The Crowning of Mindy McReady

[etcircenses]

Who| Everyone who's anyone.
What| The Crowning.
Where| A warehouse on the edge of town.
When| Starting from early evening till late into the night.
Warnings/Notes| Be sure to check the linked thread for plot purposes, even if you don't tag into it.

The party is brightly colored.

The theme, subtly, is super heroes. Boldly paints city scapes are splattered across the walls, and hallways are made to look like dingy, potentially crime ridden alleys. From the upper walkways of the warehouse, party goers can get hooked into harnesses and swing out over the dance floor. Above them, tributes and VIPS can find themselves on a clear plastic dance floor levitated above everything, looking like they're hanging in air.

Masks are passed out in plenty, and capes are easy to find, while brightly colored drinks themed around super powers are plentiful. None of them actually work, but many of the Capitol people are happy to pretend, mocking super strength or invisibility with each new beverage.

Under the dance floor a catacomb of tunnels and rooms full of obstacles is splashed with black light receptive colors. Party goers are given vests and laser guns, marked green for villains and red for heros, and set loose to hunt each other in the laser tags playground. The screens in the dance floor keep a running tally of which side is winning, displaying the players on the screens around the room, along with clips from the arenas.

About half way through the night, everyone is gathered to the main stage for a special announcement.

Comments

I'm so sorry! I've been out with the flu for ages!

[nooneleft]

"Then you're ignorant." Johanna wasn't scared of the Peacekeepers per se. She'd been pushed around by them before now, and she'd been manhandled and jabbed with the butt of their guns, but that was not the reason why she had developed a healthy, if contemptuous, respect for the Peacekeepers. It was those memories, seared into her mind's eye, of the Peacekeepers taking away her mom, her dad, her best friend, her grandmother. Johanna acted like she was above everyone and everything, but she knew as well what had driven her to such a place, and that was sheer ignorance of the Peacekeepers' powers.

Johanna looked Shepard up and down. She quite liked her look, and especially appreciated her don't care attitude. But she refused to look remotely impressed by her. What did make Johanna smile a tight smile was Shepard's sentiments about the Capitol idiots.

"Yeah, well. Show them in the arena. Make every blow count and get out as soon as you can."

Why can't her Tributes be like Shepard?

[earthborn]

"No, I know what they could do. But they're not gonna, because if they know how to really threaten me, then they have to know what kind of reaction they're looking at," she was easy about it, with a one-shouldered shrug as genuine and dishonest as a hand of Skyllian Five, before the cards were revealed, "It's a stand off."

Once, her yeoman had asked if everyone in Shepard's employ had family issues by requirement. As it turns out, not having a family counted towards that number; they didn't speak much about it, after that.

"You don't have to tell me how do this job. I'm perfectly capable of hurting people all on my own."

[nooneleft]

"Then why are you still in the arena, whilst this kid is parading around in victory?" Johanna grinned at Shepard, and cackled a contemptuous laugh. Perhaps this woman was just like the rest of them - all talk and no action?

[earthborn]

"It's cute that you assume everyone here has the same goals you did when you ran this," Finally she placed the face. Joanna Mason, District Seven victor. She did not return the grin this time, just stared through Joanna, then took a drink, "But it's not that cute. You're smarter than that, figure it out."

[nooneleft]

Oh good. Shepard knew who Johanna was. That made Johanna appreciate the Tribute just that little bit more. Why could the Tributes from the other Districts research her and remember her, but her own Tributes were quite fiercely determined not to acknowledge her fearsome victories at all? Idiots.

"You don't want to win? Because death means nothing any more? Maybe I wouldn't have killed if I'd have known I'd be brought back to live in the lap of luxury. It takes a bit of the urgency away, doesn't it?"

[earthborn]

"Yeah, there is that. And a few other things," One of these days she was going to get out from under all the surveillance cameras and get to say what she really wanted to say, lay out all the layers of strategy and lies and secrets and bullshit, just to prove to these people that she had her own way of determining how the world was going to bend over. And then she'd make it bend.

It called for a drink. Hell, two drinks— this white wine was very pretty, but it wasn't anything like strong enough.

"I want to win, sure. But that's mostly because I like winning. Everybody likes winning," that last muttered into her glass, glancing out among the crowds in a reflexive scan for danger, the assassin gunman who wouldn't come. Her eye caught on Mindy, resplendent in purple, and her drawl turned from dry to sarcastic, "I mean, aren't you just so damn glad you won? Isn't life just so much... fancier, nowadays?"

Shepard is a betting woman, when the opportunity arises, and she'd have put good credits against bad to bet that Johanna didn't much enjoy her life as a Victor.

[nooneleft]

Or, she could just say it. Say it and pretend she didn't care if she lost everything, just like Johanna. Shepard could become as bitter and as screwed up as Johanna was. Johanna wasn't about to recommend that.

She sipped her drink: Johanna didn't drink too much, but she had always found it prudent to at least pretend to be a bit tipsy for the Capitolites. It gave her much more scope to speak her mind and not get in trouble for it; they were more willing to indulge her because she's drunk.

Fools.

Johanna grins her first genuine smile of the evening at Shepard's comments though. She does appreciate the sarcasm.

"I adore glitter. And parties. And these lovely, KIND idiots." Johanna shook her head. "Gimme a log cabin and a forest any day. I'm already sick of all this simpering. I wish I could punch everybody who tips their head to the side and speaks to me as if I was five."

[earthborn]

"Yeah, but nobody wants to fuck five year olds," she snorted, half under her breath. Shepard was thirty one years old, or twenty-nine depending on how depressing she wanted to be, she could point out the human trafficking if she liked.

Making a show of sussing out the tactical flaws in the incumbent military structure was one kind of mistake, but gesturing vaguely at the obvious was another thing entirely. Particularly when the two of them were still subject to it.

Shepard's her own brand of bitter and broken, but she's learned to use it.

"I'll keep you in mind, next gift holiday. Ten pounds of glitter to District Seven. Gratis."