Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death. Night Six (VI) of the arena with #30: Moments of Wilt and Decay. Last chapter was another doozy where our D3 duo have their scope set out on going after the last arena god, Surt. Ramses and Orion had a fight. The Mini Career trio found Sylvan and Catalus earned his first girl. And sadly, Girl Power found another altercation directly in their faces, where Camilla is bloodied, and Kai'sa is also departed. We are at the top twelve in the arena, with an amazing cast, but that cast will indeed get smaller and smaller soon. There are only eight arena chapters left after this one, centered with five povs. Two of them belong to Richmond and Adriane at the beginning and ending of the chapter respectively, and the tributes get the three middle points of view. Another slow clam before a brewing storm. Enjoy Chapter #30: Moments of Wilt and Decay!
"I felt a strange delight in causing my decay." ~ Robert Browning
Richmond Anvil: Master of Ceremonies P.O.V
Ego. That is the word Richmond Anvil instantly thinks of when he looks over at Adriane Lantham sitting across from him in his office. She forces him – well, not forcing, but she does ask rather sternly in a tone that reminds him of a croaking turkey or some other sort of bird that does a lot of squawking – to leave the curtains drawn open so the sun can fall down onto her radiant form, and he nearly ends it there. She looks pretty, he supposes, starting at her, but it is all fake there. Plastic wrapped up in a sheen sheath of surgery scalpels and toxic injections just underneath the skin that causes her frown lines to all but vanish.
At least he can claim that his wife is all natural. Lydia would probably shoot him dead in their living room if she ever found out that he had been taking any sort of medication or procedure revolving around anti-aging.
"You do know you won't be able to live forever, right?" he blurts out, rather uncouthly, Richmond's nerves sinking into his ankles at the way Adriane's head snaps towards him in a completely uncanny manner, akin to that of an owl.
"I beg your pardon?" Adriane sniffs, tilting her head up somewhat. The sunlight has laid down onto her dark hair like a waterfall of golden light, rivets splashing up around her wrists and bending down across her gaunt cheekbones and knuckles. Richmond presses his mouth into a firm line, biting down on his tongue. He's already screwed, he supposes. Then, she laughs, despite how her eyes are squinted together, making her look a hundred years older than what she already is. "And you do know that you can't stay in your forties forever, either, Richmond," she clucks her tongue. She is wearing white gloves, which Richmond finds odd given how it is in the middle of August in a sweltering heat wave that has everyone running for their air conditioned velvet loveseats. Adriane stretches out her hand, flexing her fingers, her golden rings glinting off of the sunrays. "Or are you too stuck-up to know that?"
Richmond smirks, crossing his arms together. "I thought I was the one conducting the interview. Not you."
She waves her hand back and forth. For simply being an escort than that of the literal embodiment of Panemian entertainment, Richmond can smell the gall that drips off of her shoulders and into her dresses. "I always find a way to take up the spotlight."
"And twenty extra pounds on both sides, by the look of it," he adds, smiling at her. Adriane's left eyebrow twitches, but she doesn't respond, simply flicking a splinter of wood off of her chair.
"I'll remind you that it was the president who suggested you and I have this interview."
"Actually, Adriane, President Emrick commanded that I interview all of you," Richmond sits forward, lacing his fingers together, setting his hands on the desk. "You just happen to be first, sweetheart."
He is not this combative usually, the words settling on his tongue in an acidic parley, a mismatched concoction of vinegar and flour, dry yet unsettling enough to make him upheave. He can feel the tension building between his eyes, as if someone were pressing a hot needle directly into his brow. Lydia would be disappointed in him; Richmond knows that she is disappointed in nearly everything he does now, though there isn't anything he can do about that any longer, he supposes. She didn't marry him just because she finally wanted to be superior to someone else. Richmond bites down on his lower lip, running the tip of the pen clenched in his wrist down his thigh, leaving a trail of blue ink on his khaki pants.
It looks like a copper blood stain in a certain light, if he twists his head at just the right angle.
"Well, ask away," Adriane sniffs resignedly, sitting back in her chair, causing it to creak. Richmond Anvil would be caught dead having chairs in his office that squeak; she must've sabotaged them. "I don't have all day, and there are many other places that need my appointments."
"For you to sleep with, you mean," Richmond writes at the top of the notepad in the center of his desk, Flighty and Floosy: An Adriane Lantham Tale. "So you can still send Catalus expensive gifts that I know you can't afford."
Adriane's eyes flash a steely charcoal, as if someone poked her with a hot iron poker and the color cast into her face. "You talk way too much smack for a man who wears bowties."
Well, Richmond Anvil decides then and there that he hates her. He hates Adriane Lantham with every fiber of his being, simply for dissing bowties. "Says the woman who wears sunglasses indoors." She is wearing a pair when she steps into his office, even though his office is on the second story in the newly built Gamemaker Center. Cain is down below them, he occasionally screaming into the air about a new complication involving the mutts or yelling at an Avox about the swill coffee he's given. Richmond times the interruptions on the hour.
Adriane swishes a piece of gum from side to side in her mouth, she tapping her fingers away on the wooden chairs. She sits forward in her chair, indentions forming in the carpet as the legs tug back on the pattern. Richmond hides his hands in his lap, just to stop them from encircling around her neck. "I wanted to do this job because I wanted to show these district citizens who'd be chosen what true elegance looks like," she smiles, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. "I got the list of questions in advance and have been prepping them."
"This is just the pre-interview," Richmond notes, signaling above his head. "If you've noticed, there's no cameras. Or microphones." He twirls the pen between his fingers, slashes of blue ribbon ink dotting across his hand. "Just me and this pen and the words passed between us. And I don't have to use any of this if I choose not to."
Adriane squints at him again. "Do you get pleasure out of being such an asshole, Richy?"
He ignores the flat-out abusive butchering of his first name, clicking the pen a few times against the knuckle of his thumb. "The same can be said for you, Adrian," he grins as he sees her hands tighten around the arms of the chair. Easy, like stealing candy from a baby. "Besides, I've seen the reviews everyone has given me when they work for me. Everyone loves me."
"That's because they're scared that you are going to sic your wife on them," Adriane rolls her eyes. "No one says anything genuine about anyone anymore. They're afraid you'll send that Lydia attack dog after them with a bullet to the brain."
What did she call her?
Richmond sits up straight, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. He grits his teeth together, angling the pen towards Adriane. At the right angle, he'll be able to jam it straight into her throat and watch her bleed out all of this mahogany. "What did you just call Lydia?"
Adriane's eyebrows shoot straight up, a slight smirk crawling across her face. "Oh come on, Richmond. You cannot play daft with me. You know what they all say." There's almost, and it is impossible to believe, since it is Adriane after all he's talking about, a hint of sadness and concern in her voice.
"An attack dog?"
"She does what her masters tell her do, their bidding is her bidding. That's what a dog does, after all," Adriane laces her gloved hands together. "Lydia is Emrick and Cain's bitch." She lets the word drag out in a hiss, it slapping Richmond in the face.
Richmond does not marry Lydia because he believes she is someone to boss around, much rather the opposite as she criticizes his posture and the way he speaks into a microphone. He marries her for her strength, for the beauty that radiates out of every one of her pores even when she's entrenched in a six hour long torture session.
She's… she's not… she's no dog.
"You're wrong…" Richmond mutters, unable to keep eye contact with Adriane.
The escort from District 1 gets to her feet, stretching, her fingers brushing against the extremely low ceiling. "You know, dearie, I have to ask," Richmond looks up at her, and there is nothing else but vileness in her stare, "Does Lydia still not wear her wedding band?"
"GET OUT!" Richmond screams at her, he leaping instantly to his feet. He pushes the escort by the shoulders, Adriane falling into the chair with an exhaustive gasp of shock. "Get the fuck out of my office!"
Anger seeps through his blood, Richmond standing up against his desk hard enough where it nearly places a line into his skin. Adriane purses her lips together, brushing her knees off. One last look at him, at his state of affairs, and she clucks her tongue dismissively. She disappears back into the Gamemaker Center, as Richmond stands there, locked in place.
His eyes do not leave Adriane's back until they're out of sight. All he knows how to do, even when the sounds of her heels clicking on the wooden floor are no longer audible, is to weep bitterly.
Porscha Watanabe: District 6 Female P.O.V (16)
The water is cold down below, but despite that, even through the chills and the heartache and the pain that radiates in Porscha Watanabe's stomach, she can hear Kai'sa choking on the blood spurting out of her throat even away from the crash site. Porscha resurfaces from her fall, hair soaked against the back of her head, arm sliced open down by the elbow. The girl from District 6 squeezes herself against the underside of the waterfall, passing underneath the torrential downpour, soaking her skin in a clear sheen. She wonders, briefly, if Kai'sa's blood will taint the collective pool, and turn the crystalline tide into one of a crimson ledger.
Porscha breathes in and breathes out rapidly against the slippery surface, holding one hand to her chest, the other searching for her weapon that she hears splash into the lake below shortly after she does. The last she remembers is seeing her ally, seeing her precious dancer surrounded by coaldust and ash that trails between her fingers sink to her knees. There is pain on her darling's face, as Kai'sa slips away from the line of life into shadow, fitting her last name, sure, but it does not make the pain any easier to stomach. There is Camilla Rodriguez on the other end of it all, standing in her stupor, screaming, screaming as if she has the nerve to act shocked by her gruesome deed. All of that is blocked by the immovable force that is Portia, her own namesake twisted on its side with a blade plunged into her calf, that holds onto her. Slipping against the sleek stone, and she's shoved off of the other side of the cliff.
She wonders if the last thing she were to ever say, the last thing anyone would ever hear would be Kai'sa's name as she fell. Porscha holds her sides tightly, shuddering as she slushes through the other side past the waterfall. She cannot hear anything over the roaring cascade. Her entire body aches, a low pain from thigh to elbow to the center of her head, a dull sting that wraps around the tattoo she has done last minute shortly after she says goodbye to Kai'sa during their first dance on the roof of the training center. It feels like a lifetime ago to Porscha, now, she thinks bitterly, unsure if the salt she is tasting is her tears or the water falling down above her.
"I want to go back to that…" Porscha whimpers to herself, rubbing her fingers over her temples. Her hands are slick with blood, perhaps her own, maybe even that of Portia's, but all that matters is that she is alone. She is on her lonesome, all by herself, and there are eleven other monsters out there… a trio of winged bats and hens preaching Girl Power! Yet those same heralders kill another girl… Porscha smells the hypocrisy wafting off of them, like slick oil cogs colliding together in another one of her father's machines.
The dancer stretches her arms out and hugs the side of the pool, the only way out of this death trap, where the trio of girls must've come from, attracted to the noise. A safe haven guarded by palm trees that no longer carry their spikes, for all the good it has done them. Porscha looks back at the pool, at the last few hours swimming back and forth with Kai'sa intertwined at her hip. They even- she even…
Porscha feels the lingering taste of their kiss on her lips, saccharine orange and floral roses blooming along the gumline that sinks into her teeth. She could stay in the pool, she could linger there in the bath waters and wait for her senses to be overwhelmed. Or… or she can move on.
It is what a dancer must do, no? One falls down and they get right back up on the beat. Her mother would expect more of her.
"Oh wait," Porscha reminds herself smarmily, "She isn't here. She's dead and I wouldn't know what she'd want because my father never told me anything about her."
Would her mother be proud of her? Would she be happy that her darling dancer is still alive in a hellish landscape surrounded by people transforming into monsters by the second? Or would she be embittered that her killer, for Porscha can still hear the sound of her club bashing in Kileigh's brains, that lying piece of scum, is still walking? What sort of justice would she want?
Porscha looks back up at the clifftop, having to squint from the sun. There is the justice she wants, looking over the edge of the cliff, with blonde hair and a sword strapped to their back. Portia Beninblade, the cause of all of this mess. From what she can tell, the girl from District 2 looks back at her allies, the girl from Ten – Porscha believes her name to be Noki, like the seahorse – hobbling up to Portia. The two girls trade words, and there's some wild gesturing to be made, until the girl from Ten moves past Portia and heads towards the slope that leads to the pool.
The side that leads to her.
"That's just great…" Porscha snaps to herself, patting her body. All of her supplies are back up there, surely being desecrated now. She looks around the bank wildly, tugging at her ponytail, ignoring the droplets of blood sinking into the sand underneath her feet. Her cudgel with the newly added spikes rests against a mud pile, nearly invisible with the wooden handle.
The girl rushes forward to her weapon, swiping it up. Noki – "Nokomis, Porsche, her name is Nokomis," she corrects herself. "If you're going to kill her, you might as well get her name right!" – turns back from the direction she's heading away from, yelling at their leader most likely by the hand movements. Paused, but not for long.
Porscha holds her weapon in her hands, gritting her teeth. It is now or never, and she is not going to waste her life on a cycle of vengeance that holds zero chance of survivability. Kai'sa might've been that reckless, but Porscha values her life more than that. She turns away from the sight, as she slices one of the spikes on the cudgel into her lower arm just by the elbow, cutting upwards enough to make her gasp. She collapses to one knee, croaking in pain, blinking away the bright spots that dot the edges of her vision.
She plunges her bloodied arm into the water, watching the bluer surface transform into a murkier copper. Using her other hand, she tears off a long strip, around her non-injured left hip, mashing down on the self-inflicted wound. It'll have to be enough, as Nokomis continues walking down the slope.
Porscha tightens the grip on her weapon, takes one look back at the cliffside, where the girls must leave if they're to collect Kai'sa's body, and races away into the palm tree coverings of the arena.
She runs for what feels like hours, her feet plodding into the dirt, stamping out dead leaves that crunch underneath her barefoot soles. Porscha trips over a rock, busting a toenail open, as she collapses. She slams her hands into the dirt, curling herself into a ball.
"It's not fair!" she screams into the dirt, raising the spiked club and smashing it into the ground time and time again. Porscha loses count after the fifteenth swing on which number she is on, and despite the groans of protest that her arms give her, the aches continue as she prolongs and heightens the swings. "It's not fair!"
Kai'sa is the slice she's always wanted, from the moment she lays eyes on her from across the training center, pointing her feet and stretching as she chooses to run the gauntlet that spanned from one side of the center to the other. Even as Porscha watches the District 12 girl plunge her own fingernails into her arms and scream about some sort of flame on her arms, there is something about that madness. It is self-contained, for Kai'sa never lashes out at anyone else.
A madness she needs, a madness she desires, to keep the ticking clocks at night at bay, to keep the hungry smiles and decorative faces of suitors at bay. Well, she is wrong about that, for Porscha knows no one wants to entertain the Watanabe girl after what her father did, after what her father continues to do. In a way, he's enabled her very existence in this cursed arena. Porscha snaps her head up, tears streaming clear down her face, at the thought.
Her own father in his own way, in his own cursed Datsun Watanabe way – it sounds like it should come on a box of packaging peanuts – plants her into the Games, for building the hovercrafts that the Capitol uses to smoke the rebels out. Perhaps Kai'sa never puts two and two together, she supposes, upon hearing Porscha's last name over and over again, especially with how often Porscha feels like her own name is called out since the two girls got to know one another.
"I'll kill him," Porscha shakes her head back and forth, squeezing her eyes together. "I'll kill him, and I'll kill Portia and I'll kill Camilla and I'll kill Nokomis and I will kill…"
She recites the saying until her voice goes cold, and there's a lump forming in her throat. Porscha coughs on another syllable, the 'ki' in kill until she's bent over the same lump of dirt she's pressed herself into for the last twenty minutes, at the very least. Perhaps she should go back, make her way to the cliffside and the incandescent pool covered in palm fronds and shallow rocks that she uses to spell out her name in the sand. She could beg Portia to take her in, even after what she's done, and when the girl isn't looking, bury the cudgel in between her eyes.
The others would totally allow her to do it, Porscha knows it. She sees the way Nokomis and Camilla glance over at their 'leader' which surely must've been something done entirely out of vain narcissism and not actual talent. Not that Porscha would know what talent is, despite how often she spins and swirls on the tips of her toes. There is a glowering contempt hidden beneath the surface, just barely rising to the forefront to simmer over, like hot coals pressed into her ankles to burst all the warts Porscha receives for not taping up her feet correctly no matter how many times her dancing coaches correct her.
It is a silly thought, that she is someone who is unable to be punished. Porscha knows there is no exceptions in the game of life, where some sort of lurking beast manages to hunt everyone who has ever existed down into the shadows, but there is a time in her life where every moment she swings, she hits, and it only means that Porscha Watanabe is going to continue on swinging.
This can't be her punishment, however. This cannot be where it ends, even if Kai'sa is going to be rotting in the ground. Porscha is unsure whether or not her ally ever knew it, that only one of them could win, and Porscha loved her sure, but she is not going to be plunging the blade into her chest just so Kai'sa could be delivered into the claws of the enemy and torn apart without her guardian angel left alive to watch her six.
"Don't have to worry about that now, do I?" Porscha cracks a half-smile, breaking into a brayed laugh.
Her bird is gone, wings crumpling to bone and dust, brittle beneath Porscha's tight grip. One curtain may have been shut, one last call where the dancers have taken their bows, but it is not the end for Porscha, for the girl trapped inside the music box as she spins and spins and spins.
She has one more encore performance left in her to give, and when it ends, with blood on her face, and offal matter splattered in her hair, only then will Porscha Watanabe bow to the thundering applause from the audience.
Not before, but after, and then when the audience has finally gone home, Porscha can see herself being crowned the winner.
She will not dance to the tune of violins and orchestral symphonies, but to the cries of the dead, and she will not cry back with them.
Nokomis Yanaba: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)
The dust has settled, the sun is slowly sinking beneath the sky behind the arena dome, and Nokomis Yanaba feels the cold seep into her skin when the last ray of sunshine has passed on. She's always felt comfortable around nature, especially back in District 10, going to the top of the plateaus and sitting there with her feet grinding into the dirt. Looking at all of the little people down below her, seeing how small and insignificant there were to her while she was all the way up there, championing herself a leader of words with the pencil clenched between her fingers.
She goes up to the plateaus to forget, especially after her mother brings home the news of her father's death. She doesn't cry, but her mother surely does. Nokomis feels the anguish settle in her soul a different way, like scraping her gums with a palm tree frond and being upset at the blood it produces. Her mourning and grief is found in the panic that laces her organs, spiking her heart with adrenaline when all of the walls close in. She forgets the pain and the feeling of being scared, as her best friend Nebraska holds her hand and tells her that everything will be okay.
"Clearly not…" Nokomis rubs her temples, muttering to herself. "Given I am here in this shithole."
The girls are asked to part away from Kai'sa's dead body via Cain Passionia's voice over the loudspeaker, Portia looking at the corpse with disgust evident all over her face. The knife remains embedded in the girl from Twelve's skin, Camilla's own face turning a putrid green as she leans over the cliffside and pukes. Nokomis can only stand back and watch as they step away and let the hovercraft come and collect the corpse. Checking the pool like Portia asks – well, she demands, Nokomis believes the Beninblade bitch couldn't be polite even with a gun to her head – is a search that produces zero fruit when there's only a deep pool of blood spread across the water, but Porscha is nowhere to be found.
The thought should concern Nokomis, where it should turn her blood to ice, but it doesn't even bother her. She is simply annoyed by all the proceedings. Six days and six nights of fighting for her life, after she plunges the sword into Zachary Edison's chest and hears Kileigh Katsaras scream at the top of her head about witnessing her dead district partner in the grass. Nokomis wants nothing more to than be back at her peak, notebook in hand, with her father looking down at her in pride.
Perhaps not any longer, she figures, if she's a stone-cold killer. All the girls are killers, now, Nokomis realizes with a start. She and Portia got Zachary and Calen at the beginning of the games, and now Kai'sa at 13th couples her to Camilla. Girl Power – god, what a stupid name, Nokomis almost mishears Portia when she mentions it to the other two tributes before the blood began to spill – are all killers. The girl power is murder, murder is the secrecy to womanhood. Sixteen years-old, where she cannot even legally drink, but she has the power to hold a sword in hand and plunge it into a young boy's chest.
Her weapon is up at the top of the cliffside, as Nokomis makes her way to the pool below. There are not that many lakes in Ten, and most of the water space is reserved for the animals so they can get clean drinking water. There is a neighborhood pool, but the firebombs land too close in one air raid and the fun is evaporated into nothingness, smoke and chlorine falling between Nokomis's outstretched hands. They stink; her skin is sticky, the sky is smoldering, and District 10 falls to the cry of bombs and fire alarms and the brutalizing fist of the Capitol's military.
