Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death! It's here, it's here, it's here and I am so happy to have it here, that we are at the last of the tribute intros with Chapter #11: Entrance to the Promised Land. Last chapter we met Cecelia Blackstone (D1F), Pierce Alversway (D6M), Diana Kratovska (D4F), and Gemini Lennox (D9M). We are on our last set of four tributes today, and we have Calen Kinegrove (D10M by silversshade), Kai'sa Shadow (D12F by SetFires/Vix), Sylvan Adello (D7M by In Writing), and Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F by Platrium). We also have a pov from Head Peacekeeper Lydia Wickervein, where our Capitol subplot, that'll actually be a subplot for once instead of a full blown story, shall be at the end of the chapter, but I highly suggest you read it as it will still affect the tributes; I don't write filler, ladies and gents, and if I include something, it's here for a reason. I apologize about the slight delay, school is starting back up soon and I am working more hours, and my heart has been ensnared. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #11: Entrance to the Promised Land.

"If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey." ~ Bible, Numbers 14:8

Calen Kinegrove: District 10 Male P.O.V (15)

Beads of rain no longer look like rain to him, but tears. A bit damper than what he normally would have running through his head, but he suspects, given the circumstances, that there might be a necessary dosage of sadness sprinkled on top of his positivity, his usual positive self a bit cramped by the relatively low ceiling of the dining car, which fifteen year-old Calen Kinegrove finds to be rather odd for his bedroom ceiling is quite massive. There is something rather dreary about it raining, as it is currently downpouring outside, while their train rumbles along the tracks to the Capitol. It is rather spritely and early for him to be up at this hour, especially without a rooster cawing in his ear to act as the reason why he has to wake up, but Calen is surprised to find their Capitol escort, a woman named Roxanne Underseer, with wispy black hair that reminds Calen of the farmers smoking cigarettes up against the barn house, almost setting whole rolls of hay alight by their haphazard ways that they'd flicker the embers into.

Speaking of sprinkles however, Calen turns his attention down towards the jelly donut sitting by itself on a paper plate, they having run of the fine china as Nokomis shatters two plates during dinner when an Avox whose hair had not yet had a chance to dye red rubs a black streak on her arm. Calen looks at his district partner in terror as she flings a plate at the man, who is simply doing his job so Roxanne doesn't have to sic a Peacekeeper on the man, and she reacts that way. Nokomis had since then disappeared into the belly of the train, while it rocks along the tracks, he going back to stir his soup slowly. Sleeping is not something that happens all too often for him, though, when he'd go and lie out and stare at the stars, pointing out constellations with his hands, but also due to the fact he can hear her crying into her pillow, muffled sobs separated by walls of platinum and barriers of cloth. Calen gets out of bed three times, each time advancing farther and farther out of his room towards hers, she just pressed up against his where her head of the bed must be flush against his, for the sobs are somewhat clear as day.

However, Calen does not persist in the venture, simply staying under the covers, keeping his gaze bored into the ceiling while raindrops hit the train, a light pitter pat filling the silence of the train, for it has gone quiet ever since dinner is over, Roxanne excusing herself to see to the Avox who is actually hit by one of Nokomis's wayward plates. Apparently his district partner writes an apology to the Avox and slips it under their quarters, as the man seems to be in an extremely chipper mood, scooping scrambled eggs to place on Calen's plate, though the kid himself, his head brushing the top of the ceiling when the wheels bump atop a rivet in the tracks, doesn't ask for eggs to be put on his plate, the sundering cry of displeasure settles under his tongue while the eggs fill the plate. The man has already set them out, but he presses a hand on the man's shoulder, causing him to flinch.

"I'll do Nokomis's plate," he tells him, staring at the dark hair and the brightly dyed eyebrows. The man reminds him of his father, Calen swallowing away the uncomfortable memory with a hitch in his throat, while his mother clutches the gravestone and sobs, and Calen decides that he is going to be the man of the house now, putting on the big boy pants and the pair of jeans that are a size too big for him despite his lanky height, where she can only shake her head at him and say how ridiculous he looks. He will never be Tyrell Kinegrove, the man who did everything for the family, with his hands soaked in pig blood as he swamped fingers down into the guts. Calen bites back the tears by chomping at his tongue, furiously scrubbing at his skin with the back of his hand.

The avox looks at him suspiciously, just for a second, perhaps an action that'd get him whipped if someone were to see any sort of emotion wash over his features, but Calen's heart swells in his throat until the man sets the hot skillet down onto its placemat, wiping pale fingers beneath a white cloth. Calen nods his head at the man, smiling slightly, and the grin disappears the moment he looks back at Roxanne, who is giving him side-eye from her seat, she applying some lipstick to her face, an open mirror sitting in her palm, she turning her mocha tanned neck up to get the angle just right. She closes the mirror, setting it down aside her fork, which looks to be a salad fork by the way it is shaped. Her eyes flicker over Calen, a softness in her gaze, but also a disappointment, as if she expects better of him.

"It'll be a waste of time, dearie," she tells him, and her lips pluck off syllables like fingers removing feathers from a chicken. Harsh and guttural, rude, yet somehow there's a warmth in it, Calen rubbing his arm in discomfort.

"Being nice to the Avox or for making Nokomis a plate of food?"

"Both," Roxanne says rather decisively, beckoning Calen to sit. He does, sitting firmly in the center of the chair, now about a foot away from the ceiling than he had been when standing upright, a few bottles of syrup clattering next to one another as the wheels jump on yet another groove. "Where we're going, you don't need friends. You won't make friends, especially not with her." The escort's eyes flash at him, like coins clattering against the sidewalk, a chill racing through Calen's chest. "Eat up, I expect you won't get lunch till we get to the Capitol, and then it'll be a long time before dinner after tonight's festivities."

Calen doesn't say anything, but he does pick up his fork, milling through the scrambled eggs, which have a sheen of oil and butter lightly glossed over them. The few roosters on the farms he's worked on, with their squawking and gobble chins and red plumes have never been close with him, though he expects that they seeing him with the machete in the foreground of their domain, blade swinging back and forth to lowly cut the blades of grass by his knee must not do any favors for their nerves. He is too nice, his mother, Anwen, tells him, though she does not mean it to be harsh, he cannot help but take it that way, with the way wet tears soak his eyelashes, though like all the other times he's cried, he rubs them away with his hand.

If he is too nice for this world, then perhaps the places after Panem will be where his talents are going to be appreciated, the dark thought rippling a frown across his face, as he takes a bite of his breakfast. Being at home with just his mom, who works as a milk maid, is not enough coin to help feed his younger sisters, it falling onto his shoulders, though he harks to the task like water on rye. If there is an empty gap that he can fill, Calen shall fill it. He is unable to volunteer for his sisters, but he doesn't have to given that Nokomis is selected, but if they had been, and he is eligible in some shape, way, or form, he would... loyal to his last dying breath, for that is his flesh and blood. He is the last one to stay at the grave with his father, his mother leaving first, but he doesn't hear her cry or yell in anguish, almost as if she is not affected, but he knows she is, for Calen sees the dampness on her pillow, the way her voice is pained as she tries to speak through cups of coffee and rolling out dough in the kitchen.

Roxanne brings a glass of wine to her lips - drinking, this early? Calen frowns, but he doesn't say anything - as the woman directs her attention towards the other side of the dining car. "Rough morning, girlie?" she asks, to whomever had just entered as he can hear the faint trace of the door closing shut. He turns around in the chair to see a rather disheveled looking Nokomis Yanaba, her dark hair in a mop of curls and straight pieces of terror, she yawning away with a hand over her open mouth, her face puffy, eyes bloodshot... another chill ripples across Calen's arms at the sight of his district partner who simply glares back at Roxanne without saying anything, the Avoxes in the room finishing their work in silence, adding a slab of ham onto Calen's plate, and two extra pieces of bacon, but Nokomis's plate has only the eggs, the Avoxes not even touching the plates. Roxanne swirls the wine glass in her hands, pursing her lips. "It's rude to not address your elders, Nokomis."

"Screw you," she mutters to the Capitolite, taking her seat next to Calen, he getting up to pull her chair back. Roxanne coos disapprovingly in her throat, a dove's call that is mangled after a cat's claws tear the avian friend into lunch meat. Her hand seizes the same spot on the back of the chair as his, he letting go lighting fast. She looks at him with a frown, Nokomis's lips twitching into a downward spiral, a flare of guilt and sorrow twisting in his guts. "I can get my own chair, you know," she says, voice quiet, he nodding and sitting back down. She mills through the eggs, but Calen is having a hard time taking his eyes off of her, lips parted while he wishes to apologize, but the apology does not come forth, simply sitting in the hammock of his dark curls and inside the sorrow droplets on the inside of his eyes.

She is prickly, but he can deal with prickly; it is his purpose in the world to make people feel good, and needed, and wanted, but even still, like last night, he does not approach her, for there's no reason to, not if she doesn't want his company. Nokomis hums in approval at the eggs, going to look over at the Avoxes, but they've disappeared, he choosing to use the word fled. Roxanne sets her wine glass down, Calen seeing that Nokomis tenses by the added pressure on the table cloth, her own eyes flicking to the rounded out bowl, gaze washing over the sea of black cherry liquid sloshing along the sides. "Well, I can say right now that the two of you are off to a fantastic start," Roxanne says, a twinge of hurt flaring in Calen's chest. She's mocking him, and her, and he's done nothing to deserve it. "A girl who won't speak nicely to those who can save her life, and a kid who wants to be friends with everyone," the woman rolls her eyes, tapping her nails on the edge of the table. "Looks like District 10's getting the first victor this year..."

Nokomis has a bite in her mouth, she pulling her fork out, setting it aside on the plate, the points directed towards Calen, he unsure what to look at, for all he can picture is said fork getting dragged across his throat in a ruby red smile, spilling offal out of him from ear to ear. "Calen isn't pathetic."

Roxanne tilts her head to the side, smiling wryly. "I didn't say he was, Nokomis. All on you."

A chill races through Calen's spine, tapping into his synapses, making his shaky breaths even shakier. The men on the farm who had been working there for a long time find him ridiculous, with his gargantuan height and his bony wrists, and he's pushed and jostled and left on a bale of hay with bruises up his forearms, fingers tied together with twine, a piece of cloth stuffed into his mouth simply because he tells them that it is not right to bully the smallest man on the totem pole, until Calen Kinegrove realizes that he is the smallest man on the totem pole now.

"The world is a scary place," his mother tells him, under the swinging low light above their dining room table, he running a piece of rope through his hands and over his thumbs.

"I know, Mom," he nods his head, though she simply clucks her tongue in disappointment.

Nokomis is holding onto her knife instead of her fork now, but the Peacekeeper hanging out by the back window behind Roxanne has taken a single step forward, the creak of the floorboards evident enough in his movement, for now Calen is incapable of tearing his gaze away from the blade, simply to cut through the ham, but it might go into the escort's throat if she isn't careful. "You said it," Nokomis hisses, lightly. "In so few words, you did. He's pathetic, and I'm pathetic, and we're going to die."

Well, she has a way with words, doesn't she?

Calen grips the edge of the table with his fingers pressing into the tablecloth, all the while Roxanne takes another sip of the wine. Nokomis rises out of her seat just enough so the Peacekeeper takes another step, that causing his district partner to sit right back down immediately. "Your words, not mine, dearie," their escort snaps back smarmily, before grabbing the bread and butter knife, spreading a bright pink jam over a biscuit before biting into it, spraying crumbs everywhere. Calen flinches at the bite. If his little sisters were to have an inkling or an ounce of the manners displayed here, it'd be going to bed without the rest of dinner and no dessert had they wanted some strawberries or an orchard apple, the skin bright and red like his rubbed raw wrists as he tries to break from his bindings.

Nokomis looks at Calen, locking her jaw, before setting the knife back down, returning to her eggs. His heart beats in his chest, synched to the pulsating roll of the train as it clatters over the connected bars, he moving his hands to nibble at the bacon placed on his plate from the avox with the bruised jaw, the fright in his eyes similar to the dark swirls in his cup of coffee.

"The world is a scary place," he hears his mother's voice echoing through his head, he gripping the edge of the table, holding onto the bacon just by his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. "And it is going to devour you alive."

Kai'sa Shadow: District 12 Female P.O.V (16)

Akin to her last name, the world is marred with shadow, she tasting it on her tongue in sour shades of purple and pink. Valentina's advice in her head rolls over like the tide, or the rippling puddles she dips her pointed feet into while she tries to walk across the shallow lake bed, rolling under her ankles, feeling the satisfying pop of toes shattering under the pressure of her foot, and that she needs to find the happy place that is not being eaten away by the flames, or the columns of smoke that chokes the sky, where when the land trembles above ground she is in the corner, rocking back and forth with her fingers in her ears - pinkies, if she can recall - humming to herself, for the hums sound like screams. She'd be down there a lot, placed underground beneath the soil while Peacekeeper boots marched from house to house, looking for the Shadow's.

They'd find them everywhere, it felt like, and Kai'sa would flinch while the pitter-patter of blood droplets would spill down the sewers into her happy hiding place, hitting the rusted pipe and creating a vermillion pool down below. The smell would be of rust and flesh and vinegar, Kai'sa's nose scrunched up at the smell. She'd see sunlight when Valentina would come to visit her, a woman from One with the most gorgeous face she's ever seen, and the leg, oh the leg spotted in bruises and wrapped in the white embalming cloth, for there were shattered bones beneath the skin, Kai'sa wanting to sit by the woman's leg and plait around, trying to find the bits and count them in her head, but she's only ever able to count up to four or five bone fragments as Valentina slaps her hands away, forcing her to go en pointe. There is a rule that a child should not start going and walking on pointe till they're somewhat mature, which would be around twelve or thirteen, but she's doing it at ten, going from one end of the bunker to the other.

The rat. The cave dweller. The dancer in the dark. She's heard the titles, the jabs and sneers thrown her way the few times she's at school when her parents would allow her to go, for she needs to interact with someone, but her brothers and sisters are not allowed, as Kai'sa has enough social grace to interact with them. They all think she's weird, paler than the freshest full moon in the sky, her dark blue eyes shining like a violet found in a flowerbed, crushed under her heels while she tries her new pirouette move in the mulch. People stare at her arms, Kai'sa unable to find something long enough to cover them up, crescent shaped marks digging into the pale flesh as if she is trying to claw it off of her, piercing and causing copper to flow, which has her run out of breath and spin into a tizzy, Valentina unable to help her up from the fall given that the woman will never be able to amble over to her quick enough with the crutches and save her from the screams that tear from her throat.

They started one day and are unable to be quelled after watching the bodies fall to the floor, fire licking away at the clothes and gnawing off arms and flesh that dissipates into dust, dust that Kai'sa scoops into her hands and sobs into, trying to breathe air into them. All of the bunker kids, all the kids living underground to get away from the scrutiny of the Peacekeeper gaze, all fifty-eight of them, she shaking the hands of them, being the oldest of the flock, the one who'd dance with a raven's wings attached to her arms, outstretched and dark fabric connecting from wrist to armpit, and she does a front flip into a crate, knocking off a can of tomatoes that burst open, the red reminding her of blood, and Kai'sa freezes in place, mouth open wide in a silent scream.

That is when the flames leap through the underground, erupting from the kitchen and causing the pipes to burst, and her mother, Evelyn Shadow, with bright blonde hair, is dragging her through the muck, still dressed in the stupid raven costume, and she's shaking in her mother's grip, thrashing about, for her brothers and sisters are down in this hellhole somewhere, while the smoke clogs up the airways, clogs up her heart and makes her cough, eyes watering underneath the smog. Simon and River are found as charred corpses beneath one of the fire exits, the two kids too small to be able to reach the ladder that had been pulled up... her heart beating in her chest as her mother gets her to safety, leaving her outside to rush back in for her now dead siblings, to never be found again. Kai'sa sinks into the grass outside while the entire sky burns in sulfur, a crowd gathered on the small end of the fence, and then she sees them, in the corner, the Peacekeepers, all the Peacekeepers in their sea of white coming to arrest those who spill out of the hole alive.

Kai'sa rushes them, screaming all the while, dressed in that idiotic bird costume when Valentina trips her out of nowhere with her crutches, wrapping the girl up in a shawl and a coat, ushering her away while her mentor hobbles down the street as best she can. It had been her fourteenth birthday just a few days prior, the Peacekeepers smoking out the Shadow's and the rest of them, all the families combined while their fathers work in the war, work in bringing down the Capitol, and she knows the rebellion, it being failed, has been dubbed as the Ash Wars, a bitter taste hitting the back of Kai'sa's throat as she thinks of how her entire family is wrapped up in ash, all burned to ash and ash, floating away in a gentle breeze, while she still tugs onto the raven costume, spinning in the dark, her choked cries sounding like that of a downed bird, drowning in a sea of acid.

Then the Capitolite from the one place she's never wanted to see draws her name out at random, and she breaks, wanting to fly away, screaming off her head and everyone's eyes on her, but not in the way she wants, not in the way that she'd ever want them to see her, performing without the costumes and performing without the stage lights to warm her movements, for she is not dressed up, and the makeup is not applied, nor the winged eye-liner, just a taudy white dress where smears of coal taper along the edge, like frills of water lapping the lake shore she finds one misty morning, skipping out on breakfast with Valentina, she becoming her guardian, and letting her feel the cello pieces that waft above the emerald treetops, breathing in the fog and-

"You're Mr. Elixir's adopted daughter, aren't you?" comes a voice, sounds of static breaking Kai'sa's concentration, she stumbling in the next arabesque she's going to make across the parlor, listening to the crackle of the fireplace in the corner, before she stumbles over a raised bit of the carpet, her cheek smudged up against an imprinted paisley flower as she collapses with a groan. Kai'sa shakes her head, rubbing her face and going to rub her foot, looking up with a scowl at her district partner, who had not announced his arrival and also scared the hell out of her, she might add with a glare. Ramses Boskov, a person she saw tremble like a leaf when he's reaped after her freaked out reaction, when she's doing her breathing exercises, counting to ten in her head while keeping her eyes closed. His dark face is a bit more hidden in the dim lightning of the parlor car, they having gone into a three and a half mile tunnel underneath a mountain, perhaps the ones that span in District 2, she thinks, but she wants the mood lightning to be settled, only by the crackling of the fire.

Kai'sa gets to her feet, swaying some from the sudden reversal of balance, clutching her forehead. That's sure to bring a mark, but it is his comment that makes the pain flare up more, and he's entirely drowned out in navy blue, the walls turning into a stalk of ivy green, sickly and making her think of hospital needles. "Well, I'm more than just 'somebody's daughter'," Kai'sa enunciates that with air-quotes, struggling to her feet.

"Sure," Ramses says, though it as if he's speaking in an afterthought. "I'm more concerned on him, though."

Her left eye begins to twitch, looking at him while shooting icy glaring daggers at him, hoping he'd get the hint. "Not like I asked him to just pick me out of the crowd, y'know," she snarks back, going to sit in the plush leather chair in the corner by the fireplace while the train rattles on and on. Yes, her new father, her new adoptive father who plucks her out of the crowd while she's dressed like the White Swan during the performance of Black Swan, with Valentina's guidance pushing her forward and forward ever still as she goes on pointe one more time, holding her pose for a whole thirty seconds, the newly elected Simon Ether - well, that means Ramses gets his name incorrectly - and it bothers her to no end that her dead brother and new father happen to have the same name.

Valentina is essentially forced to let her go, for her 'father' is transfixed by her talent, and that someone as talented as she is should not be allowed to get cooped up in a crippled woman's dying dreams, and be let free, an ashen bird brought to life with radiant wings that pulsate all the colors of the rainbow. She's unable to hide the blush on her face from when he picks her out of the crowd, and the last year has been some of the best times of her life, no longer having to look at cans of crushed tomatoes, but instead scoops of caviar onto her silver spoon that is downed by golden liquid and nibbling bits of ambrosia at the corners of her mouth, while there are tapestries of her dancing and performing in the main hall of the mansion, she looking at a portrait of her while she sits, waiting for the doom to befall upon her shoulders, which is in the form of that Capitolite, Kenneth Nighton, a young man who must be in his late twenties, with shining blonde hair, smiles and tilts his glass of Sherry back and lets her arms bleed, Peacekeepers patching up the holes.

She knows Ramses thinks she's weird, and she figures it is deserved, for what happens yesterday in the courtyard is not a normal reaction on the daily, when her mania slips just beneath the surface, she feeling his judgmental stares bearing into her back as he lets her enter the Justice Building first, shivering and fingers still peeling away at scabs.

"You're still living with him, though," Ramses says, the disgust evident on his voice, he taking a step closer to her, but Kai'sa takes a step closer to him as well, raising both of her eyebrows, crossing her arms over the other to stare right into his eyes, to stare right into them and stab them with a pointed foot if she must, going on releve to match his height with hers. "You could've said no, but instead you joined a murderer in his home and ate and drank at his table." Her heartbeat begins to pick up again in her chest, her lips parting, and the navy blue of the walls turns brackish green, the color of sick and vomit and puke, she almost upheaving herself as he continues getting closer to her, the strength in Kai'sa's veins sapping away whatever bits of strength reside in her, they left in the plumage of the White Swan costume, hanging up on a hook outside her room, where she swears she sees River hanging there in the costume, lifeless, bits of ash biting away at her fingernails.

A choked sob rips itself from Kai'sa's throat, she collapsing again in the train car, up against the far wall which is entirely in wooden paneling, and Ramses's skin goes a flushed bright red, she tasting blood in the back of her throat as he advances on her, but now she's staring at her brother, at Simon, though he is only seven years old when he passes, and a tiny thing, he's gigantic, calling her a liar and a fake and a girl who strung up loved ones by their feet, Kai'sa sobbing into the back of her hand, choking on air and gasping, fingers going down at her hands, peeling away from scabs. Ramses takes a gingerly step toward her, calling out for someone - she doesn't want Kenneth, anyone but Kenneth, the man who leaves her screaming into the pits of the sky - before he crouches right by her.

"Hey! Hey, Kai'sa, listen to me!" he tells her, fingers forcibly pressed into her wrists, trying to block her fingers from clawing at each other, for she is curving her hand upward, breaking wrists to resemble bird wings, plucked raven wings by corpses and dead children. Kai'sa tries pushing him away, and while he's frail, she's frailer, and it is pushing a brick wall, a scream getting lodged in her throat, causing her to cough and hack away. He is evil, he is the villainous Peacekeepers who burn away the underground stronghold, for there is a spy and a rat nestled in the tunnel system, that these people are the leaders of the District 12 rebellion, and each Peacekeeper's face that she gets a glimpse at all look like Ramses Boskov, mocking her, torturing her, killing her.

"Let- let go of me!" she screams, but he keeps his grip on her, holding her hands in his, pleading, whispering, begging.

"Breathe, Kai'sa. It's just you and I, you're safe, you're safe here, safe with me, and I- I won't hurt you," Ramses says over and over again, but it is exactly what Valentina tells her. To breathe in and out, to breathe in and out, through the nose and out the mouth, but the mouth is blocked by terror and fright.

Breathe, Kai'sa. Breathe.

Kai'sa has forgotten how to take a single breath that does not develop into a shriek.

She has not breathed oxygen in months, months, and months.

Years go by, and her lungs still do not expand.

Sylvan Adello: District 7 Male P.O.V (14)

While his district partner, Neveah, sees competitors in the faces looking back at them on the screen, all he sees are doomed souls, and he sees his doomed soul milling around the others like a long lost puppy, looking to see who'd tell him which direction to go. They're curled up in the parlor together, with their escort, a brilliant man dressed in six shades of periwinkle that draws his name from the reaping collection, who has since then turned off the TV screen, flipping through a Capitol magazine, but Sylvan Adello, fourteen years-old with a heartbeat that feels like he's been awake and at it for more than that period of time, cannot read it. Nevaeh, his district partner, simply looks ahead at the blank screen, fiddling back and forth with a napkin she's taken from the dining car.

Sylvan looks over at her, silence passing between the car, and it seems as if the Avoxes are the ones who are making the most noise, preparing lunch as they are tiny sandwiches resting on the edge of a silver platter balancing on the precipice edge of the tray, moving slightly every time the train takes a seemingly quick and sharp turn on the tracks. They're passing through District 1 now, it being the closest district to the Capitol, but as what Javier says, their escort with his seemingly gold skin under all the periwinkle, there are twelve train tracks that go into and out of the Capitol, as is for each district too, depending on where they are to enter and exit from. So, despite the tributes from One, Sylvan remembering their names to be Cecelia and Catalus, are the closest to the Capitol and could arrive there within just a few short hours of travel, it is rather silly but per protocol, the train has been going through Two, and out to Five, and to the sierras of Ten, and through the coniferous trees of Seven, while Sylvan has been traveling down the west coast of Panem, skirting down by the gulf and the Pacific Ocean, and routing back through One to reach the Capitol.

There is not a whole lot in One to really see, not they'd ever get close enough to view the District from afar or any of the surrounding environment of course, but he supposes it is quite cool. He's seen all of Seven, from the tall oak trees with their emerald leaves leaving patches of sunlight to dance into, frolicking about with the daisies reaching just near mid-waist, to the small creek that he dips his feet into, catching a fresh water trout and cracking it with his bare feet. Of course, his brothers and sisters find it to be gross, but Sylvan is rather proud of it, able to bring a fire to live, coaxing it with a shaky breath. His parents are trying their hardest - well, his mother is, at the very least, for his father and uncle have taken up arms and fled with their silver axes to fight in the emerald trees he loves so much - and there is only a single trip to the market every nine days, for that is what Maria Adello is able to afford without compromising the entire operation. The Peacekeepers have their swap on that day, so Maria Adello is seen by different people then, and not the same group that would recognize her from the time before.

The Adello family, well Maria, his mother, and Jason Adello, his father, to be presumed dead, the kids scattered to the wind and left in Rosa Adello, his aunt's care. Sylvan curls his legs up to his side, wrapping an arm around it, pulling it tight to his body. Javier hums to himself, flicking a page. He wants to be upset at the man, but he can't be, because he knows in all truth, the situation is out of the man's hands. There is something a bit more sinister he suspects on the air, when looking at Nevaeh, who'll occasionally look over at Javier and flip him off, to the Capitolite man's lack of knowledge, Sylvan hiding the smirk under his lips, though he's been failing at that lately. An Avox hands him a plate with a sandwich, and a clear cup of liquid that he presumes to be water, so used to seeing it come in grainy brown spills, with dirt and the life of Seven poured into the makeshift ceramic bowl, the one thing he remembers to take before his father packs up the axe in his own bag.

Sylvan turns the sandwich over to face him, his nose wrinkling at the sight. It is turkey, and he's grown sick and tired of turkey. Neveah accepts her own sandwich gracefully, though she still does not raise her voice above a whisper, she having been apparently tended to by the same Avox who gave her lunch the night before, there being talk of bruises and Peacekeeper abuse, Sylvan blanching at the thought. He nudges her with his elbow, she turning to face him, eyebrow quirked, lips ticking upwards. "I have turkey," he says, showing her, fingers pushing down on the white bread, leaving fossil fingerprints behind as he shifts his grip. "Do you want mine? What's yours?"

Nevaeh turns it over too, a pink meat looking back at her. "I think it might be ham," and a shrug. "Or salami," She pauses, fingers running through her hair, lips parted for a second, Sylvan taking in the sight of his district partner. She is beautiful, but a few years older than him, and if he had been just maybe a year younger, or perhaps twelve, he might've considered her to be the prettiest woman in the world, but instead he's shifting awkwardly on one foot while the sun bears down on his body, on his pale skin, and he's looking at one of the fifteen year-olds in the male section, a complete stranger, who looks back at him with a bitten lip, a wink in his direction that causes Sylvan to gasp lightly to himself while lying on his bed late last night, pants down at his ankles.

"Trade?" he offers with a smile.

She grins too, they swapping sandwiches, he taking a bite the moment his accursed meat is out of his hand, mouth filled with bread, ham, mayonnaise, and lettuce. He gives her a thumbs up, smiling again, Nevaeh's grin slowly lowering down as she sets the sandwich aside on the tray, pushing it away. Javier accepts two sandwiches, they looking to be peanut butter and a red jelly of sorts, but Sylvan is unable to discern, like the magazine, what kind he got. The man hasn't spoke to them at all, to be honest, dinner last night quiet, and Sylvan eats breakfast by himself, for Nevaeh is going to the medical car to get the bruises all along her side once again checked at, and he doesn't care where their escort is, but the man seems friendly enough in his distance. He quirks an eyebrow again at Nevaeh's insistence to not eat, she matching his look, shaking her head in dissent.

"I'm not hungry."

"But we'll be arriving in the Capitol soon," he says, sitting upright. "I mean, if what Javier said is true about the tribute parade and all that, we might not get to eat in-"

"I said I'm not hungry, Sylvan," Nevaeh tells him a bit more strongly than he expects her to, voice solid and unwavering, like a line at the beach getting pelted by rain. He bristles some on the couch, moving his legs back to the floor so his bare feet can rest on the carpet. She uses his name, he realizes, eyebrows both rising up at the same time, she turning away from him to continue fiddling with the napkin in her hand, pushing the wound up tip back and forth with her thumb, there being the echoing syllables of her voice and Javier's humming filling the car, for the Avoxes have left.

She won't listen to him, he figures, if he were to try and coax her. One of the cousins, a sweet little girl, with rosy cheeks and being Aunt Rosa's last child before the bullet wound to the abdomen gets rid of any mothering possibilities... a picky eater, always the one finding Nightlock in the bushes to pluck off, he having to dive across stones and skin his knees against the ground to knock the berries out of her hand, dipping her hand in the water to wipe off the juice, a putrid crimson and a violent blue, purple droplets that coalesce at fingertips and smear across open mouths, making heartbeats cease into those of stone. Sylvan grips his cousin by the shoulders, darling Vetia, with strawberry blonde hair and emerald green eyes like the canopies above where his father and her father would work, and probably where Nevaeh's parents would work blinking back at him, tears in her eyes because he raises his voice.

"Don't touch those berries ever again, Vet," he tells her, pressing his hand into the side of her voice, it cracking with pained rivets down the middle, into his throat, splitting his tongue in half. "Those will hurt you, and I know you don't like pain," he presses a light kiss to her forehead. "Do you trust me?"

Vetia nods her head, always a sweet little girl who listens to her elders, though Sylvan finds it strange for someone to consider him as an elder, not with his tall height and curly brown hair, youth and naivete flooding through his river blue eyes, oceanic and drowning. "I trust you."

Sylvan juts out of the memory, watching Javier take another bite of his sandwich. What would be the possibility or likelihood that their Capitol escort would be eating jam made from Nightlock berries? How would anyone not gifted in the art or knowledge of plants and wildlife know what they were about to eat would not take their life? Could there be a chance the mayo on the sandwich is no longer mayo? Displeasure churns through Sylvan's stomach, he setting his own sandwich aside while Nevaeh seems to set her napkin down, tucking her own legs beneath her. He scratches at the back of his neck, frowning, trying to keep the nausea in his throat down. For even though there is Vetia, whom he saves, there is Claude, the boy with the bowstring and the light platinum blonde hair, and the laugh filled with mirth and... he shudders away the thought, as the boy swallows and bites down, collapsing and he cannot hold back the yell.

"Nevaeh," he says, breaking the silence again, she looking over at him slowly, ever so slowly while blinking, "What did you think of them all?" he swallows, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. A green leaf, his father calls him, that he's a fresh green leaf, ripe for the picking, and when plucked, they die. He shall not die, not like the faces and competitors on screen. "The other tributes?"

She looks at him, tucking her knees to her chest, face slightly blank, as if she is trying to not think of them in any way, shape, or form. "They seem normal and fine to me."

Sylvan chews on his lower lip. "Do any of them seem like killers to you?" Seeing the volunteers of Catalus Drachma, Magnus Winterthorn, and Orion Maythorpe has Sylvan running both hands down his legs, anxiety flaring up in his gut. That- they're volunteers, physically choosing to go into the Games and... his mind blanks as well at the idea that people would be happy or willing to leap out of the frying pan and into the fire, all of their intentions unknown perhaps, but they still sit there. Diana Kratovska has Sylvan almost subconsciously check his own biceps given how well hers seem to be, the girl from Six, that Porscha Watanabe looking mean, as well as the girl from Ten, Nokomis Yanaba... he wouldn't want to be left alone in a room with her, he knows that.

"Killers?" Neveah asks, although she's almost laughing, laughing at the incredulousness of the question. Sylvan shakes his head back and forth, a lump forming in his throat. He sees killers everywhere, and he knows what one looks like, the outer edges of their frame blurred by static and bright red droplets cascading down the sides. He sees the way his district partner sits back and tenses against the couch, how her eyebrows push together like she's trying to ward off a single, villainous thought from scraping her away whole, like someone scooping out peanut butter in a jar. "No, Sylvan, none of them look-"

"You know one," he cuts her off, exhaling shakily, and decides, rather hastily, to take the plunge. "And I don't want to be facing off against killers," he holds his hand out to her, after the nausea in his stomach rolls with the sandwich sitting there, the bite down his throat and splashing in his stomach. "I- I want to be allies, Nevaeh..." and he firmly holds his hand out, inching closer, Javier sitting up and raising both of his eyebrows, setting the magazine down.

Nevaeh locks her jaw some, looking at the blank screen of the TV where they had watched the reaping recap, where she would've seen killers like he sees killers, and she's denying it. "I'm fine with that," she says, grabbing his hand. "Allies."

The two shake on it.

Vesuvia Vocanova: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)

She's almost there, to the city of promises and of death and destruction, and the promises of death and destruction in her stomach are churning away like a tide onto a rolling beach, further exacerbated any time Jasper presses a hand on her shoulder, to rouse her from sleep or to get her attention. Eighteen year-old Vesuvia Vocanova clutches the blanket in her hands currently to her face, feeling the smooth fabric slide up and away. She's sitting in the dining car with Jasper and their Capitol escort, Cole Echo, a very young kid, who may just be their age or even a year older, but odd, very odd with auburn hair that is a shocking shade like hers, the latter two playing a game of chess while she stirs away the iced tea an Avox places in her hand.

It is a strange wheel of fortune that she finds herself on, Vesuvia figures, she able to see the dice fall, but she's incapable of seeing where they land. Her dream is almost actualized and finalized yesterday, when she has Jasper Overheart spooled around her finger like he came from a wheel of thread, she a thimble with a honing beacon attached to the top. She sees it in ivory white, surrounded by clouds, the fame and the fortune and the desire to be great sitting on her tongue, as she is going to be laughing at who is reaped, who is selected by the Capitol to go die in some dome... and then she's laughing at her own name, before the terror crashes into her like one of those tides. It is her, she's going on stage, she's getting dragged in front of everyone, and then, as if life simply knows where to strike her the hardest, there's Jasper. There's Jasper and his terrible decision making. She has pride in him, that'll be useful, if their conversation from the day before the Reaping is anything to go by... and then he tries to run away from the Peacekeepers and is tackled.

She is not even allowed to shake his hand, a Peacekeeper holding him tight, arms wrenched tightly behind his own back with zip ties keeping him there, a look of hatred in his eyes while he tries to struggle, but when Cole tells them to look at each other and become the first ever pair of District 3 tributes, Vesuvia turns to him, and although she would never admit it to anyone, there are a few tears in her eyes, and his own gaze softens, lips parting. For he recognizes her, and she definitely recognizes him. The next pawn, but now, with this turn of events, perhaps the last pawn. Pawns are those who are toppled over and sacrificed, and Vesuvia sees the way Jasper trembles in bed last night, when he asks if he can sleep next to her, needing someone he doesn't even know from home to curl up against.

"I thought you told me you'd never sleep with me if the chance arose?" she questions, playful and barbing at the same time, eyes glinting off in the darkness, a viper stalking through the savannas.

"Shut up," Jasper hisses at her, and she can only smile, showing him pearly whites in the darkness, a playful laugh escaping her throat.

"Get into bed, you idiot," Vesuvia tells him, scooting over while he hobbles over.

She simply sleeps with her knees tucked in and her arms crossed to her chest, Jasper doing the same, but she's awoken several times throughout the night, having fits in his sleep, occasionally kicking her, which has Vesuvia hissing through gritted teeth in pain, because god he has piston power in his toes, but she leaves him be, for he's mouthing intelligible words and crying. A lot of crying, she thinks, of sulfur descending from the heavens, and of children he'll lose, which has her frown. He didn't strike her as being someone to have children or a marriage or a wife - well, that is not true, she surmises with a frown; he's plenty handsome, and she wouldn't mind a stripe - but nonetheless, a few nightmares and a few kicks to the shin have Vesuvia glaring daggers into his back.

Vesuvia does not wake him, it almost feels cruel to. The body will pass through its trials and tribulations on their own courses, and who is she to stop them early? She likes to help people, but she likes to help them just a bit lesser than how she wants to advance herself. Prison teaches her that, but before prison, it is her uncle, Kenny Vocanova. The man, the myth, but not the legend, sadly, Vesuvia drums the thought in her throat with disapproval. However, lucky for him, she'll take his place, with a cape dyed amaranthine, studded diamonds encrusted into the back... he'll applaud her, as she steps over Jasper's corpse, both eyes taken from him, cherry pit caverns oozing fresh blood onto the wounds. Vesuvia jars out of the picture, seeing it vividly, her imagination firing off on all cylinders while Cole, their escort, with shining silver hair that has to be dyed, puts Jasper in checkmate.

Her district partner cusses, almost flinging the board off the table. It is the fifth loss in a row.

"I thought you were smart," Vesuvia tells him, humor and mirth lacing her words, despite the glare he gives her, she unable to control it. She shrugs her shoulders, giggling again. "Besides, you lost five times in a row. Can't you see when you're drowning in a losing battle?"

Jasper runs a hand through his hair, Cole keeping a slight smirk on his face while he collects the chess pieces, the sets a stunning shade of red apple crimson, and halcyon gold, Panemian colors, instead of the classic black and white. Vesuvia twirls a lock of hair around her fingers. She's seen enough Panemian red and gold to last her a lifetime, while the banner hangs across her cell, or it is the symbol embraided in her thin bedsheets that she holds up to keep warm at night, shivering away as nightmares of the first pawn laying dead at her feet, and the Peacekeeper's hands rough on her shoulders as she's dragged away from the scene, she swearing it isn't her fault, her uncle, her uncle, her uncle the fucking bastard did this! Another jarring moment as the train bounces over the train tracks, Vesuvia's fingers shaking as she runs her pointer and ringer finger down her face, passing by her nose and connecting down at her chin.

"I am a betting man," he says, as his defense. As his weak defense. The court does not believe her defense, and even with Uncle Kenny's money, the prison sentence is for a year, for that is what they're going to give her, there being a cruel smile on the judge's lips, and the two Peacekeepers who detain her.

"Right now I'd call you a losing man," Vesuvia shrugs her shoulders, again laughing as Jasper gives her a cold look, he going over to the biscuits and cakes try. "But hey, I'm not keeping score. You're the one who got mad for losing five times."

"Eat chalk, Vocanova," Jasper spits at her, but even still, she senses his smile just slightly break through.

"Oooh, I don't know if it is safe to threaten me y'know," she jokes with him, crossing the blanket over her legs, it also in a Panemian logo, she pushing it off of her in disgust. "Prison convict remember?"

"What'd you do?" he taunts her, taking a bite of the biscuit, a shiver racing up her spine, because god, he should not be looking at her like that, all play without any seriousness reflected back at him. She tries to keep the glare minimal, because no one is brave - or stupid enough, for that matter - to ask her what she's done, what happened, and why her uncle never came to break her out, it being the reaping that does it, after the judge passes the sentence that she is to be kept for exactly one year, released before some summer day in August... but the Hunger Games are not even a thing then. How- did they know? Her uncle must've not known, because he's not there when she's home, a note left for her, a single crimson blood droplet streaking down the sides. "Smoke one too many blunts?"

"No," Vesuvia's voice is scratchy, harsh, and rough within her throat, mangled and twisted and torn, but she loves the pain it creates in her throat, the poor soul writhing in pain as their wrists went slack and their arms snap, and their eyes are bleeding, and she's getting dragged away. "Someone I knew died because of a mechanical oversight..." she whispers, Jasper pursing his lips before taking another bite of the cookie in his hands. There's a moment of silence that washes over the two of them, the train rattling on in the tunnel, a lump forming in Vesuvia's throat. She sees his face, a stranger, someone she didn't even know, crying tears of ash, with blood pouring out of open sores in their mouth, it there when she closes her eyes, but guilt does not wash over her.

It hadn't been creative enough.

She has to find a way to make it creative enough.

The car temporarily is swathed into shadow as the train passes through a tunnel, they supposed to arrive in the Capitol any minute now, Vesuvia unable to tear her eyes off of the stupid blanket, and that stupid mural of that bleeding heart with a crack down the middle underneath that dilapidated bridge, all because the local gossip points her to a man with a shady past, from somewhere that is long dead and buried, how may be the only survivor... and she does not expect him to look as pretty as he does, but she can already picture it, the mechanical arms snapping back and causing him to cry out in pain and in fright, and how his beautiful face will be with vermillion lines caking his skin, an eyeball dangling loose, and dark hair tussled about, for she will be hugging him, kissing his shoulder, calling him beautiful.

And the world will applaud.

Light floods into the train car, Jasper's eyes flickering back to the windows, for he too, briefly, is looking at the Panemian logo on the blanket, before passing through the open windows. There's a second of him stuttering, like a jarring moving picture, Vesuvia bristling in her spot, the cookie and biscuit falling from his hand and onto the carpet, he rushing towards the windows. Cole watches the food drop, their Capitol escort shrieking about crumbs and the carpet and dignity, but they're worthless and distracting, Vesuvia turning around in her seat, unable to break the gasp that comes from her throat. Jasper is at the far window, fingers pressed against the glass, which surely Cole will be beside himself about, sure, but he's not important. She gets up from her seat as well.

Uncle Kenny used to describe how pretty the Capitol is, doing so between a silver wall and a telephone nestled into her cheek, but this... this is not the same as actually seeing it. Vesuvia's eyes widen at the sight of the golden land, the promised land once kept from her and kept from Panem, where she'd have gladly let them all burn even if means her game doesn't come out, but if she- no, that is a thought for a different time. Jasper's eyes are wide too, they both taking in the platinum landscape, the train passing over a bridge, beneath it the largest pool of water she's ever seen, colors skimming across the top in a rainbow, before breaking into different spurts of color, a violet one and an indigo one closest to her left eye, an orange geyser and a more golden ray cascading to the right.

The towers and buildings are magnificent, a globe erected at a gravel base camp in the middle of the pool, and just beyond that, the grandeur of the Capitol itself. Their home is in there somewhere, the next thought rippling displeasure across Vesuvia's face... for somewhere in the city is their doom, though they are to hear more about it tonight and tomorrow, she knows. Jasper exhales a shaky breath, Vesuvia looking at him, unable to read the emotion on his face, but she wants to believe it is filled with displeasure.

"There it is..." he says.

"There it is..." she agrees, voice trailing off, crossing her arms. Impressive and gorgeous sure, but it does not compare to Byzantium, the bronze city in her latest game, with spires that are confectionary, or the streets of interwoven rubies and sapphires, interlocked and pressed into the ground under her warm hands made from scratch. "I always wanted to see it, but not like this," Vesuvia admits, biting her lower lip. There are times to be afraid, though again, she'll never admit to anyone, but she's having one of those times, a bit of fear rippling across the top of her skin, pinning her arms to the train car.

"I wanted to watch it burn," Jasper's voice is solid. Solid and cold.

"You might still get that chance," Vesuvia hums, rather absentmindedly, once again spooling a lock of hair around her finger. Her eyes flicker to Jasper's, he furrowing his eyebrows together in confusion, and behind them, Cole finally have gotten his act together, every crumb picked up, the man turning around to the trash can to throw it all away.

"You really think so?"

"If you want, I'll help you to do it," Vesuvia says, pleasure flaring in her stomach at the way Jasper smiles at her, delicately and full of promise, but full of innocence, an innocence she'll break as he steps in to see Byzantium.

Pawns, pawns, and pawns.

She wins her chess games, for she is the queen.

The Capitol awaits them, the 1st Hunger Games await.

But not just that. The Hunger Games await Vesuvia Vocanova.

Lydia Wickervein: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V

They've been at it for hours, long enough to start giving her a headache. She suspects it to happen shortly after the reaping recap has finished, but it has bled into the next day where their verbal accusations and insults run amok the mansion walls, clogging the pipes and flushing out the drains with vitriol that smells of vinegar and orange peel on her tongue. Lydia Wickervein stands at attention in front of the doors to the presidential office, in the mansion, of course, hands fitted over one another, she dressed in her Peacekeeper uniform, dark chestnut brown hair tied into a ponytail and pulled out through a hole in the helmet. It is quite boring, honestly, but given that the talks are happening with the two most important people in the country, it is expected of her to be there, so she shows up, ready to work and to serve and to do her job, though the headaches will persist. Part of the job, Lydia supposes, where she must've missed it in the small writing.

She's a tough cookie, however, and she can push herself through it if need be, but it frankly stops there for it is her job. It is required of her to push through, and while Lydia will stand there as silently as she can, she knows that she'd be lying to herself if she were to do everything asked of her with no questions asked; she doesn't know a single person in the world who could do or try that and still keep their sanity. Another burst of loud noise, it sounding like Cain's raised voice, breaks her out of the stupor, Lydia sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose, leaning back against the wall, resting her head. No one has come to see them or speak to the president, which she finds strange, cause Lydia knows it would be her luck to step away for a moment and then the entire ceiling would come down apart onto her head, were she to take one step out of line.

Lydia turns her head to the door some, trying to stretch out what is being said, catching just the butt end of Emrick saying, "Cain, I can't do that! You know I can't!"

Though it is most likely treason to say it aloud, which is the reason why she'll keep it to herself and only mull over the statement in her head, Lydia rolls her eyes at whatever Cain Passionia will say next, being twenty years the president's junior, and with those twenty years of difference comes a tide of inexperience and disappointment, not only that but raised egos painted over in solid gold, causing Lydia to want to smash her head against the brick wall that is on either side of the office doors, the entire back wall covered in red brick, like burnt sienna on her fingertips, clay being rubbed back and forth over the pads and running down under her nails, as she claws at it, wishing to shriek at them. It had not been an easy phone call to make, when she reaches for it in her own solar, Datsun Watanabe on the phone and barking at whoever is in charge to get things fixed.

"Sir, you know who is in charge," she tells him, the father of Porscha Watanabe, and while she understands the heartbreak he might be going through - actually, she highly doubts that, the man has always seemed prickly to her, most likely not making the most amazing father to his daughter - there are some other heartbreaks she does not want to dare confront, such as when she sees Millet Rodriguez scream for his sister as she's reaped, though he does not leap up for the opportunity to save his sister either, instead going with that Gemini Lennox, a person whose own life makes Lydia have to force the file away from her far earlier than she expects herself to. Some parents had to shield their kids away from the devil of chance, a foe they cannot beat, but then there are those who have to somehow fight off Cain's rage, and she knows there are not enough nuclear weapons in the world, or that there is enough sympathy she can pour into a person who'd protect themselves from him and his wrath.

He leaves no stone unturned, or in some cases, gravestones, Lydia wrinkling her nose at the thought of Raziel Passionia buried in Kingsmark Cemetery. It had been a dreary day, the day he's put into the ground, his throat sewn up from the knife wound that leaves skin slit and copper marks on a bedsheet that Bella Passionia has yet to wipe up, and most likely will never wipe up. Cain is not crying, but she sees the vice president keep his jaw locked in place, as if he is glaring at the dirt that his son is going into, the coffin open, and there's a breeze, blowing the velvet plush adorning the insides out like gills on a fish, while Bella blows her nose loudly. Lydia locks eyes with Emrick across the grave, a shudder rippling through her, for she sees the president smiling while the coffin is slowly lowered into the grave, a group of the strongest Avoxes all underneath it.

She's surprised that Cain would even allow an Avox to touch the coffin, from the way she sees him sneer and spit on those who have broken the law. It is not the only punishment, for breaking laws, to have their tongues removed, but she knows that Cain has made it his personal agenda to oversee anyone who is scheduled to be an Avox. If someone has become an avox, it is because he himself has passed the sentence, although that puzzles her, for if that is the case, then what is she there for? It is to keep the peace, yes, given it is in the name of her title, but is it not her job to give punishments? The man vouches for her, she gets the position, and she fails him, a lone tear sliding down her cheek that she does not rub away with the back of her gloved hand, skin boiling underneath the leather.

Lydia looks through the miniscule crack in the door, seeing Cain's dark hair blotting out the rest of the small snippet she sees.

"Emrick, there must be something you can do!" the vice president tells him, hands on the desk, leaning over it. Emrick will most likely throw water in the man's face, for that is normally what will happen when someone approaches and claims the desk as their own territory. It is his, the president's, stake, and only his.

"Cain, if there was anything I could've done, it would've been yesterday before the trains had left the station!" comes Emrick's voice behind that, older, stronger, yet not as willed. She's always considered Cain to be the stronger man of the two, more wicked and vile, given that because he loses his son, even with those who did it dead and wasted away in unmarked graves somewhere near District 4 where the tide will one day wash their bodies out into the sea, he has to take the children away from those who never harmed his son. Of kids who are much younger than the dead Raziel Passionia, dead at twenty-three with his future ahead of him.

"Those kids have their futures ahead of them, too," Lydia whispers to herself in the quiet of the hallway, while Emrick interrupts her again with another shout. "Yes, Datsun Watanabe helped our cause! Catalus Drachma hurt ours, and we rigged him in, alongside that kid who came from Thirteen, and there's Portia Beninblade who sold her family up the river for a quick buck..." he sighs exasperatedly, Lydia getting a good look at the man, his gray wings on the side of his face even more pronounced in the pillar of sunlight falling through the open window behind him. "We're too late for change, Cain. Those kids are arriving within the next half hour for the tribute parade tonight, and we're under the guise of these games being fair. If we rigged some in, who have just as equal of a chance to win now that they're in, the others must be forced to do the same."

Lydia catches onto her breath from the way Cain reenters the frame, for the vice president slams his hands on the desk, and to Emrick's credit, he does not flinch, simply sitting in place, swiveling back and forth in his chair. The vice president's voice is low and calm, deadly calm, a viper stalking a deer in tall grass, with their tail rattling as loud as a firework's boom; her throat swells for a second, hand going to her gun, but she knows that truthfully Emrick is in no real danger, unless Cain Passionia's mouth can be considered a weapon. "Is it that we're too late, or that you don't have a spine?" Cain hisses at Emrick, and there is a single droplet of spit that lands on the president's face, though Cain turns around the moment he speaks to exit the office, leaving the president to wipe at his face.

She moves out of the way, trying to position herself in a way that does not look like she's been eavesdropping, Cain walking past her in a rush, a blurring ball of fabric and dark hair, he swearing under his breath. Lydia watches the man leave, swallowing heavily, a gasp coming from her throat as she releases a shaky breath. He might be the only person in Panem who terrifies her, for the orders he can execute... a shiver ripples through her ponytail, she going to take her helmet off, lifting the visor off. Lydia looks back into the room, seeing Emrick push his office chair away from the desk some, he rubbing his forehead with a hand, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, exhaling a breath. It is one filled with dust and rust particles shattering against the sides of his throat.

Lydia takes a step towards the door, gloved hands eclipsing around the golden doorknob when the sound of shoes echoing on the staircase cause her to turn her head in the direction of the sound. She takes her hand off the gun, for Cain is now long gone surely, and that is indeed the case when, peeking over the staircase, is the familiar head of her husband, Richmond Anvil. A smile breaks out on her face, Lydia going back to position in front of the door, she setting her helmet down on the ground, tugging at the ponytail.

Richmond crests over the top, his dark dress shoes being the reason for the noise, his gaze appraising her, he smiling back at her. "There you are," he greets her, Lydia's heart fluttering in her chest. She may be in her thirties, but he is her husband, the man she loves, and Panem be damned if he didn't make her feel like she's back in middle-school, clutching a Valentine's Day card to her chest from him, her name and his written in a white font from a feather quill pen. They cross to one another in two quick strides before he hugs her, she latching a hand to his back, to ensnare fingers in the cotton of his jacket and suit, inhaling his cologne and her perfume, her mascara from before still on his eyes when she parts from him, giving Richmond a soft kiss on the lips.

"What are you doing here?" Lydia asks, stepping back, trying to keep herself composed and professional. While there are some laws in the districts, passed by Emrick and Cain recently to keep the societies clean on who cannot marry and who can marry, such as that Avoxes are forbidden to hold any property or a marriage or children, she is allowed to have everything and more when her fingers are linked with his. The Head Peacekeeper goofing off with the Master of Ceremonies while working? She could only imagine the scandal!

Her husband quirks an eyebrow at her whilst smirking, clutching the left side of his suit jacket, pulling out an envelope. "What? Am I not allowed to stop by and see my wife whenever I want to?"

"No, that's illegal," Lydia quips back instantly, before giving him another kiss on the lips. She is taller than him now, being in her Peacekeeper boots, for the ground they are standing on is meant for her type of shoes. Richmond puts a hand between them jokingly after she speaks, a feeling of life flaring in her stomach while she looks at him. "Nyria told me how fetching you looked on camera, giving the reaping recaps." That she did, and she remembers her response, just the simple nod of her head, for she can feel Cain's pair of eyes that he has in the back of his head looking at her though his gaze is towards the screen.

"Eh, could've been a better suit," Richmond blows away the praise. That is him, that is what he always does, knocking aside the compliments that come towards him with the brush of his jacket. Lydia realizes, with a shocking hit of clarity to the forehead that he is indeed wearing a different outfit. Her husband brushes at his left sleeve, it slightly scuffed back and lifted up, showing the blue underside of the fabric. "Cain knocked into me on the way up," Richmond pauses, a frown marring his typically beautiful features. "What had him in such a pissed off mood?"

"Business," Lydia says, gesturing her head towards Emrick's office. "Did you need to see him at all?"

"No, I didn't," Richmond runs a hand through his hair. "I saw this," he tells his wife, handing her the envelope in his hand onto her grasp, "On my desk when I returned from filming yesterday, but I thought it was from you at first, last night when I saw it and I forgot to mention it," Lydia takes it, pulling off the glove on her left hand off, letting it fall into the space for her head in her helmet, it landing with a soft puh noise. The envelope is pressed together, there not being a crease or a pop out of sight, it warm from Richmond's grip, she taking it and flipping it around to show the front of it. Her name is written on the front in a dark marker, there being a fancy swoop connecting the Y of her name to the base, it almost in cursive, a hand writing she does not recognize. "I realized you'd be posted here until the parade, and I figured it was important if it had your name on it so..." Richmond holds his hands out while he teeters on his heels. "Figured you should have it."

She nods her head silently, without saying anything, frowning and furrowing her brow. There should be nothing that has come up for her to receive mail of any kind, for she is no one's fan, no one congratulating her for a rapist thrown in jail, or the rapid destruction of District 13 with the firebombs detonating away lives into pillars of ash and smoke. Richmond presses a kiss to her forehead, bidding her adieu for the time being. Lydia will see him at the parade, be standing just behind his table while he and the head of the Capitol Fashion Society, a prude man by the name of Maddock Millevan, a person she knows could shove a few high heels up his ass at a time to quell his ego that rivals Cain's, surely. Richmond says something about dinner, perhaps meatloaf, but she can only focus on the envelope in front of her, while Richmond disappears down the stairs, fussing with the collar of his suit.

Lydia finishes ripping through the envelope, letting it fall down to the floor. Looking back into Emrick's office, the man is nursing a cup of some sort of amber liquid in his hand, tilting it back while facing the sunlight, his gray hair changing to a more white color in the brightness. She brings her attention back to the letter, unfurling it, before she nearly drops it herself, a shaky gasp that can be classified like a yelp or even a scream threatening to tear itself from her throat. The Head Peacekeeper grips the edges of the paper harder, it trembling back and forth in her grip, eyes scanning over the typography, the contents of the letter spaced out in an even font unfamiliar to her eyes, where everything feels blocky.

Dear, oh Dear, Miss Lydia Wickervein,

Well, Lydia snorts to herself in her head, despite the situation at hand, least the stranger is polite.

You do not know me, but I do know you, I know you quite very well. A shiver races down Lydia's spine, she parting her lips to make the shuddering response, before continuing to read. As a forewarning, I must say, if you tell anyone about this, they all die. If you tell your husband, I'll kill them all. You tell your superiors, Mr. Israel, whom you love, or Mr. Passionia, whom you loathe, they all die. Those twenty-four tributes, those unfortunate souls plucked from their mother's breast while they still feed, on the way to your accursed city do not know of the fate presented to them, where even when twenty-three of these children, for we shall not mince words and I'd rather call it what they are, will die while one wins... it is a fate worse than death.

I am inevitable, Miss Wickervein, and I will save these kids from that fate, save that one kid. I'd rather they all die in an explosion, just to step off into your promised land while I kill them all. This is what I shall do, Miss Wickervein, and even if it is not this batch of twenty-four heading here right now as these words cross your gaze, it may be some next year, or the year after that... for I will save them, I will save them from the Games, and if that means they all must die beforehand, in one quick instant fireball, instead of being paraded around like a roast on display to be plucked clean by the masses, I shall.

This is only for your eyes, and if anyone is to know what you know, I'll know, and who knows what those consequences will be. So, what say you, Miss Wickervein? One child out of twenty-four, or do you let me take them all away so the Capitol gets none of them? Time is already ticking, Lydia, and I am not a patient person, as you'll soon see. Miss Wickervein, try as you will to stop me, don't believe this to be a game you can win, for while you are playing checkers, I am playing chess. We will speak again, but never in person; I am too smart for that.

Ball is in your court, Miss Wickervein. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Lydia looks up from the paper, heart roaring in her chest, and inside her head, she screams, the letter rattling in her grip.

*grins evilly and smiles* Well, ladies and gents, that is Chapter #11: Entrance to the Promised Land, and we are out of the first round of tribute introductions! I am so happy I can cheer and scream and laugh, woohoo! I know it took me like three months to get through them, but I promise things will be more streamlined. We have met the last four tributes to be fully introduced, and they were Calen Kinegrove (D10M by silversshade), Kai'sa Shadow (D12F by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn), Sylvan Adello (D7M by In Writing), and Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F by Platrium). Not only that, but our Capitol subplot is underway, and it looks like Lydia has uh, been thrown into a wall and a hard place, huh?

I have a poll on my profile, though I know that some people have voted on it already, but I am curious, vote for your four favorite tributes purely based off the intros they've received? I'll share who wins that soon, shortly into the second round. Ten chapters from now is the bloodbath, guys, Chapter #21, to keep you on your toes, and I am aiming for an update somewhere around Halloween if I can help it. Next chapter starts our Pre-Games, with there being the second round of tribute POVs, the second out of three rounds, and it'll focus on four chapters with six tribute POVs each, and an occasional Capitol POV because I got to find a way to weave this plot together, no? So yes, most likely longer chapters, given how long this one is haha.

Your support will greatly be appreciated, and I cannot wait to see what you all think of this cast of tributes and where their misadventures will get them! I love you all so much, and I am so happy to be moving on. Next chapter, #12: Project Death Runway, is the tribute parade, with POVs from Cecelia, Sylvan, Portia, Gemini, Kileigh, and Niklaus, and I am very happy to be rejoining some old povs mixed in with new ones. I think you guys will very much enjoy what is to come. Please review, it means a lot to see your support! I love you all! Have a great day! Bye!

~ Paradigm