Declaration of Death

by Paradigm of Writing

"We hold these truths to be self evident that we believe all men and women, all boys and girls, in all the districts are endowed to certain inalienable rights. Freedom to live, freedom to die, and the pursuit of mortality. We give you your personal declaration of death." Signed, the 2nd Hunger Games {SYOT CLOSED}

8. Summoners of Sacrifice

Hey everyone, it's Paradigm of Writing. I wish I could write a gigantic tirade as to why I have been gone for three and a half months, circling close on four, as it's been two back-to-back large hiatuses from me and writing, of which I am not proud of, but unfortunately, I do not have much. I just... wasn't feeling the writing spirit, and being an adult is haha, it's hard. I have a lot juggled on my plate now, and the time for writing really didn't come into play except on the weekends, and even then, well. I knew, however, I wouldn't quit, as I am never quitting another SYOT as long as my account remains active on this site. (I'll have to be dead).

I have here Chapter #8: Summoners of Sacrifice, another set of intros circled on reaping day. You are getting to meet the wonderful Sable Faru (D8M from Audmirable), Desdemona Farsiris (D2NB tribute from thornehub), Smoke Hartisan (D12M also from Audmirable), and Astra Enoshima (D6F from ladyqueerfoot). I really do like these tributes a lot, and at the end of the chapter, just like with Liberty's as I usually don't try splitting these up any longer, there is a fifth bonus pov from Cain Passionia, Head Gamemaker and Vice President of Panem for our reaping recap, which I am happy for you all to see.

Thank you for patience and support, it means so much to me. Please enjoy, Chapter #8: Summoners of Sacrifice.

---

"Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to just be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to," ~ Mitch Albom

Sable Faru: District 8 Male P.O.V (13)

---

The bells only ever ring for tragedy. Sable has heard them ring long enough in his short thirteen years of life for this to be true. The bells did not ring on the day of Poem's victory, when a pampered girl with more money than they'll ever understand stands tall, bleeding from every corner of her body. When she makes it home, a task everyone thought impossible – but not Sable, nothing is impossible in Sable's eyes, anyone can do anything they set to their mind to if they try hard enough – there are a few cheers here and there, but there's also mutterings, mutterings that they do not understand.

"Why is no one really happy to see her?" Sable asks his mother, looking up at her with his round eyes, his bright smile that positively glows. It never falters, a Faru's smile lasts forever and ever. "Poem lived, didn't she?"

"Did she ever really die?" his mother tells him, cryptically, before hoisting him up some he can stand on a wooden post erected directly in front of where Sable is standing. He frowns at the odd response, which doesn't make any sense, as Poem steps off of the train and into the mayor's hands. "Was she transformed enough for it to be a victory?"

He figures so, the entire nation saw their victor cry enough times into the burnt rock and dead grass for it to sink in that she understands her current situation.

Sable exhales a long sigh, the heaviness dripping from his fingertips and down into his toes, he bouncing on the balls of his feet as his mother finishes stitching up the last loose threads of his jacket.

"You'll do great today," she tells him, warmly, rubbing the top of his head. His mother is glowing, a serene sunlight pouring out of every pore of her body. Light that streams through Sable's fingers, and while her warmth may not be tangible, it is enough for him, enough for them to feel comforted at night. The yellows and the whites in Sable's life has started to brighten over the last few days, to his confusion.

Back then, back when the bombs fell, it is the reds and the oranges that Sable can taste on his tongue, thick and sulfurous and ravenous in their penance. White had been a threatening color before, when the door to his fifth grade class is kicked in, Peacekeepers all armed at the ready, screaming for the children to get down before a bomb blows the roof off of the place.

Sable pinches his side, keeping the always present smile on their face. "I think so, too," he says, nodding his head, straightening out the ruffle of hair that his mother disrupts.

"You'll do fine without me right there, won't you?" his mother asks, tilting her head to the side, standing back, and admiring her handiwork. "Even though I won't be right there, I'll still be close by, so you have nothing to worry about, Sable."

Sable nods, his mother washing her hands off in the sink. There have been a few times here and there that they are not okay without their mother to hold them along, but regardless of the fact, they are still alive and standing in their kitchen getting ready to be shipped off to die.

"Well," Sable corrects in his head, "Maybe," and then aloud, "Not me," he whispers, swallowing heavily. "Not me."

It's his mantra, even as he has to duck into alleyways and gutters when the fire bombs destroy the path he has walked to school on every day of his life up until that fateful Wednesday morning. It's the same words that Sable eats and breathes when he hears of children left mutilated on the side of the road out of town who get their head to big for their britches and try to run away from the war, caught in the leviathan jaws of Peacekeepers who do not see a child and think anything other than a sack of meat to puncture.

The bodies that Sable witnesses dead and piled up everywhere are gray and bloated when the dust finally settles, blood caked to their faces covered in soot and the grime visitations of death. Sometimes their eyes are open, shocked in the last moments before a demise that may have been painless or an unbearable experience depending on the type of man who held the barrel of the gun to the back of their head.

Sable tries blinking the images away from their mind, but they've imprinted themselves on his eyelids, the first vision he sees whenever he sleeps. It's replaced the image that used to be there, of the man Vermillion never talks about, the man Vermillion wants to leave a mystery, so Sable fills in the blanks instead.

They picture their father having the body of Hercules, from the tales they read in English class, the hair of a Greek god like Poseidon, with a charming smile that could charm the pants off of anyone, cause how else would Sable be as liked as he is without the genes of a good man?

"A good man who abandons his wife when she's pregnant?" Sable thinks bitterly to himself, biting down on the inside of his cheek. That's rare, a thought filled with as much scorn as that, in his head. Sable Faru's head is filled with bubbly clouds, and rainbows, and the optimism that anything can get done in this world… not of vengeance and regret and disdain.

"You have your paint set?" Vermillion Faru asks her son, as she kneels down in front of him and gives him one last hug.

"I never leave home without it," Sable smiles, tapping the left pocket of his pants, the small jar of acrylic blue paint a comforting weight nestled in the fabric.

"Seize the day," their mother smiles, kissing them on the head, and then, with a light chuckle, pats him gently on the behind, and out the door. "I'll be there shortly!" she calls out, as Sable jogs out of the front of their house, waving goodbye to their grandparents nestled in the far corner of their front porch, rocking back and forth and basking in the warm sunlight.

If a child like Poem could survive the Hunger Games after volunteering for them out of hand, Sable sees no reason why he cannot. He can do anything.

"Anything?" a gruff voice in his head snarls at him. "Anything you say? What about that kid you saw whose legs melted off? Did you save them with a kind word and a kiss to their head? Or the kid you said you liked, but instead he pushed you off of the slide? Did you change his heart then?"

Sable learns to ignore the raging voices that sometimes decide to do battle in his head at the most inopportune of times. People struggle, yes, and awful, awful things happen in their life that they've seen, spectators stuck on the sidelines unable to help those caught in hell's torrential tide of terror, but at the end of the day, the sun will still rise come the morrow, and that sends strength flowing through Sable's veins.

The walk to the town square is decent enough, filled with enough cheer to fill a graveyard as other children, many gathered in packs head their way towards the furnace. Even with the idea in the air that someone from District 8 can win the crown again this year does not do enough to drown out the sorrow that someone from Eight did not come home. Niklaus Peverell is headless and buried in an iron casket that no one can even find, and that'll still be the fate of someone in District Eight no matter how the Games turn out.

There are rumors of Poem Cavalli searching for the casket, but she's been denied request after request after request, and her visits in public have become lesser and lesser as of late, which makes Sable sad. She's bright, she's joyous, she's pretty, a comforting spirit when sometimes she's the only bright light in Eight's smog covered sky.

Sable approaches the town square, filing in line behind the other kids who are doing the exact same as them, waiting their turn. Last year, the shock of being forced to draw blood by the Peacekeepers causes Sable to cry, but this time, he's prepared himself. The moment the needle gets close to his skin, he'll bite down on his lip, and wait out the pain. They can wait out the pain, for getting blood drawn is nothing compared to a brick falling down and breaking over their own head.

They see a little girl, smaller than he is, and Sable is small enough, trip onto the ground over her white dress that is a few inches too long for her to handle adequately. Sable frowns, rushing to help her over, but a Peacekeeper beats Sable to the child first, forcing the girl to her feet so hard that she slips down again.

"Stop crying!" the Peacekeeper snaps. "Your parents aren't here to wipe your tears away!"

Well, that's harsh. As Sable approaches, he forces a smile onto his force, through the feeling of vengeance that bubbles just so slightly through his veins. "It's okay, sir," they say gently, holding onto the girl's arm as tight as he can, enough to signal comfort without radiating a threatening presence. "She was rushing ahead of me cause she's just so impatient. Sisters, right?"

Sable can tell that the Peacekeeper is looking at the two of them as if they aren't related, through the cold veneer of the visor. "Alrighty kid, but if you need to talk, step out of line. You're holding everyone up."

"Thank you, sir," Sable nods, and he tugs onto the girl's arm, getting her out of the fray.

When they're in safe spot together, off of the brick path into the multiple lines for intake, Sable takes a direct look at her. They do not pass for siblings, with his pale face and her dark skin, but Sable sees someone in trouble, and trouble will only fester into a malignant cancer if left untreated, if left alone, and they do not leave others to shoulder the perils of this world alone.

"Thank you…" she whispers, a tear sliding down her cheek and falling off into the dirt.

"What's your name?" he says, standing up tall. "I'm Sable."

"K- Kenna…" she bites out, hitching another sob, and she stumbles forward some in Sable's grip. They buckle too, under the sudden force of pressure, he biting his lip to stem a crying reaction of his own. He must be strong for her sake, and although she is a stranger personally, she is not a stranger to him humanly. She wipes at her tears, Sable catching one that she misses so it doesn't land on her dress. "I- I like your nails…" Kenna hiccups. "My dad won't let me paint mine, he says it's a waste of money."

Sable smiles, holding his hands in hers, his nails, a sharp and stunning shade of blue like a faint night sky, popping out against his light skin tone. "Thank you," he says, and then, with a sense of urgency, he tightens his grip enough. "Is this your first reaping?" Kenna nods, without a word, hiccupping once more. "It's my second. I'm thirteen, and I can't tell you how scared I was last year that I'd be selected."

"How- how did you get through it?" Kenna asks, her brown eyes bright with fresh tears that she wipes away.

They grin back at their newfound friend, for there is nothing wrong in admitting her fear, in admitting her worry. He's worried too, in the back of his head, as the chance is there, no matter how infinitesimal it is in how he might share Niklaus Peverell's fate or end up like the only thirteen-year-old from last year, Cassiopeia Grey, with only ashes to be sent home to Eleven.

"I believe in the little things around me. In people," Sable shrugs. "And I also closed my eyes, counted through it, and when I opened my eyes, it was just like waking up from a bad dream."

"Promise?"

"I promise," they smile back, letting go of her hands. "Now, come on, we don't want to get yelled at again, right?"

Even as Sable guides the girl back into line, just as young as she is, in facing the doom together, his heartbeat guides him.

Everything will be alright, as Sable steps up next in line for his blood to be drawn. He has to believe it, they have to have this conviction.

Without it, Sable Faru will simply fall apart.

---

Desdemona Farsiris: District 2 NB Tribute P.O.V (18)

---

It is no exaggeration when Desdemona Farsiris says in the darkest corners of their mind that they wish to die. They wish for the world to open up underneath them and drag them to hell. It is where they belong after all, in this pit that has started to become the walking world that everyone knows. In part, the festivities are why Desdemona wishes to crumble like sand in a child's hands, seeing everyone's stupid smiles and patriotic feels because it is time for the Hunger Games, again. If they have to hear that stupid woman on stage with the stupid, stupid blue hair say, "Good morning!" one more time, Desdemona is going to hurtle a rock through Merida Ivy's throat.

The ground is blue beneath their feet. Doctors call it synesthesia, or at least that is what the books in the local library that is being rebuilt from the ground up say whenever Desdemona finds a book to read. It is not blue from the countless rains that have poured over the cement, or from the multiple redesigns the town square has endured. It is grief, it is the countless numbers of dead bodies underneath everyone's feet. The first mass grave started here, in the square, but Desdemona sees so many people walk around without a care in the world, unable to comprehend exactly what is beneath their feet.

"They see it," Des mutters under their breath, looking around at the others they're corralled and penned with. Hens and chickens who even with their necks cut off and heads separated from the rest of their body would probably complain about ruined hairstyles in the rain or how Mack looked at them with sincerity in his eyes across from them at the lunch table. "They just don't care, Des…"

They've only opened their mouth once before that Desdemona does not wish to be standing with the flock, with the flock who do not understand them, but they're still thrown in the eighteen-year-old pen with the ladies, for they're certainly not a man, and it takes all of Des's self-restraint to not leap over the table and beat the Peacekeeper within an inch of their life.

That's not entirely true, however. That feeling does stir deep down in their gut, sometimes, but it is wasted. It is quelled, gone, quenched like a fire with a tarp thrown over it. Violence has thrown them into this mess, and Des does not see how violence will get them out of it. Violence is what leads to mortar explosions being a ferocious orange that ripples through trenches, leaving behind corpses so desecrated that even the buzzards cannot pick anything off of the bone.

Systematic oppression and the war machine churns out a constant stream of green. Not an emerald green or even a forest green like the glen of trees with the sun streaming through the leaves, but the green of charred money, hinting towards that of a ruinous black. That same shade pumps through Desdemona's fingers, which represent the blood curdling screams of the dying, the howls of agony and pain that the war machine tears in its unrelenting pursuit to slaughter every man, woman, and child.

It nearly slaughtered Desdemona.

They're still waiting for their turn to bat, truthfully.

Merida Ivy is cheering some sort of congratulatory piece of information to the crowd, but Des ignores it. District Two is the fist of Panem now, the district that turned first in the war, they are unsure if they had any hand in planning that, an iron fist that-

"No," Desdemona interrupts the line of thought before it even begins. "I will not think of him. He does not deserve my thoughts," and then in the same hairbreadth of their trembling hands reaching to the feel the pulse on their thoughts, "I deserve to feel his thoughts. To taste his red love on my teeth."

Xerxes would've killed the woman standing on stage, and truthfully, Desdemona can see the desire, they can see the need to murder the escort if she says one more word about District 2 honor and sacrifice, and how many people the war machine threw at the wall, hoping for some of the bodies to stick. It is Xerxes's fire that used to burn in Des's gut, a fire that is ferocious enough to cause an entire reservoir to dry up in the mountains of Twelve, and whenever Desdemona witnessed that fire, they felt a tinge of feeling in the chambers of their heart.

Desire, perhaps, even admiration, but the fire is gone, snuffed out, a cigarette smushed into the concrete, and the hazy wisps are a kiss lingering on their lips, Desdemona occasionally holding out their hand to place that warmth back on their olive-toned skin. It is Xerxes who makes Desdemona feel seen, it is Xerxes Vauxhall who has Desdemona feel heard, and it is this man who somehow manages to ruin their life.

"Not true," Desdemona bites down on their tongue, careful to not speak too loudly so the other girls near them don't hear their words. "You did this to yourself. You pulled the trigger, you did."

But did they? Desdemona recalls the feeling of holding a rifle in their hands, the color so black that they wouldn't be able to see the gun in the dark. They recall how Xerxes looks at them with hope in his eyes, hope that used to be much brighter even before the kisses began, and when Desdemona squeezes the trigger, that bright look is the last thing they ever see from him.

Desdemona did not put the conviction in Xerxes to sign up, that had not been on them, but it is on their shoulders that they agree to go, agree to abandon their mother and father behind in a home that could surely cave in on them. They are willing to take Xerxes's hand and dive into the land of smoke and fog, of ruin with bodies piled so high and thrown into mass graves that it'd blot out the sun.

Without Xerxes, Desdemona feels like they amount to nothing, but there is nothing in this world they can do to resurrect their lover back to life.

Why didn't the army refuse them? Why did the rebels have to push their desire to throw as many bodies as they could at that stupid wall made of brick and iron? Flesh could not dismantle the building blocks of torment, but the alliance tried regardless, and look where it caused Panem to end up. Sending kids off to die.

Not that much different from war, apparently.

"District Two certainly made a splash last year, didn't they?" Merida says on stage, rocking the microphone back and forth. "Whenever Magnus and Portia were on screen, the ratings were through the roof, and Vice President Passionia has requested whoever the two who go into the Games this year bring the same energy!"

"Can someone please shut her up?" Desdemona thinks to themselves, rubbing a finger over their brow, and for once in such a long time, their finger does not return with a hinge of mahogany from dirt smeared over their face. They find an open faucet spilling onto the cobblestone streets in some dark alley, and Desdemona seizes the chance to wipe the grime off of their face. They were dirty constantly in war, and at least being clean for a split second allows a chance at rebirth.

That's a lie.

The only rebirth Desdemona seeks to find is in death, with a bullet in their head, the same way Xerxes is buried, and vengeance is called down upon them.

Their parents do not want to see them, which Desdemona understands fully, but despite the acknowledgement, it stings. Their birthday comes and goes, but no one finds them and hauls them up by the arm to go back home. No one with authority tells Desdemona it is okay to return to a place where they were once loved, but even if someone we're to say that they'd remain huddled in the shadows. No one loves anymore.

No one ever loved Desdemona.

Xerxes said he did, but that's a lie. It's a lie, one they tried combating over the time the two of them spent together even when they were huddled side by side in the cell, skin so close their knees could slide against each other like pieces of a puzzle. The Capitol tried all they could to tear them apart, and the first step in that had been allowing them to be side by side, by being together and instead of apart, for all it took was time.

Time sunk into Desdemona like a virus, as hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks. Not just with imprisonment, but on the front lines, when Desdemona did not even know how to use a handgun, where their desire had been to heal instead of hurt. Time showed them what monsters looked like, that they weren't just horror stories for kids to go to sleep and not get out of bed.

Agamemnon and Serafima Farsiris told their child a share of horror stories, but none of them were as real as seeing Xerxes's smile turn into frowns over time, or to see how tight he'd grip his own rifle executing Peacekeepers who committed atrocities in the districts. There'd be stories of this Winterthorn who would be making a difference in Eleven or in the sewers of Six, and Xerxes's eyes would light up again, speaking words of red mist that'd waft over Desdemona's face. He'd want to be like this snowy thorn, and so he'd shoot the next victim with the barrel of the gun pressed a little closer to the back of their head.

And Desdemona watched. They watched, supported, wanted the best for them, for it'd be the best for them as well, right? It had to be, because the touches they shared behind an overturned counter in the mess hall felt real enough, then. It would be, for they were sharing a life with the man they said they loved, but it wasn't real enough.

No matter how real something feels, it is not enough once it turns to dust and falsities in one's hand.

No matter-

"I think we've spent enough time talking about last year, though, haven't we?" Merida exclaims on stage, breaking Desdemona from their stupor, they glaring at the woman and her insufferable grin.

"I think you've spent enough time talking in general," Desdemona bites out, but it is not a mutter that they say this in. There is a force behind it, the same sort of force that Xerxes squeezes the trigger with time and time again, the sound of bodies hitting the dirt like clockwork on the hour.

"Good one, Farsiris," a girl behind Desdemona says, prodding them in the back, but they do not move, they do not respond to the touch. It isn't a semblance for friendship, but this girl giving a gesture of selfishness, showing others that she can be friendly to others even like Des.

"The young lady who will represent District Two in the Hunger Games is…" Merida says, holding her hand up above the tablet, inching closer and closer despite the groaning protests to just get on with it, a twinkle bright in the woman's eyes.

Desdemona watches the finality of the movement, as the escort hits the 'select' button on the tablet, the names starting to cycle through. Portia Beninblade makes an ass of herself last year, full of rage, and that venom still only brought her to twelfth place in the end.

This is their chance, the chance for them to get the fate they've wanted, because at least elsewhere, away from the physical pains of a reality in Panem, Desdemona may get to ask Xerxes for forgiveness that they'll never deserve.

Desdemona has hidden in the dark black shades of the world long enough, that empty pit that is comfort and life where they do not find it in those they used to love, when Desdemona remembered what love felt like and tasted like on their tongue.

A child's name is selected, but that kid will never know what fate intended for them had Desdemona Farsiris never intervened.

They seldom speak higher than a whisper, but for this, Desdemona requires their full strength.

They stick their hand straight up in the air, a beacon for attention, a beacon for the eyes of the world to find them. Let them see, let them feel and speculate and wonder.

"I volunteer!"

---

Smoke Hartisan: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)

---

Smoke Hartisan longs for the feeling of a beer bottle in his hand, at the cooling touch of the rim slipped against his lips, long flushed, and colored from a night of drinking. His skin tone would match the same amber blotches that dot the skyline, and as the liquid would slip down his throat like a lover's kiss without nearly as much baggage, he'd feel right at home. He wouldn't be alone, as whenever word is spread that Smoke Hartisan is drinking, another fifteen to twenty people will be on the stoop of his house begging for a round on the house.

Alas, he cannot get what he wants, even as the Peacekeeper that continues shouting "NEXT!" at the top of their lungs is causing him to get a splitting headache that threatens to break his skull apart from end to end. He nearly turns around to lunge at the soldier, but he stills himself. He does not have time for this today, when he should be docile, and once the event is over then can he go and return to the safety of his bed and wait out the coming storm.

He knows that won't happen, however, as the call of an adventurous night will leech him from the sheets, sweat and the musk of Twelve's coal filled air stuck to his skin like a boiling leather suit he wishes he could just peel right off. The drinking will be partially ruinous, but also partially in mourning for whichever poor souls are to be carted off to the Capitol to die in those horrendous Games. Smoke didn't know Ramses Boskov or Kai'sa Shadow, but seeing their corpses makes him wince and shed tears all the same.

Smoke may not cry tears however as he stares at Anneke Van Acker who is currently standing on stage after the District 12 escort, Kenneth Nighton, selects her from all of the other eligible bachelorettes for the Games to marry and kill. She's standing tall, standing firm, but her eyes are shifting from side to side as if someone were going to burst out of the walls and tackle her to the ground. She looks like a good drinking partner, at the very least.

"You need more friends who don't drink, Smoky," a voice in his head reminds him, sharply, puncturing his lungs and making Smoke gasp. First off, he hates the damned nickname, but his father insists on it regardless, as his father is a rightful prick who loves the bottom of a whiskey bottle more than his own flesh and blood, and- "No one will ever respect you if the only thing they see is your flushed face, and not the merits of your hard work."

The worst part is how right his father is, and Smoke knows it too. He's smart enough to know it, erudite in the ways a mining town cannot appreciate, for his clothes do not smell like Kai'sa Shadow's would've as her adopted father is Twelve's mayor. Ramses Boskov held himself with a regal nature, and all Smoke can do is hook his shoulders down in shame. Born poor, raised poor, he'll always be poor no matter how many books he reads or how many mines he tries climbing himself out of.

Smoke tries calling himself a hero, someone who can fight for the good and the right whenever his father, Tenley Hartisan, pushes his mom against the crumbling plaster that tries its hardest to resemble a wall, but it only earns him bruised cheeks and no bedsheets for the night since there is just so much blood to wipe up from the floors.

His father even tries to make a name for himself by joining the rebellion, by fighting for a cause that wouldn't end with orphaned boys and girls no older than six, or where the cobblestones in the town square would not be so filthy in the soot of charred corpses and bones. That doesn't work however, as there are still nights filled with broken windows and a pyramid of glasses built from discarded whiskey sours. His father still has not learned the meaning of 'volume control' and Smoke feels his temper rise time and time again like a steamed pot.

There is no meaning to be found in the wisping gray clouds that dot Twelve's skyline, no truth or clarity in the mayor's weekly calls for service to clean the roads and rebuild all the destroyed homes. All Smoke sees, all he tastes, like an acrid sour droplet of disappointment on his tongue, is failed potential.

"You were going to be something," his father's breath reeks, but Smoke keeps his grimace kept to a minimum one, for explaining to his drinking friends where the new cut above his left brow is starting to get harder and harder to write off. His father bunches his grip into the lapels of Smoke's shirt, the only one in his closet without a hole or a roughly done patch job by the elderly lady next door. "And here you are, following in my footsteps. Where did that smart brain get you anyhow?"

"I can be more than you," he says, Smoke says it, but he doesn't believe it. The conviction isn't there, no matter how hard he forces the words through his teeth. "I will be more than you."

"We're alike, son."

"We are not!" the boy protests hotly, forcing his father off of him, Smoke grabbing his father by the elbow, and the push sends Tenley Hartisan directly into the floor. The apologies are immediately on his lips, begging for forgiveness, begging that he is not hit again, but his father's eyes are burning blocks of coal now, and he's transgressed.

They're fighting, and there are fists colliding against teeth, there is the tearing of skin and pained gasps from both men. The dust settles, and Smoke is nursing an ice pack on his head, a beer balancing on the knee that is not currently spilling blood all over the porch.

He yearns for an escape. Occasionally, he thinks it. There are still vantage points that remain in District Twelve, hills that jut out over long abandoned service elevators into empty mines that only produce coal when the moon glows green. From there, sometimes Smoke can see it, depending on how the haze has lifted, a far country of emerald moss and fresh raspberries. Out there, he could be someone.

Someone important, someone more than the son of a drunk abuser.

Unless that is all Smoke Hartisan is destined to ever be.

"No," he whispers aloud, as Kenneth is still speaking, and Anneke Van Acker has not stopped the frightful doe act of looking around the district square. Smoke pinches his arm, tugging down enough so a flash of pain breaks through his hangover. "You are going to be so much more…" Smoke pleads, almost bursting into a bauble of tears.

And more, yes, Smoke Hartisan will be much more.

"Your male tribute is Smoke Hartisan!" Kenneth Nighton's voice rings clear through the square. "Where are you, young man?"

He didn't mean this. He didn't want this.

Smoke lifts his head up, hands falling from the pillaging of his own body, heartbeat roaring in his ears. Did- his name didn't just get called… did it? No, that can't be. He's- he's meant to drink for someone else, not his own life!

Life should not be abusive, not when Smoke simply keeps his head down, not when he simply wants to laugh on rickety wooden walkways and drink with people he does not know. Life should not… this is not… he can only wonder why, and Smoke is afraid that the answer will be what he's already known his whole life.

All he is ever meant to be is another piece of tragedy, a symphony of sadness weaved through a bottle and amber liquid that burns when swallowed, a tide of bile that scorches when it resurfaces.

Smoke stands still for another moment, unable to process the truth that he's just been reaped into the Hunger Games, and too much time has passed in idle hands. A Peacekeeper, Smoke able to see the megaphone strapped to their body, begins heading his way, the buzzing static of their radio piercing over the silence that has District Twelve holding their breath.

He makes eye contact with his own reflection in the white dog's visor, the look one of glowering, and the moment the Peacekeeper's gloved hand comes in contact with his skin, Smoke bristling at the touch.

"We don't have all day, kid," the Peacekeeper says, a rough and grating voice as the vocal modulator has not been turned on it seems, the usual mechanical rasp missing from his speech. "And it looks like no one is volunteering, so up you go, Smoke Hartisan."

It has never taken much for Smoke Hartisan to snap, if he's ever presented the opportunity, and there is none like a current moment in time.

He snaps.

"Get off of me!" Smoke screams in his face, as if that is ever going to make a bully back down, for in his experience, it only emboldens them. The megaphone must weigh the Peacekeeper down, for the man does not have enough time to react and punish Smoke for his outburst. It is enough of a window for Smoke to take the shot, as he pummels his fist into the Peacekeeper's gut.

The entire reaping crowd, children, adults, Peacekeepers, Capitol officials, everyone it seems like in the whole world, takes a collective gasp as the struck soldier keels over in pain. Smoke doesn't stop there, oh no, this isn't that type of day for him.

Alarm bells are ringing off in his head at how Smoke should not give into the forms of fear and anger, how one must hold themselves with a rigor that not even the most patriotic can replicate, but he doesn't care.

He punches the Peacekeeper again, angling for not just flesh, but for the visor, and even the damned megaphone. One of Smoke's strikes breaks through the visor, shards sticking in the bed of his knuckles and the hollow points between his joints, but it's not enough for Smoke to relent.

He grits his teeth together, the next punch causing the Peacekeeper to cough up blood, which splatters onto the boy's face. It is not the first time, and now that he has been reaped, it'll certainly not be the last amount of copper to mark his skin. His father's skin is amber with whiskey, hints of black soil running through the droplets from the exhaust of coal mines. The Peacekeeper's blood is metallic, the hint of guns, of brutality and bullets and misery that decorate Smoke's skin.

"Go to hell! Burn in hell! Die in hell!" Smoke yells, over and over again, but as he raises his fist to hit the Peacekeeper once more, the Capitol decides that the outburst is over, another trio of goons in snowstorm white colliding into the young man.

Smoke growls out in pure rage as he's brought to the ground, able to throw one of the men off, but two baton hits to the back of the head, and he's resting his head against the concrete. He hocks a glob of blood from his mouth, now incapable of stopping the laughter that spills from his throat.

"How does that feel, huh?" he cries out, jubilant almost, near-enough, as he's bullied the bullies, and they never win, but neither does Smoke Hartisan, so what does that make him in the grand scheme of things, now? "How does that feel, you prick?"

The two Peacekeepers he hasn't maimed yet drag Smoke to his knees, but he does not rise to his feet, for a fourth Peacekeeper rounds the front, the unmistakable sound of electricity roaring to life hitting Smoke's ears.

A cattle prod is jabbed underneath Smoke's jaw, and as his cackle rebounds against District Twelve's surrounding skies, all turns to black.

All he sees before his vision is marred in shadow is Anneke's proud face on stage, and as a lesson learned from his father, the brutality marring the Peacekeeper's face. All of it has colluded into a symbol.

A symbol of Smoke's wrath, and in the plume that rises into the sky, none shall survive.

---

Astra Enoshima: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)

---

This could not be happening.

It couldn't be happening, but it is and there's nothing Astra Enoshima can do but stare it in the face and screech. The Hunger Games cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be twisted around her finger and made to heel. The people in them can, as she is hit with the stunning clarity that she has to fight in the Games someday soon with others, but the establishment itself cannot be bent.

The girl paces the room back and forth, her hands digging into her scalp, pressuring along the rivet of bone against the back of her skull and against the nape of her neck, dark hair flush against her pale skin. She is an Enoshima, and one from the breed of regality that she is does not sweat. An Enoshima is not anxious.

If that is the case, how come it feels like she's about to pass out?

Astra sits down on one of the aptly looked fainting couches, pressing her hands against her forehead, wiping the sweat away and flinging it onto the carpet. Unlike when Porscha Watanabe is reaped last year, in which Astra is in the crowd, leering and trying to get a glimpse of the sacrificed cow, the eligible teenagers are all simply staring at her this time around. Porscha receives cheers for her demise, and when she dies in the arena, there is an uproar of celebratory noise.

All she gets instead is the look of hatred, from some of them at least, the smart ones. They're the smart ones, to view her with contempt. She's probably had a hand in ruining their lives.

"Saving them," she corrects herself, with a perceptible shake of her head. She and her family have saved so many lives over the years, peddling people to the righteous path of healing and virtuosity. While her father, Verano Enoshima works on the frontlines doing the work of the many, Astra works in the shadows doing the work of the few.

Idle gossip here and there, words of wisdom that are turned and twisted like patches of dark soil into whispers of deceit and trickery. It's her game, where her father understood test tubes and numbers, she understands persona and reputation. Reputation precedes one before they ever get to open their mouths and speak.

"I can do this," Astra repeats to herself, resuming her pacing.

She's thankful for the lack of cameras in the room, though the door is locked, and she doesn't know how to pick it. A lack of cameras mean there isn't anyone who can get a snapshot of what it's like to see an Enoshima come undone, as the thaw of shock still rides her veins when Ayanna Jett selects her name from the reaping roulette.

She knew she's not invincible, but it sure has felt that way, sitting on a throne made of oil gaskets and iron mufflers.

Enoshima Motors, her family's prestigious reputation that precedes them. There is a niche market in District Six for those who can afford motorcycles, way back when as Astra is six years old and spinning a tire around and around and around with her fingers, the motion leaving black rubber into the pads of her fingertips.

She runs her fingers together, frowning at how they're stained the same color as ruinous oil with its penchant to ruin. "Why do we build motorcycles?" she asks her father, who is bent over the latest design they're to start selling immediately after President Israel lifts the embargo of motors. "Why not something everyone uses? Like trains?"

It is her mother who speaks to her in lieu of her father, distracted from the numbers dancing above his head. Her mother, Morphia Enoshima who is strong and fair, with strength that Astra only dreams of.

Her mother's strength is returning now, thankfully, but it is coming slow, like a dying gasp, or the last of winter's chill leeching off of the rise of spring.

"You are an Enoshima, Astra," her mother tells her, gripping her hard by the wrist and curving her thumbs in so Astra has to buckle to her mother's will. "We stand out against the masses since no one else will. If we build trains like everyone else, and wheels and other gadgets, then we're like everyone else."

"Okay…" Astra blinks back, confused. Her first lesson, one of many.

"And what do we say and think of everyone else?" her mother continues, imploring Astra for a question, but the girl can only frown, searching for answers in the matriarch's brow. Morphia sighs, curving a hand into her daughter's cheek. "We are above everyone else."

If she is above everyone else, as an Enoshima, then how has it come to pass that Astra is to endure this fate?

She will not be mocked. She is the one who mocks, the one who jests, the one who causes others to crumble and teach them that there is nothing more important in this world than your word, than how others see the value in your speech.

Astra wipes away a bead of sweat that trickles down her face. Not sweat. Tears. Weak. Useless tears. Tears will not help her win the Hunger Games, and she's done her share of crying now. She's sick of it.

Her tears are real enough when she's nine years-old and the other children on the playground refuse to associate with her, since when do the poor and the rich ever mingle? Why would anyone want to be with an Enoshima who is so snobby that even the president of Panem cannot dine at their table?

Her tears are real enough when the fire bombs start falling on the poorer sectors of District Six, and she watches bodies burn – skin alights so easy, and it is so red when the sun catches the peeling and the falling and the masticating and the – and Astra has to wonder where it's all gone wrong. Who set the world afire and who is refusing to grab the extinguisher?

Her tears are even real enough as her mother gives her more lessons over time, and the way her wrist is gripped by Morphia Enoshima starts to shrink, thinner and thinner fingers gripping to Astra's skin. There are tears that litter her luminescent face when her mother's cheeks turn gaunt, when her cries for help or mere whimpers.

Her last cry has been reserved for the tombstone that says Morphia Enoshima in one of Six's last untouched resting places for the dead.

She will not cry today. Her tears are crumbled smokestacks, hypodermic needles, the sound of backfire from a motorcycle's exhaust. The wheels of industry form her tears now.

"Save me," she thinks to herself, heaving another sigh. She cannot bring her force of friends with her into the Games, into the Capitol. She's on her own, but she's about to kick the door down if she has to, for even one more second stare at the hideous wallpaper that adorns the holding cell.

It is so garish, it's the color of her mother's bile in the sick pan. She nearly hurls it herself.

Astra goes to sit again, immediately standing right back up as the door to the room wrenches open.

"Dad…" she exhales, the worry lifting off of her shoulders. She'll be told that everything is okay, she'll be told that there is nothing wrong with her, and that Ayanna Jett has made a mistake… the infallible Capitol has failed, and Astra Enoshima is not going into the Games-

"My little girl…" Verano whispers, a Peacekeeper shutting the door behind him as he enters. Her father stands tall, his hands clenched by his side, Astra seeing the hint of black string dangling from his underneath his fingers.

Astra's shoulders deflate, she balling her tongue against the left side of her mouth. "Oh," she says, sinking back down onto the couch. She's never felt like this before, in this fluctuation, even as her mother sickens from the amount of smog poisoning the air, even as the fire alarms are ringing off the hook as Datsun Watanabe's hovercrafts cause hell all over Panem.

For the first time in her life, she feels helpless. An Enoshima is not helpless.

She does not reach for her father's embrace, nor does she expect it. Verano stands in the center of the room, Astra distracted by the hideous wallpaper, and even the way her father's tie has become off-kilted for he's surely been running through the halls of the Justice Building to reach his only heir.

If she dies, her father will be alone. Except, she won't die. She has more than her physical body to tether her to the Earth, more than her face that Panem will remember if she ever truly did die.

"This will not defeat you," her father says, as he reaches her across the room, placing his hands underneath her chin, forcing Astra to lift her head up and follow the movement. "So many things have tried casting their stones at you to knock you off your pedestal, but they've all missed. They've all failed."

Astra grins back, letting the sweat and faint remnants of her crying remain on her face. A grim reminder that who she is exists beyond the four walls of the waiting room. She's built a name for herself, being an alpha, being someone that others admire, someone others fear.

"And for good reason," Astra thinks to herself, lowering her father's hand from her chin and down to her pulse against the nape of her neck. It is steady, it is calm. An apex predator, a serenity that few in this life are afforded. "Falcon isn't with me just out of love."

Falcon Bridgestone, her second-in-command, the man who will heed to her father for guidance while she is away. There will be countless others leading by her example, seeing how she's escaped all the attempts to unseat her from the iron throne, pledging to do the same as she did.

"There's doubt," Astra nods her head, giving back into the insecurity. It shows up every once in a while with her mother gone. Even after their successes, even after what she saw her father do for his wife once she began to get poisoned by the sulfuric air in Six, that sting still rests along her collarbone, and cleaving into her left hip.

They failed to see something, they hit an oversight… they made mistakes, and an Enoshima, one who wishes to hold to that last name, does not falter or trip over hurdles.

"Think of all you have done for this family, for me," Verano insists, and he raises his right hand up, the pieces of string Astra sees unfurling as he lets go of his hand.

It's a necklace, as he ties it around Astra's neck, her eyebrows rising in surprise at how it's a needle resting against her flesh.

"Dad…" she exhales, looking at him, unsure of the look she is returning. Verano Enoshima looks at his daughter in reverence.

"Our name would not be what it still is if it weren't for you, Astra," her father says, and then he taps the needle, the movement causing it to prick the center of her chest. "Let this be a reminder of that."

A reminder it is, as Astra scoffs. Ten years-old, and she causes rivalries to crumble. Fifteen years-old and she's politically rallying the troops. Sixteen years-old and she's taken her mother's place as the mogul head in the business, turning conflict into opportunity. All the while, her throne is building, and Astra has taken her seat.

"You will not fail," her father says, he leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. "You cannot fail."

A lump forms in Astra's throat, she righting her posture, lifting her chin up. Alpha. Queen Bee. Royal Bitch. She's all of those things, wrapped up in one needle, in one empire to the next, whether it be motorcycles, drugs… the Hunger Games will need a queen, and luckily, there is one waiting to take their rightful place.

Astra grins for the first time since her name is drawn from the roulette.

"I will not fail," she says.

The time for mourning and remembrance is over.

Astra Enoshima has a Hunger Games to win.

---

Cain Passionia: Head Gamemaker P.O.V

---

It's been eleven months since Cain watches the clone born from wires and sparks shoot Lydia Wickervein dead between the eyes, and in that eleven months' time, no one has suspected a thing. Cain doesn't need anyone to say it aloud, though he will still appreciate the gesture, that he's a genius. It's just common knowledge at this point, to take a being of flesh and replace them with that of metal, and no has thought anything of it.

Sure, there have been rough parts that Cain oversteps in the earlier stages of Lydia's existence – he coins the replicant as Lie-dia, patting himself on the back with that one – with how he lazily programs only a few sentences here or there for her to utter. That draws some of Richmond's ire with how his wife won't speak, she won't say anything other than how tired she is, and it means Cain is back to the drawing board, giving Lydia a "vacation" so she can rest her eyes.

Now, there's old mannerisms that are back, an inflection in her voice of anger, sadness, warmth – Cain saw less and less of that warmth in real life, with the real woman he murdered – regret, but for fun, he's dialed up the violence aspect to the nth degree. And violent is this new Head Peacekeeper of the state.

Voices of dissidence have been disquieted as they see regular public executions, or those who have their doors kicked down in fright. Cain can sit back with his arms folded behind his head and grin. It's all coming to a head, and no one can tie it back to him.

There's Nyria, but he's watched as over the months have gone by that her paranoia is increasing rapidly, to her looking over her shoulders a lot, entering and exiting a room twice before staying still, and he's heard rumors she's even now sleeping with a gun.

All of this doesn't matter to him, not really, and with today being Reaping Day, all the focus can be split away from him as he, Emrick, Nyria, and "Lydia" all sit back in the president's office just like last year. A feeling of déjà vu crawls up Cain's spine, but he shakes it off with a crooked grin.

Emrick has an avox grab him a cup of water, his shoulders set back, the grey in his hair even more prominent than from last year. "He's aged," Cain thinks to himself, seeing the worry lines that furrow in his brow, the expression of uncomfortable comfort sloped between the eyes. Nyria has changed her ever dyed hair to a permanent black, as if she's still mourning the Norse gods that had been eradicated when the Norse landscape is retired away from public eyes. She's seated herself on the far right side of the couch over by the TV, next to…

Lydia.

Cain eyes the Head Peacekeeper from his spot in the back of the room, gaze hawklike as he surveys the room. Lydia is in her Peacekeeper garb, the measurements being just right, and the vapid look of disinterest is gone from the replicant's face, replaced with an austere coldness that Cain used to remember as the Lydia Wickervein. Not a woman who wanted to end the Hunger Games, who wanted to commit treason.

The reaping recap should be beginning at any moment, Cain frowning and checking his watch.

"Is there a delay, Emrick?" he asks, as the president finishes a sip of his water, cheeks flushed.

"There's always a delay with Richmond," comes Lydia's voice, harsh, grating, but far less mechanical. There is a hint of humor there, an old rib between husband and wife if no one knew any better. "A curl may be off, or he might have hacked up a lung practicing his vocal exercises…"

"Lydia," Nyria scolds, derision in her voice. She rests a hand on the Head Peacekeeper's leg, as Lydia is sitting on the couch as well, but the physical touch causes the replicant to repel away from the Gamemaker. "Well, that was just rude of you, you know. He's your husband," Nyria keeps on talking, despite the cold rejection.

"She's kidding," Emrick says, the first time he has spoken in the last ten minutes when all four officials arrive at the room together. "Richmond does all that and more though, you know."

Nyria frowns, her lips so tightly pressed together that they almost disappear. She's become petulant, even more so than normal. Defensive over any comment here or there, especially concerning Richmond. Cain quips an eyebrow. What a scandal it would be… the mutts designer from foreign lands, and the Master of Ceremonies, an illicit affair…

Felix Fiore would have a field day with that.

"It's starting," Lydia interrupts, for Nyria is about to protest something again. The mood in the room shifts as the trumpet fanfare of Panem's national anthem blares from the speakers.

Emrick scrambles for the remote to turn down the sound, but Cain keeps his eyes on Lydia. She doesn't even react, which is good, it's exactly what he wants, what he's programed. A replicant is to be a person, a perfect mimicry without the telltale signs of humanity. She doesn't need to sleep, need to eat… she doesn't require or rest nor does she ever tire. What affects him will not affect her.

"My perfect soldier," Cain thinks to himself, smugly. "And I made it. No one else had a say in her creation. I am, that I am."

Godly words, for a godly man.

Richmond Anvil's face fills the screen as the camera in the studio zooms in on his reporting desk. He's quite the performer, and for the untrained eye, they wouldn't think anything of the man on screen, but Cain has known him for years. He isn't sleeping. The bags under the eyes that makeup cannot conceal, the way his hair tussles and curls despite tender care from tossing and turning all night… the quip of a frown at the corner of his lips.

He's damaged.

Good. Cain's never liked the man all that much anyhow.

"What's the rigged number for this year, Cain?" Emrick asks, as he finishes his cup of water, loosening his tie.

Cain smirks, leaning back against the wall, uncaring of how the scraping digs into the cotton vestments of his suit. "A few," he grins back at the president, the exact question and quip he's directed at last year. Emrick frowns disapprovingly back but shrugs and relents from the questioning.

Cain observes the room as Richmond gives his long and momentous speech copied lock, stock, and barrel from the year before. If it isn't broken, why fix it? Someone's missing, as the vice president surveys who is present and who isn't. One who won't take lightly to the slight of missing an invitation.

"Where's Felix?" he asks.

Nyria laughs at the question, a behavior unlike her. "We didn't invite him. A two to one vote, Cain," she says, looking over her shoulder. "And besides, if he isn't with her," the mutts designer juts her head in the direction of the screen as the feed replaces Richmond's face with a zoom in on Adriane Lantham, "Who cares where he is."

Emrick nods his head in approval, Cain rolling his eyes. "You let that man get under your skin way too easily, you two. He and I get along just great."

"Gee…" Nyria drawls out, rubbing a hand under her chin. "I wonder why that is, Cain?"

"Play nice, children," Emrick teases, though his shoulders have yet to settle down. "The matter of Felix Fiore can be discussed later."

Cain purses his lips, frowning. Emrick doesn't even look over at the two adults, his stare kept ahead on the screen. Ah, perhaps the president is right – an occasion that is happening less and less as time goes on, but nonetheless, Cain can save his energy – and the fight can wait for later. Nyria keeps her gaze on the vice president for a moment longer, smirk still plastered across her features, but Cain ignores her.

His focus centers on the monitor, as Adriane Lantham rests perfectly in place in frame. Her skin is beautiful against the yellow sun dress she's donned for the occasion, a tablet sitting in her hand. There had been talk by some lower level Gamemakers that Cain doesn't remember the names of in how there'd be something so… intense to the situation if the names were removed from the digital database and thrown together on pieces of paper for the escort to draw from.

"Think of the cost," Cain says with derision at the two gentlemen, his gaze fliting over the two of them. "Who hired you, again?" The response is a swift nod in his direction. "Ah," the man says with emphasis on the 'a' sound. "That needs to be rectified."

Adriane greets the crowd, which earns cheers and a light smattering of applause. "And the reaping begins!" she announces with finality.

A moment passes, as if everyone in Panem were sharing a singular breath. The name flashes on screen, Cain sitting higher in his chair as if that action would grant him better sight at who'd be selected.

"Harquinne Villoria!" Adriane shouts, and it is as if a spotlight lands directly on a girl in the eighteen year-old section. A much better selection than that little child from last year, Cain sorts to himself, as he takes in the darling beauty, who is simply beautiful, rivaling Adriane's own loveliness on stage.

The girl is rooted in place for a bit, her body simply trembling, evident by how the frills of her dress move some, as District 1's weather report claims there to be no chance of wind in the day. Harquinne stands rigidly as if someone planted a thumbtack between her shoulder blades, and then she's on the move, still rigidly, to the stage.

And joining her…

"Rigged," Cain mutters, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, as the name Dorian Argenti replaces Harquinne's on the screens in District 1.

Another eighteen-year-old to his chagrin, but after he and Emrick viewed the teenager's prison record that makes Vesuvia Vocanova look like a walk in the park, there is no doubt in Cain's mind about choosing him. If he dies, easy enough, a criminal has been swept out of Panem's streets, and if he wins… well, it'll be a damn show for sure.

Dorian mirrors Harquinne's starstruck moment too, though he breaks out of it much faster, with a jolly laugh up to the sky, a hand on his stomach. The look in his eyes is delightfully darkening by the second, as he joins the girl on stage, she standing as far away from him. Even when the two are advised to shake hands, as is the new tradition, Harquinne hesitates, and Dorian snatches up the limb way too fast for what is anticipated.

The royal purple banners of District 1 are replaced by the stark weather of District 2, overcast and cloudy, dreariness pouring in from the stones, the foundations weeping rivets of salt and lime. District 2 had been Cain's favorite district last year, the rivalry between Portia and Magnus one for the history books, and it had been such a shame to him that the two weren't near each other when Portia passed away.

The girl name hasn't even been on screen for more than a second, as Merida with her still blueberry dyed hair is forming the syllables, when the cry rings out clear… "I volunteer!"

Said volunteer also comes from the front of the crowd in the eighteen-year-old section as well, a person known as Desdemona Farsiris. Cain frowns, looking at the individual. Something about them looks very familiar, as Desdemona makes a point for Merida to stop calling them a "nice little girl wanting to follow in Magnus Winterthorn's footsteps."

"What part, dearie?" Merida asks the tribute.

"The 'nice little girl'," Desdemona snarks back, though there is not much emotion in their tone, a lacking look in their eyes. Cain rubs his jaw, unable to place where he's seen them before, but none of his memories are resurfacing at the moment.

The other tribute, however, he recognizes immediately. Cerberus Arkwright, tall and domineering, leeching himself from the front as the fourth eighteen-year-old tribute in a row. Rigged, again, but even all the way in the Capitol, a shiver slides up Cain's spine at the sight at the teenager who makes Merida, who is wearing heels, small.

Murmurs of dissent ripple through the crowd at the sight of Cerberus, even one person shouting, "But you're supposed to be dead!"

Cerberus grins back, hands deep in his pockets. "Am I?" he says cheekily.

District Three's tribute for the girls is an easy no-brainer, as Jasione Byun is forcefully thrown on stage. A report from Peacekeeper forces tell the tale of how the runaway ran away again – "Some heads need to roll for this," Cain muses to himself, "She's gotten luckier than most." – and the punishment is easy enough… prison won't kill her, a jury won't, why not let the Hunger Games?

Cole tries reaching for her hand to help her up, but she slaps it away, an evident scowl plastering her features. "Oh, fuck off!" she screeches, venom in her tone, venom in her stare. Cain likes her fire, enough, but she's a leech on the system, she's a cancerous growth that needs to be radiated to death.

Tauren Anatole joins her, and the rank is six for six in terms of eighteen-year-olds, Cain's eyebrows rising at the notion. Last year's Games were older, by a wide margin, but a fourth of the tributes already hitting that threshold is intense. The cameras find him, tall, strikingly handsome, which has Nyria making a swooning noise in her throat, but the moment Tauren senses the cameras on his face, where there's a scowl there, his head has been lowered away from the crowd.

Jasione and Tauren do not shake hands when Cole prompts it, his cheery disposition replaced by that of disturbance at Jasione's outburst.

District 4 had been the runner-up for Cain in terms of a favorite district, watching Diana Kratovska and Orion Maythorpe have another rivalry for the books, maybe there'll be a chance for the successors to replicate that success. Or so Cain thinks, as Wyvern Sienna says the name of a little scrawny thirteen-year-old who is actually pushed out of the pen in the way, way back of the crowd.

She's crying, which is just horrendous for Cain to witness, he glancing over at Lydia in the corner to catch the replicant's reaction. The old Wickervein, the real Wickervein, she'd have bristled at this moment, seeing a child sob openly in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. His creation?

She doesn't even flinch.

There is screaming on camera, as a family in the roped off section are trying to push through Peacekeepers who have blocked the entrance. The little girl collapses to her feet, hands holding close to her chest, tears flowing freely down her face. A Peacekeeper goes to pick the child up, when there, at the last moment, comes a voice.

"Stop it! I'll go! I'll go!"

Naia Marsay is revealed out of the sixteen-year-old crowd. Her blonde hair is bright against the bleached white brick of the Justice Building, a steely look in her eyes. There is no relation between her and the girl she's volunteered for, but it's done enough to pique Cain's interest. She doesn't look like a fighter, like Diana did, but no one just volunteers.

No one would expect heroics or bravery from the child that is selected next, Ren Maris, who actually is brought up to the stage by the Peacekeepers once his name is called. His mother, presumably, is wailing over Wyvern asking the kid to be brought near him, but Ren hasn't spoken a word. His long brown hair covers part of his face, but his eyes are darting around looking at everything in his vicinity, not holding onto much for more than the span of a heartbeat. He's muttering something under his breath, but the mumbling is too quiet to be picked up the microphones.

If District 2 had been a depressing skyline, it is actually raining in District 5 when the feed shifts to Ginger Castle, her hair ironically fitting her namesake this time around. District 5 in the polls held in the Capitol about which district was the citizens' favorites in the Games ranks last, and Cain isn't surprised. Zachary Edison dies first with a sword to the chest, and Kileigh Katsaras's acting moment of bravery is trying to shoot a squirrel, which ends up with her brain being battered out of her head.

Cain recognizes the girl that volunteers out of Five, she standing tall on stage next to the escort, her complexion pale, but the steeliness in her eyes is anything but. "Veryn Alenti," Cain voices, aloud, over the girl doing the same when Ginger prompts her name.

Emrick shifts back in his chair, looking over the vice president with a silent look, but it is Nyria once again who does not pick up on the social cues. "Who is she?"

"Jasione Byun's paramour," Cain spits out, glaring at the girl on screen who looks just so content with herself. People like Jasione and Veryn do not deserve love, they do not deserve happiness. They wished to overthrow his reign, wished to murder himself, his child, his wife in cold blood because District Thirteen did not know where they belonged. They believed themselves to be the kingpin, when truthfully they belonged all the way at the end of the pile.

One who commits sedition and treason does not deserve love, but the cold floors of a jail cell, and a silver bullet lodged between the eyes.

"Oh, that's just awful!" Nyria exclaims, breaking Cain out of his rage-filled stupor, the man having bitten down on the inside of his cheek, copper spilling over his tongue and down his throat. Her reaction is to that of the reaped Velimir Novotny, another eighteen-year-old, and a sense of sadness permeates through the District 5 crowd.

There is a child in his arms, a little girl who cannot be older than a year or two in the young man's arms. His face is completely blank, even as tears clearly begin to stream down his face. He looks among the crowd emptily, the child in his arms starting to cry.

Velimir brings the kid on stage with him, still cooing and rocking her back and forth in his hands. A Peacekeeper has to force him to let go, but even as the young man's fingers are pried by rubber gloves and a baton hit to the back, Velimir has not changed his facial expression once. He stands there, silent, still not speaking, with tears now freely spilling down his face. Veryn Alenti's face is one of rage, she looking as if she were to murder the Peacekeeper right there.

District Six is surprisingly sunny, and a much needed change of pace from the sound of District 5's torrential downpour hitting the tinned roofs and solar panels that adorned the district square. He sits back some, a knot growing in his stomach as they've reached the halfway point, and he's still unsure whether or not to be impressed about what he's seeing.

Astra Enoshima is the girl for Six, and there are no cheers from the crowd like when the hated Watanabe kid is offered up as a sacrifice. Datsun Watanabe had made several phone calls – more than several, the official logs chart it upwards of five hundred or so – and a few in-person visits about how they could possibly let his kid die, but Cain simply sits in his office with a smirk, hands lanced over the other.

Her face is angry, from how her eyebrows prick together, and the way the girl blinks, he can see the gears turning in her head… how could this be possibly happening to her, perhaps.

"Ridley Lifeson!" calls Ayanna as the male tribute has been reaped, and from the seventeen-year-old section, the crowd parts in… an odd way, as that is all Cain can think of in the moment. The kid is wearing a set of sunglasses, dark black and thick for even on screen the vice president can see the lenses poking out from the frame.

Astra's lips quirk up in a smirk, he paying half attention as he sees the girl mouth, "Well, he doesn't look like competition," and Cain is hard pressed to agree. Ridley Lifeson keeps his head upright, his posture straight too, but his hands curve downwards along the handle of the walking stick, which is moving out in a waving motion, occasionally hitting the shoes of other kids, and once Ridley reaches the steps, he nearly trips from the abrupt stop.

"He's blind?" Nyria exclaims, the emotion in her voice as if she's never even seen a blind person before.

"Blindness does occur in humans, Nyria," Cain says snidely, back, but she doesn't react back at him.

He doesn't give Ridley Lifeson much of a chance in the arena, especially with all the chasms and gorges and other heights that he knows exist in it. He and Nyria ensured that there'd be more elevation, and he figures one would need sight to adeptly cover that sort of ground.

District Seven are both rigged reapings, which is another consensus from he and Emrick. The consensuses are rare between them now, Cain wondering what got broken up over the years as their martini conversations turn into solo drinking nights, and his name is left off of bills that should be co-sponsored.

Ilana Wylder throws an absolute temper tantrum when her name is selected from Javier Nordem's tablet. She's cussing, screaming, kicking, punching, just about every action in the book that one can force out as a Peacekeeper loops their arms around her back and wrenches her up off of the ground. A second camera spots her brother immediately in the crowd, Narcissus Wylder grinning widely as his sister is thrown onto the stage and told to stay put, or else.

That smirk goes away pretty quickly however when his name is next to appear underneath his sister's, and it is Ilana who doubles over laughing so hard that spit flies from her mouth. "That's what you get, you fucker!" she's shrieking at him over and over again, pointing a finger in his direction. "That's what you get!"

It's what they both deserve, being spawns of Heath Wylder and the thousands of laws, he's broken over the course of a few years with his cultivating farm, with the Essence and all of the jazz involved in his ring of fuckery. Guilty by association, perhaps, but Cain isn't punishing the children for the sins of the father. They are not blameless in this no matter what innocence they may try to proclaim.

District 8 has become lively as best as the space can with the fact that Poem Cavalli is a victor. There are golden banners and streamers hanging off of every available crevice on the Justice Building, Poem standing directly behind Damien Paladine in a dress she surely has made herself. This is where she must prove that winning had not been a fluke, where she truly is a darling of Panem.

Cain hasn't seen her in months, as she's on the go a lot, and with how her victory tour started and ended, it is best she's not in the public eye as often. Poem's face does not betray an emotion as Damien selects the female name this year, someone who hopefully will not have a bumbling idiot volunteer for them.

Ness Turner is the newest sacrifice, and no one volunteers for her. The girl, like a few others before her, does not move for the first few moments after she hears her own name, a look of fear and panic reflected in her eyes.

Sensing that everyone's eye must be on her, she straightens her shoulders, shifting her shoulders back, walking directly towards the stage. Poem bristles in her spot, and Damien doesn't look all too pleased either, but that is not Cain's problem.

"Congratul-" Poem starts to say, heading towards the girl and offering her hand, but like Jasione did with Cole's back in Three, Ness Turner slaps it away, a scowl on her face.

"Get the hint, Cavalli!" the girl snipes back. "No one wants you here, and if I win the Games, it will not be because of you."

Poem's brow softens under the blow, her lip quivering, but there are no tears in the victor's eye. An awkward pause flits between the three occupants on stage, Poem touching Damien's arm for him to continue.

Sable Faru is selected next, and finally, as Cain expels a heavy breath from his lungs, a younger child has been reaped! The kid is thirteen years-old, and from where he is standing, up against the rope wall on the far right in the male section, he's near a microphone.

"It'll be okay, it'll all be okay," he says over and over again, Sable running his hands up and down his arms as he takes his place opposite Ness's side. The girl gives him a one-over and rolls her eyes, scoffing, before crossing her arms.

"Unbelievable," she mutters.

Neither of them shake hands as well, even at Poem's insistence and the motion of the victor putting her hands in her pockets, as if she were gripping something. The victor looks like she wants to get closer to Sable, to wrap her arms around him in a hug, but she doesn't move.

District Nine switches next, with Clair Rosenbaum standing on stage, hair tied back tautly in a ponytail, heels placing her higher than microphone, as normally she's shorten than the stand.

"Maeve Nightingale!" Clair calls out when the selector has made its choice.

The name also rings a bell in Cain's head, but he still cannot quite placate the memory when the camera finds the girl, who just like Ness and the others, is frozen in place. When she moves, as a girl behind her pokes her back, Maeve thrusts herself forward in a very robotic form. Maeve holds her arms tightly together, body shivering, and from how her clothes are presented, it looks like she's soaking wet.

Roark Barlowe joins her, another younger kid for once, and he's crying before he even reaches the stage. Some kid. Zachary Edison and Cassiopeia Grey did not cry when they had been reaped, from what Cain can recall, and the kid, who looks like he could stand a fighting chance if he tried, is ruining his chances with the sponsors, for all they're ever going to see is a weakling. A weakling who can't fight.

"You thought the same of Poem," a voice in his head reminds him, Cain frowning. He did, that is true, and she proved him wrong – which'll never happen again, mark his words – but something tells him the only fate Roark will ever receive is being buried six feet under.

District 10 is bright and sunny, with a few clouds spotting the sky. Roxanne Underseer is the escort once again, and the name Anais Denali is flashing on the screen. Cain busts out laughing when the camera finds her.

"Look at her!" he cries out, guffawing heavily, and even Lydia is chuckling.

The girl is looking around at the world as if she had been dropped into a simulation. Her head is on a swivel, back and forth, side to side, and she's even beginning to pinch herself, as if she were dreaming. She may not be dreaming, but Anais will certainly be walking into a nightmare, as she takes her place up on the stage next to Roxanne.

Philip Woodacre is her district partner, which this time elicits a reaction from Emrick. "Oh," the president says, as he's grabbed his glasses off of his desk, placing them on the top of his head. "That's too bad. The Woodacre family are patriots through and through."

"What did he do?" Nyria asks, as the kid gets to the stage, and he's as impervious as stone, face drawn out in a pensive nature, looking past the camera at someone that Cain cannot see. The skyline, perhaps, maybe even a family member, but the look is there, similar to what Cain saw in Velimir.

A permeating melancholy.

"You'll see soon enough," Emrick replies cryptically, to which Nyria frowns, annoyed.

District 11 is also bright and sunny, but the camera that must be used for the main viewpoint must be near a tracker jacker nest for there is the evident sound of buzzing that is not technical being loudly heard over the speakers.

Marlon Caynes is the escort for District 11 once again despite Eleven's poor performance in the Games last year with Dill dying in the bloodbath, and despite Cassiopeia's best efforts, she making it before the top twelve had been a travesty.

Cain expects far better things from Azalea Oleander however, when her name is called from the microphone, and her gorgeous looks are on display for everyone to see. She looks lethal at a first glance, her eyes skittishly glancing from one side to the other, trying to match faces in the crowd, but she quickly puts a halt to it.

Conrad Culler joins her on stage just a few moments later, and he's tall. The young man sets his shoulders back, and as the camera zooms in closer on stage towards the two, Cain gets a glimpse of his hands. They're chaffed over at the spot where his fingers meet his palms, and he's more muscular than most people Cain has ever seen before.

He's a Peacekeeper, without a doubt.

Azalea must make the same sort of recognition, for her face turns into a darkening scowl, Conrad hasn't looked in her direction yet, silent, and stony, perhaps just thinking about the world. Marlon motions them to shake hands, and as they get closer to touching, Azalea retracts her hand and spits on it.

Marlon makes a face of disgust, but it only has Conrad quip an eyebrow. He shrugs his shoulders, and finishes the handshake, but that makes Azalea quickly squeak a gross noise from her throat.

The feed switches over to Twelve rather abruptly, after the sight of spit and other grossness on screen. "Blood and gore are fine," Cain thinks to himself, amusedly, "But spit? Oh no, we can't let the children see that!"

District Twelve is like District Two and Five in the smog and the smoke, the dreariness cooped up in one bubble of depression that if it were to be popped, it'd roll over the beautiful mountains seen in the distance.

Anneke Van Acker is the first from District Twelve to be reaped, and no one volunteers for her, as the girl makes it to the stage, a troubled look on her face. She hasn't moved a muscle once she takes Kenneth's hand to stand on the left sided platform, but her body is tense, prepared to jump at any moment.

Smoke Hartisan is the last tribute to be reaped, and there hasn't been a single volunteer since District Five, and it looks like there won't be one for Smoke either, who doesn't seem pleased by the course of action.

Not to be outdone by District Seven's theatrics, however, as that had been Cain's personal favorite to see on screen, at the first hint of contact between Smoke and a Peacekeeper, the boy readies his fist and smashes it into the visor, and it breaks.

The Peacekeeper falls back from the blow, Smoke pouncing on the soldier, pummeling hit after hit into the man's stomach, and sure enough, with one well landed hit, the Peacekeeper vomits up a spew of blood.

In the short few seconds of the brawl between them, Peacekeepers converge on Smoke like sugar ants diving for a sweet laying unclaimed on the ground. The boy receives two hits to the back of the head with two different batons, which causes Smoke to careen forward.

As he slumps forward, a third Peacekeeper rounds the front, a shock prod like those used in District Ten to corral cattle together is thrust under the boy's jaw. Smoke twitches in place for a few seconds, the electric shock enough to knock him unconscious, and he's hefted onto the stage.

Well!

That had been exciting!

Cain sits back and waits for the reaping fanfare to commence, Richmond returning to the screen, and he doesn't waste a single moment introducing the panelists that'll be covering the proceedings that the entire nation had just witnessed.

"See you around," Lydia mutters not even a second later, causing Nyria to squeak in confusion, and even Emrick has raised his eyebrows in confusion. The Head Peacekeeper is gone in a blur of brown hair and white leather, the mutts designer getting up to follow her.

Emrick turns the television off, turning the chair around to face Cain.

"They'll certainly be a cast of kids, won't they?" he says.

"They're all old," Cain comments, noting that in his head immediately. "Besides Sable and Roark, everyone else is sixteen or older," a grin creeping up on his face. "A higher chance for bloodshed, Emrick."

Harquinne Villoria. Dorian Argenti. Desdemona Farsiris. Cerberus Arkwright. Jasione Byun. Tauren Anatole. Naia Marsay. Ren Maris. Veryn Alenti. Velimir Novotny. Astra Enoshima. Ridley Lifeson. Ilana Wylder. Narcissus Wylder. Ness Turner. Sable Faru. Maeve Nightingale. Roark Barlowe. Anais Denali. Philip Woodacre. Azalea Oleander. Conrad Culler. Anneke Van Acker. Smoke Hartisan.

Cain runs through all twenty-four names in his head. Interesting, interesting indeed… all but one will die, and he knows, just looking at them, what kind of spectacle it'll be.

He's summoned them from their homes to sacrifice their lives for the greater good, as he sacrificed Lydia, as he sacrificed Raphael Passion, as he sacrificed Nathaniel Coin and all of District Thirteen… these children will die for the greater good of Cain's mission.

It is Cain Passionia's plan to rule Panem, and nothing will get in his way.

---

There are a lot of things I wish I could say in the interim from my hiatus being four months long, the longest time I have ever been away from writing a single word for this account, but, the important thing is that the third set of intros are complete... Chapter #8: Summoners of Sacrifice: Sable Faru from D8 by Audmirable, Desdemona Farsiris from D2 by thornehub, Smoke Hartisan from D12 also by Audmirable, and Astra Enoshima from D6 by ladyqueerfoot. These kids were a wonderful set to break back into writing with, and while I found Cain's reaping recap the genuinely hardest part to nail, once I got over that hurdle, the order of Astra, Smoke, Sable, and Desdemona honestly felt natural, and I wrote essentially this last 14k in three days, like old times, heh.

The next set of intros is going to be the first of three sets of train rides, and we're starting things off with the wonderful latter half of the cast in Naia Marsay, Roark Barlowe, Anneke Van Acker, and Cerberus Arkwright.

I am sorry about how long this has taken me, but I promise that I will have this story complete one day, and it won't be via a summary, as I can make anything work. To those who supported me through this tough time, I appreciate it more than you'll ever know, and thank you all for your patience and understanding, as life is... well, difficult, and we can just do our best to get through this. Of course, as usual, your thoughts on the chapter will greatly be appreciated, but and I am just beyond happy to have this chapter finally written, cause now I think, with the reaping over - as I hate reapings - I will be back to being at least somewhat consistent. I shall see you all before the end of the month with Chapter #9: Makers of Mysticism. Love you all! Have a good night! Bye!

~ Paradigm