I saw televisions broadcasting propaganda footage of our wedding. This particular clip was the exchange of vows. The recording was a beautiful reminder of the real thing only twenty-one days prior.
It was interrupted with the ugliest thing many of us knew – the mind of President Snow. "You just heard the most worthless thing in the world – the promises of traitors – for in their betrayal, they have proven they cannot be trusted. Who will they turn on next? Each other? Expect the sham to fall apart as surely as the rebellion itself shall disintegrate."
Finnick chose me. None of us chose you. Don't you dare! It seemed the rest of us were getting similarly angry.
"They may crow about loyalty to their families, their lovers – but that optional loyalty is nothing compared to the mandatory loyalty all owe their country. Sadly, they have chosen what they want to do over what they must do. Only scum would take such lazy immorality to such a level. Treason does not merit death, treason is death – we will deliver it if the disloyalty continues," Snow warned.
So he was haranguing us with more threats. That wouldn't accomplish much for him. We were in this situation partially because we'd had enough of his extremely over the top intimidation tactics.
I wondered if it would scare off potential rebels. I was sure about those of us who had already risen up. Considering what we'd already done, there was no going back. With the wedding and the evacuation of District Twelve, Snow must be flailing for a distraction. He wasn't finding one.
If Snow complained about what we'd accomplished in Twelve, he would only draw more attention to it. I saw happy District Twelve civilians all around. The soldiers who switched sides and the new recruits would help take the fight to another district.
The next day, a small force had been sent to District Three, and came back with some of their Victors. Beetee and Wiress had mentored this year, and escaped the Capitol in the initial chaos. Most of the Victors from other districts, including me, went to greet the new arrivals.
An old man with a long gray beard addressed Beetee as "Bernard". That was his real name, that and his middle name Theodore. His commonly known name was a nickname that came from reading out his initials.
"Dmitri," Beetee answered. This incidentally announced the other Victor's name for the rest of the audience who didn't already know it.
After these formalities, Dmitri gave some important information about how the evacuation had worked out. "Nathan still believed the Capitol's lies, even once that boy named after him died in the arena this year. He killed Marie to prevent her from joining us. Regina had to kill him to escape. Silica also made it out." I had recognized the young women easily; known throughout Panem, it was even easier to spot them in such a small crowd.
Finnick was still very much himself. That meant being with myself, first and foremost. It often meant being in myself. Now was most definitely one of those times. He could give me the most wonderful stare – soft, yet burning with intensity. His hands were of similar temperament, I noticed as he pulled me closer.
He tugged at the hem of my skirt. Knowing what happens when it comes off, I gladly accelerated the process. I bent over, pulling the fabric onto my back, all the while sticking my tail out at him and waving it more than strictly necessary. He caressed my hips as he pulled my panties down, eagerly taking the fabric's place between my thighs, spearing my fish with all the passion I knew he had. My face glowed even more than his spearhead.
A week after the rescue of District Three Victors, my Finnick and most other rebel soldiers went off on another full mission. All we knew was that they were striking at Ten and Eleven, and I wasn't sure if we were supposed to be aware of even that much.
Apparently no one had disrupted their plans too much, as they came back victorious three days later. They only brought back a few refugees and prisoners, instead of a mass evacuation as with Twelve. That wasn't the plan – there were too many of them, over too far of a distance, with stiffer Capitol resistance.
Was Four too far out of your way? I angrily wondered in private. However, with Ten liberated, Four was cut off from the Capitol and ought to taste freedom soon enough. Even this promise of victory was tantalizing enough. The rebels had blocked the railroad and hopefully would be able to keep Capitol hovercraft out of the skies. The ports were good for hauling in and shipping out small batches of seafood, rather than for transporting large amounts of people and supplies both ways.
For many, the highlight of the District Ten battle was the Victors including my Finnick cooperating to rip down the flags atop the Justice Building there. Gale replaced it with one he'd brought with him – a blue X with white stars on a red background. The flag and the idea apparently belonged to Dalton Oakley, a refugee from Ten who'd made it here to Thirteen years ago. This had been early in the battle, a sign of it starting rather than a celebration of it ending.
I was particularly interested in the stockpile of coins they found inside the building, moreso than what they did with cloth on top of it. There was probably so much there because it was so late in September, in preparation for the October 1st payday. The Capitol making sure to actually pay their soldiers and other officials seemed like a good idea for them. Many people were crossing sides already due to moral imperative and circumstance; the Capitol couldn't afford financial defectors.
Also, the Capitol was trying to bribe Victors by continuing tribute winnings, but most recognized that it wasn't worth it to take the blood money. Ms. Hickok of Ten, the only other Victor named Annie, had gladly run to the approaching rebel forces. District Eleven had no arena survivors besides Chaff and Seeder, who had already joined us.
For my sake, Finnick sometimes obsessively tied and untied rope, practicing knows he knew cold. That was one more thing he gladly told me his feelings on, which I found incredibly endearing. I needed to calm myself while worrying about Finnick, even though he had come back safe again this time. Well, with no concerns for him right now, I couldn't wait to go through the District Ten coins. Many of them I didn't have, at least not in such good condition.
The Peacekeeper defectors knew how their former comrades operated, and could fool some of them before being specifically identified. I heard they'd done well above and beyond their numbers. We all had a lot to fight for, but them especially so. The Capitol would be especially unlikely to give them a clean death, although some had gotten one in these battles.
The mayors of Ten and Eleven, along with their immediate families, had been captured alive. Maybe Miles, Melody and Margaret Undersee would have some success trying to talk some sense into them. Rumor had it the Eleven mayor's son had made a crude comment to Glimmer's sister along with the usual denouncement of traitors. Some boys, I muttered to myself, and several other ladies were probably thinking the same thing.
The fighting had been fierce enough that rebels and Peacekeepers had been exchanging shots while still on their trains, another tactical dimension of the bloodbath. Some of the Victor soldiers, once disembarked, found Rue's and Thresh's families amongst the mass rioting in Eleven. Peacekeeper bullets and batons hadn't gotten to them, although thousands of other District Eleven residents had been slaughtered.
Katniss had found Rue's father and Thresh's sister personally, and she was far more a heroine to them than any other victor. Rock Clayton and Raspberry Mackey were the ones able-bodied enough to take to the streets in protest. The rest of the families had been amongst the district folk hiding in their meager homes. Thresh's grandmother was frail, Rue's siblings too young, Rue's mother far too occupied with her surviving children to help deal with the occupying soldiers.
The train had a radio link to District Thirteen headquarters, which made sense. It also made sense for rebel communications techs to broadcast an epic rant that took place after the battle on the way back to base. It was a thing of beauty that I sat back and took in as-is.
"Love is all we had out here, and it's what we used to strike back at them. Even them relatively rich white kids from out west figured it out," Rock Clayton bellowed in a gruff deep voice. Telling it like it is, folks, a rebel tech added, most of us in agreement with both.
"Even I'm glad they did," Gale answered. He could admittedly be bitter about the relatively better off in the districts even though he knew full well the Capitol was to blame.
"Shit, even though they were the ones to kill my girl and Pear's boy, I know it's really the Capitol's fault. And hell, it usually takes folks much longer than 17 or 18 to realize the error of their ways and do something about it," Rock declared.
"I'm not sure what him and Glim would have done if they won alone, but if it was just me and Katniss, I would've raised the same hell for Thresh, Rue and all the others, past, present and future," Gale said furiously.
"I initially was just thinking about Prim," Katniss admitted. "I was struggling to get food, clothes and shelter for us in that hellhole; Gale's dreams of freedom were beyond the scope of my thought process. Then I decided to stay here and cause all sorts of trouble. I finally wanted to do something about our prison, free all our people from it, shoot the bastards that kept us there, and make them burn with us."
"That's the spirit!" Gale said to cheer his wife on before launching into a speech of his own. "There was no way to work within their system. They taught us to see each other different, the slightly less poor folks in another district or elsewhere in the same district. Those aren't our real enemies – even I had to learn that. Our real enemies are the folks we couldn't see because they were hiding in the Capitol, a handful of high officers, not the average brainwashed soldiers who number in the thousands. 77 token victors didn't change the fundamental reality, not to mention the 1723 slaughtered in the arena and the tens of thousands who fell to the Capitol's other abuse."
"And if only one came back like usual, even if it was my brother, the same intolerable things may have kept happening," Raspberry Mackey expressed in a similar tone of righteous anger. "Now, it seems that the few of us here happen to prefer lovers about as dark as ourselves," she added. I figured her wording was still technically accurate for couples that were both lighter. "Katniss' momma and daddy felt different and that's fine. Anyway, I can still recognize Glimmer and Cato make a wonderful couple. If I had that kind of life waiting for me, I would have done it too. That's the sad thing about all this, the Capitol monsters turned all of us into monsters."
The cheers got louder and louder, building to a crescendo. This included background noise from the other people in their train car. Quite rightfully so all around, I thought.
It seemed soldiers had a habit of retrieving their comrades' corpses whenever possible. To bury dead soldiers was even more gut-wrenching than regular funerals. A young woman, last name Leeg, had fallen in Ten after her sister had died in Twelve. The urn with her ashes was placed next her twin's in that part of the District Thirteen underground. Katniss' contribution to the eulogy was a repetition of the last one's last words. "She said she was dying alongside the only sisters and brothers she had left. I am proud to have been one of them."
"Such losses are sadly necessary to win this war," Coin said grimly to the crowd.
Raspberry Mackey and Rock Clayton were the only two of the few recent evacuees to become soldiers. As with Twelve, the evacuees who remained civilians were still making themselves useful in District Thirteen.
It was quite a challenge to feed the new influx of people, whatever work they were doing. Peeta Mellark and his family were bakers, doing what they could to help, while Katniss' contingent continued to hunt as much as possible. I wished there was a significant body of water near District Thirteen, for reasons both practical and emotional.
Peeta, that sweet young man who had written a poem for his districtmates, continued with his propaganda work. He helped Gale with the planned speeches for propaganda broadcasts.
This one tried to knock some sense into the average Capitol resident. Although there was nothing average about their lifestyle, it was still different from Snow trying to scare people in the districts. "The money feels good, and your life you like it well. Snow and his ilk have blinded you with luxury. If you don't open your eyes, surely your time will come, but we will welcome in peace those who mend their ways. After all, our escort, stylists and prep teams are consummate Capitolites, and look what they've accomplished," went part of this missive. The District Twelve style staff had come with the tributes and mentor. After all, they had started to care about their tributes, and they had done their job too well with those chariot ride costumes.
Now the soldiers headed to District Eight. It didn't take a genius like me to realize that this would blockade Nine much like how the liberation of Ten had cut Four off from the Capitol. The Games had given us hope. The progress of the war so far had done a great deal to validate that hope.
