thecapitol | The Crowning of Tony Stark

Entry tags:

The Crowning of Tony Stark

Who| Everyone.
What| The Crowning of Tony Stark.
Where| The New Capitol Stark Expo!
When| Friday, late afternoon into the evening.
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, so no funny business.
WARNINGS| Alcoholism / References to Alcoholism.

The Capitol might be known for its extravagance, but Stark Expos have never skimped on a show. Combining the two together could only be a recipe for the most wild indulgences. The center theater takes styling after a arc reactor, with glass ceiling and glowing blue lights set right within the metal and putting a glow to the sky. Lightshows go off on the main stage, the stark logo overhead and a massive screen displaying the Panem flag and Tony Stark's image just behind the dancing Ironettes. A circle plattform going off from the stage, clearly reserved for the guest of honor, features a design Panem's bird in red, gold, and glowing blue.

A globe is featured in the outside gardens, showing off a map of Panem, and the park is filled with artistic statues of destroyed Iron Man amror. But there's no quiet here, not with the fireworks going off all night and the consistent playing of music that is not but sounds an awful lot like that of Daft Punk, Eifel 65, ACDC, and one other song that breaks them up.

Various shows can be found about the gardens, including display models of some of Tony Stark's old weapons and Iron Man suits. Further along guests may find the Avengers display, featuring large portraits of the Avengers and their allies, large red x's going over greyed out portraits of those deemed dead, including Phill Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, and Thor. Along with these portraits can be found the Stark family tree, featuring the Victor Tony Stark and all his relations including apparent son Dave Strider, and Arya Stark, Ancestor of the Stark family, not to mention the great Howard Stark who's accomplishments (and tragic lack of care for Anthony) are lovingly illustrated. One such accomplishment being a "flying car" just a short walk over.

There's plenty for guests to do besides just ogle the brilliant sights however! A bar has been set up with a whole variety of drinking games available from Sink The Battleship and Drink Roulette to an extravagent variation of the classic game, Beer Pong, and an ongoing run of the Games with rules of drinking for each emotional scene, funny incident, or death. Those under the age of eighteen will be served fizzing juice or soda instead and can participate in junior versions of the very same games. All the cups are made from the finest glass with Tony Stark images over them. Avoxes are on scene to clean every spill and break of glass that might come.

A cave has been crafted of artificial and real material, designed to look like the Cave in which Tony Stark became a real hero, but with a twist; it's been made into a fun-for-all maze! Guests can attempt to navigate their way to the labyrinth and reach the core, avoiding those nasty pop-out rebels along the way. Those who make it to the fire-lit center may receive a limited edition "Tony Stark Heart" miniature arc reactor in a beautiful glass case.

An indoor sky diving station is also available, large enough that many guests may enter at once and still find it spacious. Here, guests can don Iron Man themed sky-diving suits and experience the sensation of flight, just as Tony Stark once did. Of course, the party doesn't start until the Victor comes in; he'll be appearing by Capitol-controlled suit to make his entrance at center stage. It is here that his Throne shall be raised up through the stage and his crown gifted to him. Following the official Crowning Ceremony will also come a speech from the Capitol's very own, Cyrus Reagan.

Tributes are dressed in formal wear with robotic accents. Such as a full mask or metal armor. Capitolites can be seen with Tony stark styled hair, bearing tattoos in his image, and even with surgically implanted lights, in honor of the new Victor. Available for purchase are handcrafted Tony Stark dolls, Iron Man action figures, and models of beloved robot-pet "Dum-E" in both small and life-sized. The Iron Man light gloves come completely free for all guests.

The Crowning ends off with a bang, as in the center of the sky, a massive "wormhole" opens up showing a vast darkness full of sinister creatures just on the other side, sure to inspire some screams from fans. Guests near to the Iron Man suit displays are asked by peacekeepers to step back-- far back-- but may be the first to witness the incredible scene of all those suits launching into the sky and exploding around and "in" the wormhole. The wormhole shifts to a message stating the show to have been brought to you by the Hunger Game's skilled Sky-Display Designers before going into advertising for the rest of the night as the party dies down.

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He stopped at the bar and snatched a bottle of red wine off the counter, watching her as she spoke.

He grinned. "Where I'm from, we've got this thing called a 'New York minute,' which is shorter than a normal minute, 'cause everybody's always in a rush." He filled his glass nearly up to the brim and offered her the bottle. "So, what I'm sayin' is, you're probably right."