There wouldn't be any room to put her father to rest even if she and her mother had his corpse brought home in one of those wooden boxes. And it is Richmond Anvil's fault for even bringing it up during her interview. She has three minutes to spill her guts out to a nation that wishes to see her dead, since the districts did ratify the rules that spell out the Hunger Games in legalese terms, and it is spent with her envisioning herself stooped over a gravestone, wilting magnolias in her hands that crumble onto the ground, tears streaming down her face. It is the death all over again, someone spearing her through the heart with a lance, a bullet attached to the spike at the end.
Nokomis ventures into the water, sticking her arms out and letting the water rise up to elbows. It is cold, as she expects, but the chill has a bite she does not anticipate, making her hiss. The wound in her hand from Magnus's fired arrow is hurting, but not as badly, and she's been staying off of it as best she can without gripping her sword. Thank all the gods and rulers that have ever existed that she is right-handed. Portia's own injuries are starting to slow the girl down, even if she doesn't wish to admit it. She sees the fear on their leader's face, written all over and threatening to swallow her whole. It'll come out at the worst time, Nokomis sees it happening, and she's not about to be caught in the crossfire.
Satisfied with how wet her arms have become, to wash off some of the splatter of Kai'sa's blood that is starting to harden to her elbows, Nokomis makes her way back up the slope to the top of the crag. Their camp is established, and Portia is starting to get a fire going, their sleeping bags pushed as far away from the slick edge as they can possibly be. Nokomis pauses when she gets to the top, her body dripping wet. Camilla is huddled by herself, sitting up, arms wrapped her knees that are tugged close to her chest. She looks to be rocking herself back and forth, just like when Nokomis finds her in the bathroom the one night she decides to trapeze down to District 9's floor. Gemini's biting wit rebounds in her head; he died two days ago, and she has no idea how, no idea how Camilla would be internalizing it.
She reaches Camilla in a few long strides, Portia looking about for a few moments briefly, a flicker of some emotion passing on her face, but it is indiscernible to the glow of the fire and the rising embers.
Camilla sniffles, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand, when Nokomis reaches her ally. Soul-sister, perhaps, but the words stay still on her tongue. Her parents always told her to practice silence, to listen to what nature would have to tell her. Nature is not here in the arena; it is synthetic, artificial, made of composites designed in a lab. All she will hear is how monstrous she is, perhaps, in the wind that blows around the cries of the deceased dispatched by their hands.
Nokomis crouches down to her ally's level, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Camilla?"
The girl looks up, her hair perfectly framing her face. Camilla Rodriguez is beautiful, Nokomis has always thought it. A girl as pretty as she is should not be staining her face with tears, she should not be reddening up her skin as if she scrubbed it viciously back and forth with a towel. "Hey, Nokomis…" Camilla sniffles again, wiping at her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Nokomis asks. It is a stupid question, given her ally who has always kept herself staunch and kept together is crying her eyes out in front of her, but it feels like a normal question to ask. Camilla laughs hollowly in her chest, and the noise echoes around the valley. Nokomis tenses briefly, for a second, even causing Portia to look back from her fire.
"What a question," Camilla scowls, running a hand through her hair. She is trembling, her entire body is a shaking leaf, even as Nokomis grabs her arm and lowers it. Nokomis usually does not have anyone for her panic attacks back home in Ten, just the pencils and the notebook paper and all of the open space that is out there for her to enjoy, the open space that occupies her thoughts. She will not let Camilla crumble into dust, especially if, now that they're in the final twelve, with half of their competition eliminated, the stakes will certainly heighten. "Am I okay?" Camilla repeats.
"I-" Nokomis pauses, biting down on her tongue. She has never been well with this, with speaking. Writing, yes, but the verbality of friendships and mental health she's always chalked up to her cultural differences. Meeting her enemy, being a Yanaba, Nokomis cannot pinpoint what is truly her or not. "I only meant-"
"I know what you meant," Camilla turns her head away, laughing hollowly again. She rubs her cheeks back and forth with her palms, bringing up that red glow. Nokomis grimaces, holding her ally's hand tighter in her own. Her mother's knuckles are much more wrinkled than Camilla's, but even as Nokomis looks at her skin she sees the age. She's lost both of her parents, she believes. Her brother is much younger than her, both of them holding jobs in the fields to support themselves in their tiny shack that burns down to the ground once… she cannot imagine having that sort of strength in herself.
"But you are strong, Nokomis," a voice tells her, that is not her own. "You are a Yanaba and will defeat the enemies that are placed in front of you."
"And what if I am my own worst enemy?" she thinks back to the voice. It doesn't respond, as she figures it wouldn't. Cold stone silence.
Camilla rubs at her eyes, outstretching her knees. "I just keep replaying the moment over and over again," she locks gazes with Nokomis, a chill running through the girl from Ten. "I saw Kai'sa towering over you, about to stab you, and I was trying to catch my breath…" she gives a raspy gasp, fingers curling into talons. Hawks that live in the sky have talons like that; Nokomis compares the talons to a harpy's claws. Camilla Rodriguez is no harpy. "I did the only thing I thought I could do."
"You saved my life," Nokomis leans forward and places her head against Camilla's shoulder. "I can't ever thank you enough for that, Camilla. Without you, I'd be dead, and if I died, then maybe you and Portia would've-"
"I can take care of myself," Portia interrupts her, over by the fire. "But thank you for your concern."
Nokomis opens her mouth to say something, but the words never come. Self-centered priss. She diverts her attention to Camilla, who is not smiling or smirking. "I did what had to be done, and I hate myself for it," Camilla places her head between her knees. "I just… I can hear my brother's voice in my head, with how disappointed he'd be with me for seeing what I did." She lifts her head up, and the tears are back. "And I don't know how to live with it. I feel like a monster." Her voice cracks, and Nokomis has never heard Camilla sound as pitiful as she does right now.
"Then that means I must be one," Nokomis shrugs her shoulders. Her ally looks at her in confusion, lips parted. "I stabbed Zachary in the chest without a second thought." There is so much blood coating her sword, which is still sitting by its spot against the wet stone slick with the perspiration from their fight. "He was pleading with me to spare him, where I saw his lips moving, but I didn't hear the words he was trying to get out. He tried reaching for the sword too, before I struck him down," Nokomis closes her eyes, swallowing heavily. His wide stare is still there, dark skin stark against the green grass, a hand stretched out towards the sun, towards Nokomis's face, but he is embraced by the cold white light that is death when she finishes the plunge. "If you're a monster for hurting Kai'sa to save my life, then I am one for ending Zachary's."
She has to move on, or the guilt will consume her whole. She cannot waste away like Camilla is, sitting here, crying, screaming at the top of her lungs. Nokomis witnesses Kai'sa collide into her ally during the fight, and on two separate occasions, tries stabbing her in the chest and strangles her to win. The girl from Twelve is not someone who needs to be spared mercy, and she'll worry about the consequences later once Nokomis has done the deed. It is hard to save her soul when she's already gone.
Camilla bites down on her lower lip, frowning to herself. Portia has gone back to building the fire, smacking two stones together to catch a spark on the wood assembled in the center. "You're right," the girl from Nine admits, rubbing the back of her neck. Nokomis raises her eyebrows up. She's never been right in her life. "I- I'll try and-"
"You don't have to try," Nokomis holds onto Camilla's hand again, squeezing it. "You will. If I can, you certainly can."
Her ally shakes her head, frowning. "No, Nokomis, it's more than that," and then she centers her gaze dead ahead of her. Nokomis frowns, likewise, following her line of sight. It lands squarely on Portia's back, while their leader builds their fire to keep them alive and warm at night. "I never would've done that had she not…" Camilla stops herself short, scratching at her face. "Portia has settled a sickness into us, and there's only one way to get rid of it. We fight it out."
Nokomis nods her head in agreement.
Portia Beninblade is a disease, and while their leader with her blonde hair and her muscles might not be the reason Nokomis kills Zachary, and surely not the reason why Camilla kills Kai'sa… the virus stays hidden, until it is time to infect the host.
She will not wait idly by when the disease believes it is a perfect time to take control; Nokomis will fight like hell to get rid of the infection. If Camilla is willing to fight, then so is she.
The threat of Porscha Watanabe and Kai'sa Shadow is gone, one lost to the hovercraft and the other to the elements, but a worse threat has appeared right in front of them.
It is time to clean camp.
Jasper Overheart: District 3 Male P.O.V (18)
He should be walking away right now. Jasper Overheart knows it in the core of his soul that staying by Vesuvia's side is only prepping up for disaster and heartbreak down the line, when he is unable to twist a finger through her scarlet blood-drenched hair, or when there is no longer a sheath for his sword in the middle of the smoky woods. There may be a time when she turns her curved blade towards him, or he holds her at bay with the tip of his sword pressed into her esophagus, but for now he sticks close to her as they traverse through the brush.
The two cannons for the day have startled them out of their reverie, as Vesuvia outlines her plan for this madhouse idea that has sprung up. It is pure insanity, as Japer watches the brilliant terror take itself rampant over her face. He's seen the look of madness once, back in District 13, when Nathaniel Coin believes it to be a just idea to fight against the Capitol against the accusations of heinous crimes he did not commit. He commits, standing there on the step sidelines, in the framed shots of propaganda and helps even write down some of the war speeches Nathaniel gives to the collected generals in the districts' army up near one of District 8's riverbanks.
This is different, however, where in the darkness, Vesuvia is not going to be giving any rallying speeches to the little boys who are about to piss themselves out of fright. Jasper is one of those little boys now, the drummer that could, dancing to his own tune of idiocy while his district partner leads him by the crotch around the overturned rocks and granite land beneath his feet.
"Vesuvia, you have any idea where we are even going?" he asks her, looking at her with concern on his face. His arm is getting tired from carrying the sword all day long, but he knows if he brings it up, she'll simply turn back around and begin to mock him, all with that stupid facial expression she keeps on her face. He wants to help her, for she is helping him, but will killing the last surviving arena god even do anything for them? What if it made the Capitol populace angry?
Her response is typical Vesuvia, which he expects, and he even rolls his eyes at it. "Of course I do! You don't think I do?"
"No, Vess, I don't," he replies back, which causes her to turn around. Her gaze glows in the dark, with her curved blades attached to the hilts strapped to her side. She is also carrying, in her right hand, a flashlight, and in the left hand, the metal pole that Cole sponsored them a few days ago. The same pole that launches Ramses Boskov off of that cliffside a few days ago, but for all the good it did them, since the boy's face does not shine in the sky.
It does get Orion off of their backs, which is the only person so far they've encountered in the arena to give Vesuvia a run for her money. He sees the fright on her face that she tries to hide so valiantly, where even that night as their hands roam together over ever freckle and dimple on both of their bodies, she is still trying to save face.
"You don't have to save face with me," Jasper recalls whispering in her ear, as they are lying together side by side, his body pressed flushed against hers. She laughs and flips around to kiss him on the nose, even as Jasper continues speaking. "It's me, Vess! The guy who thought you were in jail for smoking weed!" To think it is for murder, and to think Vesuvia simply gives it up without a fight.
"I never have to save face," she responds back without hesitation. "I am the saving grace."
He has no idea what she means. It could just be another delusion. She has been espousing them more and more lately, but Jasper has run out of tallies in his head to keep check. It is hard to keep up the foreplay if he manages to piss her off again, which is why there is only two kisses at lunchtime when they dig into the roasted lizards Jasper stabs at wildly with his hunting knife in the middle of the two oak trees by the obsidian beach.
The night sky is calm above their heads, even after Sylvan Adello and Kai'sa Shadow's faces shine in the sky. Neither one of them comment about the departed, for Jasper at least never interacted with them and wouldn't have planned on it. Vesuvia's is short and sweet – it is a barbing thought, "I am surprised he lasted this long," Vesuvia sticks her tongue out, filing her nails together with a rock that has Jasper look at his ally and bedpartner more than once – and then they move on. Their footsteps make crunching noises beneath the hard sand, having to lug each other over rocks and around massive trees with the burnt off branches.
They're following Surt's path, where the mutation, as that is what Cole's letter describes the gods to be, creations cooked up in a lab with mad scientists pouring all of their terrifying intelligence into these hellish beasts. It is not hard to find the lab rat, with the smoldering footprints the size of Jasper's entire torso, the very sight making all the water in his mouth dry up the instant they come across some of the tracks.
He tugs a hand at Vesuvia's sleeve, as she throws the sponsor cube and her flashlight at the top of one of the cliffs. She is about to hitch herself to the top when she turns around, frowning. "What, Jasper? We can't turn back now, camp is too far away." She's right, as per usual, as they've only taken their weapons and a few bandages that are stuffed in Jasper's right pocket. "Something wrong?"
Jasper looks at the footprint that is just off to the side, a skid mark of some kind in the stone that glows every few seconds with the ochre tone of flame. He is shipped, just ten months ago, after nestling himself and his siblings into District 3, a coronary report. It is in a red box, like the apple he has clenched in his hand when he opens the front door to receive the morning mail, tied together loosely to the lid by twine, but it cuts him, he thinking it is barbed wire. He has no idea who sends it, and he drops his apple with a scream when he looks at the reports of the dead people scrawled across the top.
Pictures of his parents' dead bodies, their faces, and their skin completely unrecognizable. Radiation burns from the weapons dropped on District 13, where he knows his family and everyone else left in Thirteen after Nathaniel Coin's execution is left to rot and pay for their crimes of being born in the wrong place and the wrong time. They burned to death, and Jasper can hear their screams still, as if he had been trapped in his old house with them while the roof collapses into the dining room table.
Which is just his luck that…
"I have a fear of fire, Vesuvia," he swallows a pained gasp, looking away from her. His district partner's face is that of concern mixed with mild annoyance. "My parents were-"
"You don't have to say anything," she says, hushing him up immediately with a squeeze to the shoulder. "I should've realized that with you being from Thirteen and all that-"
"It's not your fault," he shakes his head. "My own brother and sister don't even know that I have it." Jasper hangs his head down in shame, passing his sword back and forth between hands.
Vesuvia is silent for a second, as Jasper starts to place his sword into the scabbard holed up in his pants. She bites down on her lip, rubbing her hands together. "You know I wouldn't intentionally push you in harms way, right? I wouldn't make you do something you wouldn't want to do, Jasper?"
He frowns, bridging his eyebrows together. "Vesuvia, that's not-"
"I am going to do this, and I need you to have my back, Jasper," Vesuvia holds her lover's hands in her own, a croak rising out of his throat. He cannot read the emotion on her face, whether it is one of understanding, or a complete disregard for his feelings. "Do you have my back?"
"Of- of course I do!" he stammers.
"Then that settles it! Let's go!" Vesuvia bounces on her heels, and in the blink of an eye, she is lugging herself over the rock, grunting as she pulls herself up. The footprints stop just at the top of the hill, as Vesuvia climbs her way into a tiny tree just a few hundred yards back down the slope. Jasper's eyes widen, he reaching out to pull her back, but she's out of his grasp and up at the top of the rising battleground.
"Fuck me…" Jasper groans into the soles of his sneakers, as he places his sword down on the surface at the top, Vesuvia vanished over his line of sight. He can turn back, he can always abandon her, but if he is to see her face shine in the sky, he'd never be able to forgive himself.
He lumbers up as quick as he can, before halting dead to a stop. Vesuvia has her blades withdrawn, the cube replacing the knives by her hip, she poised directly ahead at the god that is sitting just a good hundred or so feet away from them. Jasper's breath catches in his throat at the sight of Surt. It looked – he? Jasper isn't sure, truthfully – tall from afar, when Vesuvia first catches sight of the monster, but it is entirely different from his vantage point.
Surt must be at least ten or eleven feet tall, the beast's molten blade stuck in the ground like Excalibur from the tale of King Arthur. Flames dance around the blade, rising up to the hilt, which is made entirely out of smoke, as if it isn't even really there. Bloodied scars make up the beast's back, but the blood isn't red like what drips out of Jasper's wound in his cheek from when Diana shot one of her arrows at him during the fight at the cornucopia. The blood is golden.
"Ichor…" Vesuvia whispers, stepping forward. "Blood of an actual god!" She whirls back around at him. "You know the plan, Jasper."
He nods his head, trying to keep his nerves at bay. A pincer movement, which is impossible to do with just two people, but he'll attack from one side, while Vesuvia taunts him from the front. Something about… well, he isn't paying attention to the plan as she tells him, for he is mainly looking at her as if a loose screw pops out of her head when it comes time to actually execute it.
Jasper swings his blade back and forth, blade exhausting his weight down while it trails a path in the sand. All of the hair on his arms stands on end as he approaches Surt from the other side, steam rising off of the god's shoulders, creating a smoky haze around its body. Jasper stands side faced, blade at the ready, when Vesuvia steps into the clearing.
She cups her hands around her mouth. "Hey, you ugly fuck!" That does the trick alright, as Surt turns its head with a grunt that rises from the mutt's chest, gravely and filled with ash. Even as the beast rises to its feet, soot falling from the creature's wrists into a pile where it once had been lying down, Vesuvia does not break her step. "Yeah, that's right! I'm in your territory! What are you going to do about it?" Surt reaches for its blade embedded in the ground, the sword looking to be massive, and only then does Vesuvia take an alarmed step back away from the creature. Jasper's body tenses up like a coil, he aiming his sword down at a forty-five degree angle. Surt takes a single step forward toward his district partner, flames cackling alive in the air. "Now, Jasper! Now!" Vesuvia yells at the top of her lungs.
Jasper leaps forward with a yell, as Surt grunts in what sounds like confusion. Jasper swings his own sword at the beast's ankles, cutting it straight through the Achilles tendons. The swipe does not break cleanly through the skin like he expects, but it is enough to draw the ichor out and into the sand. Surt groans in pain, downing itself to one knee. Jasper falls back as the beast looks at him directly in the eyes, there being nothing there on the god's face except some sort of wicker hat placed on Surt's head, blinding Jasper from seeing its face.
Vesuvia makes her advance, teeth gritted together, face screwed up in concentration as she draws the knives across Surt's shoulder blade nearest to her. Even as the creature is sitting down, it is taller than she is, she having to reach up to strike the creature at the spot she is aiming for. Another growl emits from the beast, it reaching out for Vesuvia. She shrieks, a noise Jasper has never heard her make, she diving out of the way just in time. When Surt retracts its fist, a fireball hangs in the air for a few seconds until it collapses into the sandstone.
Beads of sweat begin dripping down Jasper's face, he noticing how fast and hard his heart is beating in his chest. Vesuvia snarls another roar at Surt, playing God, Jasper supposes. He dashes up to Surt's chest, slicing at the creature sideways, but he only gets to cut into the lower side when Surt stands up again. Heat blasts itself in his face, Jasper screaming out in terror as he falls back into the dirt. When his vision clears from the haze, Surt is looking down at him, blade raised high.
"Move, Jasper! You have to move!" Vesuvia screams at him, and there's the sound of a blade being thrown in the air. It knocks into the wicker hat on Surt's head that hides its eyes, but the blade then simply flies away, Jasper ducking under its haphazard flight pattern. It lands just a few feet shy away from him, but he has just a few seconds to dodge out of the way from Surt's strike.
He gets to his feet as best he can, soles digging into the dirt. The blade makes a crackling roar when it collides into the ground, a crack appearing in the earth that splinters off towards a nearby tree. Jasper watches in horror as flames burst sky high out of the crack and incinerate the tree into cinders. That… that is him burning up, that is his family dying… that is… that is hell, and Vesuvia wishes to fight hell head on. She's crazy, and he can only want more of her for that.
Vesuvia yells something unintelligible as Surt swings the sword down in a wide arc in a complete one-eighty. She steps back out of the swing, an orange glow following the blade's curved path as it makes its descent. Jasper tightens the grip around his own sword, as Surt steps towards Vesuvia. She backs herself into another tree, panic laced on her face. There's… where's her other knife?
Jasper runs forward, aiming for Surt's side. The beast bellows in pain, ichor spilling out of the wound. Some of it lands on Jasper's sleeve, he crying out in pain as agony races through his body, searing his skin. "Don't let the blood spill on you!" he yells out at Vesuvia, who is diving beneath Surt's legs, when the blade lands into the ground again, igniting the nearby tree she had been perched up against. A burn rises up from where the ichor splatters onto his skin, nausea punching Jasper in the face as the skin blisters into a blackened peach pit just near his elbow.
He withdraws his sword, swinging wildly, higher this time, to try and connect with another part of Surt's upper body, the highest place where his sword can reach, since the Gamemakers did not design the beast with any sort of clothing besides the pants. The tip of the sword barely cuts into part of Surt's stomach, the beast growling and reaching out for him.
The tips of Surt's fingers are each tiny fires of their own, Jasper crying out in fright again as he ducks under the reach. Vesuvia races forward as he tries running away to get another strike at the ankles. Surt turns around, as Vesuvia makes her presence known with another battle-cry. Surt moves to the left, unlike the right as Jasper expects, and the beast's right hand connects with Vesuvia's body.
She goes flying into the dirt, sent back by at least a good ten feet or so. "Vesuvia!" Jasper screams his ally's name. Vesuvia sits up, head swinging back and forth in a daze. She cries out in pain when she presses her left hand against up her right shoulder, which has been completely scarred away by Surt's touch. The skin blisters black like Jasper's own wound, Vesuvia's body trembling. It is starting to get very hot in the surrounding vicinity, Jasper very aware of his own panting that is starting to build callouses in his chest. He tries ignoring the pain of the burn on his arm.
Vesuvia's eyes widen as Surt advances on her. She throws her other knife, but Surt raises its blade to block the strike. "You pissant!" Vesuvia snarls at Surt, as she tries clamoring to her feet. What's her game plan now? To just yell at the beast of fire and ash? "You have any idea who the hell I am? I could design a thousand and one of you!" Vesuvia points a finger in Surt's direction, but the beast continues on stomping his way towards her. "I could have you destroyed like pixels!"
Her words hold no substantiation, as Surt raises its blade again, and Vesuvia is all out of options. Jasper curls his hand around the blade in his grasp, the fire tethering him to the ground. "Get away from her! You don't get to touch her!" Jasper yells at Surt, leaping forward to stab the creature in the spine.
He anticipates Surt to turn left just like it did on Vesuvia, but he pictures the end approaching him rapidly as Surt turns right, changing up its pattern. The sword follows the swing, Jasper running head on into the strike. The very tip, just the tip of the blade, snags itself into Jasper's chest, but it is the sharpest, most incendiary pain he has ever felt in his entire life.
His entire body seems to catch alight with agony, and all of a sudden Jasper feels his body floating, as if it has been pushed back. He is flying in the air, flying back, his entire body on fire. Vesuvia is screaming his name in terror, he is sure, for the split second he seems to make eye contact with her.
He is afraid of fire, but Jasper Overheart is more afraid of death, apparently made worse by a fire god who can burn trees with the simple raising of its arms.
Jasper's body collides into a tree, his back smashing into one of the oaks surrounding the clearing. He lands to the ground with a thud and is instantaneously met with the oncoming tide of black as ants bear into his vision.
Adriane Lantham: District 1 Escort P.O.V
It has been five and a half hours – she likes to keep track of these things, after all, how much time of her life is being wasted on those who simply do not deserve the presence of her company – since she manages to make the serenely gilded goose that is Richmond Anvil lose her cool and throw her out of his office. Well, it is actually one little correction in that storyline; she left of her own volition, but she knows how men are. They'll toot their own horns of the nefarious song and dance, and she'll get to laugh and laugh at his misery when Lydia finally tells him how weak he is and that she wants a separation.
She can plant the idea in her head if she wants, Adriane Lantham has always had that gift of the gab so to speak. It is always one of the traits her mother brings up when being introduced at parties, along with the other barb that she's adopted. The court is still out on that one, that "This is my adopted daughter, Adriane Lantham. Say hello, girlie. Oh dear, your pearls make you look like you have a turkey's neck."
Adriane grabs at the skin for a moment, clutching it between her ruby jeweled fingers. Turkey like neck… her buffoon of a mother in her ailing age can't even find the bathroom in her one bedroom tenant over by the train station and needs prune juice to be able to pass her nightly pains in the bowels. What would she know of beauty?
And for that matter, what does Lydia Wickervein know of beauty? What has happened to her hair?
"Is there something I can help you with, Adriane?" breaks the voice of Emrick Israel through her concentration. Oh, that's right, she's dug herself into the president's office at around nine in the evening. She is the last arrival, the last appointment or so the secretary at the downstairs desk tells her when she walks into the mansion.
"Saving the best for last," Adriane crows, patting herself on the back. "Well, Mr. President, I know how busy your schedule has been lately with all of this chaos surrounding that bomb and the mutt business over the last few days, so I appreciate it," she sits forward, likewise from one desk to another in Richmond's office, but the chair doesn't creak under her butt like in the Interviewer's office. "You're just another man; you will always have time for me." Lydia's eyes are on her like a hawk, the Head Peacekeeper positioned in the back of the room by the water cooler, one of those paper cups clenched in her hands as she tosses the cup back and forth in her hands, fingers tracing the rim. "I figured it was a matter of importance."
"That remains to be seen," Lydia quips from her corner. There are heavy bandages wrapped around her arms, from the blast, as Adriane recalls, but god, the bags under her eyes are simply horrendous.
Adriane purses her lips, looking at the Head Peacekeeper with a smile in her eyes. "Where is your wedding ring? Richmond told me you don't really wear it all that often, so I was wondering-"
"What does my wedding ring have anything to do with-" Lydia sputters, her face turning the same shade of red's like Richmond's just back in his office. It feels like only a few minutes ago, but it's the truth, she can see the attack dog bleeding out of Wickervein's pores like she sweats the essence right out.
"Ms. Lantham, if you're going to be rude, I can simply send you on your way," Emrick tilts his head to the side, smiling at her. Patronizing in every way, the way she knows her president to be. She places her vote for him in the box because he knew how to make a mean martini, which gets her a little too drunk that night, and that is how Adriane ends up being the escort for Panem's brightest dull gem in the box, District 1.
Adriane balls her tongue onto the side of her mouth, gaze flitting away from Lydia who has now crushed the paper cup in her hand, water streaming out of the gaps between her fingers. "I had an idea that I simply needed to share with you before the opportunity is lost, and I think getting the news out to the tributes that it concerns would be best before they self-implode." Fancy words for a fancy condition, another one of her knacks. She's seen the way Catalus, for how much she despises the brat who carries a basket of gold on his shoulders, he's not doing too bad of a job in the arena. A singular mental break down of the week is nothing to scoff at, and with that little Sylvan Adello dead, perhaps it does prove there is some violence instilled in the boy's veins beyond the moment where he nearly strangles her in the backseat of the coach that transported her, him, and sweet dead Cecelia to the Remake Center.
Magnus and Diana are still outmaneuvering him every step of the way but sending Catalus notes of that would only make things on her end worse, for who knows what her charge would start saying aloud for the nation to hear.
"I did some thinking," Adriane starts to say, a dry itch in her throat.
"Thinking?" Lydia interrupts, with a light laugh. "Oh no, we can't have that in this office."
Emrick shoots his bodyguard a glare, which shuts her up as Lydia discards her paper cup and grabs another to fill it up. He looks back at Adriane, who smiles, tilting her head towards him. Good, attention is back on her like it should be. "When are your most, for the Games, popular times that have people watching?" Emrick's eyebrows shoot straight up, perplexed. He looks ridiculous. "I know that there are hundreds of cameras covering each spot of the arena, and every one of them is also centered on a tribute, but which times are the highest?"
