The Placebo Effect (District 9 M Opening Ceremony)

[Brave]

HE’S A REAL NOWHERE MAN
SITTING IN HIS NOWHERE LAND
MAKING ALL HIS NOWHERE PLANS FOR NOBODY

The world rushed by in a faded and jagged swirl of movement that managed to captivate Cesil, even in his disconcerted and upset state. He had never experienced such a speed in his entire life, and honestly it had unsettled his stomach to the point where it felt as if it was made of mush. He rejected the escort’s offer of food and water though, and withdrew from the motion sickness pills as if they were some species of dangerous predator he had yet to encounter. Disgruntled by his rejection of help, the escort had waved it off with his usual round of oddly accented chatter, and from that Cesil managed to grasp that it didn’t matter if he didn’t want the pills, because they would be at the capitol within a half hour anyways. With that announcement, the clenching of his stomach only worsened.

Cess was scared, a feeling that he had become use to within the past year. At first the odd chilling of his bones and clawing in his stomach had made him angry, but after a while it just made him sad. He felt all of those things and more now, as he was forced to stand in formal silence and wait for the doors of the train to open and push him head first into hell. His one and only comfort he found in the red of Achlys’s hair, which so strongly reminded him of all the good in his life, and it allowed him to ground himself as the train began to rattle in its descent to the Capitol.

And then, instead of being greeted by the fires of hell, Cesil was looking at heaven in the form of magnificent silver sky scrapers that rested beside a sleek sapphire colored lake. And the sky that rested over it was a different blue than that of his own, and the clouds that settled on it where large and thick instead of thin and watery and it was beautiful, so very beautiful, that for a moment Cesil felt hope fluttering within him, hope and light and love. But then the Capitol view was replaced by the darkness of a tunnel and Cesil was alone again with the dim lights of the train and the red of the female tributes hair and, oh right, he was on his way to the slaughter house and suddenly the claws were back in his stomach along with the desire to vomit and maybe curl up in the corner and cry for a while.

Neither of those things happened as the escort fluttered about the room happily and nudged the two of them together by the door, and then there was the stench of gasoline and the screech of the train as it stopped at the platform and it was all over, everything, as the sea of people waiting at the platform pressed forwards in a wave of excited sounds and screams, all craning their necks to see them. For a moment the noise stunned Cesil into a deeper fear, and he was sure that it would swallow him whole until suddenly he could feel the girl’s arm brushing against his through his shirt and he turned his head to see red locks again, and oddly it granted him comfort once more. A small rush of gratitude flushed through Cesil toward the girl, and he almost debated taking her hand, if only for the briefest of moments, because he was so scared he could piss himself right now and that was so very much not what he wanted to do, but then the red hair hit him again, a bit like a reality check, and he could suddenly think straight again and had no need to ground himself to this girl beside him, because he was strong too and would gladly show it. And so Cesil gathered himself up firm and strong and compressed his fear and put his most charming and alluring smile on and waved his hand with as much unforced charm that he could muster.

It was almost laughable at how quickly they responded, how they pressed eagerly against the train and cried out with excitement, shouting encouragement and words of love and support with such sincerity that completely amazed Cesil, because they probably didn’t even know his name and were cheering for him as if they knew him personally. He had no time to question it however, and no time to gage the reaction of the girl beside him before the train doors slid open with a whoosh noise and they were surrounded by peace keepers that immediately grasped their arms in a firm grip and yanked them forwards, pushing them towards what Cesil knew to be the prep room. Despite there harsh grips Cesil continued with his smiling, even lounging against the Peace Keepers arm in an effort to appear reluctant to leave the crowd as he waved. They responded gleefully, as he knew they would, and then he was pulled from view and from Achlys, which honestly caused the most panic in the situation, because how was he suppose to do this without the red she carried around with her?

He pushed the panic away with an image of Amira in his mind, and allowed the peace keepers to lead him into an elevator and out down a hallway and then into a large chamber that seemed to buzz with life. The instant they walked in he was surrounded by a threesome of what he could only describe as overeager puppies. Had they been any shorter he would have needed to crouch to see them, yet their enthusiasm had them jumping about below him and allowed insight into their appearance.

From what Cesil could tell they were all under 4’9, two of them being women and the last a man. They had great, ugly smiles plastered on their mugs that disturbed Cess more than it comforted him, and the shorter of the girls had her two incisor teeth died magenta which the flashed constantly, making Cesil nearly flinch as she invaded his personal space. They all had the same high pitched and shrill chatter that bounced around his head aimlessly, making him shudder as they chirped their congratulations and cooed encouragement. This continued all the way to the metal tables, in which the Peace Keeper finally released his hold on him and departed. For a moment Cesil almost missed his presence as he was left alone with the three dwarfs, but the longing quickly disappeared as the group of three was joined by, well… a giant.

Cesil had always been tall, in fact he was more than tall. But next to the man that joined them, he could have been the size of the three dwarfs below him and it wouldn’t have made a difference. He immediately felt the intimidation that the Peace Keepers brought, only it intensified when the three dwarfs greeted him warmly verses their indifference with the guards. With the arrival of the fourth man the three below him were not shy in introducing themselves. The first one to speak was Helga, the taller of the two women. She was rather pudgy and a bit dumpy, and had a scrunched up face as if something smelled sour. Her eyes were too close together and her ears were too small, but all of that would have been okay if her skin hadn’t been bright orange and little patterns hadn’t been carved bright blue into the purple iris’s of her eyes. Despite her startling appearance and shrill voice, she bounced around him gleefully and clapped her hands happily when he looked at her, as if by being in his presence she had achieved a great honor. The shortest of the girls spoke next, a woman who called herself Lilith. Like her female counterpart she also had orange skin, and her green hair was made to look like a lions mane. She was the one with the purple fangs as well, which unnerved Cesil to points he couldn’t understand. She too was overweight, her stomach bulging round in a way Cesil had only seen on pregnant women. Yet she too greeted him with the utmost enthusiasm. The man was the last of the dwarfs to greet him, calling himself Javier. He had green corkscrew hair and a red checkered pattern on his face and two great bulging eyes that stuck out even more when he got excited. Finally was the giant, who gave no name and simply fixed Cesil with a steely gaze. It became clear that the man was simply there to keep Cesil under control, were he to act out.

The three moved on quickly after they introduced themselves, ordering Cesil to remove his close and lie on the table when he was done. They waited patiently as he uncertainly pealed off his holey clothes, commenting nonstop as he did on how handsome and tall and strong he was and on how that was how one won sponsors and ultimately the Hunger Games.

Once he had removed his clothing entirely they set to work, nearly scaring the living daylights out of him when they turned on the shower nozzle. It was not something he was accustomed too, and even once they calmed him back down enough to coax him back into the shower stall he refused to relax. They scrubbed his scalp with enough force to make him think they were trying to take the hair off, and the shampoo smelled strongly masculine with traces of mint. They scoured his body to the point of near pain, turning his skin pink in their efforts. They rubbed him down with some sweet smelling oil that seemed to make his skin grow, and then rubbed some nasty smelling green thing on his face that, when he asked, turned out to be some sort of hormone depressant that would stop him from growing facial hair for a long time. That fact alone was what pushed him over the edge, and he withdrew completely from the three dwarfs after that, making no attempt at communication anymore but simply following their instructions mindlessly as he pondered what else they were changing about him.

When he emerged from the bathing area, wearing a rather fluffy and comforting white robe, he found that his skin was in fact glowing, and rather brilliantly at that. It was a bit unnerving at first, but after a short while he found himself adjusting to it. His hair had a shine to it he had never seen before, and caused the red streaks in it to stand out more vigorously then they would after a bath in a stream. His prep team was rather amused with his musings, and to his surprise waited patiently for him to finish his ponderings before seating him in a large red chair before a mirror and getting to work.

After that, everything was a blur. They filed his nails into even rounds, trimmed the uneven locks of his hair that he had always cut by himself, rubbed different solutions of different scents into the places behind his neck and at the bases of his wrists and had eventually even rubbed some weird gel into the roots of his hair, which in the end turned it from an unruly mess into a neat and styled cut. He got more uncomfortable when Javier approached him with a pallet of gold paint and a paint brush and began to color streaks of his newly refined hair gold, adding distinct tinges of yellow into the red and brown mix that started at his forehead and spread back into the base of his skull. Javier occasionally darkened and brightened the shade of gold, creating an odd shimmer affect whenever Cesil turned his head. They ran black eyeliner on the tops of his eyes, bringing out the darker flecks of blue in his eyes and intensifying the lighter colors with it’s offset. They rubbed flecks of gold under the rims of his eyes as well, causing a similar sparkle to occur in the same manner as his hair. Finally they drew larger gold stripes and swirls across the patterns of his skin, some sweeping down his face and others spiraling across his arms."In the darkness, they're going to glow" Helga had chattered excitedly while adding more gold flecks to his eyes and hair. The thought of it filled Cesil with a sense of dread. He knew how foolish most of the tributes appeared during the ceremony, and he didn’t want to join them in their foolishness.

They finally seemed to run out of things to paint gold, and stood him up delicately before leading him down a hallway and through two large double doors to come face to face to a normal sized, rather young and kind looking women that he assumed to be his stylist. The Capitol fashion had not escaped her, for her hair was purple and she had wings stapled into her back, but she was the most natural looking person Cesil had seen in about eight hours, and he visibly relaxed. She introduced herself as Latia, and then before he could say a thing the dwarfs were pulling off his robe and placing various garments over his head with deadly precision. In the end he was dressed in a simple suit, his pants a plain brownish-gray and dress shirt a base colored black that cut off at the shoulders. They then placed a scratchy, wheat colored suit jacket over him and regular black dress shoes. As a final touch, a pale gold crown was placed on his head with lighter yellow loops spiraling around the base. Then they stepped back to admire their handy work.

Cesil didn’t understand at first, the suit and pants covered all the gold swirls they had painted except those on his face and was rather basic. Sure he looked nice, and his face had been made in a way that captivated his features but the outfit was plain and uninteresting. In all reality, he was a bit disappointed. He questioned them about it, worriedly at first but they simply assured him that he would understand later, and then he was being ushered downstairs to the holding room and his fear increased, because all around him were beautiful and done up people in extravagant outfits, yet when he asked yet again they simply shook him off with knowing smiles.

He stepped into the chariot hesitantly and uncertainly, and was soon joined by Achlys, who looked so completely stunning in comparison to him that it was unfair. He simply turned his head from her and all of them and trained his eyes on the horses instead, taking a deep breath to calm himself as fear clawed its way into his throat. Finally it all began, the District One chariot moving out into the darkness and being quickly followed by District Two, and then suddenly his own chariot was jerking forwards and they were off, out into the dark of the night for a brief moment until the lights from the Opening Ceremony reached his eyes.

He was too busy smiling and waving and trying to do his damn best to make up for his stylists lack of effort to even notice the effects of his outfit until he heard the crowds excited roar and caught sight of himself on the giant screens strung along the pathway of the Capitol Square. He was glowing. All of him, everywhere. The painted spirals on his body shined through the fabric of his clothes and projected an unearthly golden glow that seemed to come from within his very being. All of him was caught in the painted shimmer of the patterns, it seemed to radiate from him in waves that extended outwards from him in strong bursts. He understood now why they had painted the golden patterns onto his body so carefully, for it all seemed to form a picture on him that glistened brightly in the darkness. The pattern that shined on his legs resembled grain, that stretched all the way up to his stomach, while the patterns on his arms and in his hair mimicked the rays of the sun. And at the middle of it all was his face, the center sun within the masterpiece his stylist had constructed. He was not simply handsome, he was an unearthly and almost alien kind of beautiful that had the crowd practically worshiping him. Some of them screamed his name. He was not just radiant, he was the sun, and there was not one person in the crowd that could keep their eyes from him.

It was over about as soon as it started, the paint seemed to have a short life expectancy and died out as the chariots stopped before the President, who addressed them curtly and calmly before sending them on their way. And then he was climbing from the chariot, his legs near jelly as they congratulated him on his success and he just about tripped over himself in an effort to thank them for all they had done. They sent him off after a while, in the presence of Achlys and his escort, and they were led to their rooms within the training center where he did not hesitate to shower off all the paint and dress in something comfortable, eager for sleep after an exhausting day.

tagging opening ceremony
words 2927
outfit here
lyrics nowhere man by THE BEATLES
notes hunger games
credits this was made by PARTY POISON