The Gamemakers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thecapitol2013-06-21 12:41 pm
gamemakers) wrote in thecapitol2013-06-21 12:41 pm
Entry tags:
- aunamee,
- cassandra marko,
- commander shepard,
- harley quinn,
- npc: darius,
- sigma klim,
- the grand highblood,
- the signless,
- wyatt earp,
- ✘ alex rider,
- ✘ blaine anderson,
- ✘ callista ming,
- ✘ charlotte "lottie" la bouff,
- ✘ cinna,
- ✘ cuthbert allgood,
- ✘ damian wayne,
- ✘ daniel jackson,
- ✘ donatello,
- ✘ effie trinket,
- ✘ enjolras,
- ✘ howard bassem,
- ✘ ian gallagher,
- ✘ jack atlas,
- ✘ jay,
- ✘ john watson,
- ✘ kate bishop,
- ✘ lady,
- ✘ marius pontmercy,
- ✘ maximus,
- ✘ neffa a reyeth,
- ✘ neophyte redglare,
- ✘ pruna,
- ✘ r,
- ✘ sherlock holmes (bbc),
- ✘ shion,
- ✘ some ovmennet,
- ✘ stephanie brown,
- ✘ tony stark,
- ✘ topher brink
The Execution of a Traitor
Who| Everyone.
What| Ariadne's public execution.
Where| Execution is in the public square, threads in the Districts
When| Mid-morning the day before the new arena.
Warnings/Notes| Within the first cut is an execution with nerve-attacking toxins, as well and gore and gun violence. Everyone is still locked into their districts.
Starting at 9:30, in every bedroom in the training center, an alarm has started. Everyone is to wake up, everyone is to see this, and anyone who hasn't wandered out by 9:45 is awoken by an Avox and escort into the suites common area.
The TV's turn on exactly at 10.
The morning is crisp, cool, even this close to the start of summer. Even being so early there is of course a crowd gathered. A small live audience, all Capitol citizens, all thoroughly checked for security, is shown entering by the cameras, gathering before the empty stage. Peacekeepers can be seen, en mass, around the edges.
Finally Cruentus walks out, barely containing her excitement. She tries to keep on a serious mask, but looks more like a child trying to behave so she isn't take away from the Santa greeting line.
"My father, unfortunately, has business to attend to, and couldn't be here. But as the head of the Tribute program, I am here for you instead. As you all know, on the night of the crowning ceremony, one of our guests tried to assassinate our beloved head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee." She pauses, giving the crowd time to discuss that, waiting patiently for them to settle.
"Ariadne was one of our guests, one of our victors. She was someone we welcomed here, with open arms. And we will not stand for this disrespect. Her act of rebellion, though sloppy and easy to unwind, was unacceptable!"
Another pause, longer, the crowd working themselves up more.
"We will not stand for this. We will not stand for people we welcome into our city, into our homes, to injure our kin. No more!"
With a quick gesture, she summons the two avoxes, Shepard and Holly, both former mentors themselves, to bring Ariadne out to the center of the stage, bound in chains.
For everything that went wrong, Ariadne is absolutely unapologetic. She knows full well that she got sloppy, and that she shouldn't have trusted Eva as far as she could throw her - that's the only explanation, she thinks; she's blissfully oblivious to Eva's public betrayal, but she knows something went wrong somewhere down the line. She's not sorry that she got caught, nor is she sorry that she's in this position now. She caused a stir; she got things going. That's better than the waiting game that everyone else is playing. She can respect it, but it wasn't for her.
Her back still stings from the shrapnel that hit her during the blast: the way that Shepard and Holly hold her makes it impossible to ignore as she stumbles out to the stage, eyes hardened as she looks up to stare at Cruentus over anyone else. She welcomes whatever punishment she's begotten; she's not afraid.
The crowd goes wild for a long time. Booing, loud, raucous - they seem just barely controlled. Hatred comes off in waves towards Ariadne, the first true target of a growing, seething hatred that still hasn't found its purpose yet.
Cruentus lets it go on, draws it out, encourages it. Then, finally, she holds up another arm.
"For such a vile crime, we have cooked up a special little potion for our traitor. Something any of those feeling a touch rebellious might keep in mind."
Glancing back, she gestures for Penny Hsiang to come forward, flashing the other woman the smile she had been struggling to keep in.
Penny steps forward and pulls a syringe out of her wide sleeves like a magician revealing a rabbit from a hat. She holds it up high, bearing a grin that could make someone queasy if it were aimed in their direction. For a brilliant, brief moment, she is the center of attention, and even the crowd hushes slightly.
"This is a poison fit for a traitor," she announces. "It's rapid-onset, degenerative. It strips away the parts of the brain that take the oomph out of bad memories. Then it disables the part of your brain that dampens pain signals. Then it kills you."
She takes a step towards Ariadne. A Peacekeeper presents Ariadne's vein.
"Special order," Penny says as she leans in and whispers in Ariadne's ear, giggling as if she were a teenager girl discussing cute classmates and not a torturer sinking a needle into Ariadne's arm. "Just for you."
Still, the crowd's response to her makes no difference. Cruentus' words don't make any difference, and Penny's barely concealed venom doesn't either. Ariadne is unflappable in the face of her own execution, for she saw that coming; Cobb's words come back to her in that moment - dying was how you got out of a dream, dying was how he and Mal got out of Limbo - and a strange sort of calm comes to her in waves, counteracting the hatred of the crowd and all of those around her.
Ariadne doesn't even turn when Penny whispers in her ear; she's never been much for gossip or chatting idly about cute classmates. She doesn't blink when the needle sinks into her vein, though it sends a shiver down her spine that she can't control. For a moment, she wonders just how good the Capitol is at capital punishment, and how long it's going to take for this to happen. Ariadne might theoretically have all the time in the world, but that doesn't mean she wants to drag it out.
It hits the moment after her mind goes blank again, after her last thought is fully formed; her mind is forced to go blank, simply because of the level of sheer pain that wracks her body. It comes to her in spasms, in seizing that is only contained by the fact that her hands are still bound, and she's still held by the Avoxes she once knew. She doesn't scream. Instead, Ariadne bites the inside of her cheek, the inside of her lip; her teeth go through the flesh - she tastes blood - and it's still not enough to detract from the poison running through her veins. She seizes violently for all to see, every inch of her body trembling and shaking and contorting in a fashion that would make anyone cringe.
Biology had never been her strong suit, and most of Penny's explanation of it went over her head; still, she can tell when the second part of the poison starts to kick in, when the pain almost fades away, leaving her numb and still shaking where she's held, a trickle of her blood spilling down her chin from where she'd bitten her mouth to shreds. And still, she doesn't scream; still, she doesn't tear her eyes away from Cruentus.
Holly and Shepard hold her high and as still as possible as the toxin causes her to twitch, jerk in their grasp. It looks better on TV, of course, but possibly, somewhere in their reprogramming, it is also a way to give Ariadne her last bit of dignity.
When her body finally stops convulsing, when her head drops to her chest and she goes still, the crowd cheers. And Cruentus smiles, knowing her message was sent loud and clear.
Penny steps back to the corpse. A gun materializes from the wide sleeves into her hands, and she places it straight to Ariadne's cold temple and pulls the trigger. She doesn't flinch when there's a bang, nor when the blood and bits of bone and brain and gunpowder spray over Holly's Avox robes, nor when the crowd celebrates even more uproariously.
"Can never be too sure," she says quietly, then to Holly, "go clean yourself up."
It's the last bit of this particular section of footage in the broadcast.
When the viewing is over, a Peacekeeeper appears to sets a box on a table set up just for this. Opening it, within each box are several wrist cuffs, the names of Tributes carved on the inside, one for each named Tribute, a simple motif relating to the District on the outside. A neat hand-written note from Cruentus sits in the white satin in the middle of the box.
A gift, for those among us who need to remember where they are.
It is clear the Peacekeeper is there for anyone who objects to putting their cuff on. After receiving the cuff, the Tributes are permitted to wander, although those with cuffs are given 'special attention' by their Escorts.
What| Ariadne's public execution.
Where| Execution is in the public square, threads in the Districts
When| Mid-morning the day before the new arena.
Warnings/Notes| Within the first cut is an execution with nerve-attacking toxins, as well and gore and gun violence. Everyone is still locked into their districts.
Starting at 9:30, in every bedroom in the training center, an alarm has started. Everyone is to wake up, everyone is to see this, and anyone who hasn't wandered out by 9:45 is awoken by an Avox and escort into the suites common area.
The TV's turn on exactly at 10.
The morning is crisp, cool, even this close to the start of summer. Even being so early there is of course a crowd gathered. A small live audience, all Capitol citizens, all thoroughly checked for security, is shown entering by the cameras, gathering before the empty stage. Peacekeepers can be seen, en mass, around the edges.
Finally Cruentus walks out, barely containing her excitement. She tries to keep on a serious mask, but looks more like a child trying to behave so she isn't take away from the Santa greeting line.
"My father, unfortunately, has business to attend to, and couldn't be here. But as the head of the Tribute program, I am here for you instead. As you all know, on the night of the crowning ceremony, one of our guests tried to assassinate our beloved head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee." She pauses, giving the crowd time to discuss that, waiting patiently for them to settle.
"Ariadne was one of our guests, one of our victors. She was someone we welcomed here, with open arms. And we will not stand for this disrespect. Her act of rebellion, though sloppy and easy to unwind, was unacceptable!"
Another pause, longer, the crowd working themselves up more.
"We will not stand for this. We will not stand for people we welcome into our city, into our homes, to injure our kin. No more!"
With a quick gesture, she summons the two avoxes, Shepard and Holly, both former mentors themselves, to bring Ariadne out to the center of the stage, bound in chains.
For everything that went wrong, Ariadne is absolutely unapologetic. She knows full well that she got sloppy, and that she shouldn't have trusted Eva as far as she could throw her - that's the only explanation, she thinks; she's blissfully oblivious to Eva's public betrayal, but she knows something went wrong somewhere down the line. She's not sorry that she got caught, nor is she sorry that she's in this position now. She caused a stir; she got things going. That's better than the waiting game that everyone else is playing. She can respect it, but it wasn't for her.
Her back still stings from the shrapnel that hit her during the blast: the way that Shepard and Holly hold her makes it impossible to ignore as she stumbles out to the stage, eyes hardened as she looks up to stare at Cruentus over anyone else. She welcomes whatever punishment she's begotten; she's not afraid.
The crowd goes wild for a long time. Booing, loud, raucous - they seem just barely controlled. Hatred comes off in waves towards Ariadne, the first true target of a growing, seething hatred that still hasn't found its purpose yet.
Cruentus lets it go on, draws it out, encourages it. Then, finally, she holds up another arm.
"For such a vile crime, we have cooked up a special little potion for our traitor. Something any of those feeling a touch rebellious might keep in mind."
Glancing back, she gestures for Penny Hsiang to come forward, flashing the other woman the smile she had been struggling to keep in.
Penny steps forward and pulls a syringe out of her wide sleeves like a magician revealing a rabbit from a hat. She holds it up high, bearing a grin that could make someone queasy if it were aimed in their direction. For a brilliant, brief moment, she is the center of attention, and even the crowd hushes slightly.
"This is a poison fit for a traitor," she announces. "It's rapid-onset, degenerative. It strips away the parts of the brain that take the oomph out of bad memories. Then it disables the part of your brain that dampens pain signals. Then it kills you."
She takes a step towards Ariadne. A Peacekeeper presents Ariadne's vein.
"Special order," Penny says as she leans in and whispers in Ariadne's ear, giggling as if she were a teenager girl discussing cute classmates and not a torturer sinking a needle into Ariadne's arm. "Just for you."
Still, the crowd's response to her makes no difference. Cruentus' words don't make any difference, and Penny's barely concealed venom doesn't either. Ariadne is unflappable in the face of her own execution, for she saw that coming; Cobb's words come back to her in that moment - dying was how you got out of a dream, dying was how he and Mal got out of Limbo - and a strange sort of calm comes to her in waves, counteracting the hatred of the crowd and all of those around her.
Ariadne doesn't even turn when Penny whispers in her ear; she's never been much for gossip or chatting idly about cute classmates. She doesn't blink when the needle sinks into her vein, though it sends a shiver down her spine that she can't control. For a moment, she wonders just how good the Capitol is at capital punishment, and how long it's going to take for this to happen. Ariadne might theoretically have all the time in the world, but that doesn't mean she wants to drag it out.
It hits the moment after her mind goes blank again, after her last thought is fully formed; her mind is forced to go blank, simply because of the level of sheer pain that wracks her body. It comes to her in spasms, in seizing that is only contained by the fact that her hands are still bound, and she's still held by the Avoxes she once knew. She doesn't scream. Instead, Ariadne bites the inside of her cheek, the inside of her lip; her teeth go through the flesh - she tastes blood - and it's still not enough to detract from the poison running through her veins. She seizes violently for all to see, every inch of her body trembling and shaking and contorting in a fashion that would make anyone cringe.
Biology had never been her strong suit, and most of Penny's explanation of it went over her head; still, she can tell when the second part of the poison starts to kick in, when the pain almost fades away, leaving her numb and still shaking where she's held, a trickle of her blood spilling down her chin from where she'd bitten her mouth to shreds. And still, she doesn't scream; still, she doesn't tear her eyes away from Cruentus.
Holly and Shepard hold her high and as still as possible as the toxin causes her to twitch, jerk in their grasp. It looks better on TV, of course, but possibly, somewhere in their reprogramming, it is also a way to give Ariadne her last bit of dignity.
When her body finally stops convulsing, when her head drops to her chest and she goes still, the crowd cheers. And Cruentus smiles, knowing her message was sent loud and clear.
Penny steps back to the corpse. A gun materializes from the wide sleeves into her hands, and she places it straight to Ariadne's cold temple and pulls the trigger. She doesn't flinch when there's a bang, nor when the blood and bits of bone and brain and gunpowder spray over Holly's Avox robes, nor when the crowd celebrates even more uproariously.
"Can never be too sure," she says quietly, then to Holly, "go clean yourself up."
It's the last bit of this particular section of footage in the broadcast.
When the viewing is over, a Peacekeeeper appears to sets a box on a table set up just for this. Opening it, within each box are several wrist cuffs, the names of Tributes carved on the inside, one for each named Tribute, a simple motif relating to the District on the outside. A neat hand-written note from Cruentus sits in the white satin in the middle of the box.
It is clear the Peacekeeper is there for anyone who objects to putting their cuff on. After receiving the cuff, the Tributes are permitted to wander, although those with cuffs are given 'special attention' by their Escorts.
no subject
R flinches in surprise at that bark of laughter coming out of Howard, so much louder and larger than the little guy is. He's not sure what's so funny, the zombie staring with that slack expression Howard's so used to by now as the gears in his head try to turn, rusty and protesting, and then he realizes maybe it doesn't matter and what does is that laugh. Howard looks slightly more alive than before, R thinks as he peers down at him over the muzzle and spots that huge smile on the human's face.
Something about it's a little too wide, a little too much teeth and gums, but R's been dead too long to be that good at facial expressions. He'll take it for what it is: a grin and a laugh. That translates to "good, better, okay".
R's own face slowly raises into a tentative smile, even if he's still not sure what's so funny about "bling".
"Julie...said...Capitol'ss...bling cen-central," R tries to explain. "So..."
He gestures with a limp hand at Howard's new accessory, more of limp, boneless flop of his arm than a point. Like he said: Howard's got bling.
no subject
God, he hopes Wyatt hasn't seen that footage.
The elevator door opens, and Howard steps out, holding his arm out to show R the band. The roof is always a comforting place for him. Perched on the rail like some sort of bird with shins instead of a tail, he can see the whole skyline, the Capitol no longer the daunting, busy city full of gawking mouths and prying eyes but a grid covered in glitter, reflecting the stars above back with even more sparkles. Howard's not someone who gets lost in the beauty of the world, but from high above - without the death, without the TVs, without the humanity that desecrates it - the lights and architecture put him in rapture.
Horrible as it is, he's entertained the thought of throwing himself off it a few times. He knows he couldn't do it, knows because there's a forcefield. He also knows that's the only reason, now that he's killed himself once.
He takes his usual spot, parked up on the rail. "I think it's pretty tacky, honestly. I'm not a bracelet kind of guy, but hey. Maybe I'll get into 'bling'."
He grins and gestures for R to come join him, looking at the city, looking at life from the minimum safe distance.
no subject
He follows Howard obediently over to the edge of the railing, his shoes dragging along the floor as he slouches along. Normally R doesn't make it a habit to go out to the roof, unless it's to pick a spot he can lurch on in private where his Escort won't think to check in first (she's finally figured out he'll sneak off to the Training Center, so he's had to start coming up with new spots - not easy, when you're Dead). Now he stumbles up to the railing where Howard's already perched, just like Julie on the Victoria Ascendant. Is that a human thing? Perching? R's seen the feral cats back home perch. He's never noticed it in humans until now. Granted, he was probably too busy eating them but still. The new things you learn, he guesses.
R tries not to look worried that Howard could pitch off the side. It's pretty easy to do when he has his face half frozen the way it is. Humans are almost as bad at pointing themselves in harm’s way as zombies, apparently.
"Maybe new...hobby," R says as he copies something he saw a human do: he leans on the railing with his arms, resting all his weight there. The zombie tacks on a grunt rasping up from his chest. "Bling...collector."
no subject
"You're more of a bling collector than me, Rob. You're a total magpie. Me, I like useful stuff." Still, there's a camaraderie in a shared love of hoarding things. Howard's seen R's room; at some point he thinks that the only reason he's got more stuff than Stinky is because it takes him less time to drag it back and squirrel it away.
Though maybe Howard should start buying things instead of stealing them. Maybe he can get his bling removed, then. At least it's just a bracelet and not like, a grill or a piercing or anything.
He almost asks if Julie got one, then he frowns, deep and sour, because he doesn't want to talk to R about girls. "So. Hell of a show this morning, right?"
no subject
"The...show," R repeats, pausing so he can remember. That one. The one his Escort sat him down for. It's so recent even he can't forget it - not yet, anyway. Humans like to talk things over right after it happens, R trying to think of something worthwhile to say because of the way Howard's frowning now and expecting an opinion from him. "Waste..of life. Sorry...it had to be...that way."
He is, really. It's just muted and almost never shows on his Dead face. R's not sure what to say other than that. He thinks he talked, briefly, with Ariadne on the Victoria Ascendant but that's all he really knows about her. Whatever awkwardness he has there has nothing to do with him being a corpse: he literally has no idea what to say and he thinks it'd be the same if he had a pulse or not. As for Howard, R doesn't know if they were friends or not. Maybe in his head he thinks all Living are connected somehow, like friends in the making, like it's so, so much better than relationships between zombies. It's one of his goofy little daydreams R knows doesn't make sense. Then he thinks of how well Howard and Julie hit it off, and he thinks maybe it's possible.
no subject
He's not certain, but if the zombie lore is true, that kind of headshot would turn R's brain into a lifeless splatter as well. Probably not as pretty red as Ariadne. It's strange; Howard's seen enough blood, his own and other people's, that he's able to make comparisons. This wasn't the bright red blood of a cut artery, of when he slit his own throat, this was the brackish crimson expulsion of innards, so dark it was almost black until it got on the Avoxes robes. If it weren't for the subject matter it might even be beautiful.
He wonders if this is how people start down the road to psychosis, comparing blood splatters like it's artwork.
"They kill me, you get my stuff, okay?" He holds his wrist out again, the bracelet on it, the reminder that he's marked. One foot wrong and he'll be a memory of Howard. He can at least just hope to live on through R's stuff.
no subject
It's still not him, though. Not the whole picture. It'd be just a ghost.
R thinks he'd rather Howard kept his stuff. Inheriting his hoard leaves R with a weird feeling twisting his rotten guts into knots, his face freezing up in that little frown, eyebrows furrowing together.
"Not...going to be..." R sucks in a breath in preparation for his big word of the day, "necessary."
He lifts his head to peer at Howard. So that's what the bracelet means to him. R's not to hung up on himself getting the Ariadne treatment (actually, that's about par for the course), but then he thinks about Howard or Julie or Wyatt's brains getting blown out and there his guts go again, flip-flopping like he ate human food.
"Be...okay."
no subject
And it's more than accomplishment. It's a strange feeling, but Howard realizes right then that R might actually miss him. The dead guy can't remember to tie his shoes, but here he is worrying about Howard's well-being - and that was probably why he came down to District One's suite after the show this morning. He wanted to make sure his buddy was okay.
Howard doesn't remember the last time sought him out just to check on him. Before the FAYZ, probably. He swallows and it hangs heavy in his throat, bulky but warm and smooth, this weird feeling.
"I'll do my best. Pinkie swear," he says, and stares out at the skyline.