Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour, and drum roll ladies and gents *rolls drum as everyone watches* tonight is Interviews! That's right, we've reached the Interview stage, one of my favorite, most definitely favorite aspects of any SYOT. Last chapter we looked through the eyes of the Capitol characters again and there have been some plot advancements afoot with Rennie, Bonnie, and the others but that isn't important. This chapter will have eight POV's (yes, you read that right), but I do go over everyone's interview despite not everyone having a POV so don't worry, everyone's shining bright, I swear. I am really excited to get these next three tribute chapters underway, more than you know actually, so please, enjoy Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour.
~ And so sayeth the Lord, if you are to hog the spotlight, you better get used to the way it'll scorch your skin alive, as if the fires of Hell were grabbing you and pulling you under
Cyril Barther: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)
For living in District One, Cyril has always found him to be among, as if that is even possible, now that he's seen the Capitol, to be among the most vain people in the history of mankind. That may be a stretch, but Cyril swears it, from his mother running a beauty salon, he seeing the people come and go that visit their homely abode that is not his father's Victors Village house - he hasn't stepped inside that house in years - with their outlandish hair styles and eye colors, such as mocking a peacock's plumage, or bat wings stretching out of the side of a man's head as he found his sideburns to be too short. Cyril knows that there isn't anything his mother could do to fix him, especially his speckled face, but the stylists are trying their best, after all.
Kevia watches him, as he stands on one of the pedestals in the center of his changing room, arms outstretched as a member of his prep team - Cyril isn't sure if her name is Deli or Meli, but he's not about to call her the name of a sandwich shop - takes a lint roller down the fabric, a deep and suave gorgeous crimson colored jacket, the inside a lining of solid black, and he hasn't felt this hot in ages. Although Kevia would normally be with Satin, as he'd have his father in the room, his father has decided to, once again, take to a vodka tonic and lounge out in the audience, definitely not awake. Lance stops by and sees the District 10 tributes first, and then decides to swap places with Kevia, only because Cyril doesn't want to talk to Lance since their spat on the train. He feels like a million bucks, but unless those million bucks allow him to win the Games, he's not so certain feeling amazing at this moment in time will actually do anything for him.
He feels the victor's eyes searching over him, a seafarer's scope traversing rocky waters - get to close to the acne, and they'll tear the hull straight off - and then they settle on his chin, the one part his prep team couldn't fully cover up. Cyril sighs, as another member of the team goes and straightens out the shaved off sides of his head, leaving the dusty mop of curls up top. "I already know what you'll ask," he says, rather resignedly, for whatever question is about to come spilling out of the victor's mouth is one he's heard thousands and thousands of times beforehand, a majority of them being from his mother.
"The scars..." Kevia starts her question anyways, no matter what he says, she having a hand placed on her own chin, perhaps a sign of absentmindedness. "How did you get them all? And so many?" She steps closer, up to him, out of the fringes of the room where she had been blending in with the curtains, and although Cyril tries backing away from her, he doesn't wish to fall off of the pedestal is on. He scrunches up his nose as Kevia traces one with her left pointer finger like it is a smudge of makeup to be wiped off. "That one is particularly nasty..." She balances the glass of some sort of alcohol in her other hand, because he has yet to see her without a drink either, yet somehow Emmett is the one with the drinking problem.
"The same way I got all of these, actually," Cyril responds, showing off his arms, pale in the moonlight shining down from above, the room he is in being a glass cage with the Capitol brightness flooding in. "All from falls or slips in the Academy," and then, begrudgingly, "Yeah, some were caused by weapons."
"And you're one of our best hopes for a victor?" Kevia snorts to herself. "Being scarred by a training weapon..."
He shrugs, not sure how to feel about her comment, whether it is an insult or not. It had been hard enough kicking everyone's ass to get to the spot he's in, and to have someone who has physically brought him up on this journey say that? The stab wound to his heart could spill blood all over his outfit and he still wouldn't know about it. "You're one of the people who decided I was good enough, y'know. It's on you and Lance if I don't win." Perhaps she's drunk. She has to be, as it is late enough in the evening, nearing just about 9 PM, when the Interviews officially start with Mr. Pollux Aetos himself.
"I'm kidding," she smiles at him, but he shudders at the look. He's watched her Games before, the 84th year, and those had been a bloodbath, as Kevia takes down, or at least helps with taking down, nine lives in the arena, at eighteen years old with vivacious blonde hair, that same smile she is giving him now, and a dagger doing all of her dirty work, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing... he hopes she'll excuse him when he doesn't believe her if she's kidding or not. Kevia walks around him, surveying him, as if he needs to feel anymore insecure about tonight. Cyril's heart rises in hope when he is the first score out of the gate and gets a 10, as it's better than Marcus Pharadane from last year, and then when Satin and Aris, who he assumed would get a score just like his if not higher are lesser than that, he feels as if it is about to solidified... he'll lead the Careers, something he had out of his mind as an impossibility, but the closer it crept up, the more possible it seemed.
And then Jules Harper comes out with an eleven, and two outsider tributes from Six and Twelve score higher than him, causing Satin to go on a cussing spiel rant, and that's that after Bloom's face vanishes into the black screen, confidence entirely crushed. Amaris has already said no to their offer, something about pride and her being better than everyone, which has him laughing, as she'd get along with Aris like peas in a pod. Cambric seems to be the type of guy expressing pure disinterest in wanting to join the Careers - he has to remember that to everyone else, from the outside looking in, he and the others are freakish, with their barbarianism - and he is not inviting Vanya into an alliance, the guy dripping with more ego than Satin, Aris, and Amaris combined. He smells it on the District 11 dancer, like honey being out in the sun for too long, scorched and hardening, hard candy stuck in someone's teeth.
However, there's someone else, someone else he's been watching, and with her Ten too... it has him raise an eyebrow by his lonesome after Satin goes away, cussing to herself about cheated opportunities and the like.
"I've been thinking," Cyril announces, rather out of the blue.
Kevia finishes looking over at him, and there's a rather pleasant look to her disposition, she swirling around the enigmatic materials in her glass. "You look great, for once," she smirks, and then she catches onto what he had just said, eyebrows coming together. "You, thinking? That's a dangerous thought."
"I'm serious." He resists the urge to stomp his foot like a petulant child, as if that'd be any more reason to give Kevia more ammunition in mocking him. He knows the way the other Careers minus Maren have looked at him since arriving in the Capitol, as if he's second rate, lower than all of them, not as prepared, but he supposes that scoring a 10 shuts everyone else up, and that the crow does not taste delightful after they finish swallowing it.
She takes a sip of her drink, leaning back against the wall. "Alright, Cyril, I'll bite," he goes to open his mouth and answer, but she cuts him off. "Wait a minute. Is this about allies?" He nods his head, wordlessly, perhaps she being able to read it on his face. Kevia peels herself back off of the curtains, looking slightly perturbed about that. "Without saying who it is, show me a number of fingers to what district." Cyril frowns, confused about the oddity of the exercise, but complies, showing up both hands with counts of five. Ten. District 10. Kevia takes a deep breath, and a long, long sip of her drink. "Cyril, do you remember what happened to the Careers last time they added a new alliance member from District 10?" She doesn't give him time to respond to this. "It ended in disaster."
"With Valencia as a victor, though," Cyril points out.
"Who is it?"
"The girl, Vivian Whiplash," he answers, and for a second, he pictures her perfectly. Lithe frame, deadly gaze, that sick ass sounding name... Cyril is impressed watching her brawl in the fighting ring while he's practicing weaponry, and approaches Aris about the possibility of having her join, just a thought, but his fellow Career from Two sniffs the air disdainfully, not in the mood. "She scored just like I did, too, and did better than Aris, Satin, and Maren. She has to be good."
Kevia crosses her arms over the other, raising an eyebrow, looking at Cyril directly in the eyes. He's seen that look before, he's seen that look hundreds of times, the judgmental feel. It is the one where his decisions are dragged in the dirt like a recently killed rabbit to be sent to the black market, picked and plucked until nothing remains except a carcass of what used to be something beautiful, now sold for extortion. "Anyone else know about this idea of yours yet? Did you tell Satin?"
He shakes his head in dissent. Why does anyone else have to know his decisions? "Not yet."
"You think they'll accept?"
"It's Jules's decision technically, since he's the highest scorer," Cyril says. Although he finds the male from Four to be a bit prudish, decadent, over-the-top, and somehow, extremely skilled in combat, there is a genuine likability to the kid, so perhaps he'll take the idea better than Satin would, especially on the grounds of female competition. "He strikes me as being more warm to the concept."
Kevia smirks to herself, taking the last sip out of her drink with a satisfying gasp, and she recedes back into the violet curtains, wrapping them around her midriff. "There's another reason why you want her in the alliance, don't you?" Kevia plucks the olive off of the straw, throwing it in her mouth.
Well, how in the hell did he read that off of his face? She just had to go and pull out the big guns, huh? "Yeah..." Cyril trails off, his face rising slightly in heat as his cheeks begin to burn. His prep team member finishes swiping the lint roller across his arms and pants, and Cyril Barther is show ready!
His fellow mentor sets the glass down on the ground, careful not to kick it over. "You think she's cute, don't you?"
Cyril wouldn't say cute, he'd use a different word, but saying it out loud feels like he's spewing hot sauce everywhere, which again, would still blend in on his suit.
Perhaps wanting her in the alliance won't be a simple as he thinks it could be.
Wouldn't hurt to ask, right?
Anahita Cascade: District 4 Female P.O.V (13)
Just because she is thirteen does not mean she has to be dressed up like some little princess. Anahita clenches onto the frills of her dress, looking down at them with a frown, she drowning - distasteful pun is distasteful, but she digresses - in a plethora of cerulean fabric, done so to look like the spreading waves of the ocean, her dark skin brought up by the navy shades that dance to mid arm, a flowing tide crashing in onto a stony shore, blue flecks of glitter applied just around her eyes, a seashell placed in her hair, and she wants to rip it out of her head as the damned thing smells. However, she knows that the moment she does, some Peacekeeper is going to tackle her to the ground, pull out a few inches of her scalp, and then place the seashell back in it. Better yet, a sand dollar will go there so it can piss all over her head, just so the Capitol can have the last laugh.
She steps out into the hallway for all of the tributes to line up, and with a saddening pit burrowing further into the gaping hole that is her stomach, Anahita realizes that she's the last of the Careers - wait, that's right sweetheart, you aren't a Career cause you're too young - to be finished with the Interview preparations, but she's still much earlier than plenty of the other tributes, there only being a few stragglers such as the weird science pair from District 3, the timid girl from Five who is off in her own corner, and the Capitol peacock from Eleven, dressed glamorously in some sort of platinum sheen thing, showing off his calve muscles, but he's off by himself as well while the boy and girl from Three speak to one another in hushed voices all the way up at the front of the line.
The other Careers are huddled together in a circle, Cyril and Jules having their backs to her, while she assumes the others are on the opposite side, and although she can't fully hear them, their voices seem to start rising over one another. Anahita frowns, wanting to step closer, but she remembers what she had been told a few days ago... they don't want her, they don't have a use for her, and she's the lowest scorer. However, something comes up the moment the scores are announced, she looking over at Jules and his maddening grin, with the 11 flashing underneath his name... he's the leader of the Careers, and now Cyril is the 2nd highest score, someone who has said to her already... the gears turn, smoke pours out of her ears, and Anahita Cascade has a game plan.
Had she not volunteered so early, feeling the foretold doom crashing over the Justice Building in a rolling black wave, going to sweep everything up in a tumble of a forever darkening abyss, and had she waited until she's eighteen, Anahita sees herself being very clearly the victor of those Games, the 106th, would it be she holds her tongue and stays in line like she's supposed to. Anahita feels the burn in her calves the moment she finally reaches the stage, as it seems that the girl who is supposed to volunteer is so caught off guard by such a tiny, yet powerful voice overpowering her own, that she's frozen in her own little pale dress standing on the steps. The burning in the calves, however, means dedication, a conviction, the need and want to get out there and do what needs to be done, no matter the age.
She didn't get a nine or ten, big deal, but a seven at thirteen is nothing to scoff at either, scoring better than so many other older tributes beneath her that they have to take her seriously now. Anahita smiles to herself, taking another step, going to tap Cyril on the back. Up until, well, she supposes twenty seconds ago, the mantra is her screaming at herself in her head to be the best, to be so much better than the rest of the pack that they must take notice, and if they don't take notice, she'd pry their eyelids off and force them to look at her, never to blink. She doesn't need to be that violent, though she supposes a bit of it wouldn't hurt anyone too much, no fatalities at least when she's finished. Anahita doesn't get too far from her own door, however, before the clamoring noise of the other five Careers reaches a pinnacle pressure point.
"FINE!" Aris roars, alongside the same time Satin lets out an anguished groan. "Do it yourselves, then, Jules! I'm targeting you first though, and don't you forget it!"
Anahita raises an eyebrow in confusion, Aris's outburst startling the District 3 pair as Aris then brushes past them so he can stand in his spot, Satin following suit since she'll be first, after all. Maren slinks up against the wall at her spot, though it probably belongs to someone from District 5 or 6, and Jules looks over at Cyril, some sort of unknown agreement passing between them, as the male from One then turns to face Anahita. Anahita watches her district partner then turn to Maren, but she cannot hear him, his voice too low over the ringing in her ears. She locks eyes with Cyril, who steps over to her. She'll have to admit, she doesn't read him quite well, despite finding him somewhat nice, almost a familial relationship, she supposes, but she's only hung out with him the one time, he bringing death's number to her doorstep.
"What was that all about?" she asks him the moment her reaches her, and she has to stifle a laugh, as his suit is nearly as red, if not even brighter than the color of his acne. It must've been done on purpose, for now his entire face emanates a serene, nearly bright vermillion glow under the hanging lights.
"Well, Jules told Aris and Satin that-" he starts.
"Never mind that, it's not important," Anahita interrupts him, actually not really caring about what Aris and Satin need explained to them. They seem like smart cookies - a thought of Anahita's dwindling bite by bite now - and can see when the writing is on the wall that they are not top dogs anymore. "I want you to do something for me."
"Anahita," Cyril says, but she is not going to let him override her just because. There's a principle, dammit!
"I was thinking that you and Jules, together, should ask the others about having me back in the alliance," it is the idea that comes to her head, after his whisper in his ear while she holds the kunai, slicing the dummies to shreds in a wake of blueberry foam and fake guts splattering onto her hands. Cyril opens his mouth to interrupt again, but she forges onwards, a skipper traveling through the ice after an elusive narwhal. "Think about it! Maisey, last year, got a seven just like I did and I'm sure I'm a way better fighter than her. I know I'm young, but I got the same score she did and she was allowed in the alliance, and I think that makes me better than what you all think I am. Jules is also the leader now, and he's my district partner and unless you want to make him mad you should listen to him and-" At this point, Anahita has turned into a rambling shanty, words spilling over the other, excitement bubbling in her ankles as she overwhelms the room, she feeling herself get out of breath, but after a moment of her rambling, Cyril physically shushes her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Anahita, slow down," he enunciates the last word with a chuckle, a light heartedness in his eyes. "There won't be any need for that, Anahita."
"Why not?" she frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together. She doesn't understand. How could the answer still be no? She's done everything they need of her! She's proved herself! What else does she need to do? Anahita resists the urge of stomping her foot, though she does lift it off of the ground some. "Why, Cyril? Answer me!"
Cyril smiles, as if he has a secret to tell, inhaling heavily. "Jules told the others that you were in the alliance, and then said that he didn't want Aris or Satin in the alliance, so he kicked them out of it."
Well, well.
That is not what she expects to happen next, but it does have Anahita stumbling up against the wall in shock. She thinks it would have to be her groveling at someone's feet, begging to be heard, begging to be seen, diminishing herself in the face of her betters, an act that sounds as sour as she'd expect it to, but now this...? This is a reversal of fortune, a halo hailing from the sky and landing on her head, Anahita beaming back at him, but then that smile is reversed with a look of confusion. "He kicked Satin and Aris out of the Careers?"
"He has the right to, being the highest scorer and all."
"And you didn't have a problem with it?"
"With Aris, not at all, I don't like him," Cyril says rather point blank, "I'll make Satin come around, though, I think, I'm sure of it."
Anahita's brain is a train tunnel of commotion and confusion, carts passing by on neuro pathways, stimulating her body to want to jump for joy, but something else still sticks out in her head. The Careers are broken, once again, as she saw what happened at the bloodbath when Marcus, the District 1 male is allowed back in the alliance after saving Valencia's life, but this... this is different, someone being physically removed out of the alliance without warning, all over another member? That member being her. A sudden weight settles onto her shoulder, nearly downing her to a knee, she pressing herself into the wall to keep herself as upright as she can.
"Why are you and Maren staying?"
Cyril grins back at her, and she feels that this is the most genuine interaction with anyone she's ever had in the Capitol, even over Jules and her talking, and she likes being around her district partner. "Honest truth, Anahita? I think you proved yourself. And well, I didn't want you to be discounted either. For Maren, I imagine it's the same way."
Anahita realizes, rather suddenly, that the other tributes are starting to conjoin in the hallway, getting into place, dressed in various outfits and costumes, some looking like costumes than being pretty outfits for an interview, if hers is anything to go by, a little beached siren gasping for breath on a shallow, hollowed out rock. If everyone else is joining, it means the Interviews are about to be up soon, as then the recognizable trumpet fanfare echoes out of speakers gathering dust in the corners, and stepping through the façade of the velvet curtains hiding the back of the stage, their Master of Ceremonies, Pollux Aetos, waving to the crowd.
"Well, I- I don't know what to say, Cyril," she babbles over herself, at a loss for words. "I hope I am worth it."
"Believe me," Cyril chuckles to himself, darkly, sucking the energy out of the moment even while the audience gathered in the amphitheater cheer and roar alongside their jolly host. "I don't want to regret this."
"You won't," Anahita replies with solitude. "I'll make sure of it."
She's damn right she'll make sure of it.
And if she doesn't? Well, she'll always have that kunai by her side.
Sophiana Delarosa: District 5 Female P.O.V (16)
The night is already a disaster and she has yet to even have her interview. Standing in front of Seth, she can feel his breath hot against her neck as he stands there, watching the Interviews with her, her sandaled feet starting to hurt as the shoes must be a size too small. She's dressed in some sort of short dress patterned to be like a galaxy of stars, and when she turns, so does the fabric, a darkening expanse on the night sky, but Sophiana is incapable of thinking about anything else other than what is happening on the stage. Satin is the first person to be interviewed, and although Pollux doesn't go there, the entire audience is comparing her to Valencia the moment she steps out on stage, down to the blonde hair, and Sophiana wants to feel bad for her, but in the back of her head that thought is there, about the person standing on stage being a cold blooded killer, and the sympathy goes away immediately. Cyril is in an even worse shadow, his father being a Hunger Games victor - that comes as a surprise - and the crowds most definitely draw comparisons.
Maren talks about her parents, primarily focusing on her mother and how the Johnson matriarch is suffering from cancer, that drawing oodles of comfort and generosity out of the audience. Aris, for some reason that Sophiana cannot discern, is fuming angry when he sits down in the hot seat, dressed handsomely, but barking at every question Pollux asks, leaving early. She didn't know a Career could leave early. Ciphra is a joy to listen to, she prattling on about someone named Veracity, Sophiana hanging onto every word, expecting it to be some boyfriend, but instead it's a stupid freaking robot, expectations crushed, interview ruined for her. Tach, someone who seems to be unable to sit still, talks about something she's never even heard of... tachyons, the concept spilling over her head. Anahita is a bubbling ball of excitement, riding Tach's energetic personality with full force about being allowed in the Careers based on her talent, Sophiana gulping as she could see the little girl snapping her neck with ease. Jules is a cooled cat, sitting back in his chair, there being idle talk of being the highest scoring Career, an unasked question lingering on the air. The last victor was a Career who was the highest scoring tribute. You're the highest scoring Career... does this mean a victory for you?
Sophiana knows the night is a disaster as she takes her place on stage, after Pollux's booming introduction which still echoes in her ears, and the audience is without a sound, crickets chirping in the desolate corners of the theater. She takes her seat, feeling all of their eyes on her, and she knows what they're all thinking. The girl that lost her ever loving mind at the Reaping. The girl who screams at the top of her lungs when being dragged to the stage. The one where the escort looks at her as if she is diseased. Maybe... maybe she is diseased. Pollux smiles at her sweetly, but she sees the look in his eyes, the pitiful kind. Everyone is just so damn pitied of her.
"Good evening, Sophiana. I must say, the dress looks great!"
"If the only amazing thing about me is an outfit I had no choice in wearing, then I've already lost," she thinks to herself, and then out loud, as tactfully as she can manage. "Thank you. I think it looks great." She hates the stupid dress. Yolanda didn't pick it out for her, so she isn't going to like it.
Pollux scoots up some on his chair, he dressed like a sliver of moonlight, decorated entirely in silver, clinking quarters onto a sidewalk as he moves. "How has the Capitol been treating you?"
"Alright, I guess," Sophiana shrugs. In the Delarosa house, speaking your mind had been prohibited, yet here she is, miles and miles away from home and what home could do to her, from what her father could ever dream of doing, yet she holds back her opinions, as she responds, Pollux looking at her with what Sophiana calls the 'generality' face, simply boring, simply uninterested. "It is a much different place than home."
She expects the next question to be, 'different how', but all she wants to do is get off of the stage, for she can feel Seth's gaze burning into her back, right directly between the shoulder blades, she unsure as to why since after telling him what her last name is, he gasps, looks at her like she is radioactive, and vanishes into the elevator, staying away from her at all times. "Sophiana, if you don't mind," Pollux clears his throat, balancing an elbow on the arm of the chair, "I'd like to reference your reaping for a moment, setting the scene for the audience in case they forgot."
Sophiana hasn't forgotten. She doesn't forget. No matter how hard she closes her eyes and screams at herself to forget, she doesn't forget when the cigars go into her flesh, sliding up and down on her ashy skin, searing scorch lines across her body in tandem marks of fire and brandy, while the cinders get in her hair, singeing up the bits that they can touch. She doesn't forget the punches to the stomach, with her father's gritted teeth glare staring down at her from above. Deep down, in her heart, she doesn't feel terrible when she jumps for joy, knowing that her father has been thrown in prison for burning someone's home down, that the monster in her life is put in jail and won't see the light of day until she's gone and out of District 5 forever, and it does not even settle in her own heart about how she's skipped over the fact someone else has died when her father goes on his arson lighting rampage.
What is the name of the family that lost a little girl in the fire? Sophiana searches her head for it, but nothing comes up.
"Sure," she says, although she'd much rather vomit all over his expensive suit.
"Those leaves," Pollux continues, after a pause, scooting closer. "The ones that came free off of your dress, why did they matter to you so much? I imagine it's a bit painful to relive the memory, but," Then why are you resurrecting the memory, you fruit fuck? "I am sure we are all curious as to why those leaves were so important. It isn't not like you can't go and find them anywhere."
Sophiana doesn't take her eyes off of him, mouth slightly lowering itself in shock. How could anyone be so dismissive of a past? How could anyone be so cold and stone faced to tragedy looking them in the eye? "Well, Pollux," she starts, stirring in her spot, "My older sister, Yolanda, and I, used to have tea parties a lot when we were young to distract ourselves from my father and his fighting with Mom," All the noises echoing against the walls, and Yolanda pushing Sophiana's face to the side, to keep her gaze focused directly on the leaves and their little porcelain cups, and nothing else. Not the battered shadows or blood splatters, or the raised voices. Solely on the dosage of happiness that didn't exist in a cheap dollar cup. "We didn't have the full set for anything, so we used leaves as our napkin or plate..." a surge of emotion wells in her throat, but Sophiana swallows it down. "I sewed those leaves onto every outfit I ever wore from thirteen on, so you can imagine why I was upset when they came off of my dress, and then the added realization of me being reaped."
The Interviewer nods his head, a slight murmur of dissent rummaging through the crowd, Sophiana snorting to herself in her head. They don't care; none of them do. "I'm sorry to hear that, Sophiana. I take it your father wasn't a nice man? Although the image wasn't clear there were some..."
"Scars," she finishes for him, and Sophiana pulls back on the sleeves of her dress, adding them specifically for a stylist request, and although the cut of the dress is short, dark stockings covered her legs, but she rolls them up too. "Cigarette and cigar burns."
Pollux scoots back some in his chair, a look of revulsion - no, not quite revulsion, maybe even a sense of sadness, Sophiana isn't sure - and she can sense the presence of the stage camera zooming in on her arms, darkened flesh torn to a war battleground. "What's your last name, Sophiana?"
"Delarosa."
"Then that means your father is-"
"Yes," she interrupts him again. "My father is the infamous arsonist from District 5, and these are his markings," Sophiana says. A teared sob escapes her, as one lonesome teardrop slides down her cheek. "His markings are my scars..."
The moment she reveals this, however, as the audience gives a collective gasp, and apparently some of the other tributes do too, the boy from Nine being the loudest gasp she hears out of the bunch, Sophiana leaps to her feet. Everything is supposed to be hidden, kept away from the world, and somehow in the matter of three minutes she's spilled her heart out to the entire nation about her father, the fighting, the tea parties, the leaves, Yolanda... there's nothing left. She is incapable of stopping the tears that begin to stream down her cheeks, her lower lip trembling, voice wavering. Pollux motions forward some to her, as if to coax her back into the seat, but she withdraws into herself, a shaky gasp eliciting itself from her throat.
"Sophiana, please sit back down and..."
She doesn't respond to his plea, or the two times he calls her name after that, for she can feel the bile in her throat beginning to rise, Sophiana booking it off of the stage, and the tears follow suit, and in the echo of her beating heart, as her father's screaming voice bears down on her, her buzzer goes off, the nail in the coffin of her demise.
Ponty Carr: District Six Male P.O.V (17)
It may sound rude, but no one will ever hear his thoughts, so he's okay with committing to it. Ponty is extremely glad his life is not like Sophiana's, that poor girl who just fled from the stage in tears. Say what you will about not everyone's upbringing being happy, but he's more fortunate than most, especially when considering the money in the coffers is bursting full. The audience already being in emotional turmoil does not have their spirits raised when Seth follows suit, talking about losing those closest to him, though he does never spill any further on who he is referring to at Pollux's invite. Amaris goes next, in her Peacekeeper uniform - Ponty knows it isn't actually hers, just something given to her off the shelf, but it is a size too big for her, and he's holding in his laughter at the way she flounces about like a giant sheet, detracting just a bit from her impressive training score.
Speaking of, he has no idea how he got a freaking six, as although Ponty tries not to blow himself up too much, there's no way his session had been mediocre, middle of the line, along with a twelve year-old from Nine... there's just no way. However, remaining focused on the past is something he's trying to move past - he groans inwardly at the reality of what he just told himself - since, apparently, as he sits next to Pollux, he has a grouched up look on his face, as Pollux prods, wondering why the upset look. Ponty gives a fair smile, laughing to himself. "No, just thinking of Amaris." That is not the best statement he could've come up with, by the way the Master of Ceremonies smiles back, raising his eyebrows surreptitiously in amusement. "Not like that," he adds, quickly, a tinge of red appearing at his neck.
Ponty tugs at his collar, wearing a dark suit, the cuffs emblazoned in a gold trimming, and he asks if he can carry a blowing glass demonstration on stage with him, that earning a doggedly frown and perceptible shake of the head, plus a 'are you crazy?' motion that he knows it would've been a stupid question to ask, but it would surely make him more memorable stupid six in the private sessions. That is going to bother him until the Earth is no more, he knows it, for even though he views needing to put the work in to reap the successful benefits of time, he has put in the time and effort and it has come up to give him nothing but shards of glass and streams of sand slipping between his fingers. Ponty wonders what everyone is thinking of him as he sits on stage, all of their attention - a crowd of at least a thousand people, if not even upwards of that - focused in on him, and this is the first time in his life he feels like he's been noticed.
Back home, with all of the glassblowing artwork he does, when someone stops by to adore a creation, which is in itself a rare event regardless as it means someone needs to have the money to do so in traveling onto the Carr side of town, someone admiring the pieces that he generally makes himself does not give him credit. He's the one hiding behind a column, shirtless, covered in soot, muscles aching underneath the strain of his work, as he does so for hours on end, every day, all week, for the whole year, for the last three years straight. Ponty is not shaking anyone's hand, telling them it is he who has who made the delightful artisan piece they are looking at, but it is not as if anyone is wondering aloud who has made them. "Me," he thinks to himself, slightly smug if he can help it, "The beauty you're sitting in? My family did this. I did this. No thank you is necessary."
That is the truth, however, as he ponders over whatever Pollux asks him next, some sort of joke about tension being a run-of-the mill ordeal between the district partners. Should anyone wish to attribute praise or gratitude towards any of his creations, it is always towards the Carr family, not Ponty himself. "But I did," he grumbles inwardly. "I'm the one who did this for you all and I'm being glossed over. My parents didn't do shit!" However, at that moment, Pollux reaches over and presses a hand on his shoulder, laughing gently. The boy from Six blinks in a distracted moment of surprise, smiling lightly. "I'm sure of it," he responds, not knowing the question.
"Are you sure?" Pollux's grin is very telling, and the few people Ponty can see hidden under the veil of light - somehow he finds that to be an oxymoron of sorts - have stars in their eyes, though surely the time is already winding down in his interview. "You and Amaris strike me as a power couple here."
"Trust me, no lost love between us," he says again, the Interviewer holding his hands up in a 'I surrender' motion.
Ponty shifts his legs so his left foot balances on his right knee, frowning. As he's being dolled up, with Criston Pellock watching from afar, seeming entirely out of straits, unfocused, hair slightly unkempt, Ponty listens to the stylists and the prep team instead - God, that is the most insufferable conversation he has ever sat through. He thought he's spoiled, with the luxurious artisan touch, but he's clearly never heard the fashionistas of the Capitol... - and it passes over his ears that there's a rumor circulating in the upper groups that the reason his score is a six is because, despite such an impressive showing that would've garnered him an eight, maybe even an nine on the likes of Aris and Satin, is because the Carr family designed a stained glass window representing some sort of cavalry charge down a hill as a present for the Head Gamemaker, and it is supposedly some sort of horrific monster. "That's impossible," Ponty shakes his head at the thought. "Anything my family makes is a masterpiece. She must be blind."
In the present, with the audience laughing at something Pollux does, he shifts as well in his seat, bouncing his calling card on his knee. "So, Ponty, you're from District 6," he nods at the fact. "Last name is Carr... Carr and District 6 means that your family is the glassblowing artisans, correct?"
There's no point in denying it. Capitol familiarity means sponsors, sponsors means surviving longer, and surviving longer means beating Amaris O'Hara's stupid ass to the ground and becoming a victor. "Yeah, that's me."
"Glassblowing, right?" Pollux asks. Ponty frowns, but nods alongside the question once more. Hasn't this just been covered? The Interviewer smiles to himself, something villainous, hiding the grin behind the calling card. "Please forgive me, but wouldn't your job involve a lot of blowing techniques? The ability to suck in the cheeks? Air control?" Ponty agrees with silent moments of affirmation. He's still not seeing the glass object being fully built in front of him. "Does that mean your... well... blowing skills are much better than the average male or female?"
It takes a second for Ponty to truly understand the question, but it seems the audience has understood it immediately, the way that their laughter takes off into the air, raucous and unrelenting. The tips of his ears flush a putrid scarlet, he sitting upright. How... how dare he! "Mr. Aetos, I-"
"It's okay," Pollux interrupts him. "I just hope all the lucky ladies out there get to experience you at your best," and then, aside to the audience, although it is truly out in the fucking open for everyone, "And maybe Amaris too."
Ponty clenches the sides of the chair, near about to rip the Velcro off with just his pinkies. "Well, unfortunately I can't say for the men," he jokes, all the while his skin boils. "But, I promise you, Pollux, I'll get back to you on that."
The Master of Ceremonies guffaws at the joke, Ponty sharing a brief smile, making sure to show off his canines. He's never felt the urge to bite anyone, but ripping out Pollux's throat seemed entirely satiable and very sane in the moment, under the spotlights. The audience's laughter continues until the buzzer marks his dismissal, Ponty's ears still burning as the lewd talk follows him off of the stage.
He knows, however, that even though that might've just been the most humiliating experience in his entire life, it still must be a thousand times worse for Amaris.
That brightens his mood more than any potentially well made sponsor gift.
Cambric Vogel: District 8 Male P.O.V (18)
Cambric knew full and well that his private session had been queer to both the Head Gamemaker and Valencia, but he honestly chokes on his water the moment the score of 12 flashes underneath his name, caught entirely off guard, and then the underwhelming score of 1 flashing under Magdalena's picture that has her cursing and throwing a pillow onto the floor. He stands in his spot in line, swathed in a deep velvet suit, matching stark gray pants, and dark dress shoes, he has never felt this amazing. Sage Dagoba goes after Ponty and the wondering on his suction game, and the only talk that seems to infect the room with her on stage is of her training score, and he can tell that she's lying from his spot on stage at the way her brow furrows together, and then in a moment of oddity, she asks Pollux if she could sing to the audience, in which she does, but just a few verses of some sort of District 7 work song. Her voice is strong, and he's seen her axe skills, but he doesn't think she'll last.
Roanoke is a sweet kid, ducking his head a lot as he answers Pollux's rather uninspired questions, and then, at the end, the kid goes on some sort of monologue about life and death and he's half paying attention, but the audience is engrossed as all get out, and the applause the kid receives seemed more than a few of the Careers, if Cambric recalls correctly. Magdalena is after him, he smiling to himself in his spot, as he's come to like his district partner and her brash attitude, they talking about wounds a lot together, although he only approaches it in the medical aspects, she seems to have a fascination with them on a different level. In fact, speaking of wounds, that is her interview, she wearing a backless diamond dress - she quips at the idea that she stole it, but he is only half certain she's joking. With Magdalena, who knows? - and it is the revealing of scars unlike no other, lashes and whip marks, and robe burns, but Magdalena shows them off without shame, and her telling smile dancing on her face all the while. Pollux looks like he wishes to throw up.
He better not puke on his shoes.
Cambric gives the Interviewer a mighty hand shake when he sits down, crossing his legs like Ponty had been doing so for his interview, sitting back somewhat on the chair. He'd kill for this type of leather back home, to rest on, his shoes coming alive like shining pieces of onyx underneath the stage lights. Pollux finishes introducing him, the clapping dying down slowly, but he knows that it is hanging on the air. The wonder and the amazement... how did this kid score a twelve? Cambric is trying to understand and figure the answer to that himself. In fact, it is the next thing to come out of Pollux's mouth when the audience settles into their normalcy.
"The guy to score a twelve, and from a generally unremarkable district," Cambric winces at the statement, which surely everyone sees, he slightly irritated at the drop of coolness. "I am sure, as is everyone else, what the hell did you do to get such a high score?"
"Part of it dealt with my job back home," he responds truthfully. He had tried practicing a few weapons, such as a knife or a slender sword, but his arms felt all wrong when swinging in those barbaric motions. The concept of wrapping bandages around a wounded arm, or something to that pedigree is what his body knows. Not... violence, never the violence. He's seen too much of it to like it and wish to be in it all the time, but as a field doctor in a district full of accidents, often times the danger finds him without he wanting it.
"And what would that be?" Pollux asks, shifting his fingers back and forth on the manila calling card.
"I'm a medic," Cambric says. "I've been doing it for a few years now, and I think it's my passion, medicine and the like."
He's thought about revealing his boyfriend, but Loden had told him before they departed, lips pressed against one another, their breathing matched in synchronization that it is no one's business but their own about them being together. He is not going to betray his boyfriend's wishes, not even if Magdalena were to press a knife under his chin and demand the truth. Pollux nods his head, interested, as Cambric isn't sure if he's been the first full fledged medical practitioner to be in the Games. There's been some herbalist types, maybe even some healers, but he's a step up above all that, or at least, he believes that to be the case. Although he knows his supervisors would absolutely murder him on the spot if they knew this, the idea of becoming a medic is not something that took years and years of discovery to lead to... it is one that falls into his brain one day, he decides he liked it enough, and the rest is history. And some of he and Loden's personal times interspersed too, which causes him to blush.
"That's very interesting," Pollux says. "Medicine is very important."
"Yet you're killing me..." Cambric thinks to himself, darkly, but he tries not focusing on the negative. The negative is place where things don't grow, the negative is where the vile creatures of the dark come out to play, with their talons and fangs, glowing halcyon eyes and shimmering aquamarine fur... a shiver runs through him, and it is at this moment that Cambric decides to take it up a notch; screw formalities, and being dressed nice, and doing what everyone wants him to do. It's his interview time after all, and if Roanoke Arkus, at thirteen, can be entertained on concepts of life and death, why shouldn't he? "Pollux, would you indulge me for a second?"
"Of course," the interviewer blinks, releasing control rather easily. Cambric frowns to himself, expecting some sort of charged yelling, or a fight that would end with the two in tears. "It is your time, just remember, on the clock."
"Have you ever lost someone close to you?" he asks, point blank. The audience as a collective whole take a deep breath of shock. "Have you ever seen someone die in front of you?"
Pollux's face visibly changes into one of discomfort, his lips flattening into a straight line, his hands going to fiddle with his tie. "What- what do you mean, Cambric? I mean, of course I have, I host the Games and-"
"No, that's not what I mean," Cambric shakes his head, scooting closer to Pollux, in case he wishes to run away, but that'd be highly unprofessional. "Have you physically had someone die in front of you? Their body is in your arms, blood spilling down your hands, and you're trying to keep your voice level, your nerves kept at bay, cause otherwise the dying person will know they're dying, and you don't want that to be the last memory they have. Nor do you want the guilt settling in your stomach the next day that you caused this," he repeats the question once more, the Master of Ceremonies staring at him with a look of astonishment, the audience so quiet he could hear the moans of the dead rising up from underneath the floorboards. "Have you, Mr. Aetos?"
He swallows heavily, a hardening lump down his throat - gods, Cambric realizes, staring at his lips, this man is gorgeous! How is he still single? - and shakes his head back and forth. "No, I haven't. I- I assume you have?"
Cambric nods, face solemn, without expression. "More than once, I'm afraid," and a lump forms in his throat. The feeling is true, what he just told Pollux and all of Panem, about having someone in his arms, their warm blood spilling onto his skin, staining his dark sheet even moreso with their crimson tides, some patients gasping for breath as the smoke clogging their lungs chokes them out inwardly. Sometimes, one is screaming about rust infections while another medic is desperate to try and wrap up and gauze a severed limb, it spewing profusely onto the carpet of their makeshift tent, while Cambric presses a hand to the side of their face, begging, hoping, pleading that they just look at him until the Angel of Death comes from the heavens. "I haven't had anyone close to me die, however." Something unspoken rises on the wind, an 'At least, not yet...'
Pollux sits back up in his chair, upright. "I'm sorry Cambric, that you've had to go through with all of that."
The male from Eight has to bite down on his tongue to stop the laughter that would have erupted from his throat. "You're not sorry. Don't sit here and lie to me. I'm in the Hunger Games, about to die," Cambric loses the mocking joviality of his voice, back into the serious zone. Bullies, he hates them, and he's looking directly in the eyes with one of them, a gigantic bully. "There are a million emotions I know that you and the other Capitolites feel. You all feel sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, greed, desire... but you're never sorry." He leans forward some, getting almost nose-to-nose with their Master of Ceremonies. "However, you know what one thing doesn't separate us? What makes us district citizens and tributes the same as you?"
"What does..." Pollux asks after a moment's hesitation, for Cambric has gone just a bit over his allotted time, yet the buzzer has not come.
Cambric smiles to himself, a joyful smile, one full of pleasure, every emotion he mentioned riddled in it. "You bleed the same as the rest of us."
The buzzer decides that now it is a good time to go off, and Cambric's damage has already been done.
Audhild Olthono: District 9 Female P.O.V (12)
"Are you going to talk about death, Audhild?" is the first question to come out of Pollux's mouth as the somber Cambric Vogel departs from the stage. She sits down comfortably in the chair, getting swallowed up by her gigantic dress, some sort of fluorescent yellow beast, painted and she dolled up to represent a daisy, and although Audhild thinks she looks gorgeous, she knows that she most certainly looks a bit ridiculous too, but no one in the audience has laughed yet and so far she's banking on twenty seconds.
"No, I don't think so," she admits, giggling. Despite it being drilled in her head on what she needs to do, she hasn't prepared a single line of dialogue to herself on what to do, regardless of what he asks her. Audhild looks out over the crowd, seeing a plethora of odd faces, a mix of fabrics weaving together, women wearing monocles, men in top hats and fluffy hats made of animal fur, but she realizes then that everyone in the audience is paying attention. They're paying attention to her. Back home, between her and her five brothers, she's got the least amount of attention from her parents yet they're all looking - the audience, certainly not her family, they can't afford the cost for television services - down at her with adoration. If victorship is something she is looking at on the horizon, this is something she could get mightily used to, she certainly hopes.
Getting a six has so far been the highlight of the trip, in a sea of murkiness and uncharted waters, as she's scored higher than Jason despite he being four years the wiser, and although she knows she really could snap him like a twig, he seems to be one of those tributes with the much higher performance capabilities, yet the star alignment in the sky is reversed. He smiles at her sweetly, congratulating her on the average placement, alongside some older tributes, beating out a lot of older tributes, but her skin bristles with electricity at the smile. She's seen that one before, that type of look. Jealousy, speckled in certain shades of green, mutated, darker colors bouncing off of each other in a damp, dark corner. Perhaps he means some of his congratulatory responses, but it doesn't stop the unease from still settling beneath her arms, causing her to have goosebumps. He's after her, in just a few moments, and Audhild has no idea what he's going to talk about, he seeming to be just as unprepared as her.
Pollux takes a look at her, beaming. Seems like she's converted another, huh? "I must say, you simply look wonderful."
"Thank you, Pollux," she smiles back at him. Her parents didn't treat her right without adding manners to the mix. A lack of manners in the Olthono house is her knuckles being slapped with a wooden spoon, or the threat of being sent down to the Peacekeeper office should the naughty behavior be kept up. Audhild never wants to go back there again, despite the bully's parents demanding more, more punishment for the little terror that stabs their son, and all Audhild can keep screaming at them is, "It's an accident! It was an accident! Why can't you just forgive me? He's going to live!" and it is at that moment, as she does this, that Audhild realizes she's the worst person in the world. Her smile falters a bit, on stage, and to buck herself up, "I wish I could say the same for you, my friend."
He laughs heartily at that, placing a hand on his stomach, and the laugh to rise out of the audience sounds a hint more nervous than what she would want, but she has to factor in that the previous nut job weirdo tribute just told them all that they still can bleed and die, which is such a happy thought. Audhild giggles again, alongside the others, though the nagging thought of being the worst person to ever live in all of mankind settles in a nice corner. She's heard some of the talk amongst a few Capitol trainers while she's training, going back to weapons training over and over and over again that it is a waste of time, that she will be dead before the Bloodbath ends, so why even bother? It requires a lot of self-control on her part to not stab the laughing workers in their throats, but that'll guarantee a punishment worse than a whipping.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
"Trust me, I'm learning something about myself too," Audhild responds earnestly, another roar of approval from the crowd. This is wonderful! This is the absolute best! She sees how her parents sometimes sneer down at her, disappointment reflected in their gray eyes, and her bumbling about around an apology, but up here, she feels like she can do no wrong. She feels untouchable, immortal, bathing in the fountain of Aphrodite, receiving Hera's blessing, and she leans back into the chair, engulfed in her daisy dress.
"I imagine you're proud about that six, huh? I'd say, at your age, it's a mighty good score."
"Yeah, I'm happy about it," she says, before wincing to herself. Manners, politeness, professionalism. Yeah is not professional. Yes sir. Yes ma'am. She knows better; she's always known better. It is her not knowing better that has a kid screaming in pain with a bloodied knife gripped in her hand, as if someone didn't know what would happen when an Olthono has their buttons pushed too far. It is her not knowing better than has it be written so a Peacekeeper can turn her back into a canvas for meteor strikes, as showering is painful, and her parents don't speak to her for a week. Whatever friends she had before vanish as if they never existed, for what if little Audi decides to snap on those closest to her and they're next? "I didn't know I had it in me," and the audience murmurs approval once more. "That is a lie," she tells herself, however, inwardly, "You're just too scared to show it off."
Pollux nods along at the statements, drumming his fingers on the armchair. "Is there anything interesting you can tell me about yourself?"
Audhild sits up, frowning. Something interesting about her? Well... "I'm one of six children," she says, and a gasp - it isn't a gasp, but words fail her in the moment at what type of reaction they're all having - rises from the viewers. "And the only girl," the interviewer blinks at her, not quite following. She runs her hands alongside the frills of her dress. "In District 9, not a lot of families have as many children like mine does. A lot of us die young due to hay fever and some other stuff..." A resurgence of bile rises in the back of her throat. "But, not us!" Audhild adds cheerfully, departing from the melancholy, as there's been enough of it on stage. "My brothers and I are all close."
There's a pause before the next question comes her way. "Six children is a lot. Are you all in school?" she nods at the statement. "All in the same school?"
She licks her lips, her throat suddenly going dry. A splash of crimson covers her ledger, she clenching onto the armrests, inhaling sharply. "All my brothers go to the same school, but I..." she hesitates, holding the next few syllables in the nape of her neck, a warmth spilling out over the skin. "I had to switch to being homeschooled."
"Why'd you have to do that?"
"I was being bullied," Audhild says, picking at the end piece of her dress, or at least at the parts she could reach, trying to keep a neutral expression on her face. "It didn't end... well, well, and my parents thought it was best I be taught away from everyone else," a hint of sadness peeks through, but to her credit, she doesn't cry.
"How about this year's assemble of tributes?" Pollux ganders, leaning into her personal space as if they're friends, but it is an idea she is not against at all. "Any of them seem like bullies to you?"
Audhild looks to the right of her, where sitting in a gaggle are the tributes who have had their interviews already, District 1 to 8 are watching are, some sitting close to each other, some far apart. Her gaze then goes back down to the other tributes still waiting on stage right - her physical left - in their assembled line to have their own interview, Jason at the forefront. "Jason's amazing," she says, and he smiles at that, a warm ah sound rising from the audience, but then she solidifies her gaze, having watched enough, having seen enough to know. "However, some of them definitely are," and then she directs her attention back to Pollux. "I beat my bullies up, Mr. Aetos. If someone bullies me, it won't end well."
"Just like it didn't go well for your last one?"
She nods, unsure of which other tribute to keep her gaze on, deciding to settle directly onto Amaris from District 6, since she is in the forefront of the seats, and the girl knows that they've locked eyes. "If it had been anything like how my last encounter went, they'd be dead," and then, just before the buzzer announces her end of the interview, "I stabbed mine in the side."
Zola Taonga: District 11 Female P.O.V (17)
Having to be near Vanya for as long as she's had to over the last hour and a half is making her want to leap out of her skin entirely, her entire body consumed in an itch. She feels like she's about to jump right out of her body in an all consuming release of rage, having to hear his woe-is-me speeches and over indulgent talk about sponsors and the Capitol facilities, when truth be told, she simply misses hitting him in the head with a basket from her Red Riding costume. She asks her mentor if that can be what she brings into the arena as her token, but it is shot down, and the other token she has stays, her parent's wedding ring, given to her by her sister, the same one she... never mind, it doesn't matter anymore. Zola keeps her attention focused on those standing on stage, dressed beautifully unlike she is, or at least, she believes she isn't dressed amazingly.
Her outfit is some sort of freakish garb in terms that Zola will call herself a walking carpet, fabric strewn together and placed like so that it looks like a discombobulated mess, tiger print and leopard print and a patch of bear fur on her left shoulder... her stylist says it has something to do with her African-American culture, whatever that even is, as Zola has no idea, but she hopes her ancestors dressed better as she's unsure if she'll be laughed off of the stage or not when she appears to everyone. Jason's interview is sweet, talking about his father, someone he seems to be very close to, but the kid mentions distance separating them as if they were standing on two desolate islands continents apart. Vivian is the first out of Ten and the interview centers around her hair color, it being that striking, blizzard snowstorm white, with the crimson tie holding it in place, and Zola finds the girl extremely formidable, someone to not be crossed. Rodric talks about his parents, the Oxfords, and something to do with legacy, but she doesn't understand any of it. What sort of legacy does a cattle herder need to inherit?
Pollux is back to standing up when he introduces Zola, she seeing her face plastered on the fifteen foot tall billboards behind him, it being her face in slow motion doing circles, her district number wrapped around it, and her private session score being atop that in bronze. She knows it'll already hurt seeing Vanya's 10 shine where they all go, but apparently, as he claims, he's shown the world true beauty, and by the world, that would be only two people in the Center at the time... she's trying to figure out how to swallow the cinderblock of syrup that is Vanya Vasiliev. Zola makes her way to Pollux, he kissing her hand when she reaches him, and a few members cheer in the audience at getting a full look of her, a blush settling on her cheeks.
"My, my, my!" Pollux exclaims. "What a wonderful outfit!"
"I- thank you," Zola says, caught off guard, face burning, and he invites for her to sit down, in which she obliges. Her dark skin lustrously shines underneath the spotlights, her thick curls dyed a vivacious amaranthine at the tips, which'll wash out when she showers. "My stylist wanted me to go back to my roots, but it's a place I've never heard of." It doesn't seem to matter, however, what she thinks on the outfit, as the camera zooms in on her, getting a close up before winding up her whole body. She feels out of her element, but if it garners attention, where's the harm?
"I'd say you have one of the most creative interview dresses I've seen in years, Zola, so please, feel proud," he says, and the crowd whistles their encouragement. Zola looks out at the audience, raising an eyebrow. It has been one of her strengths, the ability to read a room, and yet when she stares at the audience out in front of her, she's surprised at the reading she's getting from them. She'd expect, after having to sit through twenty-two tributes and their boring, unsightly, or uninteresting interviews, that she and the others - Vanya, Bloom, and Mirek - would be completely out of their element, floundering like a fish left behind in the sand from a taken in bounty, no way to return to the water, begging for a lifeline that'd never come. The crowd she is looking out at are engaged, all sitting forward in their chairs, eyes bright, any sort of needless distractions settled down at their feet, and they're all on her.
She picks at the fabric which cuts off just above her knees, holding it in her hands for a second, before letting it fall back down. "It's certainly interesting, to say the least."
Zola does not want to be up on the stage; she wants to be sleeping already, but she also knows that the moment the interviews are all over, and Mirek says his piece, she'll be up with Vanya till god knows what time in the early morning talking more about the Capitol, and although she really can't stand being around the guy, something compels her to stay, as he's done some sort of apology - frankly, she has no idea what it is he does, just a few hours ago before they went to go get ready, his face twisting this way and that in a grotesque manner - about his rude behavior, but it doesn't seem like she needs to hold onto promises of him changing for the better, if him fawning over his golden outfit is anything to catch it by. She can read him at times, and other times, not at all.
Pollux mentions something, it might be about Vanya, but she isn't sure, as she's focused on the incessant buzzing going off in her ear. She frowns, tilting her head to the side, and then he looks over at her, inviting for a response. She searches her head for what must've just been covered, and it is indeed about her partner. "Yes, he's extremely talented."
"He's performed for you?"
"Who hasn't he performed for?" Zola answers, a flare of jealousy burning in her stomach. Why are they talking about Vanya during her interview? Is the only interesting thing about her being the quilt she's wearing? Pollux goes to say something else, and then, without a moment's hesitation, she blurts it out. "I dance too, actually!"
The Master of Ceremonies pauses his phrase, but she hadn't heard him, his lips formed in the shape of an 'o', before they settle into a flat line, he nodding at her. "Is that so? What kinds?"
"Not ballet like Vanya," she says. Somehow, with it being about her, she is finding ways for him to rear his ugly head in and take all the credit, the ass. "Soulful dancing. Salsa. Tango. Some rhythmic drumming..." Zola smiles to herself, leaning back in the chair. "My best friend and I, Narcissa, we sometimes take classes together. She's the one to actually get me interested. It's Hispanic dancing."
"Well aren't you just Miss Culture tonight?" Pollux smiles. "Care to demonstrate for us?"
"No, I'm alright," Zola refuses, once again, without hesitation. She loves dancing, she truly does, but the audience out in front of her, no matter how captivating they might be, none of them deserve to see her throw her passions out for the others to see; they haven't earned it. Narcissa's earned it, a tall, almost brutish looking girl with a heart of ice that Zola has somehow melted down in a matter of days, her best friend's hair a stark moonlit beam against her own darkening curls as they crash together in the studio, or her backyard, laughing, giggling, well... until... "I don't want to take my shoes off, they were a bitch for me to get on," and then, on a sourer note, as Narcissa's smile vanishes, and the buzzing in her ear grows the ever more louder, "Dancing is how I earned this."
Zola pulls down on just around the collar, showing her clavicle, and appearing there, just at the ridge where her shoulder met her neck, is a welt still somewhat swollen, white, with pus around the apex of what clearly looks to be a bite dried around the edge. The camera zooms in on the wound, but Pollux's polite and happy face turns into that of revulsion, his voice dropping extremely low, the audience quiet to hang onto every word. "Is- is that what I think it is?"
She nods. "A tracker jacker sting," her throat goes dry, as if she's about to vomit. It had been a harmless afternoon, she having returned from working the fields, Narcissa stuck in some accounting job for the mayor, a boring day and a typical one until she and her best friend met where the emerald grass touches the dark dirt. Their hands locked together, practicing the next step of their tango routine they had been working on, but Zola has different plans with the ring currently resting on her finger, with her father's permission that when the end would be choreographed, Zola is to get down on one knee and present Narcissa with the ring nestled in her palm. The two girls are laughing, laughing as much as friends do, lost out of their minds, drunk off of happiness when they trip over each other, crashing hard into the Earth.
It is Narcissa that asks about the buzzing, they getting closer to the giant elm tree sitting out in the backyard, and when both girls look up, the tracker jacker nest being constructed by the mutts up in the foliage drops down onto them, and the buzzing transforms into a lion's roar, Zola's vision blinded in a mob of vicious gold, and she isn't sure if she swallowed any as the two girls scream, scream, and scream, running into each other before the venom takes its place and the tracker jackers vanish into the sky... but Zola has no idea what the real consequences of that attack would've surmounted to.
Zola wipes away the tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. "I don't know how many times Narcissa and I were stung. At least thirty between the both of us, and I'm unbelievably lucky to have survived it," she has to look away, locking her jaw, closing her fist so the wedding ring she would've proposed to Narcissa with shines in the spotlights. "She wasn't so lucky, and she couldn't be saved."
Pollux is close to tears too, a hand resting at his throat, a gesture for comfort. "I'm sorry, Zola."
She shakes her head, unable to catch one as it streaks down her face. "I thought my torment with Panem was over, then," and she looks directly into the camera at this, "I'm starting to think I should have died with the woman I loved instead. It'd be better than this. Anything would be better than this."
There's another ten seconds or so to her interview, Pollux at a loss for words, and she gets up without needing a dismissal. Zola lets the ring fall off of her hand, it clunking onto the stage, and as the ring hits the stage, she not looking back to pick it up, her buzzer goes off.
Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)
It has been quite the evening; Mirek at this point simply wants it to be over. With Zola bearing her heart empty on the stage, as Vanya takes her place, he picks something up off of the ground, holding it in his hands. Mirek has not interacted with the dancer all that much, but he's figured him out to be some prudish peacock... none of that seems to exist on stage for his interview, despite the guy knowing Pollux quite well it seems. Vanya's answers are quiet, kept somewhat short without unnecessary elongation, and overall a generally dull and mellow affair, though Mirek is unsure as to why. Bloom goes, she still slightly mad at him for he telling her business to the Careers, but Mirek blames the oatmeal at breakfast that morning even as her glares linger on his skin.
Her interview is charming as can be, she talking about pride and her family and the wanting to go out and see the world, to be an adventurer, and Mirek sees the fire in her eyes, the fire riding along the airwaves, and the unspoken fires that she wishes to cast down upon all of those watching the programming. Mirek claps when she's finished, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, ridding his mind of whatever could be considered a distraction. The entire Capitol is a distraction, smells of unnatural sorts filling his nostrils, animated laughter making people seem like caricatures than people filling his ears, and then the audience's roaring applause as the final tribute for the 101st Hunger Games is to take their chance at proving why they're so great. Mirek fakes a smile, rather wanting to already be swinging a pickaxe at his least favorite people in the arena already, but he must go through his steaming pile of bullshit first.
Mirek overdoes the handshake with Pollux, nearly taking the other man's arm off and out of its socket, but he keeps the smile still plastered on his face as the audience oohs in enjoyment. He has never felt this good about himself in his entire life, dressed entirely in all black while the watch on his wrist shines a liquidous silver, like a sliver of the moon placing itself on his wrist, accentuating the smoky tones of his skin, the lining of his suit jacket being the same sort of color. Standing in line, however, over an hour and forty-five minute period, listening to these tributes who are just like him give interviews on death, and seeing loved ones perish, and bullies, and leadership and all of this incongruent bullshit that won't matter in less than twelve hours when half of them are all dead has made him realize something.
He hates everyone on both sides, truth be told. He is not so far gone as to say the Capitol is an all good thing, that Mirek needs to kiss their feet for he'd rather let them put a bullet in his brain before that happens, dead serious on that account. However, as he mulls it over, he doesn't regret revealing Bloom's secret to the Capitol loving Aris, as it had been pure entertainment watching two hotheads erupt at one another. There's no way he's rooting for her either, with all the chaos she wishes to cause, all the lives she wishes to steal away when some people are simply caught up in their own blissful ignorance. As Mirek tries telling this to her, it seems like he's hitting a brick wall, for Bloom does not reciprocate the same amount of understanding, something about the poor people in orphanages, yet when he asks her even further than that, she refuses to explain herself. It takes all of his being to not choke her, to not press his thumbs into the center of her throat and watch the life drain out of her.
Something Pollux says, someone who clearly looks exhausted with the amount of trauma he's suffered over the evening, causes Mirek to peek his head up, it resting off to the side and up on his left hand which is curled into a fist. "What's home life like for you?" the interviewer adjusts himself in his seat. "Bloom told us about how she wants to get away from the normalcy, so I'm curious about yours. You like normalcy?"
Mirek nods with the question. "I do, Pollux, I do," He doesn't refer to him as Mr. Aetos as the others have sitting in the same chair as him. The man has yet to deserve the title of respect in being called a Mister. There's only one person Mirek has ever called Mr. in his life, and that man is no longer breathing, all out of his own stupidity.
"Well, what would that normalcy in your life look like, Mirek?"
The tribute's eyes flash, lightning crashing into the iris from the thunderstorm tips of his corneas. He is not, certainly, getting disrespected like this, but then again, he isn't Mr. Bosco. His father had been. "Well, my sister, my mother, and I, have been living without my Dad for ten years. Ever since I was strong enough to wield a pickaxe, I've been the one supporting the family, I've been the one making all the money," he shrugs at that statement. "I like the responsibility, honestly; it doesn't bother me. I just..." he stops himself short. It's been five questions back and forth; he's not going to divulge that to anyone else. No one else deserves to know the truth.
Pollux raises an eyebrow expectantly at him, leaning forward. "What do you just...?" the interviewer hangs onto the question, gesturing out to the audience. "They've all been waiting for you, Mirek, a guy they can't figure out, and you're not going to spill? Come on, you don't want to waste our time."
"I wish my father didn't leave the way he did!" Mirek snaps, sitting upright in his chair, out of his reverie, scaring Pollux half to death, who scrambles back into the comfort of his own white lily-pad. The smile is gone, surely, and the audience's love right with it, but he doesn't care. It's not like anyone's cared to ask how he's been doing, running the normalcy day in and day out, since there's nothing better to do except deal with it. His mother, too upset to remarry, he too young to understand how to even spell the... the r-word, and his sister, holding onto his arm, never seeming able to dry those tears that spill out of her precious dark eyes. Mirek sighs, exasperatedly, running a hand down his face, falling lax back into the chair. "He died when I was eight. One Wednesday morning everything's fine, and the next, someone's at our door, a Peacekeeper, dragging him out of the house and it's the last I saw of him again..." he squeezes his eyes shut, the echo of his own voice screaming at the door for his father to come back, yet the man never does return into the arms of his loving children. "I later got to find out that the reason he was arrested is because he had been caught trying to run some sort of rebellion into the mines," his voice cracks, Mirek giving a weak laugh. "Rebellion!" he shouts.
No one seems to know what to do, least of all the camera crew, but Pollux still reaches over to place a hand on Mirek's shoulder, but the tribute shrugs it off. "Mirek, you don't have to-"
"My father never struck me as that type of man," Mirek says, shaking his head, a rock forming just above his Adam's apple. "He was nice, he was good. He did what he was supposed to and followed the rules, yet..." A tear falls down, and he doesn't wipe it away. "Somehow he was just so stupid to get caught up in all of that. The idea of revolutions and rebellions and throwing out the old..." the rock turns into a boulder, and if it keeps up, Mirek knows that he'll be unable to breathe shortly. "Only idiot ever believes any of that will work, instead of them just sitting where they need to. If you stay put, no one will get hurt..."
Though he has no idea why, Mirek is unable to read the clearly shocked and affected expression on Pollux's face. "Mirek, seriously, I..."
"What would it accomplish?" the kid asks, scorn in his voice. "What would any of that do? All the violence and lives lost? All the structures that end up being destroyed, the infrastructure collapsing all because people can't deal with the status quo?" Mirek shakes his head back and forth again, a ferocious hate burning in his eyes. "I didn't lose my father to the Capitol. I lost my father to the idea of a fantasy," his fingers scratch at the leather of the seat, ripping out a button etched into the armrest. "They poisoned his mind and made him believe things that wouldn't ever come true no matter what he did," and if he's gone this far, going further wouldn't hurt. "I hate them all, Pollux. Anyone who stands for this idea of revolution and rebellion, in not allowing things to move on their own, naturally," Mirek locks eyes with the interviewer, and Pollux shudders under the hateful glare. "They killed him. They stole him away from me and ruined the life I could've had..." a few more tears trickle down his face. "I wish they were all dead. Every last one of them, for what they've done..."
There is no need for Pollux to do a dismissal, as the buzzer goes off, and Mirek leaves the stage, blood roaring in his ears, and the audience sobbing alongside him, as just as Mirek reaches the breaking point of the curtain hiding him from the cameras and the stage lights, the tears flow free, he collapsing to his hands and knees, but no one runs over to him as he cries, sobbing, a gasp releasing itself from his throat.
Spotlight hour is complete, and the eve of the 101st Hunger Games draws ever so near.
Well... there we have it folks! That was Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour, and yeah, like I promised, it'd be longer than Slaughter's own interviews chapter, and longer than the private sessions; I have no shame. THIS is now the longest chapter for a Hunger Games story that I've written. We got POV's from Cyril, Anahita, Sophiana, Ponty, Cambric, Audhild, Zola, and Mirek, with a shit ton of development happening all around: Cyril might be interested in Vivian, the Careers have split, and drama afoot! For the other eighteen tributes that didn't have physical interviews, what were some of your favorites off of the little blurbs I gave? Who surprised you, who did you expect? I'm curious to see!
We are just three chapters away from these Games kicking off, ladies and gents, and ooh boy when we get there I can't wait! I just poured myself full steam ahead into this chapter and doing it in two days, and yes, I am exhausted, but that doesn't matter. I really, really - and especially if you're a submitter - would love a review as I really put as much as I could into this to know what you thought, as we're still not at the point where the drama has been amped up to an eleven. Our next chapter, #21: Dreams of Survival, is also focused on the tributes with six POVs, will probably break into the 10k or higher territory, and I have got so much planned for it haha. Thank you all so much for sticking through this and reading all of it, and just... ahhh! I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!
~ Paradigm