Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with the 2nd chapter of my new SYOT, Vermillion Shorelines, #2: Disappointing Window Views. This is where we get to meet someone I'd say who is extremely important to the story, and will cause a lot of things to go awry, but I digress. I have about seven submissions at the time of writing this, and I hope that I can call more of you forth to create, as I am super stoked and hope to get this piece off the ground. I plan on writing two more of these... 'pre-list' chapters, if you will, and shall then wait till the deadline is over. WHICH, I actually pushed back by a week, as now the deadline is June 17th.
New deadline for Vermillion Shorelines is now June 17th, and also you are allowed to create more than one tribute for submission if you'd like. The spots that get vied for most of all are the Careers, so if you want to get your jab first in those sections, go ahead! I'd also like to make a shout-out to a fellow submitter and a new SYOT writer, Peony Pierce, who is doing their own SYOT called Sweets to the Sweet, and they need submissions as well, so if you'd like to double your chances, go create something for that piece as well.
Anyways, with that much digression and announcements, enjoy Chapter #2: Disappointing Window Views.
President Jade Dermure P.O.V
Windows are overrated.
That is the very first thought that comes to the president's mind whilst she sits down in one of her leather bound office chairs overlooking the streets of the inner Capitol city circle in the primary sector. She looks outside this crystalline, frosted pane and sees either fly dung mat the edges of the outer rim, or sees some pathetic little weakling who has no conceptual idea as to what the emotion of fear even is, let alone have they ever encountered it.
Her gaze is sharp, and sometimes she likes to entertain her fancy by imagining her stare is one of magnifying proportions of a magnifying glass up to a snail. Jade Dermure does not joke around, no sir, and she is prepared to make sure everyone who dares insult her or question one tactic of her administration knows that. The president reels her mind back to the tangible feeling of fear.
Oh the spires of trouble it can elicit. She smirks somewhat evilly, that she'll give herself credit for, thinking about last year when her personal favorite mutation ripped apart this girl's throat in last year's arena. The poor tribute - though personally, the tributes are not poor in Jade's eyes, they deserve their pain and punishment - is stuck in a closing hallway inside an high rise skyscraper somewhere over in an uncharted place of Panem, the mutation all scaly white and ferocious. Jade personally has no idea what she asked Ian, the Head Gamemaker, to even create, but then it looks like this half iguana, half homo-sapien dihybrid the moment it begins to walk, and she's stuck in this stasis of reverential awe and pure glee when the cannon fires and the mutation still is mauling the female's throat.
Jade realizes hours later that the tribute who died is a Career, a girl who claims in her interview that she's deathly afraid of reptiles.
How... ironic.
How... fitting.
She can only conceptualize what had to have been running in that victim's head before her last moments. Pure, unadulterated fear. Pure terror, and Jade Dermure, president of Panem, loves every single digitalized second, down to the nanoseconds and cyberspace particles.
None of her citizens, not a single one, understands what it means to be horrified by their end staring them down in the face, before mauling you to bits.
Jade wishes, though it is a halfway met wish, that she places a Capitol child or even better, a Capitol adult in the arena come a week from tomorrow. Perhaps that'll show her denizens, her folk without brains and a sense of self, what true fright is and what shall happen to any instigators. She wishes to make example of them, and make example of them Jade Dermure shall.
A knock comes from the door leading into her office, and Jade swivels around from her spot. Standing in the doorway, feeble and skittish as ever is Head Gamemaker Ian Fletcher. Jade's flat lined mouth curls into a devious smile, and she motions her hands as an invitation. Ian's terrified of her, and Jade believes for a split second that there is someone in the Capitol who knows true pain and fright, as she's quite the scary little monster hiding under the bed and has the wiry and shattered man twisted around her finger, playing at every ploy she's ever constructed.
"You're late," Jade comments, dragging a filed nail in between a seam on her desk, which is entirely empty save a locket resting in a burnt bundle up on the right corner. She pierces through Ian, who is trying his very hardest to not look at the locket. He knows it's meaning, and yet every time a meeting like this happens between them, the Head Gamemaker falls to his corrupt and foolish mundane ways. "Why is that?"
Ian's face flushes, and she knows in his heart he wishes to be back in his room, hugging and being soothed by his traitorous whore of a wife, March. Jade despises the victor from District 7, but there's a certain reason why Jade leaves the woman alive in Ian's life... and it's an idea that even the president herself has not fully come to terms with despite that being her own idea in the first place.
"I slept through my alarm..." he whispers, eyes falling to the floor.
"March didn't have the sensibility to wake you?"
"She didn't want to wake me."
Jade coos low in her throat, almost like a purr, and Ian's face looses even more color than before, which is quite the feat in itself. "Aw, your wife does have a heart. I recall, though, that all those years ago, when she killed all those tributes in the arena, her kind heart vanished faster than one of her victims could cry out and beg for mercy," the president snaps, causing Ian to jolt. She rolls her eyes. She has a man who's afraid of his damn shadow as her most trustworthy companion and actual second most powerful person in Panem. "But, perhaps she's changed since then. I'd love to see her again. It's been so long, and us ladies need to have days together, right?"
Ian pulls at the tie once more. "I... I'm sure that can be arranged."
She is tired of sitting and decides to go stand over by the right corner of her desk, hands near the burnt locket resting over the edge. Fingers splay outwards, and Ian witnesses the struggle on her face on whether or not she should use the locket to her advantage in this continuous and effective mental abuse of her Head Gamemaker. He swallows, trying to hide the fear most certainly plastered on his face. That's in his past, and he's moved on from that, he has most certainly moved on from that.
The president settles her gaze outside the windows. She scoffs. Man, Jade Dermure really dislikes windows; she holds so much vitriolic contempt for them and it's starting to bother her. There are very few idiosyncrasies in this world that bother her, and she is not about to relegate herself to hating an item that cannot even fight back. "You know what I don't like about windows?" Her question does not prompt an answer, which Ian is more than certainly capable of providing as the two of them have had this conversation multiple times in their career together.
"Why?" Ian sits up straighter, as Jade can smell his fear like a shark can smell blood, and her teeth are wickedly prepared for a taste of Head Gamemaker flesh.
Jade slides her pointer finger on her right hand through another desk seam, picking at the nail. She hears a snap and knows what that means, but it's all right. She'll find someone else to give her the manicure of a lifetime and throw the other in jail for even thinking the preposterous thought of not creating absolute perfection. Perfection exists, in Jade Dermure's mind, though it is not easy to find and it isn't meant to be.
"They obscure things." Her voice is full and bitter. "Windows add an extra layer of fakeness to the outside world, as if I'm seeing something through a lens that only shows me what I want to see, not what I need to see."
The president gets a good look at her reflection in the window. Her hair is a soft, yet dark and suave wave of hazelnut, which happens to be her favorite delicacy. Two eyes sit in her skull, pulled back and sunken in, but it is what she, Jade Dermure, sees in the mirror. To anyone else, they're normal. Jade Dermure, Jade Dermure, president on Panem, is no morphling. Her eyes are a fresh glade of newly cut grass, piercing and illuminating, cold and radiant, fearing and loving, powerful and weak, she's her own goddess in a gilded office in a presidential mansion. Jade's face only radiates a darkening scowl, and it is partially from the broken nail, Ian's incompetence, and so much more. She remembers her disposition when it used to be as hauntingly beautiful as the characters you hear in fairytales.
That is before the amber glow of a lamp, the basket of flowers, and a cracked piece of cobblestone clutched in weathered hands.
She blinks.
Jade blinks and her fantasy world vanishes, she's brought back to present and the longing in her heart to return is painful.
The president is restless and decides to sit back down in her chair. There's nothing else to pursue in the tangential thoughts of windows, reflections, lost memories, failed aspirations and more. She begins tapping a hand against the desk, Ian's own eyes following her every movements. He is covered in a cold sweat, given a sheen of light and slickness coating his arms. Jade wants to feel pity, she wants to care, but there's nothing. All because of the lamp, the basket, and the chipped cobblestone.
One of them clears their throat, though neither knows who did it.
Jade almost comically slaps her forehead. How could I be so stupid? 6 x 6 = 36. "I nearly forgot why I wanted you down here in the first place."
"And what is it?" Ian asks politely, yet there's an edge of nervousness to his voice, like a steely blade preparing to strike or flee at a moment's notice. "There's a lot of final preparations that need to take place before tomorrow, and I have to make sure all the escorts know the specific protocol they have to follow..." he goes into a list of criteria he has to ascertain before the blood sun sinks beneath the sky, and Jade is not listening, a dull, innocuous beat growing into a lion's roar.
"I want to make sure the tributes get each and every opportunity to mingle with one another. Parties, a show, large dinners... anything that lets them get to know each other..." Jade spills out, and even she's hesitant, biting her lip as Ian's eyebrows furrow together, not quite understanding the gist of what the president is going for.
"I'm not sure why you want us to do this, Jade..." Ian muses. "I mean, there's a reason the tributes do not interact with each other besides during training due to the violent events that have taken place in the past. What is this supposed to accomplish?"
"It'll make the Quell..." she grasps for the right word, "Twist, more effective."
Ian sits back, contemplating. He nods, rubbing his chin. "I can see why that'll work. It'll give them a chance to create more lasting relationships. Find out who they like, and who they don't like. You-"
"I want the Careers to not be the only ones hated," Jade elaborates. "Let's put it that way."
She swivels around in her chair, a smile beginning to stretch on her face. This means one thing, and Ian understands it is an unspoken dismissal. He is no longer needed, and he can go back to his day job of being a true, one-of-a-kind asshole. Jade Dermure picks up the pendant, when she feels the subtle change in pressure on the carpet. Ian Fletcher is out of her presence.
Jade holds it close to her chest and begins to laugh.
This Quarter Quell, this Hunger Games year, will be extremely entertaining. She just knows this.
6 x 6 = 36.
Thirty-six hours.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Boom.
Well, there we are ladies and gentlemen! Another quick, filler chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #2: Disappointing Window Views. Here, is our introduction to my president, Jade Dermure, as I wanted to see how a power-hungry woman besides President Coin could be used, and I hope she's raising some eyebrows and turning some heads. A few things I wish to get out in the open as questions you all should think about. What do you think the significance of the locket is? (Ian and Jade both know what it was in the past, clearly) What is the usage of the number 36, with the multiplication time tabl = 36? Any possible idea as to what the Quarter Quell idea is that I have in store for you all? AND, did you catch another hint towards what our arena may possibly be like? I believe I hid it quite well, so keep your eyes peeled as there will be these references and hints sprinkled throughout.
Once again, I please hope this encourages you to submit a tribute, or nonetheless several tributes if you've already submitted one and wish to see more of your characters written, as I want to give this more attention than any other Hunger Games story I've ever written before. And, friendly reminder, make sure to check out Peony Pierce's SYOT Sweets for Sweet and go submit to that one as well. I'll be writing my own character submission in a few days to send, and I hope y'all will do the same.
Please review and let me know what you think is going to happen! There's more to come, and I am super excited. I am updating again with Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka, on Thursday, so there's a little resting period to constantly bump the piece back up to the archive. Thank you so much for reading! I love you all! Bye!
~ Paradigm
