Corazona D'Or | Capitol [fin]

Of gold.

That’s what D’Or means. Of gold. Of glitter. Of gilded hearts with diamond embellishments and black aortas. And you inherit a heart just like this, just like you inherited the last name and the weight of all its promises for the future and the potential for your success. It’s a meaningful inheritance. The blood that burns through your veins is a constant reminder of who you are - you accidentally prick your finger with a needle and ichor leaks through the rupture on your perfect, little D’Or hands. “Ah, shit.”

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing, just pricked my finger.”

Lysander bends down next to your spot on the floor, where you sit cross-legged amongst an ocean of silk and chiffon tapestries. They drape over your legs or flow out in ripples, threatening to drown you in its high-quality stitching. He takes your bleeding palm between his own and examines the pinhole wound on your index finger with the intent expression of a surgeon. It is not necessary. You both know this. While he examines the budding, dew-drops of your ruby-red blood, you examine the curvatures of his jawline. The intensity of his gaze. How black his eyes look when they are hungry.

“What’s the verdict, doc?”

He smiles. His gaze flutters in your direction, and your stomach nearly kills itself from the way it violently somersaults in response. “You’ll survive.” He lets his hands linger on yours for a moment longer before letting go.

This is what a queen looks like: gold lining embroidered onto the sleeves of a velvet dress, a throne encrusted with glittering crystals and gems, sunlight intentionally draped across freckled cheekbones, eyebrows that arch so high you wonder if they’ll run out of forehead, and a king. Lysander kisses her, and you can hear the happily-ever-after music playing in the background. You see your name up in brilliant, flashing lights. You shout, “Cut!”

At the wrap party, there are chandeliers that drip from the ceiling like liquid crystals, that catch light in its facets and spit it back out as rainbow rays that dance along the walls. The music is elegant, subtle, a complementing back-drop to the true event of the night: you. And you are radiant. Gliding from clique to clique while clad in a white, velvet dress embroidered with gold lining, almost similar to the queen’s. This is intentional. You must remind everyone who really rules this world.

“How do you do it, D’Or?” a producer asks, an olive rolling aimlessly in his martini glass as he practically shakes from both his drunkenness and reverence for you. “How the hell do you manage to produce blockbuster after blockbuster? You ever heard of something like ‘sleep’ or ‘failure’?”

“I’m a D’Or,” you reply with a smirk, lifting up one of your shoulders in a way that would let the compliment roll off in a lackadaisical manner. “Maybe it’s something in our blood.”

“She’s hardworking.” Lysander glides in beside you, as smooth as the king he plays in the movie. The dynamic shifts, suddenly. It shifts in the way one can feel lightning coming, like a foreboding buzz in the atmosphere. Men and women inch and shrink away to make room for the ever-growing presence of royalty. The both of you don’t turn to look at each other, but your body is attuned to his presence. Every vein feels electrified, like you’re a battery that’s being overcharged. Your smirk becomes something sharper. Something a bit more genuine. “You know she does more than just direct? This morning, I found her sewing up props and costumes in the backroom.”

“I have the battle scars to prove it,” you say, raising your bandaged index finger in the air. The laughs elicited from the surrounding circle of people sound like the tinkling of glass.

“It’s just the kind of person she is,” Lysander says, appreciatively.

Your producer nods appreciatively. He raises his glass. “To a woman of many talents.”

There is a round of “Hear, hear!”’s. Martini and champagne glasses clink against each other, jostling some honeyed or amber liquids over the edge of the rims of people too enthusiastic for the toast. Lysander tips his glass towards you, finally making eye contact, and drinks. Your insides are coated with oil, and when you gulp down what’s left in your own glass, everything ignites.

There’s a fire when you lead him away from the crowd. You let it fuel you as you take his hand and walk down a narrow corridor, the din of the party fading away with every step. He follows silently, loyally, a king following his queen unconditionally. At the end of the hallway is a door with a neon green EXIT sign above it. The breeze that hisses beneath feels cool on your clammy skin. When you turn to face him, he looks at you in wonder. His eyes are as black as they were this morning, a mirror of everything you are, too. You kiss him and everything burns.

The two of you walk back to your loft in the same way the crystal champagne glasses toasted against each other - jostled, giddy, spilling over the edge with an excitement that’s just as intoxicating. He tangles his fingers through yours messily and presses his lips to your shoulder as you fumble with the key. “Isn’t this against the rules?” he mumbles into your skin.

“What rules?”

“The rules of an employee dating his boss.”

You raise an eyebrow back at him just as the key finally manages to unlock the door. It creaks open. “Not when I make the rules.”

His lips stay attached to yours, his hands like magnets to your hips, and the door swings wide open to let you in. You kick it closed behind you while one of your hands automatically reach for the light switch by the entrance.

But the light is already on.

Someone coughs, and it’s not you or Lysander. The two of you crack apart, and -

“Dad?” He stands in your living room, barefoot on your tiger-skin carpet, a dent imprinted on the couch behind him and his shoes flippantly discarded at the tiger’s head. The television set buzzes with Caesar Flickerman’s voice (“We can’t wait to see what that devilish Ambrosia Fae and the rest of her team has concocted for the 73rd Games, but first, back to Bronwyn -”). “The hell - wh-what are you doing?!”

“I - uh. I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

“Maybe I should go,” Lysander says, and, before you can realize what you’re doing, you grab hold of his hand tightly. The words, “No, stay” threaten to float to the surface on your lips - lips still red from the heat of his own no more than a minute ago - but you can hear the desperation in those two syllables even if they’re only in your head. And D’Or’s aren’t desperate. (Well, not you, anyway). Lysander glances down at your entwined hands, his expression expectant and surprised. You don’t want to interpret what that might mean. You let go.

“Yes,” you say, “You probably should.”

Dad wears shame like a hand-me-down winter coat. But, winter’s passed, and the vivacity of today’s summer makes that coat look out of place and uncomfortable - especially when it feels like you should be the one wearing it, considering the context of the situation. Lysander closes the door behind him, and you linger by your doorway long enough to hear his footsteps fade into the hum of your air conditioning. You don’t want to look at dad. Not just yet.

“Cora, baby, how’ve you been?”

“Fine. The same,” you say, palms still pressed against the door.

“You look nice. Fancy dress.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry if I interrupted anything -”

“God Dad - I - we - no,” You stop, lean your forehead against the side of your door and resist the urge to repeatedly bang your skull against it. You inhale. “How’ve you been?

“I, uh, actually lost my job recently. A few weeks ago, I think.” And it’s just like dad, getting straight to the point once all the pleasantries are out of the way. D’Ors always use their time efficiently when it comes to their benefit. You’re suddenly slung back into a childhood of playing the parent to a parent that never fit the part quite as well as you did. You finally wrench your face towards him, an automatic and familiar look of disappointment and sympathy painted over it. It’s mostly genuine.

“Dad, that’s awful.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, well,” he sighs, then shrugs his shoulders in a way you recognize yourself doing. Sympathy rolls off of them. “This is life. You fall, you get back up again. It’s the way we’re wired, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And, you know me. I’ll figure something out, like I always do, and then I’ll pull myself together again. I’ve been praying a lot recently. You pray to Ripred and who knows what kind of blessings he’ll bestow upon you, you know? You should pray more often, too, Cora, and keep me in those prayers, will you? -”

About the time he starts mentioning Ripred, you start heading to your minibar. Vodka never looked so appealing. You pour yourself a drink. Mentally toast it to a woman of many talents and to a woman of many woes. Question which of those women you are right now. Swallow down the biting bitterness and pretend that you’re still listening.

“- and, I was in this part of town and decided to drop by and see you. I dropped by Castor’s, too, earlier, but his doorman said he wasn’t home.”

“So, is that why you’re here?” you ask, putting the empty glass down and turning to him with an expression that hopefully doesn’t look glazed over. You make a mental note to ring up your brother later to see if he really ‘wasn’t home’ or if he just bribed the doorman to tell dad that. Again. “Because Castor wasn’t home? Or is there something else you needed, dad?”

His eyes are as blank as a winter storm. He feels the frost and pulls his winter coat tighter around his torso. When he sighs, it is the sound a white flag flailing in the wind would make. “Your key was still under your doormat, so -”

“So, you let yourself in,” you finish for him, and he flinches. Then you flinch when you see that you made him flinch. What kind of vicious circle your life is.

“Look. I understand if - if you don’t want to see me or talk to me. I just needed help, and you’ve always been someone who’s helped me.”

That’s it. His coat frays at the edges and so does he. He is a father fallen from grace - outcast, exile, vagabond. The only exception to the golden threaded legacy of the D’Ors, and the only weak link severed to preserve the legacy. And you are a language he has forgotten how to speak. Every encounter is awkward or timid or too much or not enough. Never enough - that, at least, is something he knows enough about. Your heart aches for the beggar that your father has become.

You give him the money.


After he leaves, you change into your pajamas. You tip the neck of the vodka bottle against the mouth of a glass and, at the last second, decide against it and just bring the whole bottle with you to the couch. You settle against the pillows and the cushions and think This is what a throne looks like. Caesar Flickerman’s voice is a ghost in your home, droning on and on about old arenas and new gamemakers until you can’t stand it anymore. You switch to the next channel over and - and they’re playing one of your movies.

The villain huddles by himself in his lair, holding his plans close to his chest in the same way you hold the bottle of liquor to yours. It’s the closest either of you will get to cuddling anything tonight.

You call Lysander.

“Hello?”

“So, this girl is smart, snappy, bright. She’s got the blood of the gods running through her veins. Mystical DNA. Her family is more of a legend than they are people, probably, but, you know what they say about legends, right? The real deal is hard to live up to the stories. But, she tries, anyway. She climbs, like all of her predecessors before her, and, oh, she knows her grandmother and great grandmother and all those other greats before are probably looking down on her with a smile on their faces, the toothy gaps in between politely telling her to Not. Fuck. It. Up. Right? -”

“You drunk, D’Or?”

“Sh, listen. Okay. So. What was I saying? Dead grandmothers? So depressing - all old people are so depressing. Anyway, she doesn’t fuck it up. She works hard. She climbs that social ladder like - like a monkey climbs a tree. Monkeys climb trees, right? I’ve never seen one before so I can’t be sure. The point is that she climbs to the top, elevates herself, and - hey - maybe her last name works in her favor, but what is life, really, if you don’t work with the odds that are in your favor? She gets to the top, and when she looks down, you know what she sees?”

“What?”

“Guess.”

“A dancing man in a gorilla suit?”

“Close enough. It’s -” you hiccup, “- her father.”

The other end is quiet, except for the sound of Lysander’s breathing, and the static buzz of what sounds like a television set in the background. Is it the vodka churning through your veins right now that makes you feel like lightning is coming? Dad’s coat inches around your shoulders, but you brush it away. “Cora,” he starts.

“I said sh!” you say, but you are relieved to hear his voice. “Listen. He’s dropped from that ladder. Maybe he’s got sweaty hands or something and he just slid down to the bottom. And gods like her are powerful, but they don’t fly, you know what I mean? So, does she jump? Take a leap of faith and pull an Icarus? Knowing that the journey back up won’t be as easy? Or does she wave from her position at the top, hoping her dad sees her from all the way up there? Hoping that she doesn’t become just another myth to him, too.” Your pulse slows and your voice quiets. The villain on TV cackles as the screen fades to an action sequence with the main protagonist. “What do you think? A good idea for my next project or what?”

“Any D’Or idea is a good idea.”

Your smile feels electric. “Exactly. I’m glad you said that, actually, because I think you should star in it.”

“Sure, I’ll play the guy in the dancing gorilla suit.”

“Don’t get it mixed, Lysander. The guy is the one doing the dancing. The gorilla suit is just a suit.” He laughs, and so do you. Laughter like this, in the middle of the night, through telephone wires, amid the buzz of alcohol, feels like a secret. The world knows of the mythical D’Ors, but they know nothing of a girl called Cora. Which of those identities does your father see you as? Does he see you waving from up high?

On your television screen, the villain’s daughter gets a gun pointed to her head and the evil mastermind crumbles at his seams, plans for the end of the world be damned. Please, he weeps, Not her.

“I love this part,” Lysander whispers from his end of the phone, and your stomach flops excitedly.

“What are you watching?”

“Guess.”

“Is it ‘Guy in the Dancing Gorilla Suit’?”

“It’s one of yours. It was on TV.”

There’s a smile in his voice, you think, and you do nothing to mask the smile in yours. “I know. I’m watching it right now, too.” Together, the two of you watch as the villain bargains for his daughter’s life with his own.

“Can I ask you something, Mrs. Director?”

“Shoot.”

“Can you tell me how you come up with all of these fantastic redemption arcs for your villains?”

“Oh, flattery will get you many places, sir.”

“No, really. This guy’s a madman, but I can’t help but feel at least a little bad for him. Why do I feel so guilty for feeling bad for him?”

Because it’s in human nature to be compassionate. To feel for others and the stories they hold like secrets to their bosoms. If you believe in anything, it’s that everyone has a story. And you make it your job to tell them, all of them. You smile against the phone, feel the ghost of Lysander’s lips on yours, and delight at the story that’s unfolding.

“Bad guys can’t be all bad,” you say. “Sometimes, there’s a ‘good’ that they’re bad for. It’s easy for me to find that.”

“You really like treasure hunting, don’t you?”

You burrow yourself deeper into all the pillows on your couch. Watch the villain’s daughter cry tears that have mirrored your own. “Only when I can make a career out of it.”