When Seneca was a little boy, he had loved to play with kaleidoscopes. A simple toy from a bygone era but it could hold his attention for what felt like hours, looking at the buildings, the sky; even one flower could become a multiplicity unto itself. They were beautiful, the different facets and angles it could show, the pieces the kaleidoscope could make of solid things and yet still keep them whole. Like it was making a new world just for him.
His father hadn't approved. He'd purse his lips and say meaningless things about practicality and progress and idleness. His mother would roll her eyes, say that he was only a boy yet, that he needed time to think and to dream and that there was nothing wrong with having some imagination.
That the world would be better for it.
His mother had named him, she had told him so, and she had named him for a great man who had lived so long ago that Seneca couldn't believe there were still records of it. A wise and pensive man who had written complicated thoughts and dense words that Seneca had never had the patience to read. A brave man who had even conspired against the crooked emperor to whom he was consort.
'There's a guy who didn't know which side his bread was buttered on,' Seneca had thought.
Kaleidoscope, his mother had told him, meant "beautiful form", in a sister language to the one that his own had come from. 'A soft people', his father had scoffed, 'and rightfully defeated.' She had told him, then, that the kaleidoscope couldn't show him anything that wasn't already there. It could only make them more beautiful.
As he'd gotten older, Seneca enjoyed taking things apart. Not breaking them, there was nothing interesting or elegant about breaking them, but taking them apart was an art that he labored over. If he removed the pieces just so, he could see what was inside, how it all worked together. Now this was something that had pleased his father, something rooted in absolutes, a skill you could bank on, no doubt imagining that he'd grow up to assemble microchips like the rest of the drones; maybe become the head microchip-assembler or even(if he was lucky) a designer. His father didn't see, didn't understand the beauty of disassembling, how it laid bare the pieces, the fractal unseen layers just like his kaleidoscope. Seneca had never tried to explain it to him.
Throughout his schooling, Seneca had learned that he could take people apart as well; he could determine what they liked and what they didn't, how to appeal to teachers and learn the right things, say the right things. The glow of computer screens had become just as beautiful as the colors of his kaleidoscope. When the offer from President Snow had come along, it had seemed only natural. He would have access to all kinds of technology that he hadn't before. He could make strange things, beautiful things. His parents had been proud, of course. He would have been foolish to turn it down.
The Capitol had been beautiful, at first glance. A whirlwind of bright colors and new steel. The place, the people, they were one and the same. Painted china puppets with smooth skin and joint-operated mouths. It was elegant and flashy, but as with the kaleidoscope, he had expected to see something else when he looked closer. The Games, though, were a chance to disassemble while he created, to see what made these children tick, what made them feel. To see what the people of the Capitol could feel.
If they could feel.
The preliminaries had been a blur of blue liquor and cultured, empty voices. His own mouth producing a stranger's voice, his own reflection too polished and contrived to be his own. Even Snow's approval had become meaningless; Seneca had started to feel pruned and plucked like one of those damn precious roses. His life had become a dull cyclone swirling around him, in which , if he squinted a little, he could almost believe it meant something.
Nothing wakes you up like arrow to the face. Well, nearly.
He wanted to tell himself that he'd let them live because it was a good story, a good show. Good political sense not to stir the masses in protest. It wasn't empathy, nor was it appreciation.
It definitely wasn't gratitude.
He thought about these things as his fingers grew numb, and his tongue grew heavy in his mouth and throat, swelling against his teeth like a slug.
The parents he hadn't be able to speak to since becoming part of the Capitol. He wondered if they would still be proud.
The love of another, something Katniss could manage even while risking her life. Something he'd never made the time for.
His mother's kaleidoscope, hidden away in his drawer like a secret relic to be ashamed of, still making beautiful worlds just for him.