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

It's like he was almost nice. Like he nearly considered it, just for a split second, before settling on something much more patronizing. But, well. Baby steps.

Beth's smile is knowing and maybe just a little bit smug. She knows that happened there, or think she knows, and she's going to fold that information away no matter how much it is denied.

"Glad you approve, Mister Compson," she tells him, a little wryly. She stands a little taller, as if to prove that the shoes aren't a bother. She'll be fine.

It's been seventeen years and yet there's still that impulse to tell her that Mr. Compson's his father. He assumed the head-of-household position half his age ago and yet it still sits uncomfortably, oppressively, on his shoulders.

He glances over his shoulder, where another Escort and a Stylist are tittering about his outdated suit, a few seasons out of fashion and clearly not crisp and new. Or maybe they're talking about something else, but he doesn't like the way they're glancing at him and whispering, giggling. He gets almost as much attention as the damn Tributes, and he doesn't want a lick of it.

"Anyone asked you to dance yet?"

They're whispering about him probably as much as they whisper about the tributes as they pass by. Beth can't go anywhere these days without having a camera shoved in her face. How did it feel to die? they ask, like it's the most casual thing in the world to ask someone. She doesn't expect the Capitol of all people to have a great sense of tact, but maybe it was naive of her to expect more than this from them.

"No," she tells him, with a shrug. It doesn't really bother her, to be honest. She doesn't know too many people here, and these heels are so ridiculous that she's not sure she actually could dance in them. "Why, are you gonna ask me?"

Beth isn't expecting him to say yes.

"Why else would I ask?" It's not that he doesn't know how to not sound terse and impatient, but that effort seems gargantuan given the task he's facing tonight. For a moment he considers telling Beth about the big surprise at the end of the Crowning just so he can vent his spleen, but he knows that that won't end any way but him getting his pay docked for a confidentiality breach.

He knows how to dance. It was one of the many things that young socialites learned from tutors, along with calligraphy and other skills that he's very rarely used as an adult.

To be honest, he suspects that Beth's dancing skills are limited to some kind of backwater gallop, but he has the presence of mind not to say that out loud. Instead he holds a hand out, raising his eyebrows. Casting a glance at the tittering citizens watching them, he actually even smiles for Beth, if only for the show of it.

It's true, she doesn't really know how to dance. There were a couple of high school dances in her memory before the apocalypse hit and everything started shutting down. Slightly awkward affairs with everyone crammed into the school gym. Hanging on to her first boyfriend because that's what you were supposed to do, right? Be stupid and mushy at sixteen.

But she'll take his hand and refuse to admit that, mostly because she's caught off guard by the fact that he actually asked her to dance. And he's actually smiling. It's most likely a publicity thing.

She's going to try to lead, of course. And badly.

He could almost laugh at how ungainly she is, except that finding anything humorous at the moment seems difficult. It's more than just the drudgery that has him nervous; returning to the Escort position was a last resort, and without even that his family will soon be destitute. His first Cornucopia in nearly a decade is approaching and he has to perform well.

He thinks of having to sell belongings and the last of the land on the estate, thinks of letting the last remnant of the Compson name disintegrate under his watch, thinks of what kind of stifled growth, not even plant, he is that failed to thrive if it comes to that. Thinks of pride and responsibility and the lacks thereof.

Beth can probably tell that it's not just that smiling doesn't come easily to him. His palms are sweaty, and there's a flutter of pulse in his neck. He's actually nervous. Despite having been at big parties like this since he was old enough to walk, he seems almost as ill-at-ease as Beth does in her high heels.

He gives her hand a squeeze. "Follow my lead. Might as well put all those private lessons to use.""

His palms are sweaty, and that's kind of reassuring. It's an intimidating party, even without the foreboding decor and the weird music. His palms are sweaty and she's trying not to wobble in shoes that are too high for her, and all of a sudden it feels more like being back in that packed school. They probably make a pretty graceless pair. The tabloids are going to have a field day with this.

"You had private lessons?" she wonders what it might be like, to have grown up in a place like this. Where parties were perfectly normal and your whole life was on display at all times. Beth thinks it would probably drive her up the wall.

But she nods, because he obviously knows more about this whole dancing thing than she does. And he's actually being nice, which is a refreshing change from the earlier grouchiness. "Okay. You lead. Go easy on me, I never learned any of this."

"I'll keep it simple." For once, he forgoes the chance to lace the comment with condescension. He's focusing for a moment on steps he hasn't used much since he was fifteen, feeling like his veins are constricting in his head.

And so he guides them through the simple circles that one can do with this music. His phone rings, but the only interruption is to turn the sound off rather than break the rhythm to check it.

"My mother. I'm considering getting a second cell phone just to get away from her," he mutters.

She follows his steps, a little tentatively at first because it's confusing, but he makes good on his promise to keep things simple at least. And after a few times around, it's actually sort of fun despite the constant fear that she'll snap her ankle by wobbling around too much.

Jason mentions his mother, and Beth is softer because of it. "She's the worryin' type, I guess? My mama used to be like that. But we never had cell phones, so I guess I was lucky."

"That's one way of putting it." His grimace is anything but soft; it's outright pained, until he remembers that the purpose of this was to look like he and a Tribute were having a decent time and not casting a dark cloud on their corner of the ballroom. And so that tense smile returns.

He leans in. "Don't panic. I'm going to whisper something in your ear."

It's a good thing he warned her as he began to lean in. Beth's been getting better at lying lately, and acting went hand-in-hand with that. She used to be terrible at it, but now she smiles sweetly when people ask her what she's doing, and sends them down the hall to an office with walkers in it.

And that's exactly what she does now, too. Smiles sweetly for the cameras and the spectators. "Okay. What is it?"

She smells like some kind of countryside flower he can't name, one he's sure he has in one of the little caps he puts in his vaporizer. He'll have to ask Stig about it. It's a decent choice, especially with her dress and boots. For his part, he still carries the scent of the medicinal camphor around him, as if he's swapped looking sickly for smelling like a homeopathic pharmacy.

"Don't drink anything tonight. You're going to need to run in..." He glances at the watch on his wrist, a family heirloom that would look monogrammed if not for the fact that the 'Jason Compson' etched into the rim isn't followed by a numeral. "About an hour. Keep a straight face."

Keeping a straight face is easier said than done, to be honest. Beth has one arena under her belt and many less than fond memories of it. The prospect of experiencing that terror and grief again makes her want to yell, to rage against how awful it is even though it won't do any good.

She doesn't, though. She knows she can't let anyone see her face, and she made a promise to stop crying a long time ago. Instead, Beth leans her head against his shoulder. Just for a moment, to hide her face from prying eyes while she processes the news.

"Are you warnin' me because you want me to win? Because you get a bonus?"

"I'm not going to lie and say that I don't want that. But I also figure that of any of my Tributes here, you're least likely to rat me out for telling you ahead of time and most likely to take it in the spirit it's meant."

For a moment he isn't sure how to respond to her leaning in, looking like she's about to cry. It's enough that he nearly wants to walk away, shove her off him now, but that would make a scene. So instead he puts a hand to the back of her head and very tentatively strokes her hair. It's soft, and they can sway with the music well enough in this pose, and so for a few moments he holds her there and she exhales into his shoulder, and he realizes this is the most physical contact he's had with another person in a long time.

"So it looks like we're both going to be having awful nights."

She doesn't know how much it's gonna help her, to be honest. She wasn't planning on drinking anything tonight, but she'll pass the message on to Rick and Daryl and the others if she can. Without telling Jason about it, of course. Because he probably wouldn't approve.

He's putting on a show for the whispering audience, of course. It's been a long time since anyone's touched her hair. She's almost forgotten what it feels like.

After a moment, Beth pulls away, her composure regained for the moment. She's going to warn Daryl and Rick. And they're going to survive.

"You're right. It must be terrible for you," she's trying really hard not to roll her eyes. It's a true struggle.

"I didn't say it was going to be fun for you either. Just that I'm enjoying it about as little."

When he was little, the Cornucopias were an event they waited all year for, the only time he and his three siblings all truly got along, sitting on the couch in their playroom with their 'gambles' of toys and candies, eagerly betting on their favorites, weeping when their champions fell, relentlessly teasing each other over their losses.

Now, minus two siblings and thirty years older, Jason can hardly remember what that was like. Everything he looks back on is caked in a film of hatred and disappointment and foiled opportunities. The past is decayed and putrid and the future is nothing but a long overnight where he'll be fighting a headache for a week afterwards.

He keeps her hand in his, so they'll at least finish out this song without breaking apart. He looks at her eyes but realizes he can't read anything there; she's a mystery to him, what she's planning beyond him except for the faintest wisps of assuming she'll tell a friend or two. He sighs and turns his gaze away, looking over her shoulder.

"At least I got to the drugstore before tonight. I can't afford a sick day."

"Oh."

It's easy to get caught up in bitterness against the Capitol these days. Easier still to assume that they're all heartless and rooting for their deaths. Jason just helped her out - she assumes he'd get in trouble for it. You can get in trouble for looking at the wrong person in a place like the Capitol. Maybe it's for selfish reasons, but it's still help she probably needs.

He's kind of a jackass, but he's also kind of nice. In a weird and contradictory way.

"I thought it smelled familiar. Kinda like those creams you get for itching. But I thought the doctors here were the best. They bring us back to life, I guess."

"You're welcome," he mutters, realizing he's not going to be thanked but that he can make do with just her cooperation.

"That's not doctors. That's physicists. The difference is important, I guess, but not enough for me to know it." His mouth tightens, something in his neck bobs. "And I'm not seeing a doctor. Enough of my pay goes to overpriced snake oil garbage for my brother and mother and it doesn't do them any good. I'll get by with camphor."

The part of him that gets off on the feeling of his own victimhood rares up like a fire catching a breeze, compelling that little rant. The anger is genuine, but it's more than that. It's frustration, too, and despair, and honest fear.

Every time he mentions his family, he gets this bitter look on his face that tells Beth that there's definitely a story behind all of this. Part of her really wants to ask, but she knows better than to go digging up people's personal lives. So she'll just have to settle for her own curiosity. It's almost like he's a look into the life of someone who lives in a Capitol, when they're always so united in their display of uncaring hedonism. They must have families, too. Must have lives outside of the suffering they put other people through, right?

"If you say so," she tells him, and it's non-committal on purpose. She's trying not to pry. "I hope it gets better."

And despite everything, it's pretty sincere.

"It'll come and go, same as it always does. Has since I was a kid."

It's not like Jason to honestly open up; usually when he complains it's to throw it in someone's face, to shut down an argument with an avalanche of self-pity, put up a force field of unreasonable self-absorption. He keeps dancing, waltzing her stiffly across the floor. She has a way about her that makes talking easy, a sort of air of interest as if she's genuinely curious and listening without judgment. That which she expresses is so easily diffused, so transient as to be mythical at its most tangible.

"Unless you're talking about my family, in which case, well, they'll die eventually," he says, not oblivious but indifferent to the fact that Beth lost hers. He's coaxing at that judgment, seeing if it'll emerge from hiding again as it did a few moments ago.

Edited 2015-02-11 18:49 (UTC)

Beth doesn't mean to, but she stops right there in her tracks. She stops moving her feet entirely, so momentarily taken off guard that all she does is stare up at him in a sort of shocked contempt. But mostly, it's because she can't quite tell if he's joking and just happens to have a particularly morbid and terrible sense of humor. She fights back the judgement that he's expecting, attempting to coax out of her.

She wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, but feels as if it'll just go to waste in the end.

"You aren't serious, are you? Because you kinda sound like you want that to happen right now."

And it's something she really can't comprehend.

"Watch your feet." He makes a quick adjustment so keep from tripping over her as she stops. He doesn't make it look effortless, but people will think they're merely clumsy instead of that he's offended her.

"Course I'm not serious," he says, sounding as if he means that even less. His eyes betray a sort of darkness, a deep unhappiness that's become simmering fury for his entire life. "But you don't know my family, so maybe you should keep from making about assumptions."

After a moment, he just says "and sorry about yours, by the way."

He says it so casually. I'm sorry about your family dying, just as if they're talking about the weather and Sunday football. Maybe she can't blame him. It's not his family, after all. It's been long enough that Beth doesn't want to cry every time she thinks about or mentions her dad, but she still has to swallow that initial discomfort. Which she does, regaining her balance and stepping back into the dance.

"So you knew about that? How much does the Capitol know about us, anyway?" she figures it's a reasonable enough question, given that she's never told him about her family.

"I don't know about the Capitol proper, just the Escorts." He's sure if he were a Gamemaker - like he was supposed to be, had his sister not ruined all his chances - he would know better, and there's a flush of jealousy and anger that runs up his neck like a blot of paint on wet paper. Anger at a memory he doesn't see fit to tell Beth about. He's sure she'll hear of the Compson scandal eventually.

"We get notes. I got maybe a page on you, more your physical measurements than anything, a bit on your health and a few sentences about where you're from. Some Tributes we get more on than others." The continue the dance, and rather than feeling like a snake and its charmer like he did a moment ago, trying to avoid the snap of fangs, now they seem a bulwark against the outside. "I usually don't even know I'm getting a new one of you until about an hour beforehand. This new system is a nightmare. I could be handling as many as nine of you and we're about as in the dark about what's going on as you are."

Granted, he doesn't have to go die, but, well. It's still annoying.

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

no subject