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

His grin grows wide and feral, fangs exposed. "Sister. WE COULD MOTHERFUCKING ERADICATE. We could raze every and fucking all. YOU EVER FELT FOR THE CRACKS ALONG A FUCKER'S PAN? We won't need at to touch them." The image is certainly something. He wants his voodoo back so bad. He'd have rather'd they take a limb even. He's starting to get used to only feeling for his own head but it's not really any more comfortable.

He gives a light shove back. Then, shuffling over, he decides to try and peak out from behind the pillar, just to check who else might be here. Everyone of course. Fuck. He tugs again at his hair, too short against his neck. Among things he'd have rather done; paint a target on his chest. Wriggler for cull. He settles back against the pillar, and idly picks at the shoes they shoved him in.

Felt for them? She's pried them apart with words alone. She's dismantled trolls with far less than voodoo could provide her, but she doesn't mention that. It's better to just let him find out that for himself. Instead, she just grins back at him--right up until she notices him pulling at his hair.

She sniffs at him, really assessing the difference in his appearance and moreso the difference in his attitude.

"It's not terrible, you know." She leans against him again, arm-to-arm, and pulls lightly on a rogue lock near their touching shoulders. "I don't know why you keep messing with it."

Edited 2013-09-06 17:27 (UTC)

He makes a face, still tugging at it. "IT'S MOTHERFUCKING EXPOSING. Ain't used to having neck and back uncovered all like to give easier means of getting motherfucking slashed. AND..." He sighs. "I look like a wriggler." Which of course gave even more reason for them to try, thinking he's younger, weaker, thinking he hasn't the means to do what he knows he can. It makes him feel like it. "HADN'T BEEN SO SHORT IN SWEEPS..."

He glances over at her. "What of you? WHAT GOT AT SHE TO BE HANGING ROUND AT BEHIND HERE?"

Terezi purses her lips at the wiggler comment. She knows he's not that much older than she is, but he seems so set on asserting that he's an adult. She really can't blame him that much, though.

"Losing some hair doesn't actually make you any younger. I doubt any of the humans are going to take that as a sign of weakness. For the record."

His own question elicits a face from her, though. She scrunches her nose in a wince, momentarily sticking out her tongue. Her hands fidget and pull on her cape some more. "You can't tell? I'm like some gladiator heroine out of a trashy romance novel. There is nothing at all practical about this outfit except for how practically non-existent it is. I'm not even wearing pants. You're not allowed to ask me what's wrong with that."

"...Well, that all up makes for motherfucking two of us then," He remarks, looking down at his own get up. No pants for him either, and the robe-like-thing was nearly sheer enough he could count the scars on his skin if he wanted to. He didn't mind that so much though. "COULD TEAR THE CAPE WHAT ALL SHE WEARS IN HALF, MAKE FOR A MOTHERFUCKING SKIRT WHAT AIN'T SO NON-EXISTANT AS SHE UP AND SAYS. Let stylists have lesson learned for it all the while." He gestures for her to turn the cape to him, doing a ripping gesture with his hands.

"MAYBE MOTHERFUCKING NOT," He concedes, in regards to the humans. Who really knew with them. "But it gets up to motherfucking reminding me."

Edited 2013-09-07 05:39 (UTC)

"What and risk them taking it away from me? They seem bent on showing me off, I don't doubt for a minute that they would take my cape if I tried to make something decent out of it." Though she does look like she wants to consider it. In the end she just shrugs a bit and nudges his arm with her hand.

"...Thanks for the offer, though. Your concern towards my decency has been noted! You win three chivalry points, redeemable at any time, even though they're basically useless. You also win one gratitude point, which is slightly less useless. Don't spend them all in one place."

"HOW GRACIOUS OF A WICKED SISTER WHAT TO GIVE SUCH OFFERING," He says with a roll of eyes. He settles back against the pillar, eyes closed, throws a hand up and says, "Suiting all to a sister's own motherfucking self." He drops his hand back down to settle on his knee.

He should find the Helmsman. He should see if his moirail was here. He's gotten too antsy to just sit here. They could at least sit around a fire pit. He considers if she might follow.

Terezi grins at his reaction. She has to wonder how much of that was in response to her pointing out his concern. It's sort of cute, in a way. Not exactly a word she thought she would ever use for an Indigo.

"If you don't mind a bit of curiosity, why are you so hung up on your appearance?" Not the most graceful topic shift, but Terezi doesn't seem to care about tact at the moment. Though, her expression does grow a tad bit more concerned and less amused.

"Humans hack their hair off all the time, especially the male ones for whatever reason. They don't think wiggler, or cullbait, when they see it. Especially not when you tower over most of them anyway. And you know you're not a wiggler, so why does it matter?"

He's about to argue, to say why he isn't concerned about his appearance but it occurs to him that, no, she's right, he is. And he's given too much to try and deny it now. He tenses beside her, shoulders raising.

"THE HUMANS, MAY NOT THINK FOR IT," He says. "But our kind ain't them. ALL WHAT KNOW OF ME HERE KNOW ME AS HIGHBLOOD. When that all stands to be current actualities, what all the fuck will they see? I KNOW WHO ALL I WAS MADE OUT TO MOTHERFUCKING BE. I ain't want it questioned. MOTHERFUCKING TIRED OF RECEIVING QUESTIONING UNTO HIS OWNSELF THAT HE AIN'T MOTHERFUCKING FIT FOR WHAT ALL HE KNOWS HE IS." His claws trace over old scars through the sheer. Marks from fangs and claws and weapons alike. He mutters, "Don't want for even slimmest reminder on a time I wasn't."

Obviously it wouldn't matter to her. If she thought they'd never meet then that was all to be as it would be. And she sees him now, nothing he can do on that. (At least, not without voodoo.)

"FAIR?" He asks. "Or is that all be be foolish even still?"

There's a pang of guilt in Terezi's chest as she listens to him talk. She knows well enough that she taunted him pretty relentlessly about his supposed future self. She's still not sure how much she believes the truth of that. But at the very least she knows how sore of a spot that is for him now. In a way, she can relate to that insecurity.

"It's not foolish." She rests a hand lightly over his arm where he was tracing scars, trying to break his attention. "I think... that is a pretty reasonable concern. But everyone starts out as wigglers at some point, even if it's not easy to imagine. Even the Empress, believe it or not! She was especially embarrassing. Fish puns everywhere, and it's really difficult to have respect for someone who gets decked in the face by a really dorky human."

It does get him too look up at her, the touch to his arm. He's surprised to hear reassurance over mockery. But not as surprised for what he hears further. A smirk forms and he's just about to comment on her turning his words back on him, when she tells him she knew the empress. Knew the empress young.

"WAIT. Motherfucking what? YOU KNEW HER?" He asks in disbelief. His lips twitch just slightly higher, even through the shock and confusion. "The fish bitch really got for a human rearranging her unfortunate lineaments?"

"I met her, yes. In a sense." Terezi waggles her brows at him and at his surprise in that. She's not sure how reassuring that was, but at least it got him to stop brooding on the subject. "Just before I ended up here, as complicated as that sounds. She was... nine, I think?"

The particulars probably don't matter that much, so she skips to the part that he actually seems amused by. "But yeah, someone told this derpy human boy what she would end up doing. He totally flipped out--tackled her, punched her, the whole shebang! There was blood everywhere, she didn't even fight back. It was pretty embarrassing for participants and spectators alike. I was embarrassed, and I didn't even know either of them."

Edited 2013-09-07 20:06 (UTC)

"IN A SENSE?" He repeats with a raised brow. He laughs at the story she gives. It's a amusing. It serves her right. But he's distracted by the rest now, even if he knows that wasn't her intent.

She couldn't meet him because of the abandoning of Alternia to a new world, but she could meet the empress at nine? Why? Because of the great miracles. How? Because Messiahs willed it. But he can't help but wonder what had given this opportunity, this meeting at their times, a chance to come about. Messiahs forgive his sin, forgive his transgression for what is all to be a questioning of the holy power, for it is not without faith for the ways of thy wills. "Was she brought with she to her new beginning? A CLAIM FOR TWELVE, DIFFERENT TIMES AS SO WE ARE NOW HERE?"

"Not...quite, no." Terezi seems hesitant to give an explanation on that part. She frowns uneasily, silence falling between the two of them as she tries to work out just how much she feels comfortable revealing. It's probably not anything to worry about, just so long as she words it right.

"She wasn't part of the twelve that went with me. There was another group of twelve from a different universe. Sort of like a past life. The same thing happened to them, like it happened to us. She was the Empress, but not exactly our Empress. Not yet, anyway."

He stares. He doesn't want to say she's lost him. But she has almost certainly lost him.

A different universe. Like a past life. With a nine sweep old empress who was to become the current empress? No that...

"What kind of different universe does she all speak for of?" He asks slowly, hoping it might illuminate instead of merely confuse him more.

A frown pulls at Terezi's lips as she tries to figure out how to simplify this without revealing too much. She doesn't want to say too much, but as it stands, he doesn't seem to be getting it.

"There was a universe before ours. Everyone who exists in our universe also existed there. When the meteors came for them, they failed to complete the process. Instead, the universe was wiped out, restarted, and became the one that we know now. The Empress was part of that original twelve who failed. And because of their failure, new trolls were chosen to finish what they couldn't. That is, us."

"A LIFE BEFORE? I've read no such word or scripture. NO PROPHESY TOLD OF A MOTHERFUCKING PLACE WHAT ALL WAS BEING BEFORE," He says, eyeing her. He's sceptical. How could he not be? But if she was Messiah chosen, if what all she said was true, even that, then so too had been the Empress. Messiah chosen and she had failed; a sinner. A sinner what had touched his moirail. She had no right, no motherfucking right to live and walk.

But he knows the scripture. He knows it near better that any troll he's ever met. He's never heard of this, nothing like this. No befores only ever afters.

"How am I to know this is true? HOW COULD YOU HAVE UP AND MET FOR HER IF SHE WAS TO BE WIPED THE FUCK OUT."

And then if that was to be true... "Even I? AND YOU? From this spoken of motherfucking place?" He shakes his head. "HOW DO YOU MOTHERFUCKING KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE? What up and gave voice to pan that it was?"

"Maybe not everything is in your scripture," she mutters flatly, though she doesn't press more than that. It's not her intent to start a fight.

"I met her because she cheated the system. She killed herself and all of her companions just before the universe could be wiped. So they continued to exist as ghosts, which we were able to converse with in whatever fucked up medium we were in. And before you ask! No, I don't know how that worked. There were certain places out there where living space and dead space would merge for a while. It got pretty weird, actually."

"SISTER, YOU AIN'T GOT INKLING AT FOR WHAT GOES INTO THE MOTHERFUCKING SCRIPTURE, nor do you seem intent on hearing it. SO THINK IT WOULD BE I MORE THAN YOU WHAT WOULD KNOW THAT WHICH MY SCRIPTURE PREACHES. So don't imply that it to be common that such things outside it get occurrence OR THAT YOU DIDN'T JUST IMPLY EXACTLY THAT," He snaps. He'd like not to fight now as well, but he would not let derision of his faith pass without comment.

He frowns, tapping his knee as he tries to sort it all out, work out what fits where into which parts of what he knows to be true. He purses his lips. He would need the pause anyway to ease his agitation before he speaks. He's not sure how much he actually believes but for now he goes with it.

"So she is dead," He muses, partly to himself. "IN WAIT OF HER MOTHERFUCKING JUDGEMENT. That one at least." He shakes his head again. "YOU ARE GOD DAMN LUCKY WE AIN'T ALTERNIA FOR THIS IS SURELY TO BE EMPIRICAL HERESY OF MOST SEVERE DEGREE. You realise that?"

"And you ain't got inkling at for what I've been through. So don't imply that I'm a liar just because something isn't in your scripture, and I won't have to imply anything in return." All in all, she thinks that's being more than fair. She's not eager to step on his beliefs, not after everything they've talked about, but she's not going to just let him imply that she's making anything up just because it's not in scripture.

"Anyway, I stopped caring about anything relating to Alternia quite a while ago! It is surprisingly liberating not having to worry about what might and might not get me culled if I were still back home. Granted, if I were still back home, I wouldn't have gotten a chance to experience any of this anyway, so it's pretty much a moot point."

He huffs, glaring, but he stays silent. Mostly because he knows any words he has on his faith are lost on her. Refrains from rolling his eyes but only just.

He pauses, the reluctantly says, "POINT MOTHERFUCKING TAKEN." Because, well, he wasn't about to protest any harshness on the empress, not anymore. And the empire's running was partly hers. But then, it was partly his too. And before then, in his most current time, he'd be servent to that empire. "But... you do up and motherfucking comprehend for it, do you motherfucking not?"

If she couldn't realise what that might've cost her back then, he'd have to mind it in future for things unrelated to Alternia. He moves on quickly though. Maybe he doesn't really want to hear an answer to that.

"YOU SAY AT EVERYONE FROM ALTERNIA WAS OF THIS PLACE OF WHICH YOU SPEAK. Was this told to you too? OR A MOTHERFUCKING GUESS WHAT'S BEING DEEMED CLOSE CORRECT."

Terezi doesn't get a chance to respond verbally to his first question, but considering she's giving him that same flat look as before, he can probably infer that she would have confirmed that she does comprehend.

However, he does move on and she doesn't linger on the topic. "It was explained to me, and it follows the rules that I already knew existed. It was an option that we could have taken as well, but we didn't for obvious reasons. The most obvious being that we were actually competent!"

She seems to think she does. But he wonders if she really understands. He wonders if she knew what side he would've stood on. He doesn't say more to that topic.

"So you have succeeded that which you were deemed chosen to do? OR ARE ON THE PATH TOWARDS ITS FRUITION? Wouldn't have thought her Imperious' motherfucking self a failure." A sinner witch, yes, but not a failure. "HE MISJUDGED."

"Different circumstances, but I think that was the point that I was trying to make. No one should be expecting you to be exactly like a person you haven't been yet. If they are, that's really dumb of them."

She bumps his shoulder again and gives him a not so subtle wink. "Besides, if someone messes with you, just give me a call. I'll help you mess them up right back."

If someone messes with him. He rolls his eyes, barely containing a snort. But he smirks at her and it's not all unkindly. "He'll be sure to keep it in pan," He chuckles.

He bumps her back, pondering it. Different circumstances; He doesn't really see why that should matter so much. He doubts it would matter to anyone else. He asks "DO YOU THINK CIRCUMSTANCE WOULD REALLY HAVE SO MUCH DIFFERENCE?" Time obviously, knowledge and experience. But how much could it really change a person?

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