Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, Chapter #14: Strength of the Powerful, to be connected immediately to the last chapter, #13, focusing on Training Day 1, this following resolute with Training Day 2. We got to see some more non-inner district relationships, things I am trying to focus on and break out of from my previous two where the interactions really feel a lot more kept together, but we're throwing that out of the window. The second chapter of round II povs came from President Emrick as well as Pierce, Nevaeh, Catalus, Cassiopeia, Zachary, and Vesuvia. Today, in this chapter, it'll be a quick stop into Cain Passionia's head plus Poem, Magnus, Porscha, Nokomis, Ramses, and Orion. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #14: Strength of the Powerful, detailing Training Day 2.
"Life doesn't get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient," ~ Steve Maraboli
Cain Passionia: Vice President of Panem P.O.V
Oh, the grievances of the world are against him. Stunning and sharp, hitting him in the face with striking clarity, a thunderbolt to the forehead, a grimace that dives deep and sends him down to another level within himself, while he rubs at his forehead, marking away the soot stains from the hit. Cain Passionia grits his teeth, gargling on salt water that he swivels out of a cherry red plastic cup before discarding it into the trash outside the Gamemaker Center, newly erected, beautiful and shimmering, everything he wants, everything he could dream of having lit up like a tree with platinum ornaments hanging off of the branches.
The pulsating in his forehead has been going off for the last hour at least, ever since his alarm starts chirping, and it is his wife, Bella, not he that leaps over to rip it out of the socket, just to grant them the last few minutes of their slumber, but by that point, due to the ruckus, Cain's headache is splitting his skull open, cranium bits covering the concrete and his hands, he gritting his teeth in irritation. Irritation, irritation, irritation, red scrubbed skin with a sponge that peels off like elastic at his touch, fingers diving down underneath his own body and clawing it off. He feels it in his bloodstream, tastes the melancholia in his mouth, the bitterness of a worse morning to go and see the completed Gamemaker Center.
Nyria is waiting for him, she dressed up or down, it depending on who you ask, truthfully, though Cain would say she's dressing way down from the usual jumpsuits of color he sees her doing her… exercises in, for Cain would call it the crude and prude word it actually is if he weren't such a gentleman. She turns around to face him as Cain lets the doors open automatically, chirping a warm and mechanical greeting back at him.
"Good morning, Mr. Vice President," the system replies.
"Yeah, screw off," he grumbles back, tightening the yoke around his throat, the tie that Bella picks out with paisley flowers, for she's always picking out paisley flowers. His suit is charcoal gray for the occasion today, when he'll finally get to go and enter the training center, regardless if Emrick allows it or not, for one day he'll be sitting in that chair, on that throne, deciding how tributes die and how traitors dissolve into barrels of acid… screw someone else telling him what a Passionia can and cannot do.
Nyria purses her lips at the sight of the vice president, his hair slightly more uncombed than usual, a tuff sticking out behind his ears, Cain fumbling with it as he takes a long step into the center. Two levels, the building built entirely in chrome white, gadgets and gizmos and levers and desks and stations filling almost every spot of available space that there is to be had, Avoxes running around with notebooks in their hands, or the occasional white lab coat from an Israel administrative worker tasked to keep the building in pristine conditions running across the floor, which is made of carpet… his favorite color, the bright shade of Panemian red.
"Someone seems to be in a bitter mood," she laughs at him as Cain approaches the ground floor, she handing him an already made cup of coffee, which Cain picks up, it being black, the way he likes his women. He holds the warm mug in his hands, taking a satisfying sigh as he observes the building. A lot of it had been rather hush-hush, and while Cain signs papers here and there about what expenses are being put up in order to built this building, the Gamemaker Center, a name that bounces off of his tongue, syllables harsh and gyrating against each other, he likes it.
He and Nyria are the Gamemakers, the people primarily in charge with the design of the Games and the arena that they'll take place in to suffice as the Capitol's entertainment and the Districts' sufferance. This is to be their headquarters, where they'll stay throughout the hours of the Games, having twelve-hour shifts each to monitor progress during the days of the arena, there being an hour of overlap, it being exactly noon on each day where they'll be together.
"Your presence and dragging me out of my bed at nine in the morning is not helping, Nyria," he tells her, taking another long sip, moving out of the way from some intern, he almost knocking into the vice president, voicing a half-hearted apology, as if the kid is truly even sorry. Cain narrows his gaze at the child; his head might make for a good centerpiece at the next feast, and then a quick shrug as he downs another bit of his coffee. "Not to mention I would rather be in the Training Center than here but-"
"You know the rules," Nyria interrupts him softly, ever so softly, but enough to shake the foundations of heaven as Cain glares at her, her tanned skin lustering in ebony waves of poison and sickness. "Rules you agreed to. That you don't-"
"I know," he snaps at her, setting his coffee mug down, and for a split second, Nyria tenses, like a wound-up coil that Cain would love nothing more than to slash through. He's never been able to understand her, this elusive woman with her tea ground skin tone and her wigs and the fact that she seems unflappable, yet has never threatened to shove one of her high heels up his ass, unlike so many of the people he's worked with, one of them attempting it. Cain uses that person's leg as a fire poker, modeling it in a way where it no longer resembles flesh, but that is neither here or there as he grits his teeth, hanging his head low. "I know," he says, softly. "That I am to not see the tributes one moment earlier than normal, which is what tomorrow is for."
"You want something to cheer up your spirits?" Nyria offers as a sort of comfort.
Cain quirks an eyebrow, finishing the rest of his coffee. It has already circulated, no thanks to Lydia and her amazing ability at being terribly ineffective at keeping a lid on private matters that deserve to be left private, about the argument he and Emrick have two nights ago before the tribute parade. The flawed system that punches him in the face all the while smiling, and his commander in chief does nothing except shrug his shoulders, hands tied.
"And if a rebel is to win the Games, Mr. President? What then?"
"We offered the Games as a one-in-twenty-four chance to survive," Emrick tells him, sharply. "What kind of men are we to not stand by our words if anything else? Besides, this is your idea."
Cain realizes that insulting the president had not been the smartest course of action, despite him being the person who got the silver haired grandfather into politics in the first place while Cain rummages in the lower courts, snatching scraps up against the golden table cloths. Arguing with the man up high, simply for he doesn't like the direction he's being taken in, as if he hasn't trusted Emrick with everything else so far, his mind for strategy, or the elusive way he and Head Peacekeeper Wickervein shut down the revolution from the inside out, and the Dark Days do not go on any longer than they need to.
However, at this mention of what Nyria talks about, Cain's heart leaps for joy, a coy smile on his face as Nyria digs into her pocket. "Don't tell me…" and it is almost like he's seven years-old again, waiting for the gumball machine to rotate, rotate, rotate, and drop a sugary sweetness into his palm.
Nyria keeps the smirk on her face as she pulls out a flower, a flower petal that looks realistic, but is actually plastic to the touch as Cain reaches out to feel its surface, a petal in pink ty-dye that is cold to the touch, yet warm from Nyria's palm. With her other hand, Nyria pulls out the flower, the original flower it came from, in her right hand, Cain's knees knocking together. "No…" he whispers. "It's actually possible?"
"Cain…" Nyria's voice is breathless, filled with excitement and energy. "The project you always dreamed of? We can make it a reality."
Poem Cavalli: District 8 Female P.O.V (16)
The material is fine. Fine, however, this time around now does not include positivity in the statement, as Poem takes a sniff of the material, nearly gagging at the scent of sweat bundled up underneath the tacky polyester. Black and red, such an overdone color combination, but no, it is too hard to ask for a marigold and black combination that'd cause her to foam at the mouth at the delicacy, they can't have that. Poem supposes that there must be small victories taken where those can get them, as her mother would've, but she shrugs her shoulders, brushing a few fingers through her hair, humming to herself as she rests her head on the back wall.
Training, that is what she is supposed to be doing, as per Damien's request that she actually shows up, for one of the Head Trainers gives a report to their escort at the end of the night yesterday at her complete inability in doing any of the required activities. Why would she? What is the point of climbing some gigantic rope course and tumbling down off it to receive a skinned knee, like what happens to Niklaus? Speaking of her district partner, she looking over at him, perhaps being the only person in the whole entire center who is quite fetching in the dark crimson ensemble, looks back at her, teeth gritted together, a blade clenched in his hands as she tries slicing open a particular vein in a dummy's hip.
Not that she'll call it primitive of course, for yes, her district partner, who is going into the Hunger Games, needs every second he can take on surviving, as a few of these other kids look like they'll just devour him whole like the Rudy Patterkinn he mutters about in his sleep, but still… he looks rather silly, working the blade around like it is some toy, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. He keeps his eyes on her, narrowing their gaze as he frowns. "What?" he asks, defensively, though still relatively kept at bay. That is what Poem notices about him, that he is never extremely emotional, almost subdued, and as far as she's aware, he hasn't injected himself with any more needles that the District 8 team is aware of. "Do you want to give it a try?" Niklaus motions the blade in her direction, Poem sticking her nose up at the very idea.
She's not against violence, like that girl from Five who seems to be keeping to herself more on Day Two, learning how to build a fire, that Kileigh girl being a nice companion yesterday when Poem brings her sketch book, showing off her designs with the friendliest person in the room. That is until Poem talks about a broken arm and something about a chair tie in a basement, before Kileigh gets up to find a restroom, Poem frowning and confused at what she did wrong. She didn't do anything wrong except exist and be herself, no?
"No, no thank you," Poem politely declines, before her eyes pass over the girl from Nine, Camilla Rodriguez or other, who is talking to her district partner, the painter that Poem finds fascinating in day-glow colors if she were given access to them. Camilla is radiant, Poem imagining her in a flowing gilded green dress, like a moving wave of grass. Isn't that what District 9 sells? Grass? No… well, it doesn't matter, for Poem is tilting her head to the side, frowning, ambling a hand up her side.
"You better than us, is that it?" Niklaus jeers at her, though again, retracted, a darkness in his eyes that Poem watches smolder over. She almost asks at breakfast this morning who this Rudy Patterkinn is, for it is that voice that her district partner shouts out in the middle of the night, in the middle of a nightmare that requires a few Avoxes to rush into his room to see what is wrong, but she stills the question, for she sees his hands are shaking as he takes a bite of his breakfast. Shaking. Why is everyone so scared? Should she be scared?
"No, I know I'm just as fine as the rest of you but-"
"But you're not going into the Games," Niklaus finishes for her, there being a tinge of annoyance in his voice. Poem flashes him a glance. She's heard that tone before from a many people, especially from her mother, the wonderful Anya getting swept off her feet by Poem's father. Her mother, telling her to go away so she can focus on this pastel color in the fabric, or Poem trying to help with dinner and her father's stern warning about standing too close to the open flame, even though it is so pretty, and she just wants to touch it and… "I know, I know," her district partner keeps speaking over her thoughts, interrupting them like a stabbing sewing needle in her wrist. "The President's wife is gonna come down on some stupid fucking red carpet and pick you to be her handmaiden."
Poem purses her lips, raising an eyebrow. He has never been this crass with her, never this agitated, but she doesn't want to venture into the territory of dislike. No one has ever disliked her, not that she's sure of, at the very least. "Have I done something to upset you?"
Niklaus blinks at her, as if she isn't even real, she keeping her lips pursed, for she's seen that look too. The look of doubt, the look of someone going into their brain and digging. The digging of rejection, as if someone has the audacity to reject a Poem Cavalli design. Who in their right mind…? Poem's right eye twitches, for she has an idea alright, seeing his smug silver smile, syphilis rocking the last few brain cells he might have left and… Niklaus is back to trying and stabbing at the dummy, not making much progress. A bit of silence, for a second, Poem about to comment on how Camilla's hair is gorgeous against the black when Niklaus smashes his palm just above the dummy's waist.
"Yes!" he bites out, Poem recoiling in shock at his outburst. "Yes, yes, yes, Poem, you have done something to upset me!" Niklaus sets the blade down, his eyes wide, a few tributes looking over at them, mainly the boy from One, that handsome Catalus or whatever, he holding onto a spear, eyebrows furrowed at Niklaus's frustration. "For the last two days, you've been gallivanting around here, clutching your skirts without a care in the world while the other twenty-three of us are scared fucking shitless and out of our minds! And you want to know why?" Niklaus tilts his head to the side, like some coked out cat, Poem almost laughing at the imagery, before her heart dampens at the remembrance of what it is that her district partner injects into his veins every night. "We're going to die, twenty-three of us for one to live, as punishment for what we did," he gestures between them. "And you volunteered for this shit and aren't even taking it seriously. Instead, you want to talk about fashion with the pacifist of the world here while the rest of us are bleeding and struggling, because you can't get it in your damn skull that you aren't special…" Niklaus rubs a hand down his cheeks, fingers trembling, Poem audibly gasping at his tic. "I haven't shot up in two days because Mr. Paladine wanted me to look at for you, to keep my head in the game and I… I just don't want you dying!" he yelps at her, overcome with emotion, before he falls back, a lone hiccup and sob rippling through Poem as she feels at her side.
She doesn't know what to say, stunned into silence… a Cavalli has never not known what to say. Is it selflessness? Is he being brave and chivalrous, though he hasn't clearly asked for her hand in any sort of matrimony? Poem purses her lips again, straightening out the end part of her shirt, the sweaty smell still making her want to gag.
"You want me to try? Is that it?" she asks him, through gritted teeth. He perks up at that, from the resolve that stirs in her stomach. Poem still believes, whole heartedly, she'll be spared from this, from the atrocities that everyone will go through while she is up there in the heavens designing a wedding dress for a god but let them have the last laugh if they want, let them believe. Niklaus raises his eyebrows, almost stuttering a laugh, but that seems to only anger her further. "I'm no wilting flower."
"Your other actions would have led me to believe otherwise," he jokes at her, before rubbing his face and arms. "I'm sorry," Niklaus apologizes. "I should've have yelled at you, that wasn't right of me…" he moves to his forehead, fingers splayed over pale flesh. "Back home, I…" he cuts himself off with a rather abrupt clearing of his throat, before looking over at her, concern bleeding into a smirk. "You? Dangerous and lethal? The stylist, Poem Cavalli?" He nudges the knife over to her.
Poem picks the blade up between her hands, gingerly, feeling the balance of metal and weightlessness atop her fingers. This is a mean device, a loose word, she figures, but she senses the radiant evil that can rise form it if put in the wrong hands. Would her hands be the wrong ones?
"I can make a mean cross stitch," she smirks back at Niklaus, before shifting off of the block, going to stand in front of him, he taking a step back, a look of amusement on his face.
It is the truth, however, no matter what someone will say. Poem grits her teeth, closing her eyes. Something Niklaus mentions earlier, but she's distracted, thinking about how the boy from Two, that Magnus Winterthorn, would look positively ethereal in swathes of baby blue… "Stabbing a dummy to pieces, something I don't even know…" her district partner tells her, though she's only half listening at this point, seeing the curve of Kai'sa Shadow's hips, "It requires an anger from somewhere else in me. I know who I'm angry at. What would you pick?"
His silver smile, Poem sees it all too well, as he throws the fabric back in her face, blinding her for a second, freaking Poem out enough to fall back in fright into another clothes rack, shrieking up a storm, making up a ruckus, but the action is enough. Rejection. Rejection, being told her outfits are not good enough for this particular line, where the Capitol is not going to want hers. She's only thirteen, a lot younger in her life, without her mother there to show her how to weave fabric and silk like Arachne, but Poem still screams at the benefactor with a face flushed red, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She'd make a name for herself, take over his company, and maybe sew his throat up shut so he's unable to speak any more lies and criticisms. Poem Cavalli is ambitious, but so is the woman who precedes her, and she is aiming to be better than her mother. Not the next Anya Cavalli, but the first Poem Cavalli. The first woman to ever make it without needing someone else's boosted funding… hell, to be the administrator in charge of how the Israel's would look… her eyes sparkle in the spotlights.
Poem opens her eyes, a low growl rising from her throat. The man who dares reject her, and to the sewing needle she never jabs into his throat.
She thrusts the knife forward, it stabbing and breaking through the tender spots that Niklaus had been poking and prodding all this time without much success or luck, and she doesn't even care about the guts spilling all over her arm, or even feels Niklaus's praise in her ears or his bony hands on her shoulders.
Why, the girl can only focus on one thing.
Just one thing.
How good that felt.
Magnus Winterthorn: District 2 Male P.O.V (18)
This is how all of his chaos starts. It always starts with a gamble, and while he will not consider himself to be of the gambling sort, Magnus does consider himself to be of the adventurous kind, as he notices the way that girl from Four, that Diana Kratovska gal constantly looks over at him, she smirking as well to keep things in check. He cheekily smiles back at her, beckoning her forward with a finger, and now they're off to the races together.
"I bet you that I'll miss more shots than you," he tells her, the moment she arrives, not letting a word slip out of her mouth, one that'll probably be rude and full of barbs, as per how Portia describes their encounter, though Magnus takes gleeful pleasure in the thought of his traitorous, backstabbing district partner getting comeuppance in any way, shape, or form.
"Miss more shots than me?" Diana raises an eyebrow, not buying it, arms crossed over the other still. Magnus is half certain he's never even see the girl smile. "Like, intentionally miss?"
"I like a game," Magnus shrugs his shoulders, before breaking out into a few jumping jacks. He can't stay still; it makes the blood in his arms rot and well up into a brackish green color that turns his stomach. "And I also like to win." It is why he does every sport there is to offer him, unsatisfied by just having a single golden trophy sitting on his trophy stand, with his name idolized forever in laminated gold or secondary silver, Magnus gritting his teeth in frustration. Baseball is easy, soccer his coordination excels at, there is an archery camp that his parents think about sending him to, but that is just shortly before Raziel Passionia's throat is torn open from ear to ear and he sets the bow down to pick up a gun.
"You said bet," the girl from Four corrects him, her blonde ponytail hitting her shoulders as she shakes her head. "A bet has stakes. I can't hurt you here or the Peacekeepers will break an arm of mine behind my back, so it seems like we're at an impasse."
"Are you telling me that you'd only play with me if given the chance to hurt me?" Magnus's eyes twinkle, he smirking, before pressing a finger against her mouth as she goes to speak. "No, don't finish that thought," as there is a look of indignance flashing in her eyes at the very fact she had just been touched. Magnus likes to live dangerously, he supposes, for the way he flicks a spoonful of mashed potatoes at Portia across the dinner table last night, which has Merida howling for order as his district partner tackles him into and over the couch.
Speaking of his district partner, however, Magnus looking around for her just to make sure she'll keep her head out of his business, he unable to think straight with her nearby at any time, as if he requires insect repellant. Some of the repellant is used for that girl from District 1 who is clinging onto Catalus Drachma's arm after lunch, scared by the boy from Six who is not back, and neither is the other little boy, Zachary… Magnus shooing her off as he wants the grownups to talk and have fun as the two stand next to each other in the wrestling ring, watching Ramses Boskov howl at a trainee who knees him in the crotch.
Portia is over getting a drink of water, though it seems she is taking her sweet ass time with it all, filling up the cup for a sip, before the girl from Eleven, that tyke Cassiopeia Grey, pushes her out of the way, Magnus watching with amusement in his eyes as Portia flings the cup in the girl's direction. Always making everyone so angry… does she enjoy doing it on purpose? What kind of person would do that? Diana snaps in his face, however, bringing Magnus back to the present, to the very beautiful girl he is speaking to.
"You said a bet," Diana drags the word through her teeth, plucking off syllables like performing alouette on a duck. He's seen it happen, in the middle of marshland while looking for radicals to bomb and blow up, wishing he had been holding onto that stupid freaking soccer ball that gives him second place. "What do you have at stake?"
Magnus grins, smiling at her with a full forced Winterthorn treatment, or as what his mother would call it, The Winterthorn Insufferableness. He shrugs off the insult, for Catalus seems to enjoy his company a lot last night as they head to the roof, sharing a bottle of brandy and laughs while realizing that the air around them is a forcefield, where even if they felt like being jilted lovers and committing suicide together, it wouldn't happen no matter how hard his heart would want it.
"If you miss more shots than I do," highlighting on the note he says the word miss, for he knows Diana is an excellent shot; just ask the bulls-eyes she marks a dummy up with yesterday while he and Catalus talk to one another about wax philosoph questions. "Then you get to come after me in the arena, first thing," her eyebrows rise, and he knows he's struck a soft spot. He can sense a bit of it in her, and while he's certain she's never killed a human being before, unlike yours truly, he knows that she has killed a living thing… and there's a threshold that can be crossed, slicing open a man's throat, and she wants to do it, But, how foolish would she need to be to believe she'd be slicing his throat open?
"And if you miss more than I do?" Diana asks next, as he expects, and there's mirth in her voice. Magnus likes the challenge, the curiosity that people cannot stay away from, the impulsive thoughts in their head that make people scratch at their scalps and ask sphinxes riddles they have no answers for to just get devoured… Magnus throws his question out towards the Sphinx a long time ago, waiting to be devoured, yet the leviathan jaws never come, he tensing and crying, but very well alive watching the plume cloud rise into the brackish green sky.
"Then I get your sandwich at lunch," he smirks.
And that is how it starts, with drawn bowstrings, occupying the same space, a few trainers pushing a stack of them into place for Magnus alerts them that they'll need a lot. It is the first time he ever fires a gun, at targets that have no face, just actual targets, and there is rain pouring down onto his shoes, filling up his socks, he looking down the scope… he never wants to leave, he wants to stay there and fire forever and ever. Except, however, it is all cut short but a mortar shell going off just on the far back wall, and people are grabbing at the new recruit, he holding onto the gun like it is some family heirloom, something sharp hits the back of his head, and Magnus forgets the rest after that except screaming into a pillow.
Forty-two men, that is the number lost in the raid, Magnus clutching too many white roses in his hands, scars splitting his palms open as he rests one down at each grave, gritting his teeth together and hissing it out, a single phrase, to anyone who'd care to hear him. "I want revenge on those who did this… I want their blood on my hands…" and the revenge sates beneath his skin, like a humming teapot, but after a while, he seems to forget about it, even while living his life, listening to President Emrick speak on the silver screen, but then… it all comes flooding back to him the moment Catalus sets a spear against the archery counter, Magnus eyeing it the moment they enter the center, fingers itching to wrap around the weapon.
Diana cusses out a great slew of curse words that makes Magnus really happy that little Cecelia is not standing next to them, hearing the whole debacle go down as her next fired arrow collides into the dummy's chest, spilling out red, this time, that being the choice from the design onto the floor. His heart skips a beat at the way Diana clenches her hands around the bow, he remembering that she is from Four… how many necks has she snapped while digging her hands into the blue of the ocean?
He decides not to say anything, as mocking her could end with an arrowhead in his gut or slicing open his neck, he looking elsewhere for her district partner. Orion, he believes his name to be, someone who looks like he could use a hug, shadows hidden under his eyes, all this false bravado rising so high to the ceiling it casts a marked shadow against the far side of the wall, like a creature stepping out of a fairytale book, not that Magnus read them of course. Magnus finds him clutching a sword, standing next to the boy from Three, Jasper Overheart, while Vesuvia Vocanova is clutching a bronze stained blade, green goop splattered all over it, and then Orion stabs his sword in the dummy's heart. Diana's bowstring twangs, she cussing again as her next arrow hits the dummy's arm before it is retracted, the dummy that is, beneath the floorboards.
"You are a great shot, you know," he tells her, cheekily, stepping up to be next to her. They've each fired fourteen arrows so far, Diana on her seventeenth shot, Magnus having missed about nine of his, but Diana has hit nine of her own, it seemingly impossible for her to try and throw whatever bet he's set down on the table. Diana mutters a light shut up that he almost doesn't hear for she mouths it against her shoulder, before slamming her bow down. "No, seriously, you are," Magnus continues the praise, seeing the tips of her ears flush a bright scarlet. "Who taught you?"
Diana looks at him, and for a second, there doesn't' seem to be a single particle of anger in her in the slightest, not even disappointment. Just… mellow satisfaction as sweat pools down her forehead, she swiping a lock of bright hair behind her ears. "My father taught me, and then I took over from there…" her chest rises and falls. "I love archery, and clearly I guess I don't know how to lose," she frowns at the statement. "Or win…"
"You were able to hunt in District 4?" Magnus frowns, perplexed by the answer. "Did you have wild boar and stuff or…?" As far as he is aware, District 4 is the ocean, the massive blue bodies of water coming to swallow him and the desire for revenge, which he knows he cannot achieve as just a tribute… he needs the crown, and to do that, it means beating the girl who can't miss a shot to save her own damn life.
"We're not just the ocean, Winterthorn," Diana quips back at him, before picking the bow off of the counter and shoving it against his chest, a bit harsher than expected, he almost stumbling back and losing his footing; he's sure Portia won't be running over to pick him up off the ground. "Well, nice… or rather, good shitty shooting," she laughs at him, an actual laugh, full of seafoam and sea spray. Diana begins to walk away from the archery station, Magnus's heart beating in his chest with relief at the fact that she is not about to kill him because she lost. Just out of the corner of his ear he hears her say, rather sweetly, warmth in her tone, "I hope you like turkey, Magnus!"
He'd rather have ham if it is all the same to her but…
Magnus smirks to himself, his bow loaded as he takes his next shot, this time letting the arrow fly. It pierces the dummy's chest, a grin growing on his face. When he's done, when the arena is finished, he'll be dining on more than just Avox made turkey sandwiches, he can guarantee that.
Porscha Watanabe: District 6 Female P.O.V (16)
That sienna door, that color of sickness and health that remains in her mind… she sees it everywhere, even in the depressing grays and neon blues of the training center. Porscha runs a hand along her face, standing there in the center of the training room, looking around at what to do. A little bit lost, perhaps, without Pierce by her side to take her hand and direct her in places to go. As a matter of fact, it is why she's late, Porscha standing there in the apartment while Pierce is scolded by a Peacekeeper. There is to be no repeat of yesterday's actions, which earns Pierce with a whip against his back and down his legs, his screams haunting Porscha while she tries to sleep, putting a pillow over her head, hoping it'd do anything to muffle or silence them completely, but they're still echoing in her head hours later, Porscha by herself.
He's up there, Pierce, back in the apartment, curled on the couch, a blanket nestled in between his hands while he whimpers and cries softly into the material. He'll never show his face down there again, he doesn't want to… as he believes, firmly… "I didn't do anything wrong…" Pierce whispers to himself, in the crook of his elbow, as Porscha raises an eyebrow.
"You tried to strangle him. Kill him," Porscha enunciates, crossing her arms while her district partner turns to look at her from over the couch.
"You killed a kid with a leg of lamb."
"That was different," she tells him, her entire body in a buzz. Porscha wants to drop that interaction, to let it go and stop having it plague her thoughts, for she's sick of it. She's completely sick of it, that being her claim to fame while she dances around on the balls of her feet. Porscha absentmindedly rolls her ankle while looking around the stations, completely lost on what to do.
"How was it different?" Pierce asks her, a genuine question, she almost breaking into a stuttered laugh, as how could he be serious? Does he genuinely not know?
"I killed someone in self-defense," Porscha replays over the words in her head, her tongue thick and covered in poison as it sits in the basin of her mouth, while teeth nibble away at the inside of her cheek. It is strange to say, as if she is in some sort of upside down world, at the fact she has in fact drained the life out of another, standing in the pool of carnage with bits of blood and brain matter and a chip of bone at her feet, coating her hair, leaving her stunned, bile rising in her throat. Ballet injuries are a different sort of breed, the blisters on her feet that create constellations blooming from toes to the ball of her foot, but this… this is different. She drops the bloodied piece of meat to the ground while her attacker mouths into the concrete, dying, dying, dying, Porscha leaning down to press a hand to his face, to somehow ease his passing but he's gone. "If I didn't, he would've killed me," she defends herself.
Pierce frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. "We're supposed to kill each other, aren't we?" he asks her, which, yes, truth be told, he's not wrong, as this is the entire purpose of them training, to learn how to pick up a weapon and smash it into someone's skin, break the durable barrier and leak them of precious copper. "Why does it matter if I went ahead and got a head start?"
She has no response for that, leaving Pierce to sulk on the couch while she heads down to the Training Center. Late, because of her discussion, which a trainer comments on the moment she steps out of the slate cube, her nostrils flaring in defiance at the order before focusing on the action displayed out in front of her. Yesterday had been full of indecision, many things working against her, Porscha needing to take breather after breather after breather while seeing all of these strangers decimate plastic into shreds of unrecognizable shapes, the colors of the rainbow spilling off of their hands and onto the floor. All she sees is that door, the sienna door from before, before the whole world hates her and her father, and she feels like the world could swallow her whole as the district claps for her demise.
A demise she'll not so readily accept, Porscha tying her dark hair back behind her head, gritting her teeth, surveying all the possible routes she can take. A dancer never quits, perhaps more arduous than anyone else in any sort of field, for each injury is just adrenaline in her system, to perfect the next leap and the next pirouette as she edges towards the end of the stage, about to tip in and collapse down in front of paying patrons, Porscha's eyes lighting up down the center of the room, towards the far back wall. She tries her hand at knifework yesterday, seeing the boy from Ten, that lanky Calen Kinegrove, slash off a dummy's arm, the splatter of scarlet too familiar for her as she drops the blade in a thaw of shock, he looking over at her and smiling sheepishly, continuing his decimation. No, not the blades… not again, not when it seems to be that nearly every dummy out there is red, the floor in a sea of vermillion, drenching her shoes, a bit of bile rising in her throat.
Her gaze focuses on, instead, the gauntlet along the back wall, a running obstacle course, a group of trainers all lined up next to one another, talking in hushed voices… however, that's not what has her attention piqued. Being Datsun Watanabe's little girl, the man who tells her that her posture is always slacking despite the thumbtack wedged between her shoulder blades, she is to socialize. Spread the good word of Datsun Enterprises… and she'll need allies.
Porscha finds her, Kai'sa Shadow, sitting in front of the first mat, stretching, arms reaching for her toes as she sits in a split. The girl doesn't say anything as she approaches, simply tilting her head, pale face and pale hair parted on either side of her head, stunningly beautiful yet stunningly horrifying as all Porscha sees is this girl who is reaped out of the District 12 crowd, about to claw her own skin off, strawberry juice dripping on her the girl from Six's arms as she witnesses the reaping recap take place.
"You're doing the stretch wrong," Porscha tells her, as the first step to communication. It is rather funny, she laughing harshly into her baked potato she eats for dinner, when Pierce tells her that she's weird and speaks awkwardly, when he is the poster child for such things. However, she has never been one for polite falsities, and the girl is doing the stretch incorrectly.
Kai'sa blinks in surprise, as if she isn't processing that she had just been spoken to, lifting her head with a frown. "I beg your pardon?"
"The stretch," Porscha gestures towards the split, seeing the way the girl's legs are practically trembling at the exertion. "You're gonna make yourself sore doing that, and then you won't be able to lift your leg and-" she's rambling now, almost catching over herself, doing so by biting her tongue, digging her nails into her side. "I'm a dancer and I just wanted to tell you that so-"
"I know you're a dancer," Kai'sa interrupts her, just as rude and brusque, a choke of surprise catching in Porscha's throat, before the girl from Twelve is nodding at her. "Your bruised ankles, only done by abusing going on pointe all the time."
Daddy's little girl, daddy's perfect girl. Porscha rubs her ankles absentmindedly, frowning, fingers brushing over light skin and speckled bone, a map of black and blue bruises painting her in a portrait upside down, blood rushing to her head at her father's voice rising in her ears. A dancer is perfect, a dancer does everything correct, a dancer never stops dancing, and a Watanabe never stops performing for the people. Years of being told to step up higher, higher, higher, higher, and it is not even her ballet couch who is demanding this of her, Porscha swallowing heavily at the memory.
"Yeah… my father would like me to do it a lot and-"
"You couldn't just say no?" Kai'sa interrupts yet again, blinking with confusion on her face. She gets to her feet, now stretching her arms, swinging them back and forth. Porscha jolts some at the sudden closeness in proximity, for the girl's eyes are just such a stunning color, electricity popping and crackling through space and along her ribcage.
"No… no…" she stutters over herself, frowning. Why does it matter what she said or did not say to her father's demands? It is not like he ever took her thoughts into consideration, on what he'd be doing to his daughter, as he tears her away from the sienna colored door, home, home… home. A lone tear drips down Porscha's cheek, she scrubbing it away. "I'm Porscha," she holds her hand out.
Kai'sa looks at it, perplexed for a moment, a stunning shade of beauty brightening up the drab environment of the training center. She shakes it back, though the touch is light, like Porscha's hand sliding down her face while spinning, spinning, spinning away into the curtains. "Kai'sa."
Porscha knows that she's put her foot in her mouth plenty of times, as per what Pierce tells her when she speaks to the Avoxes on the couch, a faint blush rising to her cheeks, before having to ask… "You're the girl who… at the reaping…" she closes her eyes shut, a loud voice shrilly berating her behind her brain. Smooth, Porsche. Real fucking smooth.
Kai'sa purses her lips, frowning, eyes an unreadable emotion that Porscha connects to sadness of some kind, though she's not quite so sure. The other girl, the other dancer, flexes her foot and points it, leg extended perpendicular to the other. "Yeah," she owns up to it, confidence in her voice. "I'm the girl who hallucinates," but the confidence ends there, she turning around dismissively, ponytail hitting the back of her neck. "Now, if you'll excuse me, instead of waiting here to be mocked, I'm going to try the gauntlet and-"
She is doing it because she knows she must, and moving before she realizes she's doing it, Porscha's hands grabbing at Kai'sa's shoulders, turning the girl around, her eyes lighting up in fury for a moment. "I hallucinate too…" Porscha admits, a weak shudder rippling through her, breaking off the words in a gasp. Her old life, the life before the ballet slippers and the hovercraft, before Ayanna picks her name out of a selecting system… before her district partner throws a tantrum in her bedroom. There's a rose, a slice of lemon on a glass full of something that is not lemonade, and that yellow door. Paint chips off of it as Porscha leaps for the knob, screaming about being let back inside, and how she's not ready to leave, and Mother! Mother is in there! We have to get Mother back! "A yellow door… like, a sienna color."
Being open is the only way creativity will flow through her, the advice of one of her teachers. To be a sponge to the outside world, to open the door to new people… experiences… thoughts… ideas… and all the vials of darkness hooked to their skin.
Kai'sa raises an eyebrow, the fury evaporating off of the crease lines in her forehead. "What do you see in the door, Porscha?" Another shudder, hearing her name said in that silky tone of voice.
She does not expect that, being asked. Porscha clears her throat, it sounding as if she isn't even speaking, voice hollow, throat trembling, like a recording is coming from behind her head. "Freedom," a choked sob billowing underneath her tongue. "Home…"
Kai'sa's frown, and half muttered apology comes forth after that, and all Porscha recalls before the tears begin to spill down her face is the girl from Twelve drawing her into a hug, soothing her pain, silencing her fears, and draining her of her tears.
Porscha's heart flutters slightly, elating likewise… let the district laugh at her, let the world laugh at her and consider herself just to be good on pointed feet and arched soles; she's going to win the Hunger Games with Kai'sa by her side.
Nokomis Yanaba: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)
Even the silverware is fancy here, Nokomis realizing this with a wrinkle of her nose, as she holds her soup spoon in her right hand, curving it down towards the porcelain bowl filled with what the marker considers to be tomato soup, but she's not sure, for it sort of smells. Nokomis blows on the red liquid – is it a liquid? Is anything here in the Capitol what it says it to be? Is it all an illusion? – before slipping the spoon into her mouth. Bitter, a bit salty, and nothing like what she's expecting, Nokomis spitting it out into a napkin bunched up in her left hand. A dry cough rouses from her chest, she hacking and hitting her chest.
Someone scoots a glass of water closer to her, Nokomis raising an eyebrow as the coughing subsides, she seeing Camilla standing above her, with Gemini in tow, the two from District 9 sitting across from her, and Calen's spot next to Nokomis is left empty, but he should be joining them shortly, he staying behind in the training center to get a few last jabs in with one of the sandbags on the wall. Nokomis takes the glass of water with a short smile, holding it back and forth in her hand, wetting them up while wiping at the back of her mouth.
It is a break, lunch break specifically, the smell of roasted ham and pork loin wafting through the ceiling and down onto the floorboards as a trainer shows Nokomis how to handle a knife when fishing, in case she has to gut something open, she watching wide eyed as the Capitolite, a man with a heavy accent she cannot place, slices open a stuffed trout, stuffing falling to the floor, she trying to imagine it as pieces of clouds departing from heaven down below.
"What happened to you?" asks Camilla, jarring Nokomis out of the memory of the stuffing, seeing bits of it line the outer edge of the table, a shudder rippling through the girl from Ten. Camilla, however, sets another glass of water down, likewise, taking a long sip while beginning to cut through a salad on her plate… being healthy, who would've guessed. Nokomis glances over at Gemini who has his plate piled high with bread and cookies and other sorts of most likely not healthy options, but she's not about to say anything. She hardly knows them.
She hardly knows them, yet Nokomis finds herself spending an absolutely large amount of her time with them. She doesn't even have dinner on Ten's floor, leaving Roxanne, that hideous woman she wants nothing more to see wither away into this tomato paste she's currently eating, furious, but Nokomis likes hanging out with Camilla and Gemini, tugging Calen in tow so he isn't left in the witch's claws. Nokomis leaves her spoon resting on the side of the bowl, fingers tugging at the wooden table, fingernails diving into the partitions, digging up dust, pain flaring in the beds.
"Terrible food," she pushes the bowl away from her with a free hand, trying to appease the scowl on her face. "I mean, it's the Capitol," Nokomis explains, as if that is somehow supposed to mean anything, gesturing over to the buffet of food options, the boy from Four speaking to his district partner while getting some of the same salad Camilla is eating. "They can make our bodies smell like fourteen different scents of vanilla, but a tomato soup…"
She can almost think of the perfect, terrible poem for the occasion, Nokomis finishing her statement with a smile. She hasn't thought of a poem since the day before the reaping… before all of this crumbles in her hands like a sandcastle hit by the waves. It is in her back pocket, her little notebook, the pencil jabbing her in the leg muscle some every time she moves, she trying to ignore it while learning how to swing what a trainer calls a cutlass. Calen gets it better on the first few tries than she does, Nokomis crossing her arms with a frown.
A light bulb goes off in her head, Nokomis pulling out her book, pushing the bowl of hideous soup further away from her, more into Camilla's personal space, her friend – they're friends, aren't they? – moving her salad closer to her. Nokomis wrenches her pencil free, swiping a lock of her dark hair out of her eyes and over her ears.
A bowl of hideous red.
Tastes like blood, scars in my mouth.
A city of platinum and diamond streets.
Fancy people in fancy clothes.
Hideous cooking.
A bowl of hideous red.
Supposed to be tomato?
Nokomis even makes the question mark swirl fancy, swooping up and down as if she were doing her eyeliner in the morning, before giggling lowly, putting her pencil back up. She lifts her head to see Camilla appraising her with a glisten in the girl's eye, Gemini munching down rather nastily on a piece of bread, crumbs spraying everywhere.
"What did you just do?" Camilla asks, sweetly, her voice warm like a jar of honey held in between someone's hands, rubbing the glass back and forth. "You were mumbling to yourself."
A blush rises on Nokomis's neck, she taking a sip of water, trying to distract herself from just how nice Camilla seems to be looking at her, Gemini finishing his bite, his face even more amused than hers, the flush rising higher and higher until Nokomis feels like she stepped into one of the few hot springs available to them in the inner parts of Ten.
"It- it's nothing."
"Is it?" Camilla quirks an eyebrow, voice ever so soft as she pushes the salad around. "Someone have a creative streak?"
"I paint," Gemini offers sweetly, though his voice is a bit more hollow, Nokomis looking over at him, smiling wryly. She doesn't care about what Gemini does, but she cares about what is in her notebook. The fact that no one has ever asked her before. Her parents, sure, but her father is off fighting and her mother is telling her the little she can about her heritage and- a locked away chest, golden and gilded, the key wrapped on a chain around Nokomis's neck where she puts the notebook away. "I mean, I don't have an easel here or anything, but I can paint in the center and-"
Nokomis shakes her head back and forth rather abruptly, nerves frazzled and rising. It is humiliating, back home, when her breathing hitches and a low yelp escapes her lips, and her mother is crying as another Yanaba is about to be lost… the panic attacks come high and low, she feeling trapped and caged underneath the four walls that have a low ceiling… Nokomis rubs a hand down her face, irritated, buzzed over.
"It- it's poetry," she says really quickly, words stumbling over the other, Camilla lifting her eyebrows, smirking slightly. "It's nothing major."
"Poetry?" Gemini's voice is caring, soft, yet as if he's treading on water, Nokomis looking at him with a hard stare. Don't you dare make fun of me. Her parents, well, her mother at the very least, never fully pushes her in the direction of the arts, for there are better ways to approach your heritage and while making fanciful words weave together like a tapestry, there are plenty of actual tapestry materials to-
She shakes the memory away, shards of a coffee cup placing themselves on the table at the edge, the points where Nokomis digs her nails beneath the wood, excavating ants and bits of cacti. Camilla soothes a sweet word into the table while placing an arm out on Nokomis's right hand, which is sprawled out close to the horrible bowl of soup. A tender moment, her body sparking alive with electricity, she looking at Camilla with parted lips. The girl has no reason to be nice to her, no reason at all, yet she is being caring and patient and- open.
Open.
Nokomis doesn't know what that word even means when she thinks about it.
A bit of silence passes over the table, Gemini clearing his throat awkwardly as he picks up his glass of dark liquid, a tea of some sorts, there being an avox over in the far corner to get refills. Camilla watches her district partner leave, before lifting her hand off of Nokomis's, a low whine rising in the girl's throat at the loss of contact. Nothing romantically involved, Nokomis wrinkling her nose at the thought… she's never been one for the idea of the beast with two backs.
"Do your parents read what you write?"
Nokomis shakes her head in dismissal of the question. Encouraged, but pushed only a little, as her father, John, is afraid that pushing her too far will cause her to fall off, fall off and fly towards the electric fence where the Peacekeepers sit, even as he says this with a gun strapped across his chest, and tears stream down her cheeks as she begs him to come back, come back and stay and throw more coffee mugs onto the kitchen table.
"No…" Nokomis whispers, her voice raspy, she clamoring for the cup of water. "No, my parents were either too busy or well… just not interested."
"Not interested?" Camilla asks, a smirk on her face as she takes the first bite of her salad. "Or you not willing to share?"
She has her there, truth be told. If it is her father, depending on his mood, well, there could be a new addition to the coffee cup graveyard in the kitchen sink, thrown underneath Nokomis's lowered head, the same tears returning. "A bit of both..."
"What do your parents do?"
"My mother is a medic, a healer for Ten, and the war needed her efforts and…" she swallows heavily, digging out a knot forming in her throat, underneath her jaw, fingers pushing the lump down. "My father fought… I mean fights," she corrects, with a quick shudder, biting her tongue down at the words, at the mistake. "He fights for District Ten…" Nokomis whispers.
"Fights for Ten?" Camila repeats, a look of confusion on her face. "What do you mean? War is over, Nokomis…" the girl looks around at the room, down at the table, sadness flickering across her features. "We- we wouldn't be here if they were still fighting."
"He… he fought," Nokomis grits out, her heart beating in her chest at the pace of a snare drum, each new beat resonating through her ribcage, making her teeth clatter together as she holds onto her pencil in her left hand, fingers threatening to break the wood in half, Camilla milling through her salad. "He fought… and he lost," she says, sadly.
Camilla nods her head, a low sound of comfort rising in her throat. "Mine too," she whispers, Nokomis locking eyes with her. "At least, that's what my brother and I believe. We never got any news."
What is it her mother cries out when she's reaped? Nokomis can hardly focus on that, between her short and shallow breaths, or Roxanne's voice calling out the girl from the woodwork, to move out of the flocks of hens and scared little chickens and join the scary Capitol witch on stage. Nokomis rubs her temples, Camilla saying something to Gemini who sits back down with a refill, he handing her district partner something with jam spread all over it, but Nokomis is back to pushing the spoon around with her fingers, lazily, trying to focus on her breathing.
Trapped. Stuck between all these walls. A broken sea of porcelain shards from too many thrown coffee cups. Her mother's voice wailing above the blue sky of District Ten, Nokomis crying, crying, crying, screaming till her throat is rubbed red and raw.
"No! We can't lose another Yanaba! Nokomis!" her mother is screaming out for her, trying to force herself through the barricade of Peacekeepers making themselves known.
"Wrong, Mom… you're wrong," Nokomis corrects her mother in her head, with a lone tear sliding down her face, a hiccup breaking the distilled quiet, Camilla looking over at her and getting up to come around and hug her without a second thought. "There are no dead Yanaba's. And there won't be…"
A shitty lie, like her shitty poetry.
Ramses Boskov: District 12 Male P.O.V (17)
Mundane. Mundane when he should be focused on the municipal. On governing, on governance and the body within for him to hold in his hands, to break bread with all of the citizens of that golden promised land that'll let him ascend him to the throne… yet he's here, here in this rat-infested city, a Capitol that is anything but. Ramses tugs at the sleeves of his training outfit, a low growl rising in his throat at the concept of what he is dressed in… pitiful rags that do not fit the manner of a king, that do not sculpt his body to ideal perfection, where instead he is bogged down by these inadequacies, forced to move around in nylon and pleather, his body sinking into the floor with each step.
Where is the robe? The gilded robe encrusted with rubies that'll push him to stardom? Where his citizens can grab onto it and get a mere glimpse of their savior, the one to lead them to that land? Ramses grits his teeth together, pushing his thumb over his lips, tugging down at his skin. This is all a distraction, being reaped for the Games, being made to work, and entertain those that would much rather have him killed, but he cannot give up the good fight just yet. Anastasia needs a home; his sister needs a place where she will not have to be terrified of being carted off to the fifteenth circle of Hell. Ramses knows that there are supposed to be nine circles only, but upon stepping into the city of steel and sunshine and scarlet and perfume fragrances, he sees another six pop up, each colored in their red glamor, like blood splattered on a window.
He leaves lunch early, sitting by himself in the far corner, dejected, pity rising in his stomach, as he rolls a biscuit back and forth in his hand, over the missing stubs of his fingers, a bit of bile rising in his throat as he sees all of these other able-bodied men fight and sit with their friends, yet no one dares approach him.
"It's your attitude," Kai'sa tells him, sniffing dejectedly while she's fitting a ballet slipper onto her foot. She is dressed in some silly ass pink tutu, Ramses trying to hold back a laugh, but it comes out anyways, harsh and barking, like a dog's bray, one choking on smoke and ash rising from the mines in Twelve.
He is wrapped around the corner of the room, too scared to approach her should she combust internally again, it requiring three Avoxes, a few slaps to the face, and two cold glasses of ice water thrown in her face to get Kai'sa to calm down from her episode on the train, she curled up into a ball, whimpering and rocking herself back and forth on her bed, before getting down to grab the ballet slippers kept in a drawer on the fall side of the wall.
"My attitude?" Ramses asks, frowning, wrinkling his nose. No one has ever criticized him before, unlike the way his parents do, they calling it constructive, he calling it bullshit being blown out of their mouths, but he'd never speak to his parents like that. His father's reflection still haunts him in the mirror, the bloody garrote hanging off of one hand, the corpse beneath him, Roarke's stare solid, cold, unflinching, Ramses backing away and out of the cellar as if he had seen something he shouldn't have seen.
No, Ramses knows he's being ridiculous. His father had strangled the life out of a loyalist, a muddy Capitol loyalist planning on detonating two loaded explosives in full elevator shafts, entombing who knows how many countless workers inside… the man does not deserve to live, to not be able to turn all of these people into widows and fatherless or motherless homes, Ramses wiping away the tears that fall free when his father checks on him that night.
His father does what he can to protect his family, what he must do to protect the nation he loves. What type of man would Ramses be if he is incapable of doing the same? Would he be able to tackle someone to the ground and wring their neck open, slicing it and creating wrapping paper that spills crimson onto the tile? A good leader does anything he can to protect his people, and he will be a good leader once he escapes this city, once he escapes an arena with unseen terrors in the night. Handling a weapon has been easy enough for him, he supposes, as he brings a mace up to smash all the plastic dummies, waiting, waiting, waiting to see if someone will join him and talk the gab, but no one ever shows up, he complaining about it to Kai'sa last night, she back in that stupid tutu.
"Yes, your attitude," Kai'sa huffs a bit of hair out of her face. "You look too intimidating. Everyone else is somewhat friendly… besides the girl from Four and Eleven, but they don't look like your type, Ramses."
"My type?"
"Well, one of them is thirteen, you idiot and the other-"
"Has her district partner, yes, I know," Ramses interrupts her, pinching his forehead.
Ramses watches them with great interest, the duo from Four, Orion Maythorpe, and Diana Kratovska, though it is Orion that fascinates him more than his female counterpart. He isn't quite sure why that is, perhaps an intuition of sorts, the way Diana handles herself with lethal grace is terrifying enough, but he suspects she is not easily bent, rigid and breaking in a storm, a willow reed to slap against someone's back. Orion, however, as he watches fight, or wrestle with his shirt off, abs glistening with sweat, blonde hair pasted to his forehead, Ramses leaning back, is how humble the kid seems to be. Maybe humble isn't the right word, for Ramses knows that a leader of the golden promised land must not be humble or polite in his political dealings, but for Orion, it is jovial and complimentary.
Presence, he supposes, with a shrug of his shoulders, as Ramses steps back into the training center, the first to arrive. Others will be joining shortly, and in about half an hour or so, there's to be another joint training exercise, the last one of the visit before tomorrow, where they are to perform for the Head Gamemaker, the wicked Vice President that Ramses smiles at a portrait of. He imagines the same ruby red smile coating pale skin from ear to ear, slicing in and digging out flesh, chunks into a salad he'll prep for the hungry citizens to devour as they chant his name.
Can Orion and Diana help him reach the throne?
Ramses steps across the floor of the Training Center, his steps echoes in the now empty room, as there are only a few trainers standing by, a medic or two crowding in the corner, and a sea of Avoxes, quiet as shadows, to act as the other occupants. There is a glass room, one that has arisen Ramses's suspicions, it looking to be a swimming pool, just two lanes, divided by plastic buoys down the middle, but a spacious enough place for someone to walk around the outer edge. He pushes open the door, it creaking, the trainer resting against the wall perking their head up. There is a rack of clothes for someone to change into, but Ramses shakes his head at the offer. He's not here to swim.
He's here to plan.
"I'd like to have the room to myself, please," he asks the trainer, voice as gentle and polite as he can make it, folding his arms over the front of his shirt, down to the floor, fingers hooked together. He has thought about it, just once, looming over Kai'sa, being so lucky to taste from the spoon of luxury and sleep in the new mayor's house, lying down in beds of satin sheets, breathing lightly… to test what it would be like if he were to press his fingers into his throat.
He's tried saving a life, and that fails… a grim reminder as he stares at his missing fingers, anger boiling in his gut as the trainer tries speaking out some sort of weak excuse.
"Mr. Boskov, given that this is a pool and you're from Twelve, I am obligated-" the man tries saying, but Ramses flashes the trainee a glare.
"It wasn't an offer, sir," he says, keeping his voice solid, the same way his father speaks, the man of the house, the man of the land. A leader has to have a resolute voice, no cracks in the façade, except it isn't a façade when one steps into the role for long enough. "I'd like the room to myself," the man starts another protest, "I am not going to swim. I didn't come here to swim. I came here for peace and quiet and to clear my head."
The man shuts his mouth, wisely, if Ramses is the one to give his opinion out, the man moving past him. Ramses watches him go before turning around, tucking his hands behind his back, fingers clenched together while he begins walking around the outer edge of the pool. The water is undisturbed, Ramses looking at it, seeing his reflection peering back at him. There is a look of contentment on his face, though Ramses believes it to be a lie, for he is not content, merely floating in space, trying to tether himself to any sort of cosmic deity that'll allow his touch on their smooth surface. Excitement rushes in his veins at the very fact that the Capitol trainee listens to him… his first order, his first real order and someone takes him seriously.
He is used to the snarls and the glares that are given back at him when Ramses tries shrugging his shoulders, stepping into position, one foot on the carpeted steps before making the climb towards the heavenly chair, the chair where he'll rule from.
No one is to order him around, not unless he is sharing the thought himself, which often ends up being the case, but in other circumstances, no one is to tell him, Ramses Boskov, what to do or how to live his life. He makes a few laps around the pool, clearing his head in the silent vacuum of the building. It is slightly ajar from the rest of the training center, the mirrors two way so he can see them, and they can see him, subjects… sacrifices…
However, it is sound proof, so unless someone else is to join him, no one else will hear his plans, the plans he shall take with him into the Games, to get the other tributes to join his cause. Being the first Victor… given a title-
Ramses thinks of another title for himself, as the leader of this country, when his foot slips on the lip of one of the corners of the pool, his body tumbling into the water. He cries out faintly, sharply, caught off guard, when his head hits the tile, pain rousing up under his eyelids in brimming static waves. He falls into the pool with a splash, water filling his mouth as he screams.
The dimming lights of the pool cube flicker under the water as he sinks in, the marker signs claiming it to be around ten to twelve feet deep or so, Ramses's mind flitting with thoughts of panic. There are hardly any opportunities to swim in Twelve and- he flails around in the water, struggling to break himself to the surface, the restrictiveness of the training outfits keeping himself bogged down.
Hanging off of the wall, in a lustrous orange, is a lifejacket, next to one of the swimsuits the trainee offers him, it mocking him from the great beyond, from the surface, Ramses lifting his hand up towards the water, trying, pushing… but he is too far down, struggling too much.
He sinks to the bottom of the pool, his head hitting the floor with a loud THUD, it muffled by the water and the soundproof dome, his scream only acting as water bubbles floating to the surface.
Ants burrow into his vision and everything turns to black.
Orion Maythorpe: District 4 Male P.O.V (18)
Perhaps it is a petty thing to be upset about, but he still cannot believe it, that he listens to these Capitol people and puts an ounce of trust in them, at the very thought of killing them, as that is what he does back before the Dark Days end… and this is where it lands him. They told him his hair would remain the same color that it would always end up as, dark brown and a bit long in the back, short up front… to imagine his surprise when the goggles are lifted up off of his face, with Wyvern, the old man that he is, grinning and smiling at him. Orion gasps, as his dark brown hair has been dyed to a sickeningly sweet lemonade color, like a thirsted drop hanging off the edge of his tongue, liquid sunshine combining with the waves on the sandy shores.
Temporary, they tell him.
It'll be temporary.
It has been two days and his hair has still not changed back to brown from this bleached blonde, anger stirring in Orion's veins as he grips the outer edge of the sword he's working with, holding onto the hilt, putting the weapon back in its scabbard up on the wall. He is tired of working with the sword, arms aching, a different kind of ache than trying to lift up a rifle and shoot at targets. Non-moving targets of course, for there are not enough cans for the rebels to go out into the surf and find, under the constant threat of being nabbed away by speedboats filled to the brim with Peacekeeper white, leather mixing in with the foam of a crested in tide at low-tide, the sun barely peeking over the horizon then.
Orion holds the weapon in his hands. It's the heaviest sword there is, but he figures with his height and his muscular bulk he'd be rather adept at handling it, but it is a mistake as he nearly tips over with it in his hand, that guy from Two, Magnus Winterthorn laughing at him from afar while working at tying a few knots against a dummy's neck, Orion shooting the other kid a glare that must miss him and hits Diana instead, who is working on spear work, spearing and gutting fish, it just after lunch.
His glare earns him a surprise visit by his district partner, who is back in front of him with her arms crossed, trying to get his attention while he puts the sword back on the rack.
"What were you glaring at me for?" she asks him.
"It was for that Winterthorn dude. He kept on laughing at me," Orion mumbles under his breath. Diana laughs at that, his face flushing red to the tips of his ears. He volunteers for the Games as there seems to be nothing else to do with his life, to push him towards doing something good for someone else… and to stick it to his parents, who still dare to give him a banana as his parting gift with them, he spitting at his father's back while he walks away and out of the holding room.
"He make you feel inferior or something?" Diana laughs again, he looking at her with a glare for real this time. He dislikes her a lot, truth be told. Perhaps not as much as he hates his parents, with their gilded cage that they're happy to be resting in even when the Peacekeepers set it ablaze, but it is Wyvern's protocol that they ally together in the Games, looking like clear contenders when they do not mention their backgrounds or their home life, though Orion isn't sure what he is going to do for the interview with Richmond Anvil tomorrow night if he cannot talk about home.
Orion doesn't answer her question, she spinning a lock of blonde hair around her finger while going over to the knife rack, picking out a blade. He sets the sword firmly back into its old spot, locking a gear over it that a trainer is needed to unlock should someone else wish to use it, so someone cannot just go and grab the sword and injure themselves. Orion feels a set of eyes on him as he does this, however, he lifting his head, gaze lined up perfectly with Ramses Boskov across the training center. Goosebumps erupt all over his arms at the boy from Twelve's stare. Strong. Sturdy. Perhaps intimidating if the kid didn't look really scrawny… even handsome, if he'll admit it, Orion biting down on his lower lip.
Alistair wouldn't like that.
"I wouldn't like it?" he hears his best friend's voice in his head, which is impossible, as the head is severed from the spine, thus therefore eliminating the ability for speech, yet there it is, soulful and filled to the brim with imagery. Orion pats a hand on his left pocket, his one remnant of home there… a picture, black and white, of he, Alistair, and Alistair's sister, Helga, all side by side, arms wrapped around each other at fourteen years-old, the dumbest smiles on their faces. "Orion, I just want you to be happy. Without me, of course, but happy still…"
The body disappears in a plume of sulfur and smoke, vanishing into Orion's mouth, salty and gritty between his teeth as he motions the trainer over to lock the sword back into place. It is like he is giving up, when he does that, sensing the judgment in Ramses's eyes from his glass cage, the pool, a place Orion has considered dipping into, for he is from Four, swimming is his lifeblood. However, he figures it is somewhat silly… everyone knows he can swim, though when he mentions it to Diana, he sees her wrinkle her nose in dissent.
Orion's hair on the back of his neck stands up as he sees Ramses look away from him, continuing what seems to be a walk around the perimeter of the pool. Diana is saying something, handing him a blade as well, his hand curling around it rather subconsciously.
"Am I giving up? Am I looking like a lesser contender by giving up, Alistair?" he asks, just hoping, pleading, praying for some warmth against the nape of his neck.
"Never, Orion. Never…"
Out loud, however, Diana is asking something else. "Orion, don't let Magnus get to you. You're strong and just as lethal as him…" she shrugs her shoulders, hitting him in the elbow playfully, perhaps the nicest thing she has said to him the entire time since they've been in each other's company. "And if you get the chance, show him up."
"Are you going to show him up?" he asks her, rather sharply, looking at her quickly, the scar on his leg flaring to life again, Orion gritting his teeth together. "I mean, it looks like he beat you in some contest earlier today and you might be buddy-buddy and all, and-" Something in the enclosed room of glass, the pool, catches his eye, blurred movement, rapid movement, flailing movements.
"We're not buddy-buddy," Diana shudders at the statement, displeasure rippling across her features. "He just-" However, Orion is no longer listening to his district partner, for the little she ever talks about, going on and on about 'father's expectations,' when blood roars in Orion's ears, every muscle in his body vibrating into action. He takes off, the knife falling out of his grasp as Orion's feet are making connections to the tile. Apparently the knife nearly drops on Diana's foot as she's yelling angrily at him. "Hey! Doofus, watch what you're doing!"
It is all wind in his ears as Orion races across the training center, there only being a few tributes operating the space, like the girl from Seven who is holding an axe in her hand, coaching her district partner on form, or the girls from Six and Twelve who are chatting amicably by the gauntlet run… it is all irrelevant to Orion as he rushes past them.
Orion bursts into the room with the pool, the head trainer that must've been excused stripping themselves of their uniform, the boy from Four's eyes searching rapidly and wildly for Ramses who he swears he just saw trip into the pool, being the bit that starts flailing around terrified for his life… and from the looks of the shaking and erratic movement, someone who doesn't know how to swim…
A lump forms in his throat as he sees a dark mass at the bottom, the signs saying '14 feet,' before he's tugging at the trainer's arm. "He's down there! Help me!" Orion calls out, before making room as he runs in to dive down into the water. He doesn't have time to get out of his clothes, and if they weigh him down, they weigh him down… but he is not going to let Ramses drown. Something inherent, perhaps Diana's voice in the back of his brain, is screaming at him at how idiotic this is, for he's competition, and he is not from home, but Orion cannot sit back and let this happen if no one else is to move a muscle.
He dives into the water, careening straight for the bottom to Ramses's unmoving life form at the bottom. He can only have been down here for maybe a minute, perhaps two, but he knows, back in Four… just a bit of time caught in the surf is where milliseconds, not just seconds can be the difference between life and death. Orion reaches the bottom, holding his breath as well as he can, seeing that the water is starting to bloom a fresh scarlet color. Blood.
His entire body begins to itch when the sound of more splashing hits his ears, the trainer having dove in after him. The two men latch onto Ramses, Orion seeing a somewhat grisly cut laid there on his skull, where the blood must be coming from, before the two heave, Orion struggling at the weight of lax flesh and bone, every muscle in his body protesting and aching before they break through the surface. He gasps out, his lungs filling with air immediately, skin on fire, heart roaring in his chest as he and the trainer drag Ramses to the more shallow – minimally speaking, of course, given the depth of the pool – end, most of Ramses's body starting to not be as heavy as the two men lug the boy from Twelve onto the tile, as far away from the pool as possible.
Orion looks behind him to see the other tributes in the center gathered at the window, concerned expressions especially on Kai'sa – "His district partner," he realizes sharply, motioning for her to enter – and Sylvan, the boy from Seven. He looks back at Ramses, the trainee pumping on his chest, about to perform CPR as he holds open Ramses's mouth when Orion is drenched further in bleach spittle and ammonia leaking out of raspy coughs.
Kai'sa, now inside the cage, lets out a shaky gasp, tears of relief streaking down her face, and Orion realizes he might be crying himself, though he's not so sure why. He is too late to save Alistair, and Helga has yet to forgive him, likewise as he is never going to be able to forgive his parents, giving them one last middle finger to the world before jumping on stage and volunteering, showing off that he's got bravado and power and he'll use them.
Ramses coughs up more pool water, before sitting up rather abruptly, the trainer's hands gentle on his shoulders as Kai'sa leans down next to Orion, he seeing that the poor girl is positively trembling. However, as Ramses blinks awake and back to sentience, a single streak of crimson black running against all the droplets of water on his face, his dark eyes widen, lips parting.
Orion is about to ask him a question when a sob ripples out of Ramses's throat, the boy from Twelve not hugging his district partner, who he can see clearly sitting right in front of him, but Orion, a choked cry of surprise lodging in his throat at the cold and freezing touch of Ramses pressed flush against him, tears soaking his neck.
Unsure exactly what else to do, he hugs back, holding on tight, not letting Ramses go… he won't let him back into that water, and if Diana wants to be pissed at him about it, he'll let her; there are many other things to worry about.
He didn't save Alistair from his grisly fate… but he can be in the here and now to save Ramses.
And try he will, damned he will try.
Alrighty, everyone! That was Chapter #14: Strength of the Powerful, detailing Training Day 2, and I have to say, I really like a lot of what I have down, and while a few tributes might seem better or worse than others, it's all relative. This chapter had povs from Poem, Magnus, Porscha, Nokomis, Ramses, and Orion, as well as a little Capitol subplot beginning from Cain, as there are two (well, technically three, but two) running side by side, intertwined with the other. AND, each tribute pov I did relegate to exactly around 2k, though Orion bled over a little bit longer, I don't think that's a problem.
Next chapter, #15: Whispers of Doom, will be the fourth and last chapter of Round II of tribute povs, it being just the six tributes this time of the remaining ones not covered: Calen, Camilla, Dill, Kai'sa, Jasper, and Diana, stacked group of tributes, and I am excited for what I have for it: it'll be focused on Training Day 2. We are almost halfway through the Pre-Games, which is crazy already. I have a poll on my profile where you can vote for up to six tributes you think may be dying in the bloodbath, and while you can vote now if you want, there is a whole other round of povs to go through so your thoughts might change, though the current set of votes is interesting.
Reviews are loved and appreciated as they always are, your support means everything to me, and I know it means more when people go through these crazy long-ass chapters and give feedback or commentary. I hope you all have a great day! I'll see you all again most likely next Saturday for Chapter #15: Whispers of Doom. I love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm