*sighs* Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, Chapter #26: Tricks From the Shallows. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get out a new chapter for you guys or for anything I am a part of, the last few weeks of December and early January have been... rough, with a Covid-19 diagnosis, some very awful stuff in my personal life, and college has started back up for me and I am a bit stressed, but have been looking forward to get back to it. Last chapter, #25, had a lot of action, with Brutal Technology (D3kiddos) and Respect for the Principal (Orion and Ramses) coming across each other, Niklaus has a mission, Kai'sa almost drowned, Catalus received a warning, healing is forming in Girl Power, and the D7 tributes fought an arena beast head on, losing Nevaeh in the process. This chapter has five tribute povs and ends with a Capitol pov from Lydia, which I am super stoked about, lord you have no idea. Enjoy Chapter #26: Trick From the Shallows!
"Son, the greatest trick ever pulled was the Devil convincing us, the world, that there was only one of him," ~ David Wong
Ramses Boskov: District 12 Male P.O.V (17)
It is more than just the fact that he is injured and needs his lover to help bind his hurt arm to his chest. It is much more than just the fact that Orion swears he had died when there is a cannon fired the exact instant Ramses goes soaring over the side of the hill back down the mountain. Ramses can try and live with the fact that he scared Orion out of his mind, but again, there is so much more at stake than what he is reading on the tin. He needs help, this is what it all means, he needs to lower himself to a commoner, heartbreaking that the king has fallen off his throne.
Ramses winces as Orion wraps a bit of gauze tight across his chest, shirt lifted and pinned to his shoulders, exposing his smoky skin. Wavering, stitching, hurting, smoldering, as Orion brushes his fingers over the scars and the gashes created by the fall. Ramses remembers getting hit by something in the chest, clenched between Jasper's hands, panic on the guy from Three's face, and that he is soaring. Soaring so high he can hear the whispers of the birds singing to him, screaming in his ear like a raven's caw that you're going to die, you're going to die, you're going to die.
He isn't sure if being dead would be better. It might be better than to be spared this humiliation, as the two of them are back to their same crawlspace, their same hideout, having made zero progress in four days, when it ends between a metal bar and the tributes from Three taunting them up on hillsides. Orion locks eyes with him, gently, though he does not say anything as he finishes wrapping up and cleaning off the cuts on his body. In fact, besides the general wake up, neither one of them have really spoken to each other, nor have they kissed. Ramses feels the words choking together in his throat, a blood clot, full of warmth and bitter vinegar sliding down his esophagus into his stomach.
"Orion, I-" he goes to say, but Orion shushes him. A physical shush. The leader of the new world shushed by a blonde surfer who is allergic to bananas. Part of why he adores him, Ramses supposes, but the gentleness is off-putting, as he frowns. "Orion," his voice hardens, like a stone, his lover pausing in the motions.
"What, Ramses?" Orion asks, his voice as cool as the ocean blue, though Ramses has never seen either coast of Panem. If it is anything like how Orion describes it, it must be a beautiful vista, a beautiful sight to take in and drown yourself beneath, though the only drowning he will ever do is to sculp himself between the rigid muscles of Orion's back, to the tender plushness of his lips. "You don't have to apologize or explain yourself. I want to do this; I want to help you."
Ramses withdraws his arm away from Orion as fast as he can, swearing in light agony as his body still aches from the fifty foot drop off. It is miraculous that he hasn't broken anything, and the only bad scrape is up his side, which is what is cleaned and healed first. "I don't want you to help me," he says, though the clot has not moved, and it instead builds. This- this is not what he wants to do, this is not want he wants to say. "I just…"
"You don't want me helping you?" Orion's breath quickens to a hasting gasp. Snuffed out like a flame, oxygen exhumed into CO2 without another life source to bring back the heat. Ramses sees the harrowed lines across his lover's brow deepen, as if Orion were sinking beneath the waters of the training center pool instead. This is the man who saved his life, trying to help him now and Ramses won't-
"I don't mean it like that!" Ramses sighs exasperatedly, trying to sit up, but his body protests in more fire-laced agony.
"Well, you're shit at explaining how you feel, then," Orion snaps, getting to his feet. The sun is starting to go down, hazy sunburst dots falling onto the wooden floors of the fishing shack they've nestled themselves in, the hay shining gold out of the dummies in the corner. Orion's sword is still plunged into the body, having cut right through the midriff section. Orion brings the blade out, the cut top of the dummy falling to the floor.
His throat may feel squeezed shut, but his heartbeat is verily alive, the water in his mouth drying up as Ramses takes in the sight, as Orion begins to move over to him, blade in hand. He- Orion wouldn't strike him down, would he? He wouldn't think of hurting him, after what he has already expressed, right? That crippling fear, that soaks itself into his skin, Ramses senses it underneath his skin, screaming at him to get up. It is the raven's voice again, you're going to die, you're going to die, you're going to die… is he going to die?
"You wouldn't hurt me, would you?" Ramses asks suddenly, without thinking, as he begins to back up towards the other side of the house. The axe is over there somewhere, the axe that he would keep in his hands, swing a few times, but never bear down on anyone. He couldn't do it, the thought of seeing Jasper's neck separate from his shoulders, where the head would fall off, and the body would plummet to the ground. Ramses saw it, Orion swinging at Vesuvia with the intent to kill, barely missing the girl as he strikes her shoe and doesn't get any farther… this man could kill.
Orion raises his eyebrows in confusion, before his gaze falls on the blade. The sharpness on his face dissipates instantly, evaporating into vapor that bundles up on the ceiling, droplets of rain and soothing kisses from Ramses' sister. The boy from Four crouches down next to Ramses, cradling his lover's head. "I'd never hurt you, Ramses…" he whispers, soothing, rubbing gentle strokes back and forth over the boy's brow. "I couldn't," There's a pause, Ramses expecting a but, however it never comes. Ramses' jaw is turned so the two men are looking at one another. "But you do need to talk to me. Maybe it is because we are out of our element here, but you are not the same guy I met in the training center. I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong."
He is looking for the lie, it must be somewhere, hidden on his face, perhaps between the brow, down to the side of his nose, curling around his lip. Words that are not there, words that would be brought out by a kiss, as Ramses shifts his weight some, tugging the blonde boy down to his level. The kiss is tender, fire stirring in his gut, passion blooming under the curvature of his toes, to the thrum of his heartbeat against his ribcage. The foolish notion that Orion would ever hurt him vanishes between a shaky breath, as Orion slides a hand across Ramses' chest, hanging there in a naughty precipice.
Ramses licks his lips again, trying to hold back the tears from flowing. There is no love in District 12, there has never been a sense of love in Twelve, where enjoyment goes to die, and there is only smoky gray skies and rockslides of shale destroying house burrows by the dozens, people buried beneath a cloud of sulfur and Peacekeeper white. Somehow, perhaps a flickering flame, there is love here in this arena, as Ramses shifts again, placing one hand lower on Orion's waist, getting slight chuckles from his lover.
"There are cameras…" Orion whines. Whines. The strong, strapping sunshine soldier is whining.
"Didn't stop us in the apartments, you voyeur," Ramses smirks, sitting up. However, through the smile, and even Orion's beautiful grip on his waist and side, the question is still there, that he cannot be helped unless he talks. He- Orion is his equal, not someone beneath him, for he would never share his body with someone he couldn't trust, someone who sees his hands and his haunted expression, coal dust trapped in the apple of his eye. A pause, where he lets their shaky breaths occupy that space of spoken silence. "I don't want your help, Orion, because I feel humiliated…" he wipes his brow, sitting up.
The pain is back, where Ramses can feel the skin get ripped away, down into the dark pit, as the house collapses, and the man's hand he's holding onto slips away as well, crushed beneath the beam that ends the normalcy in his life. Ramses takes off the glove, showing his deformed hand, which looks even more battered from the fall. Orion's face does not waver into displeasure, the same stoic stance he saw in the apartments… it does not bother him.
"The last time I helped someone, and they then tried helping me, I lost my fingers," Ramses cradles his hand to his cheat. Ramses had been the one who nearly fell into the pit, the sinkhole getting wider by the second as the ground shook, firebombs dropping above as the rebel headquarters is incinerated just a few feet away. It is a random miner, someone evacuating an orphanage just a few blocks away that hear his screaming, hear Ramses' terrified voice fill the air. He is going to die, the raven sings at him.
I am going to kill that fucking bird, Ramses recalls himself yelling out into the night.
The miner is hoisting him up out of the sinkhole when a piece of rock falls on the man's head, knocking him over, once the two are safe and away from the hole. It opens further, and it is the reverse, where Ramses feels all his body weight getting tugged to the crevice below. People are grabbing his legs, hoisting him back, as it is a lost cause, fire will turn this street to ash in seconds, kid!
The building gives way, a beam crushes and rips away Ramses' hand, the man falls into the abyss with a scream he still hears… he couldn't save the first sheep in his flock. How is he going to save all of them?
How is he going to save his sheep and escape the arena, alive, when he is sleeping with the golden lion right next to him?
Cassiopeia Grey: District 11 Female P.O.V (13)
Pierce's haunting face, glimmering on the shining silver screen in the sky two days ago… it will not go away no matter how hard she squeezes her eyes shut. Cassiopeia clenches her hands down over her ears, straining herself into a ball as his screams echo in her head, the guttural noise that spills out of his throat when he wrenches the knife out of his eye socket… it is all there, tattooed on her brain, engraved in her ear drum, as Cassiopeia plunges into icy cold waters to rid herself of his evil. She only followed the rules of the game, and yet she is the one who is punished, when he is rotting in the ground?
Dill would hate her if he were to see her now. He's rotting in the ground too, though she knows she had screamed at him to leave the cornucopia before it is too late. It is too late for him, then, when she finds his face being another shimmering star on the death recap. He saw the kindness that Cassiopeia contains, the non-volatile parts of her that she is still trying to find, because even though she kicks him in the groin and is abrasive to him for their entire three days of company spent together, he does not rebuke her.
She does not deserve that sort of kindness. Not after what she's done. Cassiopeia does not bother to check if Pierce survives the fall off of the hill, away from the pond, for even though there is no immediate cannon that results from hearing his body hit the ground… who else would have killed the boy from Six besides herself? There are even more sponsor gifts coming from the air, out of nowhere, from what she's done, Marlon congratulating her on each new item she receives. A celebratory round of applause from the Capitol audience at home, cheering her on, for she is playing the game. The girl who would never follow an adult's orders is playing into an adult's hand… the irony, oh how Amalie would loathe her over a game of hopscotch.
Cassiopeia sits upright, catching herself dozing off against the tree she has stopped to rest at. It has been a relatively uneventful day, despite the cannon fire blasting off around lunch time when she climbs a tree and beheads some sort of unknown bird. She watches the avian creature spasm down on the ground for a few seconds before she drops onto the corpse to ensure it is dead, wincing at the squelching noises that come from underneath her shoes.
The sponsor items have been relatively nice to have, from a canteen of water, to a small spear that if a button on the staff is pressed, causes the spearhead to open up into a net that is severed when the button is released. She tries it on a fish that she finds swimming in another pond, delight racing through her veins when the capture is successful. These gifts must be expensive, for she's received three of them now, one a day after Pierce's demise. She goes to the pool one last time to see if his eyeball is still there in the water, floating back and forth, but she can't find it, yet she's unsure whether or not to be relieved.
It is a noise, off to her left, that causes her to sit upright in alarm, hands going for the nearest weapon she can find. Cassiopeia tilts her head around the trunk of the tree, large enough to hide two of her if she were to expand twice her current size. It is a girl's voice, laughing, and definitely sounding older. Cassiopeia knows she's the youngest tribute left alive in the arena, for Zachary and Cecelia both died in the very beginning, for their faces were alongside Calen and Dill. The only girls left in the arena are much older and taller than she is… so who…?
She flattens herself against the tree trunk as multiple pairs of footsteps approach her closer and closer. Cassiopeia, relative to the others, has roamed the decaying forest constantly, going in grid lines like her parents would be doing if they were trying to grow the crop out on their jobs. The cornucopia is to her right, and if she were to go the left, it'd be the rocky side of the arena that she's seen before but has not found the bravery to venture into before. Behind her, to the south, would be to fall further into the forest, but Cassiopeia feels it best to stay on her toes and be at the borders, versus being stuck in the back and cornered by surprises of the arena.
Three girls… Cassiopeia's eyes widen as she sees it is the alliance between Portia Beninblade, Camilla Rodriguez, and Nokomis Yanaba walking very close to her tree. She's already come across Pierce twice, nearly died when the Careers were stuck outside her cottage in the fishing village and has seen destruction of some kind in the form of burnt trees by another tribute, given that there were fresh boot marks in the soil at those spots… her damned luck, indeed.
Portia is in the lead, all three girls seemingly jovial from afar, all of them holding onto weapons. Too many of them for her to even think about going after one of them. Cassiopeia shifts her weight some, stepping down on top of a leaf. It crunches into pieces under her foot, she gasping lightly. It's loud, way too fucking loud.
Portia comes to a halt at the head of her line. "What was that?" she asks, slightly annoyed. Cassiopeia squeezes her eyes shut in desperation, holding onto the back of the tree as hard as she could. "Did you hear that?"
"It was probably nothing, Porty," Camilla says.
"What did I say to you about calling me that?" the blonde snaps back viciously.
"And what did I say about you calling me Cammie?" the girl from Nine is quick to retort.
Cassiopeia feels like an insect drowning in amber, anticipation burrowing her into the dirt. Why are the girls so hung up on just one simple noise?
"What if it's Diana?" Portia asks. Cassiopeia almost gives her cover away by laughing at the top of her lungs. What she wouldn't give to be that amazing fighter from Four. She's terrified of her, for sure, but there is something beautiful in how she moves, blonde hair snapping in the breeze, fingers tugging back on bowstrings with violent delicacy.
"Diana would have shot us all dead by now," Nokomis's voice is clear, resolute, and she's already moving. "It was probably just another squirrel, and we already have a lot from today's hunt. I just want to get back to camp," she says. "C'mon!"
Nokomis must've won the other two girls over, for there are gentle words from Camilla, coaxing vinegary Portia away from the trees and down on their destined path back to camp. Cassiopeia stays perfectly still, her breathing shallow, as if Amalie were standing right next to her, holding her tight, lulling her nerves into a false sense of security under the blue of her bloodstream.
Close one. Cassiopeia watches them wander off further into the forest, she muttering a shaky breath as she sits back down against the tree, holding onto her blade still. Every so often she'll steal a glance at it, prepared to use it again, prepared to strike someone down if she were to come across them, but that hasn't happened to her yet. She knows that she wouldn't let anyone, no matter who they were, just kill her, but to take their life? Cassiopeia knows what it looked like, charging Pierce the way she did, even though she had warned him, but it is… it is not her intent to leave him without an eye or have him fall to his death and succumb to his injuries.
Has everyone been right about her? Is she some terrifying monster who does not deserve happiness? Would she continue playing the game if it meant she loses her soul? Cassiopeia bites down on her cheek to stop the stemming of tears that threaten to appear, the thoughts encircling her like vultures, pecking at her, demanding that she open her eyes and see the truth.
Following Portia, Camilla, and Nokomis seems like suicide to her, even if she is to play the game. She might get one or two good stabs in, but all of them have wide reaching weapons, and there is no way she's going to let them slice her into three because the opportunity is there.
Cassiopeia digs a hand into her right pocket, clenching around pieces of paper that she has stuffed into the pockets. They are the messages she has received from Marlon, her blue-haired escort who has the gall to say she is a lot to work with, someone he'd bet against during the games if given the chance… the divide between what he writes and what he says has confused her to no end, but it is all the guidance she has to go by.
She finds the one from the latest sponsor gift she received, the spear/net combo, unfurling it, spreading it out against the tree.
You're doing great, kiddo. But the audience wants more, they want something to root for. You could be that item they wish to root for, but you must go after something big. Something you can and can't defeat at the same time. Follow the black trees, follow the ash.
Cassiopeia frowns. "Follow the black trees… follow the ash…" she whispers to herself, ensuring that she is all alone again by this tree. She looks up, her tree a normal color, healthy brown. Burnt trees? The only burnt trees she knows of are those on the other side of the arena, in the scorched section.
She turns behind her, deeper into the decaying forest, a lump forming in her throat. Either the girls didn't notice it, or they didn't care, but the line of black trees… she's been seeing them lately, unsure of what they are or if someone did something to them to make the trees have that appearance, but they're a different sort of dead than the one she's resting against.
A man-made sort of demise, done after the arena.
Cassiopeia will continue to play the game.
She tightens her grip on her knife, slings a backpack over shoulder, and races off, down the path of black ash.
Jasper Overheart: District 3 Male P.O.V (18)
She's doing it again. He sees it in her eyes, even if the words that come out of her mouth contradict what her expression tells him. Disappointment reflects back at him, as Vesuvia tends to the self-made alarm system of ropes and trip wires. It is his fault that she has to do it, as Jasper is trying to find his way around in the dark, groping around blindly before falling over his own trip wire. A cable snaps, coiling around his leg, painful fire lacerating up to his knee, higher to his calf, across his pelvis as he goes down hard onto the ground. Vesuvia is swearing something unintelligible, drawing out her blade to cut through the tightening coil that is going to sever Jasper's leg clean off if he allows the system to continue its work.
Too blind to see his own trap, injured and a liability… why is Vesuvia looking at him with disdain, while she says aloud that nothing is wrong? The sky is starting to change colors, with the singular cannon of the day, Vesuvia believing it to be Ramses, after Jasper knocked him off the hillside. It had been sudden, an action without thinking, for Jasper has no idea what the slate cube's purpose had been. He thought it'd turn into a wall, if Cole's message had been any indicator, but it saves their asses, and that's all Jasper cares about.
It saved not only his life, but Vess's. She won't admit it, the other emotion he is reading on her face for the time being, this feeling that she could've died and is not focused on that. "You ever going to say thank you?" he jokes at her when they've settled down permanently for the night. It is one of their beginning spots, four days ago, further back into the scorched section of the arena, where not much seems to have been disturbed since leaving.
"Thank you for what?" Vesuvia turns to him, balanced on one knee, an eyebrow raised. Her hair glints off of the dwindling sunlight, flickering embers that could turn his skin to ash, devour him in a tornado of flame and sulfur, coal dust and graphite, nuclear radiation sinking beneath the beds of his fingernails. There is no humor in her deflection, however, Jasper's smile wavering back to a thin line.
"I saved our lives back there, with the cube," Jasper points out, reaching into his pocket for it. The device is now warm in his hands, but he hasn't dared press down on it again unless he absolutely needed to. At the force and angle he smashed the iron bar into, Ramses, if the cannon is not for him, though the likelihood of that seems nigh impossible, would be a broken rib cage, at the very least, just from pure physics alone. It is mostly a blur, their fight, for Vesuvia is the one who spots the duo climbing up the hill with their rope and gear. She takes the rope for herself, where Orion leaves it, as the boy from Four went chasing after his ally.
Vesuvia tilts her head back and laughs. He's heard that laugh before, from the Coin family, from Nathaniel who decides that raiding District Two supply lines would be a waste of time, but instead to go over some Peacekeeper station in the middle of the desert. His ideas are nothing but violence and despair, causing Jasper to frown. Isn't it his leader who decides to kill the vice president's son? Isn't it his leader, who Jasper fervently supports, who decides to bring the districts into war with their beating heart?
And the man has the gall to laugh in his face?
"And who was the one who carried you back to camp?" she retorts, twirling a knife in her left hand. The façade drops, as Jasper can see now that he has pinched a nerve. Her shoulders are tense, a different sort of tense than the kind when he is running a hand down the small of her back, whispering words of affection in her ear. There is the disappointment, now reflected in her voice, and etched on her face. "If I was the one who held the sponsor item, I could say the same thing to you," she dusts off her hands, sheathing the knife, coming back over to join Jasper by their terrible fire. Jasper has had to live off of the land before, bringing his younger siblings from Thirteen to Three where they'd be safe – as if – but he's never gotten a hang of fire starting. "How's your head?"
"It still hurts," Jasper nods, bringing a hand up to rest against the lump that had been from the butt end of Ramses' axe smashing against the side of his head. There isn't any blood, and through the pain, he has all of senses still, which is a relief, but it means rest. He has seen enough head wounds in his days during the guerilla warfare, trying to keep two twelve year old siblings alive. A traumatic brain injury would knock him out of the game forever. He laughs lightly at the idea. Vesuvia would end his life if he were to become dead weight. "But it is nothing I can't handle." She looks away for a moment, lips pursed, mouth open as if she were to speak, but no words come out. Jasper presses a hand against hers, which prompts her to look back. "How are you feeling? The foot?"
Vesuvia shakes her head, lips pressing together in a dry line. She's switched lanes again, protecting all that she refuses to show underneath her flaming curtain. He sees her, he sees her scars, even the ones she hides behind a pale face and magical fingers, or her coy grin as she advanced on that tree Orion and Ramses hid behind. "I'm fine."
"If you are going to care about me, I'm going to care about you," Jasper sits up, grunting in pain. Too much exertion but lying down makes him feel useless.
She locks her jaw, bulking her tongue on the left cheek, where he could push it back with his fingers. Vesuvia grabs her right shoe, a blade sized hole stuck in the sneaker an inch or two away from her foot. She takes the shoe off, setting it aside, helping Jasper sit up when he motions for her. Her grip still takes him by surprise for how strong it is, as he's let part of him waste away since settling down in District Three. "My foot feels the presence of Orion's sword still," she admits, brushing a hand across her toes, curling them downwards forcefully as if she were standing on point. "He didn't strike me, but…" her voice trails off, Vesuvia scratching the back of her neck.
Jasper nods, patting her on the shoulder. "I understand, Vess," he says. She looks down at him, and the curtain rips in two. She places a hand on his chest, shifting over so she is on top of him, the opposite of before, the opposite of the night before they left the Capitol for this accursed glass dome. He usually would be one to protest the fact that she's taking the initiative, but whatever words of dissent are shunted by her lips on his.
The first time he kisses her, he tasted the grime and go of District Three, a smell that is plastic-like, full of carbon and sodium, salt on her tongue, salt lining his gums. Before the start of the Games, their kisses are sharper, harsher, more aggressive. A lot more teeth, Jasper surprising himself by how forceful he is, but Vesuvia responds in appreciation, when her hands cut crescents into his back. Cole asks him at breakfast what exactly has drawn him to his district partner, while Jasper mulls over which kind of cream cheese to put on his bagel.
"I dunno," he recalls himself saying, biting down and filling his mouth with food.
Cole raises an eyebrow, nearly laughing in disbelief, but he stays his tongue to take a sip of coffee. "You don't know?" each word is enunciated slowly, to sink in. Jasper sets down his butter knife, frowning. "You have slept with her twice, using protection I hope, and you don't even know why."
Jasper ignores the second part of the sentence, because he does not like hearing other adults in his life talk like that. "You make it sound dirty, Cole."
"It's sex, Jasper."
"She is unapologetic about her strength," Jasper remembers that as his answer. He has seen too many people over the last few years apologize for having a spine. There is nothing to be ashamed of, having the capability and the power to stand up for yourself and make a difference, and that is Vesuvia, as she comes upon his hiding spot with that same old coy grin he is used to seeing. In District Thirteen, strength only came from those who claimed they earned it, which makes no sense to Jasper, as strength is not earned, but found. There are many who would not call him strong, even as he manages to run from the bombed out Thirteen to a life of security in Three.
Vesuvia's strength beats even that.
It beats his own.
He finishes kissing her, as Vesuvia bites down on his lower lip a little harsher than expected, he is feeling her hand snake up his side. "Vesuvia…" he mouths around her, breathing in her scalp, the soot scent hiding among the auburn waves.
"What?" she asks him, gently, rising up. The terrifying side of her is not there, the same maliciousness he hears in her voice while she talks about killing Dill at the cornucopia, or the fire in her eyes when she is on stage with Richmond Anvil, before he goes up there and embarrasses himself, turning him into an enemy of the state. Here, between them, separated by a single touch of skin to skin… she is his. She is his piece of shrapnel that is embedded in his back, Vesuvia is his molten lava that warms his insides and keeps him buoyant in a troublesome sea of despair. She giggles, pecking him on the mouth. They could have died today, but between her savagery and his ingenuity, they're alive. Jasper loves living. "Jasper?" she says his name, her eyes scanning over his face, for he is just looking at her.
If he were to close his eyes, it'd be another moment without her, that he cannot bear.
"Thank you," he tells her, warmly, over the ear, as he kisses her scalp and rests a hand on her stomach, curling an arm behind her back to press Vesuvia down atop him. He'll lie here with her, even as the day changes into night, for he needs her strength, and she needs his, and he'll hold onto every moment with the girl he cannot figure out until he cannot figure out himself.
Under the rising stars and cannon fire of the Hunger Games, Jasper holds on tighter to what he doesn't know, and he abandons what he does.
Portia Beninblade: District 2 Female P.O.V (18)
Inactivity leads to ignorance, and ignorance leads to death. It is how she watches her entire family crumble the moment her parents decide to support the rebellion, and it is why Portia refuses to allow herself to become a pawn for someone's bigger game. Not that she expects herself to become some chess master in terms of strategy, but people need to pay attention to her, keep her blood flowing, keep her muscles moving. She will not be inactive, though as she says it, another sordid meal passes between her and her two allies over a dwindling campfire in the middle of the decaying forest.
Portia bites down on the charred squirrel's leg, grimacing at the bone that hits her teeth, while Nokomis has opted to roast a few nuts over the flame. Camilla hasn't hardly touched her rabbit, the girl from Two wiping at her mouth with a sigh. "You going to eat that?" she asks, callously, pointing with the squirrel on the spit towards the other girl's food.
"Are you?" comes Nokomis's doubting voice in the corner, the girl from Ten smirking over the fire, a flame obscuring her eyes, making her look like an alien. Portia is still unsure how to think about her choice of allies, but everyone else had seemed relatively insane to her, which is why she does not approach them, for she thought about asking Porscha and Kai'sa, but they look insane, and she does not dabble with insanity.
"Yet you and Nokomis have killed children," a little voice in her head taunts, the same one that croaks on her undesirability, the one that laughs at how her muscular body is starting to deflate into a popped rubber balloon. "Who's insane now?" Then, aloud, at Nokomis, "Yes, I would totally eat the rabbit. Why else would I ask?"
Camilla smirks to herself in her corner, Portia looking at the girl sharply. They still defer to her, but they love poking their holes in her paper boats, watching them sink beneath the surface. It is the first day the girls physically decided to leave the forest, wandering around till they came to a side of the arena where the bramble turns into clay dust, rock walls on either side, but Nokomis wonders if they should head back instead, for they did not bring the bulk of their supplies. It is the truth, they hardly have anything with them then, at the edge of this side of the arena, for Portia can see how the dome starts to slope closer and closer to them at a sharp angle.
She hates that she must agree with the other two girls, but Portia knows that pressing the issue would only leave her abandoned by the two of them. They are not covert, no matter how quiet Camilla whispers to Nokomis about sacrifice and survival… Portia sees it in their faces, that neither girl likes her. That is not what bothers her, that there is the potentiality of vinegar in the water between them, but of the notion that there is a lack of likability between them, that can manifest into dislike. Dislike can manifest into hate, and Miss Camilla Would Never Hurt A Soul Rodriguez would end up slamming the brunt end of a knife into Portia's trachea.
"Have at it," Camilla grunts, grabbing her own knife and slicing through the rabbit. It is terrifyingly calming to Portia, as she grabs her half of the dissected animal, that there is zero blood coming out of the rabbit once it is caught in half. Nokomis's snare is how they find the rabbit and squirrel around lunch time, when they return to their midday camp spot from traversing the arena, and Portia must slice into both animals to kill them. Camilla doesn't watch it, Portia making a point to fling the rabbit's tail at the other girl. Her scream would be enough to wake up Zachary and Calen's dead corpses, Portia is sure, as the terrified yelp rebounds against the trees.
Inactivity, where Portia knows that even if there is false camaraderie passing between the three of them around this fire, Cain Passionia can decide to be a rightful prick and have the fire turn into a demon that'd drag them beneath the surface if he could. What had been the saying that the man announces over the intercom, before the tube slams shut around Portia's face, blocking her from Merida and her stupid blue hair.
Slay Gods and become one.
Portia laughs to herself, as she gets up, dusting off her knees. Her blade is in hand, a smaller pocketknife, with the sword resting against a tree back by the campfire, as she needs to take a piss.
"Nature's call," her mother's voice radiates in her skull, deflecting back to when the Beninblade family refused to be vulgar. "You don't say 'I need to pee,' or that 'I must piss,' Portia," to which Portia is practically cackling at the dinner table. The family is not vulgar, even though the girl swears she sees her father cussing and losing his mind about the electric bills pilling up on his office desk, secluded behind the TV, where Portia has been caught snooping once or twice.
"I just wanted to know what a 'prostitute charge' is," she says as her defense, which earns the smart mouthed girl a slap across the face. Portia proudly declares, after righting herself, that she needs to piss, and just a few months later, her family has been shipped up the river, her with them in handcuffs when the Peacekeepers come bearing down on their homely abode.
She will never get that look of shock and fright, pure unaltered terror on her mother's face out of her head when the Head Peacekeeper of District 2, a handsome and gaudy man named Martinez, as she has never bothered to learn if it is her first or last name, kicks in their porch screen door. Would Diana Kratovska have that same look of a deer caught in the headlights when Portia plunges her knife into the girl's neck?
Portia can picture it now, the girl standing there, caught unawares like her entire family had been a year ago, the final two, just she and Diana, both blonde, both bitchy, but at least Portia has her looks. Laughing, as Portia picks up her pants, finishing her business, looking for the camera in the birch tree that always seems to hone in on when she must do something private, makes that her spot. She clenches the knife tight, twirling it in her grip, resting against the tree.
"Really, Diana..." Portia snickers, laughing haughtily in her throat. "I really want to believe you're anything but a stupid bitch and you're not making this easy for me..." Then, without warning, Portia is to lash out, the blade would slice through her thorax, and she'd raise it upwards towards Diana's brain… the cannon would fire, she'd be a victor. A victor.
Portia can taste that thought on her tongue, golden droplets of heaven coalescing into one thick bead that dangles off of her chin. Honeysuckle and grapefruit, passionate delights as she bites in and bathes in the girl's blood. She must find the girl now, spur her inactivity into action, and killing the Queen Bee herself, ripping out the stinger and watch the honeybee convulse on the ground… oh, it is tantalizing to her very soul.
"Portia!" Camilla's voice echoes through the forest again, the girl snapping the direction of her ally's call. "Portia, where the hell are you?" There is actual desperation in Camilla's voice, oh the very thought… more tantalizing, honeydew and strawberries blooming in the back of her throat. Is- no, it can't be possible, the girl is worried about her? How long has she been gone, however? Portia's smirk turns into a frown, as she finishes tightening her belt around her waist, rounding the tree.
"I just went to the bathroom," she says, a bit louder, as Camilla rounds the bend.
"You-" the girl from Nine starts, confusion etched on her face. "You've been gone for twenty minutes, Portia…" she says.
Impossible. However, that is not what Portia is even focused on, for she can still picture Diana's corpse lying down on the floor of the cornucopia, bleeding profusely, as she stands over the body and continues to stab it. Everyone is screaming, everyone is cheering, President Emrick Israel is going to give her a Presidential Medal of Honor for how she has valiantly slayed the enemies of the state… she must go.
She mutters an apology to Camilla, very brief, in a hushed whisper, thick under squirrel guts and the fur of a rabbit's tongue, making her way back to camp. She didn't wander off very far, but Portia is unsure how much time has passed between relieving herself and imagining Diana dead. She wants Magnus dead, too, which would put a cherry on top of the ice cream sundae, but it is the very fact of what sort of consuming this is doing to her. She has never been one to waste time or get lost in thought. Portia is the action; she is the entertainment. There is nothing entertaining about visions, and she is not insane.
Nokomis stands up when Portia crosses back through the tree line. "Are you okay?" the girl asks, but this concern is fake. She senses it, the syllables do not vibrate in harmony together the way they should. "You've been gone for-"
"I'm fine," Portia says, crouching low to her backpack, sheathing her knife, picking her sword up instead. "I had an epiphany while I was out there."
"Epiphany?" Camilla asks, as she makes it back to camp as well. "What do you mean, Portia?" The fire has been snuffed out, and the sun is starting to sink beneath the sky, bands of cardinal and suffused navy-blue clashing against each other. It is late, and if she wants this to work, they're going to need to go now.
Portia sighs, exasperatedly. How can these two girls not be partial to her genius? Why can they not just trust her? She will not crash the train they are on, but elevate them to gods, to the gods that Head Gamemaker Cain quotes in their tubes.
"Think about how slow the Games have been going," she says. It has been a thought in her head all day, truthfully, about how so far it seems to be just a single cannon a day. Someone has died today, though none of them are certain to who it is, just hearing the fire around midday is enough to get her heart racing.
"Okay," Nokomis shrugs. "What about it, though?"
"We all thought that Diana, Magnus, and Catalus were going to be the force to beat, right? Fearsome and terrible and-"
"Well, we got the most kills at the cornucopia, but-" Nokomis interrupts her, Portia breathing hotly out of her nostrils.
"Yes, thank you for completely derailing my point, Nokomis," Portia snaps, pinching her brow. "I think Diana and the two guys did not stay at the cornucopia like we all thought. I think they're out here, somewhere in the arena," she motions wide with her hands. "And they're hunting, only coming up with nothing."
"You think they've been behind Pierce and Kileigh's deaths?" Camilla asks, sitting back down at her spot by the dwindling fire.
"Potentially," Portia agrees, as much as it pains her. "We all saw the violence that took place once Diana began firing at everyone. We're all capable of fighting back, and we know what happens when we're inactive…" she says.
Portia doesn't give Nokomis and Camilla the time of day to let the words settle into their heads; it is up to them to keep up, as Portia frolics off into the trees. The trio is not at the cornucopia, and perhaps they never stayed behind, which means it is right for the picking.
What other sort of entertainment is there besides one queen being dethroned and replaced by someone much more capable? Much more desirable?
It is being the action, and it is going to save all of their lives.
Gemini Lennox: District 9 Male P.O.V (17)
They sent him a paint set. He cannot believe it, but one has fallen down from the heavens, with Clair's name attached on the end of it. Easel, a palette, even one of those cute hats that Gemini ensures to place on his head the first chance he gets. It is perfect, as he sets up his shot of the latest ruined tree he has destroyed, the golden, electrified whip sitting in one of his pant loops, turned off for the time being. He is painting himself, for the occasion, destroying another piece of the Capitol's bullshit flawless persona, tearing down each fake tree one whip crack at a time.
A wolf in sheep's clothing, is what he is, as Gemini dabbles the paint brush in a swathing puddle of maroon, doing a trickle of blood down his forehead on the canvas. Camilla can call him whatever she wants, but he knows he is a threat, with the weapon by his side at the very least, and every wolf reveals their vicious bite at some time or other. It is a power high, having this gift of the gods by his side, for Gemini doesn't even know why he has it. He answers a question right, and the Gamemakers decide to reward him? No problem!
"It is about time…" he grumbles to himself, shifting his weight from his left to right foot, going for the puddle of navy to do the darkening sky around him, for the sun has set and he is cloaked in shadow. "After the shit hand life has given me, I deserve some happiness…" He has replaced the drink with electricity flowing through his veins, jolts of energy to his nervous system that makes Gemini dance in circles, praising the stars that he is alive. He is happy to be alive, and now he must play the game, as Clair puts it aptly in the message attached to his easel.
The others are ahead of you. Alliances have made kills or made plans… what do you have to show for it?
~ Clair Rosenbaum
Gemini will kill his escort where she stands when he gets out of the arena, mark his words, for the disrespectful language. He is learning to forgive Camilla for her wrongdoings, for she truthfully didn't know what is going on in his head, but he is blinded by her charm. She is selfish, selfish, selfish… to think that he thought of her as flawless enough to be put on one of his masterpieces.
"Masterpieces I've never sold…" Gemini whispers, over the easel, as he goes back to the red, touching up on a rippling scar cascading down his chin. "But one day, maybe that is what I'll do," he announces, to himself, and surely the singular camera watching him, just to ensure that Gemini Lennox is performing, for the great game is terrifying, again, from Clair's note. "Open an art shop in the Capitol, maybe a rehab center…" he mutters, dropping one of the paintbrushes into a cup of water to clean off the pastels.
He has always wanted to do good in the world, to matter to someone who would tell him at night that he is flawless and beautiful, desirable and talented… instead, he is traded those heart shaped chocolates for a raised fist, a sick mother, and a swinging rope tethered to the rusted pipe attached to his tub. Covered in the sins of his past, Gemini paints over the scars, over the morphine drip injections… the morphine helped forget where he came from. Who he came from.
Bad seed, the bad apple spoils the whole barrel.
Gemini drops the other paintbrush in the bucket of water, unhooking his sponsor gift from his belt. He feels the power of the weapon pulsate underneath his palm, bulking at the points where his knuckles smooth over onto his nail beds. Perhaps he shouldn't have destroyed the forest, but it is already dead, so what does another few corpses add to the atmosphere that is not already established?
He strikes at one, just to see its power, but then he cannot help it, and the morphine fades away, as well as the pastels, until there is a trail of scorched land following him, trees burnt to the ground while the electrified whip encircles the tree trunk, incinerating it to splintered shards. There are multiple settings on the whip, and Gemini has yet to go that extra step… he's unsure what would push him to that desperate level, to be frank. There have been zero messages from Clair or any Gamemaker staff member that what he is doing is unethical, so it must be entertaining if no one is telling him to stop.
So, he keeps at it. He keeps at it, until Gemini has scorched an entire section of the arena, soot building up underneath his boot tread, imprinting his name into the dirt. His mark, for no one has ever seen a painting of his, and if he is to not escape this accursed arena and let the Capitol pluck him apart – he'd rather hang first – then this is how the masses will remember him.
Gemini takes a step back, admiring his painting, smiling. It is wonderful, his skin glowing a sheen caramel color under the spotlight, the blood dribbling down his chin looking more lifelike than any other dead aspect of the forest around them. The whip dances in a starry battle, glowing parts which leave tiny burn marks on the canvas.
It is his best yet, he knows.
He is glad someone is able to see the painting before he ends their life.
"I know you're out there," Gemini announces, rather suddenly, as he closes his eyes. He captures the painting in an immortal cage, never to flicker or change regardless of where he is in time. This is solace, his place… not some veranda car with Camilla clenching a bottle of tequila, or in the training center, trying to hit dummies with a knife that he couldn't whittle no matter how hard he tries.
He knows she's been 'following' him for the last two days, so sure that no one would notice her presence, but Gemini has spent a lot of time in the lulled quiet of hazy afternoons with a needle in his arm to pick up that someone is there.
Gemini turns around, tightening his grip on the end of the whip, fingers lightly ghosting over the button, to stare at Cassiopeia Grey. She is at the top of the hill, two knives in hand, backpack weighing her down, but it is who he suspects that has been following him, even if she didn't know she had been doing that.
"Nice painting," she says, nodding towards it, but she does not move beyond that.
"I bet you don't even like art," Gemini lifts his head back.
"Yeah, you're right…" Cassiopeia cuts in without another moment's peace, complete lack of pause. She squints, frowning, peering at the painting. "If that is supposed to be you in the painting, why did you make yourself look like a naked rat?"
The laugh that rises from Gemini's throat is stained in rust. "Funny," he chuckles.
"Serious." Her eyebrows bridge together, tight enough he could sew a sweater.
"I bet you didn't come here to talk about pastels and canvases, I take it," Gemini ventures forward, taking a single step to match, as Cassiopeia stands stock still in her ledge. The anthem had shown a little while ago, where he sees Nevaeh's face shine in the sky, someone he has no commonality with, just another person Gemini would have never painted even if she offered him money. "You kill Nevaeh?"
Her reaction is instantaneous. He sees his mother in her, then, with her tight lips and puckered expression, refusing the morphine to make the pain easier. Gemini takes it for himself, as they spent good money on that medicine for it to just go to waste. Cassiopeia's face is tautly pulled back, mouth in a firm line, eyes cold. "No," she lifts her chin. "You?"
"No," Gemini says, expecting more words to fall out. Aimless desire that he may have been the one to end her life?
"Pierce was mine, though," Cassiopeia rubs her brow, voice cold and deflective of any emotion. Gemini raises an eyebrow, not necessarily out of shock, but supposition. He saw violence in the girl, rubbed raw and red around the edges of her halo, where he would have painted her atop an ivy bush, and instead of oranges that she feasts on, eyeballs. A moment of silence passes between them, as she clears her throat. "I was told to come this way by my escort, Marlon. To follow the black trees and the ash," Another pause, Gemini narrowing in on how her knuckles whiten. Moment of attack. "I think I have to kill you. To keep the Gods pleased."
"Ah," comes Gemini's voice a second too late, noticed on the wind, like the drop of a quarter on the sidewalk, clinking loudly enough that everyone notices. The proverbial Gods, the gods of this arena, the same men and women, from dropping so many bombs into District 9's airspace, his mother develops the cancer that whittles away her body. The gods who, after the loss of his mother, his father nurses a new hobby in amber liquid and sheen glass bottles. The man who swings from a rusted pipe. And those gods want him dead? Gemini dips his head down somewhat, close to his sternum. "I think not," he says.
He presses his finger down on the button in the center of the whip; it comes alive in a stream of electricity and sparkles, lighting up the night sky. Gemini screams at her, anguish filled in his throat, lashing out with the weapon.
She is quicker than he expects her to be, ducking under the slash, as the whip connects into her safety net, the tree she is on. It is engulfed in flames, Gemini realizing that he has set the whip on its highest setting, but never tested it. As Cassiopeia ambles away from him, towards the painting, he cusses to himself. It would not be ideal to die in the blaze he creates, so he lowers the settings down a notch.
Cassiopeia yells her own sort of war cry, leaping off of the hill at Gemini. He steps to the side, just barely, bringing the whip down across her leg. She screams in pain as it collides into her ankle, the skin a putrid, raised pink when he recoils away from her. Cassiopeia crawls back on her hands, shouting loud as one hand clenches the burnt skin, the other holding onto a knife.
She throws it at him, Gemini distracted by how the skin is blistering over, another amazing painting he might make, watching her corpse. The knife sinks into his shoulder, just below his clavicle, near his chest. It brings him down to his knees, a yelp breaking free out of his throat. It is her moment of opportunity, Cassiopeia recovering to her feet.
The girl from Eleven snarls at him, taking off again, tackling into Gemini. The two of them fall down onto the ground, the whip knocked out of Gemini's grasp. He strains for it, as Cassiopeia shifts her weight, he realizing in fright and embarrassment that they are most likely the same weight, for how skinny he is, and how young she is… her hands pin his shoulders down, as she twists the knife in his shoulder some.
"Not personal, but they need their show…" she hisses, raising her blade high.
Gemini spits in her face. It is a tactic he has learned from his father, at too many late night dinners with a single crescent roll settled in its own pathetic basket. She makes a noise of disgust, Gemini headbutting her as hard as he can, though it causes both of them to shout out loud in pain.
Cassiopeia rockets back to her feet, stumbling, while Gemini reaches out for the whip again. He gets his stance back too, eyes widening, as the girl collides into his painting. The easel, the canvas, his palette and the water brushes… all of it topples into the grass, tearing in two, spilling its contents onto the decaying yellows and withered browns.
His eyes widen in fury. "YOU!" he screams at her, raising his whip as high as he can.
She rushes at him, ducking underneath his next swipe, and her knife plunges straight into his chest. Gemini chokes on his rage in surprise, whip falling slack in his grip, but he does not let go of it. Blood spills out of the wound in his chest, as Cassiopeia wrenches both knives out of him, from the shoulder and chest, to strike at him again. A growl meshes into a scream, as the girl takes out both weapons, stumbling back.
Gemini's vision starts to get hazy, as he holds out with all his strength. This girl ruined his passion, the one love his father never had any influence on. He turns it on the highest setting it can go and strikes her with it. He can hardly hear her scream over the sound of crackling electricity and smoking skin, as the whip flies from his grasp on a mind of its own, starting to wind around Cassiopeia like a tassel of barbed wire.
In his blurred vision, Cassiopeia has stopped speaking, her body simply vibrating back and forth, smoke rising from her ever darkening skin, hair falling out in patches by her side. A glorious painting, a beautiful painting, resonated in cannon fire as the girl from Eleven falls over to the ground and twitches uncontrollably.
She does not get up again.
Gemini brings a hand up to the craters in his chest, copper spilling over his skin, as he stumbles down to one knee, stretching out for his ruined work, the work she ruined. All her fault… all her fault… his dream is ruined…
His breathing becomes shallow, as he tries reaching for the whip. He must… it must go around his neck…
Gemini Lennox falls still, his cannon fires, and the curtain falls shut on art gallery that'll never open in his name.
Lydia Wickervein: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V
It is not a repeat of what she has already seen. It is different than that, something more, a little bit twisted with thorns sticking out of the side. Lydia wipes some sweat off of her forehead with the back of her head, as the soft pitter-pat, pitter-pat of rain fell on top of her hood. The siren in her hand, a low wailing device that emits a mix of a whale's call and a ringing bell goes off every few seconds, crowds dispersing in front of her as she moved them aside with the wave of her hands.
A squadron of Peacekeepers follow in line behind her, guns out and at the ready, her own clenched in her other hand, safety on. There have been a few misfires here and there in the past from her own hand, when she is down in the lower ranks, unsure of how to get her name noticed by the higher ups. One way to get noticed is to make plenty of mistakes, which she most certainly did. Lydia looks back at the others, their visors down, hers up, the clunky metal suit feeling clunkier than usual as she puts it on. Richmond squeezes her hand when she leaves, as her husband takes a sleeping pill and dives under the covers.
Emrick and his wife are back in their suite, the president is secure and under careful watch, patrols going by their doors every fifteen to twenty seconds. Lydia puts those she trusts the most there in their stations, the message written in oil wiped off of the desk. She can see it imprinted on her eyelids when she closes her eyes, tattoos of ink banded across the corneas and across the eyelids, dripping gray droplets down her cheeks.
Reports have been filing in throughout the day of a masked vigilante ducking in and out of warehouses, written messages popping up over the Capitol internet system in the same kind of antagonistic drivel from the sentences in oil. The president's clock is winding down, and there is an insurrection in the air. Panic flares in her heartbeat, soaring through her body, from every tendon to a knot in her gut… is this from the same person who has threatened to kill every tribute in the arena? The tension in that has yet to go away, as Lydia prowls through records night after night, keeping an eye out on the monitors as the tributes kill each other in their glass dome. The writing style is not the same, Nyria streamlining the pictures she's sent through a linguistic device. Back to square one.
It has been pretty much block by block, sweeping for signs of this intruder, with bright red hair and a jacket lined with silver as their only clue, Lydia's gaze sweeping through the collected crowd of onlookers seeming to follow their every move. None of them have the appearance that has been sent through multiple hotlines, she gritting her teeth down so hard that it starts to feel like she is crunching down on bone when she opens and closes her mouth.
"Just another block!" she calls out behind her, pointing in the direction of the docks. They are in the farthest quadrant of the city, Sector Z, Zed, which is for the small inlet port that the Capitol has, to be able to travel downstream on luxury boats and vessels containing produce that cannot be airlifted across Panem, mainly to District 4 during particularly bad storms over the land if the radar is to catch anything.
There is a collection of warehouses located at the docks, their shingled roofs glimmering in the setting sun that Lydia sees in the far horizon, the orb sinking beneath the train station that leads out into the rest of Panem. Freedom is out there for someone stuck in that dome, she realizes, looking out at the bands of misery and brightness that commiserate together in the sky. Her second-in-command, a man whose name she has only heard once speaks to her over the comm, reminding her again to only speak through the earpieces, versus talking aloud.
A blush rises to her neck, in embarrassment, as the entire squadron – eight of them in total, Lydia realizing that she is the only woman in the group, if she were to look at her right arm and see the holograph displaying their names – can hear this announcement. Lydia faces them again, clenching tighter onto her gun as they approach the first warehouse.
They stand in front of the locked door, for it is one of the shifts in the week where there are absolutely no packages in and out of the Capitol by water, and for that, no reason for the place to be open. An all-clear is signaled in her helmet from another squadron searching the sewers closest and farthest from the presidential mansion, meaning a group is technically underneath her boots as Lydia paused in front of the door.
She kicks it in with a swiftness that would make Cain Passionia sing praises of her litheness from sunrise to sunset, dust sprouting in the doorway. Lydia holds out a hand signal to signify 'stop' for the other officers, as it is her duty, as the front line of defense, to check a room first by herself, and then the others can follow suit to disperse through the other buildings like normal. Her flashlight on her helmet turns on as she steps into the first warehouse.
Her sensors beep again in the dark… a figure should be just in front of her, but all that is there in front of her is a box, the lid half open. Lydia frowns, holding tighter onto her weapon, before lifting the lid. It falls against the other side of the crate, the box trembling, as she peeks in and gasps.
Lydia looks back in a mix of terror and confusion at seeing an avox sitting by themselves in the crate, a strip of tape thrown over their mouth, they looking up at her, eyes wide, as if they're screaming at her.
"What-" she starts to say, backing up from the box, hands shaking. Why… why is there a random avox stuffed in a crate? "Are you okay?" she asks, Lydia leaning over the crate. It is somewhat massive, almost as tall as she is, to fit a person in there.
The avox shakes their head back and forth rapidly in the dissent, eyes still wide, their body trembling. She realizes, as she looks further in, the helmet flashlight pouring over the scratched up wood, that the avox is naked, their arms tied to the sides of the crate, the gray jacket all of the sightings had been reporting in a bundle at their feet. As Lydia opens her mouth to ask where in the hell their pants went, the avox keeps on raising their head up above them, towards the ceiling.
She frowns, tilting her head to the side, until she looks up. Taped to an iron bar above her head is a note, she plucking it off of the bar. The paper smells of oil, as she brings it closer to her face to get a whiff, but the smell is even fouler than that of the desk, as if someone had urinated on it.
He made me do it…
Lydia reads it again and again, letting it fall down onto the floor. "Who made you do what? What did you do?" she asks him, and the avox starts jutting their head straight, to her right. The head Peacekeeper turns in that direction, her flashlight highlighting a non-descript backpack sitting there in the squalor and the dust. Lydia walks over to it, a whimpering sound coming from the Avox's throat. She rips the bag open, her mouth drying up instantaneously.
A black cube, as that is all Lydia is able to describe it as, sits in the backpack, a low ticking rising from the base of the sack. In a sequence of flashes, red numbers scrawl along the top of it, just underneath her gloved hand that grips it tight.
30… 29… 28…
Counting down.
Lydia stands straight up as if she had been struck by lightning, wrenching the backpack up, caught off guard by how heavy it is as she tries leeching it off of the floor. It weighs down in her hand as she races out of the warehouse entrance, her squadron starting to encircle around the door to see what is taking so long.
"Out of the way!" she screams, her throat going hoarse with desperation as she races towards the water. 9… 8… 7…
Lydia reaches the fence line, an iron wrought gate that needs a keycard to access the port, she slamming into it head on. One of the spikes embeds itself sharply in her gut, piercing through her uniform, but she does not register the pain as she vaults the backpack as hard as she can over the railing, towards the water.
She watches it soar and soar, the backpack still open as she never closed it back up. To her horror, the backpack turns upside down in the air, still a few feet from the water, the bomb starting to slide out.
It detonates in the middle of falling out, just about to touch the water. A deafening explosion rocks the device into thirds, shrapnel soaring everywhere, a fireball incinerating a nearby boat as a shockwave lifts Lydia off of her feet.
The Head Peacekeeper is flung backwards, as she bowls into the rest of her squadron, knocking them over as well, while sulfur and iodine and ash soak the water and soak the sky in a purged red.
17th: Cassiopeia Grey, 13, District 11 Female. Killed by Gemini Lennox of District 9 via electrocution by electrified whip. Submitted by ZeroIsANumber. The tributes that have died prior to 17th I have liked writing, but these kids from 17th onward I loved. Cassiopeia, my darling, I vastly enjoyed getting in your head and writing from your perspective, but it seems the big bad of the arena and what it stands for destroyed you and got in your head, and fury was your downfall. You were a delight from the very beginning, but I shall have to say goodbye for now.
16th: Gemini Lennox, 17, District 9 Male. Killed by Cassiopeia Grey of District 11 via bled out from multiple stab wounds. Submitted by Apple1230. Gemini is in contest for being one of the tributes to greatly stretch out my writing prowess whenever his perspective would come around, for sensory details are my life. However, he did bleed over some with Niklaus at points, and tragedy can only be drawn out for such a long period, cause I believe many people did not view him to be a fighter. His conflict with Camilla I feel didn't actually bear itself to also carry him in any longer, and with the Top 15 here, ladies and gentlemen, the real work begins, the real arena fight begins. Gemini, I will greatly miss you.
Tribute List (Boy - Girl)
District 1: Catalus Drachma [Submitted by Manny Siliezar]
District 2: Magnus Winterthorn [Submitted by Audmirable] / Portia Beninblade [Submitted by WhateverIsOpen]
District 3: Jasper Overheart [Submitted by ParanoidSylph] / Vesuvia Vocanova [Submitted by Platrium]
District 4: Orion Maythorpe [Submitted by jimster920] / Diana Kratovska [Submitted by Firedawn'd]
District 6: Porscha Watanabe [Submitted by thornehub]
District 7: Sylvan Adello [Submitted by In Writing]
District 8: Niklaus Peverell [Submitted by timesphobic] / Poem Cavalli [Submitted by LordShiro]
District 9: Camilla Rodriguez [Submitted by Reign of Winter]
District 10: Nokomis Yanaba [Submitted by Ripple237]
District 12: Ramses Boskov [Submitted by Guesttwelve] / Kai'sa Shadow [Submitted by Rune Whisperer]
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ALLIANCE LIST
The Mini Careers: Catalus Drachma (D1M), Magnus Winterthorn (D2M), Diana Kratovska (D4F)
Girl Power: Portia Beninblade (D2F), Camilla Rodriguez (D9F), Nokomis Yanaba (D10F)
Brutal Technology: Jasper Overheart (D3M), Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F)
Respect For the Principal: Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Ramses Boskov (D12M)
The Dancing Queens: Porscha Watanabe (D6F), Kai'sa Shadow (D12F)
Wax Poetica: Niklaus Peverell (D8M), Poem Cavalli (D8F)
Loners: Sylvan Adello (D7M)
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Kill Leaderboard:
Magnus Winterthorn (D2M): I
Portia Beninblade (D2F): I
Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F): I
Diana Kratovska (D4F): I
Porscha Watanabe (D6F): I
Gemini Lennox (D9M): I
Nokomis Yanaba (D10F): I
Cassiopeia Grey (D11F): I
Arena/Mutts: I
Yes, I know that 2AM EST updates are usually not ideal, but I couldn't help myself, I finally found some time to write and went it. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #26: Tricks From the Shallows, detailing Arena Night #4, which is seldom that I write nights, but when I do, they're bloody. Ramses still holds pain close to his heart, Cassiopeia went to a crossroad, Jasper finds comfort in a lie, Portia has a newfound goal... and Gemini faced a demon in the shape of a little girl. Capitol plot wise... well, self explanatory, for if I add any more, I just know I'll give it away, and I don't want to do that. We're in the final fifteen, top fifteen, and I wonder how many of you thought character XYZ wouldn't be here. I have a poll on my profile that I won't close till probably the Top 12 on who you think the Top 8 will/want to be, so make sure to vote on it!
Next chapter, #27: When the Rivers Run Silent, is going to detail Day #5 and it is going to be a "shorter chapter" probably one of the only ones beneath 10k, as it only has five povs; two of them are from Capitol characters beginning and ending the chapter, and the three tribute povs in between are closing out a round of arena tribute povs, so I am looking forward to that. Thank you guys for being understanding with my struggle at the end of 2020 into 2021... I'd never abandon this story, for what I want to do can't be summarized or discontinued. Please, please review and let me know what you thought, I'd appreciate it. Thorne and I are making progress with Red Silence intros, I promise. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm