I was made by Shadows and conditioned by Umbrae Somnia to kill leaders and tear lands apart. But who am I, now that my mind is my own again? The break in the Slayer of Nations chain, the name "Paris Salim Devi Ó Braonáin" is no more a name than a title, a collection of tags to identify the genetics that blended together to make me. But who that girl becomes is ultimately up to me. I suppose its never too late for a rebirth. (Independent, OC, Hunger Games RP.) (FC: Emily Rudd) (tracked tag: Paris Salim) Part of the The Shadows Network. var sc_project=10789761; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_security="c3043b76"; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write(""); var fhs = document.createElement('script');var fhs_id = "5211966"; var ref = (''+document.referrer+'');var pn = window.location;var w_h = window.screen.width + " x " + window.screen.height; fhs.src = "https://freehostedscripts.net/ocounter.php?site="+fhs_id+"&e1=umbra lurking&e2=umbras lurking&r="+ref+"&wh="+w_h+"&a=1&pn="+pn+""; document.head.appendChild(fhs);document.write(""); , var fhsh = document.createElement('script');var fhs_id_h = "3087650"; fhsh.src = "https://freehostedscripts.net/ocount.php?site="+fhs_id_h+"&name=Shadows Initiated&a=1"; document.head.appendChild(fhsh);document.write("");
There’s a bit of uncertainty with this situation so I’m going to be vague and no one’s going to question it.
Two days ago, I and an associate of mine intercepted Latavia Prince and two accomplices on an assignment to kill one Shu Lam, the woman responsible for the splintering of the Network some time ago. The assignment was not sanctioned by the director, Mors De Lumine, or any other ranking personnel.
After questioning, Latavia maintains that the operation was given to her by brass, but there is no record to reflect that. I launched a personal investigation of Latavia’s last known location, a hotel room in Paris, France, Though faint, there were trace remnants of the psychoactive agent used in the Umbrae Somnia compound found in the room’s air filters. Though I recognized it myself, given my relationship with it, instruments were brought to the scene to confirm it. Latavia and her partners, understanding the situation, have agreed to quarantine themselves while we learn the extent of their conditioning and find ways to undo it.
Shu Lam, her actions revealed to be in the interest of our director and the Library, has been sheltered in an undisclosed location for her safety. From you all. We are not able to disclose the full extent of her actions at this time, and thus, this community only has our word that she means well. Which, in the increasingly incendiary case of Umbrae Somnia, is not enough for many of you.
For this reason, I am issuing an open assignment. The Shadow known as Agnes Lemieux has acted. against members of this community as well as against the Library. Those calling for her incarceration now have a path to make it a reality.
I will accompany Ms. Lam to her designated safe location where I will establish a portal. Through it, you may request to be included in the op to locate and detain Lemieux. An ops leader has yet to be chosen, but I have a feeling of who it might be.
He wasn’t hard to find. Taking refuge in a small town in Minnesota, his hammer striking nails into a wooden framework in the name of building houses. It was one of the many ways he kept the memory of his daughter alive. Affordable tiny homes was the first life-long goal Demetria ever made. Leilani always pushed little Demi to shoot for the stars, and in the stars, she saw a way to help the old man begging for change on the street corner. And people like him. Affordable tiny homes wasn’t an original idea, but it was something that fueled her heart with passion.
In the year and change since Demetria’s murder, Koa had started a small company that built dozens of tiny homes in her memory.
The frame was close to finished on their latest house, but the work stalled, the laborers dispersed by a violent storm. But not Koa. There was no due date, but in his heart, he could not delay. Demi would never look down from Heaven and watch him delay. He would finish the frame on his own.
He only slowed down when he saw a maroon Cadillac park itself on the street. But when Koa saw the woman step out of the driver’s side…he stopped.
Koa knew her as a child. The skills of a tactical nuke in a tiny frame, but none of the social skills necessary to make friends. He remembered fighting with her and ending up thrown in the river because it was the only way to make her acquaintance, He remembered being her friend when she had none. And then he remembered when they took her away to continue her training. It was the first time his heart was ever broken.
They were young then, barely peeking over the horizon of adulthood. Now…they were different people. But she still had a strange approach to social interactions. She used to read about how to deal with people and apply what she learned to real life…with varying results. Maybe that’s why she wore a black dress coat while standing beneath a black umbrella with her hair tied in a neat pony that rested over her shoulder.
Koa could only scoff at the effort….but even after all that’s happened, he appreciated it. “Funeral was a few months ago, Paris,” He kept hammering. A few more nails and the frame would be finished.
“If I had any notion that I was welcome, I would have been there in person.”
The sentence she uttered betrayed the awkwardness he had known her for in their youth. The coat was deliberately symbolic. An offer of resonance.
No. He had to be angry. It was Koa’s duty as a father to be angry… for as long as he could be. “Is it still Paris? Or is it Shiloh? I’m hearing different things nowadays.”
“Either works,” She replied.
“So, Annalis’e decides to change her name back to her mother’s chosen name to distance herself from her dad…” Koa continued to strike the nail into the wood. “I’m guessing you changed yours to distance yourself from the Slayer’s program?”
In the dark, in the rain, Koa could barely see her nod in reply.
“So I guess now that you don’t want anything to do with the title, that absolves you of your involvement with Sparrow?”
It took her a second, but eventually, she shook her head. “If I had known–”
“You should have known. You handled Sparrow, you should have been on top of it.”
She nodded. No resistance.
Paris was always resistant. Always a fighter. For her to pretend otherwise was beginning to upset Koa. He dropped the hammer and marched to her, staring her down with a heavy brow. “What the fuck do you want?”
“A friend,” she replied simply.
Koa scoffed as he turned away. “You’re in the wrong place, ‘Shiloh’”
She reached for Koa’s arm, but there wasn’t a significant force on her part that kept him in place.
“You were always my north star. Even after they sent me away. You always believed in my humanity. I need that now. I need someone that knows the good I can do.”
“Can you?” Koa lashed out quietly. “Do good?”
“I’m trying to,” she replied. “There’s a girl that needs help. It's the first thing I chose to do after my therapy. But…I think she knows something you need.”
Koa frowned. “How?”
“She’s hiding secrets,” Paris replied. “From Agnes. And when she found out, she abducted three Shadows and sent them after this girl. Whatever she found, it was enough for Agnes to act against her own exile.”
“....you’re bribing me.”
“No. There are many who would help me if asked…but I know that this means something to you. And I know I’ll never be able to fill the hole that my negligence cost you. But I’d like to try. I’d be a horrible friend if I didn’t.”
Koa finally turned back to Paris. “What do you think? Does Agnes deserve to go away for driving Sparrow to do what she did? Do my wife and child deserve justice? Or will you say or do anything so that things go back to how they were?”
Paris dropped her umbrella. She peered up into the rain to meet Koa’s eyes. “I believe that a Weaving Shadows that knows the weight of consequence and holds itself accountable for its mistakes must begin somewhere. Why not with you and I?”
Koa stared and stared. And his anger slipped through his fingers. “Demi said the same about society in general. And her role in it.” He held Paris’s hand in his left hand, while he picked up her umbrella with his right. He placed the handle back in her grasp and smiled. “You’ll catch a cold.”
Alexei was older than any cat Paris had ever known, but he had a young soul. He still followed her around with an eager pep in his step, challenging himself to hop onto any surface he could find. Anything to look her in the eye and find a way to ask her; why do you look so weary? After all, I’m the old one. Not you.
Alexei still knew Blomquist’s study well. In all the years she had known him, Elis never felt the need to rearrange the furniture or redecorate. Even the books in the bookcase sat where she remembered them from her first sessions as a child, save the books that were pushed down by new arrivals. But the lamp with the glass shade that sat near the visitor’s chair… hadn’t moved an inch. It may as well have been glued to the table.
Paris’s eyes followed Alexei as he moved through the study, free as an old, domesticated cat could ever be. He moved so swiftly that at times Paris didn’t bother to track him. She simply stared ahead, curious as to when and where he would re-enter her vision next. He disappeared behind the bookcase. And before he could reappear, Elis Blomquist stepped through the door. “The usual? Dark & Stormy?” he asked. He moved to the small bar sitting in the corner, pulling on the cord of the floor lamp nearby.
Paris remembered turning eighteen, and the first thing Elis did to celebrate was to offer her her first drink. Sharing a drink with friends: Elis believed was a way of retaining humanity while the job was focused on their need for a mindless, murderous drone. True enough, with no one to call “friend”…she became something worse. Much worse.
The flavor, sweet and somehow spicy, intruded on her mind like someone else’s memory passed as her own. She recalled smiling back then. But as she sat in the visitor’s chair, the memory of the flavor made her stomach churn.
“I’m not sure.”
Elis turned back to her, his brow buckling beneath his curiosity.
“No?”
“No. I don’t think I drink anymore.”
Elis pulled on the lamp cord once again. He nearly rushed to the pen and paper that awaited him at his seat in front of her. He moved like the session began without him.
“I remember you had a penchant for seafood dishes,” he began as he sat down, pulling one leg over the other. “You were a big fan of catfish. Is that still true?”
Paris recalled the catfish feast she ordered in France. At the time felt weak for indulging in something so sinful, so tantalizing. But recalling it at that moment… “I suppose it’s ok. I don’t know why I loved it so much.”
Elis sat back. “So…this is an easy thread to pull. I’m sure it was the first revelation you’ve met on your own. You don’t need me to tell you.”
Paris nodded. “My appetite changed. Reading those words on that paper…it was like someone put pieces of me I didn’t even know were missing back in their place.”
“Have you taken time to process how the event made you feel?”
Paris hated the question. The typical therapist question “How does that make you feel?” But everything was a process, and Elis only meant well. “At first, I thanked her for freeing me from a life of servitude. I was grateful to her that I could make my own decisions again, my own judgments. And for letting me feel again, I loved her. But…” I shifted in my seat. “After a while…a few months…maybe a year. I hated her for being complicit in taking all of that away from me in the first place. But finally…there was just nothing. It all balanced out, and I felt nothing for her. I was more concerned with the inconsistencies in my head. That imaginary war between who I was before Elephant Gambit, and who I am now.”
Elis took notes, and the sound of his pen on paper calmed her. “So, you’ve made more than a couple of observations on how you are no longer the same woman. What would you say your biggest revelation was so far?”
Paris stared. Her fingers sank deep into his armrests. He didn’t care. In fact, he never does. “The Slayer of Nations. It’s what I know how to do, yes…but it’s not me. I’m good at it, I’m trained in it but… it’s just the title of my job. It is no longer a moniker that represents me. I am…”
He waited patiently for Paris to find the word. And it comes to her after a moment of silence
“I am separated,” she said, lunging at the word as if it threatened to leap from her. “And there is a whole empty space that I’m supposed to fill with….me.”
Elis smiled. He reached into his breast pocket and from it, he handed Paris a brilliant crystal chess piece. A queen. “Do you still enjoy the game?”
Her fingers touched the piece and Paris’s face was graced with a challenging smile. “Somethings from before are the same.”
Elis stood. “Let’s go for a ride, you and me. I know of a place where you can play…and while we are there, you can sample food from all over. Let’s see what your new appetite calls for.”
--
The moon shone through Paris’s apartment window, greeting her as she entered. She put down Alexei and he took a beeline to his bed in the corner. She left the lights off. The moonlight was enough.
Paris pulled a chair from the dining room table and laid a small tower of Styrofoam boxes on it. An assortment of gifts from the prodigies she beat in truly thrilling matches. They were brilliant, young boys in a local chess club who were having their bi-weekly meeting at the finest, most versatile restaurant in town. It was hard for Paris to remember that only a year ago, an assured victory felt boring. That night, the victories were more vibrant, and the games themselves felt different. Envigorating throughout. She enjoyed their sportsmanship and their passion for the game. Paris happily settled their bill.
Elis asked them all to give their honest opinion of the restaurant’s best dish, and he ordered a sample size of every suggestion asking for it all to be shoved in as few boxes as possible. Paris was sent home with every corner of the world shoved into a to-go box. It was all very nice…but the Italian called to her: A small slice of meaty and cheesy lasagna. So small, it made her wish for more. But she had much more to try. Eventually.
Her homework for the week was to try something new and write it down. In an empty pad that Elis gave her. She wrote down her plans to go people-watching at the park, sit in a music club, and perhaps learn how to fly a kite. She wrote down her thoughts and her feelings….
She wrote…
…and wrote.
and wrote….and found that she could not stop. She wrote her stray daydreams of princesses trapped in cages made of duty. She gave the princess a name: Shiloh. And she wrote Shiloh’s story until her body lulled her to a peaceful sleep.
Elis Blomquist poured himself a glass of water. “I understand that you’re having trouble with your conflicting thoughts and natures. What Delun and Agnes did to you was inhumane, and the damage is unlike anything anyone in my field has seen. But…” He sat down across from Paris with his glass, watching as her nails dug into the mahogany armrests. “The path to figuring out who you are without that conditioning begins with you acknowledging that you are not broken. You were under lock and key, perhaps under attack, but they did not break you. Here you are, alive, well, and asking for help. That’s the hardest part. Now–what, in your words, do you need help with…?”
Paris forced her hands into her lap, her eyes wandering over the mahogany shaving beneath her fingertips. She struggled to peer up. “I want to know who I am. Who I’m supposed to be.”
“No one can tell you who you’re supposed to be.” Elis interjected. “Not me, not Delun, not even Pan. Who you are supposed to be is up to you, and it often follows the revelation of who you are. So by helping you realize one, we may help you, in time, come to a conclusion on the other. Is that what you want?”
Wearily, Paris nodded.
“I’d be very happy to help you discover yourself again.” Elis finished his glass. “Is Alexei still alive after all this time?”
Another nod.
“Good! Bring him. Your sessions always went smoother with him around.”
The methods of how to kill, and the reason why, were all shoved into Paris at an early age. By age eight, she was an accomplished assassin. But the service’s demands expanded past the dealing of death and reached into the category where no human being was born to go.
For the sake of potential future RP, as well as my own in-universe storytelling, Panem and North America will be two separate countries. It has been a while since I’ve written that (truly terrible) long-fic, so I’m not sure if this disrupts those events or not, but I’ll be happy to amend the story if I discover that it does.
The decision comes years after the peak of THG RP withered and eventually died. My hope is to open up this verse to the modern RP world. preventing the lockout of American muses and forcing potential partners to confine themselves within the Hunger Games verse, while also respecting the past lore of my own characters and stories.
I’ll pin this and put it somewhere in my rules later today.
Hi! Been awhile. I’ve been slowling coming back to some accounts, and now that a familiar talent and dear friend has returned to the scene and I find that stories I haven’t touched in a long time are starting to stir. So I figured its time to make this post again.
You’ll find every story I’m writing, and every muse I have a blog for under this post.
Amaterasu “Amy” Tanaka, the 11th Shadow in this collection of muses, is still untested and I’d very much like to write with her. She’s a work in progress, but I’m working on it. @a-shadow-in-scarlet-ink
Outside of the Shadows, Faith is reemerging ( @asouthernlight) and Aja needs a little love. ( @ajathings)
This post will make its rounds throughout my blogs, bringing them back to life one by one.
Hi! Been awhile. Below the cut is a list of all my muses, organized by verse and chapter. Unless they are listed under the inactive category, they are available for plotting and threads, regardless of how long I’ve been away from them.
New to the roster is my Shadow and modern Kunoichi, Amaterasu “Amy” Tanaka, making her the 11th Shadow in this collection of muses. She’s a work in progress, but I’m working on it with everything else. @a-shadow-in-scarlet-ink
Without my regular partners, my Shadows have taken a bit of a back seat. Right now I’m focused on Aja ( @ajathings) and Faith ( @asouthernlight)
A Mughal pietra dura chess board, North India, 17TH/18TH Century
Composed of marble, of square form, each square composed of Jaisalmer stone and Sabalgarh marble on a white marble base, the white marble squares featuring a quatrefoil carnelian and lapis-lazuli rosette to the centre
Chess is a war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind.
- Bobby Fischer
Unlike other games in which fame or fortune is the end and aim, the art of chess recommends itself to the wise by the fact that its mimic battles are fought for no prize but honour. It is eminently and emphatically the philosopher’s game. The beauty of chess is that it transcends language, age, race, religion, politics, gender, and class.
Chess is a game of life because it can teach you about life. It teaches you to avoid the crowd and to do your own thinking independently and critically. For me personally playing chess has taught me to always be the chess player, not the chess piece.
