Hi friends! Slight TW for a toxic and slightly abuse relationship and some misogyny with Regards to Pericles's behavior in this chapter. Please DM me if you'd like a summary. Thank you.
Pericles McMaster, 49, Master of Ceremonies
The country is going on as if everything is normal. Blade Cassidy, the newest Victor, is gaining lukewarm reception from the Capitol, but that's unsurprising given his stoic demeanor. His performance in the Arena did not, unfortunately, make up for his lack of charm or interest in the publicity that being a Victor brings him. Despite all of his shortcomings, he's still fairly popular. Perhaps he would be more adored if Pericles had taken a liking to him.
And perhaps Pericles should endorse the boy. After all, he can respect a person who makes bold moves. But Pericles himself is more the type of person to linger back and listen closely to the whispers snaking their way through the underbelly of the Capitol.
They say Signet is a weak President. That he plans to someday end the Games. That a revolution is beginning to take shape, and that the President himself is letting it happen—perhaps even supporting it.
These are all rumors which Pericles takes a particular interest in. He's comforted by the fact that there are others who share similar sentiments as he.
Still, all of these are merely vapors. He knows this because others say that Pericles himself is a terrible Master of Ceremonies. According to their scathing remarks, he lacks pomp and likeability, he's emotionally detached from the Tributes, and his performances are vapid at best.
He knows that they could replace him in a heartbeat, especially if these whispers continue to persist. It would be so easy for the President to take away everything he's so painstakingly worked for.
After so many years, he's finally getting revenue. The Games are bringing in heaps of money, and so much of it is falling into his hands. He longs for even more from these Games; more bloodshed, more audience engagement, more threats to the Districts... anything that will keep him in this new influx of success from disappearing. Because if the Games go back to the way they were—or worse, end for good—Pericles's short-lived success will be nothing but ashes. And he can't let go. Not after waiting so long.
But he knows it's only a matter of time before Signet is forced from his station. Pericles has always wanted a great many things, with the ambition and enthusiasm the Capitol has always appreciated... and he's learned that, with some careful strategizing, he can always get those things. His wife, his position, and now the new revenue. The President's downfall is just another goal to be achieved.
Perhaps another man in his shoes might've laughed at the very idea. Signet Graymore, despite all of his softness, is from a powerful lineage. The practice of unseating rulers is hardly accepted, nor is it easy.
But Pericles has concrete, definite blackmail against the President, information that he's sure no one even remembered he was privy to. He's always been somewhat invisible in the Capitol's hierarchy, and he learned long ago that if people don't want to notice you, trying to win over their attention is futile. Instead, he's learned to be cunning and careful. Nobody sees him... and yet he sees everything. Although, this particular event wasn't difficult to miss.
How could he ignore the Victor of the 16th Hunger Games, just hours after his emergence from the Arena, plunging a knife into the President's chest? How could he forget the quick gunshot that followed, leaving the young Victor incapacitated?
They think they've covered it up well. Wounds healed. Mistakes concealed. Blood washed away as if it was never there.
But Pericles remembers. He knows the real story of that night. Of the weeks after, when Signet was secluded from view, claiming to be in mourning period, when he was really healing from a wound he wanted to hide from the country. A scandal he could not let come to light.
Signet would never let the people know that he was weak. That his very own Games had turned against him. That somehow, he'd let Blade back into the Capitol with a knife in his sleeve.
But now, Blade has all but gone off the radar. Signet must've quelled him, somehow. They must've brainwashed him into thinking that the President is noble and good.
But Pericles knows. He understands that a country cannot survive under a weak leader. If Panem is to last in prosperity, there needs to be a firm hand ruling it.
(Blade should've been killed on that night. Or, if not him, than Signet Graymore himself.)
Pericles knows he's not alone. There are other voices, people who've been waiting and plotting for a long time. He has to believe that someday, he'll find steadiness. He can rest in the knowledge that nobody will take his position, that the Games will go on with the regularity of the moon cycles.
And that his wife will never again have the power to stand against him.
He opens her door without knocking. She sits by the window, shoulders heavy, gazing out at the sunset. He waits.
The room feels brighter, somehow. As if hope somehow moved in while he wasn't looking. But that can't be possible. Not after their deal. Not after what he knows.
He's only here to test her, really.
Her gaze flickers away from the Capitol sky. The stillness in her subsides at the sight of him.
"Last I checked, these were private quarters." She's up and pacing, long strides around the room.
"I am your husband." He could say that he's tired of playing games. But really, he's just switched methods.
"So? Last I checked, that doesn't mean you have everything." She still hasn't looked him in the eyes.
"Where are the bodyguards I gave you?"
She sinks onto the bed, with its woven quilt. The design is foreign, a token from her old country. One of the gifts they sent her off with.
He tried to get rid of it years ago, but she clung to it like a dragon to a jewel.
"Oh." She shrugged. "They're on break. It's nighttime."
"They aren't permitted breaks." He pounds a fist against the desk.
Mirabelle appears unfazed by his words, his actions, all the things that used to make her quail. "Don't you get tired of this?" she says softly, her tone almost conversational. "The constant back-and-forth?"
What's happened to her in the year he's left her unattended?
"Do you ever get tired of chafing at the Capitol's simple requests?" he snaps back.
"They're yours. And they aren't simple requests. They're constraints. It's been years since our wedding. Surely you know me well enough by now to understand."
But he doesn't know her, not at all. Not as well as he thought. And she knows him even less.
"What do you know of Blade Cassidy?"
He hopes the question will catch her off guard, but only a ripple spreads over her glass-smooth demeanor, a pucker in her brow before her face becomes implacable again.
"What of him? He's a Victor. The newest darling."
"I wouldn't call him 'darling.' Not after what he did."
He waits for her to flinch. But she only blinks lazily.
"Only two kills in the Games. Others have been forced to do worse."
He exhales. "Of course."
"Was that all? If you wanted to know about Mr. Cassidy, perhaps you could consult one of the many fan pages dedicated to him."
"Is he really all that popular?" Pericles simpers. "He hides so much, it's like he's guilty of something."
She sighs and rolls her eyes skyward. "What are you getting at?"
Perhaps she really doesn't know anything.
Perhaps she has kept the end of his deal. He let those Tributes write those silly letters—some of which were far more powerful than he would've liked. And in exchange...
"You know he made some trouble in his District before he was in the Games. A little rebel, he was."
His wife finally looks him right in the eyes. Hers are dark and steely.
"People change, McMaster. Now kindly leave my quarters."
Pericles can only stand dumbfounded. His wife has never acted this way. Her words are serrated as knives.
"You claim to have no knowledge of Blade Cassidy, no involvement in a revolution? You have kept my deal?"
She bristles, her hands slowly curling into fists. "Our deal. You forget, they were my terms. And I don't see how what I do is any of your business."
It feels as though his careful control is crumbling right before his eyes. Everything, slipping through his fingers. He wants to snap, right then and there. To tell her that she is merely a speck before his power, and that he will always have authority over her.
But seeing as he hasn't been able to read her at all, he doubts such threats will phase her at all anymore. And that frightens him, loathe as he is to admit it.
He thought himself clever, to test her, see if he could make her crack. But maybe she has more composure than he ever imagined.
"Let's be truthful, now." Pericles leans forward, hedging closer to Mirabelle until he is mere inches from her. She doesn't flinch. "Do you know anything of Blade Cassidy?"
He already knows everything of the situation—he doesn't need her help. Her intel would be worth nothing. But he wants to know how much she's managed to glean. He doesn't want her in the way, not this year. Not when his game has finally begun.
She smiles wryly. "How could I not? One can't ignore the whispers."
Her gaze seems to strip away his superiority. How could he think he know so much, and she so little?
But no. She has to be bluffing.
Two can play at that game.
He steps an inch closer, so that he can smell the faint coconut perfume she always kept in the delicate bottle on the dresser.
Some things truly haven't changed.
"You think you are so above me now. I would be careful where you tread, my dear. You're not as coy as you believe yourself to be. Rebels will not be tolerated in this country, and especially not in my family—"
She plants her hands on his chest, shoving him away with surprising strength. "That's quite enough ranting," she says, her voice taut as a tightrope. "You forget that being the husband doesn't give you the authority to control me. You know nothing of these matters. I've said nothing about being a rebel, but what if I was? What would you do?"
He starts to speak, but her words come quickly to smother his.
"Never mind. Whatever it is, it won't change the fact that your petty arrogance is meaningless. You think yourself a king lording over his people. Perhaps nobody told you that there are things you could never understand. Things you choose not to see."
They stand there for a moment, and she pins him with her gaze and lets the seconds stretch on.
"Now, I'd suggest you leave, lest I have you escorted out. Think of the stories they'll tell of you then."
She wields each word like a carefully aimed arrow, and before Pericles knows what he's doing, he's scrambling away and out through the hallways.
Like the coward he is.
He extracted nothing from that labyrinth of a conversation. He'd hoped to intimidate her, perhaps get her to accidentally reveal her part in the President's attempted assassination.
And maybe it's the paranoia talking. Maybe he worries that if he lets Mirabelle get too powerful, she will become a threat. His job will be gone. Or else Signet will end the Games, and Mirabelle would be right beside him, and then Pericles would be back to the beginning again. It's all a perplexingly linked cycle, one he can't seem to make sense of. Round and round he goes.
But if there's one thing he knows, it's that he refuses to be humiliated. He will hold to the money and prestige he has right now, and he won't let go for anything.
If it means he must expose the information he knows about Blade, or get Mirabelle imprisoned without any hard evidence, or even see some casualties... so be it. He's worked so hard for this power. He deserves it.
And he won't let anything happen to compromise that.
...
Hi! It's been a minute, hasn't it? I've missed this Verse so I'm glad to be posting on this lovely Monday lol! I hope you enjoyed this prologue... or as much as you could've while reading from this guy lol. I didn't include a specific quote with this chapter, but the song I have in mind is When The Chips Are Down from Hadestown. Hadestown is just the theme soundtrack of this Verse, and I think we all know this by now haha! School is getting out so soon and with summer coming, I really hope I'll be able to write more! It'll probably be Intro Summer for me and that makes me really happy! Speaking of which, thank you again for all the subs and interest that I've received from you guys, it truly means the world and it's shaping up to be a great cast because of all your brilliance! Today marks... a month-ish to get subs in! Time has really been zooming by lately for me. But yeah, I think that's about all I have to say for now! I'll see you with the last prologue, likely with a cast list along with it!
Much Love,
Miri