Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with our first epilogue of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death! Woohoo! We, ladies and gentleman, still have a little bit more to go, but I can't believe it... we have crowned a victor! A lovely darling, Miss Poem Cavalli from District 8 by the wonderful LordShiro, who toppled the electric and brutal Vesuvia Vocanova from District Three submitted by the amazing Platrium. Our journey is far from over, as we have three epilogues of four povs each to get through, and there's a lot of ground to cover. To those who are familiar with my epilogues from Sheep Led to Slaughter as well as Bombs and Bullets... explosive things happen in these chapters, and I love them. We are hearing from Emrick, Poem herself as a newly crowned victor, Nyria, and Lydia. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter, #39: The Devil's Map!
"The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them, you are well aware of the conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?" ~ Umberto Ego
Emrick Israel: President of Panem P.O.V
The man cannot believe his eyes. There has been a lot in his lifetime that President Emrick Israel has been incapable of believing, such as when Cain bursts into his office, swearing and screaming about violence from the district that have befallen on their beautiful city, or when his wife says that their last attempted pregnancy is buried out in the backyard with a bonsai tree and a sparkling little bell placed over the gravestone.
That disbelief has been duplicated as he looks over at the sleeping body of Poem Cavalli, an upstart little girl from District Eight who volunteers without knowing her own good, who has ended up to be the last one to survive. A victor. "A victor…" Emrick whispers to himself, the title thick on his tongue. An epithet worth its weight in gold.
He is not the only person staring at her – he makes it sound creepy, but technically, he supposes, it is the truth, as the girl is sedated and bundled up in hospital clothing; gaunt fabrics that cover her body and pool off of the floor – which is why he whispers. He already knows they're all questioning his sanity, questioning if his mind is sound and that he's slipping into senile territory, as if a person who'd authorize and sign into law a death match concerning teenagers is anything but sane. Cain is sitting in the shadows, in the back of the screening room, while Lydia is sewn to Emrick's hip as always.
Nyria is off to the side, leaning against the wall, a cup of cold tea in her hands. Richmond hasn't arrived yet, which has Emrick constantly looking around the room every few moments, but he's grown to not care whether or not the man is on time anymore. The escort from District 8, Damien Paladine, a man that Emrick doesn't choose for the position – all of it had been on Lydia's shoulders – is also brooding near Cain. The man is dressed entirely in black, shivers sliding down the president's spine at the sight of him. He's always found the man to be more trouble than he is worth, simply from his stares alone.
All of them, his entire administration – he pushes Richmond out of the forefront of his mind – crowded in one room to witness this moment. Emrick feels as if he should be decked out in the garb one wears during a live birth, as if life were about to spring out of Poem's hospital bed the moment the girl opens his eyes. He didn't bet on her, didn't have any money on her winning – or as Cain calls it, when he kicks his chair halfway across the room in anger from losing his bets with the Gamemaker staff, an ensured guarantee of loss – but here she is, alive, and very much vulnerable.
"How will she take it, you think?" Nyria asks, taking a sip of her drink. The woman has changed out of her lab coat, keeping her hair down in a long ponytail, a confidence in her step; Emrick notices that she is no longer shirking away under Cain's pointed stares, he appreciating the burst of ego in her.
"What?" Lydia frowns, looking around the president. "How hideous her gown is?" And then, with a pause, that has his Head Peacekeeper snort, "Actually, it looks like something Poem would design, poor thing." Emrick has to hide the cracked smile he wants to make, but he can see Cain staring directly into his gaze through the one-way mirror. The president sees that Lydia is wringing her hands together, rolling her thumb over a golden band on her hand. Her wedding ring. Richmond has given her too many reminders.
"She's talking about being alive, you idiot," Cain seethes from his position, everyone in the room turning to look at him. Emrick glares, grunting a noncommittal noise in his throat. He has no idea what has come over his vice president in the last month as the Games approached, for he's always known the man to be caustic and aggressive, but this has risen to a level unheard of, unheeded in the man he always trusted as his closest confidant. Now… he's not sure. Cain leeches off of the wall, dusting his knees off. "We all saw what happened."
Lydia purses her lips at Cain, eyes bearing into his skull, but she doesn't say anything.
Emrick knows what happened. The girl from Three, Vesuvia Vocanova, the fan favorite, towering over Poem with a poisoned blade to her throat. And a sewing needle that comes from the sky, from a source he is not allowed to disclose, stabs her in the heart. The queen tossed down from up high, and there's trumpets sounding, Cain is screaming into a microphone, and Poem falls into unconsciousness.
Four days. It has been four days since Poem Cavalli has won the Hunger Games, and she's yet to wake up. Emrick fears there's a possibility she won't, but all the doctors and nurses, and Nyria with her medical knowledge assuage his fears. Poem's body needs rest, and she's under heavy drugs that sedate her, drugs that try to keep her thoughts at peace.
"Why would we want to do that?" Emrick asks, just the day before, when there are IVs being swapped out, decompressed bags that had been full of liquid thrown to crumbles beneath his feet.
"We can only imagine what nightmares or hallucinations she might be experiencing, Emrick," Nyria points out, as she sweeps the trash into the gutter. Emrick wrinkles his nose at the usage of his first name, for Nyria Kirchner has always been one to use proper titles… an element of her newfound confidence he is starting to dislike more and more.
"Well, whatever it is," Emrick says, crossing his arms, checking his watch on his right wrist, "I hope she wakes up and is happy to see us."
Lydia opens her mouth to respond, moving aside as Cain budges his way into the group, the man standing taller than everyone in the room. He stinks of graveyards, Emrick notes, sniffing the air disdainfully, puckering a sour face. The dead reek, they reek of mushrooms and soil and wet lawns, moisture clinging to their rotting bones.
The Head Peacekeeper doesn't get her statement out as Damien Paladine, on his precipice in the shadows starts to laugh. For the second time in the matter of a minute, everyone looks in the man's direction, Emrick furrowing his brow, frowning.
"You think she's going to be happy to see you?" Damien scowls, and although he makes his way out of the dark half of the viewing room, his body looks to be still covered in a darkness. All he needs is the veil, and Emrick would be looking at the masculine version of Cain's wife after they buried Raziel beneath the ground.
"Well, at the very least, me," Nyria crows, taking a sip of her tea.
"You," Damien snaps, whirling on his feet, his shoes squeaking against the shiny linoleum floor, turning his attention towards the mutts designer, "You designed a creature that nearly killed her and Catalus. You created a shadow wolf that bit into her shoulder and that almost caused Vesuvia to be the one in that bedroom!"
"Mr. Paladine, please," Cain holds a hand up, the anger in his eyes flushing down into a more aggrieved look, Emrick holding eye contact with his vice president. "You're supposed to be her rock."
"Well, she is going to be a crumbling piece of sandstone, then," Damien sneers, pointing his finger towards his protective. Poem's chest rises and falls shallowly, the steady trill of the heart rate monitor the only accompanying sound besides the squeaking of his shoes. "You all put her through hell. Who cares if she volunteered for this, without knowing what she signed up for," the escort rakes a hand through his hair. "I tried my hardest to tell her what would happen, and she wouldn't listen. Niklaus tried his hardest, and he eventually got to her," the man shakes his head, locking his jaw. "Sure, at the beginning of it all, she may have gotten egg on her face and we all loved to see it," Damien spits on the ground, Emrick moving away from the projectile, disgust on his face. "But she then saw her lover get beheaded. She had a girl hold a knife to her neck and almost kill her just hours before that. She plunged a knife into an innocent girl's neck just to be lying in that bed. You sent a wolf after her, a fire giant…" Damien looks at each and every one of their faces, a pang of guilt running through Emrick's chest.
He has every right to let the Games exist. This man, this escort, who is nothing more than a glorified sentry for the tributes… he's spitting out babble.
"So, I hope you guys can forgive her if she comes out of this experience being less than friendly," Damien finishes, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He's been pacing now, through his monologue, Emrick watching each stalk. It is Cain, however, that he can tell, is fuming, his body tight and tense.
Lydia steps forward some, a hand resting on the butt of her weapon. Emrick reaches out, gripping her wrist, tugging a bit of the Peacekeeper leather in his grasp. He grits his teeth together, flashing her a look. It isn't worth it, none of it is.
"Well," Nyria pauses, looking down at her cup of tea ruefully. "I am sorry you feel that way, Damien," she sniffs, and then downs the rest of her drink.
"I'd love to be in the room when she wakes up," Damien says, at face, straightening out the wrinkles in his outfit, moving his fingers to unbutton the links at his wrists, "But I don't think I'll be able to withstand the pageantry."
"Well, Mr. Paladine," Cain says, his voice bristling with electricity, Emrick switching hands from Lydia's arm to Cain's shoulder blades, "The door is that way. I suggest you use it, then, Damien," the vice president hisses. The escort from District 8 sits down in his heels, his body deflating, as if he had been a popped balloon. He nods in Emrick's direction, and heads for the door. Cain follows him out, cupping his hands around his mouth. "And you'll be hanged for that, Damien! Treasonous fuck!" he screams.
"Cain," Emrick cools, pulling Emrick back into the room. "Cain, that isn't necessary."
"He- he…" the vice president's face is beet red, spittle flying down his chin as his eyes encompass a burning rage. "He cannot get away with saying those things to us. We lead this nation! We designed these Games and he's going to crap on us about them?"
"Everyone copes differently, Cain," Emrick says, letting go off the man's shoulders.
Cain's eyes search the president's face, trying to find answers in the crook of his nose, or around the eyes, into the bags that burrow skin deep, billowing above slow moving blood vessels. Emrick can sense the heat radiating off of the vice president's body, Cain rubbing his face with his hands repeatedly, leaving irritated splotches of bright pink on his face.
Emrick cannot say he blames Damien's viewpoint. Not every escort hails from the Capitol; there are higher-ups with privilege that come from the districts, for one or two of them, and he cannot remember if Damien Paladine is a district-oriented escort, or one from the inner Capitol circles. Adriane Lantham, for instance, the name running over his tongue in a drop of vinegar, hails from the Capitol, if her hairdo is any indicator.
People are allowed to disagree with his policies, allowed to disagree and even hate the Games. He doesn't derive pleasure watching the skin melt off of Jasper Overheart's body, or the choking gasps that Magnus Winterthorn make in his last moments, but he is pleased by the meaning of said demises. These demises are the old giving way to the new, a reminder that rebellion is not allowed, and those that wish to bring down the Capitol – and Panem for that matter – will be met with sweet retribution.
It is those with Damien's opinions, if they are to go out into Panem and try to electrify an audience, then it is something he has to worry about, where he then must get his hands dirty. Emrick is used to it, having his hands soaked in blood, watching as Nathaniel Coin's family is executed and how they all die by the sword.
Or rather, Cain's vengeance, and Lydia holding a sniper rifle at the man's head.
The man from Thirteen, the mayor, who Emrick knew personally very well, he had always been of the bookish sort, a quiet man with a mind for chess games, games that Emrick lost frequently. Yet, when he looks into the man's eyes, the rebellion leader pitted before him on his knees, soaked in blood from various beatings, bruises dancing across his body like a field of blooming violets in a field… he doesn't see it.
He doesn't see the cruelty and the wickedness that Cain claims had happened to his family, the havoc that is Nathanial slicing Raziel Passionia's throat open and down to the bone. The same villainy that has the man from Thirteen forcibly get his way with Bella Passionia… how could a tender man who loved to say checkmate do all of those brutal things?
And the districts had followed the man's call, a battle cry for destruction of all Emrick had ever known.
What is he to do? Is he to allow these people who still hold these sentiments of fire and blood, bone and ash, corpses and destruction… do they still get to roam free while the others, those of his people who didn't call for violence and the end of everything they ever knew to live in fear?
The power had been taken out of his hands at one point, and Emrick is faced with a cascading waterfall of crimson red in front of him, he having to walk through the nastiness that leaves stains on his skin and burns like hell. He trudges into the tide for there is nothing else to do. The people expect an answer.
The people he saved deserved better. They deserved blood and vengeance, their own call for fire and corpses and dust and ash and Emrick Israel is more than willing to deliver.
"Don't let his words get to you," Emrick says, leaning forward, pressing his palms against the glass, smudging his forehead on the clear surface. "All of us in this room know why the Games exist and why we use them. We know what their purpose is for, and what purpose it gives us."
Lydia nods, sheathing her weapon again, Cain turning away from the group to rub at his brow. Nyria stands in her corner, silently, running her finger around the rim of her saucer.
Emrick blinks away tears of frustration, as the beeps and trills continue, and then, as if a baby chick had been born, in the center of the room, in the hospital, he sees it. Poem Cavalli, Panem's first ever victor, opens her eyes.
A grin stretches on the president's face from ear to ear.
"She's awake," he says.
Poem Cavalli: Victor of the 1st Hunger Games P.O.V
Poem Cavalli does not believe in hell. She doesn't believe in heaven, either, for any of the theologians in Panem who'd wish to hunt her down and demand she take a stance on some otherworldly persona. In the stasis between life and death, where shadows do not represent what they used to, and to where she can feel the tangible forces of either side tugging on her arms and hair, pulling her down to the ends of the earth, Poem does believe that. A purgatory of sorts, a waiting room, perhaps, but Poem does not know who she'll find or meet when she's there.
Is this purgatory? She could hear voices, for a duration of time that she is incapable of expressing, floating on the edges of the blackness, this deep dark pit that is threatening to swallow her whole, swallow her until nothing but the very essence of her soul remains, and even then, Poem is not so certain she knows what her soul is any longer. She used to believe her inner persona would be one of flowers and colorful fabrics, golden trails of light that fall atop her head and spiral around her like wings on a seraph. Now, Poem expects her body to be covered in thorns, dark twisted pieces of branch and cedar, bone mashed into grotesque shapes, like smelted iron that has been curved and brought to heel under the force of man.
Her body feels like it has been soaked in a vat of acid, temperatures all over that range from the coldness at her fingertips, to the drips of sweat that cascade down her forehead and pool in her sternum, a puddle of discomfort as Poem maneuvers herself on the mattress. She believes it to be a mattress, for nothing exists in the world that is this soft unlike a Capitol bed, where even her feather bed is more rough, no matter how hard her mother swears she designed the bed herself.
"You design clothes, Mom," Poem tells her, trying to hide the derision in her voice, gaze flickering over her mother's workbench of pure lunacy, things thrown haphazardly together than not even Poem would wear, but she puts on the clothes anyway to dance out in the backyard to make Anya Cavalli happy. "Not mattresses."
Her mother pucks her lips, frowning. "I can do anything I want to. If I want to sew mattresses together, who's to stop me, Poem?"
Her mother has a point, and Poem feels like an ass. It is, however, what her mother says that gets Poem's head turning. She can do anything she wants to, and there's no one to stop her. The dream, the vision to make clothes for the First Lady of Panem, as Poem believes expertly that Ida Israel is going to need pockets of sunshine in her life, so she volunteers herself for the slaughter without even realizing… stupid, girl!
She can do anything she wants to, Poem realizes, such as deciding whether or not it'd be a good idea to bolt for the open door that has no one standing in front of it, Poem's eyes darting to the exit. She has to look past the greying head of Emrick Israel, and his other assorted members of his administration, she seeing the vice president stare at her out of the corner of her gaze.
They awake her, the assembled group of four adults in front of her, staring at her, waiting for her to move, but Poem is unsure what it is they're going to even want with her. The last she can remember is a cold knife against her throat, some sort of green goop dripping off of the tip of the blade, the smell stinking of piss and fear and terror that has Poem close her eyes. Vesuvia's monologuing above her, and everything hurts, for Poem knows she's not going to make it soon with the stab wound in her side.
She works the needle into her grasp shortly after getting to the top of the tower before Vesuvia did, who spends her time ensuring that Poem knows her death is coming… there is sense of relief in her body listening to the girl from Three scream in fright as she plummets to her death out of the window of the tower, the beautiful needle protruding from Vesuvia's heart.
She fell unconscious after that, and Poem still cannot tell if she is dead or not. Her body doesn't ache anymore, and the wound in her side-
Poem runs a hand up along the side of her shirt, pressing her fingers against where the stab wound would be. She gasps in shock, eyes widening, getting the attention of the president and the brunette lady on his left – Poem believes she recognizes the woman to be the Head Peacekeeper for the Capitol, Lydia… something, who really needs a change in wardrobe if she is allowed to be frank – towards her.
"What?" Poem asks, her skin tingling. There… there's nothing there. The wound is gone, Poem feeling the stitching of skin and some rough bumps, her fingers rubbing across a thick black strip that's pressed into her skin. She lifts her shirt up, revealing that it is a mess of stitches and blackened pieces of tape. "Where's the wound?" Poem lifts her gaze up to the Capitolites. "Vesuvia stabbed me in the side, didn't she? And the wolf bite on my shoulder…" her voice drops, she rubbing her other hand across the top of her shoulder. Nothing there either.
The tall woman in the back of the group, with her tanned skin and dark hair pulled back into a taut ponytail, advances towards the table that Poem is sat at. The room they're in is non-descript, simple and reflecting underneath her feet, to a pale ceiling above her head. The table is small, with just two chairs, one for her and the president, who is checking his watch every few moments or so.
"We accelerated the healing process for your injuries, Poem," the woman tells her, Poem realizing that she is holding a clipboard, a ball point pen clutched between slender fingers. "Nyria Kirchner, mutts designer," she says, extending a hand out towards the girl.
She simply looks at it, a frown on her face. A… mutts designer? Poem recalls the name being used for the warfare in the districts. Jabberjays and tracker jackets. Panthers with glimmering oceanic blue fur, spiders that could spit acid that'd melt the skin off of someone's face.
"You…" Poem whispers, zeroing in on this woman, this Nyria… "You designed those gods, didn't you?" She only got to see one of them, but how could she forget Surt standing tall above her, with its flaming sword and foul odorous stench that rose from the body. How could she forget seeing Catalus nearly die by its hand?
Nyria smiles, clutching the clipboard tighter to her body. "Yes, Poem, I did," and the girl goes to open her mouth, but the woman raises the pen in the air. "The healing machine we used to close up the wounds and to get you back to a fighting shape is a process that required you to be asleep, which is why you were asleep for four days," she writes something down on the clipboard, oblivious to how Poem sits back in her chair, lips parting in disbelief. Four days? Four days! "And unfortunately, we would've let you rest, but there's a lot ahead of us for you and the administration to do."
Poem's face must've held a puzzled look, for the vice president, the illustrious Cain Passionia – she can read the hate in the man's eyes, a smoldering, volcanic rage and hatred for all that lives and breathes; she saw a similar rage in Magnus's eyes before he slaughtered Camilla, and Vesuvia smelled of that raw anger – clucks his tongue, pushing at his eyebrows. "You have a lot of work to do, Miss Cavalli," his tone is robotic, colder, as if she weren't human like the rest of them. "And we can't waste any more time. Which is why…" and the man's voice trails off, he looking towards the president.
The girl makes eye contact with the president, Emrick Israel smiling wryly at her, the wings of gray on the side of his head looking ever more prominent. She remembers staring at him from below, he on the balcony, she on her chariot, during the tribute parade when- when there had been twenty-three other living, breathing bodies next to her. And now all of them are…
"Gone," Poem croaks to herself, in her head, trying to keep the rasp level in her throat, stemming the tears from spilling down her face with a nailed hand digging into her side.
Emrick clears his throat, sitting forward, crossing his hands together. "Are you aware, Miss Cavalli, where you are right now? What you've just gone through? What you've managed to accomplish?"
Poem frowns, dropping her gaze. The man has stare that pierces right through her, as if there were a wrong answer to his question. There are twenty-three other corpses for her to be sitting where she is now, with all of these eyes on her. The only thing Poem ever wanted is attention as she grows up, feeling herself get taller than taller, as her body develops and all the boys she ever meets have their gazes drop lower and lower… yet, now she has all of the attention in the world, and the only thing she wants to do is go and hide.
"No, I… I don't," Poem blinks, shivering, hugging her body tight. Everyone is acting so… normal around her, as if there is nothing not normal to what has happened. Poem expected her death at the top of the tower, the immense pain that surges down her body paling in comparison to the fact that she believes she's failed someone; Catalus and Niklaus and Porscha and Camilla and Nokomis… she's failed all of them by having this brute kill her, even if Vesuvia's cannon is to fire before hers.
Emrick keeps the wry smile on his face. "You're a victor, Poem," the man leans forward, reaching out to press his hands atop hers. Poem withdraws her hands instantly, placing them in her lap, the president's face falling. "You are the country's first victor of the first ever games," Emrick continues on speaking, as he rights himself back into a more relaxed position, arms mirroring hers. "And it is something you should be very proud of."
All Poem is proud of is the fact that she hasn't burst into tears yet. Her grittiness is hidden behind some shelf, a locked away piece of machinery that only comes to life if she were to fall on her knees and beg for it to sputter to life again.
"Being a victor," Nyria continues, the woman with the clipboard, her face a muddled expression of panic and concern, and a lot of confusion by her eyebrows bridge together, for Poem is simply staring at the table, at her hands, the hands that committed so many foul atrocities, blinking only in response to the words spoken at her. "You're now a celebrity, Poem," and the girl from District 8 looks the woman in the eyes. Nyria bulks her tongue against the side of her mouth but doesn't look away. There a thousand years loaded in her stare. "However, in the context of the Games, it means you have a bigger role to play."
Poem switches her gaze to look at the Head Peacekeeper, Lydia, who has withdrawn herself to the corner of the room, the older woman looking more engrossed with the gaudy curtains that watching the proceedings happening at the table in front of her. Nyria pauses once more, for Poem just blinks again. Cain pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing exasperatedly.
"Poem Cavalli," the man says, authoritative, thunder crackling along his vocal cords, and Poem's lips twitch at the man's voice. He is the man who screamed at all of them to leap into action at the start of the Games; she remembers what it felt like to have the cold plate pressed against her cheek, silencing and soothing her cries of terror and fear. "You are the first victor of the Hunger Games. The 2nd Hunger Games are well under way in planning, and the administration has been looking far out into the 3rd and so on and so forth," the vice president places a hand on the back of Emrick's chair, almost as if he were to pull down and bring the president with him. "You are going to be what we call a mentor, to the tributes that are selected or choose to volunteer like you did, from District 8," Cain places both hands on the table. "Do you even hear what we're telling you, Poem?" the girl simply looks on blankly.
This is her humiliation, her fight has led her to be a lapdog, as poem fully hears what they're saying, making the ever active choice to not engage. She knows what the administration did; she saw the corpses, she saw the burnt bodies, she watched the heads roll and the sliced open tongues, and all of the pain and suffering caused by Emrick Israel, and his administration is being sent at her like bottled lightning.
She knows she cannot refuse them.
Cain swears a string of curse words in rapid succession, Emrick chastising the other man, but the vice president seems to be too enraged to care, wiping his hands through his hair. "Forget it. She's hopeless, Emrick," he starts to stalk out of the room. "You deal with her!" he barks.
The vice president thunders out of the room, Poem staring dead ahead. Her fingers subconsciously form a fist, as if the needle were still in her hand, as if she still had some semblance of power left.
Emrick stutters an open mouthed gasp, like a dying fish, standing upright from the table. He nods his head at Poem, but she doesn't return the gesture. She wants to go back to sleep. At least then she could pretend Niklaus is alive, at least in the shadows she can give Catalus the kiss he's always wanted… at least in the world where no one is physically there she can beg Camilla for forgiveness.
Lydia follows the two men out of the room, but by how Cain's voice carries down the hallway, he is not trying to stay silent.
"We have a catatonic dolt on our team now, Emrick!" Cain can be heard shouting. "I wanted the Three girl! You know I wanted Vesuvia instead of Poem!"
"Cain!" Lydia's voice comes from that, chiding, admonishing, Poem would dare to describe it as shocked. "That girl has been through a lot," and then, softer, much softer, "The least we could do is be patient. We're hitting her with a lot at once, and…"
The rest of it is inane babble to her, Poem wiping away the dredges of sleep from her eyes. Only Nyria remains in the room, the woman writing something else down on her clipboard, Poem seeing out of the corner of her eye how the woman seems to dip her hands into her pocket for just a matter of seconds ever so often, not staying for long.
Her heels echo on the floor, Nyria walking over to Poem, crouching down low to her.
"I don't blame you," she whispers, resting a hand on the arm of the chair, but not on Poem. "I understand what you're-"
"How can you?" Poem turns her gaze on the mutts designer, hissing lowly. "How the hell can you understand what I am going through right now?"
Nyria locks her jaw, keeping the frown on her face. Instead of speaking, however, Poem watches her dig into her pockets again, this time seemingly rummaging for something. Poem goes to turn away, but the woman has her hands clenching her wrist tight enough that she can't turn.
Something falls into Poem's grip, the girl looking over at the object placed between her fingers, a light gasp rising from her throat.
"From one district citizen to another," Nyria keeps her voice low, head leaned in near to where only Poem can hear the woman speaking, "I'd advise you to keep this close," she says. "Don't trust a soul here. You're now stuck in a dangerous place, Poem Cavalli."
Nyria stands upright, as if someone had placed a thumbtack between her shoulder blades and makes for the hallway where the other three adults are still conversing.
Poem watches her go, blinking away more of the tiredness in her veins, and then looks down at her hand.
Down at the sponsor gift that saved her life.
Poem stares at the needle clenched in her hands, its tip still dyed a putrid crimson in Vesuvia Vocanova's blood.
Nyria Kirchner: Mutts Designer P.O.V
Being in the hospital all morning, as well as multiple times over the duration of the last four days while Poem Cavalli sleeps, Nyria Kircher is none more happier than when she steps into her domain of gadgets, gizmos, and technological devices that pile high towards the ceiling. Or, in laments terms, since not every Capitolite had an understanding of the digital sphere – "Please," Nyria snorts to herself, "90% of Capitolites wouldn't be able to find their way out of a paper bag." – her office in the Gamemaker Center.
Since not every person hired in the administration works in her department, which would be the mutations, the only people with access to her office are herself, naturally, Cain, again naturally, Lydia, and Emrick. She's alone, however, for the moment, as Nyria shrugs her lab coat onto her shoulders, walking over to her leftover cup of cold tea sitting in the corner. She's started drinking cold drinks while she works, as it has engaged her memory muscles in a more productive way, her body focused on shivering, while her brain is focused on engaging with the tasks at hand.
The only people who have been in her office, however, for the last few months have been Cain and herself, Nyria shrugging a set of files aside off of her desk and into a filing cabinet, flickering on a light that covers her office in a golden sort of glow.
"Gold for greatness," Nyria hums to herself, a little motto that is her lifeblood in the administration where the deck is stacked against her. She doesn't blame anyone, whether it be Emrick or Richmond or Lydia – she doesn't include Cain, cause she already knows that the only two people the man can stand is himself and his reflection – that when she joins, she's coming into the world as a stranger, where everyone else had already known each other and established a rapport with everyone in their inner circles.
"And then I came waltzing in," Nyria says sardonically to herself, taking a sip of her cold tea, "And screwed everything up." She dyed her hair various colors to fit in at first, started wearing contacts that'd turn her eyes in her a liquidous silver… anything to make her look like those that her new business partners surrounded themselves with, the same gangs of folks that Nyria grew up detesting back home.
She felt like an island with storms raging on all sides, waves bombarding her shores, brutal raids and midnight torments burning down all the palm trees, and it is until Nyria's sixth month in the Capitol does she start to understand how things work.
Nyria supposes it is that fact that she sees a drowning sailor in Poem Cavalli that has her approach the girl during their disastrous meeting. She is like all the others – Nyria that is – at first, when the girl volunteers seemingly out of the blue without a care in the world, a dumb expression on her face, and there's all the stories that swamp the mystery that is Poem Cavalli, for none of them know why the girl did what she did until Richmond Anvil shoves a microphone in her face… she's like all the other onlookers who think Poem Cavalli is ridiculous.
But as time goes on, and it is not something Nyria can say she came to terms with a precise moment, she sees herself in the girl. It isn't when Niklaus's decapitated head falls into the grass by Orion's strongarm. It isn't when Poem breaks her own boundaries and slices Nokomis's jugular open. It isn't even just more than ninety-six hours ago when Vesuvia tumbles out of the tower… it isn't any of those moments that everyone expects, when Nyria sees herself in Poem Cavalli.
It is more so what the girl represents, deep down, the sparkle she sees in Poem's eyes when the girl takes the stage for her interview that ends in disaster and broken dreams. Nyria knows she looked just like Poem when she arrives off of one of the Capitol's trains, a wide smile on her face, eyes sparkling with excitement and vivacity, as she's ventured into the land of opportunity. The land that would not chew her up and spit her out.
It certainly tried, the Capitol being a different beast altogether than what Nyria had ever been used to, where there were even more dissenters than before in the scientific fields she had spent her entire life in; numbers didn't add to what Nyria knew they could, where the men in their lab coats in the gilded city looked down at her, glasses sloped to the bridge of their noses, sneering over their clipboards.
Nyria does not want that to be Poem's fate; she's poured so much fight into simply surviving, two weeks of hell that will end up sitting with her for as long as she lives… having her every step questioned by the people who claim to be her saviors.
It is a lion's den.
Nyria knows that giving Poem the needle is an action that she hasn't pathed out all the risks of yet. It might be taking too far of a leap forward, but there must be some way for the girl to trust her. She needs a friend; Nyria knows that out of everyone in the administration's inner circle, she is the only one who will suffice. Cain doesn't want Poem, he wanted the girl from Three, but she's rotting in a wooden box that is on its way back to District Three where there'll be no one to bury her as the Vocanova name has completely died out. Emrick is the very man who turns to his vice president for the cruelty that has been bestowed onto Poem's soul… and Lydia…
Nyria clutches her second cup of cold tea close to her chest, the porcelain cool to the skin as she holds it up underneath her nose to take a whiff of jasmine. Lydia, oh Lydia, Nyria laments to herself. The older woman is fighting a battle of the mind, one that Nyria can see whenever the Head Peacekeeper walks into the room, her brow furrowed, gaze narrowed in, searching for enemies in the cold darkness. Fighting a war on her lonesome, though Nyria isn't sure what that war is.
She's too loyal to Panem, after all. She's the one who bombed District Thirteen without batting an eye, the one who brought the guillotine blade down upon the Coin dynasty without losing a wink of sleep… Nyria likes the woman, but she sold her soul long ago.
"It's just me," Nyria whispers to herself, scratching at the back of her head. She sets her tea cup down on the desk, picking up the potted plant instead that is resting alongside the wall. It's leaves are synthetic to the touch, but also… real, as well, in a way Nyria has no idea how to describe. "I'm the only one who can save Poem from this place," she puts the plant back in its location. There's one on her desk, as well as one in Cain's office above ground, for him to look at, for him to take champion over.
He calls it the Replicant Project, live organisms – so far it has only worked with plants and the like, bugs, even a pebble, which leaves Nyria mystified beyond her years – duplicated into something more carbon-based. Less human, Nyria classifies it. It fascinates her, but there's a feeling of terror she leaves undisclosed in case Cain were to ever ask it of her. It is a project they've received funding for, and in between sessions on planning for the second year of the Hunger Games, or between her brainstorming mutations ideas for the next arena, they're down in her office scouring through files, fliting through genetic codes of thousands of different organisms, though nothing is cinching at them like the bonsai plant they've managed to recreate.
The missive is lost on her, Nyria frowning, walking over to the machine in the corner of the room, it completely swallowed by the shadows. It is nothing more than an incubator pod, like one that would exist in hospitals for newborn babies, other smaller tubes sticking out of the sides and funneling into the floor, a network of wires and plastic tubing running underneath Nyria's feet, connecting to the mainstay computer on the other side of the Gamemaker Center.
Caught up in the science of it all, Nyria no longer looks at the device with a fondness for creation, or the desire to play like a god. It is all in Cain's head, this sense of godliness, and it is another glint in the newly crowned victor's eyes that Nyria recognizes as well. This sense of elevation, status being more than an epithet on a tombstone… Poem Cavalli has a lot to learn, and if she's brought down by the wrong voices, brought into the hands of more sinister influences… the mutts designer shudders, the thought too unbearable to speak.
Nyria debates keeping the sewing needle for herself, it having been sharp to a point beyond what is normal for the item, from a sponsor source that Nyria only knows to be extremely rich and one of the upper artisans in the Capitol; Cain and Emrick mainly dealt with the dealings, with the wiring of money, and Nyria's only task is to ensure that it wouldn't destroy anything in the arena, in which the weapon didn't. The man also provided – at least, Nyria believes it is a man, with the initials being F. F. on the calling card – Magnus's photonic sword, and the box of weapons given to him, Catalus Drachma, and Diana Kratovska.
She doesn't trust the man, without even having met them. Nyria knows she's enabled an entire year of suffering and cruelty, where her designs devour the girl from Seven without a second thought, or the terror plastered on Diana's eyes as Fenrir bites her into shoulder, or even the flickering moments of doubt that cross Vesuvia's face when she stares Surt down with a glare that wavers and crumbles under the might of the beast's flaming sword…
Nyria knows the world looks at her as a villain, the districts wishing for her death, where her mind is wasted in the Capitol, designing aardvark creations that the heavens and all the hells were not meant to witness… how one from the districts could ever ally themselves with the thoughts of the Capitol. If she knew this is where she'd end up, she would've never done it, never would have gotten off of the train.
"And Poem Cavalli is my redemption," Nyria whispers lowly, as if there were Avoxes hiding in the corners of the room. Her purpose will not sway any longer; she'll remain resolute.
In the dark, Nyria turns on the incubator, it flaring to life, washing her skin in a bluish glow, a grim line placed on her face.
The time of playing science can wait for later. There is work to be done.
Lydia Wickervein: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V
"So how did the afternoon with our new victor go?" Richmond's sweet voice can be heard over her shoulder, as Lydia finishes brushing her teeth, spitting into the sink, watching the white paste go down the drain. The Head Peacekeeper ties her hair back into a ponytail, knotting a hair tie over her fingers, working stealthily as she twists in the mirror. Her husband is spotted in the doorway, he stripped down to just his underwear, a blush rising on Lydia's face. Even for all the years she's been in love with the man, when he sweeps her off of her feet with a warm mocha and a rose clenched between his teeth, seeing him in any state of undress causes her to become tongue-tied.
Despite Richmond's body being on display in the doorway, with his skin half bathed in the warm light of the bathroom, the other in the secluded shadows of their bedroom, Lydia catches on his choice of words. "Her name is Poem, Richie," she says, fluffing her ponytail up, he making a face at the nickname, as Lydia turns around to look at her reflection in the mirror. Then, with a pause, as she wipes off the makeup on her face – it never makes sense to Lydia in that she has to wear makeup to work, when she's stuffed in a leather suit all day, with a helmet on her head, where no one is going to ever see her face – with a wet wipe. "And it went as well as I expected," Lydia continues on speaking, crumbling up the wipe and throwing it in the trash after one cheek is completely clean.
She turns the faucet on again to wet the next napkin for the other cheek. Richmond stretches in the doorway, arching his back, letting out a groan as his body settles. "Didn't go well, did it?" he asks her, stepping fully into the bathroom, the lights curving shadows over his lean muscles, accentuating his biceps.
Lydia smirks at him in the mirror. "No," she nods her head, starting on the other half of her face. "She was way too shellshocked and upset to be given all sorts of new responsibilities," the Head Peacekeeper finishes, throwing away the napkin, turning the faucet off. Richmond wants to redo the bathroom, but she likes it, the ivory and gold and pale white… he wishes to switch to something akin to burgundy, maybe even a deep red, but Lydia hates the choice. She's seen too much red to last a thousand lifetimes at this point. "So instead we had more of Cain yelling, Emrick looking displeased but not saying anything, and Nyria trying to pick up the pieces…"
She expects Poem Cavalli to be unresponsive, for sure, with having her shoulder torn out by a wolf bite in the form of a shadow, and not to mention the stab wound against her side, or the other various cuts and bruises and bleeding spots that Vesuvia marks her with, let alone the other wounds she had compiled in the other ten days in the arena. However, with the husk that is the girl sitting in front of her, when just three days prior, when her husband shoves a camera in her face, that liveliness that is all but snuffed out like one of Adriane's cigarettes… Lydia cannot say she isn't surprised.
"Perhaps I could've helped if I was allowed to be there," Richmond leans up against the side of the shower, crossing his arms over his chest, a hint of bitterness washing over his words.
Lydia raises an eyebrow at him, turning around, a cotton pad resting between her fingers for the eyeshadow and eyeliner. "You?" she asks, he nodding at her words. "Richmond, I hate to break it to you, but you might have been the person Poem would've wished to see least of all," Lydia walks up to him, resting a hand on his shoulder, smiling warmly. "Just because I love seeing you every day, doesn't mean everyone else in Panem does, you know," which elicits a glare from Richmond in her direction. "You were the one on national television in front of the entire nation to bring the girl down to her knees in a screaming fit, you know," Lydia says, as she starts wiping off her eye makeup.
Richmond falls quiet, interested in the metallic glowing bits of their shower case, he sighing heavily before then turning out of the bathroom. Lydia watches him slink back into the bedroom, keeping her breathing level. There's been a growing disconnect between the two of them, she sensing it whenever they have dinner, and the very action of passing her husband the salt is as if she were holding the very ten commandments in her grasp, and if she were to drop the salt shaker, the very foundations of Panem would crack.
They appear in other ways as well, in a more positive light, over the flickering wisp of a candle that washes Richmond's smiling face in an amber glow that makes him look positively fetching. The way he holds her hand in the dark as they lie in bed, Lydia curling closer to her husband, for he's the one who makes her feel safe, when it is her job during the day to ensure Panem is safe instead. When the sun sinks beneath the sky, and she peels the leather off of her body, it is almost a naturalistic feeling to have her arms wrapped around his waist, he humming lullabies into her hair.
She could've taken his help however, even if it wasn't with dealing with Poem, in the arguments that spawn in the hallway with the newly crowned victor sitting inside the waiting room, Cain's face the color of Nyria's nail polish in how the Capitol is going to look like a joke now because they have a catatonic girl who won't engage in her duties.
Lydia doesn't know why the man isn't understanding the notion that those in warfare need a time to recollect themselves, but it hits her in the face that the vice president has never actually put his life on the line or stuck his neck out for a blade to go swinging towards it. Lydia never really left the Capitol's frontlines, fighting off of the rebels from One and Two that'd create large forces, bolstered by Five's fighter jets that'd streak over the presidential mansion in suicidal attacks that would leave the Capitol streets covered in scorch marks. There are occasions, however, that do draw her out into the districts, such as getting her arm speared open by a palm tree frond whittled down into a javelin that is thrust at her from across a beach shoot-out…
In the middle of a battle, there are zero chances for one to "recollect" themselves, and in Poem Cavalli's case, she imagines that the girl is never going to be able to return to the happy-go-lucky idealism and childishness that is displayed at the reapings. Lydia wouldn't blame her.
Lydia finishes wiping the makeup off of her face, her main Peacekeeper uniform hung up in the closet after being washed and dried. It is one of the only times she lets the avox crew that is positioned to take care of her, and Richmond do their jobs, she completely swamped up in the work of protecting Poem's hospital room, or the mansion, or the train stations, not to mention all of her detective work; there is simply no time.
Getting under the bedsheets with a sweaty body is not something Lydia wants to do, but she does not have the energy to shower. Tomorrow is to be another day, another attempt at getting Poem Cavalli on board with understanding what it means to be a victor, and it only has the Head Peacekeeper shake her head with sorrow behind every movement.
"You're a little quiet," Richmond notes, he holding onto his journal by his bedside. His wedding band glints gold in the flickering lights above their bed, he resting a hand atop Lydia's left, as she lays in bed, her gaze pointed up at the ceiling, watching the fan spin and spin and spin and spin and spin… "Something bothering you?"
Lydia quirks a brow in his direction, shifting her head some on the pillow to make eye contact with him. At night, when Richmond cannot sleep, and when he has a large day ahead of him – tomorrow is a press conference with the Capitol, and the public on the first ever victor of the Hunger Games being alive and well and awake, but Lydia thinks only the last adjective of the three suits the girl's condition – he journals. It isn't his thoughts of what he'll be speaking on camera, but his own musings, whatever they may be. She's never asked to see them, as they are something that is wholly his, and only his; she wouldn't infringe on his privacy.
"If I think about it, I'll just get upset," she says, furrowing her brow, focusing on the color of Richmond's eyes in the dark versus the pointed stare he is giving her in the blackness of their bedroom.
"You can tell me anything in here, Lydia," Richmond curls his hand around hers, tugging her arm over to his chest where she can feel his heartbeat thrumming under his skin. A constant pulse, a lifeforce that Lydia relies on to tell her where she is, in what space she occupies. "We don't hide secrets from one another. I love you, and whatever is upsetting you…"
She shuts him up with a kiss, closing her eyes as he places his right hand up against her face. His skin is warm to the touch, she shivering lightly, curling her toes. All she secrets she keeps from him, where she cannot get the name of Raphael Passion out of her head, or Raziel's toothy grin, or Cain's glare in the dark, or of the notes that are shredded up to bits in her dresser with bomb threats and talks of treason that settle into Lydia's heart like mortars.
Lydia lets Richmond brush a lock of hair out of her eyes before they part from the kiss, she finding the crook of his nose in the shadows, his handsomeness a refuge for the outside world to never find again.
"Between what Emrick and Cain want to do," Lydia whispers, despite knowing that her room is completely safe, for she would've been the one authorizing bugs in the walls if she viewed herself as a political enemy, "They're going to tear Poem in half." Richmond closes his journal, setting it down on the nightstand by his side of the bed. 'She isn't just going to be a victor, Richmond. She isn't just leaving the Games behind her now that she's won…"
"What do you mean, Lydia?" Richmond frowns, keeping his hand on the side of her face.
"Cain calls it mentorship," Lydia bites down on her tongue. The vice president's contributions to society are getting worse and worse, she scathing each thought the man makes with the stupid look of brightness on his face, as if he really were the smartest person in the room. "Every year Poem will be dragged back here to relive her experiences, to act as guides to whomever else comes from Eight…" she runs her right hand down her stomach, placing it over the wound from the spiked gate that had embedded into her skin. "And not just her, but every other victor who ever wins the Games will be going through the same experiences…" she whispers, bringing her gaze back up to Richmond's, which is softening by the syllable. "Haven't these kids gone through enough? Why do we have to torment them further? Haven't we done enough?" she asks, her voice impossibly quiet.
Richmond furrows his brow, going to say something, but that is interrupted and cast over by the raised voices that rise from outside their bedroom door.
Both of their gazes snap towards it, Lydia about to throw off the covers – the voices sound masculine, and also unfamiliar, so it is not Cain Passionia coming to give yet another rant at midnight in which that is his specialty – when the doors to their bedroom fly open. The Head Peacekeeper leaps out of bed, grabbing her gun which sits right by her bedside table.
"Don't move!" she screams, eyes adjusting to the flash of light. Richmond yelps in fright, leaping out of bed as well, but over to the back wall. By his bedside there is a button – Lydia hasn't ever needed it before, but she believes it's a red color – that alerts the nearest Peacekeeper substation to rush to their location, Richmond jamming his fingers down on the button repeatedly, his eyes darting between his wife and the shadowed stranger in the doorway.
The figure holds their hands up in the air, coming to a dead stop in the middle of the bedroom, Lydia clenching her jaw. More raised voices, which are shouting now, get closer and closer, the familiar whiteness of a Peacekeeper uniform darting into view. Lydia recognizes the man, who has his helmet off, to be the soldier stationed at their front door on their night shift.
"Sir!" the soldier barks, "I was going to let you in when I had their permission!" the Peacekeeper advances on the figure.
Lydia turns the bedroom light on near her, the switch flicking up, and the room is bathed in a sheen of bright light. A man stands in the center of the room, his hands up, sweat pooling down the man's face. Lydia pauses, keeping her gun trained on him, but she doesn't clench her fingers around the trigger.
"Don't shoot!" the man exclaims, his eyes wide, his body trembling as if he had ran a marathon. There's a piece of paper clenched in his hands, but Lydia cannot make out any of the writing on it.
"Richmond, stop pressing the button," Lydia hisses at her husband, he having been incessantly jamming his fingers onto the alert notification, a groan settling in her stomach at the idea that every Peacekeeper substation in a five mile radius is alerted to a confrontation happening at the Anvil-Wickervein residence. Richmond stands upright at her words, a look of fear on his face. Then, to the stranger in their bedroom, as the other Peacekeeper radios in for backup of an intruder, Lydia juts her head in his direction. "Sir, you have any idea what time it is? If there's a crime you need to report-"
"No crime," the man says, Lydia realizing that his eyes are the most sparkling color of blue she's ever seen, his hair pitch black as if he laid down in an oil slick before stepping into her house. "But I need to talk to you."
"Sir, it's after midnight, and I am not the one who deals with-" Lydia starts to say, keeping her tone calm, though her heartbeat begins to accelerate in her chest. He looks familiar, but Lydia swears she's never seen-
He's a spitting image of Cain Passionia, and when she sees the man smile, she sees Raziel Passionia in the grin.
"Raphael Passion," the man interrupts her, lowering his hands down from the elevated position of surrender.
Lydia nearly staggers back against the nightstand. "What?" she hisses, but she doesn't dare drop her weapon. "How do you know that name?"
Richmond simply makes a squeaking noise in the corner of the bedroom, but all Lydia hears is the roar of blood in her ears, and her heartbeat slamming against her chest. That name… the name she saw on the email in Cain's office.
"You wanted to know who Raphael Passion was?" the man says, his voice strong, full of timbre. Lydia locks eye contact with the man, an unmistakable feel of sorrow penetrating her soul from his gaze. "He was my son. I'm his father."
Lydia Wickervein drops her weapon.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #39: The Devil's Map, focused on Epilogue #1 of our Liberty ending... where, oh yes, questions have been risen, the plot thickens, and I am not good at providing answers, am I? Emrick questions a past choice, Poem is brought up to speed in her first look after being in the arena, Nyria makes a new missive for herself, and Lydia somehow is dragged deeper into this investigation of shit that is driving her crazy. I am very excited for the pieces and storylines that'll be continuing into Declaration of Death, and while not every single answer will be brought up here or solved by the end of the story, in just a few chapters, I would love to hear your theories!
Speaking of Declaration of Death, that SYOT is now officially open, where I released the first prologue on the 19th, which was Sunday, where I introduced you all to a new character (you'll also get to meet him here too!) and also a surprise by someone named Poem Cavalli in his pov. Subs are open, and the form is on my profile - and of course in the story itself - along with a few guidelines and rules to follow, and I'd greatly appreciate if you were to sub and I'd have you all along for the ride in another story! Next chapter, #40: Change of the Guard, will be another epilogue with another four POVs (Adriane, Cain, Richmond, and Friedrich) which I am planning on having posted this Sunday, so keep your eyes peeled! I'd love to hear from you guys! Love you all! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm