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!]

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"Didn't bother me any." Of course, it did, but Jason considers himself as kind and generous for his magnanimity now. "Like I say, you just should watch out that he doesn't run his mouth around someone who isn't as forgiving as I am. Jenny Blackwood's not a Hsiang Jiao type, but everyone's on high-alert after the jailbreak and the Brainiac fiasco."

And later, he may come in and try to call this as a favor from Swann. He went out of his way to guide her, didn't he? She owes him.

"Just a word of advice from someone's who's been around this business too long."

"Jenny... Jenny would know he means well," Swann manages to say, softly, lamely, but she's looking away now, eyes prickling with tears. Tears for her failure, tears for Maxwell's misstep, tears for the fact that he's going to die and then she has to try and make him understand.

She doesn't want Jason to see, and so she drinks from her goblet, letting the rim cover most of her face.

"Don't go crying on me now, Swann." Jason but his hands up in a 'slow down' pose while looking over his shoulder, certain that whatever tabloid photographers are sneaking around the periphery are catching this, spinning it into something it definitely isn't, something his mother will grill him about when he gets home. "Just- drink your water and get a grip, damn it."

"I'm not crying," she mumbles toothlessly into her goblet before putting it down and balling her hands in the tulle of her skirt. She won't look at him, though, her dark eyes scanning the crowd through the thin, shimmering line at the bottom of them. She's counting her Tributes, eyes lingering on each one as she mentally lists every potential Sponsor for each one.

It's calming, in a way, makes her feel like maybe she can do this after all.

"Good." Jason fidgets a little, now, as if Swann's discomfort is contagious. These are tears, actual tears, not the crocodile versions that his mother works up whenever she needs something or wants to lay on the martyr complex. This isn't a performance; it's genuine.

"Do you-ah. Do you need another drink or something?"

Swann was a child the last time she faked emotion for attention -- part of people liking you is being honest, at least as honest as you can be in the face of the world's unpleasantries. Forcing up tears would only be lying, it would make people stop caring about her.

"No," she says, with a practiced sniff that makes most of the tears and unhappiness go down her throat, down to where she pushed everything bad. A quick touch of her index finger at the edge of each eye takes care of the rest while looking only like she's brushing at her eyelashes, the fake ones necessitated by the level of makeup she's wearing. "But thank you."

He wasn't really offering, but he doesn't correct her. He just sort of shrugs and looks away. And then, finishing his water, he gets up.

"Look, if we dance maybe the press won't make a big spin story about how I made you cry."

There's still the tiniest amount of shine right at the corner of her eyes when she looks at him with just a vague sense of alarm, as if something's wrong with him, like she's worried she might need to call a medic.

"You... want to dance with me?"

"That's what I said, yeah." He sounds a little bit - a lot bit - impatient. "Or you can sit here moping. I don't actually care."

Swann's immediate instinct is to keep questioning it, if only because it confuses and startles her.

But his tone triggers the part of her that wants to please, and she's standing before she knows it, setting her empty cup on the table as she moves to stand next to him, her crown standing tall where she can't really do so.

After all, she barely breaks five feet in stilettos.

There's not much she can think to do except offer him her hand, even when she's unsure how to follow this odd, melancholy music, with its bells and chimes and sadness.

Her wariness sort of softly shifts into a sense of ease, though, because if she just lets him lead her and do as he likes, then he'll be happy and she doesn't have make any of the decisions anyway.

Jason actually knows how to dance, although it's not a skill he's deployed often as an adult. It was one of the many things he had to learn as a socialite's son, along with which forks come first during a meal and how to end a conversation without making any promises. He takes Swann's hands in his and leads.

For a little while, they don't say anything to each other, both of them having entirely different debates with themselves inside their heads. It's easy enough to look over Swann's head, even with the crown, if he leans forward on his feet. It's more difficult to keep his neck craned down to see her face, and for a while he doesn't bother.

"This music is actually nightmarish."

Edited 2015-01-28 05:20 (UTC)

Letting Jason lead allows Swann to fall into the sort of easy, comfortable space that she used to live in, where she was mostly told what to do and the only decisions she had to make were the ones she wanted to make.

She liked running her show, deciding on topics and guests and what questions she'd ask, while all the time she was being shifted around by the invisible hands of her director and producers and writers, making sure that she never had to be upset because she was never truly in charge enough to be. She just had to make them happy with her choices, that was all.

Becoming an Escort gave her real control, and she didn't really want that, she only wanted to help the Tributes and do something again, anything that was sort of in the public eye and would make people pay attention to her.

She never once moves in any way except the way he guides her, and slowly some of her tension goes away. She is close to sighing when he speaks, and instead she peers up at him.

"It's sad. Like whoever made it was hurting."

"Or wanted to hurt whoever's listening," Jason says, unwittingly casting into stark relief the differences in how the two of them approach the world: Swann, wide-eyed and peering into the minds of others as if hoping to find the key inside to become beloved, and Jason, interpreting any input his senses take up as a weapon maliciously crafted to do him harm.

But the dancing isn't terrible. She doesn't put up any resistance, and that means that there are no surprises when they move in the stiff, steady manner of debutantes.

"I take it not many people've asked you to dance." Jason doesn't mean for it to be as much of an insult as it comes out as, but he doesn't exactly try to retract the statement either. He is a little surprised - as far as he knew, Swann seemed a nice enough woman, the kind his mother would want him to shack up with were she of a mind to let her beloved son out of her clutches.

She doesn't answer his negativity, almost as if she blocks out as much of it as she can, like he never spoke at all. It's easier than fighting her feelings about it, or having to look him in the eye while pretending it doesn't upset her.

"Well, not tonight," she says, glancing away to look at the crowd. "I've been busy with my Tributes... and it's not really dancing music for most people, I think." For the first time since she let him take her on the dance floor, she makes a movement of her own, even if it's only to shift her grip on his hand, tightening it slightly.

"But you haven't exactly been ticking off the dance partners either."

There are a few people on the dancefloor - more staffers than Tributes, Jason notices - but for the most part Swann's right. Those that are there trying to move to the music are swaying, awkward and haphazard, like reeds in standing water.

He tightens his hand around hers back.

"Surprisingly, most people don't seem to like my company." He looks almost amused. "I can't imagine why."

He knows exactly why.

For just the briefest of moments, Swann is inclined to put her ear to his chest, just to ensure that there is a beating heart in there. Sometimes she wonders how he can be so blasé about the way he is, the way he speaks to people and treats them, but she supposes he wouldn't be able to justify his meanness if he didn't force people off to start with.

Swann is just one of those people who won't be pushed away. She doesn't have the sense of self-worth that would make her step away because she deserves better treatment.

She looks back up at him, craning her neck even as she stands in heels, and tilts her head. Her voice is quiet; he's making her upset, to think that he can care so little about alienating so many.

"Jason..."

He looks down at her, for a moment more over his cheeks and down his nose than actually tilting his head down, but eventually he cranes his neck so they're looking at each other face to face.

"Yeah?"

He still leads with his feet, automatic, drawing on those damn classes he had to take as a pre-teen.

Looking up at him, their eyes meeting, everything that Swann really wants to say, deep down, dies in her throat.

Please be nicer. You're so mean to everyone. People would love you if you just stopped acting this way.

Instead, all she does is exhale and gently squeeze his hand, a movement far too small for any photographer to make a note of it and see it as anything more than a simple readjustment of her fingers.

"Then I'll just keep dancing with you."

"I'm not interested in it if you think you're doing it from pity, Swann." His voice is low, quiet enough that no one's going to overhear them.

And yet his hand is tight with hers, squeezing back because she's tip-toeing along a strange little nerve in him, one he doesn't have words for, one that maybe no words would probably buff out of the murk. His eyes stay on hers, and he notices the details of her makeup, the glitter along her false lashes that look like gold flecks or drops of the sun or, to him, like an infection. He notices the slight asymmetry of her nose, of her lip.

"I wouldn't do it out of pity, Jason," she answers, looking only very mildly hurt that he would think such a thing, and it's true, she knows better than to try that with him. "You wanted to dance with me, didn't you? Why can't I want to dance with you?"

Her skirt floats along her skin as it moves with them, and she refuses to break eye contact. Everything that the other Capitolites mock in Jason, in the Compsons in general, it doesn't go over her head; she's not stupid or blind. She can see that Jason doesn't have money like the rest of them, knows that they hide the youngest boy still, the one that she was both scared of and wanted to help as a child. She remembers some of the scandal with pretty Candace (the main reason Swann had always followed along, had always wanted the unconditional love that Caddy had for the others, but Swann was too young and was always pushed away by the boys who didn't want to play with her).

She knows that other people they know, other people in the city, that they see his siblings and his parents and even more family members when they look at him, the same way that she was only "Ilar's daughter" for many years, until she proved she had at least some talent of her own. She knows that because that's how the Capitol works.

But Swann is not a woman who thinks like that -- she sees Jason and wants to help him, because he's just so unhappy, and maybe he doesn't have to be like that.

"Is it all right, to keep dancing?"

Edited 2015-01-30 22:12 (UTC)

"Yeah." He sighs as if he's giving something up or admitting defeat.

It's strange, how Swann's become an awkward ally of his in his short time here; if he were the kind of person who measured how close people got to him, she might be nearer than most, but he isn't because he doesn't perceive the world that way. Everyone is held at arm's length equally, kept back by a barrier of sharp words and resentment and sometimes violence. And so she's his ally from afar.

She knows that she sees his family stretched out behind him like shadowy paper dolls, linked at the wrists, the same way he sees hers. That they both drag behind them a train of gossip and scandal and failed TV shows and financial endeavors. He can't imagine she sees anything else, and no matter how much he longs to be seen without his siblings and his parents shackling him at the ankle, he can't imagine it for himself and as such he can't imagine it in her mind, either.

"Please." It doesn't have the delicate, plaintive nature of a plea. The words sound like a refugee, a prisoner escaped from his better judgment, dull and exhausted and witless.

There is a moment where she looks at him and doesn't see him as he is, but instead as a plump little boy, maybe nine or ten, frowning still as he reaches out, maybe to push her back from the doors of the Reagan playroom. The memory blinks out with Swann being scooped away by a nanny as she cried, Jason still sullenly watching from a split in the finely-detailed double doors, the other children crowding behind him to see who was bawling.

Reality sets back in, and he is tall to her, and thin now, and the sound of his voice makes her squeeze his hand again, wordlessly, because she knows he doesn't want her sweet words or her hugs or anything else she has to offer.

All she can give him is the two of them on this dance floor, in silence that is strangely comfortable, broken only by her reassurance.

"Okay. We'll keep dancing."

Edited 2015-01-31 01:24 (UTC)

"Good."

Whether because if they stop now it'll look bad or because if they do, the boy-shaped insecurities that somehow grew up into a man who can give happiness no more easily than he can receive it, he doesn't want to stop the slow, somber dance. He tells himself that the smell of her perfume - honeyish and autumnal, like harvests from Districts that they've never visited - is one of those medicinal scents he would use for his head. He tells himself that at least now the tabloids will speculate that there's something between them besides her supposedly lending him money, an article that made him livid enough that he had to lie down afterwards.

When the keening, lilting dirge ends and is replaced by some song with beets stuffed with profanity, they break away and return to their work and the party as if nothing has happened and no relationship was forged between them. Only they know what transpired.

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The Crowning Of The Signless

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