thecapitol | The Crowning Of The Signless

The Crowning Of The Signless

Who| Everyone.
What| The Crowning of The Signless.
Where| An alcove in a nearby mountain.
When| From dusk to dawn, on Thursday.
Warnings/Notes| This event is mandatory for all Tributes to attend. Even if you do not tag in, your character will attend this party. Peacekeepers will be on high alert. There will be no chance to runaway.

Tributes are encouraged to sleep all during the day, before the crowning. The reason for this is revealed when they are roused at sundown and brought to the closest mountain to the city, where they are greeted by an alcove within the moutainside that has been carved into a temple to what may be an illicit faith. The stone alcove is dim-lit by candles arranged along walls and by what appears to be altars set before iron cancer signs, some plain, some inlet with intricate carvings. Bright red drapery hangs about the room, tapestries with the cancer sign and cirles of blending color spectrum. There are also some waist high leggings hung upon one wall. In the center of the room, shackles hang, glowing bright from some sort of internal heat and light. A hole in the ceiling is set on each side of it, to allow the smoke to escape from the great bonfire that roars beneath it. If one takes a seat upon any of large stones and logs aranged around it, they can see both the stars twinkling down and the way the smoke looks as though it is coming off the shackles.

The only windows otherwise are made from stained glass depicting images from the Signless's life, such as his rescue by "Alternia's First Mother" (so described on the metal plate below), "The Recording of His Teachings" depicting The Disciple writing the Signless's words into a book, "A New Follower" showing the Psiioniic joining the Signless, a boat deemed "The First Ship", and "The Execution" which features the death of the Signless before thousands of followers, a fifth troll- resembling Terezi- bearing the shackles as a necklace and another with great brown wings, a single window of Karkat and Kankri Vantas, as well as a sinister depiction of six indistinct shadowy figures of cerulean, blue, indigo, violet, tyrian, and maroon. Cave-style paintings cover the stone walls, styles ranging from simple scribbled etching to circles featuring twelve colors in circle, with bright red at the center, and yet more elaborate shadowy depictions of those in the stained glass, esepcially the Signless himself, both prior and following his execution.

But not all is dedicated to the Signless and his old posse of biblical age trolls. A shrine has been set up for redeemed and then so quickly lost victor, Matthew 'Punchy' O'Conner. Punchy has been painted upon a cave wall like he fits right into the theme. Upon his shrine lay all varieties of bling; Bling-jewelery, a bling goblet, bling boxing gloves, a hoodie, a nun habit, and a stone with a memorial rap engraved atop-- with bling, of course, all shimmering by the spotlights placed before the shrine. Refillable 40 oz bottles are lain out so that sorrowful guests, wishing to pay their respect to the boy so cruelly slain by rebels when he had turned from them, can pour one out in his honor.

Marius is also honored there with a tea light and small framed photograph set upon an empty table with an empty chair, along with souvenir versions of his and Cosette's wedding rings that guests can take home. Beneath all these rings is a photoshopped picture of javert with a single tear running down his manly face.

The only seating besides the stones and logs and Marius's single chair, are those that are sat at a table at the end of the room. Each is draped in a different color, six on each side for each district and each blood hue-- presumably of the Victor's choosing. Between these chairs sits yet one more with a tall back like a flogging jut that got the redesigned at the base to make a throne that some trolls might recognize as belonging to the Empress. The arms of the chair feature open shackles. The throne is decorated in chains of gold and jewels of all colors. The victor is given a crown of gilded flowers and thorns on chain.

Food can be found upon the altars or the victor's table, in surplus. Alternian delicacies are served, featuring insects, flavored or plain, and food made from insects. Guests may find a giant beetle being served upon a spit roast. Even the meats appear to be topped with bugs. The cakes, marshmallows (which can be roasted with stick by the fire!), and orange creamsicles may be the only things truly bug-free. Drink options are water, wine, and soda.

Stylists are encouraged to dress their tributes primarily in black, with a single bit of color put into the design matched according to district (with exception to trolls), or any manner of draping fabrics, cloaks, and costumery reminiscent of religious iconagraphy that one might expect of ancient aliens. Waist high pants and leggings are also in high regard, as well as fake horn, fangs, contacts, and anything to make guests look more trollish. The only rule is for the main colors to match to the blood assignment.

The music playing is the sort one might expect from a church, featuring mournful vocals, soft bells and melodies, and of course, organ music. But for one or two jarring differences. Where this music is coming from remains a mystery but since the space is open and clear, guests have plenty of room for dancing.

Those who don't wish to dance can talk and regale tales around the bonfire, or may instead seek out the book of "scripture" at one of the altars that features nothing more than various parables- with names that Tributes might recognize! Each Tribute has one parable contained within, telling a tale in flourished manner of a part of their life, featuring a pro-capitol moral at the end.

Elsewhere, are models of the flogging just, where guests can put their hands through the oversized cuffs and pretend to writhe in agony, an Alternian bioware helm where guests too can pretend to have their lifeforce and power used a battery for the sake of the Alternian empire, a dress-up station where guests can customize their appearance to match trolls sold into gruelling slavery to seadwellwers, and an area designed to look like a cave with extensive "Alternian" (gibberish) writings of the Signless's words, where guests too can pretend they've lost everyone they love and are carrying on their legacy by writing upon the walls and leaving their own messages of love and mourning. Not to mention, a life-sized drone with realistic piercing claws, for all your picture posing needs.

A sandpit lies just around a corner for children to make castles, dig trenches, and act out games of pretending they've trekked thousands of miles through zombie infested desert just to speak to a couple of people! Guests can also meet a "mutantblood lusus" a four-eyed crab creature with lizardlike structure-- only sized no bigger than the average dog and perhaps about as intelligent. Guests are warned not to put their hand too close, lest the claw pincers manage to pinch them.

Late into the crowning, everyone is brought out to the dark mountainside, well monitored by peacekeepers, and divided into teams. Everyone is given belts with velcro flags attached, colored according to the "blood" they were matched with by district. Those in the eighth, ninth, twelfth, third, tenth, and eleventh districts are deemed the "lowbloods. Those in the first, fourth, second, fifth, sixth, and seventh districts, are deemed the "highbloods". Each team is given a velcro board to attach the flags to. The first team to lose all their flags loses, winners getting tiny necklace copies of the shackles. The last one standing with a flag wins a larger necklace copy and the option to get it redesigned into a symbol of their choosing.

If you failed not to be "culled", fear not! All tributes receive a participation sticker at the end. This sticker features a number. It is not indicative of districts or of age, as will be announced shortly, but of the new scoring. These will be announced for everyone to hear- and pick out targets from.

The crowning officially ends with the coming dawn. And so begins, to everyone's surprise, preparation for the arena. Tributes will be going right from the crowning off to the Tribute launch tubes. Happy Hunger Games!

[Note: This is ICly on Thursday! Just before the arena on Friday!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His confusion is both amusing, and enough to make her feel slightly guilty for what's about to follow. She doesn't respond to his question, just listens to his introduction with growing laughter in her expression, though she refrains from doing so out of respect.

"Karkat," she echoes. "It's a pleasure. I'm Porrim Maryam."

Boom. Truth bomb.

"What?"

He looks her up and down, and she has the tattoos, and black hair, and... the face is... just shut up about the face, okay, there's no way. That makes no sense. She makes no sense. His face meanwhile tries valiantly to tie itself into a knot.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Unless you showed up out of Paradox Space, volunteered yourself for a fresh horn-sawing and painted yourself brown--and that doesn't look like body paint, nor does it explain your eyes--then you're not Porrim. I don't have to be Kankri to tell you that, but be glad I'm not or he'd go on even later than this party is projected to last and into the next century about it. Trigger warning: cultural appropriation! Hashtag identity theft! You don't even have the right color for her," he finishes, motioning at her blue accents.

Edited 2015-01-23 07:34 (UTC)

Now, as Karkat goes into full-blown rant mode, Porrim's expression just sets itself into amusement, brows lifted, mouth upturned, waiting out his let tirade with the patience of a saint. At his last argument, the escort merely scoffs a little.

"This? Not my color. District Five was assigned it as a whole." She taps a fingernail against the trio of dots tattooed beneath each eye--an unmistakable shade of green. "My signature color. I was told that it was hers, too." Her expression falls, and now she merely looks troubled.

"Look, I--I can't explain it. I hardly understand it, myself. But I was told separately by two different members of your species that it's true, so I have no choice but to accept it, really." It hasn't been an easy acceptance by any means, but she has.

Karkat just glares at her little dots, mouth below set in a sharp downturn. He looks like someone who's just been cheated, and he pretty much feels like it. What does she even mean, was hers? Either she's Porrim or she's not, and she's hardly explaining what she's on about.

"Which two? And what's true? Accept what? You're not making one singular spittle-fleck of sense, and the vaunted heights of a lick are being kept behind the fangy bars of comprehension's tight-lipped mouth."

He looks her over again, eyes scouring as if they'll somehow find an answer tucked into the draping of her dress. It doesn't work, of course.

As much as Porrim's amused by how buttmad Karkat looks, there's still that tiny twinge of guilt. She feels...false. Like an impostor. A mockery.

"Terezi. And Initiate. The both of them recognized by name, and kindly informed me that I'm an alternate-universe version of the Porrim you know." Her mouth twists into something far less comfortable.

"And Terezi managed to drag my sister in it, to boot. I don't understand it, like I said."

Karkat's mouth closes, pressing together tight and still not pleased. Terezi and the Initiate don't seem like they'd do it for no reason. Terezi he knows might troll, but why feed into this? And there is the weird, discomforting familiarity of her face to contend with still. He stares hard at it, quite intent, without a shred of self-consciousness for doing so.

"Who's your sister?" he asks, just that question on its own. He doesn't want to give her more fuel if she's lying after all.

The escort merely heaves a sigh at the inevitable question, fingers rubbing briefly at the bridge of her nose. "Her name is Kanaya. Terezi informed me that the two of them were friends on your world, and it--well, truth be told it freaked me out quite a bit."

She cocks her head at Karkat. "Did you know her, too?"

His lips pull back, showing grit fangs, a reflexive gesture more than an intentional one. He doesn't want to believe this at all. She says it freaked her out, but--what if they were wrong somehow, what if Porrim was here before, what if this is just some delusional Capitolite who's taken things too far? They alter everything else; why couldn't they pull some plastic surgery to make her look just so? Tattoos are easy; he has these on him already. And anyone can wear jade green.

"Yes, I knew her." She was (one of) his best friend(s). Motioning at her again, he asks, "Can you prove all this?"

Porrim heaves a sigh. Of course, he wants proof. She doesn't blame him one bit--especially because so far, she's had to take much of this at face value. So she fishes around in her little handbag, pulling out her wallet and handing him two things. The first is her Capitol identification card, with a holographic photo of her with her hair loose and wavy, grinning sharply at the camera--dated eight years previously, long before the Neverending Quell--long before anyone here had even heard of Alternia. The second is a photograph of her and her sister-- "I'm not sure what your Kanaya looks like, but that's mine," she offers by way of explanation. The girl beside her resembles a younger version of Porrim, with the same curved nose, sharp smile, and a short, choppy crop of hair.

He takes both as they're handed over and examines them closely. He knows the Neverending Quell hasn't been going on that long; he figured that much when after that stupid news report that twisted his interview mentioned the next arena would be more like the old ones. But the photo of them together clinches it. He'd recognize Kanaya anywhere, and everything about it save the quirks of species is her.

He wants to--to break them in his hand, or throw them down, or something, but he knows how stupid it would be. Instead he hands them back over, polite as you please, then folds his arms. Sort of--tries to--gives up when the frog bowl won't cooperate. It ribbits as he puts his arms down.

"This is stupid," he mutters. Then he looks up. "So what does this mean? Is there some human version of me wandering around, mad at everything for weird Panem reasons?"

Porrim watches cautiously as Karkat studies her proof, feeling stupid. What's the point of all this? Nothing. At the end of the day, she's still a Capitolite, and none of these Tributes will ever really trust her. She's discovering more and more that she wants their trust. That she wants to help them. She just hasn't quite figured out how yet.

Pursing her lips, she tucks her ID and the photo back into her handbag, which goes back under her arm. "I doubt that," she muses. "Something tells me we'd all be acutely aware of his presence, if that were the case." She sighs. "I'm sorry, though."

Definitely not. Capitolites put this party together. Capitolites put them through this game. Capitolites watch them struggle and fight and kill and die and ask for fucking autographs after the fact. Why should he trust any of them?

"Sorry for what?" he asks, eyebrows mildly quirked. "It's not your fault you're an alternate-universe Porrim. I know why every troll here exists, but mystery human Maryam is a puzzle to us both. Beyond, I don't know, your parents did human reproduction at some point and had a baby that was never a grub."

The escort shrugs elegant shoulders, looking a bit helpless. "I don't really know. Sorry for...not being her, I suppose."

She huffs a breath at his puzzling. "Yes, yes they did," she confirms, a bit of her former amusement returning. "They had mystery alternate-universe duplicating human reproduction twenty-nine years ago, and here I am."

"Human reproduction is disgusting," he says, emphatic and grumpy and freer with his frustration than he probably would be otherwise. But better to be mad about humans and alternate universe shenanigans than anything really important, right?

"Your bellies get huge and the baby comes out, and then you have giant families that make zero sense. Who even cares who's related to which great cousin uncle? Or whatever, I literally don't give a shit." He waves his hands to head her off.

"Grubs are gross but at least we don't have to raise them."

Porrim smirks, grateful for the chance to change subjects, to lean in and tease Karkat a little. "To you, perhaps. To us, it's often quite fun." Not that she's ever been pregnant, or started a family--she's far too happy to be single for that--but she's always thought she'd make a good mother, if that ever became a possibility.

She shrugs. "I wouldn't mind raising a kid, if it ever came to that. I basically am a babysitter already--no offense."

In turn he curls his lip, not bothering to hide his dislike for the thought. "You can keep it. Jade chick over there," he motions to the window they're standing beside, "is pretty much the only troll who's ever raised someone. I dealt with grubs once in my life, and that was more than I ever wanted."

He follows up with a dismissive wave. "None taken. You're the wrong blue for my district, so whichever group of infants you're sitting on doesn't include me."

"Fascinating," Porrim has to admit, with a little smile. "I'd love to learn more about you all, without all this--" she waves a hand at all the pomp and the circumstance--"exaggeration. Without my kind's mediation."

Karkat breathes out a sigh that holds back more than it shows. "There's a lot I'd like to do without all this, but I don't exactly get that option, do I?" The exaggeration, and her kind's mediation. He would have been gone by now if he had the choice of it, but of course he doesn't. There's only so many events he can skip out on.

"At least you have a relevant excuse to want to learn. You're, what, a stylist? Escort? And the whole universe conundrum squat fat and looming above, which is more than anyone else I've run into. Hopefully we can keep that on the minimum before my poor, abused cranium gently cracks, crumples, and folds in on itself in defeat."

Edited 2015-01-24 13:14 (UTC)

"Fair enough," she agrees. "If it makes you feel any better, this wasn't remotely my idea. I prefer my parties to be held not in random caves."

She tosses her hair lightly at his assumption. "Escort, yes. District Five." Her nose wrinkles. "I'll try not to trigger any neurotic episodes on your part."

"The cave is dumb yet thematic. It's the presentation I have a problem with," he argues back, lifting his gaze around the area. It wouldn't be that bad without all the lighthearted torture implements.

His attention returns with her clarification. "Then you have already won yourself some points. One of my friends is actually trying to market a fucking board game about pissing me off."

Porrim's lips curl, without her permission, and something rings a bell. "Ah--Karkat Tantrum Bingo, correct?" She does keep a pretty keen eye on the network, even if she rarely replies to the things people post there. "I can imagine that would be rather...aggravating."

"Yes," he says with a grumble to his voice. "Let's just market my temper tantrums to the world. It's not like my emotions got more than enough attention just from the arena; we have to make sure everyone knows the full spectrum and pays for the privilege. Behold, my lucrative anguish! Now hand over the boonbucks." He finishes with a roll of his eyes.

"At least you've got the easy job around here. Drag people around, make them earn sponsors, and whatever else."

"Easy." Porrim repeats the word incredulously, and lets out a bark of a laugh. "Easy? Oh, child, if only you knew how hard my job actually is, you'd never associate that work with Escorting." It's the truth; she goes to sleep at night feeling bone-tired, overworked, and all the sleep in the world couldn't erase the bags under her eyes.

"But if you think it's so easy, I invite you to try wrangling Five's districts to their interviews every Arena."

Karkat would laugh if he could find any humor in what she says, but he can't even summon up the half-hearted laugh of incredulity to that. Oh, how terrible: she has to make assholes cooperate. He's been there. It's a pain, but it's not what he meant.

He tosses his hands up. "Oh, woe is the poor Capitolite!" he snaps off. "Made to do a job and make people go places. How grueling, how brutal, how very unfair indeed. It must be a cakewalk for tributes like me to go play together in the arenas. I'm a whiny little grub for even daring to put myself above the struggle of dealing with fussy children, and I swear to my shriveled little blood pusher I will keep your plight in mind the next time I taste blood from my internal organs."

He might have kept his tongue if he had thought more, but as loose with the comments as he's been around her, the words are out before he can even start to regret.

Edited 2015-02-10 06:18 (UTC)

Almost immediately, Porrim regrets what she's just said. It was insensitive, certainly; she hadn't been thinking. But on the other hand, she's pretty sure Karkat is overreacting. She hadn't said that her job was any better or worse than being a Tribute; she'd never do so.

"That's a very nice assumption you're making," she snips back haughtily, face a strange mixture of anger and regret. "I'm a bit offended that you'd think I would ever compare my job to your plight. All I said is that it was difficult, which it is."

The Escort lets out a huff, trying to compose herself. "Is there anything else you'd like to overreact at me for? I have some important matters to attend to, if not."

The Crowning Of The Signless

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