"What's life like in court, eh?"

Taking the bottle, Éowyn gave herself a rather less generous glass than he had, then replaced the wine on the bartop. "Of late, unsettled," she answered after due consideration, smiling sidelong. "I know less of how matters progress at Edoras, where my brother rules, but in Ithilien we have much to do since the war. The land is only newly resettled, and yet plagued by Orcish troops. And, as Steward, my husband must also help in seeing to the repairs to Minas Tirith and the rest of Gondor, so in truth, I have had little time to consider life at court since I was wed."

Laughing, she took a sip of wine. It was good stuff, as good as the best Gondor vintages, and she appreciated it even while hating the lavishness and extravagance of it all.

"At Edoras, though... ere the war, it was a bright place indeed, loud and bustling. My brother and I came there when I was but seven, and I remember being as stunned by it as... well, as I am now by all this sound and splendour. To a child, especially one so deep in her own grief, it was overwhelming.

"And yet as I grew, I learnt my way around it. You ask how life is in court, but the truth is, after twenty years I can scarce remember any other life. It is... busy. Ever filled with people, those who live there and those who come to petition or to make treaties or to bring news to their liege. In the days, there was always work to be done, whether it was weaving and needlework, or sitting in on my uncle's audiences." She smiled again, a rather mischievous expression that made her look far more like the young woman she still was. "Or following Éomer and Théodred out into the training yards, and thrashing away at each other while my lady's-maids looked on in horror and my uncle with indulgence. That work, I valued too."

The names of the countries and places were all unfamiliar to him; Firo probably would have been confused even if she spoke of places in his world. But he had quite a bit of experience in listening to complicated things beyond his understanding, so he just let his mind blur out the unfamiliar words.

The general gist of things he followed with intent watching and nodding, punctuated with sips of his drink. From what he'd heard so far, he had to wonder if their worlds could be any more different. The tale was all the more fascinating for it.

He could get enough of a picture from her words and smile and his memories of Luck's stories to grin with her. "Like, swords and all?"

"Swords. Spears. Shields." She nodded, taking another mouthful of wine before continuing. "When I was fourteen or so, it was decided it was too improper for a lady of Edoras. Éomer grew less indulgent of my wildness, and Théodred too busy with the affairs of a prince. After that, I kept my training to myself. Sometimes Théodred could still be brought to spar with me, but less and less as time went on. And then, two years ago, he was slain, Éomer banished, Théoden King lost in grief and sickness..." She sighed, shaking her head, and took another long drink. A shadow had come into her expression. "Then court grew less sweet, less bright. It felt like a cage, all shadow and whispers, until I envied my brother his banishment. Yet I could not leave, for doing so would have meant leaving my uncle, the last of his kin who still stayed at his side gone."

"Huh. Well that sucks." He frowned into his drink as he took another sip. While he didn't particularly want to fight a woman, he didn't get the desire to keep them away from weapons. It was a crappy world out there and the more able to defend yourself you were, the better.

Once she finished talking, he amended his earlier statement. "...That really sucks. Why the hell'd they get rid a' your brother? He piss off the wrong person?"

Usually that'd mean death where Firo was from, but things had to be different in court. Especially for people related to the king. They probably didn't rely on the same brand of street justice--at least, on the surface.

Éowyn nodded, sombrely. She was unfamiliar with the specific turn of phrase, but the meaning was easy enough to grasp, not least because it was so thoroughly accurate. "He spoke against our uncle's advisor. Gríma Wormtongue - a vile creature, but one who had already been dripping poison into the King's ear so long that it was fortunate Éomer was merely banished." Her nose wrinkled in remembered disgust. "And for months more I had to stand by and watch that foul man lead my uncle deeper into the shadow, until he forgot all his strength and his courage and would have let the forces of Mordor sweep unopposed through the land. For months I had to hold my tongue and speak soft of hard matters, lest I too be driven from my lord's side. For months. It felt like an age."

His mouth thinned into a line. "Sounds like you've already been dealin' with some stuff close to what's goin' on here."

Sometimes, holding his tongue was the hardest thing for Firo to do here. As had happened in his discussion with his Escort recently, he often didn't. Without any of the senior capos in his Family here to command his respect, Firo found his ability to control himself somewhat lessened.

He could imagine it was the same for her, even if she had practice. Perhaps even because of it--he couldn't imagine having to keep it up for that long.

"Why's nobody else doin' anything about that bastard?" To clarify, he added, "Grimy Wormface, or whatever his name is."

"Gríma was the lesser evil. Sooner should I be back in Edoras in the worst days of the war than in this vile cesspit." The venom in her voice, and in her expression as she looked around the party, was unmistakeable. For a moment, her expression was rather frightening, with a hardness and a vicious hatred that was entirely out of line with her ladylike manners.

But she shook it off as best she could, taking a long draught of wine as if that would wash away the bile this whole place brought to her throat, and turned her attention to his question instead. "None of my kith and kin could oust him, for we loved our king, and our king loved Gríma. Some tried, and they were banished or slain. Many joined my brother, and rode out from Edoras to fight where they could in the grasslands. But not until Gandalf Stormcrow returned to us was Gríma ousted, and my uncle reawakened from his stupor. Gríma fled back to his dark master, and after the war..." She shrugged one shoulder, with affected apathy. "I heard tell he was slain, and his master too. If that is true, I know not."

He nodded. Alcatraz was not a pleasant place to be, but he'd go back in a heartbeat if he had to choose between there and the Capitol. "Yeah, I feel you."

After downing the last of his drink, he cocked his head to the side. "Almost sounds like a happy ending." If those existed. "Anything happen after that, or were things mostly fine when you left?"

He wished he'd been taken during one of the stretches of downtime his life allowed between everything going to hell. Unfortunately, he'd been yanked out of the thick of the action.

"It almost was," she said quietly, and took another draught of wine, closing her eyes. "Our lands were sore hurt, our people scattered and much pained, but we won. Théoden King fell, but Éomer took his place. Gondor's king returned, brought new light to his ancient lands." She laughed a little, sadly. "I was wed. Wed, as I never dared hope in those dark days, to one I love and who loves me. And though the remnants of Mordor's forces yet plague our lands, the world is light again, newborn into another age. It was happy. Would that it had been an ending." Because to have all that, and have it torn away, seemed almost worse than never to have had it at all.

Firo winced sympathetically to hear that, pouring himself yet another glass.

"It always ends right as things are gettin' good, huh?" There was a saying back that it was better to have loved and lost than to never love, but Firo knew platitudes were no comfort.

Maybe it was the drink working on him or simply the opportunity to be honest after having to stifle his feelings for so long. Either way, Firo sighed and spoke more candidly than he might usually. "...Damn, even when you know good things can't last, it still sucks to lose 'em like that."

She nodded, finishing up her wine. Apparently, her resolve to stay sober and clear-headed was wavering more than a little. What she wanted to say, but didn't dare to in case it gave the Capitol ideas, was that she half-wished that, if she had to be here, her husband might at least have come with her. She would have hated him to suffer this place, but she wanted him here nonetheless, selfishly, because at least they might suffer it together.

But she would say none of that. Not where it might be heard. Instead, she just cleared her throat, elbowing her way back to the bar to retrieve more wine, and topped up Firo's glass as well as her own before asking, "What of you? What was it like when you left, if I may ask?"

He smiled and nodded a thank you before taking a sip.

When he came up for air and to answer her question, his shrug looked almost like a wince. "...Complicated." He wondered if he was better off dodging certain aspects of the answer, but she gave him honesty, so he would return it.

Finger tapping on his glass, he started, "Friend a' mine got in some trouble with the feds--not her fault, really, but they came after her anyway. I cut a deal with 'em and wound up in prison to help 'em go after this other guy and... well, honestly, things just got weirder from there. Met a cannibal, a guy with a metal arm, and another friend who'd disappeared a couple months before."

And ripped out a man's eyeball. It was an interesting time.

Éowyn managed to restrain herself from exclaiming, and her only outwards response to that was an elegantly arched eyebrow. Inside, though, she was reeling. That was rather more extreme than she had expected, in all honesty.

"It sounds to me as if you have tales that could well rival mine," she remarked, at last. "Your life seems as if it were rather too interesting for comfort."

He realized too late that, for someone who hadn't lived through all of that, it was probably an infodump. So his shrug at her comments looked almost apologetic.

"Yeah, I've got a lotta stories. Mostly 'cause my friends get wrapped up in a lotta crazy things." And poor Firo was just along for the ride, the way he'd tell it. It wasn't quite the truth, but it was truth enough for him.

He smiled crookedly as he considered her comment on comfort; it was an interesting thought that he'd never touched on before. "Comfort-wise, I was doin' all right for a while before that... Almost ten years, I think. Some strange stuff still happened, though--actually, I think my life was mostly just boring when it was less comfortable. Standin' around tryin' not to starve isn't very exciting."

It was all said in the same casual tone. He didn't think of his life as anything too spectacular--outside of the amazing family he'd found and the stuff with the immortals.

"I should like to hear some of those stories," Éowyn said, but then glanced up at the party around them and made a show of cleaning her ear out with one finger. "Perhaps another time, though. When we can both think without so fearful a din." She smiled at him, just in case he hadn't grasped that she wasn't entirely serious, and took another sip of wine. "In any case, I can sympathise. Boredom is a part of some hardships that tales rarely tell, and poets rarely sing of."

Firo laughed at her antics. "Yeah. Anytime we can find some place quiet, I'd be up to share a few." Firo wasn't a fan of poring over the past, but some of the stuff he'd been through made a damn good story. He had to get something out of it.

He nodded, mouth twisting into an expression of sour contempt. "Guess it'd ruin the fun, eh? Or they just don't know about it--people who make up all the stories and songs about it usually haven't lived through it."

If Firo had a dime for every decently well-off singer who crooned 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime...' Well, he'd have a lot of dimes.

"There's little space in a song for ten verses of nothing," Éowyn observed dryly, shaking her head. "And, I fear, few words to capture that sense of walking without a destination. Those who have spent their life in the light will doubtless struggle to imagine hopeless darkness, at any rate. I know I would have, once." She smiled a little, rueful, and looked down into her glass. "I believed those tales, once. Thirsted for glory and for adventure, before I knew what such things cost. They should have taken me then, for I would have been half-blinded by this place."

"You got that right. People don't even wanna look at it." As a kid trying to make it on the street, sometimes he'd felt almost as much contempt for those who shied away as he did for those who tried to attack or otherwise come after him.

Even as he tilted his head back to drink, he kept a questioning eye on her. "That's kind of a scary thought. Bein' taken in by this place, I mean."

"People back where you're from were into this stuff?" He waved his hand around, gesturing at the festivities.

"No." She was surprised into laughing, shaking her head. "No, not in the slightest. Our music is quieter, our laughter louder. This is... this is all sound and fury, and nothing beneath." Her smile faded, and she shook her head. "But there was a time when I might almost have welcomed it. This place is a cage, but a prettier cage than Edoras had been, and one where we are given the promise of glory, borne by the strength of our arm and not only our ability to hold our tongues. Had they taken me from Edoras in those days of shadow, I might have swallowed their lies, as sweeter than the truth. I would never have been happy here. But I might have been content, for a while."

"Well, I can't say which'd be better..." That was up to her. He couldn't know her pain and he wouldn't pretend to, though he did want to say that he was always grateful for another anti-Capitol person.

"It's weird to think about it, though. I dunno if I woulda' liked it... But a while back, it probably woulda' been better here than where I was. At least the way I woulda' seen it."

Firo back then didn't care too much about people. He hadn't found his place and, cheesy as it sounded, hadn't opened himself to loving or being loved. He couldn't see an end to most human interactions that wasn't violent, so going out and hurting other people wouldn't' have troubled him all that much.

He swirled his glass around and tried to smile. "...But all that matters is that they're not foolin' you now."

"True." She smiled back at him, although it was a smile with no warmth or happiness in it. "And never shall again. I have seen too much of late to be taken in so easily."

For a moment, she lapsed into silence, considering, and sipped thoughtfully at her wine. At last, she said softly, "I am sorry, that we must meet this way. And yet, for all this conversation if for no other reason, I am glad that meet we did."

Despite the sadness and frustration of it all, he smiled at her; there's a hint of childish simplicity in it, the hallmark of one of his really heartfelt ones. "You don't say? I could say the same thing to you--you're a neat lady, Éowyn."

He tipped his glass towards hers, suggesting a toast.

Edited (tenses) 2015-04-07 03:22 (UTC)

She returned his smile with one of her own, one which was not entirely open - few of her smiles lately were so simple, unless they were surprised out of her - but heartfelt nonetheless. "I feel less neat than I should like, in this ridiculous garb," she said, jokingly, and shook her head as she clinked her glass against his. "To glad meetings in dark days, then?"

"It ain't that ridiculous if everybody's in the same boat."

He nodded, approving of the toast before he took another gulp. "Yeah, to good meetings. One a' the only things that keeps you goin' in times like these."

It was reassuring to meet people who felt the way he did and who weren't incredibly difficult to get along with.

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