"Checking the numbers…" Emrick rubs his chin, mulling through his head, "That'd be when Catalus Drachma, Magnus Winterthorn, and Diana Kratovska are on screen."
"Precisely," Adriane snaps her fingers together. "The Games were meant to entertain the populace, as much as they've been designed by the administration to be a punishment for the rebellion," Emrick draws his eyebrows together, and Lydia is also confused by her expression over near the water cooler. "Correlation would show that Catalus, Magnus, and Diana, so therefore, Districts 1, 2, and 4, since Portia Beninblade and Orion Maythorpe are no slouches either in terms of their abilities, are what is the most entertaining." She hangs on for emphasis, a smile growing on her face. "I think those three districts should be rewarded!"
Adriane slaps her hands on the desk in excitement, her emotion roused to the call of pure nothingness. Neither the president nor the Head Peacekeeper even move a muscle, Emrick simply looking at Adriane as if she has two heads. Her chair squeaks a bit as Adriane sits back, liking her lips. Not the grandiose splash like she expects. It's okay, there's only been a few duds in her life like this, ideas, and memories she's buried so far away into the earth that not even fifteen vodka tonics could rouse up from the dirt.
Emrick leans back in his chair, rubbing his chin. "So let me get this straight… the very three districts that decided to rebel first after Thirteen and Twelve started their initial uprisings… you want to reward?" Adriane nods her head fervently. "In what way?"
"You know how athletes here in the Capitol are always training for their big games? How the gymnastics team with your little girl always prep the night before a competition?" Adriane asks. Emrick simply nods along to her question, he pulling into his pen collection and retrieving one. A sticky-note is in the center of his desk, as Adriane sees him writing something down, but she can't see it. "Something like that, but for the Hunger Games."
Another pause, until Lydia finishes her drink. "Let me get this straight, Adriane," the two ladies look at one another, Adriane biting back another remark about the woman's poor hair. It always being cooped up in that helmet must be terrible for the roots; they need sunlight to grow, as if they were plants. "You want to let the kids from Districts 1, 2, and 4 train for the Games? Even though they rebelled?"
"They were also the first to realize their mistake and come crawling back to the Capitol!" Adriane exclaims, and Emrick frowns once more. "Think about it! Without any sort of weapons training, and taking Cecelia Blackstone aside, look how Catalus, District Two, and District Four have proven themselves separate contenders from the pack?" She leans forward, digging her nails into the desk. "Can you imagine what it would look like year after year bringing six capable fighters and adversaries willing to go into the arena? How much more exciting it'll make it than seeing scared little Sylvan back up out of terror from being killed?" She reaches forward to place a hand on Emrick's shoulder, causing Lydia to start in place a bit, one hand poised for the gun in her holster. "And you can say it was your idea if it happens, something Cain can't steal the glory away from."
Men are predictable, as she sees the shining light in Emrick's eyes flicker on at the suggestion of longevity and glory. "I'm not saying yes," Emrick slumps forward some, shoulders bunched up beneath the suit. "And I am not saying no." Adriane sits back, placing her hands in her lap. "What would we call these academies? What would we call these groups of people who ally together from a position of strength?"
Adriane's lips curl themselves into a smile. She watches back some of the footage from yesterday evening, before Niklaus's cannon is released into the sky, Diana and her two cronies curled around their fire, embracing their brand new weapons sent down to them from above.
It is a phrase that Diana uses that makes Adriane's heart skip a beat, where the idea pops into her head as if she uncorked a bottle of champagne and poured herself a glass.
"They'll be the Careers."
It is genius. It is perfect, and the best part is that it is wholly hers. Mayor Runaway Horse can eat his fucking heart out.
Tribute List (Boy - Girl)
District 1: Catalus Drachma [Submitted by Manny Siliezar]
District 2: Magnus Winterthorn [Submitted by Audmirable] / Portia Beninblade [Submitted by WhateverIsOpen]
District 3: Jasper Overheart [Submitted by ParanoidSylph] / Vesuvia Vocanova [Submitted by Platrium]
District 4: Orion Maythorpe [Submitted by jimster920] / Diana Kratovska [Submitted by Firedawn'd]
District 6: Porscha Watanabe [Submitted by thorne98]
District 8: Poem Cavalli [Submitted by LordShiro]
District 9: Camilla Rodriguez [Submitted by Reign of Winter]
District 10: Nokomis Yanaba [Submitted by Ripple237]
District 12: Ramses Boskov [Submitted by Guesttwelve]
…
ALLIANCE LIST
The Mini Careers: Catalus Drachma (D1M), Magnus Winterthorn (D2M), Diana Kratovska (D4F)
Girl Power: Portia Beninblade (D2F), Camilla Rodriguez (D9F), Nokomis Yanaba (D10F)
Brutal Technology: Jasper Overheart (D3M), Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F)
Damaged Principles: Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Ramses Boskov (D12M)
Loners: Porscha Watanabe (D6F), Poem Cavalli (D8F)
…
Kill Leaderboard:
Catalus Drachma (D1M): I
Magnus Winterthorn (D2M): I
Portia Beninblade (D2F): I
Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F): I
Orion Maythorpe (D4M): I
Diana Kratovska (D4F): I
Porscha Watanabe (D6F): I
Gemini Lennox (D9M): I
Camilla Rodriguez (D9F): I
Nokomis Yanaba (D10F): I
Cassiopeia Grey (D11F): I
Arena/Mutts: I
Well, ladies and gentlemen, there we are! That was Chapter #30: Moments of Wilt and Decay, concerning Arena Night VI, and I can't believe it... it's been a deathless chapter. There are not many more of these left, guys... just two in fact, and one of them concerns interviews so it somewhat doesn't even count. But just because I didn't kill anyone doesn't mean important things didn't happen. Every tribute left alive got their next round of tribute povs finished, so now every tribute alive has had three arena povs, and I'll be starting the next round after that with the next chapter. Porscha has her eyes set on a new target, Nokomis has recognized a new threat, and Jasper has bitten off more than he can chew. On the Capitol side of things, Richmond has been faced with an ugly truth, and Adriane establishes a piece of lore... my favorite piece of lore, The Careers! Yes, my personal headcanon is that a District 1 escort puts the idea in the president's head due to the well performing tributes from 1, 2, and 4 (thank you to those submitters for sending me tributes like them to pull this off!) and the rest is history!
Next chapter, #31: Fractures of a Whole will be concerning Arena Day VII, which means these damned tributes have been there for a freaking week. And I say it a lot, but if you guys thought things were intense over the last few chapters, you aren't even *ready* yet for what is coming. I am planning to have it out sometime next weekend, maybe next Sunday, and it is probably going to be the longest chapter yet, as I am looking at a few of the tribute povs to run over into 3k even 4k territory with what I have planned. Thank you guys for your patience, and your support! Please review; it means the world to me! Love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm