Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand-new chapter for Declaration of Death, #9: Makers of Mysticism. Not as long as a delay on this one - I was ready to post like a whole ass month ago, but then personal things sort of got in the way, but I am back nonetheless with this update. This intro means we've now stepped into the over halfway mark in meeting these kids; twelve down, twelve to go! Last chapter, you met Sable Faru from District 8, Desdemona Farsiris from District 2, Smoke Hartisan from District 12, and Astra Enoshima from District 6... accompanied by a reaping recap Capitol pov from Cain.
This chapter is the first of three train ride intros, where you shall meet: Naia Marsay (D4F by TheRaichuinRavenclaw), Roark Barlowe (D9M by thornehub), Anneke Van Acker (D12F by Dr. Redneck), and Cerberus Arkwright (D2M by Reign of Winter). They're another great set of characters, and I really did enjoy writing this chapter, but I must admit I am eagerly chomping at the bit to when I get to throw all of these kids together during the tribute parade and pre-games.
As always, thank you for your patience and support. Please enjoy Chapter #9: Makers of Mysticism.
"Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for a universal one," ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Naia Marsay: District 4 Female P.O.V (16)
This is the wildest thing she's ever done. There's been crazy moments prior to this, sure, such as when Barty and Thalassa take her hands and leap off of the highest cliffs in District Four to land in the sparkling waters of the lagoons below, but nothing quite compares as to volunteering. Sixteen-year-old Naia Marsay sits in the back seat of the uncomfortable black jalopy, with hardly enough room for her hands to sit in her lap evenly, when she realizes what she's done.
She's leapt into the lion's jaws. It is an instinct, one that digs deep into her brain as she watches that little girl, a complete stranger to her, get plucked out of the masses by the wizened man on stage, to save her. It's innate, as easy to Naia as it is to breathe or sleep. Except, with all but an hour since that moment, it has hit her square in the head that she's in this for the long haul. With such uncomfortable cushions too, and a boy who just won't shut up.
Naia glimpses over at her district partner, a kid who would've been the perfect opportunity for someone like last year's Orion Maythorpe to leap out of the crowd and spare from the cruelty that is the Hunger Games. Ren Maris, the same age as her, looks around the vehicle with bright eyes, as Wyvern Sienna, the escort who decided this to be his fate, sits and looks at them from his vantage point in the passenger seat of the car. Sweat pools down Ren's forehead as he bounces around and around and around so much that Naia's eyes start to glaze over, like watching a rubber ball in motion.
"Does lighting have a voice?" Ren asks, looking over at Naia, she startled for the second at how bright his stare is, as if it is digging straight through her soul. Dangerous, almost, for how electric the current is that ripples across her back. Adventure's kiss does not generate near enough as much static electricity as Ren Maris. "And if it does, would it sound like a whale moan or the siren we hear with a tornado?"
"I'm not sure-" Naia interjects, raising a hand to make an observation, but it is as if she never got the chance to speak.
"Oh, wait! I know!" Ren interrupts her, completely trouncing over her, and the wooden sigh that Wyvern chuckles low in his throat. "Thunder must sound like what I used to hear my parents make in the other room and-"
Oh. Oh dear. Naia's face flushes scarlet, a hapless laugh bursting from her lips at the obscenity. If it's one thing Ren Maris has, it's spunk. Spunk didn't come from Naia naturally, at least in the beginning. She recalls a summer with deep dives into waters so blue it'd make the rarest sapphires in the world weep into their alcoves. Diving down so deep that the water pressure built on the back of her skull akin to that of the barrel of a gun. The pressure doesn't have feelings with who it eliminates, and neither does a Peacekeeper's extension of their arm.
"I have an idea, Ren," Wyvern says, extending a hand out to touch Ren on the shoulder. The boy stops mid-sentence, which is a rarity in the ten minutes that has been the car ride, Ren jostling in place, that electric stare fraying with fraught. Naia frowns, shifting her hands in her lap. "Let's keep quiet until we get to the train. You're taking all the air up in the room, young man."
"Sure thing!" Ren exclaims, nodding his head. "Y'know-"
"Air!" Wyvern punctuates with a raise of his hand, Naia incapable of suppressing the gentle smirk that rises off the corner of her mouth. If Ren could get a complete and coherent thought together that didn't end in pure insanity, he would get along great with the crew.
Naia sits back against the warming leather of the car, the Peacekeeper sitting in the driver seat, helmet off for once – the stare of soldiers with their guns trained on the selfless, the pitiful, and Naia tastes blood in the back of her throat, and how she prays that they don't fire, but her prayers go unanswered yet again – doing his job without a single sound coming from his side besides the squeaking of his leather gloves on the steering wheel.
Volunteering. She's done the unthinkable.
Well, it can't be that unthinkable since three others did it last year. Magnus Winterthorn, Orion Maythorpe, and Poem Cavalli all volunteering for reasons that in hindsight seem honorable in some ways, and decrepit in others. When all of this is said and done, Naia wonders what people would say about her choices, her reasonings. If she's alive to hear them, of course.
"Nonsense," Naia says in her head, biting on her lower lip. That's unlike her, to think of the future recklessly. "The grip that the Capitol has can't be that strong on all of us just yet." In the thralls of darkness, in the tributes' worst hours, such as when Vesuvia Vocanova slices Catalus Drachma open from stem to stern, she sees it, Naia can pinpoint that moment the faintest glimmer of light shines in the girl's eye, where she hasn't been entirely consumed by the bloodlust seeping from every other pore in her body.
Several onlookers get to witness Naia crumple to her knees when Vesuvia Vocanova finishes her deed, and Naia Marsay has yet again to experience the disappointment when others fail to rise to their station. She seldom shows off emotion like that in public, when her first response is to wail in anguish, but she can't help it, and the tears do not stop once Vesuvia pursues Poem over root and branch and under claws and up climbing towers… the tears only end when the final cannon fires, and a victor has been declared.
Never again.
It cannot happen again.
Naia wipes at her eyes, the memory resurfacing a tear or two. It is not that Naia hates crying, as there are so many things in life to celebrate where weeping can be good, but the Hunger Games is not one of them.
A warm hand presses into her cheek, her father's warm stare laying deep in the cavity of her beating heart. His love, his gratitude, his infinite wisdom. Most of all, his bravery. Standing for what he believes in, when the war gets too close to comfort, and Naia can taste the napalm burning her taste buds.
How can salt water become so scorched it taste's fresh?
"Do not weep for what cannot be changed in the past, Naia," her father tells her, even as Thalassa is holding onto the tiniest of hopes that the war will be over without another body needing to be buried. "Look towards what you can change in the future, what you can affect and revolutionize."
"And what if I can't?" Naia stutters over her words, lower lip trembling as she begins to weep for the reality that her father will not come back. These tears are an unhappy few. "What if I can't herald change?"
"You won't know unless you try, Naia. You are Marsay," he says, cradling her close to his chest as he rights up from his crouched position. Naia presses her face against his body, wrapping her arms around him. "A Marsay can only try. We do not back down. We do not run."
"We do not run," Naia repeats, the whisper hardly heard over the din of the air conditioner, arid District Four air hitting her in the face. The tinges of salt water are returning to her tongue, slowly but surely nature is starting to heal, and she can leap off of the highest cliffs again. "A Marsay does not run."
She couldn't run, not staring at the girl surely destined to die, collapsing in front of her. Her father didn't, when safety wasn't an option, when their first step in escaping the Dark Days had physically been to leave Four's shores, turning like cowards in the wind. She knew it is for the best, fleeing, and waiting for the signal when it had been okay to return, but deep down in her gut, Naia knew, she knew, and she did nothing.
She let her father decide when it had been okay for the Marsay family to return. For two years she'd see the same image, time and time again. Her friends waiting at the dock, tears streaming down their faces as they say goodbye to her, and to Barty, and even though Dylan is only ten, Thalassa enjoys his presence enough to ruffle his hair. They're crying, and Naia isn't, because while she didn't believe it to be a goodbye, they did.
She begs and begs and begs, she's run her mouth dry almost like Ren at the point where they've been out at sea for over a week, and Naia is demanding they return, that they do not let the terrors of darkened skies make them turn into dogs with their tails laying beneath their legs.
There is not much in terms of news from Panem when they are floating from space to space as often as they are, to whichever ports will take their ships to wait out as a safe haven, only to pack up when the air raid sirens begin again. They are the thunder before the lighting, where Naia watches as firebombs rain down upon sea-shanty towns and palm-tree beaches from the one-foot portkey window of her room. She learns to fear the sleek black of the Capitol bombers just as much as shark's fin in the sea, wading through the waters.
It is Thalassa who tells her a truth, a truth that strikes a fear into Naia's heart that is so cold she wears a blanket with her everywhere she goes for an entire month.
"Sharks can smell blood, and will pursue you, but at the end of the day, they can still wade away from you, and leave you alive," and Naia grimaces at the visual, picturing little Dylan dying via blood loss from being ripped apart, "But unlike them, the Capitol only goes by primal instinct… it will not leave you alone once it nudges you with its nose."
Naia tries fishing in a shark once, but instead she's ripped out into the water, and Ronan Marsay, her father, who she can always count on, dives in after her, screaming, screaming that nature is not to take his child away from him. Not to take his only girl, who he cannot live without.
She knows it is foolish, casting a line out and thinking she could conquer something as ferocious as a shark, but it is in her blood. A Marsay can only try, they do not run. Naia runs a finger across her lower lip, the gash still pink and puffy from hitting a piece of flotsam dead-on. There is blood in the water then, and once she latches off of the line, Naia swims back to shore as if there had been another air raid siren going off in the sky.
"Naia?" Wyvern's voice breaks through the memory, Naia looking away from the window, and at the older man. The blue of District Four's oceans washes away from his tanned face, his gentle demeanor settling the nerves of anxiety loose in her gut, she sinking back into the leathered backseats. "You seemed to space out for a moment. I asked if you were excited about getting to see a Capitol train."
She hates the Hunger Games, loathes them to the core. However, as the entire nation is forced to witness the bloodied spectacle from reaping to victor crowning, Naia gets glimpses of the Capitol. There are interviews with Head Gamemaker and Vice President Cain Passionia about the interiors of the trains that transport the tributes, the inner looks of the living quarters for each district… the types of foods that they can be expected to eat… all of this came from the Capitol, the same place who created a sport for kids to murder each other.
And she willingly walked into its jaws.
Naia settles the feeling of derision with a heavy swallow. "I- I am so excited, Mr. Sienna," she lies, keeping her smile on her face. Not very heroic of her, to lie, but even those with good intentions have to scrape themselves thin. "I can only imagine how pretty they'll be."
"And I can imagine a lot!" Ren exclaims, once again causing Naia to nearly leap out of her skin. "Lights and lights and more lights…" Wyvern rolls his eyes as Ren Maris begins to speak, bouncing up and down once more. "And did you know that a beluga whale…" Naia lets the kid speak, she chuckling too, for this day needs some well-intentioned humor.
It might be mean of her, to see Ren Maris as humorous, but she cannot think of him in any other context. She can't think of him as competition. As a sluice of meat. As someone who needs to die for her to live.
Naia swallows a bitter scowl, glancing past the driver towards the end of the sandy road they've been driving on for the past ten minutes. The glare of the sun sparkles and shines brightly off of the Capitol high-speed train waiting on the station for them, her swallowed scowl forming a lump in her throat.
Why does the train have to look like a bullet? Another instrument of death? How many will be struck by it before the Games become an obsolete memory?
Naia looks over at Ren, the boy too self-absorbed to be listening to anything else other than his own prattle. So kind, seemingly so gentle, someone with a good light, a positive light… surely, he is a kid who's never seen the same sights Naia has witnessed, even if a majority of them were from the portkey of a boat out in the middle of the open water.
A soul meant for puncturing, meant to bleed. His only purpose now is to feed the Capitol, ravenous in its penance.
Naia bites back a few tears that spring free from her eyes, but once she starts crying, she's incapable of stopping, though she holds it to herself. She doesn't openly weep, but it is not enough.
She volunteered to save the life of the little girl, surely doomed to be buried six feet under within a week. There'll be others, when Naia gets to the Capitol, who she'll meet and think of the same way.
What she wants to achieve, what she wants to complete and revolutionize, as a Marsay brings forth the good and light in the world… it cannot save everybody, but she'd be damned if she doesn't try.
For Ren Maris's sake, Naia will grit her teeth and hold onto her principles just a little bit tighter.
Not just for his, but for all of the generations to come, all of those subjugated to the Capitol's boot pressing against their skull like the pressure she's felt once before on the back of hers.
Naia Marsay will not fail.
She'll dare not fail.
Roark Barlowe: District 9 Male P.O.V (14)
A fresh set of tears begin to drip into his napkin just after the second course of soup and salad is served, commenced by the rattling of the bullet train as it rushes underneath a tunnel. Fourteen-year-old Roark Barlowe hiccups, another few droplets dribbling down his chin and landing on the velvet cloth spread of the table. An avox reaches for a napkin, and presses the cloth against his face, Roark too inconsolable to even mutter a warmed 'thank you.'
They shouldn't have done that. He looks ridiculous, Roark knows this, by sobbing three times within three hours since Clair Rosenbaum draws his name out of a hat, but at this point, he's unsure what else there is to do. The extra step is humiliating, and when the avox goes get to the other side, he waves them off hand with a hand.
"It's okay," he says, sighing, lower jaw trembling again, as Roark pushes himself closer to the table. "I- I can handle it." A stutter, highly unlike him.
Roark keeps his focus on his fork and knife settling against the cup of soup, something tangy and orange, as the saucer rattles back and forth from the train's motion. He feels eyes bearing on him, and when he looks up, the girl, the surly girl who's reaped alongside him, darts her gaze away from his. Roark senses her – Maeve Nightingale, Roark thinks to himself, emphasizing a pause from her first name to her last – looking at him every few moments when she thinks he must not be looking, just to be caught in the act again.
He wants to apologize for how he acted up on stage, but the damage surely must be done now. The entire nation has seen him bawl, and even when his uncle comes in with Hank hot on his owner's heels, Roark can still hardly see his loved ones through the cascade of melancholy flowing down his face.
Roark Barlowe seldom apologizes, but he's been wanting to get better at communicating, and that is the first step. He forgets who tells him this, whether it be his grandfather, or his father, but it couldn't be his father. He's never received his apology.
Communication is hard, harder than what Roark Barlowe wishes it could be. The words he desires to speak still on his tongue. He goes to say something, but he bites down on his tongue instead, digging his hands into the inseam of his pants.
Maeve sighs something unintelligible to herself, gaze darting away from her district partner yet again. A stilled moment of silence passes between he, Maeve, and Clair, who has resumed eating her risotto, which looks far better than the soup Roark has.
"Forget this," Maeve mutters, after another couple moments where the only sounds to fill the void are Roark's hiccups and Clair swallowing her lunch. "If you need me, I'm going to be eating in my room."
"Well, that's hardly sportsmanlike behavior, young lady," Clair admonishes, she reaching across the table for Roark's tearstained napkin to wipe at her face.
"Bill me," Maeve bites back, casting another look at Roark. This look is full of pity, he can tell, as he stares back, a wave of morosity hitting him in the face. "You know where I'll be."
His district partner, and his once chance of communicating, walks away from the table and out of the dining car, soup in one hand, and a half eaten breadstick in the other. Roark frowns, wiping at his brow, scrubbing his face, and removing the last few tears.
"Sorry," he says, nodding at Clair, who has a look of confusion on her face, eyebrows bridged together. "I'm not really that good at making friends."
"That's okay," Clair says, patting the kid's hand with her own. Roark bristles at the contact, not for the skin-to-skin contact, but for the fact that she's wearing gloves. Of course, he scoffs at the idea. A Capitolite cannot come in contact with the outside world, that'd simply be unhealthy. "Last year, Gemini and Camilla were getting along great, and then out of nowhere, he just really wanted to kill her," she winks at the boy, Roark frowning once more. "At least you two are getting the animosity up and out of the way."
With that, she goes back to finishing her risotto, and Roark almost breaks his code and musters a laugh from his belly.
"That- that was supposed to help me?" he asks, incredulously.
"Well, did it?" Clair asks, blinking, tilting her head to the side.
"No!" Roark exclaims, pushing back his chair, throwing the napkin bunched up in his lap away from him. "No, it didn't!"
Clair's face bristles underneath the outburst, but she keeps her lips pressed firmly together, a low sigh escaping her lips. "Your bedroom car is on the other end of the train, kiddo," she points, to his left, as Maeve had departed to her right. "Try not to cry on the thousand foot walk, okay?"
Roark shakes his head in disbelief. "Don't worry, I'll try not to."
He turns away, going to head towards his room, stilling for just a second. Enough to hesitate, enough to wonder. Should he go back? Shouldn't he work things out, not just with the woman who's preemptively ruined his life by calling his name out among the hundreds she could've chosen, but also with the girl he needs to make friendly with in just a few days' time?
"Not worth the effort," Roark tells himself, leaving his food behind at the table.
Roark prides himself on the fact that he didn't punch Clair in the face. Maeve, he can understand where her bitterness and her need to stay away comes from, given she's in the same exact boat, rocking in the turbulence together that threatens to turn them both overboard. As for the older Capitolite who in one moment tries to give advice, and then the next derides him? She can kick rocks.
He wonders from time to time what will end up being the moment that he breaks and resorts to violence. There's been plenty of instances for Roark to crack, he just waiting for the singular moment when enough is enough, and he paints his knuckles a sheen of copper from whomever he decides to target.
The thought began with his father, a man Roark cannot think of without hissing, a sharp pain shooting through his stomach that causes him to stumble to his knees just from the memory. He tries to repress as much of it as he can, biting back harsh sobs in his throat, from how his parents said, "We love you," and then walked away into the misty night to get murdered for a cause he knew they didn't believe in.
Roark should've done more. He could've done more, he knows this in his soul, even when he isn't searching for the answer then. He could've rushed his father down, beat him on the back of the head, made him stop. Instead, he stands there, he stands by the window and waves, he waves his parents goodbye to a fate that they do not deserve, leaving him alone… a fate he doesn't deserve.
"That's not true, and you know it," Roark bites back at himself, in his head. "You're not alone."
There's his grandfather, who he's thankful for, but it isn't just him, but Hank.
Roark comes to a complete stop in the hallway, resting against a window pane, the sill luckily having enough space for him to sit down. This is the first time in years, since he sees his parents leave for a war that they never return from, that he's been without Hank.
"He's probably beside himself," he says, biting at his fingernails. "Constantly running back to my bedroom to see if I'll come home," Roark smiles, looking up from his lap and at the outside world rushing by. It's not how he prefers to view the landscape, where walks are more his speed, to go the pace he wishes and not one mandated by a higher power, and Hank has to be at his side.
He pictures Hank's pudgy nose wetly pressing against his cheek, Hank's tongue licking his face up and down, yipping, barking… nothing better in this world than a boy and his best friend, a boy, and his dog.
And now he runs the chance of never getting to see him again.
"I'm sorry, kid, but you cannot bring your dog with you as your token into the arena," a Peacekeeper tells him, a hand reaching for the dog in Roark's arms, the boy retracting away from the soldier as if he were on fire.
"Why not?" Roark protests, hot tears beginning to prickle at the corner of his eyes, and Hank, unbeknownst to the trauma happening in the room, nips at Roark's fingers. "What's my dog going to do to anyone else? Bark at them to death?"
"The rules state that they must be inanimate objects," the Peacekeeper holds his hands up, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't make the rules, kid. I just follow them."
"No, no, wait! Wait, please, don't!" Roark screams. He's screaming, and he's never raised his voice in his life, as the Peacekeeper latches onto Hank, the dog braying and whining in fright at the sudden motions. Roark tugs back, and the soldier grips onto him harder, fingers pinching at any available skin. Hank is just out of the boy's grasp when the Peacekeeper punches Roark in the chest.
Roark cries for the second time that day, sitting in the waiting room after his grandfather hugs him goodbye. Clair and Maeve find him, huddled in the center of the room, curled up on the carpet, unable to help the tears that stain a gray puddle on the portrait of the grain stalk of the rug.
Coincidentally, it is the second time Roark Barlowe wonders what it'd be like to exert violence against a force.
He knows it wouldn't end well. He could've fought back, perhaps, but the Peacekeeper could've easily socked him in the face. Roark remembers the footage from last year, where Zachary Edison and Catalus Drachma both are clearly shown to have black eyes and bruised faces during the tribute parade, injuries neither one of them had on Reaping Day.
He most likely cannot be lucky enough to go through the Games without spreading a single drop of blood. Poem Cavalli came close, but even the reins of madness came slithering across her throat, choking the girl, and flinging her to the ground, driving her insane enough to plunge a knife into Nokomis Yanaba's neck.
Roark digs his hand into his side, pinching at the folds of skin that come over his hip bone. He doesn't have Hank anymore, and he can't rely on his dog to get him through. Back in Nine, it is Hank that does all the heavy lifting. Roark has to simply throw a leash around his dog's neck and go for a walk. That's all it takes for people to approach, but it isn't to say hello to the strange boy who is looking at them for just a moment too long for it to not go unnoticed.
He hates them, those people.
"No, you don't," Roark exclaims, shaking his head from the thought. "You don't hate them. You just-" a second pause, highly unlikely; Roark Barlowe is careful with his words, and he does not pause. They're deliberate, his word choice, and he's efficient. "They confuse you, is all."
The boy steps into his room, shutting and locking the door behind him, but he doesn't gravitate towards the bed right away. Is Maeve sitting on her bed eating her lunch? Did she go to the floor and cry? She didn't look like someone who even knew what crying was, for when they're told to shake hands, Roark can sniff the gruffness that emanates from her. She's soaking wet from head-to-toe, the question arising on the boy's tongue, but like with the unnecessary apology, it goes unasked, unsaid.
Roark thumps his head against the door once, then twice, the second time resulting in a freeing cry of pain. He collapses onto the rug, barely missing the rightmost bedpost. Another sob of anguish spills from his throat, he clawing at the carpet to hoist his head up off of the ground. Today felt so normal, it felt like any other day, with Hank licking his face in the morning, to his grandfather going out back and getting fresh oats for their morning oatmeal.
He takes Hank out for a walk, says good morning to the man still delivering newspapers, and the two of them, just as Roark does last year, with Hank running around his heels, sit in his backyard, watching the sun rise. It's gorgeous, District Nine, where the faint glow of a rising sun starts to settle along the treetops, shining off stalks of grain that turn them into pillars of edible gold.
Roark reaches out for one, plucking a thistle off of the stalk, examining it in his hands. A few harvests, not too long ago, are ruined, by the sulfurous streaks and the bombs that the war brings, but he and his grandfather make do, and they are able to survive another year. Others aren't so lucky, and there's a few times Roark can't bring Hank with him to the marketplace, for there are vagrants looking, looking, and searching as their kids haven't had a meal in days, and dog is ripe for the picking.
Another thought of anger brews across Roark's mind, he sitting up from his lamenting position on the floor. The lunch he consumes is decadent and beautiful, gorgeous even, though the food isn't to his liking, and he can already hear his grandfather's voice in his head, chastising him for being wasteful. Grain stores burn away into meals that only phantoms can consume, while the gilded Capitolites dine on caviar and grass-fed burgers from cows that'll never have to worry about being disease-ridden in their stomach linings.
A Capitolite dines, and a District Nine orphan goes hungry. A Peacekeeper gets to hug his child before he starts his morning patrol, and Roark dips another lily flower in dew to rest at his father's graves. A little boy, just like him, with the same pale face, rosy cheeks, dark blonde haircut gets a new pet for Christmas, and Roark could very well die before Hank's biological clock runs down.
A Capitolite child could live, and Roark Barlowe could die.
Roark sits up straight, a cold fear gripping him by the shoulders, licking his face with a barbed tongue, hissing in his ear, a shiver enveloping him. He could die, he could die, he could die.
"I'm not ready to," Roark says, but his voice wavers. It isn't a full pause, but it wavers enough for him to feel uncertain, as he rises from the floor, crawling up towards the bedsheets. "I'm not ready to die," he punctuates with finality, as he curls in on himself, leaving his arms out, waiting, waiting for Hank to rush into them.
It'll all make sense; it'll all be okay.
It is a miracle that Roark Barlowe has yet to resort to violence, but it is possible his chance may come in this world.
The chance may yet still come.
Anneke Van Acker: District 12 Female P.O.V (18)
It is taking all of her composure not to laugh. Anneke Van Acker suppress a smirk as her district partner, looking beaten up with a split lip and a swollen bruise around his left eye, is thrown down next to her on the couch the two of them are sharing in the parlor car of the train. Smoke grunts in pain, shifting away from her as the Peacekeeper who marches him in unlocks the pair of cuffs around his wrists. They clatter to the floor, Smoke relaxing into the cushions.
"Do another stunt like what you did at the reaping again, and you won't get to move for a week," the Peacekeeper orders him, with a finger thrust into the chest, Smoke grunting at the contact.
"Do it again, and I'll help you," Anneke thinks to herself, letting the smirk partially rise up.
The surreal feeling hasn't left her yet, that she's been chosen for the Games, and that no one decided to take her place, which stings just slightly given the crowds she's been around, but Anneke understands that deep down. A different feeling replaces the unsureness, one of courage and realness, as she looks at Smoke, studying the curvature of his nose.
He catches her staring at him, but she doesn't balk at the turn of his head. "What?" he asks.
"I thought I was the only one in District Twelve with any spunk left," she says, moving to tie her hair into a ponytail. "You fought well."
"I got my ass kicked."
"Doesn't demean the fact that you fought well," Anneke says, elbowing him, wincing likewise as Smoke does.
Good fighters were far and few between in her heyday, when the times got tough and Peacekeeper bullying extends beyond that of knocking down the doors to suspected rebel homes, but public whippings and beatings, televised firing squad executions… moments like those that make Anneke tighten the tape wrappings around her knuckles a little bit harder. She could've used Smoke then; she could've used him-
"You would've just gotten both of you killed, you know that. You can't change that," she tells herself, shaking her head. That's not for certain, that's not what Anneke knows, but it's the past, and that's the truth.
She reaches out and slings an arm across Smoke's back. "You seem like someone capable, and I think we should-"
"We should what?" Smoke interrupts her, staring at Anneke with a vacant expression in his eyes. Blood loss? Wooziness? "Don't tell me you think we should ally. You wouldn't want a guy who can't fight."
"Did you not hear what I just said?" Anneke scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Fine, don't take my offer."
It is early to start strategizing, perhaps, as the thaw of being reaped is still running through her veins, but Anneke knows she can't be too careful. She's no stranger to strategizing, where even those running Doomsday began, despite all their nefarious that they'd carry out, planning how they'd rush the Justice Building, taking down the Capitolite puppet sitting at the mayor's desk when the news broke of how the Capitol army massacred an underground bunker of rebels with only one survivor left simply because there had been rumors of dissent.
Anneke tightens her hand into a fist at the mere thought. Her throat catches on the smoke, coughing and gagging for days, the stench of corpses piled high on the main streets into town acting as reminders on what happens to those who dare speak out, those who even dare to take comfort in their own heads. For all she faults Prism for, she cannot fault him for providing the tools to leap out into the cold world that has seized District Twelve and ripped it's soul out from under the cobblestone streets.
Smoke falls into quietness, resting his head against the window as the train rocks away from the only life Anneke has ever known. A life of danger, of high stakes and tension, a life where Anneke wonders if each morning is the last one where she'll ever open her eyes again. Those in Doomsday liked to threaten one another as if they were simply passing conversation over cups of coffee, but the likely course of action is to then throw the steaming cup of joe in the others' face.
A life of crime is not her first choice, not when Luuk Van Acker kneels in front of her one day before school.
Her sister, Aleid, stands away from them in the darkened corner of the entryway into their home, the little girl shuffling back and forth on her heels. Anneke looks back at her, waving, keeping a grin on her face. Luuk presses a hand on her shoulder, causing Anneke to turn back.
"You know what's going to happen today," he says, Anneke nodding her head low. "It might not happen today, but eventually, whether it be tomorrow, next week, or next month, someone's going to say something," her father pauses, licking his lips. "Someone's going to do more than just words towards Aleid."
Her sister shuffles awkwardly at the mentioning of her name, Anneke sighing and nodding her head. The birthmark is hard to see in the dark, the maroon star that spans half of Anneke's sister's face, but kids are known to be mean.
"I know," Anneke says.
"Family is all you have, Annie, when the rest is gone," he tells her, tears beginning to form. "At the end of the day, even when our money is gone, and we live elsewhere, and our hair has fallen out and gone gray, it's going to be me, and you," Luuk smiles. "And all Aleid will have one day is you, no matter what," his smile fades, and Anneke's disappears likewise. "And when you don't have family any longer, what else is there to stand for?"
Anneke has been searching for the answer to that very question for a year. She's ended up with nothing except dead bodies slumped against rusty lockers, or the sound of multiple gun casings clattering against the floor. The only answers she's received are the sounds of those who refuse to die, even with a knife digging into their clavicle as Anneke carves her initials in their skin.
Anneke has nothing except the will to fight on in their memory, for no one else will do it for her, no one else will take the leap. She's done a lot of wrong, a lot of red in her ledger, but perhaps this could be the moment and time for redemption.
They weren't supposed to die, no one had been expected to die, as Prism gave Anneke his word, and his word is for life, his word is the blood he sheds, for Prism never, ever bleeds.
And yet, Anneke is alone, her family's corpses rotting in the ground. She wonders where it all went wrong.
Her body is slammed into the dirt, her face battered with bruises, Anneke's body rife with pain. She croaks out in agony, a heavy pressure sitting down on her spine, grappling for an arm, and twisting it behind her back.
"We told you to leave us alone," a voice hisses in her ear, tightening their grip on her arm, Anneke whimpering in pain. "Why couldn't you just look the other way?"
"She's my sister!" Anneke cries into the sand, bits, and pieces of it getting into her gums as she grinds her teeth together. "You wouldn't leave her alone!"
"Leave us alone or I break the arm."
Anneke relents from that day forward, the bullies who were older than her and far larger, given she had just been eight, and Aleid looks at her with concern and hate, for she promises she'll defend her, and all her younger sister receives is the other cheek. Anneke is a disappointment, a liar, a-
"There you are!" shouts a male voice down from the other end of the parlor car, Smoke leaping out of his skin at the disturbance, but Anneke stills, relaxing her body, resting her feet on the carpeted floor. She narrows her gaze as the man who has essentially ruined her life waltzes through the door, the District 12 escort, Kenneth Nighton.
A predator, with his goofy smile, and half turquoise, half amaranthine colored hair that lops off the side of his head and covers one ear. He did not look like this last year, Anneke remembers, with a simple military haircut and brown hair, but the fame of having District 12 must have brought in the pocketbooks.
Smoke groans in his seat, shifting some to seat more comfortably as Kenneth crosses the parlor to the seat opposite of them. Anneke glares at the Capitolite, words of anger and vitriol bubbling on her tongue. Those in Doomsday were taught to mind their tongue, to let their fists do the talking, when intimidation would do more with the flick of a wrist than a scream ever could. The people who prey on the weak are those Anneke watches out for, as Kenneth takes his seat in front of his new pair of tributes.
"Let me first just say," Kenneth opens up, his hands splayed out in front of him like he was washing windows, a half-cocked smile on his face, "If you ever pull a stunt like that again-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Smoke moans sardonically, rolling his eyes. "The Peacekeeper back there already told me he'd break my legs if I did anything dangerous again."
"It shows you've got fire," Kenneth's grin widens. A shark's grin, one that Anneke pictures biting into her jugular and ripping out pounds of flesh. Prism hands her a knife and a scalpel, to go hunting for sharks in the mines and at the water wheel, but she only comes up for air with minnows attached to the end of her blades, and Prism's wrath that follows. "Use it in the arena, not before," their escort says, reaching over between the two of them for a sugar packet, a tiny little tea making station resting on the countertop behind them. Anneke waits for Kenneth to grab a saucer, but he simply opens the sugar packet and spills it into his hand, dumping half of it into his mouth. "Pierce Alversway, that squirrely kid from Six last year, he tried exerting too much out on others before the Games, and it got him whipped," Kenneth's voice drops at the end, he making eye contact with Anneke.
She stays still, tilting her head to the side. "That all?"
After nights of being chilled to the bone with her ruined sweatshirts, fresh cuts bleeding crimson rivers into the dirty streets doing reconnaissance, what harm would a little whipping do? Anneke bares her teeth and digs into the terrible for the greater good, to bear the brunt of punishment so Aleid and her father have a roof over their heads… she holds her tongue for the greater good, so Anneke can punch the bullies back twice as hard, taking teeth as mementos, and forever picturing the look of terror on their faces as she marches back inside for Algebra.
What will she do now, being all-
"Alone, alone, alone," Anneke runs a hand through her hair. "You knew it could happen."
"Now…" Kenneth proclaims, wiping at the creases of his mouth, the occasional trail of sugar falling from his lips. "We'll be in the Capitol tomorrow around noon, so the rest of this evening is for you, and you can choose how you wish to-"
Anneke nods along to the words, hearing her heartbeat roar in her ears. Prism is screaming at her again, begging she bow to her knees in forgiveness, for how could she make a mistake? How could her training go to waste and all for nothing? How could-
Wait a second… what?
Anneke blinks, as a blurring motion flies by the train car door ahead of them, out of the corner of her eye. No. That can't be possible… they couldn't have infiltrated… "Stay calm. Stay calm. Do not freak out. This is what you are prepared for. Stay calm," she runs over it in her head, the words that bring ease. The blur happens again, a puff of white smoke, and Anneke is on her feet in a flash.
Domino smoke indoors all the time, to the detriment of others as he'd flash passerby's a tobacco filled grin, teeth rotting out of his head and making tiny planetariums for flies to nest in. There are two more puffs of smoke that cross Anneke's line of sight by the time she reaches the door.
"Anneke!" Kenneth calls after her, turning around in his seat, voice rising higher and higher. "I didn't say you were excused!"
"Take this!" Anneke flips him the bird, Smoke bursting out laughing.
Domino escapes her list time and time again, she always having just missed him when she swoops in for a house call. Domino, the first man to kiss her. Domino, the first man to make a house-call as Prism demands it, and when the man demands something, it's done…
Anneke pauses on the other side of the door, stilling her breathing. She runs her fingers along the wall, the hallway empty. A scorch mark remains, at eye level, bits of blue fabric floating in the breeze as the dwindling fire eats away at the material. A half-finished cigarette sits at Anneke's feet, the girl stomping it underneath her heel.
Smoke asks her, when they board the car together to take them to train why she looks so nervous when standing on stage. Anneke glances at her forearm, where her hands dig in around the elbow, clawing deep, as being up there on the stage with Kenneth prattling around is the perfect time for Prism to get someone on a roof to take her out.
After all the threats she's made, after the pints of blood she spills into the gutters, there's no way the man will simply just leave her alone… and she's always known, one day, it'll happen, and she can join sweet Aleid dead deep in the ground.
"Hey!" Anneke shouts out, catching the visible visage of a Peacekeeper in the connecting dining car ahead of her, a carton of cigarettes in the man's hand being stowed away out of sight into their pocket. She races forward towards the door, leaping out of the hallway. "Stop!"
The Peacekeeper pauses, turning around, Anneke freezing immediately. It's… it's not Domino. The Peacekeeper's dark skin pops against the white leather of his uniform, his head lifted up in surprise, mouth forming an 'o' as he stares at her.
Anneke swallows her embarrassment, flushing, tucking a strand of auburn hair underneath her ears. "S- sorry…" she stutters, stepping back against the wall of the dining car. "I thought you were someone I knew…" Anneke looks away from the eye contact, the Peacekeeper staring daggers into her soul. "Just. Just don't smoke again in the hallways…"
She slinks away from the man, dejectedly heading back into the parlor car, back into Kenneth's arms, back into Smoke's insolence. A fire she can stoke, perhaps, but Anneke's is dwindling.
She's been a hearth, with a roaring fire with coals added consistently to the pile, smoke spewing into the air. Anneke has always been a force of nature.
The Games may very well reduce all of that into a flicker.
Cerberus Arkwright: District 2 Male P.O.V (18)
The first thing Cerberus Arkwright does when entering the parlor car on the District 2 train is shut the blinds. He's never had a need for sunlight, where the bright rays fall on his pale skin, highlighting the varicose veins that boil and bleed under the pallor veneer, reminding him of what he is. With him shutting out the light of the outside world, his inner world calms, Cerberus slinking over to the nearby couch. He sits down onto it slowly, the creaking of the leather under his body weight dispelling the silence of the otherwise empty room.
Cerberus finishes the drop, cringing at the squeak of the floorboard once he's positioned himself comfortably. Making noise is not one of his strong suits, but with the rebellion over for a year, and the Capitol firmly pushing the districts back under their bootheel, he's fallen rusty.
"Rusty?" a voice that is not his own scoffs in his head, Cerberus quipping his lower lip downwards in disgust. "That is not the son I raised, Cerberus."
Ah, ever the taciturn. Raucous Arkwright is dead and gone, and even still Cerberus hears him beyond the grave, the places where his father can reach him. Maybe he should go and open the blinds again…
It's the first moment of peace and quiet he's been given all day since he arrived in the town square that morning for the reaping. One moment, and it's all brought down by a woman with shiny blue hair calling his name from a tablet. Magnus Winterthorn is dead, no one to volunteer for him now, as he stands on the stage, smiling coolly at all the faces looking at him in shock, surprise, and thinly veiled rage. Unlike Raucous Arkwright who will never breathe the air of quarry dust and marble etchings again, Cerberus does not share that same fate.
Not yet at least, but that's for a different time, when Cerberus must meet the others, the kids he'll have to kill to survive.
Cerberus leans his head back, closing his eyes, letting the breeze of the low humming ceiling fan wash over his face. The low reverberations rattle along his skull, billowing down under his chin as if someone were forcefully pressing their thumb against the underside of his jaw. He chokes on a sharp inhalation of air, sitting upright immediately, hands squeezing his throat.
There is a map of Panem in the corner of the parlor car, sided by portraits of the president and the vice president; Cerberus had seen them when he walked into the car, the only parts of the room that had been illuminated by the sunlight of a horrid afternoon. In the dark, all Cerberus can see is the men's eyes, the men who lead the nation, and the men who gave Cerberus the life he has now.
He cannot accredit any of that to Raucous. His father is a gruff man, broad shouldered, constantly chewing on a cigar, calloused hands tightening their grip around the reed placed firmly in his palms. The same reed he'd slap time and time again on Cerberus's back for not moving fast enough, for not responding with "Sir," or "Father," at the right times. It is not lost on Cerberus that the last time he saw his father, he left the broken, bloodied pieces of the reed jammed between his teeth as he wedged the knife further and further into-
"Oh!" a voice, that is not one in his head, pipes up from the entrance of the parlor car. Cerberus looks over to see Desdemona Farsiris standing in the corner, hidden by the shadows, but unlike Cain Passionia's empowered stare from his portrait on the wall, Desdemona's strikes a cold spear of ice into Cerberus's own heart.
The look of a haunted soul.
"You and me both," he sighs to his thoughts.
"I- I didn't expect anyone else to be here…" Desdemona trails off, turning as if they were to leave. "I'll just… go…" they say, to proceed to then stay still.
Cerberus lifts a brow in amusement. "Are you going to leave, or is there something about the crown molding you just find absolutely fascinating?"
They volunteered, if he recalls, but unlike Magnus's bravado that Cerberus witnesses the year before, burning bright and nearly consuming the whole stage, Desdemona is a hearse, walking slow with years and years of regret left behind in their path to the stage. Desdemona is one for little words, he's already ascertained, by how it is Merida doing all of the talking during lunch… or doing all of the talking with the car ride to the train station… or how Cerberus's first moment of peace is because the escort has not shut up.
A blade between the shoulder blades could do that, sure, but Cerberus knows there'd be consequences for hurting her, and besides, he could handle her talking. The screeches of the dying are never pleasant to listen to.
"You can stay in here if you want," Cerberus offers, surprised by the fact he hasn't shooed his district partner away yet. Three years of living on his own, with the shadows and the glint of a cold wire attached to his hip being the only companions he's had has left little for any human interaction, the solace of his thoughts Cerberus's sanctuary. "Or are you going to head to your room?"
He could sleep, but Cerberus hasn't gotten a good sleep in… he's forgotten the last time a slumber of his was not disrupted by a wave of blood knocking him to the ground time and time again.
Desdemona shuffles awkwardly by the entrance to the car, pressing themselves against the wall. They take one look at the pictures of Emrick and Cain by the map and physically recoil from them, looking anywhere else. Cerberus notes that they don't look him in the eyes, even when he speaks.
"I don't sleep," Desdemona mutters under their breath, instead opting to sink straight down onto the carpeted floor.
"We have that in common," Cerberus nods. "Insomnia, or nightmares?" he asks, but Desdemona does not answer. They stay fixated on the carpet, hands in their lap, transfixed by something he cannot see.
A million and one questions linger on the boy's tongue, a million and one inquiries he could unleash on Desdemona at any moment, but they won't answer any of them. He's asked twice now as to why they volunteered but have gotten zero responses or indicators that they even heard the question. If they keep it up at this rate, Desdemona will be asked about it another thousand times after leaving this train.
Cerberus has had his own version of a question asked to him a thousand times, and each ask is always the same. Tears staining a face covered in more than just tears, blood pooling around his ankles and seeping into his socks – shoes make too much noise, alerting those who do not need to see the knife coming – and usually, Cerberus is grim faced, unrelenting in his advance, poised to give the finishing blow.
Why? Why are you doing this?
What loyalty do you owe them?
They're just using you! You are more than this!
You could fight for a good cause!
We need people like you on our side!
Go to hell!
Burn in hell!
Die!
Why aren't you dead yet?
When will you die?
DIE!
It's not that Cerberus hasn't tried yet, dying. Sometimes he wishes the person on the other end could sense him coming, but they never do. Cerberus has never found a single friend in the light, only enemies, those with scowls and sneers that are permanently etched onto their faces even as their lifeforce drains out and down the drain.
Raucous Arkwright had children for one purpose, an admittance he tells Cerberus when he is five years old, handing him a lollipop and a hug, which were rarer than blue moons, to then give him a saber in one hand, and a gun in the other.
"The men in my family have always been bred for command, Cerberus," Raucous tells him, standing tall in the empty mine behind their house, high on a hill overlooking a majority of District 2. "We take command since they," his father points down below, at the specks that Cerberus believes to be people going about their lives, before the war rips District 2 in half, "Do not have the mind to handle it. Combat and warfare are not easy. The lingering aftereffects will keep you up at night, but it is in our blood to deal with these things, without complaint."
But Cerberus wasn't the man his father wanted. His father wanted a soldier, someone who could take commands without question, without faltering in their step. Cerberus did that, still does, but he is not who Raucous wanted, truly. His father tried to create the perfect combatant, a soldier who is the first to run into the lines of fire, and the last to clean their bayonet with the blood of fresh kills staining the blade.
When Cerberus flocked to the shadows for the first time, when stealth calls to him more than a frontal charge, the reed his father has leaves a scar down his back that hurt whenever the boy moved. Even as Cerberus shreds a dummy made of torn curtains and bed sheets with a wooden block holding all of it together, his style points leave him without dinner for the evening.
What Raucous Arkwright could not appreciate fell into the hands of better masters.
Cerberus looks over at the portraits of the president and vice president once again, narrowing in on Cain Passionia.
There is a man who knew what gifts were, and how to harness them.
Desdemona clears their throat from their spot on the wall, Cerberus having felt their stare on the back of his neck the entire time. They began looking at him a few moments ago, for the wall groaned as their head turned, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.
"Is there some fancy crown molding behind my head too?" he asks, not taking his eyes off of his benefactor, and maybe the man who has screwed him over all the way from the Capitol. The war is over, but it doesn't mean Cain has lost his reach.
Desdemona bulks their tongue on the side of their mouth. "Why did some of the people in the audience say you were supposed to be dead?" they eye him suspiciously, a somber gaze raking him up and down. Cerberus looks back at his district partner, smiling, piercing his stare through their soul. He sees them, broken, distraught, wanting a piece of the world but hating that it is in their hands, and yet they have the gall to question him.
"That was my first public appearance in three years," Cerberus answers, standing up off the couch. "And just like why you won't say as to why you volunteered; I don't have to tell you where I was for all those years."
Cerberus may not have to speak to give Desdemona any answers, but the rumors exist. There were never any survivors on his encounters, on his missions, but talk is rampant in a district that had nothing better to do but hold the ashes of their loved ones and grieve over who could've done all this evil. Rumors of a man who could slip out of a crowd of a hundred people unnoticed, who'd leave bloodied footprints in the snow, but no one could ever trace their source…
Those voices who told him to die and burn in hell were right, that he could've been useful for the rebellion, to overthrow the Capitol, but Cerberus gravitated towards those who appreciated him, towards the men who saw his usefulness and could harness that into an energy of formidable fear.
His father led District 2's legions in war, assisting Friedrich Calvary – before he became a turncoat and broke the rebellion on the steps of District 1 – and the other mayors in fighting the Capitol, and it gave Cerberus even more of a reason to help the hand that fed. The Capitol provided more security, more stability, and who is Cerberus to question their intentions?
Cerberus led the Capitol's campaign of fear, shank in hand, and a list of targets growing larger and larger day by day.
He stops in front of Panem's map, each district sprawled across the map. District Four trails down by the Atlantic Ocean, a large shore with miles of nothing but water… Cerberus's travels never led him there, but they did lead all over… to the smoking forests of Seven with a bloodied garrote dangling in his hand, or to the razed fields of crops in Eleven, a general choking on their words as Cerberus stuffs pieces of newspaper down their windpipe, smashing a club into their skull…
Time and time again, Cerberus ventures out into the world, his masters barking commands time and time at him, and though he could feel the leash yoked around his Adam's apple, the leash is never, not once, yanked hard where he's thrown to the ground.
"Really?" his father's voice returns, cold, disbelieving. "Not even when your final assignment was-"
"Shut up!" Cerberus whirlwinds around, away from the map. His yell startles Desdemona from their corner, looking at him in shock. He gasps, rubbing his forehead, the echo of his outburst slowly bleeding into the carpet. "Sorry," he exhales, resting his hands on his knees, head dangling down between his legs. "Sometimes I just-" Cerberus stops himself, frowning. Why should he have to explain himself to this stranger?
He never explained himself to those he brought the end to, when the calling card of the Hellhound is his arrival on their doorstep, and those he needed to eliminate knew that once the calling card were in their presence, there was no escape.
He shouldn't have to explain himself to Desdemona, even as they get up from the floor and hastily bid themselves out of the parlor car without another word, though Cerberus would be surprised if they spoke again.
Cerberus runs a hand through his hair, and as he brings his arm back to his side, he notices his hands shaking. The Hellhound has never, not once, quivered out of fear.
Desdemona's footsteps can be heard retreating away from the parlor car, as Cerberus turns to look back at Cain Passionia's picture, and the map of Panem. He isn't supposed to be here, he's supposed to still be hidden, still be in the shadows… not heading to the Capitol to fight in a bloodied sport.
"Your fault," his father's voice taunts him. "You helped the Games be borne by killing us, killing the resistance, Cerberus."
Why would he be reaped for the Games unless the masters of the Underworld, if Hades and those who rule Tartarus no longer had need for him?
Cerberus grits his teeth, glaring at the picture of the vice president, before stalking out of the parlor car after Desdemona. His fate is not meant to be entrenched in these Games.
The Hellhound may have to be called out of retirement, but not for the kids in the Games who have been unluckily thrown into this mess. It is time for the elite of the Capitol to find Cerberus Arkwright's calling card.
May it be the last thing they ever see, for his bite is worse than his bark.
Alrighty! And there we have it folks, Chapter #9: Makers of Mysticism, the fourth set of intros, and first of three concerning the train rides. I hope you liked getting to meet Naia Marsay (D4F by TheRaichuinRavenclaw), Roark Barlowe (D9M by thornehub), Anneke Van Acker (D12F by Dr. Redneck), and Cerberus Arkwright (D2M by Reign of Winter). We're getting just one step closer to the pre-games, and I do believe once I make it there, all these hang-ups and delays I have been having will cease to exist, as I really love pre-games in SYOTs.
The next quartet of kids to meet will be: Conrad Culler (D11M), Veryn Alenti (D5F), Tauren Anatole (D3M), and Ness Turner (D8F), in Chapter #10: Creators of Compassion. I am very excited for you guys to meet these kiddos, just as I am excited to really write them for the first time. Of course, your thoughts on the chapter will be greatly appreciated. I love you guys so much. Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm