Dust to Dust
One.
He was born in a flurry of colours.
His birthday was in the springtime, right when the leaves on the artificial trees bloomed and the breeze became a little warmer. Women adjusted the fake birds in their wigs and the men dressed in pale pinks and blues and greens as the spring fashions emerged on the runway.
His elder sister and his mother had called him the odd one. Odd, because he'd actually chosen not to tint his skin or pierce his face or tattoo his body. He called them mutilations when he was younger – not when he grew up, mind, but just when his sister would come home with her dark blue lipstick and midnight blue hair with a bar of metal through her ear.
When he was old enough to understand the games, thoughts of death would invade his mind. Not his own deaths, but the knowledge of it – he was a genius of death, picked apart all of the strands and dove deeper. Asked questions. Death was all-knowing, and inevitably, it would come knocking on your door and you'd be gone. Sometimes death would drag you kicking and screaming, but sometimes you'd comply. There was times when he hated it, when children would be bludgeoned to death and his mother would clap with delight. He wondered what was wrong with them – was he supposed to be like them?
(He'd always thought he would comply to death, when the time came. Oh, was he ever wrong.)
Two.
Creativity was not a sin. Creativity was treasured, adored, cultivated.
His mother had never picked up a needle in her life and his sister was long gone, doing her own thing, by the time he'd sewn two pieces of fabric together after school one day. A sparkly, shimmering thing that his mother had no need for and a blinding pink sequined skirt, combined to make something that clashed horribly.
But it was wearable, and he was proud. The stitches were his thoughts, sewn together tightly, at times, and loosely, at others. It was the confusion and the inquisition he had; towards himself, who he was, and the Games.
He sewed often by the time he was finished school. The dresses all had something different than the rest; they had hidden layers, secrets that he could bury beneath them. His emotions went in to everything he ever did.
Every year, he'd see the parade. The unlucky ones would ride in their chariots, some grinning proudly, others stern and solemn. He didn't think any of them were lucky – death was but a curse, and twenty-three of them would be inflicted with it earlier than usual. The last one would catch up, eventually.
(He'd like to think that he was his own personal philosopher.)
Three.
Twenty-three years of life had seen five hundred and fifty-two unlucky ones enter the Games, and only twenty three had come out.
The parade came and went every year, and he wondered why they all looked so see through. Not the actual fabric, of course, but they were all dressed in machine-made clothing. There was nothing in the fabric; there was no emotion, no feeling. It had started out as a sketch, sewn and put together in a factory somewhere. It was routine. It was repeat. It was boring, and it meant nothing to him.
It was probably then he'd realized he'd wanted to do just that – make things that mean something. Something unique, with his thoughts and his emotions.
(Something that had never been done before. Something great.)
Four.
Eight years later, and it was his first year as a stylist for the Games.
He didn't want the gaudy, glitzy fashions that often accompanied the tributes of the first district, nor did he want any fishnets or weapons or anything of that like. Death was not supposed to be glitzy and glamorous and shiny.
District 12. Coal. Fire. Oh, yes, he could do something with fire.
The first time Cinna saw Katniss Everdeen, there was something otherworldly about her. Not in the sense that she was supernatural, but she was different. Was she ever. She had her own fire, a storm of cold flames burning bright in the night. He could do something spectacular with fire.
There was something in Peeta's face – the way he looked at her, quietly, shyly. It sang a song of unrequited love, and he wondered if the boy would ever tell her. He was a steady flame, not erratic like she was, burning low and brave and warm. Maybe he would, in time, or maybe he'd spark up and just say it.
They were both fire, unique in their own rights. They were people, too; Katniss Everdeen, to be known as the girl on fire, had something he'd never seen before. Love, of the purest kind. For her sister.
For a moment, his philosophy is broke. He hoped Katniss Everdeen could find a way to avoid the curse of death. Someone who loves that purely, that fully, doesn't deserve to die.
(It's the first time he thought the words it isn't fair.)
Five.
A second Games comes, and their fire has burned away to ash.
She pounded on the glass, crying and screaming, and in the back of his mind, there's a this is it mantra chanting repeatedly.
This is it. This is it. You're going to die now. This is it. Suddenly his mind was screaming, protesting – the girl on fire was supposed to win, again, she could do it just as she did it the last time. He needed to see it, needed to make the flaming victory dress. He needed to make sure they saw that it was not just her, it was him, it was everything he thought and believed put in to those pieces of fabric.
There's blood on the floor, and in a hazy second he realizes it's his.
This is what you get for feeling compassion, for putting your emotion in to your work. Letting your heart sew the pieces of fabric together instead of your hands.
He had helped the cause, his sketchbook was with Thirteen. He was a traitor to the Capitol; he knew it, President Snow knew it, and sooner or later, everyone would know. He thought he knew everything about death, but you do not know everything about something until you've experienced it yourself.
(Cinna does not die in a flurry of colours, but with the stark white of the interrogation room surrounding him.)
a/n - For Laura through GGE, who requested Cinna-centric. I couldn't pass the opportunity by. First time writing Cinna - how was it?