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

Eventually, Jason will look up and will find a blue gaze waiting. The weight isn't quite as heated as the one the escort throws about, but it is steady. It is measuring.

Out of respect to Dorian - and the mitigating factors - Maxwell hadn't tried to get involved, but he still wanted a closer look. Still believed an enemy of his - friend - was an enemy of his as well.

If there was a way to smooth the way, to make it easier for Dorian, he might just take it. Whatever tongue lashing would come after.

After all, what exactly did he have to lose?

Over the years, Jason's cultivated a keen sense of when he's being watched. Usually, it's from other Capitol citizens, who treat him with a strange concoction of wariness and pity, like one might a dying wild animal. It's tragic, of course, his family's downfall, but they wouldn't want to risk getting themselves contaminated by association, and so many of the socialites in Panem watch him with uneasy glances from over their shoulders during events.

Usually it's not a bit of a measuring glare, like what Trevelyan's throwing at him now with those unflinching eyes. Jason chews on a toothpick and glares back, muscles around his eyes tightening but those around his mouth staying put.

"You looking at something, Trevelyan?"

That Jason knows his name doesn't throw him. Here, there, all manner of stranger had been happy to toss his name and title about -- even at him, when they'd been unaware Inquisitor Trevelyan was the man they were speaking to.

Instead he merely shifts his weight, an easy sway from foot to foot as his head tipped. As his gaze remained, unblinking on Jason's.

"I was merely hoping to put a face to the name I've heard so much about."

"Dorian been running his mouth, has he?" Jason chews the toothpick and then it splinters; he spits it out into a napkin in his palm and crumples it up, sending it to a trash can under the table. He doesn't hold Maxwell's gaze, not because he's scared to but because he doesn't want to dignify it with rapt attention.

"I'm not going to pretend I think he's praising me."

"Surprisingly little, actually. About anything - we barely see him."

And that was true. Other than knowing that the there was no love-lost - which was obvious to anyone with eyes - and that something had been said to close the man off, Maxwell was fairly in the dark.

Though he could make a few educated guesses.

(It had to be something personal. Something important - either against the mage himself, or those he considered his own. Otherwise Dorian wouldn't have batted an eye.)

"I'd appreciate it if you could clear a few things up for me."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry about that?" Jason crams his hands back into his pockets and continues perusing the food here, wrinkling his nose as some kind of roach darts out from under a bowl of marshmallows. So much for his appetite.

"What do you want to know?" Something about Jason's tone is perpetually impatient, as if he begrudges each question for his time even though it's not like he has anything better to be doing. He's watching the Tributes from the corner of his eye, that's all, making sure none of them do anything he has a problem with or drink too much before their little 'surprise' later today.

Even as Jason continues to try and dismiss him, Maxwell remains steady. Attention focused.

"I doubt it," he replied coolly, the exhale through his nose, like a lazy snort from a bull. It's dander not quite up yet. "Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. I'm just curious how it works."

"Don't you have your own Escort to explain it to you? According to what I hear, Swann's actually got a soft spot for you." He shakes his head and drags his fingers through his hair. Every bit of him screams that he's uncomfortable with this entire affair, with the suit that's a little too shabby to be a Citizen's, with the food here, with all the alcohol and the loud noises, with having to interact with people.

"I try and get people to like Dorian enough to spend money on him. They give the money to me, and I make a judgment call on what he needs in the Arena and get it to him."

"That part, yes," he said simply, not wanting to drag any more names into this than he had to. Swann had been kind to him, as much as he expected any of them really could be, and he didn't want to see Jason turning this back on her somehow. "If someone fancies us enough, they can send us supplies in the arena."

He folded his arms, settling in for the duration.

"And you don't think Dorian can manage it as the man he is?"

"I know he can't. Because, you see, I come from this world, I know these people, and all of you don't."

If Jason were an animal, his hair would bristle, spines coming up with indignation.

"What you don't get - what you and he both don't get - is that I'm here to help his sorry ass. And your precious Dorian isn't so flawless that anyone here would pick him out of a lineup of nearly a hundred Tributes. Sorry you have to hear that about your boyfriend."

It was a neat maneuver. If a low one. (A time and a world apart, and yet that was still used as an insult. It might have been comforting if it weren't so ridiculous.)

The heat came fast, churning up in his chest, and the muscles tightened along his spine. His fingers twitched and curled inside his elbows,... but he resisted the urge to swing.

It wasn't the time, nor the place, and that surely would only cause more trouble. For everyone.

"If that's what really they want, more of the same, why did they change the rules?" It took a beat, but he got it out. The words a clip faster, but his voice, for the moment unraised. "Why bring us here, only to try and force to be what you already had?"

If Jason's aware he's near being punched, he doesn't show it. Maybe he's just used to hostility being directed at him, like the gaze of a sunflower at the dawn.

"Swann's really not big on educating you all, is she? This wasn't about giving the entertainment industry a booster shot. It's about politics." He picks up another toothpick and fiddles with it. "Look, the Capitol isn't as twitterpated with Princess Dorian as you are. Expecting me to not do my job because he's got a big ego and you're licking his ass is stupid."

His back teeth touched, ground together.

"So starving children and exhausted populace aside, winning is important for more than what we've been told, and somehow you think this approach will be incentive enough for your tributes to do it for you."

"I think that wanting to not die should be incentive enough for anybody, and that feeding starving children is a cherry on top of that." Jason sneers. "Look, are you getting something out of telling me how to do my job? Because contrary to whatever Dorian's whining to you about, I actually do my job well. That he doesn't like it isn't my fault. I'm not about to put him in silk slippers because it better suits his fancy."

"It might, if the evidence didn't point to the contrary." He pulled a hand free and gestured across the room to the memorials, set up by themselves. "It doesn't look like it's any safer out here than in there."

He turned back, eyes harder than before. Whatever hope he'd had of this smoothing over gone like smoke in a breeze.

"I was hoping we might be able to make this easier for everyone involved, but it would seem that's an impossibility as well."

"Do you want me to pull up numbers of how many Tributes permanently died in the Arenas versus in the Capitol? Because I could."

He jams his hands into his pockets, insolent, standing his ground like a stake in the earth. "That's not my fault. You're the one who came in here with your ideas about how I should be running my own District."

"After you came in with your ideas about who and what we should be."

His arms unfolded, hung at his sides, but he didn't move closer.

"But I'm sure it'll work fine for you. How much different can grown men and women with nothing to lose really be from frightened children."

"Because I want Dorian to win. Why is this such a difficult concept for you all? Why are you wed to stubbornly sticking to the 'way you are' at the expense of your lives, as if what you've got to show right now is anything to brag about?"

A line forms between his lower lip and chin, a new dimension to his frown.

"I'm sorry Dorian doesn't like following rules, but here in Panem, we learn how to take orders from the time we're children."

"You're the ones who brought us here. If you've really got all the answers, I would have thought you'd have been prepared for the consequences."

He looked Jason over again, then shook his head. Done.

Dismissive.

He started to turn away.

"But good luck. Maker knows you're going to need it."

"I'm not the one who made that call. I've got barely any more control over this whole situation than the rest of you." The words are hot, sharp out of his mouth, a quick whip-like snap. He's beyond tired of being held responsible for the crimes of others, for the precarious house of cards his parents and their parents and their parents crafted, the one he knows will collapse with a breath.

He calls at Maxwell as he leaves.

"I can report you for a threat, you know. Or report him!"

His heart thumped, one hard beat against his ribs. Not for himself, but for Dorian. For the whole reason he'd spoken to this man in the first place.

It got him to stop, pause. And turn back.

"He doesn't know I'm here. As I said, we haven't spoken much." There was honesty in his eyes - the statement nothing but truth - as well as edge. The blue of his gaze like ice, sharp and cold. He'd already lost everything. The only thing holding him now was Dorian, and the others, and trying to keep them as safe as he could. "If you're really that frightened, take it out on the right man."

"I'm not frightened. I just don't suffer threats. No Escort should." He takes a glass of water and starts to leave, having now made his point. "I'll be talking to Swann, too."

"I'll expect to hear from her then," he replied, but he made no move to stop the man.

He'd tried. He'd failed.

He, at least, could face the consequences.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Crowning Of The Signless

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject