overcome him.

[orestes]

It was all Enjolras could do to not ask him to repeat the question. Marius getting married was all well and good. It was disappointing perhaps, in the way that such things were usually disappointing on a certain level. It was also, however, quiet expected. He blinked rapidly. There wouldn't really be a way to refuse. He could, of course, but it would probably spell the end of their already tenuous friendship and that was perhaps, just maybe, more important than his own aversion to such things. Even if taking on the duties of best man did mean tacitly condoning Marius' choice to throw his life away in the pursuit of the frivolous emotion so-called love.

"If that is what you would like, my friend." His voice seems distant again, as if someone else is talking. Perhaps it's the room, even if they aren't truly in a room. The butterflies are circling around him now picking up the diffused light with with the iridescent purple of their wings. Finally it all becomes too much and he swats one down violently as dives at his nose.

If only Courfeyrac were here.

"Do you have a date in mind for the ceremony?"

[saisamour]

Marius breathes an audible sigh of relief, then turns a shade of apple-red because such a reaction might be considered somewhat offensive. But truly, when one of his imagined possible outcomes was Enjolras chastising him at length for pursuing a love he believed was mapped out in the ancient sky, the agreement, distant-sounding as it was, is a pleasantly surprising outcome.

A protesting cry almost escapes Marius when Enjolras swats away one of the butterflies, but he manages to reduce it to the smallest of gasps and a mildly injured look. A look that, upon hearing the question, morphs into one of bewilderment and remains that way until he realizes what Enjolras must be asking.

He shakes his head. "No, none at the moment." A beat, and then, slowly, "Might there be someone you prefer?"

[orestes]

That catches him off guard and abruptly Enjolras' armor cracks and a hint of his frustration over Marius' impending mistake bubbles up to the surface. The butterflies, at least, seem to take notice and flutter away from him for the moment. "The ceremony, Marius. When do you plan on having it? There will not be much time between the Arenas."

As if he would be asking about what girl would be appropriate to bring as an escort! He has to keep himself from scoffing at the thought. He might just if it weren't a likely inevitable consideration given the Capitol and its peculiar traditions. "You have considered that it will probably be impossible to arrange a Catholic wedding here. No one in Panem has much concept of religion."

[saisamour]

"Oh!"

Marius's turns bright crimson from his ears to his neck, and he averts his eyes to his fidgeting hands in horror and embarrassment. Of course Enjolras had meant a date for the ceremony. What else could he have meant? Ian and his odd definition of words must have been influencing him far more than he had assumed.

"I-I do not know." He forces his hands to rest on his sides; they obey him for two seconds before fingers his begin to tug unconsciously at the hem of his coat. "I had only asked her a while ago, and we have yet to make plans for anything else—"

He then raises his eyes suddenly wide in fear and worry back to Enjolras. "But we are in a dream, are we not? Do you believe she will remember my proposal when she wakes?"

[orestes]

To his credit, Enjolras at least attempts to look back at his friend with some kind of reassurance. In truth, he suspected it might be better for them both if Cosette did forget the entire idea of a marriage. The more he considers it, however, the more a visible affair with someone one actually cares for seems like a strategic disadvantage, particularly in Panem. Still, it isn't his place to posit such things. He and Marius are not that close despite their forced bond here and at the barricade, and he has never understood the man that well. Marius throws himself entirely and dangerously into things in which Enjolras has absolutely no interest or appreciation.

"I am certain she will. The Capitol has many faults, but their technology is hardly ever one of them." He's never been a particularly good liar, but he covers it by averting his gaze away from Marius for the moment, seeming to dismiss the man's concern. "And if they could allow us to forget things from today, their efforts would be better spent on people other than your intended."

[saisamour]

Alas, Marius's observational skills leave much to be desired, and so in taking Enjolras's reassurance at complete face-value, a small sigh of relief whiffs past his lips, and his shoulders relax slightly. "That is good."

He pauses then, and finds out rather promptly that he has little else to say to Enjolras now that he has accomplished what he's set out to do. So he glances to one side, uneasily, his hands gripping at the side of his bridegroom pants.

Sometimes he wishes it was as easy to speak to Enjolras in the manner that Courfeyrac speaks to him, but a carefree, amicable disposition is not what Marius possesses. Thus, after an initial stutter, all he manages is, "Then you will hear from me again when Cosette and I have furthered our wedding preparations."

[orestes]

"Very well." It's less committed than I look forward to it, or something of that nature. Still, despite his cynicism over such things, Enjolras can't find really find it in his heart to dissuade Marius, who is is obviously happy with his situation.

"Give Cosette my congratulations as well." After all, it isn't her fault the man she is presumably quite in love with cannot see any of the danger directly in front of him. He only hopes their shared idealism won't be their collective undoing.

[saisamour]

Marius nods, smiling as his thoughts find themselves turning once more towards Cosette, and how beautiful she would be in her wedding gown, how it is not the wedding gown that makes her beautiful but the complete reverse, and how she makes him believe, truly believe, that love exists and fills even the darkest places with blinding radiance—

Yes. that is all and well, but for now he must focus on the present, as he still is speaking with his friend.

He shifts his dream-filled eyes from the space over Enjolras's shoulder to Enjolras himself. "I will." A pause, and then, in a manner that is almost bashful, "Thank you, truly."

With that, he returns to his fiancée to inform her of the good news, the butterflies tailing him and leaving behind a trail of luminous glitter that fades in his wake.