Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Declaration of Death, Prologue #3: A Building Without Foundation, which I am very excited to show you all, from the pov of our District 1 escort, Adriane Lantham, who is an absolute wild hoot. Last prologue, #2, was from the Master of Ceremonies' perspective, Richmond Anvil, where in his marriage, all is not as it seems. This chapter here is a few weeks after the events of Prologue 1, so about a month and a half after the end of the 1st Hunger Games. Submissions and attention for the story is trickling in, and there is still three weeks until submissions close, so there's plenty of time to get the kids in! I hope you guys all enjoy Chapter/Prologue #3: A Building Without Foundation.
"The loftier the building, the deeper the foundation must be," ~ Thomas Kempis
Adriane Lantham: District 1 Escort P.O.V
For Adriane Lantham, it is strange being back in District 1. She expects that her feet will find its solid ground come the time of the next reaping, which isn't for another eleven or so months in her own world, but when the rug is dragged out from underneath her own feet when she least expects it, the woman knows unlike any other how to improvise. Taking one step off of the Capitol train and looking up at the sweet blue sky without a cloud above her head and taking a sniff of the scented air filled with ripe raspberries and marshmallow cream makes her heart smile, and she smiles across the face too.
Being in District 1 before, just two months ago, had been a different story, because back then Friedrich existed, and she simply couldn't stand the man. "But he's gone now, dead and buried," Adriane smiles to herself, curling a lock of her dark hair around a finger, clutching the clipboard in her right hand closer to her body as she steps over a light pole that had been knocked to the ground. "Gone, where I don't have to look at his stupid face anymore or hear his stupid voice, or listen to his stupid words, or stare at the stupid back of his head, or have to entertain his stupid company…"
Adriane abhors the fact that she uses the word 'stupid' in so many quick successions, but the man isn't worth her searching through her brain for a higher level vocabulary word. She always knew she'd end up shifting the political climate in Panem to some extent, which is how she ends up meeting the illustrious Felix Fiore in the heart of the Capitol at its many numerous balls and galas and exhibitions, but that is another story for a different day.
"Today means business!" she exclaims, happily, doting on the purse strapped over her left shoulder, hiking it up so the strap doesn't rub against her hips, chafing up the warm leather that she's decked herself in. Two months ago she would've been melting in the sunlight while plucking out desperate and despondent children from the gathered crowds, but in the heart of October, the air has started to cool, a chill settling over her skin, and Adriane gets to break out the outfits that made her so popular in the Capitol courts.
With Friedrich Calvary gone, it leaves a vacuum in District 1, one that Adriane still has to pinch herself in reminding herself that this had been accomplished through her power. Her mind manages to convince President Israel to shoot the mayor through the chest and out the back, her mind manages to convince the current administration that there needs to be a change of the guard, a change of hand. "I'm still a stupid dolt, now?" she taunts Friedrich's grave, when she stops by after embarking off of the train. He doesn't actually have a grave, as Adriane is standing underneath a birch tree for some shade while she sips on a cool glass of lemonade, but she likes to imagine he's laying beneath her feet. She stomps on the ground to make sure he's actually gone.
It is up to Emrick, and Cain decide what they wish to do with the mayor vacancy, for Adriane's suggestion falls on deaf ears. Which, speaking of…
"I think you should still campaign for it," Adriane says, turning to her companion, smiling at the pale face of Felix Fiore and all of his handsome glory as he practically glows in the pillar of a sunbeam dancing above his head. She keeps the grin on her face despite the fact that Felix tugs his lip back in a sneer. "You'd make a great mayor, since you can't be president after all."
"Darling, thank you for the recommendation, but heavens no…" Felix groans, rubbing his forehead with his hands, the motion causing a bit of color to rise to his cheeks. "I cannot even believe I decided to join you here, among…" the man shudders, keeping his arms close to his side, Felix stuck to Adriane like glue. "District citizens, yuck," he spits out, Adriane smirking. "Being near that victor, Peon or whatever, was enough."
"Poem," Adriane corrects him, coolly, which makes Felix stick his tongue out at her. "Her name is Poem, dearie, and you best not want to embarrass yourself in front of others if you get her name wrong again," she loops an arm around her fiancé to be, as the glimmering golden band on her hand is any indication, tugging him along through the District 1 streets. "Besides, I needed a strapping young man with me since these District One folks never know how to hang around me and my excellence."
She flips a tuff of hair over her shoulder, stopping in place as Felix stumbles over his shoes. She removes her arm from his side as her lover stumbles onto the ground, he swearing and spitting and flying into an incomprehensible rage. All the same with him, with Felix, Adriane sighing at his lack of decorum. The Fiore family is one of power – "Used to be, at least," she dismissively sniffs at the thought – and for all of the wondrousness that Felix does right, there are a million other things he gets wrong, such as never knowing how to handle himself in public. "I needed to get you out of the house, out of the Capitol," she says, flipping through a few pages on the clipboard. "It can't be fair in our relationship if I am the only one to see Panem."
"I don't care to see anywhere beyond the Capitol," Felix grumbles, heading over to a water fountain and leaning over to fix his lopsided hair-do. Adriane keeps her eyes on him, centered on the small of his back, at where she knows the odd lump in his spine exists. She loves him, entertains him as he entertains her, but there are too many quirks in his eccentrics that sometimes make her wonder if it'd be easier to shoot a dart into his neck and let someone else's venom do the rest.
"And that is why you are not going to ever rule Panem, Felix," Adriane says, humming to herself, as she then fans herself with the clipboard. She ditches the wigs, as Adriane is believing they are horridly out of fashion – Nyria Kirchner hasn't picked up the memo, apparently, the escort thinks disapprovingly, looking at the mutts designer with a less than tactful stare – and they cause her to be ridiculed in Capitol polls that the Israel administration releases to the Capitol populace on which escorts were seen favorably or less favorably.
Adriane Lantham ranks seventh, and her hair has something to do with it. Under that bastard escort from Twelve, Kenneth Nighton, and since the man had brought home a survivor, Damien Paladine who escorts for District Eight… he's at the top of the list.
"It'll be me this year," she promises herself in the mirror on the train, while Felix is busy tidying his outfit in the bedroom mirror in the back of their shared car. "And if it isn't, a new president will be put in power," her sentence is spoken aloud by mistake, which has Felix quirk an eyebrow over at her, but she comments that it must've been the wind speaking, for Adriane Lantham never utters words of egoism aloud.
She brings Felix along with her trip to District 1 for a singular specific reason that would make any man giddy, especially one with a shadow as tall as his turns out to be. Her lover returns to her side after he is satisfied with the measurements taken to ensure his appearance has not fallen out of style, and the two resume their journey once more.
It is just a few more minutes after that, which involves Felix complaining about a fly sitting on a trash can, and Adriane noting that red is in fact not in for the district ever since Catalus Drachma's head goes red like a crushed tomato under the grip of Vesuvia Vocanova, that she gets to reveal her next masterpiece, where the tide in Panem shifts to the will of a Lantham.
"Ta-da!" Adriane exclaims, turning around to Felix after she skips ahead of him some, her arms stretched upwards to the clear sky.
Felix slows to a halt, his judging stare appraising over the building behind her. "It isn't even finished yet, Adriane."
Her smile falters, dropping faster than her excitement did watching Poem Cavalli be crowned the victor of the 1st Huger Games over one of her darling children – "Please," she barks to herself in the privacy of her own quarters, "Cecelia was a scared little girl, and Catalus was a shit to you, there's no lost love anymore with them being corpses in the ground." – and a nervous stutter rises out of her throat. "Well, I know it isn't finished Felix, but doesn't it look good?"
"Adriane, honey, it's a cinderblock building," Felix says, unimpressed.
Adriane turns around again to look with his vantage point. The foundations of the very first Career Academy in Panem is in front of her, and like as to what Felix says, it is a cinderblock building in the middle of a cleared out field covered in tanned dirt and cranes sent in from District Two. However, the building is much more than that, where inside, sits Adriane's brain child.
The tributes from Districts One, Two, and Four – Adriane punts little thirteen year-old Cecelia away, as she doesn't count, she died in the first five minutes of the game – put on a show for the Capitol unlike any of the other tributes could've dreamed of doing, and in her mind, there is nothing more fulfilling than having that happen year after year after year.
"It's an Academy," she stresses the word, bounding over to him, wrapping an arm around his waist, hugging Felix close to her body. "Here, and in District Two and Four, kids from One and elsewhere will be able to train for the Hunger Games! They'll learn how to use a sword or learn how to fire a bow like Magnus Winterthorn… they can master the ferociousness of Diana Kratovska if they desire to!" A smile breaks out on her face, she turning to Felix, who simply stares at her as if she's lost her ever loving mind. "They'll learn out how to build a fire, and rock climbing, and swimming so that disaster with that dead twerp from Twelve doesn't happen again…" the woman is rambling, speaking so fast that she is spitting, which some of it lands on Felix's face, the very objecting flash of terror and rage in her lover's eyes getting Adriane to steamroll over herself so that the words are stuck in her throat.
Felix pulls out a handkerchief from his breast pocket, overdressed in his choice of a suit for the day's activities, he wiping away the glimmering beads that trickle down his brow and his left cheek. "I am sure, Adriane, that it'll turn out wonderful, but for now…" he sighs, stuffing the handkerchief back inside his breast pocket, "It's a cinderblock that isn't even painted. There's no equipment inside, and you are showing this to me on an off-day where construction isn't even happening on it." He holds her hands in his, Adriane jostling in place at how frigid they are against her own. "When will the place even be operational?"
Adriane rubs her shoulder, unable to keep eye contact with him, she looking down at her heeled feet, her dark skin a stark contrast against the pale and pebbly ground of the construction site. "Next year, just before the reapings for the 2nd Games…" she mumbles. She tugs on a lock of her hair, swishing her tongue from side to side in her mouth. "We were going to have volunteers prepped for the 3rd Games…" she sighs, lifting her head up, staring past him. "I just wanted to show you where your money was going."
Though a lot of the payments towards building these academies in the three districts has been due to the generosity of the Israel administration and whatever coffers Emrick and Cain can dig into, it is from Felix Fiore's own purse does a lot of the funding come from, which has Adriane swallow bitter vodkas and martinis with too much liquor in them t desolate bars on Friday nights, for it means only one thing.
She does not want to be indebted to the man, no matter how much she loves him or believes he's the one for her… no matter how much chaos they sew together, or how many graves they fill with their schemes and their desires, being tethered to Felix Fiore can only spell disaster in the end.
"Like I said," Felix says, as he lifts Adriane's head up with a finger under her jaw, a warm smile on his face, unlike the desolate man she expects him to be anywhere else, "I am sure it is going to be wonderful."
Adriane Lantham is not sure anything will be wonderful, as she's never been sure about anything that has ever happened in her life. She didn't expect to be where she is now, let alone being engaged to the wealthiest man in all of Panem, no matter what Cain Passionia claims. She half expects Friedrich to bust out of a bush and insult her again, but the man never rises from his grave, she settling the building disappointment back under a fake grin.
The Career Academy may be a building without a proper foundation, but Adriane knows that it'll come into its own, and that when the project is finished, it'll be glorious beyond all means.
Panem, however, is a nation without its own proper foundation, and with Felix by her side, and his lips on hers, and her heart in his hands, Adriane also knows that the nation is theirs to play around in, an academy for her to destroy, a sandbox to rebuild.
Adriane Lantham sets her sight beyond the horizon, and the 2nd Hunger Games approaches with yet another day.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #3: A Building Without Foundation, focused on Adriane Lantham, the escort for District 1. In my verse, I have the Career Academies in One, Two, and Four, through Adriane's campaigning in Liberty, get started right away... the Academy in One would be finished in time for the 2nd Hunger Games, and students or... well, Careers, would be expected to start volunteering out of the gate with the 3rd Hunger Games if they desired to. (Careers are my favorite aspect of the Hunger Games and Panem, don't target me) Beyond that, however, some minor spoilers for Liberty's epilogue and the fate of the previous District 1 mayor, as well as some minor insight into the backstory that is the wondrous Felix Fiore, who I love desperately. Next chapter, #4: A Game Without Players, will be out sometime around October 20th or 21st, with a pov from the mutts designer, Nyria Kirchner, and it is bound to be an exciting chapter, for I have a lot on the rise. Get those submissions in, and I'd love to hear ya'lls thoughts. I'll see you guys in about a week and a half. Love you guys! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm