Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties. Just like I said I would, I update on the day I said I would about a week ago. The view count is going up actually really fast, so I wish to say thank you to anyone reading. I am starting to dissect all the tribute information that has been sent in (still haven't reached a total submission level yet), to create a few backstories, potential relationships, alliances, a few of the deaths (when, why, where etc...), and most importantly the arena! The arena this year is going to be something I don't think I've ever seen from an SYOT, and while that may be stretching at as there's a whole lot of these stories out there, this time I may be right as I am known in my 'mother' fandom to be quite unorthodox and go after topics that aren't necessarily on the map... but, once again, I digress. It's summer, I'm having a great vacation, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter, #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties.
Head Interviewer Silver Castle P.O.V
Head Interviewer Silver Castle frowns at the wilting flower over by the windowsill overlooking his kitchen. The poor violet, despite getting a mother load of precious sunshine, droops over with amaranthine petals that barely lift off the pot's cracked surface. He waters it some more, leaning in. Silver's heard from a number of reliable, perfectly reliable, sources that talking with your plants and conversing with the green devils would encourage them to grow taller. He tilts his head to the left, eyes appraising the violet petals and the emerald stem. "Look... plant. I need you to grow. You're really being a problem, y'know. My water bill has been through the roof! I water you, hoping you'll grow, but then you just sit here and wilt. You're not getting my sympathy, plant. Besides... you should know me by this point. I hate bad investments..."
He thinks the plant has gotten the message, straightening himself and going over to the mirror by his bedside. A stunning pearly perfect white face - well to Silver he looked perfect, but to others, such as the president, he looked as good as a dog's shit on the sidewalk - stared back at him, a set of cropped hair so brilliantly cardinal it made others believe Silver's head is a pure ball of flowing blood. Hauntingly gorgeous sunburst orange eyes dance around his skull, various emotions recorded in their reflective stare. Hope. Lust. Irony. Death. Kindness. Fright. Love. Sympathy. Remorse. Dedication. Strength.
Always strength. Silver's always hated cowards. Even if he may be one himself.
There's a knock on the door, causing the Interviewer to jump. "It's open..." he calls, turning back to the mirror after recollecting his wits. Damn those who don't announce their entrances first. Silver loves the sound of a creaking door, it almost resembles that of his own adventures in his youth with the gray knives and the fire, but he doesn't often think about that.
Silver gives a side-eye to the other side of his apartment, and standing in the kitchen rather official with arms clasped over each other is Head Gamemaker, Ian Fletcher. The Interviewer raises an eyebrow, smiling conspicuously. "Ian!" he greets, his smile hurting his cheeks because it is too damn wide and so fake that Jade could smell the faux quality all the way over in her mansion. "Pleasure of you to stop by. Sadly, I was just about to leave. What can I help you with?"
If Silver's tone is anything to go by, Ian knows full and well the man could give a rat's ass about what one of his two technical bosses would want from him. Silver Castle is an idol in the Capitol with many suitors and others hoping just to get a rile out of him, so it means his schedule is busy when he's not filming specialized standard programming for all of Panem's sweethearts in the districts. He does not have the time, nor does he want to try and divide his time up for plebeians that do not deserve his love or attention.
"I like the tie," Ian comments. He winces as soon as he says this, because he knows exactly where this conversation will be heading, and he's avoided nearly every encounter with the insufferable man ending in disaster, because there's one unspoken rule concerning Silver Castle. If you like his appearance, he'll grasp you in his claws and never let go, it wouldn't matter if someone is kicking and screaming the entire way. "It brings out your hair."
The Interviewer nods, fiddling with the bowtie nestled at the crook of his neck, attached to the gaudy and all too bright halcyon tuxedo he's wearing. Silver finishes the knot on the crimson bowtie, which like Ian dumbly points out, does match his hair like cotton and gin, yin and yang... and Silver is already exhausted thinking of world analogies to connect his hair with his dress. Analogies are overrated.
"Thank you," he replies smarmily, with enough warmth to sound as if he cares or didn't know this before. "I have another date. I want to make sure I impress him this time, or otherwise I'm out of luck on the dating scene..." Silver laments.
Ian raises an eyebrow. "He? What happened to that woman, the one who runs the salon by the train station?"
Silver grimaces at the thought of his last date. He sees her from across the bar, but the woman's back is turned and all he sees is that her figure is quite appealing. Though it is no known secret that the Interviewer likes sampling all across the dating spectrum from men to women alike, he generally sticks to what he's seen for most of his adult life: a fully grown woman needing someone, and that person is Silver. Everything goes sour in the man's head when he taps her on the shoulder, calling her simply stunning and then she turns around with such ferocity anyone would've thought the lass had been a wild animal. Her face is a downright disaster, with lipstick curling up to her eyebrows, one eyebrow fully trimmed with precise precision, the other bushy like a rat's tail. Alcohol is spilled all down her front, and she smiles... a set of jagged glass teeth which nearly causes Silver to wretch all over the poor lady.
He gives her a few days to learn what style is, and it takes a good five minutes before he's stuck her with the check and bounded out to the rainy streets of the Capitol. Her laugh haunts him in his sleep, and it's been two weeks since he's gone out with the woman. "Wherever she is, I hope she dies in a ditch, alone..." Silver growls to himself, and then aloud, "Yes, Ian. A man. His name is Gendry. Gendry Hutson. I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of him."
This is news to the Head Gamemaker. Although March talks to him about some of the victors, in where he feels their pain and tries connecting with them on a personal level yet falls short for always having a spoon of luxury stuffed into his mouth since he was a baby, Ian knows Gendry a lot more than he would someone else March has spoken about. He is jealous of Gendry's muscles and fair smile, while Ian almost soils his pants any time he tries mustering up the courage to kiss his wife. Ian has seen the bruises and the cuts that line up the victor from District 1's arms, but he knows if he talks to anyone besides March or another victor about it, the man will be thrown into a van and sent to the mentally insane hospital in its own secluded area of the Capitol.
"I didn't take Gendry to be a man who dates men." Ian rubs his arms innocuously.
"Oh, this is voluntary," Silver comments, fixing the bowtie. "I bought him."
"Bought?" the Head Gamemaker raises another eyebrow once more, shuddering.
The Interviewer turns to Ian and walks over, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head back and forth, making a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. "Oh, you horribly naïve individual. Why do you think Gendry has been here for an entire year since the games last year? You honestly believe that man is in love with the people and locale? He'd wish us dead if he had the power..." Silver admonishes, running a comb through his hair. "Jade forces him to sell himself for money. You mean to tell me that you haven't called on the victor services for a good time once in awhile?"
Ian shakes his head, biting down on his tongue and tasting the lucid bitterness of copper. "I'm faithful."
Silver rolls his eyes. "You're still married to that March girl? That District 7 whore? I thought you would've moved on by now..."
"Don't you dare call her that!" the Head Gamemaker growls, turning his hands into fists. "March is not some prostitute! She is my wife, and you will treat her like she is such or I'll-"
"You'll... what?" the other man mocks, moving his body in such a manner to piss Ian off. "You'll lecture me? I've heard fifty of your high and mighty speeches ever since I got this job. I'm too rude, I'm too brash... I'm too egotistical..." Silver's eyes flash, the expression taunting the timid and gentle man. "Or better yet, you'll tell Jade and she'll call you a coward!"
Ian begins to tremble, unsure whether or not he's scared or enraged, but his entire body is shaking like a Boeing 747. He decides to look just past Silver's face at a spot on the wall, evading the other man's gaze which is gleaming and triumphant. Silver shrugs, moving on past the Head Gamemaker, hand eclipsing the knob. Ian bites down on his lip. "Why?"
Silver pauses at the door. "Why... what?"
"Why are you so..." Ian struggles to think of a better word. "Mean?"
The Interviewer laughs to himself, a joyous noise with bubbling hilarity and genuine distaste. "Are you seven, Ian? I wouldn't call myself mean. Just an opportunist. In the Capitol, you have to be good at giving faux smiles and make sure you rock a bowtie. Whatever I say, if I have this look, it works off as snappy charm. Why do you think Jade hasn't snapped my neck? It's because I'm the only one in our Hunger Games trio that the citizens actually adore. I'm good. I'm real good," he goes to open the door, and then stills for a moment. "I forgot. Since I was so 'mean' to you, what is it you came by to tell me?"
Ian smacks himself in the head, already wanting to move on from earlier and he bites his lip. "Jade wanted me to tell you that, come Interview Night, you have to ask each tribute their opinion on the others."
"And she couldn't tell me this to her face?"
"Our president is very busy."
"This also can't wait till Interview Night?" Silver frowns.
"No," the Head Gamemaker ducks his head, face flushing. "It can't."
"Because...?" the Interviewer is sick and tired of Ian and Jade's games. It's as if the two have an unspoken code between them and they'll share whatever secrets they want, leaving Silver out of it. It could be what he gets for being an ass, the redhead muses to himself over nights filled with ginseng and taffy, but it's another droll story he wishes to tell his grandkids.
"The Quell." Ian answers, quite cryptically.
Silver nods. "Ah. Well, if you'll excuse me. I have a date to get to."
Ian watches the Head Interviewer leave, and he starts scratching at his arms. Every word, every single blistering word that the man said to him festers over his skin. Bullet ants filled with a venomous poison sting and claw at Ian's shoulders, and he downs to one knee, almost breaking into tears. He's sick and tired of having everyone constantly beat him down, getting stuck in a position he wishes he didn't have to be in.
On the other side of the door, Silver tosses back a white pill he had in his pant pocket, and steps into the elevator. The doors close with a ding, and the golden gilded crate slides down the cold and stalwart shaft. The redhead taps his foot against the tiled floor, the elevator being empty. He wants, for perhaps what feels like eons before the side effects of the pill take effect.
Everything hits Silver in the face, all at once it is a wave of something he wishes to call nostalgia, but rather it is painful and scorching, driving over his skin like lesions of boils that burst and scald his skin. A wave of familiar, too familiar, blonde hair passes over a woman's shoulder as she steps out of the bar. The hook of her nose is too similar to that of someone Silver can no longer remember, and the Master of Panem's Ceremonies begins to shake feverishly, shaking strongly enough that he shakes the entire elevator. His sun tanned face goes white, and he's looking around as if there could be something to stop the side effects, but he knows that whatever is going on must take place beforehand, and if Silver Castle, the god that he is, wants to stop his own pleasure... well, then he's screwed in the head.
Silver, in a time that is not the present, watches the woman exit the bar and he gets up, bolting. Wind and words rush by his ears as he chases after the lady, caught in the throng of downtown Capitol traffic during the midday, and he's paralyzed in the middle of the street when the woman turns behind him. Pearls and stars flash by in his vision, downing the redhead to one knee. The sky is too bright, and the lines all blur and obscure together. A peal of laughter breaks the silence, it breaks the silence like a cresting wave till every resonate note of the joyous noise rivets around Silver's skull like a haywire bullet. Ricocheted bits of bone matter bounce and fly around, dancing in the breeze while the cacophony of chuckles drowns out all other sound.
The murmur of a heartbeat begins to take place of the other noises, ravaging and deadly. Silver's emotions gravitate towards something feasible as the woman begins looking around, as if she's searching for something but cannot find what she's seeking. He tries calling out, but the cries choke in his throat, until he's spitting up sulfuric acid and biting down on harsh words that aren't helpful in the slightest. His ears are roaring with blood flow, and the dizziness will not cease until Silver's skull is split open on the rock, festering around like ants that burrow into his nerves and wreck his endocrine system. The sky changes colors rapidly: a ferocious cardinal, a whimsical amaranthine, a decadent sapphire, a blinding halcyon, a turgid mahogany, a zealous sunburst orange, a flowing shade of carnation pink... the woman begins to blur together as if she's melting away into static, like a television screen's signal. He reaches out, and it's a fool's thought for someone to believe the commander could grasp onto the woman from yards away amidst a throng of people going about their daily levels. He's upset, Silver is enraged momentarily, that no one is noticing him, no one is giving a single care in the world about the man falling apart in the middle of the empty elevator. What did he do to deserve this? A stupid little night on the town with infamous victors is nothing compared to the sins of his leaders.
Silver whimpers, the pain is too great, the suffering has a mind of its own and it shall not stop until the redhead has reconciled with the past... he can never find the euphoria he wishes to receive if he lives in the ways of an old criminal... for what? For a woman's recognition? Certainly Silver Castle has far more better standards than that, yet he cannot seem to find any.
Blonde hair covers him akin to a field of grain, crumbly and tall where the woman's gaze pierces through him. Screams begin to disrupt the laughter and it's a precarious moment, a precious second in time that shatters into a million pieces. There's blood running down the streets now, running down Silver's hands as he's twisting, twisting someone's neck, shooting someone's brains out just to reach this mysterious woman who for some reason is nothing yet everything all at once. He cries out, he cries out hoping, pleading that someone is to hear him, but he's met with silence.
Everything comes back to full, and Silver sways, collapsing into the side of the elevator. It lands on the ground floor with another soft ding, and he's woozy. He presses a hand to the left side of his face, grimacing intensely when he pulls his hand away to the formidable and grisly sight of his hand being drowned in a peal of scarlet.
Silver shakes his head, the moment passed.
In a world full of faux smiles and bow ties, no one is supposed to see you sweat.
The Head Interviewer pulls a handkerchief out of the other pocket and wipes away the blood, his face looking as perfect and gorgeous as it was before he left. Time to go meet his date, the insatiable and divine Gendry Huston.
Thirty hours left.
Alrighty! There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties of Vermillion Shorelines. Wow... there we have our Head Interviewer, our Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Silver Castle. Any idea what famous video game character I partially based him off of, given his attitude? But yep, here he is, a man who thinks he's the hot shit when he obviously may be lacking in a few places. He thinks he's great because he's good at smiling with fakery and wearing a bowtie. I've written weirder. And he also has a mouth to him that may get him in trouble, no? Again, did you get the arena hint I placed this chapter, as well as starting to possibly pick up on the Quell twist? (It is kind of out there, but again I digress). What is your opinion on Silver's character, and especially his relationship regarding Ian? It's to be an interesting dynamic, I tell you for sure. AND, because I love questions, what do you all think took place with Silver taking the pill in the elevator?
Next week, on Friday or Saturday, is the end of the deadline. I need tributes! Currently these spots are currently vacant and need at least one submission, which once again all the stats are on my profile if you need to be up to date with them. I need a District 1 Male, District 3 Female, District 4 Male, District 5 Female, District 6 Female, District 7 Male, District 8 Female, District 11 Female, and a District 12 Male. That is 9 tributes, meaning only 13 have spots that are have at least one, so go and create some tributes! However, if you've already submitted two, please do not make anymore.
The next time I update will be on Saturday, June 17th, which will be a full chapter and the tribute list, which I will then post on my profile. From there will be one of the twelve reapings, but more to come on that when the time comes. Thank you so much for reading, and make sure to review! Your opinions are really going to matter. I hope to see you all again for Chapter #5: Empty Hearths and Empty Hearts. Have a great day! Love you all! Bye!
~ Paradigm
