Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Liberty, #7: False Sense of Security, which is another tribute introduction chapter, this time focusing on four POVs before the reapings; yes, I know that some of you want to dive straight into it, but I preferred this way at showing some character backgrounds. The first four tributes met were last chapter, and this chapter shall be introducing you to Camilla Rodriguez (D9F) from Reign of Winter, Ramses Boskov (D12M) from Guesttwelve, Cassiopeia Grey (D11F) from ZeroIsANumber, and Niklaus Peverell (D8M) from timesphobic, the original idea from Andi99. It's another great selection of tributes, which I am very excited to show you, and soon I'll be able to make this story my full focus due to Bombs and Bullets winding down and only really having the epilogue to deal with soon. Again, I can't say for certain that this chapter won't be 10k like the last one, just depends on what I feel is necessary. I do believe I need to make the trigger warning for heavy drug and opioid usage/dependency on the last POV, regarding Niklaus. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #7: False Sense of Security.
"Looking for your knife? You should try my back, that's where I've seen it last." ~ Unknown
Camilla Rodriguez: District 9 Female P.O.V (17)
The August sun is hot against her back and exposed neck, she nearly kicking herself as once again she's forgotten to steal the sun hat off the corner of her best friend's bed before leaving. She is not supposed to be there, in the fields, working, or as seventeen-year-old Camilla Rodriguez would put it, 'working.' The newly titled Reaping Days, a name that makes a shiver slide down her spine, is supposed to be one where all the eligible aged kids for the reaping can take the day off - rather, mourn, Camilla would snigger into her glass of orange juice, earning a glare from the kids sitting next to her on lunch break - is off limits for those who need to be in the town's square by noon, but Camilla has never understood the concept of listening to superiors in the same way some others might've beforehand.
She wipes away some sweat pouring down her forehead, dipping her hand into the bucket next to her that is slightly filled with water, soaking a rag up in it before pressing the rag up onto her head, where she'd tuck it in had she actually stopped by her friend's house then instead of running away. She's young, but Camilla can see the tired lines etched into her cheekbones, cheekbones that would normally be full and flushed, there being a tinge of pink to her caramel colored skin, but in the bucket of water, it is all clear. A droplet of sweat falls off of her face and into the bucket, creating a ripple effect, causing the girl to scowl. Ripples, ripples, ripples... she hates ripples. Luckily there's no one else to be near her and see her scowl, Camilla being entirely alone for at least a good few hundred yards in picking up some wheat off of the ground, placing it in the other bucket next to her, which already has some of it filled to the brim. Her hair color is often that color, the color of wheat, but she's decided to let it darken and curl to the point of a chocolate color, a delicacy she hasn't tasted in quite some time.
Her brother would be waking up soon, it being around nine or so in the morning, Camilla keeping that number down in her head for it is when the rooster crows at the nearby farm that has her up, slinging the front door open, and going out into the world. Millet, her younger brother, after realizing she's disappeared, will go where he always goes when she comes back, a part of the harvest under her arm. He'll wait for her at the front steps of their house, a small and rickety place with a tiny kitchen, a bathroom no bigger than a five by five room, the toilet being a run off hole into the ground that's flush with an open pipe system under the dirt, and a bedroom she shares with him. He's fourteen, and would be working the fields today too like she does, but they work at fields at opposite sides of the district, she hardly seeing him anymore. He would've joined her too, but she forbids it last night while grinding some sort of grainy bread into mush, pouring a syrupy coating atop it and roasting it over a warm fire. If he's caught, she doesn't know what'll happen to him, for he's never been one to stay still.
Camilla has always been the quiet one, the one to look at her shoes when someone asks her a question, or when a suitor comes by asking for her hand, but she laughs to herself. There's no suitors coming on a white horse dressed in armor, not with the piss poor money she's been left with, the little bit of money that is starting to run out which is why she and both her brother are toiling the fields, when he should be swimming and smiling in the sun. It is her beauty that'll win one of those socialites over, that is what her mother always told her. Millie, her mother, she's the one to plant the seed in her head that Camilla should try bewitching someone, maybe the mayor's son, but then the entire mayor's family is executed, a bomb explodes in the marketplace with Millet and her mother shopping, she's in the fields toiling the soil, and a rainstorm hits, she parentless.
Millie is her rock, Millet is her cornerstone, Camilla always upset with her father for marrying someone who'd marry a woman and make a son with similar names, for she has a hard time even keeping them straight, and with her gone, and her father off fighting into a coffin, it is Camilla to put all the weight on her shoulders. There is a tiny cash pile set aside in a trust fund for the Rodriguez family, as her father Ryker puts in the overtime to make sure his kids knew what the taste of orange juice is like, or the fragrance of a rare coffee bean every once in awhile, and before the meltdown happens, when Camilla is unable to even pronounce the multi-syllable word revolution, it tough on her tongue, Ryker rips the money out and keeps it for safe keeping, to give in case she and Millet would ever need it.
"Why would we ever need it, Father?" Camilla asks him, she looking at his reflection through the one in her bathroom mirror of their slightly larger house, but his eyes are soft and warm back at her, always soft and warm and mannerly. She has his face shape, a slender style, a dark eyes, almost balancing the scales between a suave brown and a warm maroon, her body starting to develop, but Camilla keeps her head high for the jeers are plenty, but she does not focus on the negativity in her life. Ryker walks over to her, eyes smiling, but his lips do not.
He rests a hand on her shoulder, a sincere sweetness reflected back in his dark eyes onto the mirror. "Sometimes the world can just be a cruel place."
The world is very cruel, very, very cruel. Her father had never been that taut or harsh in his language, for he never believed in the word 'cruel.' Camilla doesn't believe in the word 'cruel' either until the foreman on the job steps out into the middle of the field, holds a megaphone in his hands, and asks for Camilla Rodriguez. A Peacekeeper grips her by the elbow harshly, ripping her away from a grain stalk she's plucking some seeds off of, and Camilla is incapable of keeping the scream that threatens to break free from bursting out of her mouth. They're going to kill her, aren't they? They'll slaughter her, won't they? She's thrown at his feet, but the man helps her up, and his face is grim. Perhaps she's being fired, is Camilla's second thought, for the hairs on the back of her neck do not stand straight up, meaning the Peacekeepers won't kill her. Camilla will never forget the grey flecks that blink back at her, or the way the man's brow is furrowed so she could plant some seeds in his head and grow a stalk of grain, or the shakiness in his voice.
At the news of her mother being killed, her brother injured and having to see that happen, Camilla would've preferred someone have shot her or had her be fired instead... instead of this cruel Panem she's still living in. She can recall the indents where her knees are in the soil, she looking over at them just in the distance, her left eye starting to twitch as she stares at the spot. Though the soil has been toiled and tilled over and over again since then, it being around eight months, she can feel it under her own feet, someone had fallen in grief there. Camilla forgets how long she had stayed there in that spot crying, where even the foreman lets her go home early, and she races home, hair coming undone from its intense braid, but she's too late. By the time she reaches the doorsteps, a Peacekeeper squad is marking the front door in a hazardous yellow colored tape, the bright coat of a wasp coming to sting her to death, and she races forward to get inside, but she's kept back. She has no idea why.
Millet is sitting there on the front steps, face having gone pale, and she's never seen her brother, a flighty and abrasive little guy for thirteen, staring straight ahead down the cobblestone paths, and he's covered in a fine layer of dust and blood and god knows what else. He smells of death, she noticing the stench immediately before she even gets to touch him, but Camilla only hovers around him, her breathing quick and fast in her throat as her chest rises and falls, but she keeps herself at bay.
"Are you okay?" she asks him. It is a stupid question, but Camilla needs to ask it. Family is everything to a Rodriguez, and if they're going to be the only ones left to give themselves that last night, she must stick herself to him.
"I think so..." her brother responds, still rather blankly, but it's an answer at the very least. Her eyes search his face. She never understood, fully, at the very least, why the rebels hated the Capitol, but she can hear it said that the Peacekeepers cleared the marketplace area after calling the strike in. Why- why would they do that? He's covered in a her entire old life, and she can see that he's clutching onto a half torn bit of a dollar, something their mother must've given him to go find that drink of his he likes, something called tea. "Mom protected me from the blast but..." he pauses, furrowing his brow together, as if we were trying to piece together the details once again, like they were coming to him. "She screamed at the oncoming cloud and then-"
Camilla hugs him then, shushing him, even though he isn't crying out in pain or from fright, but because she might. It is all analyzing the situation and strategizing their next move now. He may be covered in every horrid detail her mind can conjure up, but now it is about her and him surviving in the world with nothing but grit and hard determination to keep them going.
"We'll be okay," she whispers in his ear, her brother wrapping his thin arms around her neck in a hug, but it is his response that terrifies her.
"No, we won't be okay Cammie," he whispers back, voice devoid of all emotion. "We'll be dead just like them soon enough."
She's never understood why people hated the Capitol as much as they claimed too, as it only put a target on their backs. Her father didn't hate them, just kept out of their way. Her mother certainly did not, yet a mortar explosion leaves her parentless, forcing the responsibility of caring for Millet on her shoulders, and all she can see is the burning ferocity of red in his eyes whenever she looks at the logo on a flag flying in the breeze, the ashy breeze where Camilla can see the remains of her parents, they having been grounded into dust.
In the present moment Camilla brushes up another few stalks of grain to put in the bucket, as they'll be good for tonight's bread meal, after she and Millet go to the reaping event, where she'll cry over someone else being selected, and then simply pray for the next year. "Hate is the strongest motivator there is," she whispers, listening to the toll of the bells as they strike, signifying it is ten in the morning, and she's been at this for an hour, sweat pouring down her forehead, her back and neck muscles aching, and she dreads the very idea of needing to lug the bucket back home, but it is for the good of the family.
The reaping gets closer, sweat continues to pour down Camilla's face, and the girl keeps working.
Hate is the strongest motivator there is, and Camilla Rodriguez hates nothing more than the Capitol.
Ramses Boskov: District 12 Male P.O.V (17)
He's meant to be headed for greatness; he's always felt this deep inside, down in the entrenched parts of his soul that he's never shown someone.
Instead, he's slicing up cucumbers for the family salad, which is not so great.
Ramses works the knife back and forth, careful to not slice his other few fingers remaining on his left hand. He's heard of phantom pains, something that amputees tell him about, while he's walking around the makeshift field hospitals, that those who've lost limbs and the like will swear that they've felt the limbs growing back from whichever parts were lost, but then it is all imaginary and in the head, wisps of cloud simply playing on their mutated flesh, but Ramses has never felt that. He's seen his thumb and pointer finger on his right hand get ripped off as the last brick fell through, and the person the hand had been attached to also get taken down into the hole, but he can only vividly recall the way the scream had torn through his throat, and the gush of crimson when he rips his hand back out into civilization as the bombs go off around him, and the way the soot and cinders from the burning skyline fall onto his dark skin, making his body even ashier.
He sets the knife aside, knocking the few slices of cucumber into the salad bowl, grabbing the tongs and spreading the lettuce around. Ramses looks up as his mother replaces the cucumber with a new vegetable, this time a tomato. He hates tomatoes, but as his mother always states, and his father states after her with a firmer tone, he needs to eat. Despite being somewhat stocky, Ramses feels the thinness of existing in District 12 slide over his body, hugging his hips into the counter, or gliding over his collarbone where the neck should be a bit thicker. He protests to his family all the time that if he is to grow strong, should he ever lead the golden country rising over the horizon, he needs to grow into his strength, not by eating salads.
The boy simply sets the tomato off onto the counter, grabbing the cutting board and putting it in the sink, but he holds onto the knife, twisting it in the sunlight that spills through the curtains and into the kitchen. With what today is bringing, the Hunger Games, if he is to be selected, that means killing if he wishes to survive. At that moment his father Roarke rounds the corner, glasses on his hawk-like nose falling down a bit with his father's quick movements, but it is the fiery gaze inside his father's stare that makes him tighten his grip around the knife before. He's killed, his father. He's killed for his district, he's killed for the nation he has grown to love, but when the weasels from One and Two surrendered, all chances of hope died in his father's eyes, and the sense of hope died in Ramses's throat.
The golden nation he'd want to lead burns down before he ever sets foot in it, and he cannot stop the tears that slide down his cheeks when the District 12 mayor surrenders, and with it, one of the last districts to stand up to the Capitol succumbs, and the man is called to the Capitol, he losing his head. The mayor put in place is someone the Boskov family knows, and there's been talk of raiding the mansion and taking the district back, primarily from Ramses's point of view, but one look from Roarke, or his mother Maria, and he silences the protest down his throat with a swallow. It is not in the family's best interest to get all murdered by revealing their hand and having the wrath of President Emrick Israel, or the real brains behind the operation, Vice President Cain Passionia be summoned down on top of them. District 12 has suffered enough, and Ramses knows that although his family has escaped the newly titled Dark Days or Ash Wars all intact, many families are not so lucky, such as the Everdeen family, the last surviving member being a girl of seven years old, who has been taken in by one of the many newly erected orphanages in the district.
"No tomatoes today?" his mother asks him with a quick smile, grabbing some bread and setting it on the table.
"I still think it's weird we're eating salad for breakfast," he shakes his head, setting the knife down into the sink.
"Anastasia chose it today," Roarke says, walking past him to the cupboard, grabbing a glass and filling it with water from the tap. Ramses looks at the sink, at the shiny metal glinting in the sunlight streaming through the curtains, and a pang of jealousy runs through him. Mayor Simon Ether and his newly adopted daughter probably get to drink from a golden sink that spills nectar, the drink of the gods, into their cups, but he's left with tap water that has a hint of metallic rumors running through it, staining his tongue. He could lead the peoples of Panem into a new world, one that is not marred by bloodshed and shadows, but of freedom and the elixir of life flowing through everyone's veins, rather than coal dust he breathes in. "She wanted salad, and how can I say no to my little girl?"
"You just say no to her," Ramses turns around, placing both hands on the rim of the sink, the coolness of the metal causing his palms to twitch. "Besides, I should've been the one to decide what we're eating given what today is."
His mother set the bread down, looking over at him with her lips tucked into her mouth. "Ramses, not every day can be about you, you know."
"I know that," he says, taking a step forward, needing to recover his balance as he almost slips and falls on his face with the new placement his mother had bought from the marketplace yesterday. "But today is a special one."
"An evil one more like," Roarke mutters into his coffee, Maria looking at her husband with a pointed stare. Neither one of them have any fond love for the Capitol after what has been done to their fellow brothers and sisters, or when the countryside burned, and the sky hadn't always been so gray, Ramses loving the Capitol even less than that. However, he understands the sentiment and the expression of disproval, for no one knows if it is safe outside or not. Whenever he goes out, Ramses has to remind himself to constantly bite down on his tongue before he starts spewing anti-Capitol rhetoric, for he has no idea who is truly listening, or if those mockingbirds tweeting in the trees are actually real animals, but he's not about to cut open a bird to make sure his assumption had been right; he's not paranoid.
Just disgruntled.
His sister Anastasia comes running around the bend, always unable to sit still with her bright eyes and her big poof of hair, Ramses scooping her up in his arms before she collides into the sink or slips on a placemat and breaks her head open. She giggles sweetly to herself as he swings her about in a circle, holding her out before hugging her. "Are you the one who wanted salad today, for breakfast, Anna?" he asks her, taking a curl of hers and twisting it around his finger, setting her down on the floor while Roarke goes and takes a seat next to his wife. "What happened to always watching out for your big brother?"
She puts her hands on a hip, giving him a coy smile before getting up and sitting in a chair at the counter. Maria and Roarke both roll their eyes together, before digging into the salad and bread. Truthfully, Ramses understands why that's what's being served for breakfast, as it is as all they can really afford, with the hours in the mines being cut on executive orders until all known or suspected rebel affiliates be rounded up and executed, Roarke staying quieter and quieter with each passing moment; Ramses expects to start taking shifts in the mines, although he truly believes that vocation is beneath him for the future leader of Panem.
Anastasia twirls another lock of hair around her finger, a lighter brown to her darker skin tone, looking at him. "Well... I think I'm more important," she teases, Ramses sticking his tongue out at her, she giggling again.
Ramses grabs the knife he used to cut the vegetables for the salad out of the kitchen sink, the blade covered in small water droplets, a few of them coalescing at the tip of the knife, splattering onto the metal of the counter as he reached over for a rag. He looks at the droplet intensely, feeling an immense pressure build on his left eye which begins to twitch. The droplet looks like blood, but blood sizzles when it makes contact with heat. His hand had looked like that at one point, with his fingers getting swallowed up by the collapsed building, or the swallowed scream of the dead man who is yelling even as his corpse passes the mark of the living and dead, he biting down on his tongue to stem the thoughts from building any larger, his sister reaching over and grabbing his left hand, the hand that is whole, for she is unable to look at his right hand and the grotesqueness that spills from it.
He looks at her, lips quipping into a sad smile, he resting his elbows on the counter. "Anna, do you know what I'm doing today at noon?"
She traces one of the stones on the counter, going around the potted plant that sits at the very edge, fingers dangerously close from tipping it over and breaking it on the ground. "Something in the square, right?"
"But do you know why?"
"The Hunger Games," Anastasia says, and he's never heard his sister speak in such a dark manner, her eyebrows falling back to a normal height, her gaze directed towards the counter and not up at him. Over at the dinner table, Roarke and Maria pause their eating, salad on both of their forks, forks halfway to their mouths as they look at their children, but Ramses keeps pushing. "I heard some of the older kids on the playground at school talking about how their brothers and sisters were going too."
"And do you know what'll happen if I'm selected?" he asks her next, but she simply shrugs her shoulders. "It means I might not come back, Anna," he rubs her nose, and at this, his mother stands up in her seat, grabbing the empty slab for bread, there having only been a couple of pieces on it in the first place. "But if I am selected," Ramses adds next, making his voice lighter and happier so his sister can look at him with wide, appreciative eyes, "I will be fighting as hard as I can to make it back to you so we can have more salads for breakfast, okay?" He palms the side of her face, smiling, and she does so back.
"Okay, Ramses," she nods her head, getting down from the counter, and without another word, she's off running again, soaring past the wall and towards her bedroom. She never utters an 'I love you', or anything of the sort, simply leaving it at that.
However, his moment of peace doesn't continue, as Maria slams the bread platter onto the counter, a disapproving expression twisting her facial features. "Ramses, why would you go and tell your sister that?"
"It's not like I was scaring her or anything," Ramses bridges his eyebrows together, frowning. "At what point in her life would you tell her about the Hunger Games? When she's twelve?"
Roarke dabs at his mouth with a napkin, getting to his feet likewise, crumbling it up in his hands. "What your mother is trying to say, son, is that you didn't need to scare her. Anastasia doesn't need to know that there's a chance her big brother would be leaving her and wouldn't be coming back."
"You don't sugarcoat things with me, you know," he points out, holding onto the knife, lifting it up so the sharp point is digging into the counter, scratches and tallies for all the days he's wasted away while the great Capitol dances in the blood of their own makings and murders.
"You also aren't six, Ramses," Maria gently chides, her husband coming over and placing an arm around her shoulders.
He locks his jaw, Ramses does, looking at both of them in the eyes. "Well, I made my decision to tell her, cause I know neither one of you would," his right hand, the one without two of his fingers, clenches and unclenches around the handle of the blade. "Anastasia is lucky, she's been shielded and kept away from the horrors of the world, but at some point someone is going to tell her to grow up or the world is going to force her to," he lifts his head triumphantly, nostrils flaring. "A good leader, like one I will become one day, doesn't sugarcoat the news for their subjects; I made my decision, and I stand by it."
Ramses plunges the knife into the bread board, leaving the blade to rattle back and forth as he walks away, and in his mind's eye that golden city he dreams of ruling over one day continues to still burn, long before the blade will ever stop moving in place.
Cassiopeia Grey: District 11 Female P.O.V (13)
There is no mountain high enough that she knows cannot be climbed, for it is in her very nature to not give up. In this instance, said mountain to be climbed is rather an oak tree just barely touching the fringes of one of the orange fields, and on the other side of that orange field, meshing in with the harsh gray coloring of the iron fence bordering the expansive forest beyond. Thirteen year-old Cassiopeia Grey only has a few more hours before her innocence is stolen away from her, an expression she's heard some kids at school say, so she might as well live it to the fullest. The only words she's spoken to her parents currently were a 'Good morning!' and a 'See you later, bye!' punctuated with enthusiasm as she races out the front door with her parent's voices riding the wind as she runs down the front steps leaving them, and the calcite gray shack she calls home, goodbye.
There is never a dull moment for her, and like she's asked, her best friend Amalie is already waiting for her at the tree. She - Cassiopeia - picks it out yesterday while playing hopscotch, she tripping over her own feet. After she recovered from falling on the ground, she sees it when lifting her head, a shining tree with golden branches and leaves shining and glistening like emeralds in the sky, smiling through the pain of a roughed up elbow, even as Amalie helps her up then. Amalie doesn't like climbing trees, she doesn't like running, or mud, or dirt, and frankly Cassiopeia believes the girl might not even like hopscotch, but she's her best friend and best friends do everything together, after all. If she ever admitted to not liking hopscotch or bird watching, she'd punch her.
Just a soft one in the arm though, she promises. She swears it, even with her fingers crossed behind her back flashing another sweet smile.
"I dunno about this one, Cassie," Amalie looks up at it, eyes widening at the behemoth. The oak tree is at least fifty feet tall, and while Cassiopeia is unable to see any particular ledges or spots for her to step onto, it doesn't mean there aren't any there, and she doesn't take no for an answer; she'll continue climbing and climbing and climbing until she's on air, and she's always wanted to climb on top of clouds too. That'd be a rather wicked superpower, she figures. Amalie simply shakes her head back and forth, bright auburn curls hitting her pale neck, looking over at her best friend with a slightly fearful gaze. "It looks too tall for us, and besides, what happens when you fall?"
"If I fall," Cassiopeia corrects with a hint of smugness in her voice, even going as far as to stick out a finger in her best friend's direction. A Grey never quits, quitting is not in her parent's blood, and it is not in hers, never has been. She kicks at the dirt, tossing some leaves to the side that have fallen out of the tree. "Besides, if I do fall, luckily I have an amazing best friend who'll catch me," she smiles at Amalie, who simply rolls her eyes. Whereas Amalie has the ferociously colored tone of a flame for hair, Cassiopeia's is more a dark brown in the color of warm, melted down chocolate, she tugging her curls into a rough ponytail that lightly pats her neck. She stretches her arms out to fall into a pocket of sun that hits her arms, tanning them further than the color they already are at.
Cassiopeia doesn't exactly remember what gets her into climbing trees or asking her friends to start climbing them as well, but she likes to find a new one to tackle every weekend. The war - "Rebellion, Cassie," she has to remind herself. It's a rebellion when one speaks in public about it, never a war. A war means a fair share of the blame, as far as she is aware - had knocked a lot of trees in Eleven down, and it is no fun to climb an orange bush that she's just as tall as where she could simply hug it, but then that means being whipped by a Peacekeeper for interfering with Capitol protected produce. She has been hit once, just across the face, she feeling like it almost cut off her button nose, for trespassing onto a private lot that had a no trespassing sign in the yard, but she simply kicks it over and does as she pleases; that's before Amalie talks her out of doing other stupid things.
She takes a step towards the tree, passing through the shadow realm - do you blame her for having an active imagination? - as the last ray of sunlight falls onto her back. Cassiopeia adds the added weight in her pant pocket. Normally she never comes armed, but she cannot resist taking one of the knives from the kitchen set with her, having removed it from the cupboard last night when her parents had fallen asleep. If Amalie were to see the weapon just discarded on the ground, she'd never want to come back to the tree again, believing it to be some spot where hooligans and ruffians hang out, newly learned words in English class. Cassiopeia giggles every time she says it, for they're such ridiculous words, and who has time to learn ridiculous words when they could be out exploring nature's thriving ecosystems?
"If any hooligans or ruffians," Cassiopeia tells her one day, unable to keep a straight face as the syllables leave her lips, "Try harming you, they'll have to answer to me," she tells her best friend at lunch one day where they have to sit inside so they stay out of the rain. Cassiopeia likes rain, but hates the smell it makes on her clothes.
"They'll kill you."
"I'd like to see them try," she bites back, and the grip she has on her plastic knife to cut into the pathetic piece of chicken on her plate tightens some more, tanned knuckles going white.
When she gets home, her parents would have left for work already, being some of the unlucky adults in the entire district to draw the short end straws that mean they must work in the fields, even on Reaping Day. For some districts, as she's heard the gossip passed around the lunch tables, a few of them get to have their productions cease and stop until the proceedings are over, or in some extreme cases like One or Two - Cassiopeia spits into the dirt any time one of those places are mentioned; devil people they are - have the entire day off, but her parents will be toiling away at the orange trees and apple orchards and making sure there are blueberries ripe for the Capitol... while she's stuck in a hot pen, yearning for the azure skies above her head.
Cassiopeia shakes away a spider web that she walks into, not caring if anything is actually on her as she makes her way to the tree, planting one foot against it. Amalie tenses up behind her, but the girl continues venturing forward. It might be the last tree in the district she's yet to conquer, if that is at all somehow possible. She hoists herself up onto a nub, one foot balancing very precariously on the spot while her right foot is still touching solid ground. Cassiopeia inhales a deep breath, pushing herself off the ground, throwing her arms up to sling them around the branch nearest to her, and since it is an oak tree, there are no small branches, only large ones. What is the expression? The larger the fish, the bigger the fry? She's not quite sure, but Cassiopeia's made it to the first level by then as she slings herself around, hugging it like how she hugs her pillow at night.
"Good, you did it!" Amalie cheers her on, but there's a hint of worry in her voice. "Now come on down."
"Are you stupid?" Cassiopeia shouts back, perhaps a bit insensitive, but it is not like she signed a contract that said she needs to be nice to anyone necessarily, and her gaze goes higher to the next branch. "I've got way more to go," she grits her teeth together, slowly unlatching from the current hugging post, rising to her feet, wobbling some but staying steadily upright.
The doctors had told her parents she'd be a difficult child, when her parents realize that they wouldn't be able to both take days off from work in an alternating pattern without there being a significant drop of income into the Grey household, as she's the only child and would be left alone. Cassiopeia doesn't know, and still to this day does not know what that meant, but she can count on her hands how many days a month she'll actually see both of her parents at any given time in the house, and a few more tallies for when one of them is home, but there's been many a night where the corners of her room are the only thing to say goodnight to her, as it is the echo of her own voice coming back to her, before she turns over and turns the light off.
Well, difficult child or not, she knows she's much better than plenty of kids her age who'd rather simply stay inside all day or do something like homework without ever applying it in the real world. How else is someone supposed to apply the concept of acceleration, a word she is unable to pronounce at times, her tongue twisting together at the strange string of sounds, unless they go and physically run into a wall to see if they can push it? Her mother, at one of the times she actually would even get to be a parent and lecture her, places a hand under her chin, forcing Cassiopeia to look at her and not away like she'd want to.
"You're smarter than that, Miss Grey," Her parents never had the decency to use her first name, but she doesn't know how that makes her feel. Any time she brings it up to Amalie, she gets a shrug of the shoulders, signaling a quitting response. "Do not use yourself as a battering ram again, young lady."
"Yes ma'am."
Cassiopeia Grey runs into another brick wall to check her theory out the very next day, and that is how she meets her best friend that is Amalie, bright hair looming over her as she sees stars dance behind her closed eyes, for the other girl saw this other girl run straight into a building and bounce back like someone flicking away a gnat that is buzzing around their ears. She doesn't recall exactly how they became friends then and there, for Amalie certainly did not offer to walk her to the nurse's office or even ask if she's okay, but Cassiopeia didn't need someone comforting her like that anyways, because she knew she's fine and that's all that matters.
She hoists herself up onto another branch, and another, and another, and another until her head is brushing up against leaves, Amalie's voice loud and clear from where she is on the ground compared to the thirty five feet high Cassiopeia. She's never had a fear of heights, blessing that on the holy book, but Cassiopeia is unable to save face whenever she looks down. Climbing up to the top of the tree has never been a problem for her, but the descent down sometimes leaves her shaking like a leaf blowing in the breeze if her foot is to slip once or twice. She doesn't doubt that someone will grab her, or that the ground will soften the impact of the blow, but it is the fact that she's failed which is what strikes cold iron fear into her heart.
"Cassie, please come down! I don't like you being up that high!" Amalie calls to her once again.
"You're going to get gray hairs by the time you're like, twenty!" she yells down, smirking. "Stop worrying about me! I'm fine, I promise!"
Oh, if only she hadn't said that.
Cassiopeia didn't see any of the horrors of the war - rebellion, rebellion, rebellion, rebellion, you know the damn word you idiot girl! - firsthand, only hearing about it. Eleven, as cruel as the Peacekeepers seemed to be, and as close to Twelve and its destruction, or the rashness of Four and their decisions to charge straight into enemy lines brought fear into the hearts and homes of those in Eleven, Cassiopeia continues on trying to apply the law of the conservation of energy into the rule of acceleration as she speeds through her early adolescent years. Knowing what happens to a dead man is enough for her, or when she one time falls off of a tree and lands on what she thinks to be a squirrel, but she's crushed the poor animal into the dirt and when she gets up, the corpse is a gross mess of grass and fur, twitching ever so slightly.
She cries tears of frustration as she bashes the animal's head in with a rock, just to put the squirrel out of its misery.
In a moment of triumph, as well as blanching when a passing image of the squirrel floats by in her head, Cassiopeia reaches for the next rung on the tree to seize, and her foot slips. With a surprised cry, she plummets to the ground, luckily not hitting the tree, most likely falling through several of the cobwebs and spiderwebs she saw on the way up. She tucks herself into a ball, shielding her head from the ground as a thirty foot drop rushes to meet her. She hits the Earth with a soft puh, pain rippling through her body. Cassiopeia is in a state of shock to the point where she doesn't even utter an exclamation of 'ow', just simply staying there till her nerves stop flashing a code red. She didn't break any bones, she can tell, from the way her ankles ripple and roll while she stretches.
Amalie is at her side immediately, hoisting her up to a sitting position.
"I told you..." she says, but Cassiopeia knocks away her hand.
"Save it," the girl grumbles, not in the mood to be coddled. She looks up at the tree with disdain, nostrils flaring slightly; there might be a round two in the foreseeable future as far as she can tell. Once the reaping is over, she'll come back, bandaged up, and take another go at it. Amalie won't be there to coddle her, she will not think of bodies burnt up by napalm, of the doctors who call her difficult in the white lab coats, or of the crushed squirrel that causes her to fall in the first place. "I'm fine."
"You are not fine," Amalie argues back, dusting her off. "You skinned your knee."
Cassiopeia looks down at her knees, both of them rather banged up, a hue of copper leaking out and a few droplets sliding down her legs, but she can hardly feel the pain that radiates through her body. She dares not cry, for a Grey does not know crying either, just like how they do not know quitting. "It's just... just a scratch," she places a hand on her stomach, needing to catch her breath. Even if the fall did not hurt, it did take the wind out of her, an experience she thinks she'd be familiar with by now for all the brick walls she's hurt, but Cassiopeia is okay with a bit of trial and error.
"I'll go and ask for an ice pack, I'm sure someone will have one," her best friend gets to her feet, righting herself. "Don't move, Cassie."
"Am-" Cassiopeia starts to protest.
"I said don't move!" Amalie yells back at her, often needing to raise her voice to get a point across or through the girl's skull.
Cassiopeia watches the bright head of auburn hair vanish down the street, for they're just up against one of the marketplace shops, and there'll be an adult who can help, and she'll do what her best friend asked her to do. Just stay put. Well... it is not like a Grey has ever been good at following orders exactly. She gets to her feet, holding back from hissing or wincing in pain, hobbling over to the oak tree. She pats her right pocket, closing her eyes and smiling in relief when it is still there. She had been the most afraid of it skewing through her side, for that is a wound an ice pack simply cannot just make go away, but luckily she didn't get stabbed with it, nor did it fall out of her pocket.
She pulls the knife she took from the kitchen drawer out of her pocket, steadying herself up against the tree, trying to not mind the wound that will make walking back to the town square a bit of a pain, for being late to the Reaping does essentially mean death, if Cassiopeia is take the mayor's words of warning literal.
With a stupid grin on her face growing larger and larger by the second, Cassiopeia digs the blade into the bark of the tree, hoping that Amalie wouldn't be back in time before she finishes, else there'll be hell to pay for sure. With a satisfied sigh, Cassiopeia rights herself away from her new splendid handiwork, admiring it with a hand on her hip, the blade going back into hiding.
The grin matches the grin that she can feel her soul making, looking at the drawing she drew into the tree, the same one to match every single tree she's ever climbed in District Eleven. Sure, Cassiopeia Grey likes trees and loves nature, and loves climbing them, but that's not the only reason why.
It is a heart.
Inside the heart, the letters C + A.
Niklaus Peverell: District 8 Male P.O.V (18)
Pain is his elixir. Pain is his freedom. Freedom comes in the form of a white slush, slithering down the hypodermic needle, and into his veins, he giving a heavy sigh before tossing his head back against the wall, rutting slightly on the floor. He closes his eyes, seeing bright bursts of color explode behind shut lids, waves of cardinal red and a hazy orange that flush against his skin, causing him to open his mouth and tilt his head to the side. He clenches and unclenches his left hand into a fist, his right hand grabbing onto his arm just above where the needle is, a cooing noise building in his throat. Sure, it might not be the best thing for him to do right now, but there's a reaping in maybe fifteen - no definitely fourteen - minutes and he needs to be there, but he's not going to show up, he's not going to go.
Why should he? Why should he leave when there's an entire world behind closed eyelids for him to explore?
Eighteen year-old Niklaus Peverell opens his eyes, hearing the sound of shoes walking on the creaky floorboards above him, sending dust to pile down in columns on his floor, his eyes rolling back into his head as a few fingers find the needle, slowly pulling it out of his arm. There's a bit of blood that has him biting down on his tongue to stem the painful flower from blooming any further, he sighing once more, sweat pouring down his forehead. His body feels like he took a bath in the sun, swimming through the corona and touching a solar flare as it lashes out off of the celestial body, part of it passing through him. That is what it feels like, to kiss the slush in his veins, to kiss the pouch that holds it, or what it is like to slide the needle over his tongue, pricking just a bit of the skin to feel that sensation of being alive.
He snuck out of the house this morning, crawling through his bedroom window after bashing the lock in, for his father knows he can't be trusted to stay put, but there's no way he can kept away from the goods on a day like this. Niklaus loses his job the moment the bombs started falling, and when he gets to taste the euphoric sensation that is something called cocaine - that is what the foreman who gave him the job in the smog factories - tells him at least, he almost prefers to never get his job back. He might not return home after the reaping is over, for it'll be his one and only that he has to deal with, for going home is to stare into his father's dark eyes, always unable to hold the gaze, feel the slugging punch across his face, and curl up into a ball and cry.
It is the pain that he loves so much that'll bring him back to his feet only to be hit again, and even though he's crying through tears of blood and salt and ichor and drugs, he's smiling too. Niklaus runs a hand down his arm, picking over the scabs and scars from injections that are botched, as he's trying to kick someone else away from him who is reaching for the stash. And then it is not just the cocaine that the foreman presses into his hand when he's told he's out of a job, but the bright orange pill he still has no idea how to really pronounce... fentanyl? It comes from District 5, that smoked out, white lab rat place, but Niklaus imagines it can't be that bad of a place if it creates these wonderful things he puts into his body. Screw it, he'll take another, as Niklaus digs into his pocket, patting it incessantly when he comes back empty. The plastic pouch is empty.
His eyes widen.
No.
No.
That- that's not supposed to happen! He- he's told that the last supply would last him two full weeks, but it's been eight days... how, no... there should be six more days of it left, but it's not there. He's snagging on an empty pouch with nothing there. He hugs the pouch close to his chest, heaving an ugly cry out of his chest cavity, hot tears spilling down his cheeks. This- this can't be right. Niklaus looks up from his pouch, crumbling it up and tossing it away in disgust, a harsh sob coming from his throat. He cannot go home without the good stuff, he will not walk back under the Peverell roof without the good shit in his pocket, or he'll simply die. He wants his job back too, but all the factories are gone, they're all burned down to the ground and being rebuilt and he's watching all the cinders fall, where the ash piles even look like little grains of cocaine if he squints just right or is high enough.
Another set of feet heading his way makes him look over, reaching over the plastic pouch. It's his, no one else's! If they want their own, they can go fucking get it. Niklaus tenses to pounce on whoever is about to walk into his room. It's his, he buys it in his own name with a few blood droplets falling onto the parchment, for it is his for the hour, and if anyone else is to walk in, he's given permission to drag the rusted nail sitting in the corner across their throat. Niklaus rises from his seated position where his legs are stretched out in front of him to a crouched position, knees bouncing as his ankles vibrate along the floor, fingers morphing into claws. He hasn't showered yet, for he's hoping to use the one here in the hostel if they'll let him, but he'll have to shower with the nail by his side.
He's about to pounce when the door swings open rather fast, startling him. Niklaus falls back with a cry against a bookshelf, pushing it away some, a stinging pain rising in his shoulder. It's not broken, but falling from a ladder to fix the weathervane on the roof, but when his father barks some stupid order or question about what the hell those orange pills are doing back in the Peverell house, he scrambles in terror and falls down to the ground. A longer injection than normal behind the Justice Building with the mayor's kids are not enough to stem the agony. Niklaus's look of fright evaporates at the sight of Rudy Patterkinn standing in the doorway, a golden jacket and red blazer covering his entire body, a pale hand holding onto the gilded door knob that comes off with a slight tug.
The look of fright evolves into one of pure terror, a demon plunging the needle directly into his heart this time.
"I was told you'd be in here," he smirks at him, Niklaus struggling to get to his feet.
"Yeah... yeah, I was told not to be disturbed but-"
"You doing good?" Rudy asks him, moving over to the far window in the corner. A few pieces of paper are placed over it, the guy sighing, rubbing at his brow before turning around to rest his elbows on the windowsill. Niklaus has never liked him, with his copper colored hair that is for sure a dyed tinge of red since no one's hair looks like a rusted over penny. The man's electric blue eyes appraise over him, Niklaus pressing himself flat against the wall. "Mindy told me you get a room here like once a week to shoot up in private."
"M- Mindy wasn't supposed to say anything..." Niklaus mumbles, pulling at the sleeve of his jacket. It might be hotter than hell outside, but if he goes home with those scars, he'll never leave the house again.
"Niklaus, it's me!" Rudy grins back at him, holding his arms out like he wants to be given a hug, but it is nothing like that. It is never something like that, no warm hugs and kisses when Rudy Patterkinn strolls in. "If I wanted Mindy to screw you over a table, she'd do it," he smirks, putting his hands in his pockets of his fancy, fancy suit. It's an attractive suit, Niklaus will give the guy that, and Rudy looks good in it too, but that's a different matter altogether. The guy has pearly whites. Of course he does, for he's the one who can afford the good Capitol healthcare, his father didn't lose his job, and he didn't have one to begin with, either. "If my father wanted me and Mindy to both fuck you, you'd have to allow it."
Niklaus turns to stand side face so he doesn't look at Rudy in the eyes. There's too much of a demonic sinisterism sent back his way, and the only demons he likes to hear are the ones in his head. "I- I was just leaving."
"No, no," Rudy waves one of his hands flippantly, knocking one of the sides of his jacket that Niklaus wants to rip off of his body to the side. Copper hair, a tilted neck that Niklaus wants to take a bite of, just to see what a Patterkinn tastes like... how the world can be so cruel. "Stay here and chat with me, Niklaus. It wouldn't hurt," and then, he takes a step away from the windowsill, back to the entrance and slams the door shut, slamming it so hard that the knob, which is hanging onto the edge just barely, falls to the floor with a clatter. His escape route is gone. Rudy's smile has vanished, and he's clenching and unclenching his knuckles as well, but each time he does it, the flap of the jacket moves some, Niklaus getting a glimpse of the red lining.
Red lining.
Burning bodies in a factory fire.
The scent of smoke in the air, the smog choking him as Niklaus inhales it, fingers clawing at his throat while Rudy tilts his head back, a glob of amber liquid and a droplet of spit sliding down his tongue.
Burning bodies.
The smell of fire and flesh and piss and blood and cocaine mixed in a broken beer bottle.
Rudy bares his canines at Niklaus. "Where's my money, Peverell?"
"I- I'll have it tomorrow..." Niklaus holds an arm out weakly, his left hand going to clutch his stomach.
"Will you?" the other man tilts his head to the side, a dangerous hint of violence peeking through into his vocal cords. "That's funny... you said the same thing to me last time when I showed up to your house. And the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that..." Rudy is now in front of Niklaus, knocking his hand away and out of the side, grabbing him by the back, hands dangerously low to his ass, before his right hand seizes Niklaus's throat. "So I'm gonna ask you again, Peverell, where the fuck is my cash?"
Niklaus coughs out weakly, as Rudy lifts him in the air, his head just barely brushing up against the ceiling causing more of the dust to fall to the floor, but it is ash and particles of euphoria, and smashed opioids into the ceiling, or his mother's tears, or the cinders of a burning body, or more of Rudy's scent coagulated into a copper droplet that is his languid kiss on his tongue.
Burning bodies.
Broken cog wheels.
A false sense of security.
"I- I'll have it, I swear!" Niklaus chokes out, just barely, as Rudy's fingers begin to dig into his throat.
"This is the last time, Peverell. The next time I come to find out where my money is, I'm bringing my father," Rudy threatens, with a hiss, eyes dancing like the flash of a blue-ringed octopus. Poisonous, dangerous, edible. Niklaus almost bites down on the guy's hand, for what would he taste like with a droplet of cocaine on his tongue to melt like a snowflake that falls from the sky? "I'm giving you my fortune, which came from my Daddy, and he is not going to be very happy to find out a Peverell is the one who's been wasting it..." and then, as he lets Niklaus go, air flooding into his lungs as he coughs, Rudy leans forward, this time the left hand behind the teenager's back squeezing his ass. "Your days are numbered, Niklaus."
With that sweet goodbye, Rudy rubs Niklaus's hair, pressing a finger down at the crook of his arm, causing the male to cry out and fall to the floor, but even in that, euphoria races through his system.
Rudy simply kicks the door open to leave the room, which Niklaus knows that he'll have to probably pay for now. He should never go home, should he?
Niklaus watches the son of District 8's Head Peacekeeper vanish down the stairs of the hostel, for he's lucky and is twenty-four, out of the eligible reaping age, a demon shrouded in velvet, cashmere, gold, and his father's money.
He's always fighting demons, Niklaus is in a holy war against them, but no matter how much of the good stuff or the orange pills he pops into his mouth... it's never enough to beat them back, not even for an instance.
How do you fight a demon when the worst one is yourself?
Woohoo, I feel energized! There we are, ladies and gents, Chapter #7: False Sense of Security, the second out of six intro chapters where we meet the twenty-four tributes who'll be inducted into the Hall of Fame that is the 1st Annual Hunger Games. I apologize if it got too dark there at the end, let alone for this whole chapter, but the entire story will definitely err on this side of things as that is just how my writing goes. I wrote this over three days time, pacing myself, and I had an absolute blast, for these kids are no joke! You're getting the chapter at least twelve hours earlier than anticipated!
We were introduced this time to Camilla Rodriguez (D9F) by Reign of Winter, Ramses Boskov (D12M) by Guesttwelve, Cassiopeia Grey (D11F) by ZeroIsANumber, and Niklaus Peverell (D8M) by timesphobic, once again all with very different and creative backstories. As I said last chapter, we're still really just at the tip of the iceberg. Who was your favorite of the four? Next chapter, #8: The Calling of the Culled - not gonna lie, pretty damn happy about that chapter title - will be another intro chapter with four tribute POVs plus returning to see a Capitol character pov. We'll be at the reapings, one tribute covering each event, and then a 'reaping recap' so to speak from Emrick Israel, the president, who I'm excited to get back into his head again. The four tributes I selected for this honor are Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Kileigh Katsaras (D5F), Magnus Winterthorn (D2M), and Nevaeh Davoli (D7F), plus Emrick. I am very happy with how this chapter turned out, and I hope you guys liked it too! Reviews would mean the world for me, I would greatly appreciate it, as I feel that this cast is the most special I've been given.
I love you all so very much! Thanks for all the support you constantly give me; it makes this worth it more than you will ever know. Have a great day, and please be safe out there in this wild world with the situations and events that are unfolding. Bye!
~ Paradigm