Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #3: Bottomless Vodka. Even though I am not at drinking age, and do not actually see the usage of alcohol in shape or form, there are times when I'm like, "oh you're going to lead me to drink..." and fanfiction often does that to me hahaha. There still aren't that many tribute submissions in, I think at the time of writing this I just capped into double digits, so good lord there are many spots available, and tributes to be had! I am having a blast though going about and designing the arena and my Quarter Quell twist, which eventually we'll learn, but it won't be until much later. We have another chapter with just Ian coming up, and another chapter with a character I don't think I have ever seen a writer do a point of view from, so that'll be a lot of fun, I can already tell. Please, if you haven't, go and submit as I'd love to be able to write your creations and challenge myself with characters I've never seen before. Enjoy Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka.


March Larson: Victor of the 186th Hunger Games P.O.V


"Are you sure this is a good time to be drinking?" a voice asks from afar, over the shoulder of March Larson, victor of the 186th Hunger Games and wife to Head Gamemaker, Ian Fletcher. "It is only noon, you realize. That's quite early."

March snorts into her drink, a clear cup full of rich, District 1 vodka, and takes a hearty swig. "Too early my ass," she sets the glass down with a satisfying gasp, the chink of precious stone colliding with the table. "You're just worried that I won't be able to stand up straight when I return home tomorrow for the reaping..." Worry lines crease into her face, and she frowns. "I have to go take a near-almost seven hour train ride back to District 7 for perhaps not even two hours of my life, then take the seven hour train ride back here to the Capitol for the games. Stupid, really stupid."

Her companion sits down at the table in front of her, eyes twinkling. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, my trip is about a third of that."

"Well that's because you're from District 1, you stupid jerk." March motions over at the waiter for him to give her another drink. She's going to need almost ten million of these glasses before she can sit through a Hunger Games completely sober. She isn't a drinker, not by a longshot. Luckily, Ian keeps her down to Earth.

The very same person she has insulted looks up at her underneath his cocky brow with a smile. Gendry Hutson, victor of the 170th Hunger Games, hailing from District 1, knows exactly how his best friend, that dear ole' March, ticks. He loves it. Gendry leans back in his chair, arms out and behind his head. "Hey, I can't control where I was born. Besides, I've been in the Capitol for so long, I'd much rather feel the carpeted floors of the train for two minutes than the bed sheets in my apartment room. They-"

"How long have you been here?"

"Since the Games last year ended." Gendry shrugs.

March nearly drops the glass of vodka in her hand, eyes wide and immediately a seed of sadness fills her. "A year?" she does not bother keeping her voice down, loud and boisterous as always, which gives the victor pair a few pointed glares and stares from the surrounding patrons. Gendry flashes everyone an iconic, Career-like glare, and everyone goes back to their original, daily business. "What were you doing that required you to stay in this godawful place for so long?"

"Work." he keeps it short, but March insists. Gendry presses his lips together in a thin line, color receding from his face somewhat. March gets a look at him, and realizes he looks actually quite... well, for a lack of better words, bad. His top lip is cut slightly, and his normally luminescent and almost Capitol like, vivid blueberry shade of hair is much more subdued and darker than usual. Bags are under Gendry's eyes, yet March finds him to be completely attractive. The man is forty-three, yet looks like he got doused in bronzer and came out like a rip, roaring twenty-five year-old.

She twirls a lock of auburn hair around her finger. "Are you heading out early? My train doesn't leave till about seven."

"Why so late?" Gendry questions.

"I have someone to say goodbye to before I leave," March explains, although the mystery isn't needed. Gendry, personally doesn't care. For as long as he's known the vibrant and vicious victor, they can share or leave untold as many whispers and lies as they want. It shouldn't bother him anymore, not after what he's been through. "He's got a lot to deal with, and I don't want to add another tally on his board of things that upset him."

He knows who she's talking about, but for the sake of March herself, Gendry keeps quiet. Keeping quiet is what almost got him killed, but it is a different story and a different memory than what he wants to ponder on at the moment. March takes another swig of the vodka, hails the waiter down again for another, and takes that one as well. The liquid burns in her throat like a long lost kiss, or a hazily written suicide note with blood still splattered over the drooping ink blots. She reaches out to touch Gendry's hand when she accidentally knocks over her empty, luckily empty, glass of vodka.

It touches the ground with a deafening crash, shattered shards of crystalline glass shooting everywhere. Her eyes begin to twitch, and she's stuck remembering her district partner's throat, all mauled up and scissor cut as if the blade had done more than a simple slice. She immediately goes to apologize, as she's always doing stupid shit like this all the time, and it is kind of disappointing to be reminded of it constantly. March hates thinking about what she's already broken too many times in Ian's house, their bathroom. (Their hearts)

"I'm sorry..." March mutters.

"No, let me." Gendry insists, placing a gentle hand up that reminds her of cold, lustful nights long ago when she's nothing but a worried eighteen year-old on all the newfound responsibilities chucked her way. He is not thinking the same thing, but it is perfectly okay. As her friend leans to pick up the shards of glass, March catches a glimpse at Gendry's wrist, hidden away by a long-sleeved button down, which she finds peculiar as it is in the middle of August heat. The skin is scarred up, and she nearly loses her breakfast. Scraggly drawn lines, dyed a putrid crimson, are dotting his entire arm. Sinew lines are twisted in and plagued with warped fire, tissue in tiny, precious knots that should scream pain. However, Gendry seems to be unfazed by all of this suffering, which is oddly peculiar.

He places the glass bits on the table and looks back at March. "You alright?" Gendry asks, noting now that the other victor has completely gone pale, eyes shrunken in.

She shakes her head, swallowing something heavy and evident. "Yeah. I- I'm fine. Just thinking."

Gendry shakes off an unwanted tension, smiling. He places his elbows on the table, one hand against his chin with his thumb underneath. There's a burning desire in him to just say how he feels about her on one particular subject, but he wishes to still be friends, so this is not going to happen. A time and place for everything, he supposes. "What do you think the Quarter Quell twist is?"

March shrugs her shoulders haplessly, running over them in her head. 25th year, the districts voted for who they wished to send in. 50th year, twice as many tributes. 75th year, the infamous 3rd Quarter Quell of so many old victor deaths... 100th Hunger Games where a half of the tributes had their plates explode the moment the gong set off, and the other tributes remaining had no weapons in the arena but the environment around them. The 5th Quarter Quell generated the most excitement where only eligible siblings of important district officials fought, the victor that year being some puny twelve year-old girl from District 3, to then go on a killing spree when she turned fifteen, murdering her entire family before being gunned down by Peacekeepers. The 150th year actually felt plain and simple, there had been no Cornucopia, instead the weapons had been interspersed throughout the arena, which was volcanic and treacherous. Last Quarter Quell eliminated sponsorships, which proved to be disadvantageous as many died from starvation, infection, and other natural arena inflictions. Jade didn't appreciate that very much.

This year could be a game changer. "I have no idea. What do you think it is?"

"There's too many possibilities," Gendry frowns. "Y'know, every time that box is opened or mentioned, I wonder just how many cards and ideas are in there... like, what would happen when you run out of ideas? Just reuse them?"

"You'd think," March agrees, nodding. "I can think of a few tangents, but they lead to nowhere."

"Like what?"

A small smile quips at the corners of March's mouth, eyes twinkling. "That, maybe for one Quarter Quell, the twist is that there is no Hunger Games that year. Or maybe the best Gamemaker Private sessions actually get the lowest scores and visa versa."

Gendry makes a pained expression, clutching at his heart. "That'd be the worst! I scored an eleven, thank you very much, and I don't need someone knocking that score down."

March laughs. "That sounds much better than my measly six."

"You got out of there alive, at the very least," Gendry sours the entire conversation with one sentence, and the happy thoughts cease to flow, March's expression clouded. "Everyone who scored higher than you died. Put that into perspective."

She looks down at her hands, partly ashamed, though she has no idea why. It's all his fault! He messed you up, and there needs to be something done for that. Screw him, he's just jealous that I have retained my good looks. March's skin feels dry, pulled back and scraped off as if she's in agonizing pain, boils and blisters lined up and bursting with feverish fervor. Her bones crack and break in the worst points, fingers constantly poised as if they're ready to strike, or that they're curled up around a blade that goes swish-swish into a tribute's skin. The taste of lucid copper fills her mouth, and the presence is warm and necessary and needed. March Larson is no coward, but she's a coward at the thoughts of the Games. It's all Gendry's fault for even thinking of introducing that to her!

"Who was it?" she asks. The question seems harmless, but there is vengeful and malicious intent underneath, words tainted with a poisonous tint that slowly inserts the burning pain, like a hypothermic needle shooting drugs into a drug addict's system.

"Who was what?" Gendry reiterates, eyebrows furrowed together. So far, this does not sound like a fun exercise.

"Your first kill."

He looks taken aback by the inquiry, frowning. "Well, who was yours?" Gendry Hutson is not all keen and privy on spilling the beans with quite the touchy subject, but he shall play March's game and sees where it leads him.

She pales right back, biting down on her lip so hard that it draws blood. "Jacqueline Duntra, the female Career from District 1. Cleaved her in two with a machete stuck in a pillar. She didn't even see who or what killed her, as I got Jacqueline from behind," March looks away. "It was during the bloodbath," she added shamefully.

"Mark Adler..." Gendry lets out a lasting sigh, running a hand through his hair. "Surprisingly, I hadn't managed to get anyone during the bloodbath, as our Career alliance only killed two people... four of them had been blown up by some stupid makeshift bomb an idiot who didn't know what it was found in the horn. I had been out of the blast zone, and the only one left alive was the guy from District 4, who had speared two tributes in the back. Anyways, it's a few days later, the other Career had died from falling off a damn cliff in the dark. I'm getting some water by a nearby lake, and on my way back to camp, Mark comes running through the woods and collides into me."

"How'd you kill him?"

"Snapped his neck. Then, for good measure, I stabbed him so he would bleed out," he makes a face, the snapping sound as clear as day, when he was so young, so young and vicious and violent at his youthful age to perform an atrocity against humanity, another human being. "I'm not proud of it. He was my only kill, believe it or not. I had been so young, I actually didn't have the strength to lift some huge sword. I won when the Gamemakers poured fire down on the arena, burning the forest and killing everyone else from the smoke."

"How old were you when you won?" March questions, now really missing that precious glass of vodka, its remnants shattered on the table.

"Thirteen," Gendry replies, reaching into his pocket. "Let me pay for the drink." He slaps a bill down on the table and shuffles off without a word, walking past her. March looks at the vacant space where her best friend had been sitting, and he pauses before he's completely out of earshot. "Mark Adler was the male that year from District 7. We were in the final eight, March."

Then Gendry Huston is gone, off into the bustling streets of the Capitol. March sits in her chair, speechless as his words ebb and flow over her and are registered brain deep. Gendry's only kill to escape the hellish arena is a person from her district, and Gendry is her best friend... March Larson wishes there was something in the world known to man as the bottomless glass of vodka.

She once again calls the waiter down and asks for another, suddenly missing Ian's warm hands around her waist or Gendry's smile, as she drinks the glass over and over. Her throat burns at the sharp and bitter taste of the alcohol, before placing her head down on the table.

March Larson begins to sob.

34 hours left.


And there we have it folks! Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka, of Vermillion Shorelines. I particularly enjoyed this chapter, as I haven't ever really focused on making true victor characters before unless they were OC's from a prequel or used as main characters in that same story... not just people drew up on a whim of air, like March and Gendry. (I also couldn't resist with naming him Gendry, as Game of Thrones Season 7 is almost here. Keep rowing Gendry! Keep rowing! You'll be relevant again one day!)

Anyways, I am having he and March be the two victors in this story I focus on the most, as intertwining their points of view and backstories with the rest of the tributes, once we reach them, will be fun. What do you think of them? I know we've had March already introduced to us back in Chapter 1, but this is our first real look at them and boy, I hope they impress! Man, we're almost there till the end... and wow, I'm excited. I realize that I only have two chapters left between now and the deadline, so it looks like I'm going to have to start either spacing these out (just can't help it!) or push it up further should I feel like it, but the former will happen, so it'll more than likely be the former, as the latter is just me changing my mind ridiculously.

Please go and submit if you haven't and let everyone else you know that would do the same! I'm hoping to have a full cast with only a few repeated submitters having to make more than one character, as the more authors given a chance, the better! Thank you so much for reading, and please review! I'd love to know your thoughts! Have an amazing day! I shall update with Chapter #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties in probably two weeks given how long I have to go till the deadline date, so just keep hanging in there. I love you all so much! Bye!

~ Paradigm