Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, Chapter #18: Charlatans Theater, a title I changed and worked with a bit to settle where we are now. Last chapter, #17, focused on the revealing of the Private Sessions scores with povs from Kileigh, Calen, Diana, Gemini, and Cecelia, ending with a Capitol progression from Lydia. This chapter, #18, focuses on Interviews, and if you know me from my stuff in the past or on Discord... I love me a good interview chapter, and I love writing them, personally where my dramatics and dialogue tends to shine the most, and every tribute gets a cameo of their interview if the pov isn't the focus. Seven povs for you, starting off will be Richmond, our interviewer, to learn just a bit about him cause why not, with six interview povs from Catalus, Jasper, Zachary, Poem, Nokomis, and Kai'sa, in that order. I am very excited as it just means we are one step closer to the bloodbath and the arena which I am so freaking hyped for! Anywho, please enjoy Chapter #18: Charlatans Theater.
"Because an illusion is an illusion. Reality always exists despite the façade," ~ Kasie West
Richmond Anvil: Master of Ceremonies P.O.V
He can barely hear it behind the curtain, but what matters regardless of the sound's intensity, is that he hears it. Richmond can hardly hold his smile back from stretching wide across his face as he applies the last dosage of powder to his cheeks, dark hair glistening under the halcyon lights of the stage vanity designed for him. Just for him, something that makes his heart swell, and he does grin at that fact. The noise is that of the theater coming alive, Capitolites dressed in their Sunday best spilling out of their platinum prisons and taking just a second out of their vain little lives to pay attention to someone else. It is probably killing them, when he thinks about it, with a faint chuckle, but that just means more spotlight for him.
That is what tonight is all about after all, even if no one around him is going to say the truth. This night is not for the tributes he shall be interviewing on stage, they also dressed in their Sunday best, even if they are outfit choices they themselves did not get to make. Richmond feels for them on that level, just for a moment, and these kids having the most stressful day of their lives, perhaps in a moment that will be the happiest for them – of course it is because they are speaking to him, the most desirable man from the thirteen (well, twelve, now, haha) districts and the Capitol, to kiss their hand and call them beautiful in the nape of their necks – and not getting the freedom to decide what to wear. He will feel pity at some of these children when they step out into the light of the stage and are blinded by the sheer ferocity of the theater, to see them dressed in makeshift rags.
"Have a soo pie…" he tells himself in the vanity, brushing a lock of hair just back into place from when it had fallen off, his forehead glistening as well with small beads of perspiration that glide down and slick around his temples. He has a rag resting on the vanity that Richmond grabs, dabbing at his skin, not too intensely to rub off the makeup that those poor Avoxes spent so much time doting upon him, there only being the noises of their hands and the humming from his own throat to fill the void. Why couldn't Cain have him surrounded by some more lively people? "Have a soo pie…" Richmond repeats, warming up his voice, grabbing the hair brush that he took from Lydia's own vanity to take a few steps back, turning so his behind is shown in the mirror, accentuated well in the navy attire that also comes from Cain's selections. Cain, claiming himself to be heterosexual man, seems to really known a lot about men and their rear ends, but Richmond knows he's speculating.
He twirls around, letting the hanging bits of his jacket swirl around with him in a blur of motion. "Welcome!" he exclaims to his reflection, eyes bright and a smile, half fake, half realistic, plastered on his pale face. "Welcome to the first annual Hunger Games Interviews Special where we- Lydia!" Richmond stops halfway into his monologue with an exasperated groan, setting the brush down against his leg when his wife steps through the curtain, dressed all beautifully in her silver backless attire, brown hair curled down against her shoulders, though he can see where her gun is still strapped to her body underneath the fabric. Richmond sighs again, having made Lydia stop dead in her tracks with a frown, as he sets the brush back on the table. "Didn't you hear me rehearsing? You know now to interrupt me when…"
She never lets him finish the sentence, as she's pressing her lips against his in a silencing kiss, Richmond feeling embarrassment and disgust rile in his gut at his actions. This is no intern or Avox or even Cain Passionia that he is yelling at, but his wife, the woman he wants to spend every second on this good planet with until the end of his days, and he just yelled at her. "I wanted to watch," she tells him, with a good pat to the chest as she steps away, crossing her arms together and leaning up on the back wall. "And besides, how often is I get to see the great and magnanimous Richmond Anvil at his work?" Lydia smirks.
"You're right," Richmond says, running a greased hand through his hair, to pull back on strings and hope something sticks. He leans on the vanity, looking into it, eyes twinkling with fear and hope. It is something he has never really thought about, being afraid to go out there and speak, as the camera is his second lover next to Lydia. Staring into the gray designs of the build has always brought him comfort where for others it brings diarrhea and indigestion. He knows Lydia hates being in front of the camera, always finding a way to excuse herself but- "You're right," he repeats. "Sorry, shouldn't have said anything. It might've been better if you saw it the full way through, no?"
Lydia smirks, stepping up to wrap her arms around his waist, kissing him again softly in the neck. She is going to be backstage the entire time, on stage right while the tributes come in from stage left to ensure none of them try to run off before it is too early. Other Peacekeepers will be situated out in the audience, men dressed finely in their darkest suits, and at each entrance just in case. Nothing will happen, Richmond knows this, which is how he haggles Emrick to let Lydia wear something much more comfortable than that horrid body suit she is always being dragged in back and forth to wear.
"Perhaps…" she intones, eyes falling lazily to see his chair, a simple pull down with his name written on the back in a sleek silver font, until she hums into his neck. Richmond follows her eyes, his heart beating fast in his chest. Ah… she found it. Lydia unlatches herself from her husband's side to pick up the pile of documents in his chair, the name Cecelia Blackstone written at the top of the page in the finest print he's ever seen on a document. Lydia holds in both of her hands, frowning as she tosses it back and forth. "What is this?" she asks him, turning to face Richmond with curiosity in her gaze. Lydia flips through them, there being twenty-four documents in total, one for each tribute.
A historical page about each one of them.
He takes a sip of water from the glass resting on the farthest side of the vanity, clear liquid with a drop of golden honey swirled back and forth between the cylindrical walls. "That… well…" he scratches the back of his neck. "Nyria and her team worked all day, shortly after the reaping, to compile as much personal information about the tribute as they could, to be given to me so I could… well…" he trails off, seeing how Lydia's eyebrows quirk. He tries to suppress his frown at her behavior, not sure why she's acting apprehensive in the slightest given one of her literal jobs is interrogating and torturing criminals… how is this any different to the interview he will be giving these tributes on stage? "Study them and make myself better prepared for their interviews."
Lydia doesn't say anything at first, simply frowning while she gets to a page from one of the tributes from District 7, until she sets the compiled set down, hands linked around the back of his chair. Richmond sees the way she rubs her fingers back and forth, almost in a motion as if one were gripping handles of a bicycle. "Richmond… there's some really personal stuff in there," she looks over at him, he taken aback by the wounded expression he sees staring back at him through her jade gaze. Harsh. Judgmental. How is he not the man she had married all those days and weeks and months ago. "Are you really going to ask those tributes to talk about some of this stuff up there?"
He shrugs his shoulders. That has always been his due course of action to when Lydia presses into him one of his new schemes in turning out a great interview. At the bottom of the barrel, when all of the decisions have been brought together… he needs to put on a great show. That is what the Hunger Games are, at the end of the day, just a show. "If it comes to it, yes, Lydia," he steps over to her, linking her hands with his, though she flinches from the movement just for a second. He sees it, but he also notices that she's wearing their wedding ring… his heart warm and cold at the same time as he presses a kiss against her temples, hearing the roar of the crowd get louder and louder. "Lydia, all of this is for the Capitol, remember? A good show, and it is my job to put on a show."
She nods her head, mutely, wrapping her arms around him in a hug, exhaling softly into the nape of his neck as he squeezes her. "Just… don't be cruel to them, Richie," she whispers, voice that of a ghost, hollow and desperate for some emotion. "They've been through enough as it is."
He can't even look her in the eye when he lets go of her, straightening the little bowtie he is wearing, or as he kisses her on the cheek before making the plunge. The very first set of interviews are about to begin, and whether his wife is going to like it or not… he has to do his job.
There is no debate on what is right and wrong for good TV, for good ratings.
There is only the debate if it is entertaining or not, and if there is not one thing Richmond Anvil is, he's entertaining, till the sun implodes on the world.
Who shall his first victim be?
Catalus Drachma: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)
So it begins. Well, as far as Catalus is aware, or that he knows of, it began four days ago when he sticks his hand in the air and shouts out the famed words of his black and blue and blood red proclamation, "I volunteer!" But regardless, when the curtain rises, and the thunderous applause of the Capitol audience fills the auditorium, his heartbeat begins to beat faster and faster in his chest. Cecelia looks back at him for a moment, a singular glance of disinterested comfort before she is shaking her head and turning back around at the front of the line. A Peacekeeper is who gets them all in line, girl then boy as the order in district line. He will be second, Cecelia is first, and that means Ramses Boskov of District 12 will be dead last. There has been some light jovial chatter passing among a few of the tributes, but since Catalus is standing in front of Portia, who seems to be blocking Magnus from getting a single shot at the stage or the hanging monitor just off of the far wall where everyone can get a good look at the stage, spotlights dancing around on the curtain's backdrop of velvet and gold. Somewhere behind there lies the man that will break all of their hopes and dreams, Catalus realizing this with a heartbeat in his eardrums.
He turns back around to face Magnus, but Portia is in the way, arms crossed in front of her, she raising an eyebrow silently to look at him since he has turned around several times in the last few minutes to then turn back around. The feeling of gamble rises in his throat at each instance, the sense of thrill and adrenaline flooding his veins, making his heart beat in his chest a single second faster than before. Catalus brushes off a dust bunny forming on his right shoulder, his outfit being this wonderful and glamorous cherry red suit that is the color of his bitten lips, bleeding down his front of his jawline and underneath that to pool in the center of his throat.
There is thunderous applause from behind the curtain, and if Catalus is to press himself far enough into the wall he can see the audience getting to their feet, he unsure if he should watch the silver screen or the audience. Out of the corner of his eye, the curtain parts and out steps their host for the night, Richmond Anvil, in his swathing layers of navy blue and his genial sweet smile, Portia clapping behind him excitedly. Catalus forgot that Magnus told him… his district partner is a sweet Capitol lapdog, loving a city she's never been to, never suckled at the breast of… yet the place is her birthhood mother. He'll never understand loyalists; unfortunately for him, he has to speak to one tonight.
He knows what the hot question will be before he even gets there. It'll be on everyone's minds, for his name is already on everyone's lips. It is what his prep team asks him as they fine tune his eyebrows, he hissing as one of the tweezers gets a bit too close to his eyelid, Adriane in the back corner checking in to see how her not-prized pupil is coming along.
Catalus loses the fight on keeping the shiner out for everyone to see, as no one has truly gotten to see the bruise, and there will be plenty of opportunities out there for someone to get a look at his black eye. However, at his suggestion, Adriane starts squawking like a peacock, even though she is the reason he has the damn injury in the first place. It is another gamble, another thrilling way to engage himself into the audience's minds, bury himself so deep they'll have to sponsor him. It makes him look reckless or wild and entertaining, he liking those 50/50 odds, but the prep team wins out, and he's being told to lean back while the scary violet skinned woman applies more bronzer to his face, dulling out the shiner in a hint of gilded yellow.
Everyone will wonder how his score ended up being so low, which is sure to cause his odds to plummet, though he can only imagine with the odds are now of Poem Cavalli with her one, but that's neither here or there as Richmond monologues to the audience, it simply being white noise in his ears. Catalus used to do that, he thinks rather sharply, with a pang, careful to not stumble back into Portia. He'd entertain the masses, dressed finely like a groomsman in all white, microphone in hand, cord trailing down across his feet as he'd swing it around and speak, smiling, glimmering under the lights… that could've been his legacy, but instead his brother will steal it from him while Catalus holds a corpse in his hand, blood staining the front of his shirt and his arms would be a mix of tan and vermillion.
Cecelia is the first to go on stage for her interview, dressed rather cutely, but perhaps childishly in a tutu, a fair shade of gossamer periwinkle, her hair down and curly against her neck, but he isn't sure if there's any extensions in them. The audience immediately awws and coos at the sight of her, Catalus's lips quirking up in a soft smile while she conducts herself very lady like, very fairly, very well put together. Even despite their differences, where he knows he'll get her to come around on why he simply couldn't ally with her if Diana Kratovska is going to be aiming for his Achilles tendon, he's still proud of her. Someone else her age could've wilted into a dead flower.
Her interview is jovial and as nice as it could be, Richmond laughing at her jokes, smiling at the right places, encouraging the audience to grin back as Cecelia talks about her family and her home life that she misses terribly, ending it on a succinct note that Catalus feels in his bones, hollow and echoing.
"I haven't cried yet," Cecelia says, gaze solid, eyes set in stone, as she looks at the audience, the juxtaposition between the flowing fabric and her contempt in her voice and face. "And I suspect I won't cry until this is over."
Richmond bids her goodbye, she curtsying her way off the stage to the left, as they're entering from stage left and exiting stage right. Once a tribute has finished their interview, for it is the Peacekeeper who gets them all into position who says this, the tribute is allowed to sit in the audience in the front row in any seat of their choosing if they wish, or they stay in the back, on the opposite wing, huddled together. Catalus does not want to sit out in the audience with the vultures whose jewels make their necks resemble that of a turkey's giblet, to hear their doomed cheering and applause and their hooting and hollering… he would've killed them all, but instead he now has to sacrifice himself for them to make sure they get their entertainment, and that the districts get their punishment in return.
The Master of Ceremonies' arms are sweeping towards the other tributes, Catalus taking a deep breath, about to take another step when he feels Magnus's hand on his shoulder, squeezing the bone for good luck, and he's whisked up and away into the world of bright lights.
Catalus smiles the best smile he can, waving to the ground, his left pocket weighed down by the pack of poker cards he requests Adriane go find him, in case the gamble runs high and he decides to stop talking. He currently is fingering the lid open and shut with his thumb on his left hand, which will be the side curled away from the camera and the crowd as he takes a seat.
Richmond is sitting him down, smirking and smiling all the while, but he does not dare accept a handshake like Cecelia does for hers, the audience still cheering his name and applauding. Catalus isn't quite sure why the Capitol is even love with him given everyone knows where his family came from, and who they are and what they did during this rebellion, but he is not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"So, Mr. Drachma, the eldest son of the Drachma Conglomerate," Richmond smiles, a few moments into the interview, he sitting down on a white chair that almost glows under the stage lights, one arm resting on the sides, the other in his lap. Catalus squirms in his seat at the smile, friendly sure, but predatorily all the same. "What is like to be the most famous tribute here, before you even stepped on this stage?"
Catalus smiles back as affably as he can afford, holding his hands up some while a faint blush rises up his neck. "Hah, I don't know if I'll call myself that," Richmond interrupts him with an interjection of, 'Humble!' that has Catalus's mouth wavering in a slight scowl, "But it is indeed strange," he shrugs, trying to lighten the mood. "It also means less work for me!" The audience shows their appreciation by laughing louder, rising into the rigging above.
He locks eyes with Cecelia, who is indeed sitting down in the front row with her tutu all bundled up underneath her, a blooming flower of scarlet and periwinkle and dark hair and bad blood… his heartbeat picks up again as he realizes that she is frowning at him, Richmond's next question passing right over his ears as he doesn't hear it. He looks at the man blank, frowning, the interviewer going again, tugging at his bowtie as he does so.
"I asked you if you think you're ready for the Games, Mr. Drachma."
"As much as anyone can be, I suppose," Catalus ganders that as his response, seeing the uptick of Richmond's mouth, the quirk of an eyebrow… success, the gamble is paying off. No one needs to know why his score is low, no one needs to know where the black eye came from, and for pity's sake, do not show Cecelia's frown all across the silver screen. "We don't know what we're all walking into, but like my parents taught me and my brothers, if you don't take a hold of every opportunity that comes knocking your way, it'll knock you down and bowl you over and head for someone else."
That earns him a nod and a whistle, ears burning as he lies straight through his teeth. His parents never told him that, Catalus down at the gambling dens and bent over a poker table with Harmony cheering drunkenly in his ears while it is the golden son Khristos who is being groomed for command and the business world, shining like a golden drachma in the sunlight as Catalus puts down another Seven of Hearts hoping for the adrenaline rush to last till morning.
"Good answer, good answer," Richmond hums low, before patting his hand on top of the length of the chair. "I am also sure it is going to be something everyone has been dying to know the answer to, but, Catalus, if you could indulge us," A slight pause as Richmond leans forward to lock the dead space between the two men, as if this were to be a simple secret told between the two of them only, "Your volunteering choice. First volunteer in history, right out of the gate from One. Of course, Magnus Winterthorn, Orion Maythorpe, and Poem Cavalli stole just a bit of your thunder, but still, please… why did you volunteer?"
Catalus looks out at the audience instead of staring into Richmond's inquisitive eyes, sometimes overbearing him and causing him to keel over. He cannot tell the truth, he cannot tell the truth… he failed, he couldn't kill one measly person who'd be found dead the next morning if his heart would act up, the gold club still heavy in his hands. He paid the price of immobility in blood, it dripping off of the silver sheen of the driver from the crater in his own forehead.
He smiles and lies through his teeth. "Because what else is there for a member of the Drachma Conglomerate to do except prove themselves as the most superior people in society?"
Good lie, he suspects, the 50/50 gamble confirmed as the buzzer for his interview sounds to the thundering rain of the audience's approval.
Jasper Overheart: District 3 Male P.O.V (18)
The entire charade has made him want to throw up, Jasper asking a few Avoxes floating back and forth down the hall for a ginger ale if they wouldn't mind sparing the expense to go grab one, they doing so as it is their job to take care of everyone's whims and needs. He looks back at the stage while one of the many redheads goes to achieve his dreams of assuaging his stomach troubles. The last few days have been nothing short of strange yet heavenly, the backsplash of Vesuvia's taste in his mouth, she currently pressed into the wall with a smile as she wraps a lock of her own kissed by fire hair on a long finger. Long fingers that cause Jasper to tilt his head back in pleasure and cry to the ceiling, praising the names of gods he's long forgotten, and her mouth is on his, they tangling in the sheets, he grinning and snarling insults and admiration at Vesuvia any way he can. A devil dressed up in black clothing and with the hair of a flickering ember.
He cannot focus on her, however, not when he's in this cheap looking thing that his is outfit for the interviews, it looking war torn and cut up, slacks that are supposed to be a khaki color but look ashen gray, with a suit that seems to have armor plaited on the insides, his forearms bulky and dense. Compared to Vesuvia's glittering silver dress, working technological parts that compute mathematical equations down the side, and unfortunately right across her chest – "Well, I mean, I do have the goods," Vesuvia jokes at dinner when Cole brings up what her outfit looks like, Jasper choking on his mashed potatoes without warning – that flickers between a few colors. The equation is simple and singular, 24-23=1. Jasper knows he isn't the most scientific genius in the world to understand what that means… she'll win, be the only one standing, only after the other twenty-three are dead. He is one of those twenty-three, he knows that. The idea in the back of his head is just a faint whisper, but he focuses on Vesuvia mouthing warmth into his neck instead.
Portia's interview goes well, though he finds the girl to be as charming as a brick house with her astute manner, she tearing up about her dead parents and how the world has taken a dark turn, Portia Beninblade just wanting the world to go back to the way it used to be. "With you at home and licking the blood of your parents off a knife?" comes Magnus's snorted reply, loud enough for those from District 6 to hear him as Portia wipes away at the tears sliding down her face.
Magnus follows her, on her heels, and it is the uproar of being the highest scorer of the whole bunch, and volunteering, it coming to light that Magnus fought for the resistance… Jasper's eyebrows rise in place, but Vesuvia looks at him with a cold glare, he knowing immediately what she's telling him. No, definite no, especially if he is in cahoots with Diana Kratovska, an alliance of good-looking people and semi-deadly threats, though Jasper wonders if anyone has actually seen Vesuvia fight. He's seen her fight now, it mightily impressive, and her moves and blade work would turn him into a bleeding blossom, a flower split open with ruinous black sliding down the petals.
He is happy with his score, as it is the first thing that Richmond Anvil mentions as Vesuvia takes the stage, her dress a bit higher up since Jasper cannot help himself, a hickey unable to be covered away completely by the prep team's fine hands, that earning him a purse hit upside the head as Jasper grins back smiling. Vesuvia is tactful and mysterious and polite, alluring in every inch of her body as she talks about someone named Kenny, an old relative to her that she has last contact with, that man developing her famed love for the occult and the digital… whatever that means. Jasper pays attention to her interview the most before she's being whisked off stage with more applause. It seems that the Capitol audience is like a trained dog, only knowing to applaud and cheer as Richmond dictates their every move.
He does not want to do this. He cannot do this. No law of man compels him to go onto that stage and entertain these heathens, these vultures with their prime beaks and knives in hand to slice him up. He will not let them, as instead, if Vesuvia is not blowing smoke up his ass, he'll watch the theater burn down to the ground, send spirals of flame this way and that way to devour the birds in their nests, watching plumages of ash and black feathers plummet to the ground while he screams, bloodlust rising in his throat.
Home is full of bloodlust, it in the very air they breathe, it in the water they drink, but it is also the bloodlust that has his parents send him away, his father's hands on his throat, or the cold metal of the gun placed in his right hand by his mother's insistence, his siblings curled up around his waist. Jasper realizes, as he slowly climbs the stairs to enter his doom, that he hasn't even thought about his family once since he's been in the Capitol, transfixed by the golden banisters and the paved streets, and the smells, and Vesuvia's laughs… heavens be, her laugh! He hears it echo in his head, as she had just chuckled earnestly at one of Richmond's jokes. The Master of Ceremonies extends his hand out for Jasper to shake, but he only stares at it in confusion.
The man is not going to touch him. Purity and depravity lie in the man's bones, an awkward combination that Jasper is not going to try and figure out in this moment and time, for Richmond's mouth curls into a downward frown, placing his hand back by his side while he sits down.
It is a different sort of nervousness, the one Jasper feels building in his stomach cavity, compared to that of performing in front of Cain Passionia and his Gamemaker team earlier this afternoon. For them, he doesn't want to be in the same room for a second longer than he has to, but at the same time, this score is life or death. It'll break the very miniscule chance he has of survival if he were to mouth off to them, but he wants them to see with their own eyes what sort of fate or doom they could've been susceptible to had he and Thirteen gotten their way. The sword in his hand that he uses to attack at dummies, trying to remember Vesuvia's counsel in his head works as well as it wants to, he supposes, if that six is any indicator, though he feels partially cheated at that when he looks at his body mass. Magnus scores double his despite their bodies looking alike, and now that he knows the Winterthorn guy is an actual soldier, it is almost as if he and him are the same person.
This nervousness here on stage is not like anything Jasper's ever experienced, as there are all these eyes looking back at him, people that should be corpses, and a man who is reminding him of every mistake he's ever made, laughing, and carrying on and jeering and god, do not touch his arm.
"So, Mr. Overheat," Richmond begins, but he doesn't get very far.
"Overheart," Jasper corrects, through clenched teeth, his annoyance being displayed outward the with the subtlety of a boulder as his arms curl around the chair into fists. "My last name is Overheart, Mr. Anvil." He has been taught to be respectful of his elders, even with all the plastic surgery he is sure that Richmond and every other Capitolite in the entire room has employed to make themselves look like they're little children with cream colored behinds and a laugh of lilac and daises. He wants to poke the man's eyes out, but out of everyone in the Capitol, he cannot be upset with the man for simply doing his job.
Jasper has tried to forgive the Capitol over the last ten months, and still deciding to run away at the reaping when his name is picked out of the crowd had been a stupid move… the desire to forgive goes down the drain and all he feels is anger coursing through him.
"My mistake, Jasper," though that reaction is even worse, he practically shuddering as he hears the fancy Capitolite say his first name. The tone is silky smooth, unlike Vesuvia's chirps and hiccups into the pillows while his hands explore her bare shoulders. She is a goddess that deserves to be talked about, he still wondering what the odds are that she'd be the one to enter the arena with him, though she still had never fully explained her proposal to him that she gave five days ago. "So, tell me, Mr. Overheart," Richmond continues, pinching his nose bridge, shuffling through some papers in a folder on the table perched by his side, Jasper unable to see what is in them except the white edges out of the corner of his eye. "Does your family like District 3. Your partner, Vesuvia, seems to speak of the place with love."
He hates District 3. The only reason he goes is for his family, a family that doesn't even live there, where he gets his name changed and has to lie low while his siblings complain about the paste that is their breakfast in the morning, Jasper shushing them as the clod of Peacekeeper boots smash floorboards above their head, he suppressing a sneeze from the dust bunnies that threaten to give away their location. District 3 is not home. It is oppression, a daily sign of where they used to be and where he wants to go.
But he cannot go back. There is no 'home' to go back to, he realizes, with a sudden sense of sadness filling into his veins. It is a pile of rubble and smoke rising from craters in the Earth, graphite blown everywhere while radiation leaks into the bloodlust rivers, Nathanial Coin's blood being what feeds the Venus flytraps and the parasitic trees that grew along the far banks. Are his parents buried underneath a mountain of cinderblocks and asphalt, or is there no body to even be found? Just ash blowing in the breeze…
"It's not a place I think of with joy, no, Mr. Anvil," he says, earnestly, though there is a frown on his face. "And it isn't home, so I can't say I have the same love that Vess has for it and…" he trails off, eyes widening as he realizes what he's just said.
What he's just unearthed.
It is not that he uses Vesuvia's nickname, she telling him in their passion that is what she prefers to be called, for Vesuvia is what Kenny uses and he's dead meat to her, but… all the color drains out of his face, as Jasper sees Richmond lift his head up, the audience catching it too with their dead silence. Jasper looks past the burning searchlights towards Vesuvia who is looking back at him with her lips wide open, Catalus and Magnus's eyebrows raised, Portia the one who is most disturbed, arms crossed over her resigned body.
Richmond clears his throat, loosening his bowtie some from around his neck. Jasper half considers, like he did when shooting at Vesuvia's feet, to strangle him with the loops. "Mr. Overheart, did I just hear you say that District 3 isn't your home?"
Jasper pulls at his own collar. "I- I don't know what you're talking about. I… I love District 3 and-"
"Where is your home, Mr. Overheart, if it isn't Three?" the interviewer angles his head upwards with a frown. "Is it where you would've journeyed from to earn that shrapnel wound in your side?"
Jasper's eyes widen again to the point where they are nearly bursting out of his head, his hands immediately going to cover up the spot, even though no one can see it while it's under the clothes… but… how would he…? "Mr. Anvil, I'm sorry but-"
"Where is home for you, Mr. Overheat?" Richmond asks, pointedly getting his name wrong, despite the correction. "What place do you call home and love and adore?"
He supposes there is no reason to lie any longer, and there's another thirty seconds left to the interview, space he will not leave as dead air. His voice is hollow, pain radiating up and down his body as he speaks into the crowd. "My home no longer exists," Jasper admits, the hammer stroke falling and striking the nail. "I'm from District Thirteen."
Jasper does not wait to see what damage he has caused to the theater, hastily getting to his feet, and ignoring whatever foul statement will spill out of Richmond's mouth as he flees down the stage and away.
He runs, as if there are another fifteen million shrapnel wounds buried in his back.
Zachary Edison: District 5 Male P.O.V (12)
Something tells him he has been shafted when it comes to his interview outfit. Zachary looks down at his body, the overwrought patchwork that covers his dark knees and hides his shoes, trailing slightly on the floor. He has Kileigh pick up one end of the outfit to pin it to his back, reminding him to keep his posture up straight so he does not accidentally stab his waist if he were to move accidentally. The rest of his outfit is a dark gray suit that is also too big for him, he wondering if the tribute that the stylists were expecting had to be older, instead of the short little kid they've found instead. After all, he knows it is extremely unlucky that he had his name in the system just once. He smiles at his district partner when she looks back at him in the gathered line of tributes, he thankful to have Porscha separate him from her district partner, Pierce off sulking somewhere else about his own terrible outfit.
After Jasper's bombshell interview which has a few people in line gasp audibly, Kileigh one of them, as well as Camilla and Ramses, the latter more vocal about his complete surprise, which has Orion look back at the guy from Twelve rather pointedly. Soon after, however, it is Diana's turn to the stage. She looks regal in a sweeping seafoam blue dress with a seashell in her hair, but Zachary can see the petulant built up anger that forms across her brow. She talks about her parents and what it means to be a member of her family. Disciplined, astute, aware of everything… as she talks, Zachary's blood turns to ice, he rubbing his hands up and down his arms to preserve heat.
Orion is after her, tall and proud and beautiful as Kileigh mentions very briefly while resting against the wall. He's another volunteer, all the more interesting to the Capitol audience, and how his training score should've been higher than it had been, which Zachary sees Orion bristle some in his seat, dressed finely in a deep maroon colored outfit with his hair slicked back like a wet rock. Richmond calls Kileigh to the stage next, Zachary squeezing her hand for good luck. Her dark hair is curled tonight, spiraling down to mid-back against the glimmering gold dress she's sheathed in.
Porscha yawns behind Zachary, a loud noise startling him as he leaps a bit forward in his spot. Kileigh goes on about her family's morals, and that a Katsaras person never uses violence to get what they want. Porscha, once again, reacts by snorting, Zachary looking back past her at Pierce who looks right back at him, this time there being a glare from the District 6 Male. The interview goes as smooth as it can, for Richmond Anvil demonstrates his tactful ability to make the tribute shine – well, except for Jasper, Zachary thinks sharply – before it's his turn. He tugs at his collar, the heaviness of his large outfit starting to weigh him down, pinning his shoulders to the floor, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead.
How does one who has never had a moment of attention given to him in his whole life all of a sudden deal with the fact that there will be all these people looking back at him? Zachary keeps his head up high as he feels his body move without conscious thought, he taking to the stage, needing to hold a hand up to the lights that blind him as he emerges.
Applause fills the theater as he makes way to Richmond, the man extending a hand to him, the other hand holding the microphone that Zachary feels like swallowing whole. He can swallow the whole thing down his throat and that means he won't have to speak; it's genius! Cecelia had been the only other young tribute for an interview so far, the audience response delightful as they seemingly ate her up. Zachary presses a hand to his throat, where the faint bruises are slowly starting to vanish and disappear back into the blue of his bloodstream, the pressure there however as he can feel Pierce's eyes on his back. They're the smart tributes, tributes with minds for analysis and numbers. What- what if he steals his thunder? What if he takes away the kid's shine? Will he leap after his throat again when he walks off of the stage?
Richmond says something, lost over the thaw of static roaring in Zachary's ears, he looking out into the audience. He catches Kileigh looking back at him, she sitting next to Cecelia, who seems alright with the arrangement, they as far away from the trio of Catalus, Magnus, and Diana as possible, Zachary frowning at that arrangement. Great, more problems to worry about. He tugs at his collar again, looking at the interviewer with furrowed eyebrows. Richmond's laugh fills the chamber, alongside the audience's, before he places his hand on Zachary's shoulder.
The touch is like scalding fire to the bone, a yelp leaping from Zachary's lips as he leaps away from him, into the sanctuary of the chair. His breathing accelerates a bit faster, having been staring out into the bright lights hanging on the sides of the theater, the idyllic halcyon glow mesmerizing in the way the bulbs danced back and forth. A song, a cry for help, Zachary listening intently into the shine.
Richmond frowns, the laughter in the theater ceasing immediately – Zachary realizes that none of the tributes are laughing, not even as Magnus puts it, that bitch Portia, and Kileigh is even sitting up more alarmed than usual – before leaning back in his chair comfortably as well. "I'm sorry, Mr. Edison," he says, coolly, calmly, voice a flowing river without any breakups in the middle of it. "Did I startle you?"
Zachary looks back at him, eyes wide, skin glowing mocha underneath the hot beams, before he sets his arms across the length of the white chair, an evident glare radiating from his corneas. "You think?" he snaps back, immediately flinching again. The Peacekeeper's fist against his eye from the time he leaps out and scares the man on the train comes flooding back quickly, the pressure returning, as well as Pierce's hands on his throat, blue eyes filled with fury. Scorn. Everyone is screaming at him.
In fact, it is a laugh that comes from Richmond's mouth, jovial and funny, the audience laughing with him. Zachary looks around bewildered. It is as if the audience is under some sort of spell, he figures, with them doing every single bodily action he asks of them, head swiveling around to find the instructions. They are not making him feel better. He is trapped, kept in an iron prison. His father is laughing too, somewhere.
"See, Zachary? They're only paying attention to you out of pity. They don't like you. No one here likes you and no one here will care when you're gone…"
Zachary stands up abruptly, arms starting to itch, before he realizes he's been clawing at them, similarly to what Kai'sa does when she's reaped, an uproar of fright rising from the audience as he feels warm blood spill down onto his fingers. Richmond is up in alarm as well, Kileigh calling out his name… before he falls back down into the seat.
"I- I'm sorry…" he exhales breathlessly. "I'm just feeling a bit nervous." Zachary looks down at his arms. The wound is not bad, something near the crook of his elbow where one would draw blood, but there is indeed a slow trickle that is dripping onto the stage.
Richmond sits back down, leaning forward, with a frown. There are a few more bodies on stage that Zachary can see, there being the familiar white of the Peacekeepers and the bleeding crimson uniforms of the silent servants, the Avoxes on hand and foot to take him somewhere. Probably inject him with a serum that'll make him a zombie, dopey and moping around the tribute center until he'll fall face first into the arena's floor and be killed by a sword through the back.
"It's understandable, Mr. Edison," he reaches out gingerly, grabbing the boy's wrist, pulling out handkerchief from his lapel. "I imagine it is stressful and nerve wracking for all of you, but I'm here to help. We all are," Richmond spreads his arms out wide. "Hold pressure to that, Zachary."
He does as he's told. He's always done as he's told, not wanting to upstir the boat, unless it is in his favor, but that normally ends in black eyes as he's told, as he's experienced. Zachary squeezes his eyes tight, trying to find a happy place. Happiness is fleeting, pockets of sunlight drowning in shadow, where he reaches for the pocket and it hisses back at him. Science makes him happy, numbers… equations… but- but Pierce…
"I want to talk about, Mr. Edison, your wonderful training score. You, my friend, are small," Richmond says.
"I'm a giant," Zachary lifts his head up, smirking, through the pain that rises up to his neck, flashing like a cobra, alert and dangerous. "What do you mean, small? I kill giants." He smiles through the pain, through the nervousness, he seeing out of the corner of his eye Kileigh bring her fingers to her mouth to whistle.
Richmond laughs back at that, leaving his hand off of Zachary's so the kid can continue pressing the handkerchief down. "I'm sure of that, Mr. Edison. But yes, a six. You've scored higher than a lot of the older kids in the group, including Mr. Drachma," for a moment the camera outwardly lands on the guy from One, who scowls and crosses his arms over his chest. "You have a secret for that?"
It had been nothing, Zachary thinks, perhaps a bit more modest than he needs to be with it. It had been relatively simple too. He solved the hardest game that had been the whole reason Pierce pounces on him, setting it to the highest difficulty. After that, when lighting a fire, he takes a stick with some cinders on it and burns a dummy to the ground. It had been a surge of violence he didn't expect to feel, though he does not fall apart concerning it as he sees Kileigh do.
Good enough for a six, he supposes. Perhaps it means people will pay attention to him, for once. No one will doubt him, he will not be overlooked or misheard or unrepresented.
Zachary smiles, not at all like the terrified kid who wandered onto the stage just a few moments ago, arms crossed his over his chest, not caring about the blood he is most likely smearing all over this hideous and horrendous outfit his district team felt the need to dress him up in.
"Not telling," he laughs, and the audience gives a good-natured groan. "You'll know why when one of the giants falls," Zachary smiles.
Somewhere, everywhere perhaps, a buzzer sounds, and his interview has come to an end.
Poem Cavalli: District 8 Female P.O.V (16)
This is it! The pinnacle moment of her career, when Poem Cavalli gets to rush to the stage and dominate the scene. Fashion! Love! Romance! All of it is in her grasp, where she only needs to reach out and take it with a closed fist and a wide smile. All of it can be hers, and it will be. Everyone will cheer as she takes the stage. Richmond Anvil will want to kiss her feet, admire the designer, until she smirks and says, 'It's me!' and there will be applause all around. Poem has a stupid smile on her face, the very thought and dream floating by in her vision until Niklaus looks at her with a raised eyebrow, for she just exhaled audibly, with a sweet crooning sound following shortly after that.
It has been paradise. Well, somewhat. Poem frowns at the fact, still, that her pleas for wondering why she is not sleeping in the presidential mansion has gone unanswered, with Damien shaking his head in concern, or Niklaus looking away from her shortly after they lock eyes, hurt evident in his stare until he's transfixed on the details in the floorboards. She clutches her skirt, another design of hers, she rather simply knocking off all the other designs and outfits that the prep team brings her. She feels a bit sorry for the way the fabrics end up landing in a heaped pile on the floor, probably ruined already with dust and other undesirable contaminates, but it doesn't matter, for the prep team loses it at her design. It is similarly to her parade outfit, which of course had been such a smash hit that Poem feels the need to replicate it every which way from Sunday. She's a blooming rose, with petals strewn down to the ends of the skirt, a suave and deep pink mixed in with harsh reds and sharp purples. Her hair is done up in a French twist, light makeup applied to her eyes – she lets the prep team do that part, for she has never been one for self-cosmetics – and a few splashes of glitter has completed the outfit.
Well, there's also a dosage of heavy perfume that might be a bit too strong even for her, but there's no way to fix it now. After Zachary's terrible interview, Poem is only ready for hers and the ability to steal the spotlight, as when she looks up the line of who has to go next, it is a breezy laugh in her throat with clapping her hands together. These kids have the personalities of wet sandpaper, and no talent either, not at least with a sewing needle. She claps half-heartedly as Porscha takes the stage, the girl talking about her shaved head and exceeding expectations and the limits put on people by centuries old standards. It is rather good fare, for Poem at least, able to understand where she's coming from. Well, at least, on a male gaze perspective, feeling the eyes of Gemini Lennox and Ramses Boskov line her backside, judging her. Sizing her up. She'd slit their wrists with a sewing needle before they ever got the chance to insult her threadwork.
After Porscha is Pierce, someone that Poem has stayed clear away from ever since his outburst on the first day of training. He is in a little cute suit and bowtie ordeal, but the color clash of mustard yellow and mayonnaise white is downright puke worthy, Poem unable to even watch his interview, which deals with puzzles and the concept of a missing piece that the kid has been trying to find. Nevaeh is dressed down in warm green, muted, like sunshine going through emerald leaves dancing off of the tree branches, ethereal in her own way. She is beautiful, but under Poem's radar, but she wouldn't mind getting her dressed in a similar emerald and gold gown she has. Nevaeh speaks on loyalty to those that matter most, Poem's eyes flicking to Niklaus's back just for a second. Almost as if it is directed at her. Sylvan is in a nearly see-through shimmering white outfit, energetic and nice and sweet, Poem able to see him down in his own tuxedo that she'd fashion with his name written on the back.
He's her favorite at least, until she buts in front of Niklaus, kindly pushing him behind her so she can take her place. Poem holds her sketchbook close to her side, the ink marks dripping down the sides and onto the cover, a fresh new drawing at the ready for the Capitol audience to see. It is what she does during the private session. She had gone in, said her name as instructed, and simply sits in the corner with her pen and pencil. She is so confused on as to why she has to participate in the trite and boring ordeal, for it is not like she'll be going into the Games and fighting against all these other kids, right?
Right?
Poem has no time for doubt however – not that the concept of doubt even exists in her head for that matter – as Richmond Anvil is calling her from behind the curtain. She simply sashays herself through the fabric, rose petals out and about to decorate the stage in a pink and violet tide. The cheering is immense and loud and deafening, Poem smiling wide and waving at the crowd. The gathered tributes in the audience, namely the girls Vesuvia and Diana, look at her with disproval in their eyes, but she simply sticks her tongue back out at them.
They will not ruin her fun, No one will ruin this night. No one will ever ruin another night of hers again. No customer, no man is going to doubt her designs. The wine goblet of success will always be full and primed to be at her lips when she rips away the canvas and shows her next design. She curtsies like Cecelia does when she approaches Richmond, but instead he throws his arms around her in a hug, catching her by surprise for a moment with a squawk in her throat.
He invites her to sit, which she does heartily, still smiling, bunching up her dress in her hands as she takes her seat. "So, Miss Cavalli-"
"Do you like my dress!" she interrupts him excitedly. It is not a question of, If. It is a declaration of, Yes! Everyone likes her dresses, everyone likes her work, and ambition is a ladder she is always climbing. Poem looks at him for a moment, glee on her face, but looks away just in time as a brief moment of rage flashes across Richmond's typically serene and aloof face. She steps up and does a twirl on her insistence, without anyone asking her to, but she knows… someone out there is. Someone is wanting to see it.
Oh, who is she kidding? Everyone wants to see it!
However, Poem's assertions are proven correctly even for a brief while given the way the audience oohs and ahhs at the fabric that slides back and forth. It is still a much-improved design on the chariot outfit she had herself made, Poem able to still see her work critically for the very, very, very miniscule failure that it is at times. However, she has sold a lot of her designs so why-
She has been spinning for at least twenty seconds or so, bleeding through precious interview time, Richmond reaching out and gripping her by the shoulders so he can bring her back to the ground. Poem is swimming, a smile on her face as she dances and twirls about under the harsh beating of the lights. The audience is clapping, perhaps even cheering, but there is no semblance of joy from the tributes, Niklaus dead cold most of all.
Richmond laughs to himself, setting his arms out longwise to reveal his sides. "Well, yes, Miss Cavalli, it certainly is pretty, and showcases talented work. Your own, you say?" he asks.
Poem nods eagerly, before showing her sketchbook that she had set down on the floor next to her. It has a name; she having decided to give it its own name of Claude for ownership. The book is a part of her life, it is a part of who she has become and who she will be when the designs take the world by storm. It is as much as a part of her life and essence as is the beating of her heart in her chest.
"I have more!" she declares with a jubilant smile, picking it up and setting the book on her lap. "Hundreds of designs. Thousands of them!" Poem exclaims, flicking through a few pages and showing it at one of the cameras closest to her. The audience cheers and shows their appreciation again. "I can't wait to show the First Lady tonight. She is going to see me after the show, right?" Poem asks, not letting Richmond get a moment's breath in. Not a single one, his eyebrows rising up in slight petulance, that brief look of rage crossing his face momentarily. "I have been asking and asking and asking to see her so she could take me onto her personal fashion team, but instead I've been strewn along with all this stuff for the Hunger Games which is cool and all, but I am not going to be going into that arena thing or whatever so why hasn't she-"
At this point, Poem is rambling a mile a minute, not pausing for a breath or punctuation, but the moment the words pass her lips, the audience is gasping, as well as a few of the tributes perhaps not used to her antics. She goes to say more before Richmond pushes a finger against her lips, shushing her immediately.
The sound dies back down her throat before the interviewer removes his finger, rubbing his hands together as he sits on the very edge of the seat. "Miss Cavalli, Poem, did we all hear you correctly?" he asks her, silence filling the theater where just a moment ago there had been raucous applause enough noise to drown out a thunderstorm. "You said you won't be going into the Games and you haven't been participating with the training or the sessions or anything like that?"
She nods her head, frowning. Now this is just a repeat of what Damien and Niklaus have been telling her over and over again. And things were going so well before! Now it's all ruined. Ruined, ash to ash… "That's right," Poem says, at length. "When Miss Israel sees what I have to offer, she'll just be begging me to become her personal stylist."
"Well, after you win the Games, Miss Cavalli," Richmond says, blinking at her, as if she had just spoken to the man in tongues. "I mean, that is what you are here for. You volunteered, Miss Cavalli. For the Games. Which happen tomorrow…"
Poem frowns, leaning back in her seat, before looking out at the audience. No one is laughing. No one is yelling out that there's been a mistake. What- what? Her breathing shortens and quickens, Poem latching a hand onto her chest.
"I- I don't understand…" she tries to say, but like before, he interrupts her instead.
"Miss Cavalli, I believe she has all been a misunderstanding," Richmond tells her, admonishingly, tone sweet, but his tone is not sweet. It is acidic; it is venomous. It is dire and nasty and evil. "A tragic and fatal misunderstanding. You volunteered for the Hunger Games, and regardless of what you thought you came here to the Capitol to do, you will be going into the Games, even if you don't want to, as that is what you signed up for."
Somewhere, perhaps even everywhere, Poem hears voices laughing. Jeering at her. Name-calling. Words she doesn't even know how to define or articulate or spell, but she hears them. Everywhere. She is going to die. She has made a mistake. She shouldn't be here. No, someone is lying or pulling the wool over her eyes or-
"No…" she shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes, a lump forming in her throat. "There must be some sort of mistake…" Poem's voice breaks into a harsh rasp. "No…"
"You're going to die, Poem, if you don't get your head in the game," Richmond says, this time his voice hard and sharp. "And perhaps, for you, it is too late…"
Poem's interview ends with the girl fainting to the floor, her scream bounding around the theater with the ghastly echo of the buzzer beating out the shrill scream as her dreams and ambitions shattered into a million pieces.
Nokomis Yanaba: District 9 Female P.O.V (16)
Everything will be okay as long as Richmond doesn't ask her to read one of her poems aloud. That is all Nokomis can focus on as she slinks down against the wall, sitting on the floor, not caring about the stains she might be making on the dark brown leather wrapped around her body. She has on her poems wrapped up in a ball in her left pocket, something she pulls out and reads over and over again in case she needs it recited down to memory when she makes the stage. Nokomis looks at it when there's an interlude in the program, the one of carrying off a fainted Poem Cavalli taking the longest amount of time, it nearing five minutes before the normal theatrics can begin.
Richmond Anvil turns his frown upside down, the music plays louder than before, and Niklaus Peverell takes the stage, also dressed similarly in all white. Of course, having the bombshell of his district partner before him leaves him naturedly flustered, but in Richmond's due course he's brought through the interview, shaking like a leaf. Something about nightmares, and this name of Rudy keeps on popping up, but Niklaus refuses to give anymore information about the unknown individual, Nokomis admiring the guts in the kid. She sees him truly as just a shaking leaf blowing in the breeze, but at the same time, strong and powerful.
A poem, for the druggie.
White Powder in the Veins
Lack of oxygen.
Lack of blood to the brain.
White powder in Peverell's veins.
A shaking body. A trembling leaf.
A scratchy voice.
Nightmares keeping Peverell awake.
White powder in his veins.
Like the rest of her poetry, it definitely sucks, Nokomis thinking the thought with a smirk as she bids Camilla goodbye to take the boy from Eight's place. She is dressed in black, a rather unfitting choice if Nokomis's opinion holds any fashionable weight. She'd ask Poem, but the girl has been removed from the hall and sent to the makeshift infirmary in the training center specifically for those who'd faint from stage fright or some other sorts of ailments. Camilla's interview is surprisingly tragic, Nokomis feeling a sphere of ice wedge itself into her ribcage. Dead family members, a fifteen-year-old left at home to fend for himself without his big sister, and the hot topic of it all… how could a girl from Nine score an eight? There's a hardened jaw, tense fingers, and Camilla's glare at Richmond that says it all.
Gemini gives a similar glare to Nokomis when he takes the stage, she sticking her tongue back out at him. Someone who hates her for simply existing, hyper-sensitivity to a rejection that does not even exist. Before she leaves to get ready for her interview make-up session with the prep team, there's a knock at her door, Camilla as the source of the disturbance when she opens the door.
"We had a fight," Camilla says, hugging her knees to her chest, and there's a faint sob in her voice. A slight choking, one Nokomis knows all too well, feeling faint ghost blueprints where thumbs used to be. Where fabrics used to yoke her tight.
"People fight all the time, Cami," Nokomis tries to appease her, holding a hand on her knee, rocking it back and forth, but the hand is slapped away.
"He thought you were taking me away from him," the girl from Nine interjects sharply, her voice going cold. Camilla looks away for a moment, just out the window of her bedroom which is wide, the blinds pulled back to let in as much sunlight as possible. "Not that I think we had a connection of course, but I still wounded him. We wounded him," Camilla says, looking back at Nokomis, heavy emphasis on 'we.'
"I don't have sympathy for him," Nokomis shrugs her shoulders, earning a bit of protest from her friend, but it is the truth. Someone does not make their bed and lie in it, getting to complain all the while. He had been jealous, that being the simplistic point no one wants to say aloud, and since no one else will, she takes the torch and lights the way. "He is jealous that you're more known than him here and have a better chance of getting out of this alive," A pause, heavy, as the curtains blow in the breeze, Nokomis smelling the smoke of home. "Did- did you apologize to him?"
"I had to…" Camilla says, voice hardened as she looks away again. "You weren't there for the end of it…"
Nokomis is snapped out of the memory when Calen nudges her in the back with his thumb, smiling sweetly at her. Gemini's interview is about the colors he sees everyone in, Nokomis knowing that her own is weathered gray, like stormy clouds brewing on the horizon, a tea kettle threatening to spill over and shrilly scream. She will not scream but will instead rush those storm clouds head on. Gemini seems relaxed, perhaps even at peace, but Nokomis does not feel sympathy for him when the interview ends, and for a split second, he's looking at the camera. He's looking at her. A chill slides down her spine.
Everyone had been looking at her in the private sessions. Frankly, she is a bit lost when it comes to do what to do. Calen seems dead set on swinging swords and working with entangling dummies in rope similar to that of catching cattle. Nokomis picks up a bow and arrow, the few lessons her parents have given her coming back in broken bits and pieces. The bow is heavy though, too heavy for her, as the ones back home were always wooden… not the industrial metal that has choked out the light of the world. After going to the poisonous plant station, getting a 37/50, which is a score that leaves, perhaps distastefully as a pun, a bad taste in her mouth, the clock is winding down.
One throw of an axe later, more like a tomahawk when she looks at its shape, Nokomis's session is finished, and all of those efforts, all of those panic laced efforts, reward her with a six. Fine, she'll take it. Her father had always told her to take in the best the world had to offer. Appreciate every morsel of liquid and food that'd land on her tongue, sleep whenever the gods of rest called to her. Turn your back on the world, and the world would turn its back on you, something she knows full and well as the news comes.
A single letter, a letter crisply sealed with the president's name written on it, but it certainly isn't actually from Emrick Israel for the man is too busy and Nokomis hates him and-
Nokomis stops thinking about the old letter and her mother's anguished cry as she shakes Richmond's hand eagerly. Her eyes catch alight with anger as she surveys the man, who sits down and gestures for the empty chair. Where else would she sit? The floor? Is- is he stereotyping her?
She looks up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to stop the feeling of vertigo that is making her head swim from the outside in. Banners stream down from the rafters, the iconic Panemian red and gold, a stark contrast, a sharp and beautiful, beautiful color, but it isn't her. She has another poem in her head, but she holds onto it under her tongue. Are her ancestors looking down at her right now? If they are, what do they see? Do they see a beautiful young woman stepping into her own? Or do they see a venomous viper hiding in the underbrush, waiting for the first victim to lash out and strike?
Nokomis grimaces at the thought, sitting down as quickly as she can. Yanaba. Her last name has always rung in her ears, the enemy that she is trying to avoid, for it must be fate that her name ends up having this meaning. She couldn't have been named Mariposa for butterfly? She shakes her head, similar to the way Richmond's question ebbs over her ears, she missing it completely.
"I'm sorry?" Nokomis asks, leaning in with a frown.
Richmond's good-natured laugh fills the void of the audience's chuckle. Too many tributes have missed a question here or there, but all it does is fill Nokomis's cheeks with flushed heat, intensely burning beet red on both sides as she tugs at her leather skirt. "I asked if your last name is not of Panem origin," he says, sitting back, crossing his hands in his lap. "Yanaba," he says, articulating each syllable, Nokomis shuddering. Hearing her name through someone else's mouth? It makes her skin crawl, like she had just rubbed her body up against a cactus to try and eradicate one too many sunburns. "That has some sort of older history to it. Is it from the Native descent?"
She raises her eyebrows at surprise. Right on the money. "Actually, yes," she laughs a bit, just like his, but there's a stream of nervousness rippled throughout it. "Yes, it is. Native American, but I am not sure which tribe it originated from out in the West…" Nokomis scratches the back of her neck.
"Are you proud of your heritage?"
What- what kind of question is that?
"I am," Nokomis nods her head. "I have always been proud of who I am and where I came from," That is the truth, at the very least. They may always be watching her, disapproving of who she allies with or what she writes, or at the very fact she writes at all when there might be something else to focus on in life, but Nokomis doesn't care. "My parents have tried their hardest to make sure I know where I came from and will continue to extend…" her words trail off at the end. Perhaps the first time someone tonight has talked about winning, extending their life… that there'll be a future for them. Her throat goes dry, she clearing her throat to distill the awkward silence. "My father told me, shortly after the reaping, since my mother was working, that since I am an only child, it is my duty to make sure any of my children are proud to hold the Yanaba name and-"
Richmond holds a hand up, closing it into a fist, Nokomis likewise shutting her mouth, the stream of words clamping down into oblivion, warm consonants and vowels that try to break through the barricade of a closed jaw. "I'm sorry, Nokomis, but you told me that your father said this to you?"
"Yes," Nokomis nods. "That- that's right," Her voice wavers, she looking past the veil and the blurred vision to see Camilla frowning at her, concern on the girl's face.
The interviewer shakes his head in dissent, Nokomis seeing his right arm move from beside his chair, though she is unable to see exactly what he is doing. "Something tells me, Miss Yanaba, that you are not being entirely honest with us. Our records indicate that your father, John Yanaba, died in the rebellion against the Capitol," he looks up from whatever he had been reading from, all the breath in Nokomis's lungs seized away from her immediately, a harsh sob rising out of her throat. She'd rather someone ask her to read her poetry aloud to the audience. "He died here, actually. Perhaps right even down one of these boulevards," Richmond looks at her pointedly. "Sweetheart, your father is dead, and you're simply trying to keep his existence alive."
She can still hear her mother's wailing voice at the reaping. It is the same tone when the letter comes, the completely copied signature from the president decorating the top. The page tumbles open, a wad of cash falling onto the kitchen tablecloth, Nokomis's eyes searching along the typed words. Her mother wails, gripping onto Nokomis's arm as she collapses into the floor, hands seizing whatever piece of tangible reality they can find.
Nokomis looks up, tears welling in her throat as she sets the paper down. Her father's fate, forever to be unknown as she wants to believe, that instead of returning home to a war-torn District 10, is out beyond the fence. Well, he is out beyond. He is gone.
Dead, bones scattered to the four winds. He'll never be a physical body again. He is watching Nokomis up above in the sky.
And how disappointed he must be.
"Yes…" Nokomis rasps, her voice heavy, but she does not dare cry. She has more emotional stability than that weak Poem Cavalli from Eight could ever dream of having. "Yes, my father is dead…"
Her interview ends with the finality of a buzzer, Nokomis getting to her feet immediately without letting Richmond get another word in.
She shall leave it all behind in ruin and dust. Another poem for her collection.
Destruction of the Capitol
Burn it all down.
Burn it all down.
Burn it all down to the ground.
I shall burn it all down to the ground, to finish what my father started. What my family could not do, I shall do.
I will inherit the name of Yanaba.
The Capitol is Yanaba's enemy.
Kai'sa Shadow: District 12 Female P.O.V (16)
Breathing is the key. Breathing helps keep her focused. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. It is a much better word to focus on than void, Kai'sa must admit. The night has been somber, it has been slow, it has been emotional. Emotional is perhaps not even the right word to cover it, but everyone gathered in line while waiting for their interviews, for the most part, have been complete and utter wrecks. When it is Camilla's turn to speak, the sweet Calen Kinegrove that she's gotten to chat to just once or twice has been brought to tears. Nokomis's forced admittance of a dead father that she must've been lying to herself about has Ramses cursing so loud it brings the Peacekeeper over to them to silence him with a stern hand on his shoulder.
Kai'sa bites on the cuticles of her fingers, rolling back and forth in the ballet slippers she has donned on. There is an outfit that the prep team wants to put her in, but one look at it has Kai'sa nearly screaming in fury. A raven costume looks back at her, the very same one she dances for her newly adoptive father in, perhaps even the same exact one just plucked out from Twelve. Kenneth has to rush in and calm her down with a cough drop and hands on her shoulders and a cool drink, before letting her see the costume thrown away into the trash compactor.
Instead of whatever stupid ass idea her prep team had come up with, Kai'sa finding many choice words in her vocabulary that makes it fun to repeat them in her head with echolalia, she is in ballet tights and a leotard. Simple, yes. Nothing flashy, nothing showy, but Kai'sa is anything if not a show.
Calen takes the stage after Nokomis's hasty retreat which does not leave a dry eye in the house or remaining line of tributes. He's dressed modestly in a suit that looks like the Panemian flag, Ramses dry-heaving behind her in his own charcoal gray suit. The interview is nice and warm, positive, and uplifting, which is quite something after the constant stream of negativity that Kai'sa has felt settle onto her shoulders. Something about becoming the man – or woman, as she knows Calen isn't sexist – that you've always wanted to be and identifying what is holding you back. Cassiopeia is after him, dressed in an evening gown of orange and teal, another ghastly color combination.
It might be the cutest thing Kai'sa has ever heard, the girl she considers to be a little flame tearing through any surrounding vicinity having a crush. Unrequited, perhaps, but not to little Cassiopeia Grey from Eleven, a love for another girl named Amalie spilling out of her lips with reckless abandon, passion in her voice as she lifts the girl up with praise. Kai'sa is grinning like a fool when Dill takes the stage, still thinking about true love and passion in the dark spots where the light cannot shine. Dill is much more reserved and quiet than the easy-going Calen or bombastic Cassiopeia before him, but still poignant and relaxed. Popularity, a strange topic sure, but that is what he talks about. Being popular when it is something he does not search for.
Kai'sa keeps her eyes on the ticking clock, waiting, waiting, waiting. Ramses is gearing up behind her too, they being the only tributes left in the hallway, his breathing getting a bit heavy. She turns back to face him while Dill conducts his interview with Richmond. "You going to talk about Orion?" she asks, with a smirk, crossing her arms over her chest.
He huffs a slight sound of annoyance through his nose, rolling his eyes all the while as he does so. "No," he complains, heavy, arms dangling from side to side and brushing against the wall. "Why does everyone keep thinking he and I are a thing?" Kai'sa goes to interrupt, but Ramses mirrors her body language. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. "I am going to talk about how my family inspires me to be better every day."
"So you'll be stealing from Calen's interview instead?" she jokes back at him, unable to resist the laughter that comes out of her upturned lips with a smirk, to the sight of Ramses's face flushing scarlet. Things seem to have de-escalated from his near-death experience yesterday, something she believes he'd still be shaken up about, but instead he has returned to the normally arrogant and self-centered person she expects him to be. Even through all of that, however, a part of her deep-down cares for him.
She cares for everyone that walks this nation, no exception. From each Peacekeeper to the escorts sitting out in the audience, to every tribute awaiting their time in the execution chamber. She feels for the men and women who do burials, setting shovels in the dirt with the hot sun baking their necks, sweat caking every inch of exposed skin in a sticky bubble of nastiness and workload. She will not enjoy seeing him pass away into the world of shadow, for if Kai'sa wants to live one day longer in this world, it means Ramses Boskov will not ever get to see his family again.
Instead of retorting, like she expects him to, as it is customary of him once she begins to tease, Ramses simply grabs her shoulders and gives her a light shove towards the staircase at the end of the hall. Dill's interview is ending to light applause, Kai'sa able to sense the weariness of the audience even from behind this barrier of brick wall and mortar that separates the visible from the invisible.
What will they see? Will they see the prima ballerina that Kai'sa believes she is? Or is she a canary that has morphed into a raven with her black wings and death stare? Does the bones of the corpses she's consumed hang around her neck like a morbid chain in starved white? Does the remnants of flesh from a flesh kill hang onto the side of her jaw as she takes flight and opens her wingspan for the world to see?
Kai'sa isn't sure what she sees herself as any longer when she looks in the mirror. The shape used to be featureless, more so a blob built rather haphazardly into a human figurine if her eyes were playing a trick on her. She puts on a smile, half faked and the other half genuine when she reaches Richmond's hand. Some of the girls have curtsied, others have shaken his hand, others have not even done anything. Instead, feeling brave, she wraps her arms around the interviewer in a hug. It earns another good-natured whoop from the audience, a laugh from Porscha with intense clapping that only makes Kai'sa laugh back and squeeze harder.
When she lets go of the man, a faint blush rises onto Richmond's cheeks as he takes a seat, she doing likewise. Before she can apologize for her suddenness, it being the statement that has replaced breathe in her head, a statement of, 'Surprise everyone, even yourself,' Richmond is chuckling to himself, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. His palms look right back at Kai'sa, she jarred by the paleness that consumes him. A paleness similar to that of her own, truth be told, when she looks at her own body.
"My wife, Head Peacekeeper of the Capitol forces, I don't believe will be too happy about that sign of affection, Miss Shadow," Richmond says affably, laughing still, hand on his stomach.
Kai'sa grins back. "She can eat her heart out. I am the best thing you're ever going to get." Roaring laughter, roaring and loud, animalistic, and charged. Prideful, happy, delightful. Carnivorous.
She feels all these eyes on her. Back in the training room with Cain and his tanned lady, exotic in appearance, her session is one of quirks. She is not sure what she wants to do, having done some tumbling and acrobatics, Valentina's reminders in her head constantly about not distending her neck, keeping her arms up… however, in middle of a back layout, Kai'sa realizes she is not here to entertain anyone, and certainly not someone who is going to kill her or is planning every possible way to make that happen. After finishing the acrobatic trick, which has a few claps from the assembled eyes, they full of pride and wonder, similar to the stares she feels tonight, Kai'sa grins and demonstrates her knowledge of the human body. All the pressure points that one can touch on a human body to make them wilt like a dead flower, she going to a dummy, and even asking a trainer if they're so brave to become her test subject, which is immediately refused.
Eyes when performing is no different than when she's dancing. They make her feel alive. More than alive, truthfully, a deeper feeling than that of simply acknowledging oxygen flowing through her body and in her veins. They make her feel wanted.
Richmond chuckles lowly again, guffawing heartily, and once again over all the others, there's Porscha's brilliance and jubilance and positivity outshining the others. "Well, you certainly have a knack for entertainment," he says. In more ways than one, Kai'sa wants to say aloud, but she lets him continue as he scratches his nose. "So, Miss Shadow, as the reports have been coming in, you're a dancer?" She nods, humming lowly, but she can sense the next question quickly riding after the first. "And also that your name has some heavy significance to you given your tragic past."
Kai'sa sits back in her chair. She hasn't told Porscha everything, as there'd be simply too much to tell, simply too much to remember for the laundry list that settles onto her shoulders. Simon Ether, her adoptive father, the new mayor of Twelve when the other is executed on the steps of the presidential mansion, does not care to hear her sob story. Kai's Shadow, as she is not changing her name to Kai'sa Ether, that being so unbecoming in of itself, for all intents and purposes, is chosen of her skill. And a striking resemblance to his dead daughter, but she never brings it up, for the sake that Kai'sa knows all too well that the ghosts of the past always find a way to haunt their victims.
"In a way, yes," she says, keeping it short, seeing the brief look of frustration that bridges across Richmond's brow. No one has forced any of the tributes sitting in the hotseat under all of these intense lights to give up a single word about their personal lives. She doesn't feel like lying for lying has also never been becoming of a Shadow in the first place, but nothing is telling Kai'sa to give out the whole truth. "However, something I've learned is that when I get knocked down by the things that have happened before," maybe it is because of her joke, Kai'sa flinching and waiting for Richmond to interrupt as he's done for all the others to interject their personal sadness into the tale, but he does not. He lets her speak, for once. "I only stay pinned down if I allow it to. If I rise above the occasion, I can become the free-flowing person I have always wanted to be."
She can feel her body stretch, feeling herself untangle limb from limb and yearn from the sky, to dance. Richmond smiles back, pleasantly. "Something tells me that you have a very good head on your shoulders, Miss Shadow."
His face is monochromatic, hidden in shades of black and white, the ironic words spilling out of his mouth with a copper hue, Kai'sa tilting her head back to laugh. A good head on her shoulders? The girl who hears her name get called at the reaping before trying to claw out and off every inch of herself… kept together?
She smiles and smirks, counting down the seconds before her buzzer will go off, before Ramses will take his place in this theater built by charlatans, where she very well might be the largest one of them all. "I'm just that good of a performer."
Her buzzer goes off, signaling the end of the interview, and Kai'sa Shadow has never felt this good in her entire life.
Another night of the theater, where the occupants continue to sing about, on the illuminated stage where Kai'sa Shadow continues to dance. To twirl on and on, until all is ash, and until she'll eventually return to the dirt.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, another long chapter down the hatch! That was Chapter #18: Charlatan's Theater, focused on interviews for the very first Hunger Games, with interview povs from Catalus, Jasper, Zachary, Poem, Nokomis, and Kai'sa, as well as Capitol pov from Richmond, just to finally get him in the spotlight some, for I really love his character. A whole lot has been uncovered about some of the povs here, too much of it in fact for me to go over, but it has been a chapter I have been wanting to post and publish for so long now once I was given this excellent cast of characters. Many things are still to come, but the yoke of the arena draws tighter and tighter.
Which of the six interview povs was your favorite? Which of the 'cameo' interviews did you like the most? And while I didn't describe them all, any of the tributes' outfits stick out to you in particular? Just two more chapters left until the arena officially starts, and again, so hyped for that. Next chapter, #19: Creation's Cruelty, is going to be "smaller" in terms that it is only five povs this time around, with a Capitol character pov from Nyria to finish off that cast, and four Round III povs focused with Nevaeh, Niklaus, Portia, and Ramses, another supercharged chapter. That leaves Vesuvia, Pierce, Sylvan, and Cassiopeia as the last four tributes to get their Round III povs for the final Pre-Games chapter which is just nuts to think about.
Remember! Bloodbath is coming out on Halloween, and that is sixteen days from now. Poll will close that morning so make sure to get your votes and predictions in. I will be updating #19 and #20 relatively quickly between each other just so I have enough room to comfortably write the bloodbath the way I want to. I hope you guys review; it means the world to me, especially with us nearing the end of such a momentous section of the story and nearly about to begin the next part of our journey. I aiming for either the 19th or 20th to be the day I update Chapter #19, so stay tune for that. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm