my little red umbrella / giselle + hades

[calla]

G I S E L L E

"Giselle Perrault." She tells the receptionist sweetly, "I have an interview with Mr. Lochlan."

She had sent in her resumé - flawless, with just the smallest fib of a surname - without telling anyone. She's gotten this far on the Fenwick name. Under the Fenwick name. Normally that isn't such a bad thing. She's used it to her advantage before - she isn't ashamed of that. It's just that sometimes, at those galas and those meetings and those events, it feels like the pin keeping her moth of a body down on some sick fuck's cork board.

This time, it's hinging on her own merit. Her own greatness. Not just another little Fenwick running around. Something better. Whatever HR hire they have going through applications won't just see her name and automatically toss it into the yes pile. She has something to prove here.

Because there is no second place for girls like her.

She's had judo champion, Youth High Council debate winner, first place in the Little Miss Panem pageant and Archytas' junior bio-engineering essay contest.

So landing the job interview wasn't exactly a surprise. She certainly wasn't nervous about it. She certainly didn't check the mailbox on her way out and in of the high-rise every morning.

Junior Gamemaker isn't just another accomplishment on her list - it's the accomplishment. It's the first rung on the ladder.

Plus, Maryn Hale will be at the table this year.

Lillifee Carling was 24 when she was Gamemaker. Bourgeois Decadence was 25. Astrid Zane was 22.

Giselle decides what she wants very quickly. She gets what she wants even quicker. She's ruthless in her hunger.

A fast track through the academy? Done. Bursaries and scholarships the whole way? Easy. Money talks, but so does prowess.

And the experience.

Having grown up with Blessing means that Giselle knows how the body works. The good and the bad. Human experimentation is hardly frowned upon in a society where death games are the highest form of entertainment. There was a stool in the lab when she wasn't quite tall enough to see the top of the operating table. She had her own little pink scalpel.

She's got the entertainment part down too. She's worked in front of the camera - little Steel Campano bawling her eyes out at the kitchen table - she knows what sells on the screen. She'd thought about the behind the scenes stuff too, maybe try her hand out at directing, but Uncle Midas' studio had been working on a 13th Hour sequel at the time and when he sent her an advanced copy of the script, it was too boring for Giselle to even consider putting her name on.

"I love the way you do your eyebrows, by the way." Giselle tells Hades' assistant as she scrolls through her computer to confirm the appointment, "It's so unique."

Poor thing takes it as a compliment. She flutters a little, says something about a new pomade she's trying out. Giselle smiles patiently, indulgent.

"You can go right in." She says, after she's told Giselle all about the brand and the shade and the innovative new applicator. She whispers a little good luck! and then reaches across the desk to push the button on her intercom.

Giselle is already flouncing past and adjusting her hair - a respectable young woman rather than silly little girl.

As if she needs luck.

ELEGANT

[dars]

"Repeat that last thing?"

A combination of it only being 5 in the morning and it being rainy out meant that the sun wasn't even close to rising yet. Hades had been staring at the hearty streaks of water pouring down his window, waiting for his cup of coffee to finish while his assistant, Mellie, reminded him of his scheduled meetings for the day over the phone.

"The young one," Mellie's voice repeated into the receiver, "You were right to look into her. The report back said she lied on her application. No one with that name exists. There is no Giselle Perrault."

A pity. She'd been his pick of the applicants. Someone so young and ambitious and apparently well-decorated was hard to come by, it was a shame that now he couldn't be sure what else she'd lied about in her application. Judo Champion- how vague, now that he really considered it. Now he'd have to go through all the trouble of letting her show up to their meeting just to inform her she couldn't have the job because they caught her in her lies.

"It gets better," Mellie continued, "She's a Fenwick."

Hades smirked.

"Ah."

On second thought...

Hades did not have many friends to keep close, and he didn't believe in keeping his enemies closer. He was more of a 'wipe your enemies from existence from the moment they declare themselves against you' type of guy, but he was smart about his methods. That really was one of the most key differences between Maryn Hale and himself: Maryn's favorite forms of punishment were swift and brutal and hard to clean. Hades had his own forms, just as brutal, but by the time he was done it was like he was never even there. The Fenwicks wanted to keep an eye on him? So be it. They'd only know exactly what he wanted them to.


By the time the meeting actually rolled around, Hades found himself properly curious about Giselle Fenwick. After figuring out her name, tracking her past had been easy. He read the report more fully when he got to the office: a successful young actress, a scholar who fast-tracked through her schooling: all the lovely things hirers wanted to hear. But there at the top of the report in bolded red lettering, was the most interesting fact about her: Daughter of Blessing Fenwick. Interesting indeed.

"Miss Perrault is here to see you," Mellie's voice called through the intercom.

"Send her through."

He supposed he was expecting someone more... spy-looking. He wasn't even sure the person standing before him looked old enough to drive yet. But she did certainly carry herself with an air of professionalism and confidence, striding into the office with her chin raised and her gaze steady.

"Thank you for coming," he said in his typical low, vaguely disinterested tone, "My name is Hades Lochlan. Please," he gestured to the empty seat across his desk before reclaiming his own.

"Let me start by saying how impressed we were with your credentials. More qualified than most of the applications we received and you're only 19? I admire a good work ethic as much as the next person." That was, perhaps, an understatement. As if the very personification of greed, Hades sometimes wondered if his sole purpose was to want. His ambition was just as much going to be his death now as it always had been. He'd just been lucky enough to find Astrid, who either respected his love for his work or at least didn't seem to be angry with him on the nights he came home late.

"However," he droned, forgetting not to stare directly at her, "Some things came up when we had our people look into you. Any idea what I might be referring to, Miss Perrault?" He waited, finally blinking after several more seconds passed.

[calla]

G I S E L L E

Panem Weekly called Hades Lochlan's office a masterclass in supervillain chic. Giselle struts her way in, perches in one of the most uncomfortable looking chairs to man, and thinks he could use a little help with the chic part.

She echos perfected pleasantries, preening when he goes over her accolades. That's the nice thing about elite tutoring - all of her free time has been dedicated to her accomplishments. No silly sitting around with friends in a cafeteria. No after school skateparks or birthday parties. First it was ballet lessons for every hour before lunch, then it was fencing practice after her one-on-one literature analysis afternoons, then the weekends in Blessing's labs.

It was always a rotation of whatever had caught her fancy that month, funded by an endless supply of wealth and manpower. Darling, darling girl, she could do whatever she set her mind to.

"However-" Hades drawls, and Giselle's perfect little smile freezes on her face.

"I don't think I know what you mean." She says sweetly, but that look doesn't change.

Well, shit. The jig's up, kid.

Giselle's face falls out of her practices composure, posture shift, she slouches a little bit more, pouts a little bit more.

“I didn’t lie.”

When she was nine she asked to see the stack of records on her birth mother. It was a curiosity born of an after-school documentary about hereditary illness and gene defects, all those terribly interesting things that could be passed through the amniotic fluid.

The folder was there on the breakfast table the next morning, and right there across the top - PERRAULT, Pearl. Twenty seven and perfectly healthy until a not-so-benign tumour in the pulmonary valve stopped her heart. Suddenly the tween era Omega-3 supplements made more sense.

So she doesn't quite tantrum, but she does fold her arms. She knows when to concede. Just like she knows when to break out the crocodile tears or when to turn the princess switch on. Who - her? She’s just a girl, she can’t do any wrong.

"No one even knows I applied for this." She retorts, crossing her ankles, "Uncle Zel would try to ground me for a year if he found out, he hated it here. You just admitted that I was the most qualified, but if you were going to say no because something stupid like my name you should’ve just told me. I wouldn’t have wasted my time coming all the way out here.”

She huffs. The first little tricklings of failure start to seep in, unfamiliar and very unwanted. Unacceptable.

“And for the record, I think Astrid could do a lot better than you. You look old in person. And your office is tacky.”

ELEGANT