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

[knifewithnoname]

"I did no never be having one before Sandy either, I did no ever be having a friend either." And now she had both, she knew she was lucky.

[onlyimmune]

"I've had friends," Ellie said, her smile turning just a touch sad.

None that lived, she could have added.

"But no girlfriends. Is Sandy pretty great, then? What's she like?"

[knifewithnoname]

"She do be being the best. She do be being sometimes scared but she do be being stronger than she do be knowing." Pruna grinned, "In the last arena she did be killing a big sharp toothed monster all by herself."

Pruna is the proudest girlfriend.

[onlyimmune]

Ellie can't help it, the sadness slips from her smile and all that is left is something honest and warm.

"Yeah? She sounds awesome. Those dinosaurs were scary as fuck, I'm impressed. I'd love to meet her."

[knifewithnoname]

"You can be." Pruna nodded, "When we do be finding her." She looked round again, worried about her friend.

[onlyimmune]

"Right. Okay." Ellie stood up straight and looked around.

"You want me to help? I mean I don't really know here but there aren't a whole lot of kids here so it can't be that hard, right?"

[knifewithnoname]

"No she must be being here somewhere." Pruna sighed. "You can be helping me if you do be wanting to."

[onlyimmune]

"Alright, sure." Ellie looked up and looked around.

"Did you check under the tables? I found a weird shirtless guy under one earlier."

[knifewithnoname]

"Under them..." Why would Sandy be under a table? But still it was somewhere she hadn't checked, and so she should do. "I do be thanking you, I will be looking under the tables."

[onlyimmune]

"It's worth a shot, at least," Ellie said with a shrug. "This is supposed to be a dream, right? Maybe she figured out how to fly."

[knifewithnoname]

"To be flying?" She blinked, confused at why she would have spontaneously learned that. "Her powers do be being that she can be turning into stone, stone can no be flying."

[onlyimmune]

"Well, this is a dream, right? People fly in dreams all the--" She stopped dead as the rest of Pruna's statement registered, and her eyebrows raised.

"Wait, what? She can turn to stone?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes, I have no never been seeing it because they did be stealing her powers, but she can be normally." She nodded.

[onlyimmune]

Ellie looked skeptical, but... then again, she'd met Orc.

"... They took her powers?" She asked instead, thinking of Venus. "Just how many people here used to have powers, anyway?" She arched an eyebrow and then grinned at Pruna. "You're not secretly a superhero too, are you?"

[knifewithnoname]

"A lot of people I do be thinking." She wrinkled her nose, "What do a superhero be being? I do no be having any powers if that's what you do be asking."

[onlyimmune]

"That's kind of what I was asking, yeah." She tilted her head as she watched Pruna. "You don't know what a superhero is? It's like... someone who dresses up, and uses their powers to save people. You know... super, hero."

[knifewithnoname]

"Why do they be needing to be dressing up?" She wrinkled her nose, but she guessed it made sense, there was so much emphasis on clothes here that she supposed other places might think them important as well.

[onlyimmune]

"To hide their secret identities. So that people don't come after their families and shit." Ellie laughs and then shrugs. "I don't fucking know, it's just comic books. Things are probably pretty different in real life. Most things are."

[knifewithnoname]

"It would have to be being a really good costume." She wrinkled her nose, though she remembered what Sandy had said about her dad, and how he had been captured. Maybe he should have dressed up. "So they do no be being real in your world?"

[onlyimmune]

"Nope," Ellie says with a shrug.

"Even the comic books, they stopped making them well before I was born. But you can still find them, if you look around. I know the exist though, met a couple here, you know? Just not from home."

[knifewithnoname]

So superheroes were people with powers in Ellies world, except they weren't real... "They do be existing in my world but they do no be being called superheroes. Most of them do be becoming priests and priestesses."

[onlyimmune]

Ellie paused, watching Pruna for a minute before saying: "Huh."

"So you guys have a church where people have superpowers? That's pretty fucking intense. What kind of powers do they have?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Lots of different ones, some can be making fire, some can be healing, or killing lots of people by just pointing at them. Most of them can be doing a lot of things, but what they do be being best at do be being depending on what god they do be following."

She explained it easily, it was something she knew about at least.

[onlyimmune]

"Huh. Depending on what god? Do you guys have a lot of gods, then?"

[knifewithnoname]

"We do be having six." She told her, "And they do be watching over different things, one do be being the god of healing, and there do be being a god of war, and a god of knowledge."