*cue ducking under throw rotten vegetables at my head* Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death. Yes, it has been like a month and a half since I've last updated, but in the meantime I finished my other SYOT Bombs and Bullets - which you should definitely check out if you haven't yet! I promise you it is worth it! - and did the last 65k or so for that story, as I had a lot to get through, so I am happy to be finished and have this story to focus on. I am planning on an update a week which'll put me at the bloodbath in late October, near Halloween, which I am very excited about. Last chapter, #8, had a reaping recap, and povs from Orion Maythorpe, Kileigh Katsaras, Magnus Winterthorn, and Nevaeh Davoli, the D4M, D5F, D2M, and D7F respectively. Today, this chapter is one of three train rides meeting the first of the latter half of the cast: Dill Waylon (D11M by A Mad Tea Party), Portia Beninblade (D2F by WhateverIsOpen), Zachary Edison (D5M by GreyShade), and Poem Cavalli (D8F by LordShiro). Once again, chapter will be quite long, I apologize for the delay, and please enjoy Chapter #9: Brisk Negotations.
"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." ~ John F. Kennedy
Dill Waylon: District 11 Male P.O.V (16)
Hot water pours down his back, steaming up the cubicle for the shower, sixteen year-old Dill Waylon running a hand through his cornrows, stretching his hand down until it reaches midback, his hair quite long. Some of the lasting jeers when he leaves the train station do not go unnoticed on his ears, but he pays them no mind, for he is more so focused on his new district partner, the girl swearing up a storm, constantly going at the locked door to the car, and then she resorts to punching the window with her fist repeatedly, as if that is going to do anything. Dill simply rolls his eyes, looking out the window while the Peacekeeper sitting between the two of them grabs her arm, violently wrenching it back to rest against the cushioned seat. She glares at him, but ultimately withers in place, for as far as Dill can tell, she's a smart girl who knows a losing battle when she sees one.
Or, well, so he believes that to be the case anyways, when their escort reveals the train car to them, and while they're walking up to it, Dill turns to her, the name an echoing shout in his skull - Cassiopeia Grey, Cassiopeia Grey, Cassiopeia Grey, something he rolls on his tongue like a tied cherry stem - and offers a hand as she struggles on the stairs getting into the car. That hand is yet again another murderous glare, something she seems fond of doing quite often, and then a hard punt in the crotch, for as Cassiopeia puts it, she doesn't trust creepers. Dill goes down for the count with one single breath, crying out in pain from the sudden attack, but she's vanished, and the escort's long nails are at his back helping him up. He glares in the direction of the open car as Cassiopeia vanishes, but to where, he doesn't know nor does he truly care.
With a few sympathetic words from the Capitolite going with them, Dill bids his goodbyes, finding his bedroom on the opposite side of the train, they having entered it from the middle dining car, and steps into the shower. He's lost track of how long he has been in here, stuck in this cubicle of painted glass which smears like a watercolor art piece hanging in the court room, Dill running his hand back and forth over it whilst bombarded by hot bullets. Those words as he's leaving race through his head again, bristling his ears with electricity, it brimming over his skin like a sheen of fog, sweat droplets clinging to the moisture, holding him back against the cool tile of the cubicle. "Looks like they're sending two girls to the Capitol! Ha, District Eleven represented by two hissy bitches!"
First off, the grammar in the jeer makes him shudder and nearly toss his cookies, but he's learned to ignore them. His cornrows are perhaps the only truly masculine thing about his appearance, almond shaped dark brown eyes accentuated by long eyelashes blinking away the few tears threatening to bite at his outer shell. His height gives to the added length of his limbs, femininity oozing down to his ankles and his wrists, his slender face accompanied by the long hair... he has been known to be mistaken as a woman from the back sometimes, until they hear his voice, but Dill decides to speak less and less as time has passed. He briefly considers, just for a moment, while standing on stage when the woman babbles on and on and Cassiopeia cusses out the clouds, to shout, to unleash the anger stirring within his stomach, but he simply tilts his head to the side, looking at the other sixteen year-old guys who are safe and fine this year to go home to their mommies and daddies.
He might come back to his in a box, the thought not lost on him.
Dill doesn't understand a lot of math, the subject always bothering him in school, but this is the point of ridiculousness where he cannot even fathom the percentage chance of himself getting reaped. His name had been in the roulette selector five times, and his name flashes on the screen, and like he expects of District 11, no one steps forward to take his place. Not even for the 'King of the Orchard'. Dill scoffs to himself, running a hand down to cup his waist. He hates that nickname, he has always, rather vehemently disliked it, but he once again, stills his tongue. Being popular without ever saying much has always confused him, but lest he speaks out of turn and loses all of his favor, Dill keeps his mouth shut. Being popular has helped, he figures, but it didn't save him from the reaping.
He wonders if it is karma. He supposes he could ask his brother and father one day when he sees them, in whichever cold circle of Hell they've found themselves in. A harsh laugh rises from his throat, he lifting his hands to the soap box, before taking a step back, nearly slipping on the tile. There isn't even a soap box. "What...?" he thinks to himself, narrowing his gaze. Growing up in Eleven, what finds him to be even stranger than being the King of the Orchard when not speaking often, is that there is no real money stream coming in, and there most certainly isn't any special fragrances to make his baths at night smell any better, but he sees it there, on the edge of the shower, that there is no box for any soap. How is he to wash his hair?
As if the shower had heard his thoughts, shooting out of a jet right next to the showerhead, a stream of pink bubbles. It hits him in the chest, he sputtering out in surprise, almost slipping and falling once again, Dill leaning out to grab the latch on the door to steady himself. It smells ridiculous, Dill turning his nose up as the scent of cotton candy, although it is foreign to him as what it is, fills the cubicle, Dill gagging at the taste, for bubbles float to the top of the shower, frothing against the roof in a carnation pink foam, droplets of it falling off and hitting him in the nose. He's smelled the scent once before, when the two hands on his back grip into his shoulders, and the sultry voice in his ear insults him again, all of his feminine wiles that bog him down, and the taste is on their lips as they're on his.
The validation of cotton candy, he supposes, savoring up every lick and bite.
Dill turns the shower off, resting his head back up against the wall, the cool tile prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. The droplets remind him of his mother's tears soaking his shirt with her face pressed up against his, at how she cannot lose another Waylon boy, Dill trying to not roll his eyes, for he most certainly will, and then his sister will see and... he doesn't finish the thought, simply wiping away some water at his eyebrows with the back of his hand. Dill opens up the shower door, stepping out into his bedroom compartment. The ground is made of carpet, his a burnt orange and sienna color, an oven roasted peanut hanging out with his feet making deep indentions in the carpet. He gets a good look at his naked body in the mirror. He likes his body, truth be told, Dill angling himself so the sunlight peeking through the curtained windows can fall on the bit of bone that juts just out and away from his hip.
Someone else likes his hips, enough to leave two puncture marks on them just above the thigh, where blood falls and pools, a shudder rippling through Dill. His fingers ghost over them, parting his lips in ecstasy. Are they doing alright without him? Without the Peach? He shrugs his shoulders, grabbing the towel that sits just off the door, matching the carpet, which does not match the drapes, he drying himself off rapidly before placing the towel back on the rack. His clothes lie on the bed, an outfit he laid out in the morning for the reaping, as the instructions from President Emrick request that everyone wear their Sunday best, but as far as he's aware, all of his Sunday best's are elsewhere around town, draped over radiators or in the hands of gentleman callers with a kiss for him and a penny in the free hand of their choosing. It is nothing spectacular, Dill running a hand down the fabric, and pushing in one finger on the hole placed just at the overalls that his mother swore she'd get to patch up some day.
He supposes she may never patch it up, but he doesn't care. He does, but Dill doesn't want to dwell on those moments, for the tears are still there, and he's seen his father's body laid prostrate out on a slab before being tuckered into a cubicle down at the morgue, and then the morgue overflows, and his father's body is thrown into a ditch somewhere for a rich District 11 Capitolite with no family to his name to take him home suffers a heart attack, Dill finding a gray fox in his forties to be the accompaniment he has for the night, splitting the man's lip open as he's told that he's a 'poor crack daddy's whore'. "I'm no one's whore," he proclaims to himself, pride surging into his chest. The morning he had off, Dill considering stopping by the man's home to apologize, for the hit had been recent, but he decides that there must be better things to do with his time.
Logically, he shouldn't have hit the man, it being against Dill's DNA to not use logic in any situation that presents itself to him, but all he sees in that moment is a ledger of red and the silver fox's glimmering eyes, a hickey on his neck claiming fox territory. There's a woman in there somewhere, in those lull of days when he, his mom, and his sister are told that there will also be no funeral or procession for his brother, Bran, as the tales of his gruesome fate include mortar shell down the throat, or being dissolved in a vat of acid, enough horror stories to make Dill puke, and for his fourteen year-old sister Cicely, she does vomit over and onto his shoes, the one thing that definitely is making him popular at school. His stomach growls, jostling Dill out of the memory.
Many nights sitting there at the dinner table, when there's three muffins to share for five people, his father, Ramone, pushing the muffins onto Dill and his siblings' plates, while his father holds his mother, Keela's, hand, smiling warmly at her. Bran, Dill, and Cicely look at each other, frowns on their faces, as they push the plates back. "We're not hungry," he declares for them, as the popular one always will say what needs to be said. Sauntering off to bed without something to eat, and Dill will see the muffins still sitting there on the plate, untouched, or maybe with a single oat taken out by a free raven that flies through the open window, for air conditioning is too expensive, and the thought of a fan to be plugged in or to be run on batteries is too much for the Waylon's, as that would mean even less muffins to go around.
The long hours did not help, as that is why Dill sees his father's brightness in his eyes slowly fade away to a more sheathed gray, and when Bran is old enough, he is the one who tells his father what they should do, Bran always being the headstrong and righteous one of the family, he always knowing what needed to be done, what must be done. "What must be done..." Dill whispers to himself, clutching his sides, fingers falling over his hips again, hearing mortar shells echo in his skull. The popular kid would not be fighting, for he'd be too rich to need to fight in a poor person's war, as that is what the rebellion is, from the few rich kids District 11 has to offer, Dill hearing them via gossip from the Peacekeepers overseeing the fields, his fingers prickled by sharp branches that pierce and bleed out more cotton candy.
Dill steps into the dining car, their escort no where to be seen, and he doesn't remember her name after hearing the woman prattle on and on and on about the glory of the Capitol, and between that and Cassiopeia's kick to the groin, he cannot focus on much else. He grabs a banana that hangs off of the platter of fruit, seeing many exotic things that he doesn't have a name for, seizing it and peeling it off as quickly as he walks across the dining room car. If his room is in the very back of one side of the train, he figures he knows where hers will be, and there is something on the board he must get through to her. Being in the fields, as he must pick up the slack his father and brother left behind, despite Keela's prattling that he must simply live normally, his fingers, while slender and delicate, have spent many days snipped and cut and bleeding profusely onto the crop.
A strange fruit to be bitten into, his calf very much like that with the woman who wears ivory silks and bats her eyelashes at him.
He steps out of the dining car, getting hit in the face by a blast of wind, Dill covering his eyes while he makes his way onto the other half of the train. The carpet is a different color, and in fact, not carpet at all, but tile, with a daisy pattern on the floor. Dill frowns at the design, for it is quite the clash from what else is sitting just two feet from him, but he pays it no more attention while booking it through another three train cars, his hands curled into fists at his side. There is a pocket of breeze seemingly trapped in the hole at his left shoulder, kissing him softly like the woman with the ivory silks, hair the color of black olives, her breath smelling like a fresh cigarette, he inhaling it to drown out the cotton candy on the silver fox's tongue.
Again, he is no one's whore, and he certainly will not be hers.
Dill finds it easily enough, given it has a special embroidery around the edge of the door like his does, a white trim with flecks of orange sprinkled throughout. He knocks once, but stays his hand, for there is no need to knock again. Perhaps she'll join all the jeering thrown at him from the train station, where there is no one to wave goodbye to seem him off for his mother has probably buried herself alive in a field, and his sister too absentminded to fully realize that her brother is leaving and never coming back, but Dill doesn't need to wave goodbye to anyone on the platform, for all he can think about is what is ahead, for the strange avenues he knows nothing about, on something called the Hunger Games. The squeaking sound of someone getting off of their bed fills the empty space, Dill's body tensing up slightly when, followed shortly after, is the sound of a lock being unlatched, and then immediately after that, the door in front of him opens, his district partner, thirteen year-old Cassiopeia Grey looking up at him, hands on her hips, a rather plain, yet still at the same time, pissed look on her face.
"We need to talk," he says, without a chance for her to rebuttal or refuse his company. No one has ever refused the company of the King of the Orchard, and he's not going to let her decide how the next six days of their lives will go.
Not a chance in hell.
Portia Beninblade: District 2 Female P.O.V (18)
God be good, he is annoying. He won't shut up, and at this point, an hour and a half into the train ride, Portia Beninblade is starting to wonder why she hasn't simply flung herself from the top of the train down onto the tracks below. It'd be quite the way to go, she snorting a backed up laugh amid all the misery floating around in her head. She has a few choice words for the woman that plucks her name off of the wide screen after all of it is said and done, but she keeps the anger bristled to a minimum under her skin, as if someone tried to jumpstart her, Portia's body buzzing with vitriol that settles on her tongue. She blows out hot air while staring absentmindedly out of the window, bringing her blonde ponytail to the other side from beforehand, needing things to keep her hands busy.
She hadn't acted like a lady up there, that she knows, but after all she's done, the Capitol's generosity pays her back by sending her into the very death games she helps create? Portia snorts to herself, ignoring the painted stare from that Magnus whatever the hell his last name is. He is most likely looking at her right now and sneering, laughing, laughing, laughing about her reaction, as everyone did indeed see her freak out on national television. Another shaky sigh, running her fingers through her hair. Her parents are probably laughing at her now, but it's no matter to her anymore what they think; she didn't stop by to see them, in the end, but she knows it is because she wouldn't have been able to stomach the sight of their skinless fingers, or the pained cries that spill from their throats. Hendricks's smile reflecting off of the mirror that is in her father's mouth whilst the drill shoots his ear across the wall with a splash... Portia shudders at the thought, hands rubbing at her arms till she feels nothing but raw flesh.
Being in prison for three days is nothing compared to the few months her father is put under the knife by the Peacekeepers, but after awhile, she no longer sees him, Shylock Beninblade, as her father anymore, not after what he's done or agreed to do and agreed to see. Her mother's haunted look in her eyes when the two come face to face across a wall of cells, hands going for her throat, and Portia watches as her mother sinks to her knees, screeching and crying while clutching her bright auburn hair to her chest at how they could've raised such a demon, Portia smirking, all the ever while feeling the urge to smirk. The Capitol is beautiful and wonderful and her family wished to tear it down... why would she allow them to do that, to their home and her home where their actions could've gotten them all killed?
There is no warmth at home, when her other brothers and sisters discover what she's done simply as Portia tells them flat out over bowls of chicken soup and stale pieces of bread with the butter harshly scraped on one side. She feels like scraped, barely buttered bread, where there's hollow marks on her cheeks, and on her heart. What is it her brother tells her, with the cigarette smoke heavy on his breath, she trapped in his cage of piss and fury? "You'll never be loved if all you do is step over those who'd care about you," Salanio's fingers pressing into her cheek, she finally slapping his hand away. Hendricks keeps her company, and Tyson holds her hands in the meantime, away from home, since her mother, Cassandra, is released from prison without a husband, and without a left hand. They let her keep it though, Portia finding it on her new front porch wrapped up in a present for her, a calling card hanging on by a thread on the box, she kicking it away with a scream.
Perhaps he'd like it.
"Do you want a hand, Magnus?" she asks, rather out of the blue, interrupting Merida, the blue-haired lady who somehow does not have the power to reverse engineer the fatal mistake looking over at her curtly. Magnus's mouth quirks downwards some into a supple frown, Portia's heart cooing at the sight; if she were to feel any sympathy for him at all somewhere locked away in her heart.
"I- I'm not doing anything that requires your help...?" he says back to her, though he piques his voice in the end to make it sound like a question. Portia rolls her eyes, though he is telling the truth, the trio is simply sitting in one of the dining cars, Magnus and Merida deep into conversation while she sits away like the black sheep of the family, pulling away at the fabric on the chair she's nestled in. It's a hideous sky blue pattern, almost like the escort's hair, but Portia has seen many Capitolite women in their time nearly rip men's throats out, or better yet, strangers and tourists' throats out from insulting their hair. She'd never. She'd never.
"No, I'm serious. Do you want a hand?" Portia asks again, smiling slightly, keeping her head tilted to the side. That is something that always works in unnerving others, they feel the need to be disturbed by a girl simply moving her mouth up and her head to the side, and now she's turned into the devil's mistress. "My mother threw it at me from the road onto my front porch, left it in a box," At that, Merida excuses herself, clutching her also hideous ivory white dress, a hand to her mouth as she races away from the dining car, Portia watching her go, but Magnus's face is glued to hers, lips parted open in disbelief. "However, she forgot to take something off of it when she gave me her parting gift..." her voice trails off, hands going to the glistening silver engagement ring around her neck, clasped onto a delicate bronze chain, it nestled against her tan neck, adorned by a few pale stripes of blonde hair.
He pinches his brow, stifling a laugh. "There is so much in that statement that I don't even know where to begin with it," and then, as if he hadn't even noticed their Capitolite escort run off, his gaze falls onto the empty seat, a look of surprise flashing across his features. "Why'd she leave?"
"Probably to attend to her terrible hair," Portia snarks back, curling up even more onto the chair, deciding to not look out the window any longer. Her home, the one she is no longer allowed to go back to, it had a window for her bedroom, the only room in the house to actually have one besides the front door, that always be something her siblings protest. "You had to beat me to the room first," she tells them, an air of disdain in her voice, but that is in the past now. From there, she sees all of District 2, in its gray and stark depression, the same depression that her parents tried to destroy, but its hers and she loves it. Better than the sweeping Panemian countryside, she figures. "And whatever other mistakes she's made in her life, cause that dress is not it."
Magnus purses his lips. "Something tells me you do think highly of her."
"And what gave you that impression?" Portia's dark green eyes flash at him, but he does not bristle under the stare of the viper. Something tells her he must be quite the leviathan himself.
"She doesn't hold the power to what the reaping selector chooses, Portia," A wave of nausea washes over her, at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth. She has no idea, truthfully, why this kid even volunteers for these things, with that stupid grin on his face, but she doesn't like him, she doesn't want to even be near him, and sitting right alongside him on the train ride is starting to become one of the most arduous tasks in her life. Prison is far better, at least the Peacekeepers spoke to her because they had to; he speaks to her cause he wants to, which must make it so much worse, as she's being roped into interacting him. Magnus's eyes twinkle as they fall over her. "Besides, you're the one who acted like a buffoon up there. If you wanted everyone's eyes on us, then mission accomplished."
Eyes.
Portia has felt many eyes on her before, when she's wringing her hands back and forth as the mayor of District 2 bids her to speak up, but the Peacekeepers on either side of her are just way too tall for her 5'1 height in allowing her to feel comfortable. The desk is gorgeous, stenciled wood with the Panemian logo etched onto it, painted over in a gilded crimson and gold color, but it is the man's hawkish stare that has Portia tell him the truth. Where she's been, what she's been doing, what her mother and father have been doing, what they've been trying to have Salanio do... and what Hendricks plans to do when all of it is over. Tyson would be proud of her, she bets, but her knees are knocking together at how many eyes are on her, as if they're drilling holes into her spine to place iron rods between the vertebrae.
Or all of the eyes that still cling to those same rivets of bone while she leads them to the quarry where the shipment is supposed to arrive, new weapons for the rebels as they're planning to storm the still being built fortress that District 2 claims to be the Nut, and her father is stupid enough to believe, at least for a moment, that this fortress is for the rebels and not for... well, the Capitol. Even then, in the end when her father looks at her with horror in his eyes as the other comrades he's grown up with are gunned down, it is all from eyes, someone taking their own out and gluing them to her skin. The looks and gazes have not been easier over the months that follow, or the inquisitive stare that her mother gives her when she's brought in for questioning.
"Portia... what have you done?" Cassandra asks her, voice heavy, throat red and raw, though Portia does not know why.
"I saved us all, Mom," she smiles, tearfully, even when the woman who is supposed to be her light is dragged away.
In the present, with Magnus now moving to grab a biscuit off of one of the trays, she plays over his words, that she'll be the mockery. Her throat fills with acid, bitter acid that causes her to cough while looking over at him with scorn in her eyes. "The only reason why I acted out there is because what's happened to me is bullshit," she spats the word out with enough vitriol that spit flies off of her tongue, all the while Magnus bites into the biscuit, flakes spraying everywhere, she moving her legs away from his crumby bombardment. "After what I've done, after what the Beninblade family has done for District 2..." she shakes her head back and forth, a lump forming in her throat. It's asinine, but if Merida is to be believed with all of the sweet nothings that she's told, she's stuck on this party train and will only get off when twenty-three others are dead, including the boy in front of her who sets his biscuit down on a napkin, leering at her.
Eyes. Blue. Green. Brown. Black. Charcoal black.
She could do it, kill him. Portia knows she could, and if not him, someone else at the very least, most likely someone well deserving of it.
Magnus pushes his biscuit to the side, it on a crumbled up napkin, his electric stare appraising over her body, Portia feeling quite self-exposed as she grips the sides of the chair. "Beninblade?" The slight curiosity in his eyes, a rather gentle feel, is kicked over by a more salacious fury that fills in his eyes, her gaze flickering to the butter knife resting on the cusp of the jar Magnus had set it against. Good enough to gouge an eye out, she ready to move at a moment's notice. "You're the one who sent her parents up the river, aren't you?" he asks her, just out of the corner of her eye does she his fingers twitching around imaginary objects, objects to bash against her skull.
"That's me," she smiles back, though her heartbeat booms in her chest. "I would do it again in a heartbeat. My family were traitors."
"They were going to save you!" Magnus shouts at her, pointing a finger at her, diving it forward accusingly. She does not even need to look into his eyes to see what unbridled fury must be contained in them, but it is no matter. The anger her brother unleashes when she tells them the news is nothing short of an eruption, and for him, a stranger she does not know, it is nearly laughable.
"We would all be dead had the war continued," Portia bites back at him, thinking of pillars of stone crumbling between them, separating them, for the potential of her going and grabbing the butter knife rises by the second, going downhill into a burst of kinetic surges. "And look where it got me," she says, scorn and bitterness washing over her tongue, she scoffing with a shake of her head. "The ninth circle of Hell," Portia mutters.
Magnus flings his biscuit at her, she dodging out of the way as it smacks into a window, smearing down the glass while the butter heats up against the hot sun. "I knew people that died in that quarry," his voice is scratchy, as if he's inhaled some of her family's work, the ashes of the doom they would've brought. "People I'd call brothers and sisters."
"I'd call them fools." She hates him. She doesn't even know him, but she hates him. She knows that he can tell how she feels, by the way Magnus nods his head, Portia licking her lips, reaching over the chair for a napkin to brush away at the crumbs. All of them fools, to think they could usher in a new era of Panem as if the previous generation had been so terrible beforehand. Her parents lived in it, yet they were too blind to see, this Magnus Winterthorn is too blind to see how his fanaticism has led to this... this error filled suicide mission, for she will not let him get the last laugh.
Portia has her back turned, while Magnus presses a hand on her shoulder, she whirling around, hand curved into a fist, poised right at his face.
He only has to look at her as so many have looked at her before. A low chuckle escapes his throat, coupled with a dismissive shake of his head. "It must be hard for you," he says, and there's a hint of sadness hidden in the syllables, a marigold plucked out of a garden of thorns. "And sad..." he bites on the inside of his right cheek. "All you've done for this country, or so you claim, only to die, and for me, someone I am sure you'll love to hate, to win it all over your dead corpse," he lets go of her, Portia glaring up at him while he glares back. "In the morning, then, Beninblade," he spits at her, whatever glimpses of warmth between them crackling out in a rigid scream.
She watches him leave, and she does not take her gaze off of the sliding glass door for quite some time.
He can have this battle, she supposes.
The next will be hers.
Zachary Edison: District 5 Male P.O.V (12)
Being Reaped for the Hunger Games is pain, he knows that at the very least with how his mind calculates things, but he does not expect the first thirty minutes after tear-choked goodbyes and all these bright, flashing cameras, for there to be another round of pain that consumes his entire body. Twelve year-old Zachary Edison winces and hisses as the alcohol swab is dabbed just above his left eye, he recoiling away out of habit. It stings when the pad presses further above his swollen eye, wiping away a blood droplet that runs free just down the side of his face.
"Oww..." he mutters, hissing through clenched teeth, hands clenching the bed sheets aside his leg.
"I said it was gonna hurt, Zach," his district partner, Kileigh, tells him, her voice rather motherly and doting, Zachary rolling his eyes at the sweet tone. He said goodbye to his mother already, he doesn't need to find a new one here on the way to his early demise. Ginger, their escort, at the first sight of blood, pukes out one of the open windows, he smiling mischievously at the idea of pushing her out the window and watching her flail around in terror. He laughs through his pain and the whimpers at the thought, a childish giggle filling the quiet bedroom with the sounds of Kileigh pouring more alcohol onto the bandage and pressing it up against his forehead.
The list so far just includes the cut on his head from falling against a table, and the shiner currently on his left eye after the Peacekeeper's fist connects to his face, but someone should tell the man who hit him that he, as a man who must be at least in his thirties or forties if Zachary is to estimate it, needs to not be so afraid of everything, as if the sky were about to fall down onto his head and kill him so the man doesn't react super violently at everything. One minute, Zachary Edison is hiding underneath the couch, feeling the roll of the train and the thump of the tracks every so often after the wheels would run over a rivet, counting off numbers and binary code and the periodic table in his head, when he hears the sound of boots on the carpet.
He jumps out, hitting the back of his head on the underside of the couch while he wiggles free, to shout at the Peacekeeper in all of the terror wrapped in his tyke body, for the Peacekeeper to yelp in fright with him, taking one good look at what has scared him, as Zachary is able to see his own reflection staring back at the gray walls and the crimson lining of the countertops before he's met with a leather fist at his face, sending him back a few feet and colliding into the table, lucky that the potted plant resting atop it doesn't break against his skull. Between that and the escort's terrifying scream, for all the good Ginger must have in being part of the Capitol, it creates a headache that has Zachary wincing when Kileigh meets him in four large strides across the car, holding a hand out for him to take.
Zachary cannot resist blowing a raspberry at the Peacekeeper, who undoes his visor to glare at him, the kid wishing he hadn't provoked him, for he's never seen such a vitriol filled look of hate directed at him beforehand. It is not a smart thing to do, provoking a Peacekeeper, but he's cried enough tears to fill a cavalcade by now, crying on stage as he knows no better response, his mind whirring away at the percentages. Kileigh hadn't reacted all that better than him, and she's clearly had enough time to grow and learn about handling her emotions in front of a crowd. He doesn't expect her to wrap him up in a hug after all is said and done, truth be told, though he sniffles into her shirt, smelling test tubes and bottles and beakers and... home. It is home.
Force equals mass times acceleration, f = m x a. It is something he knows by heart, figuring out the numbers while he is hit, to distract himself from the fact that a grown man quite figuratively and literally punched a child in the face, or the thaw of emotions that falls over him when Ginger calls his name out, the smallest of the small while he makes his way to the stage, trying to keep it together for his parents, but he can't. Well, maybe only for Zara, his mother, for he knows his father, Tobias is out working. A family essentially falls into the guy's lap, not the other way around, and not that Zachary wishes he hadn't been born, but having a different father could mean all sorts of things. Science work seems to not curry a lot of favors with the Capitol, despite it being their main source of power, as Kileigh would tell him while on the drive to the train, with Ginger prattling between them, but the two talk over each other.
How can one respect his elders when they do not respect him? It is something that Zachary has always had trouble with wrapping his head around, about being nice to the man who just hit him, or to be nice to the woman, who swears she had nothing to do with his name being selected in that emerald green font that foretells his doom, that calls him forward, Pandora's Box open and screaming in the center of the stage. Zara cries and kneels down in front of him, in the waiting room, that she's called for his father but-
"He won't come, will he?" Zachary asks, trying to wipe at the tears leaking from his eyes, but his mother keeps her grip tight. She will not lose her baby one second earlier than she's ready to, practically yelling at a Peacekeeper to force him back inside the room. She turns to face him, he nodding his head after the question, lower lip quivering when all he gets in response is her closing her eyes.
"No, Zach, he won't be," she tells him, pressing one hand to his face, his skin warm, her skin cold, it bristling at the touch.
Good. Maybe he doesn't want to see him anyways. It is not like his life will be vastly improved if his father all of sudden came to see him, being so involved in his work of breaking down an atom, but Zachary already knows that an atom is the smallest measurement, the smallest building block of matter that there is, and if his father were to somehow crack an atom, he'd kill everyone, nuclear fission rupturing through the laboratory and all of Panem at this rate. Perhaps that is what is needed, as Zachary wipes some snot away with the back of his hand while waving goodbye to his mother and the Katsaras family who have come to the train station to bid them goodbye. He doesn't even know them, they seeming mild and mannered if Kileigh is any indicator, but he waves back at them, tears streaming free, the plan to scare the Peacekeeper hatching in his head.
Nerves of steel. No, nerves of titanium are better, he knows it.
Does his father even know he's gone? Did his father even say goodbye to him, when he left? Zachary shakes his head in dissent, already knowing the answer. Of course he didn't, for his father had woken up at some obscenely early time, around four in the morning, to go into work early for his 'project.' Zachary snorts to himself. The only project his father would ever be interested in is his own ego. However, before he can think about how his Dad might have a shrine to himself built in the basement of their own home hidden away from his mother because that is something Tobias Edison would do, Kileigh plasters a bandage over the cut, the hydrogen peroxide taken from under the kitchen sink flaring up bright waves of agony in the corners of his vision.
He hisses again, recoiling away from her hands.
"Zachary, you don't want me spreading the ointment-" she goes to say.
"You're pressing your hands too hard," Zachary frowns, crossing his hands over his chest. It's immature, to be upset at the single person in the world who is giving him an ounce of kindness, for if the rumors are to be believed, he hearing them from other classmates while he's bent over his organic chemistry homework, then the Hunger Games are not games, but gladiatorial sport, the word hard to form in his head. Gladiatorial - also hard for him to enunciate out loud, which makes him blush. Science and math are his forte, but the concept of understanding language in his head out of a different type of thinking than numbers has him thrown for a loop - sport involves bloodshed, he having read enough history books. He- that means death. He decides to not fully listen to Ginger's speech, or the following Capitol video detailing what the Games were, simply as Zachary believes he is in the clear.
And then it crash lands at his feet like a smoldering star.
He goes over to the mirror, looking at his reflection staring back at him, likewise when looking at the terror in his eyes through the Peacekeeper's visor. Small and slim frame, his dark hair combed neatly and short, his skin a cracked dark almond, his palms and the undersides of his feet a hint lighter than that, blinking brown eyes searching for answers though he knows he won't find them. All the years and hours he's spent over books trying to find the meaning of life, all of it captured in the seeking heat of a flame, or the way his pencil rolls out of his hands onto the floor into a spilled patch of ink... the answers are there, but he is not looking hard enough, not digging deeply enough.
"I still think it was a stupid thing for you to do," Kileigh speaks, after a moment of silence while Zachary brings his fingers up to his eye, flinching while pressing down on the lid, which is swollen and starting to close, lightly ghosting over the black ring that presses up against the side of his nose. He looks over at her, frowning.
"Did- did I ask you for your opinion?" he stutters, quite surprised that she'd voice disdain after this. He doesn't see judgement in her eyes when she helps him up, but this is different, it feels different and sharp, like a witch digging her talons into his arm and drawing blood, making him ask those existential questions and looking in textbook after textbook. Tobias will notice him, surely, when he just finds that one answer, or when he'll get the courage to take his father's glasses from him, gripping his chin so he must look at his son and see him.
Kileigh shrugs her shoulders, wiping her hands off on a rag that she hung over the end of the bed. They're in her room, it having her name written on the sheen golden surface in a dark highlighter, there being a fancy swoop of the marker with the end of the legs of the 'h', Zachary running his fingers over the design while waiting for her to grab the medical supplies from the bathroom cabinet. "I mean, you scared him. What did you think would happen?"
"That he wouldn't hit a twelve year-old," Zachary mutters to himself, turning side face to see what the bandage looks like elsewhere if someone were to see him from the side. If someone is to see that, will they think he is tough? Will they wonder if the genius that is Zachary Edison fought a grizzly bear and survived? Want his autograph, perhaps? As, if what Ginger says is to be believed, they're going to the city of opportunity, the world of opulence and grandeur, where there, everyone will have his name on their lips. "Or that maybe he has a sense of humor," he shrugs his shoulders like she does. "I don't know. I just didn't expect that."
"Then that just means you weren't thinking," she tells him rather dismissively, he shooting her a puzzling look. Is she all tartness without a hint of sweet? "I mean, think of where we're going. Think of who he listens to and takes his orders from," Kileigh runs a hand through her hair, plopping down onto her bed, arms stretched out wide while she looks up at the ceiling. There is a mirror above her bed, which Zachary finds rather disconcerting, if one were to wake up in the middle of the night and see themselves, forgetting that it is their own body they are looking at. "All these people know is hate and violence. When you give them a taste of their own medicine, they lash out," her voice is hollow, Zachary frowning.
Perhaps he's misjudged her, or she is speaking his language, the language he does know. She seems smart, at the very least.
He leans up against the free space offered between the mirror and the shower, careful to not slip where the carpet changes into tile. "Something tells me you have something else on your mind."
"I'm disappointed in you," Kileigh says, but even she sounds upset at herself for feeling that way, Zachary's skin bristling with more electricity at her words, but he's never been one for reacting angrily. That is Tobias Edison, and that is why he doesn't regret ever getting a last word with his father. "And in them."
"You hate them?"
"No," she shakes her head back and forth, ponytail swishing back and forth on the covers. "I don't think I have it in me to hate..." There's a pause however, as Zachary can tell when a few of the words in a sentence are still hanging in the air, almost as if he can visualize them appearing above her body, crystallized into air droplets before precipitating back onto the bed spread. "Well, actually, that's not true," Another pause. "I hate violence," Kileigh's voice grows cold. "I detest it with every fiber of my being. It leads you nowhere to use it."
He vehemently disagrees.
He doesn't quite know why, except that he feels it stirring in his stomach, telling him that she is wrong.
"You're wrong," Zachary tells her, and he sees her lift her head to look up at him, he resisting the urge to smirk. Can she not withstand a bit of her own medicine? "Where we're headed, not using violence will lead us somewhere," He can see her gaze searching for answers, they falling on his face, but like all the books he's read, and all the times he's tried getting his father to look at him just for a second away from the microscopes, there are none to be found; he cannot be a place of solace and warmth. "It'll lead you to an early grave," he tells her.
He's been smart his entire life, and nothing has felt more right to him than that moment, proclaiming and identifying that these violent delights... they have violent ends.
Poem Cavalli: District 8 Female P.O.V (18)
This is a dream come true, and someone needs to rush over and pinch her before she wakes up from it. Oh. Wait! She's pinched herself, and she hasn't been jolted awake. It is real, this is her reality, and it is finally happening! Waking up with the sun rising just through the clouds and into her bedroom has eighteen year-old Poem Cavalli start her day with a smile, grinning wide from ear to ear while she throws the covers off, dressed from head to toe in silk, shimmering pajamas with a sheen of beauty while she preens and gasps at herself in the mirror. She skips merrily and jauntily down the stairs to breakfast, to see her father Dion mess up on flipping a pancake, but that wouldn't happen, for in the Cavalli household, everything is done exactly the way it has been ordained too however long ago. But Poem wouldn't know that, she does not have the time to just stand there and think of the past, not when there is a future ahead of her with a beacon, a bright light demanding she join the heralds at the top of the hill.
She clasps her hands together excitedly, squealing about, twirling in the dining room car by herself, just her and the Capitolite man that doesn't get to finish calling out some other girl's name before Poem happily volunteers herself forward, racing to the steps while hands clutch at the sides of her dress, to keep the vermin and rats away of course; germs are just an enemy she'll learn how to fight some other way. "Isn't this great?" she practically bounces from floorboard to floorboard, landing rather wonky on one foot, teetering just so before finding her footing, sputtering in place while the escort looks over at her. "Finally on the way to the Capitol! Oh, I've just heard the grandest things about it!" She rushes over to the table, startling their escort, a man with dark black hair and glasses perched all the way down onto his nose. "Please, tell me! Are the streets made of diamonds?" She essentially shouts the question at him.
The man, his name being Damien Paladine, someone Poem likes very much from the fact she senses sophistication practically oozing off of every fiber of his being, lifts his glasses up so they're resting on his head. "It's just the Capitol dearie, and you're going to the Games. It is definitely not worth this song and dance."
Why? Why would he say such a terrible and horrible thing? Poem presses a hand to her chest in offense, mouth gaping open as she gawks at the man. "How- how dare you say that! You come from there!"
"I actually come from District 1-" Damien opens his mouth to correct her, politely, but Poem has moved onto bigger and better things.
"Whatever, you just want to keep me in suspense!" she claps again, rushing to the windows. She doesn't blame him, Mr. Paladine, to keep her in suspense. A city as magnificent as the Capitol, the gilded city of opportunity, cannot be spoilt by the unkempt and the dirty, no matter what foul gossip and rumors run amok the District 8 sweatshops. The expanse of nature is quite beautiful, the world drenched in the golden hour as she calls it, seeing the light of the dwindling sun flicker down onto the emerald green grass, giving it a bronze sort of glow. It is perfect for her next design, she looking down at the dress she made. She twirls back around to Damien, holding up the sides and doing another twirl. "Don't you love my dress? I made it myself you know. I didn't need my mom to design it," Poem rolls her eyes, digging underneath her fingernails for any spots of imperfection. "She always thinks about helping me on my projects, but I am not her, but Poem Cavalli, and with a name like mine, I can reach for the stars," However, as she praises herself, she realizes that he hasn't given her a straight answer yet on the design, she facing him again, making a pouty expression with her lips. "Don't you like it? Everyone back home loves my designs."
It is a very bright pink dress, daisies and other flowers that she has forgotten the name of plastered all along the design, dark lines of violet cascading around the upper and lower edges of the design, at the arms and cut off near the legs, Poem having spent three hours watching a pink rose blow in the breeze once to get the design just perfect. However, even with the grandeur that comes from it, the few Capitol clients that have told her how amazing her work is, there's always, just always the hint of, " Oh, Anya Cavalli's daughter has a great gift. She must've taught you all she knows. A star pupil," and to add insult to injury, the need to pinch her cheeks, everything in Poem screaming on high alert to smack the hand away, or, dare forbid they touch the fabric of her items without her permission, the need to box them in the face.
But no, a Cavalli has never needed to resort to violence to get what they need. Blood is so untimely, so out of style, as that is of the work of a scholar a hundred years ago, she upturning her nose at the sight, swallowing down a vat of disgust into her system. The amazing Anya Cavalli, her mother, did not grow up in District 8, as many people who dislike her family for their God-given talent seem to tell her, but Poem knows that to be a fact and it doesn't hurt her. Her mother, using the woods in District 7 as means for her design, for the shirts and scarves she'd create while the other brutish folk that lived in her sector of Seven would chop all that free oxygen down, just so they could build a structure that'd rot in the rain should a thunderstorm fall upon its precipices.
Until Dion Cavalli, thirty years ago, with a group of other entrepreneurs from District 8, with the president at the time's permission, for it had not been Emrick Israel then, travels to Seven, to see Anya sitting on a tree stump, a poinsettia flower in her curly hair, singing to herself, weaving spider silk through the fabric. As her mother says, with bewitching fingers dancing over Poem's cheeks before kissing her goodnight at bedtime, Dion had never seen something quite so beautiful before in his life, and promised her a life beyond working with the woods, but to touch handmade silk that came from the Capitol itself, or, if he is to make a call, a model will arrive at their doorstep the very next morning, ready to offer their services and adorn her mother's product.
Oh, how happy she is that her mother accepted.
"Do you know what Miss Israel's favorite fabric is?" she asks Damien, turning away from the window. He raises an eyebrow at her, going to speak, but she waves a hand away at him dismissively. "No, no, don't tell me that either. If she has a favorite," Poem leans forward, resting her elbows on the windowsill, pressing her forehead against the cool glass, her warm breath creating fog on it she leaves there. Anything can be used as inspiration, anything and everything will be inspiration to her if she's lucky, but as the saying goes round in Eight, a Cavalli's work is never done. Her work is never done, and it most likely never will be. "Even if she has a favorite," Poem continues, having found her place, "When she sees my designs, I know she is going to fall apart at the seams and just... just invite me to be her new designer!"
There's a slight altercation at the train station where Poem does consider, just for a second, on splitting open the heavens and calling down star fire onto the Peacekeepers who refuse to let her carry her whole suitcase with her onto the train, the guy going with her laughing haughtily at Poem's horrified expression, she glaring at him. After a few seconds of internal debate, by which Damien stands there, arms crossed over his chest, tapping his dress shoe foot on the concrete, does Poem make a decision, taking out her design notebook and portfolio tied together with a rubber band. It is, as the Peacekeeper declares, a 'token.' Whatever that means. She doesn't understand why she has to just take one single thing with her to the Capitol when she'll be staying there forever and ever after they see her designs. It's no matter, between her father and her famous designer mother, everyone will practically be foaming at the mouth to let her stay, so she can call for her stuff to be sent up after arriving.
Damien laughs to himself over at his corner of the table, setting the paper he is reading aside. She takes a glance at it, only looking back at him because of how disrespectful he is acting, to simply be laughing at her hopes and dreams that are not hopes and dreams but actualities and realities, should she wish hard enough and close her eyes as tight as she can. "Poem, sweetheart, what are you going on about? You do realize you volunteered for the Hunger Games, yes?"
"No, that's not true," Poem immediately interrupts him. "I volunteered to come to the Capitol and show them my designs," she says firmly, a surge of pride flooding through her voice. She needs pride with the world she lives in, where she has to stick her nose up at the people who'd wish to knock her down and try to make mincemeat out of her, but all Poem can do is laugh back at them, laughing heartily and hard enough to make tears spring at her eyes, because she's seen where the tyrants sit, and no sweatshop child is going to make her eat words for breakfast, or whatever the lame ass expression is nowadays.
Besides, if she couldn't get famous for her designs, as if that would ever be the case, Poem almost bursting out into giggles now at the idea, she could model for the designs she wears, being told often how strikingly beautiful she is. If it not her face, a caramel cream color, it is the full set of lips, and if not the lips, her wavy hair with a hint of light skinned tones to them, as she's heard a few people mutter to themselves on how Dion would marry not just a foreigner, but someone not in his own skin color, Anya a luscious dark mocha, while her father, Dion, glimmers in the pale pillars of moonlight that hit his skin. If it is not her skin tone that just dazzles underneath a spotlight, it is her legs, legs that she can tell have the Peacekeeper who doesn't let her bring everything with her almost change his mind, but for the first time in his life, she's told no.
Well, no, that is not quite true, Poem frowning. She hates when she has to lie to herself, but the alternative is- actually, no, she decides to not dwell on it. Dwelling on the past has never been something she's liked doing, even though opening history books has been something she does do to pass the time.
Damien rubs his nose, thumb and pointer finger pinching his nostrils shut. "Well, Poem, if you don't mind being useful, could you go and fetch Niklaus for me? Dinner is about to start, and I know I don't want the Avoxes to be kept waiting; they've had a rough day getting the train all put in order."
He doesn't even have to ask, she grinning widely. "Sure!" Poem exclaims with glee, and races from the dining car.
He is a bit weird, this Niklaus Peverell that is coming with her to the Capitol, although she might have selected someone more handsome to be her male consort if the decision were up to her, but she supposes that she must make the best sandcastle she can with the materials she's been given. He is good looking, she figures, if she were to remove the bags from under his eyes, as she can see the way some of the designs she has would devour him and turn him into another shooting star, with limbs bent at awkward angles, fabric falling off the wrist... her mouth waters at the sight, The Addict, all drowned out in a white and black ensemble.
She finds his room easy enough, for it is the exact opposite of the train as hers, and he hasn't been seen since they stepped onto the train, something about alone time and all that, but Poem finds that silly, there's no alone time.
Poem skips up to his door, gives a faint little knock, careful to not chip a nail for she doesn't really know how the Capitol designs their doors, and waits. For a second, a single second, as she counts it in her head. Good enough for her, she's announced her arrival. Poem bursts into his bedroom, stopping at the sight before her, but it doesn't matter, for he doesn't notice her. Niklaus, pressed flat against the wall, sitting on the floor, only in his underwear, but that is not what has her take pause. It is the needle in his skin, and the open white pouch of something that she is very certain should not be going into his body, and the dead look in his eyes when his glance falls on her, just for a moment, eyes bloodshot.
"Niklaus!" she cries out in shock. "No, no! Don't- don't do that! That's not good for you!"
Poem feels herself move, though she doesn't quite know she is doing it, as she leaps forward from the doorway over to him, careful to not step in the white powder that is odorless as she leaps above a mound. She's at his side, fingers clawing away at the needle - a sewing needle is her territory, but these... they cannot be that much different, can they? - before Poem has a good grasp on it. She wrenches it out of his arm, a spray of white shooting off between them, Niklaus letting out a choked gasp of pain as his eyes widen, gaze snapping onto Poem.
"What- what the fuck, Poem?" he screeches at her, but he stops, despite what surely must be pain and agony flowing through his body as she wrenches the needle out of his skin, for it is just more than the cocaine that spurts out.
Poem lets out a shaky breath, her entire body shuddering as she stares at the few blood droplets that splattered all over one of the daisies closest to her knees. There is blood spilling out of the new wound she's created in Niklaus's arm, but he's not focused on that, eyes wide, lips parted, staring at her.
She clutches at the fabric, falling to her knees, skin sinking into the cocaine, grabbing near the ruined spot, holding in her life's work, and all Poem Cavalli knows how to do while staring at the apocalypse in front of her is scream.
And scream, and scream, and scream, and scream, and scream, and scream, and scream...
There we are, ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #9: Brisk Negotiations, the fourth out of six introduction chapters. We were introduced, truly this time, to Dill Waylon (D11M by A Mad Tea Party), Portia Beninblade (D2F by WhateverIsOpen), Zachary Edison (D5M by GreyShade), and Poem Cavalli (D8F by LordShiro). I feel like this chapter has brought back Liberty with a vengeance since my absence has been so long, but I am planning to have us land right back into normally scheduled programming soon enough! Who was your favorite this chapter? Now that I am away from the reapings and pre-reapings and actually in pre-game territory, I always feel like my writing comes alive more than usual, as it is again what got me through Slaughter after four failed SYOT attempts back to back.
Next chapter, #10: Gossip of Blackbirds and Ravens (I'll probably condense it to something else), will be the fifth of six intro chapters focusing on Cecelia Blackstone (D1F by A Proud Bibliophile), Pierce Alversway (D6M by Merlin's Brown Jacket), Diana Kratovska (D4F by Firedawn'd), and Gemini Lennox (D9M by Apple1230). And then a sixth chapter with the remaining four who shouldn't be too hard to guess and a continuation of the Capitol plot onto that and it means we're off to the races for Round II of POVs which focuses on the Chariots, Day 1, and Day 2 of training, six povs for four chapters. I am aiming for a bloodbath around Halloween, which is at Chapter 21, a bit earlier than my others given how I am divvying up chapters, so yay, we're soon to the double digits!
Please review! Your support and feedback and commentary really mean a lot to me, and as of late, I start to put a lot of stock in the reviews I get since there's been some radio silence out there in the world from the submitters here or there, but the support definitely makes me happy as I am sure you could imagine. I will see you all next week - aiming for one update at least every nine days - between next Friday and Sunday, with Chapter #10: Gossip of Blackbirds and Ravens. Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm