Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #5: Empty Hearths and Hearts! Which means... you guessed it... a tribute list! *pops open champagne bottle* (Actually not really, I'm not old enough to drink... I'm about to be a senior in high school so missed opportunity there) Now, before any of you go scrolling to the bottom to immediately see who is who, don't! I'd love if you read the chapter first, absorbed all that you're about to hear, and then had everything come full circle with the list and other criteria that I have to let you all know, because there's a lot to go over! Alrighty! Enjoy the chapter!
March Larson: Victor of the 186th Hunger Games P.O.V
The air is thick and heavy, the smells of dry maple syrup and heavy machinery drowning out March's senses. She coughs, lugging a suitcase up the rickety, wooden steps into her Victor's Village home. March, even though it has been only a few hours since she left her husband, misses Ian's hands, the words against the nape of his neck. He's alone in that godawful place with Jade Dermure, wicked president extraordinaire, and Silver Castle, the interviewer of dicks and assholes as his only company who'd surely rip the man apart to shreds. Her auburn hair blows back in the wind, and she smiles at the cawing of ravens which she can barely see over the treetop line.
March struggles inside, rolling her suitcase past the carpeted living room, and smirking a hello at the pudgy little cat sitting over in the corner, which she's named the one and only, Mr. Whiskers. Yes, she knows exactly how unoriginal that is, but in her day and age when trying to keep tributes alive and the nasty business of not having mental breakdowns every five minutes, her cat's name being something of glorious sanctum and sparks of genius is not high on her to-do-list.
She throws the keys that were twirling around on her finger over her shoulder, not really caring where they land. March flicks on a light and the living room is drowned out in a halcyon brightness that causes her to wince and flinch, covering her vision momentarily. She took the entire train ride home sleeping, as she never likes being awake on the godforsaken thing... it is nothing more than a mere reminder to her of what's gone on in her past lives.
There's a registered presence behind her, March knows this by feeling the subtle shift in weight on the carpet, and the fact her cat isn't making all sorts of noises, which he does anytime she's home... so someone is disturbing the peace. The victor wants to turn around kind of childishly, with a hand over her eyes, but if her strange intruder is an actual villain of sorts... or worse, the president, she needs to be aimed to kill.
March bites down on her lip so hard that she draws blood, and then goes for it. She twirls around, and although she is expecting someone to be back around her, she still jumps up in the air, letting out a shrill shriek. A man is sitting over in the far corner of the living room in one of her rocking chairs, a bottle of beer sitting in his hands, and he chuckles, downing a sip.
She takes a moment to regain her breathing again, looking away from the man for a few seconds before turning back to him with a face twisted in rage. "What the fuck? Dude!"
The man simply laughs. "Hello to you too. How did the Capitol treat you?"
"How do you think?" March retorts.
Her intruder, fellow victor Tuscon Jassery of District 7, victor of the 175th Hunger Games, the 7th Quarter Quell to be exact, gives a smile full of teeth and a curled eyebrow for all he's worth. He downs another sip of his beer. "Not well I take it. How's Ian?"
"Fine. He's doing great," she snaps back. "What are you doing here?"
Tuscon, a burly man of forty, who won his Quarter Quell at fifteen, with electric blonde hair, shrugs. "With how much vodka you consume, I'm surprised you even know who I am, March. You ask me every time you leave for the Capitol to watch your cat. So, for the past two hours I've been doing that."
"Two hours?" March raises an eyebrow. "How long each day have you been checking on him?"
He takes a second or two to register her question before frowning, hand going to his chin so Tuscon can think. "I checked in on Mr. Whiskers three times a week at least... one in the morning and one in the evening. He seemed alright to me."
She rubs her face with her hand, so hard in fact she thinks there'll be a great and violent red smear come morning and that'll be glorious to have shown all over Panem. March can see the headlines now in the Capitol, on the wretched TV shows that parade problems around like they simply grow on trees and can be chopped down. Victor from District 7, incorrigible March Larson, has been hit by a frying pan to leave devastating mark! The thought causes March to snort, and then she mulls over what Tuscon had told her. "Wait... only three days a week? Who checked after my cat on the other days?"
Another hapless shrug is her answer. "I have no idea March. You know I'm not particularly fond of cats after my games..." Tuscon shudders. Too many black memories of a cat-like mutation chasing him around the arena, where he nearly loses half an arm and all of his sanity to the clawed beast where he found its skin dissolved in salt water. "Besides, Berryn loves cats! Why don't you ever ask him to help you?"
March wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Berryn is a seventy year-old man who is a total pervert. He'd probably come in and smell all of my underwear if I let him inside."
"He probably does that anyways."
"Excuse me?"
Tuscon flashes another small quipped grin. "All us victors in District 7 have a set of keys for everyone's house here in the village. So, I can go get into his house if I wanted too, or Nathan's, but I choose not to unless I'm invited."
March sets her jaw, looking dead on to the wall, fire burning in her veins. "That son of a bitch..." she hisses, and then she looks at the other victor's clenched hand. "I see you took a liberty of getting a drink before you could ask. How many is that?"
"In a day?"
"Of mine total."
"The ninth." Tuscon curls his lip up into a cruel smile.
March drops her jaw. "I bought that in a twelve-pack before I left! I've only been gone for two weeks! No more, Tuscon. I find out you keep stealing my drinks, I'm gonna chop off your manhood and feed it to Mr. Whiskers."
For the hell of it, and ignoring Tuscon's half pained cries, she marches into the kitchen and snags a beer out of the refrigerator. Only two more sit inside the dinky surface and she scowls. She hates when people take her out of this world kindness and build it to only their benefit, and it sickens her to the core. March walks back into the living room, taking the last spot not occupied by a bag, cat, or another disgusting victor like herself. She takes a long sip, satisfying and chilled to the bone. Her mind wanders back to the conversation she had with Gendry. She blanches somewhat again at seeing the scars, seeing the crimson lined cuts, how her best friend's face darkened at the mentioning of work... it hurts her to think about these sort of things.
She wants to rip her mind away from that moment and instead try and focus on the very beginning of her day, where she lay in her husband's bed and made him feel worthwhile. March knows that everyone who is anyone in Panem, from the president to the lowest victor on the totem pole, who'd be the 199th Hunger Games victor, knows about her and Ian's relationship. No one has ever been involved with a Gamemaker, let alone the Head Gamemaker, like that before and she's sick to her stomach that perhaps the reason she gets so much misfortune is that she's in love with him.
It is almost like March feels that people treat her as if she is put into Ian's back pocket, his weakness is just a ruse and just an act trying to gain sympathies because his job is stressful. "Would you like to have it?" March tells a dissenter towards her husband. "You spend several years designing death traps to murder teenagers and tell me how you like it." He had been only her age when she won, and she remembers like it was yesterday, on her victory tour to the Capitol, a wiry and quite sickly looking teenage boy comes running up to her and calls her the most beautiful creature he has ever seen in his life. She's blushing heavily against the side of the building, lips intertwined with his, a hand sneaking up the small of her back, and down her hand lowers until they both realize that for some reason they are made for one another. She does not see him for years and years, until that faithful 'I do', which rocks her world, which rocks her husband's world.
The pale face is familiar, as March has seen too many of them. The stupid District 6 boy, she remembers him. March feels the tears threaten to spill over her cheeks while recollecting these memories, but there's no reason she needs to stop. Kyle, she thinks, had been his name. The boy had been no older than thirteen, and she witnessed a Career plunge a wooden four by four straight into his neck, so bad that it pierced through the other side. She's never met him, she has no idea who he is, yet she's with him all the same while he dies.
Kyle paints a bloodied star, apparently his favorite shape, against her cheek, and there's too much scarlet coating her hands. There's too much blood and she is unable to tell if it's all his or maybe some of hers and his eyes are getting brighter and brighter, a pale face becoming also corpse light pale. He passes, she hears the cannon sound echoing around showers and dining halls, and March is sobbing over his dead body despite the fact she has spent no more than five minutes with this kid total in her entire life. She then begins to feel rage that a Career did this, they always do this and kill those who feel as if they're perfect and ripe for the picking. Her rage directs itself onto her because she then realizes that she herself, she March Larson, is foolish that she could save this boy, save this thirteen year-old child from a fate worse than death by removing the wooden shaft and hoping his skin snips back together again. She's stupid, she's such a stupid little girl who had stupid little dreams that were so stupid she goes and marries a Head Gamemaker and nearly has sex with him on the night they met, as it is a stupid idea, and March Larson is stupid... so stupi-
"March!" Tuscon calls out, scrambling from his seat.
She breaks from her stupor, the dream and proclaimed self hate receding into her veins with an all too familiarity, and she barely registers the blood pouring down her enclosed fist which is holding the shattered beer bottle. Shards of glass stick to her knuckles and palm, and chilling air stings around the sinew cut, blood festering and fizzling, heart open and bleeding... March begins to cry again, and for the second time in one day she's done with everything.
Gendry's snood remarks, Ian's depression, her insanity... everything boils up to where there's no light inside her heart anymore, an empty hearth of nothing but dulled flames and frozen tears, she has an empty hearth and an empty heart.
Tick.
Tock.
Boom.
Fourteen hours remain till the vermillion shorelines bleed once more.
Tribute List for Vermillion Shorelines
Male - Female
District 1: Camden Winters (18) [Submitted by hgfanboy03] and Zarita Armelle (17) [Submitted by Golden Moon Huntress]
District 2: Minos Falzon (18) [Submitted by SexyBonBon] and Pomona Blair (18) [Submitted by PeonyPierce]
District 3: Christopher Ordin (16) [Submitted by Mr. Squirtle6] and Dialan Seiko (18) [Submitted by HoppsHungerFan]
District 4: Cassius Epidorus (18) [Submitted by deathless smile] and Azora Seasnow (16) [Submitted by clouds-overhead]
District 5: Vito Moran (16) [Submitted by no-role-models] and Lucina Davenwright (15) [Submitted by deathless smile]
District 6: Tyrel Arke (18) [Submitted by majesticplains] and Kathyrn Lennox (16) [Submitted by hgfanboy03]
District 7: Lindon Hearth (15) [Submitted by Keadon] and Astraea Sharpe (18) [Submitted by Sparky She-Demon]
District 8: Roman Bercucci (15) [Submitted by Tom137] and Chiara Domitt (12) [Submitted by rising-balloons]
District 9: Milner Dempsey (15) [Submitted by AthenaofRavenclaw] and Cassiopeia Barley (14) [Submitted by paperairline]
District 10: Alejandro Vega (17) [Submitted by Sparky She-Demon] and Bailey Hyland (17) [Submitted by Fuego500]
District 11: Aaron Rovelle (14) [Submitted by ilvidis] and Jem Lockehardt (17) [Submitted by Tom137]
District 12: Joshua Minthel (14) [Submitted by gameshungerplayer] and Amber Proctor (16) [Submitted by AmericanPi]
And there we are folks! That is our tribute list, ladies and gentlemen! There will be a few things to go over, when it comes to the reapings and other stuff. Foremost, I left the tributes submitters anonymous for one reason only and that will be dedicated to our Quell twist (which I am surprised none of you have come by yet), and if you're so desperate to find out, check the reviews for this chapter about who submitted who if you like. It is going by male name and then female name. A lot of you guys love people with names beginning with A... seven tributes have that as their first name. Lol. I digress.
So, for reaping chapters, I do things a little bit differently. Most SYOT's have their reapings go in numerical order, District 1 to 12, and I find that to be extremely droll. That means those who submit for lower districts have to constantly wait for their tribute to be written about which isn't fair, so what I do is I go on the RNG, which is Random Number Generator and generate a number between 1 and 12 for which district I'll write said reaping for, as it makes the chances of someone seeing a later district go up exponentially. I generated before I wrote the chapter, and we'll be seeing District 9 first as the very first reaping chapter, which is purely unorthodox, I know.
For reaping chapters, it is heavily prevalent you review as it comes into something a lot later with the Quell twist. Though I know people do this in their reviews at times, it'll be nice and easy for me to keep track if you, as a reviewer and reader who has a tribute up, would say who you love, like, neutrally feel about, dislike, and hate... for reasons unknown. Come the training chapters after chariot rides, I expect and need reviews as it'll help the story and myself immensely (more on that for really when the time comes)
I will start typing reaping chapters soon, and I will be starting with District 9, which I think will have the chapter out by no later than Saturday the 24th. Thank you all so much for submitting, I had 28 or so submissions, meaning four tributes had been axed from the final cut and I'm sorry, every character was well thought out and I am super excited for this year and this story! It means much more than any of you know.
Hope to see you all with Chapter #6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing, no later than the 24th. Thanks for being amazing readers and reviewers! I love you all! Have an amazing day! Bye!
~ Paradigm
