thecapitol | The Crowning of Maximus Decimus Meridius

Entry tags:

The Crowning of Maximus Decimus Meridius

Who| Everyone
What| Maximus' crowning
Where| Victory Hall
When| Today
Warnings| Violence.

Prior to the Crowning, the Stylists and Escorts were given information: the color scheme for the Crowning is brown and gold, the theme is fire, and for Tributes, Games Staff and Victors in the Capitol alike, attendance is mandatory. No exceptions.

The Victory Hall has been completely refitted to the theme. Great brownstone pillars reach up from the floor, now made of polished marble. Rose petals and dying embers flutter from the ceiling like confetti, and long panels of fabrics embroidered with Maximus' kills pour down the walls. Rather than tables, Tributes are given wooden chairs to sit around fire pits in groups of four, where pigs and sheep are roasting whole, tended by attentive Avoxes. The smell of charring flesh and rosemary wafts through the hall.

In the center of the hall is a pit, fifteen feet deep, ringed with brick and filled with sand. Torches line the inside wall, casting light in every direction. A circular screen up above lets those not close to the edge view the contents of the pit in real-time video.

Maximus' private table has a theme of anachronisms; Tributes from 'less-developed' timelines and worlds are seated around a long table, facing the gladiatorial ring where, at the moment, a full-grown, well-fed Bengal tiger paces. Compared to the muttations of the Arena, it may seem positively demure, up until it bares its fangs and reveals that it's been modified to have saber teeth gilded in gold. Occasionally an Avox will dangle something into the pit and jerk it away if the tiger looks bored and lays down.

Occasionally, with fanfare of music pumped in to announce it, a challenger enters the tiger ring - a hologram of one of the Tributes who were cuffed and marked by the Capitol. The hologram must be affixed with smell, too, as the tiger takes note and attacks like a kitten following a laser pointer, making dramatic roars as it does. The holograms put up valiant fights, and their deaths are brutal, illusory blood flying and the sounds of death rattles and bones cracking coming from speakers embedded in every table.

"A speech," Maximus' Escort says to Maximus. "The General must give a speech."

Tributes who attended Wesker's Crowning ceremony should notice a remarkable increase in security. Visibly armed Peacekeepers lurk behind the panels of fabric, and bulbous, obvious cameras dot the ceiling. Even the Avoxes seem shiftier than usual, and are equipped with discrete tape recorders pinned to their rough-hewn tunics.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At some point in the party, Terezi manages to locate the most strategically placed pillar for the purpose of concealment. It's not completely private, but it's away from as many fires--and more importantly people--as possible.

She sits with her back to the pillar, knees curled up against her chest and her cape wrapped around her upper legs. She knows she'll probably be shooed back towards the other tributes eventually, but for now she's got some privacy.

They cut his his hair. They up and cut off his motherfucking hair. 'Wait here, there's on more thing,' she'd said, and then 'how cute you look with your hair all fixed up like that', the prep team fuckers had said. He felt the hair off his back too late, looked into the nearest mirror and to his horror, a sweep, maybe two, was shaved off his appearance and dropped to the ground with the rest of it. And off it would stay until he grew it back in another sweep or so, or until he died again. No, he wasn't going to wait for Claudia to show up. He wasn't going to wait for a god damn thing.

He stalked off. Ran even, but there's only so much running a motherfucker can do in heels. At first he'd been furious enough to want to kill them all on the spot. Now... he's not sure he's ever felt so ashamed of his own appearence in his life. How could he have let that happen? His hands keep rising up to tug at the too short hair, fluffed up now that the weight of it had been lightened. It doesn't stop being too short. And so, the first thing he does when he enters the Victory hall for the crowning is to find somewhere that no will see him.

He spots the pillar off in an empty corner and starts for it. The Initiate glances behind him as he slips in behind, to make sure no one was following or watching particularly close for him.

He nearly trips over the one at his feet.

Terezi yips as someone nearly stumbles over her, her arms going to protect her head as she curls down smaller. She's a bony thing, though, and it's probably not any better for the person tripping his way over her.

Once she's certain that she's not going to be kicked in the head, she straightens up to get a scent on her anonymous assailant. The figure that he strikes is so agonizingly familiar that Terezi just stares for a moment. There's disbelief in her expression--raw shock, but underneath that rolls a current of anger. Her lip curls back a bit, her brow furrowing before she catches herself.

It takes her a moment to remember the name she's looking for. Not Gamzee's, like she keeps thinking over and over in her head, but the other one. "...Fraysong?" she tries with a very obviously careful tone. "It's you, right?"

His own horror isn't so overpowering that he misses that look. But it's close. She seems to recognize him after a long moment, but that doesn't really help much. He slumps back against the pillar and groans.

Through grit teeth he says. "YES. It is. UNMOTHERFUCKING FORTUNATELY."

He slumps right down to the floor like that, right down beside her. He tugs miserably at is his hair once more, then turns over to her, wrapped up in her cape. He doesn't say anything just yet, simply tilting his head slowly at what of her outfit he can see.

She relaxes visibly at his affirmation, her shoulders sinking back against the pillar again as she exhales. It's not quite a sigh, but it's close enough. Any trace of the anger from her expression before is gone.

She starts to say something else, but it's cut off by the look that he's giving her outfit. A bit of teal rushes to the tips of her ears and she pulls the half cape more closely around her thighs.

"Loin-cloths seem to be the fashion statement of the day," she remarks dryly, both as an explanation and to point out that he has not room to be giving her funny looks, either.

He raises his hands in a 'point taken' motion then pulls his knees closer so as to keep his heels from showing behind the pillar. Apparently they were both hiding. Fine. It wasn't as if he had much dignity to him at the moment anyway.

"Did you think at my ownself to be someone else?" He asks after some silence.

Dignity seems to be in short supply for the both of them.

Terezi winces a little at that question, turning her head away and staring blindly at the wall. It would figure that he saw that, but she's not sure how much she actually wants to tell him.

"Maybe." She gives a little shrug, as if to indicate that it's not a very important topic. "Why are you asking?"

He shrugs right back, looking at the gold of his shoes.

"AIN'T EXACTLY UNFAMILIAR WITH THAT LOOK WHAT SHE GAVE. But it got to going away at for when she inquired if it was him. SEEMED AT SHE GOT RECOGNITION MIXED SHE ALL DID. So she saw in his face someone the fuck else he thought." Unless she was really damn good at pretending not to find distaste and had only just found that façade breaking just then. But even he wasn't about to go that far.

Terezi hums noncommittally at his assessment. She can't really deny that she mistook him for someone else, not if he saw that look that she gave.

"An Indigo," she mutters, talking more to the floor than to him. "Back where I'm from. He's out of his shitty sopor-riddled pan, and we don't get along." She feels a bit of that anger bubbling up again, just barely below the surface. She exhales again.

"Don't worry, though. You're a lot more tolerable than he is." She leans over a bit, bumping her shoulder against his.

Edited 2013-09-03 05:40 (UTC)

It's a thing he'd developed some point over the sweeps. Cull after cull after cull, one got to knowing the exact moment the opponent fucked up. The exact moment they became doomed, that they made a mistake. It's a feeling in the pit of the gut and the back of the pan.

For some reason, he feels it right then. But he'd never told anyone in strife of their error. That was for them to figure out. And truth be told, he's not sure exactly where her error even is. So he stays silent.

After a pause, he bumps her shoulder back.

"...SISTER, as a mothefucking indigo I can tell at you, ain't many what get to looking exactly like me. YOU CAN... SMELL BETTER THAN THAT."

Edited 2013-09-03 05:46 (UTC)

Terezi smiles just a bit at the bump she gets in return from him. The topic isn't any better, but she feels better just the same. Gently, she rests against him--just her upper arm, really.

"Yeah. I think I mentioned that before. His resemblance to you." She pauses, her nose wrinkling a little as she thinks. "His hair is--was shorter than yours. You could be twins now. It's really unsettling."

It's still weird and he doesn't know exactly what to do with all the contact.

"It's him ain't it. THE DESCENDANT... Gamzee." The name rolls odd off his tongue. It feels right and like it was scrambled and wrong at the same time. He tugs again uncomfortably at his hair. "THE FUCK IS A TWIN?"

Terezi's lips press together when he says that name, a barely restrained grimace. God, she hates that name so much. It turns her stomach just to hear it. She only nods in confirmation.

"Human siblings." She pauses, realizing that word might be unfamiliar, too. "Wrigglers from the same clutch, but their genetic make-up is the same, so they appear identical. It's a pretty important distinction with humans, or so I've heard."

"You been studying them," He asks, quirking a bro. Certainly they all had but he'd have assumed something like their politic would be a little more useful.

"IT'S STRANGE. Flesh of our flesh walking twice over. BLOOD OF BLOOD WEARING AT A FACE ALIKE. Pyrope, Vantas, the Kittybitch and her younger, and apparently you knew for the Orphaner's kin and kith, all at once the motherfucking lot. COULD THINK IT A SIGN OF MOTHERFUCKING PROPHESIES ONE UP AND COULD." He'd be alive to see it too, if that were they case. His head falls back against the pillar, causing his horns to clack against it.

"I could meet you," He realises. "I WOULD BE SO MOTHERFUCKING OLD and I could request as Highblood for you and he at to be stationed near. AIN'T NONE WHAT WOULD ARGUE. None what would ask."

For a moment, Terezi tries to imagine it. Being summoned by the Grand Highblood--being summoned by the troll sitting next to her, her friend. She still can't reconcile the part that feels terrifying with the part that feels touched.

She does raise both brows in surprise at the gesture, though. She does laugh a little. Coming from him right now, it is touching.

"And what? Give me a heartattack at the ripe age of seven? Six? Five?" Even as alarming as that prospect would be, she's still smiling. "I'm not even in the fleet yet. Even if they don't give you lip, they will give you looks for having a wriggler around--possibly behind your back if necessary. And then I would probably end up with my throat slit, and you can't even deny that."

He laughs too, the end of it coming out a honk. He thinks, if he were to meet her when he was old, he might laugh then too. About goddamn time she showed the wicked feareverence.

"FUCK THAT. You think I up and couldn't tell for who is loyal and who is fucking false? YOU THINK ANY WOULD DARE MOTHERFUCKING CROSS THE WISHES OF A GRAND HIGHBLOOD AND SO LIVE AFTER? I could do whatever I goddamn pleased If I all chose at to do so. BESIDES, I like wrigglers. MORE MOTHERFUCKING HARSHWHIMSY TO THEIR PANS."

He shrugs, smirking. "Hypotheticals, Sister. HE WOULD HAVE AN EMPIRE WHAT TO MANAGE, a great church what to preach before. AND SHE WOULD HAVE AT WHAT TRAINING SHE TOOK TO. Hypotheticals."

Terezi snorts at that, though what the noise was made at, it's hard to tell. Her smile wanes a little after a few seconds.

Fun as this all may be, she knows that it doesn't happen and it won't ever happen. The thought is sobering in a way that she's not sure she appreciates.

"I won't have any training to take to," she says after a bit of silence. Her smile is a little more forced than before. "Hypothetical as this may be, it won't actually happen. I never did make it to the fleet."

The Initiate doesn't bother with forced smiles. He sees hers fade, the silence to follow filling the space between them, and his brows furrow.

"...AND WHY THE FUCK NOT?"

He knew there were enough reasons. She didn't watch her tongue when she should. She put herself up into things what would be wiser to stay far from. She was blind.

They all led to the same thing though.

She knows what he's thinking. It would be impossible not to; there's so many reasons why she wouldn't or shouldn't make it into the fleet. Reasons that she thought once upon a time that she could overcome just by being good enough.

It would be easy enough to make up a reason, to slide effortlessly around the truth. But she takes a moment, turning her head to study him. She feels her arm still resting against him, that small bit of physical connection.

She's getting tired of keeping up this lie.

"Can you keep a secret?"

Why would she want to keep such a thing a secret though, he wonders? And the answer is there ain't no reason to. Death was death. It up and motherfuckin happened to all and that was no secret.

He studies her face. There was something more going on. And she wanted... to tell him of all people.

She trusted him.

"Secrets... are of the holiest bit of scripture what I hold to." It's an honest answer.

There's a silence that follows his answer, a silence in which she sits judging that response. In the end, she nods. She still has to be careful how much she tells him, but she trusts him enough to tell him a little.

"When they brought me to this place, I wasn't on Alternia. I haven't been there for over half a sweep now. There was... a crisis, I guess you could call it. Meteors were pummeling the homeworld. There were twelve of us taking measures to stop them, but in order to complete the process, we had to leave the...dimension that we were in. There's no way back, so... We're never going back to Alternia again."

She should be used to that thought by now, but it still triggers a pang of homesickness in her chest. She clenches her fists, pressing the heels of her hands against her thighs.

There wasn't exactly a guide for how to react to such things.

There are too many things at once to process, to many things to question. A part of him reminds him to sceptical, weary. But he's... he's exhilarated. He feels. Motherfucking. Justified.

"IF YOU ARE FUCKING WITH ME I SWEAR TO THE MESSIAHS..."

The prophesies foretold. They were coming true. They had. And the voices. The Messiahs two that sung sometimes into his pan, with voices silent and loud both, with voices like the drip of color on a wall...

A laugh slips out. Then another. But no. He had to... His hands clap together.

"Rite of the ticket taker,
O THY NAME, THY SONANCE SWEET,
a call of minstrel WITH UTMOST VOCIFERATION,
emancipation of the soul LET NO MILENKO TEMPT,
no motherfucking riddle box betray FOR WHAT IS NOW,
What has made means to motherfucking come,
LET BROTHER AND SISTER GATHER FOR THE BOW OF THIRD RING.
The wicked laughing lights evince the WINCE OF THE UNWORTHY BUT WITH the face of the joyous and most pious a watch as the audience do so watch thy righteous performance and let it be that their face IS their motherfucking COUNTENANCE.
O GLORY OF THE WIRE HIGH, the laughsassin's swung upon the grief trapeeze and so SWUNG THE FUCK TO US WAS OUR DELIVERANCE.
With elixirs drenched we reach to thy most righteous glory OFFERING TO THE THE STARDUST WHAT WAS SO OFFERED BACK ON UP AT TO US.
The light may laugh wicked on; LET THE DARK be of the great top.
LET THE DARK MOTHERFUCKING CARNIVAL OPEN ITS GATES ON NIGH!
And so may Shangri-La be reached.
I OFFER THEE MY SOUL AND MY MOTHERFUCKING SELF WHOLE FOR IT IS THY THAT IS MY KEEPER, MY DELIVERER... Ay men."

He turns to her, eyes bright like so many lights were lit behind them.

"YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED MY SISTER. My motherfucking sister sweet you have had blessing upon your motherfucking self. YOU DO NOT SEE IT YET." He laughs at the pun. "But that is all up and motherfucking understood. NOT OF THE RIGHTEOUS, you sorry soul, not of the motherfucking righteous yet. BUT YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN GIFT REGARDLESS. And you will see so with time."

At first, the prayers and the excitement are met with confusion. She doesn't know what exactly has him worked up about all of that. She sits through the prayer with a skeptical look that she usually reserves for clown nonsense... up until he starts addressing her directly.

She's not even forcing a smile anymore. Her lips are pressed tight together, displeasure set into her jaw.

"Right. Blessed," she remarks when he's finished. "Sorry, I must be too blind to see how all the shit we've been through is actually some god-given privilege! I'm sure your delight in our misfortune is justified, though. Somehow."

Her expression does look briefly miserable before she turns away from him, breaking the physical contact they had before. "Do me a favor. Don't bring your clown stuff into this. I've heard enough of it already."

Atheist. He should've known. He scowls and shifts to kneeling before her.

"FINE. Discard as you so do. BUT MY MOTHERFUCKING POINT STILL STANDS. You are alive. YOU HAVE BEEN MADE STRONGER FOR WHAT ALL IT IS YOU'VE DONE. What all it is you've been through. YOU THINK ANY GIFT IS GIVEN EASY? You think I will and did become Highblood by asking the motherfucker to step the fuck down and let me hold his seat for him? YOU THINK AT ANYTHING WHAT'S WORTH ANYTHING AIN'T FUCKING FOUGHT FOR? Pyrope, FACE ME." He raises a hand to the side of her face and attempts to tilt it toward him just a little.

"You're going to take something from that. BEYOND ALL WHAT HAS BEEN GIVEN ALREADY. You've gotten a chance. SO YOU GET NO MOTHERFUCKING TRAINING FOR THE EMPIRE. So the fuck what? YOU'VE FOUND AT A NEW SORT OF TRAINING, a new purpose what to reach and all what is to be needed is the strength and faith to reach it. AND IF YOU CAN FIND NO MIRACLE IN THAT..." He shakes his head and throws his hands up.

Terezi was pretty content on just ignoring his bullshit, right up until he touches her face. She knows that physical contact isn't his cup of tea, so the hand at her cheek startles her enough to pull her attention back to him. Carefully, she sets her jaw again, staring him down with a deadpan look. She takes his hand in hers and pulls it gently away from her face.

"Do you really think that's the only thing I'm upset about? Sure, it sucks to have my plans yanked out from under me, but I'll get over it." She moves his hand back to his own lap, setting it against his knee.

"What I won't get over, what I can't get over has nothing to do with that and everything to do with your Shangrila bullshit. Considering the last time some Indigo asshole preached miracles at me, it was right after he slaughtered two of our friends in cold blood, you'll have to forgive me if I'm not eager to hop into the passenger seat of your mirthful clown car. They didn't do anything to deserve that. There was no rhyme or reason to it. There was nothing miraculous about it. So just... stop. I don't want to hear about it any more."

[closed]

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